Nature and Spirit Beings
Their Effects in Our Visible World
GA 98
7 June 1908, Cologne
V. Whitsuntide: Collective Spiritual Striving and Working toward Spiritualisation of the World I
On various occasions it has been emphasised that the spiritual development, as aspired to by Spiritual Science, must bring the human being into a living relationship with the whole environment. Much in our environment that filled our ancestors with veneration has become dead and mundane for man. For example, a large number of people are alienated from and cold towards our annual festivals. The urban population in particular has only a scant memory of what Christmas, Easter and Whitsun (Pentecost) mean.
Today, mankind does no longer possess this enormous emotional content that our ancestors connected with the festive seasons because they were aware of the great facts of the spiritual world. Cold and sober people look at Christmas and Easter today, and especially also at Whitsun. The pouring out of the Spirit has become an abstract event for many people. But this will change—it will only become life and reality when mankind will come to a truly spiritual realisation of the whole world.
Today, there is a lot of talk about the forces of nature, but not a lot is said about the beings behind these nature forces. Modern man regards talk about the “beings of nature” as a rehashing of an old superstitious belief. It is considered an old superstition if someone believes that the words used for gnomes, undines, sylphs and salamanders, as our ancestors called them, are based on reality and mean something real. First, in a certain way it doesn’t matter what kind of theories or ideas people have, but if people are tempted by these theories to ignore certain things and to apply their theories in their daily life in practice, then the issue becomes fully relevant.
Let’s take a grotesque example: Who believes in beings whose existence is bound to the air or who are embodied in water? For example, if someone says, “Our ancestors believed in certain beings like gnomes, undines, sylphs and salamanders, but this is all imaginary stuff!”, then one would like to respond by saying, “Ask the bees.” And, if the bees could talk, they would answer, “Sylphs are not a superstition for us—we know quite well what they are to us!” Someone who is clairvoyant can trace (with his eyes) which force it is that draws the little bee to the flower. “Instinct, natural drive,” is man’s answer, but these are empty words. It is those beings, that our ancestors called sylphs, that guide the bees to the bloom’s calyx to search for food—and those beings are active in the whole bee swarm in search for nourishment.
Wherever different nature kingdoms touch, there is an opportunity for certain (elemental) beings to reveal themselves. For example, inside the Earth, where the stone touches on a metal vein, special beings will settle down. At a spring, where moss covers the stone and thus the plant kingdom touches the mineral kingdom such beings will settle in. Where animals and plants touch, in the bloom’s calyx when the bee touches the blossom, particular beings will embody themselves, and likewise where the human being touches onto the animal kingdom. This is not happening in the normal course of contact. For example, not when the butcher slaughters cattle, or when someone eats the flesh of animals—nothing like this will happen in the normal course of life. But where in the extraordinary course of events, as it happens with bees and flowers, the kingdoms touch each other in an exuberance of life, beings will embody themselves. And especially where man’s mind, his intellect, is particularly engaged in interacting with animals, such beings embody themselves. An example would be the emotional relationship a shepherd has with his sheep.
When we go back to the ancient times, we find such close relationships between humans and animals more often. In times of lower cultures, it was common to have relationships such as an Arab has to his horse, but not as the owner of a racing stable has to his horses. There we find those powers of mind that interplay between kingdoms–like between the shepherd and the lambs. Or where the senses of smell and taste will be developed and radiate across, like between bees and flowers, an opportunity is created for certain beings to embody themselves. When a bee sucks at a flower, a clairvoyant can perceive how at the rim of the flower a small aura is created. This is the effect of the taste: The sting of the bee into the bloom’s calyx has produced a certain flavouring agent – the bee perceives the taste and radiates it out like a bloom’s aura – this is the nourishment for sylph-like beings. Likewise, the element of feeling between the shepherd and the sheep is food for salamanders.
The following question is not for one who understands the spiritual world, “Then why are these beings there and not otherwise?” We should not ask about their origin, because their origin lies in the cosmos. But if one creates an opportunity for them to feed then they appear. For example, bad thoughts emanating from a person will attract bad entities to settle into his aura because they find food there. Then certain beings embody themselves in his aura.
Wherever different nature kingdoms touch, the opportunity presents itself for embodiment of certain spiritual beings. When a miner hacks away the soil—where metal nestles against the stone in the interior of the Earth—the clairvoyant can observe at various spots strange beings crouching, huddling together in a very small place. They scatter, they sputter apart when the earth is removed. They are strange beings but, in a way, not at all unlike humans. Although they have no physical body, they have reason. But the difference between them and human beings is that they possess intelligence without responsibility. Therefore, they do not feel anything is wrong about sometimes playing a prank on human beings. They are called gnomes, and numerous species of them are housed in the earth. They are at home where stone and metal touch. In the past they served mankind very well with mining—not with coal mining but with metal mining. The way how mines were constructed in ancient times, the knowledge about how the strata are layered, was learnt from these beings. They knew the most productive seams and how the layers ran inside the earth. Therefore, they were able to provide the best instruction on how to proceed with work. If one doesn’t want to work with spiritual beings and only relies on the senses, then one will end up in a dead-end road. From these spiritual entities one has to learn a certain method to explore the Earth.
Likewise at a spring beings embody themselves. Where the stone touches the spring, beings bound to the element of water embody themselves: the undines. Where animal and plant touch, the sylphs are working. The sylphs are bound to the element of the air, they lead the bees to the blossoms. Therefore, we owe almost all useful knowledge about beekeeping to old traditions. Especially about beekeeping1compare Rudolf Steiner - Cosmic Working in Earth and Man, Beekeeping. GA 351 we can learn a lot from them, because the science that exists about this today is completely erroneous. The old wisdom that has spread through tradition will only be confused by this. Science proves to be useless in this context. Useful are only the old beekeeping flicks of hand whose origin is unknown, because man at that time used the spiritual world for guidance. Nowadays people also know about salamanders because if one says, “Something is flowing to me, I do not know where it comes from...”, then this is usually the effect of the salamanders.
When a human being enters into such close contact to animals as a shepherd to his sheep, then the beings who live in his surroundings will whisper insights to him. A shepherd would have received the knowledge he had about his flock from the salamanders in his surroundings. These old insights have dwindled and now must be regained through proven occult knowledge.
If we follow these thoughts further, then we will have to say to ourselves, “We are completely surrounded by spiritual beings! We walk through the air, and it is not only a chemical substance, but every breath of wind, every air movement is the revelation of spiritual entities.” We are surrounded and completely permeated by these spiritual entities. And, in the future man must have knowledge of what lives around him, if he doesn’t want to experience a completely sad and life draining fate. Without this knowledge he will no longer be able to progress. Man must ask himself, “Where do these beings come from? Where do these beings stem from?”
This question will lead us to an important realisation. To form a view about this, we have to become clear about how in the higher worlds certain facts play out, where what is detrimental and evil is transformed through certain things by wise guidance into something good. For example, the waste, the manure—this is what has been chucked out and through wise usage it is later effective in the economy as the foundation for plant germination. Higher powers pick up and transform things that have seemingly dropped off from higher development. This we encounter to a great extent in the beings we have spoken about, when we follow up on their origin. How do these “salamandrian” entities come into being? Let’s look at this in detail. Salamanders depend on the existence of a specific relation between human and animal. Animals do not have an “I/ego” such as human beings have. Such an ego exists only in modern man on Earth. These human egos are so that every human being has an ego enclosed in himself. This is different with animals. The animals have a “group-ego,” a “group-soul”. What does that mean? A group of animals of the same species, animals of similar shape, have a common ego. For example, all separate lions share a common ego, all tigers, all pikes do.
The animals have their ego in the astral world. This is as if a human being would stand behind a wall with ten holes in it and would put his ten fingers through the holes. Then the human being could not be seen, but every rational person would conclude, “there is a central power behind it that belongs to the ten fingers.” This is how it is with the group-ego. The separate animals are merely the limbs. What they belong to is in the astral world. These animal-egos are not similar to humans, although, from a spiritual perspective they could well be compared with each other, because an animal group-ego is a very, very wise being. The human being as an individual soul is not nearly as wise. For example, think of certain bird species: how wise is it that they are migrating at particular heights and in specific directions to escape winter, and return again by different routes in spring. Here we can recognise in the bird migration the truly wise powers of the group-egos. They can be found everywhere in the animal kingdom.
People are very narrow minded when they are listing human progress. Let us remember our school days, where we learnt how in the Middle Ages slowly the stream of the modern times emerged. The Middle Ages surely have something important to put on record, such as the discovery of America, the invention of gunpowder, the art of book printing and finally also of linen paper. It was probably an important progress to use this product instead of parchment, but thousands of years ago the wasp group-soul had done the same, because wasps’ nests are made from the same material as the paper produced by man; it is made of paper.
Human beings will only slowly find out how certain conjectures of his spirit are connected with what the group-souls have worked into the world.
The group-souls are in constant movement. The clairvoyant perceives a persistent flicker across the backbone of the animals. The spine seems to be enclosed by flickering light. The animals are pervaded by an infinite number of streams that are encircling the Earth in all directions, such as the trade winds, which affect the animals by streaming around the spinal cord. These animal group-souls are perpetually going around the Earth in a circular motion at every height and in every direction. These group-souls are very wise, but they are missing one thing which they do not yet have—they do not know that which on Earth is called “love.” Only in a human being is love connected to wisdom in an individual.
The group-soul is wise, but the individual animal experiences love as sexual love and parental love. In an animal love is individual, but the wise arrangement, the wisdom of the group-ego is still void of love. The human being has united love and wisdom—the animal has love in the physical life, and it has wisdom on the astral plane. Such realisations will be immensely enlightening for people.
The human being arrived at his current “I” only gradually. Previously man also had a group-soul, and the individual soul has crystallised itself only gradually. Let us follow backwards the evolution of mankind up to ancient Atlantis. In former times man lived in the old Atlantis, a continent that is now covered by the Atlantic Ocean. At that time the wide Siberian plains were covered with large oceans. The Mediterranean Sea was quite differently distributed then. Also in our European regions were wide expanses of sea. The further we go backwards into the old Atlantean time, the more all circumstances of life are changing, the more the human being’s waking and sleeping state changes.
Now when man sleeps the physical body with the etheric body remains in bed, and the astral body and the ego lift themselves out. The consciousness darkens, everything becomes dark, sombre, silent. In the Atlantean time the difference between sleeping and waking was not yet so pronounced. At that time, during the waking state, the human being did not see such firm boundaries, such sharp contours, such strong colours attached to objects. When he woke up in the morning, he dived into something like a nebulous substance. For example, there was no greater clarity than when we would look through fog at lights with an aura. Instead, his consciousness did not exactly cease when he was asleep—he then saw the spiritual things.
As man progressed, the physical world gained more and more its contours, but in exchange for this the human being lost his clairvoyance. Then the difference became more and more pronounced: in the spiritual world above, it became increasingly darker and in the physical world below increasingly brighter. All myths and sagas originated during the time when the human being still perceived the astral world up there. When he ascended into the spiritual world, he learnt to know Wotan, Baldur, Thor and Loki and beings, who had not yet descended onto the physical plane. This could be experienced in former times, and all myths are memories of living realities.
All mythologies are such memories. These spiritual realities have simply disappeared from human beings. In the past, when man dived into his physical body in the morning, he got the feeling: “You are an individual, a single one.” But when he dived back into the spiritual world at night he felt: “You are not at all an individual, you are just a link in a great whole, you belong to a great community.”
Tacitus2Cornelius Tacitus, 55 to about 120 AD, Roman historian, in his work Germania still told that the ancient peoples, the Herules and the Cheruscans, felt themselves to be more like a tribe than as individual human beings. From an individual’s sense of belonging to a tribe—that one would count oneself as belonging to a tribal community—certain customs such as the blood feuds have originated. Everything that belonged to the whole tribal group-soul was one body. All happens gradually in evolution. Only gradually did individual consciousness evolve out of this absolute tribal group consciousness.
Also, in the descriptions from the time period of the Patriarchs, we find traces of the transition from the group-soul to an individual soul. In the time prior to Noah, memory was quite different: it reached back to what the father, the grandfather, the great-grandfather had experienced. The boundary of birth was not a boundary. In the same blood the same memory flowed on into generations far removed. Today authorities are interested in knowing an individual’s name. In the time when the human being still had a memory of what his father and grandfather had done, this was called by a common name. Then what was connected by the same blood and the same memory was given the same name. This was called “Adam” or “Noah”. Names like Adam or Noah do not describe the life between birth and death of an individual, but the stream of memories as far as it reached. The old names cover whole human communities that were alive in those times.
How would it be if we would compare certain beings: the human-like apes with the human being. The immense difference is that the apes have a group-soul and the human being an individual soul, or at least the aptitude to develop one. The ape group-soul exists in a very special situation (see drawing). Imagine the Earth (refers to sketch) as the horizontal line. Above this, the group-souls of the animals are floating in the astral world like in a cloud that extends over our physical world. Let us now focus on the lion group-ego and the ape group-ego. Each lion is a separate limb into which the group-soul pours part of its substance. When a lion dies, its physical part drops away from the group-soul, like a fingernail from a human being. Then the group-soul retracts what it had sent into the lion and gives it to a different lion, which is newly born. The group-soul stays above. It sort of stretches out tentacles that are hardening in the physical world, then drop off and are being replaced again.
Therefore, the animal group-soul does not know birth and death. The individual animal is something that “falls off” and “grows on”—the group-soul remains untouched by life and death. For the lions it applies entirely, that each time a lion dies, all that has been sent from the group-soul returns to it again.
However, this is not so with the apes. There are individual animals that tear off a piece of the group-soul, which then cannot return to it. When the ape dies the essential part returns, but another part of it excises itself from the group-soul. What the group-soul stretches out, the ape makes it too tight, and when the ape dies part of the group-soul is excised, so that, in a sense, a part of it breaks out, rips away from the soul and does not return to it. In this way excisions from the group-soul arise. In all ape species excisions from the group-soul occur.
We find something similar in certain amphibians, in certain bird species, and especially pronounced in the kangaroo. Through these excisions something is kept back from the group-soul. What remains in this way from the warm-blooded animals will become an elemental being, a nature spirit—the salamander. These elemental beings, these nature spirits are, so to speak, waste, waste products of the higher worlds, that will be put into service by higher beings. They would, if left to their own devices, create interferences in the cosmos. Instead, the higher wisdom uses the sylphs to send the bees to the flowers. Thus, the large forces of elemental beings are placed under higher, wise leadership and the harm that they could cause is transformed into something useful.
This is how it is in the realms that lie below the human being. Now, it could also happen that a human being excises himself off from his group-soul, and as an individual does not find a possibility to develop himself further. Because, whilst being a “limb” of his group-soul, he was guided and led by higher beings, but now he is left to his own guidance. If the human being does not acquire appropriate spiritual knowledge, then he is in danger to excise himself. This is the question that arises.
What is it now, that prevents human beings from excision, from wandering around without direction and aim, whilst earlier the spiritual group-soul has provided directions? We have to become clear that man more and more individualises himself and that in the future he has to voluntarily seek to unite with other humans. In the past, a link existed based on blood relations, tribes and races. But this type of “union” comes more and more to an end. Everything in a human being leads more and more to him becoming an individual being. The only avenue possible is a reversal. Imagine there are a number of people on Earth who say to themselves, “We are going our own way. We want to find inside of us the direction and the goal of the path ourselves. We are all on the way to becoming more and more individualised human beings.” There is a danger of fragmentation. Already people are no longer able to endure spiritual unions. Today we are going as far as everyone having their own religion and presenting their own opinion as the highest ideal. But when human beings internalise ideals, then this leads to agreement, to a common opinion. For example, we recognise internally that 3 x 3 = 9, or that the sum of the three angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. This is an inner knowledge. One doesn’t need to cast a vote about such inner knowledge. No misunderstandings will arise about such inner recognitions, they lead to agreement. All spiritual truths are of this kind. What is taught by the Science of the Spirit, the human being finds through his inner forces. These lead him to an absolute unity, to peace and harmony. There are no two different opinions about a truth without one of them being wrong. The ideal is maximum possible internalisation—it leads to unity, to peace.
First there existed a human group-soul. Then mankind was released from this group-soul in the past. But in the future of evolution people must set themselves a sure goal to strive towards. When they unite themselves in a higher wisdom, then from the higher worlds a group-soul will descend again—when free communities arise out of the bound natural communities. What the leaders of the Science of the Spirit movement hope is that we will find in it a community where the hearts stream towards wisdom, as the plants stream towards sunlight. Where a common truth binds together the different egos, there we create an opportunity for a higher group-soul to descend. By turning our hearts together towards a higher wisdom, we embed the group-soul. We are building, so to speak, the bed, the environment, in which the group-soul is able to incarnate. Humans will enrich life on Earth by developing something that allows spiritual beings to descend from the higher worlds. This is the aim of the Science of the Spirit movement.
This was now once presented in a grand, magnificent form to mankind to show that the human being without such living spiritual ideal would transition into a different situation. This is a “symbol” that can illustrate to man with overwhelming power how humanity can find the way through a spiritual union, to provide a site to incarnate for the common spirit. This symbol is put in front of us in the Whitsun community in which a number of people, glowing from a common feeling of fervent love and devotion, had assembled for common action. There were a number of people whose souls were still reverberating after the shattering event, so that in all of them the same was alive. In the convergence of this one same feeling they provided that in which a higher, a common soul could incarnate. This is expressed by the words that say the Holy Spirit—the group-soul—descended and separated itself into fiery tongues. This is the great symbol for the humanity of the future. If the human being would not have found this connection, then man would have devolved into an elemental being. Now humanity must search for a site for the Beings from the higher worlds that bend downwards. With the Easter festival man was given the power to absorb into themselves such mighty imaginations and to strive towards oneness of the spirit. The Whitsun Festival is the fruit of the unfolding of this power.
Through the souls’ striving together towards the common wisdom, a lively relationship must be established forever with the forces and beings of the higher worlds, and with something that currently has as little meaning for humanity as the Whitsun Festival. Through the Science of the Spirit, it will once again become meaningful to man. Once people understand the significance of the descent of the Holy Spirit for them in the future, then the Whitsun Festival will come to life again. It will then not only be a memory of that event in Jerusalem, but the everlasting Whitsun Festival of the united soul endeavour will manifest for humanity. It will become a symbol for the great future Whitsun community when mankind will unite in a common truth to allow higher beings the possibility to incarnate. It will depend on human beings themselves, how valuable this will make the Earth for the future and how effective such ideals can be for mankind. Once humanity will strive towards wisdom in this right way, then higher spirits will join mankind.
Das Pfingstfest des Seelischen Zusammenstrebens und des Arbeitens an der Vergeistigung der Welt
[ 1 ] Bei verschiedenen Gelegenheiten ist schon betont worden, daß jene spirituelle Entwickelung, wie sie die geisteswissenschaftliche Bewegung anstrebt, den Menschen in lebendigen Zusammenhang bringen muß mit der ganzen Umwelt. Vieles in der Umwelt ist für den Menschen tot und nüchtern geworden, was unsere Vorfahren noch mit Verehrung erfüllt hat. Fremd und kalt steht eine große Zahl von Menschen beispielsweise unseren jährlichen Festen gegenüber. Namentlich die städtische Bevölkerung hat nur noch eine spärliche Erinnerung an das, was das Weihnachts-, Oster- und Pfingstfest zu bedeuten haben.
[ 2 ] Jenen gewaltigen Gefühlsinhalt, den unsere Vorfahren verbanden mit den Festeszeiten, weil sie den Zusammenhang wußten mit den großen Tatsachen der geistigen Welt, den hat die heutige Menschheit nicht mehr. Kalt und nüchtern stehen die Menschen heute dem Weihnachts- und Osterfest und besonders auch dem Pfingstfest gegenüber. Das Herabströmen des Geistes ist vielen Menschen eine abstrakte Begebenheit geworden. Aber es wird anders werden: es wird erst Leben und Wirklichkeit werden, wenn die Menschen zu einer wahrhaftigen geistigen Erkenntnis der ganzen Welt kommen werden.
[ 3 ] Man redet heute viel von Naturkräften, aber von Wesenheiten, die hinter diesen Naturkräften stehen, redet man recht wenig. Wenn man von Naturwesenheiten spricht, dann betrachtet der heutige Mensch das als Aufwärmung eines alten Aberglaubens. Daß jene Worte, die unsere Vorfahren gebrauchten, auf Wirklichkeit sich gründen — wenn jemand behauptet, daß Gnomen, Undinen, Sylphen und Salamander etwas Wirkliches bedeuten -, das gilt als alter Aberglaube. Was die Menschen für Theorien und Vorstellungen haben, ist in gewissem Sinne zunächst gleichgültig; wenn aber die Menschen durch diese Theorien verführt werden, gewisse Dinge nicht zu sehen und ihre Theorien im praktischen Leben anzuwenden, dann beginnt die Sache erst ihre volle Bedeutung zu gewinnen.
[ 4 ] Nehmen wir ein groteskes Beispiel: Wer glaubt an Wesenheiten, deren Dasein an die Luft gebunden ist oder die im Wasser verkörpert sind? Wenn zum Beispiel jemand sagt: Unsere Vorfahren haben an gewisse Wesenheiten geglaubt, an Gnomen, Undinen, Sylphen, Salamander, aber das ist alles phantastisches Zeug! - dann möchte man erwidern: Fragt einmal die Bienen. - Und könnten die Bienen reden, so würden sie antworten: Für uns sind die Sylphen kein Aberglaube, denn wir wissen ganz gut, was wir von den Sylphen haben! — Und derjenige, dessen geistige Augen geöffnet sind, kann verfolgen, welche Kraft es ist, die das Bienlein hinzieht zur Blume. «Instinkt, Naturtrieb», wie der Mensch antwortet, sind leere Worte. Wesenheiten sind es, welche die Bienen hinleiten zum Blütenkelch, um sich dort Nahrung zu suchen, und im ganzen Bienenschwarm, der nach Nahrung ausschwärmt, sind Wesenheiten tätig, die unsere Vorfahren Sylphen nannten.
[ 5 ] Überall da, wo verschiedene Naturreiche sich berühren, wird eine Gelegenheit geboten, daß sich gewisse Wesenheiten offenbaren. Zum Beispiel im Innern der Erde, da, wo sich der Stein mit der Metallader berührt, da setzen sich besondere Wesenheiten an. An der Quelle, wo das Moos den Stein bedeckt und somit das Pflanzenreich das Mineralreich berührt, setzen sich solche Wesenheiten fest. Wo Tier und Pflanze sich berühren, im Blumenkelch, bei der Berührung der Biene mit der Blüte, da verkörpern sich bestimmte Wesenheiten, ebenso da, wo der Mensch sich mit dem Tierreiche berührt. Nicht im gewöhnlichen Verlauf der Berührung ist das der Fall. Nicht, wenn zum Beispiel der Fleischer das Rind schlachtet oder wenn der Mensch das Fleisch der Tiere ißt, nicht im normalen Verlauf des Lebens, da ist so etwas nicht der Fall. Aber wo im außernormalen Verlauf, wie bei Bienen und Blume, sich wie durch einen Überschuß von Leben die Reiche berühren, da verkörpern sich Wesenheiten. Und insbesondere da, wo des Menschen Gemüt, sein Intellekt, im Umgang mit den Tieren besonders engagiert ist, bei einem Verhältnis, wie es zum Beispiel der Schäfer zu den Schafen hat, ein Gemütsverhältnis, da verkörpern sich solche Wesenheiten.
[ 6 ] Solche intimere Verhältnisse des Menschen zum Tiere finden wir häufiger, wenn wir zurückgehen in alte Zeiten. In Zeiten niederer Kulturen hatte man vielfach solch ein Verhältnis, wie es der Araber zu seinem Pferde hat, nicht wie ein Rennstallbesitzer zu seinen Pferden. Da finden wir jene Gemütskräfte, die hinüberspielen von Reich zu Reich, wie zwischen dem Schäfer und den Lämmern. Oder wo Geruchs- und Geschmackskräfte entwickelt werden und hinüberstrahlen, wie zwischen der Biene und der Blume, da wird Gelegenheit geschaffen, daß sich ganz gewisse Wesenheiten verkörpern können. Wenn die Biene an der Blume saugt, dann kann der Hellseher beobachten, wie sich am Rande der Blüte eine kleine Aura bildet. Das ist die Wirkung des Geschmackes: der Stich der Biene in den Blütenkelch ist ein gewisses Geschmacksmittel geworden, die Biene empfindet den Geschmack und strahlt aus wie eine Blütenaura, und die ist Nahrung für sylphenhafte Wesenheiten. Ebenso ist das Gefühlselement, das zwischen Schäfer und Schafen spielt, Nahrung für Salamander.
[ 7 ] Jene Frage gilt nicht für den, der die geistige Welt versteht: Warum sind dann die Wesenheiten da und sonst nicht? Nach dem Ursprung dürfen wir nicht fragen; ihr Ursprung liegt im Weltenall. Gibt man ihnen aber Veranlassung zur Nahrung, so sind die Wesenheiten da. Zum Beispiel ziehen schlechte Gedanken, die der Mensch ausströmt, schlechte Wesenheiten in die Aura des Menschen, weil sie dort Nahrung finden. Dann verkörpern sich gewisse Wesenheiten in seiner Aura.
[ 8 ] Überall, wo sich verschiedene Naturreiche berühren, bietet sich Gelegenheit, daß gewisse geistige Wesenheiten sich verkörpern. Wo Metall an den Stein sich anschmiegt im Innern der Erde, da sieht der Seher, wenn der Bergmann das Erdreich abhackt, an verschiedenen Stellen merkwürdige Wesen wie zusammengekauert beieinanderhocken, in einem ganz kleinen Raum. Sie stieben, sie sprühen auseinander, wenn die Erde entfernt wird. Es sind merkwürdige Wesenheiten, die zum Beispiel in gewisser Beziehung dem Menschen ganz und gar nicht unähnlich sind. Sie haben zwar keinen physischen Leib, aber sie haben Verstand. Doch der Unterschied zwischen ihnen und den Menschen ist, daß sie Verstand haben ohne Verantwortung. Daher haben sie auch nicht das Gefühl eines Unrechtes bei dem mancherlei Schabernack, den sie den Menschen spielen. Gnomen heißen diese Wesenheiten, und zahlreiche Arten von ihnen beherbergt die Erde, und sie sind da zu Hause, wo sich der Stein mit dem Metall berührt. Recht sehr gedient haben sie früher den Menschen beim alten Bergbau, nicht beim Kohlenbergwerk, aber im Metallbergbau. Die Art, wie man in alten Zeiten Bergwerke angelegt hat, die Kenntnis davon, wie sich die Schichten lagern, die wurde durch diese Wesenheiten vernommen. Und die am besten veranlagten Flöze kannten diese Wesenheiten, die da wissen, wie sich im Innern der Erde die Schichten lagern, und die daher die beste Anleitung geben konnten, wie man das bearbeiten soll. Wenn man nicht mit den geistigen Wesenheiten arbeiten will und sich nur auf das Sinnliche verläßt, dann gerät man in eine Sackgasse. Von diesen geistigen Wesenheiten muß man ein gewisses Verfahren lernen, um die Erde zu erforschen.
[ 9 ] Ebenso findet eine Verkörperung statt von Wesenheiten an der Quelle. Wo der Stein die Quelle berührt, da verkörpern sich die Wesen, die an das Element des Wassers gebunden sind: die Undinen. Da wo Tier und Pflanze sich berühren, da wirken die Sylphen. Die Sylphen sind gebunden an das Element der Luft, sie leiten die Bienen zu den Blüten. So verdanken wir fast alle nützlichen Erkenntnisse der Bienenzucht den alten Traditionen, und gerade bei der Bienenzucht können wir viel von ihnen lernen. Denn was heutzutage als Wissenschaft über die Bienen existiert, ist vollständig von Irrtum durchzogen, und die alte Weisheit, die sich fortgepflanzt hat durch Tradition, wird dadurch nur beirrt. Die Wissenschaft erweist sich da als etwas Unbrauchbares. Nützlich sind nur die alten Handgriffe, deren Ursprung unbekannt ist, weil der Mensch damals als Leitfaden die geistige Welt benützte.
[ 10 ] Die Salamander kennen die Menschen heutzutage auch, denn wenn einer sagt: Es strömt mir etwas zu, ich weiß nicht woher -, so ist das meistens die Wirkung der Salamander.
[ 11 ] Wenn der Mensch zu den Tieren in intime Verbindung tritt, wie der Schäfer zu seinen Schafen, dann erhält er Erkenntnisse zugeraunt von Wesenheiten, die in seiner Umgebung leben. Dem Schäfer wurde sein Wissen, das er in bezug auf seine Schafherde hatte, zugeraunt von den Salamandern in seiner Umgebung. Diese alten Erkenntnisse sind heutzutage geschwunden und müssen nun durch wohlgeprüfte okkulte Erkenntnisse wieder gewonnen werden.
[ 12 ] Denken wir diese Gedanken weiter, so werden wir uns sagen müssen: Wir sind ganz umgeben von geistigen Wesenheiten! Wir gehen dutch die Luft, und sie ist nicht nur chemische Substanz, sondern jeder Windhauch, jeder Luftstrom ist die Offenbarung geistiger Wesenheiten. Wir sind umgeben und ganz und gar durchdrungen von diesen geistigen Wesenheiten, und der Mensch muß in Zukunft, wenn er nicht ein ganz trauriges, sein Leben ausdörrendes Schicksal erfahren soll, eine Kenntnis haben von dem, was um ihn lebt. Ohne diese Erkenntnis wird er nicht mehr weiterkommen können. Der Mensch muß sich fragen: Woher stammen diese Wesenheiten? Woher rühren diese Wesenheiten?
[ 13 ] Diese Frage führt uns zu einer wichtigen Erkenntnis, und um uns eine Ansicht darüber zu bilden, müssen wir uns klarmachen, wie in höheren Welten sich gewisse Tatsachen abspielen, wo durch gewisse Dinge dasjenige, was schädlich und böse ist, durch eine weise Führung umgewandelt wird zum Guten. Nehmen wir als Beispiel den Abfall, den Dünger: er ist das Abgeworfene und wirkt in der Ökonomie durch eine weise Verwendung als Grundlage für spätere Pflanzenkeimung. Dinge, die scheinbar abgefallen sind von der Höherentwickelung, werden von höheren Kräften wieder aufgenommen und umgewandelt. Das tritt uns ganz besonders stark entgegen bei den Wesenheiten, von denen wir gesprochen haben, und wir erkennen das in ganz besonderem Maße, wenn wir der Entstehung dieser Wesenheiten nachgehen.
[ 14 ] Wie entstehen nun salamandrische Wesenheiten? Wir wollen dies jetzt einmal auseinandersetzen. Salamander sind Wesenheiten, die da ein gewisses Verhältnis vom Menschen zum Tier brauchen. Die Tiere haben nicht ein solches Ich wie es der Mensch hat. Ein solches Ich ist nur beim heutigen Menschen auf der Erde vorhanden. Diese Menschen-Iche sind so, daß jeder Mensch ein Ich in sich eingeschlossen hat. Anders ist es bei den Tieren: die Tiere haben ein Gruppen-Ich, eine Gruppenseele. Was heißt das? Eine Gruppe gleichgearteter, gleichgestalteter Tiere hat ein gemeinsames Ich; zum Beispiel alle einzelnen Löwen haben ein gemeinsames Ich, alle Tiger, alle Hechte.
[ 15 ] Die Tiere haben ihr Ich in der Astralwelt. Es ist das so, wie wenn der Mensch hinter einer Wand mit zehn Löchern stände und da seine zehn Finger hindurchsteckte. Der Mensch ist dann nicht zu sehen, aber jeder Vernünftige würde schließen: da ist eine Zentralgewalt dahinter, die zu den zehn Fingern gehört. So ist es mit dem GruppenIch. Die einzelnen Tiere sind bloß die Glieder. Das, wozu sie gehören, ist in der astralischen Welt. Diese Tier-Iche sind nicht menschenähnlich, obwohl, geistig angesehen, sie sich wohl miteinander vergleichen lassen, denn ein Tier-Gruppen-Ich ist eine sehr, sehr weise Wesenheit. Der Mensch als individuelle Seele ist noch lange nicht so weise. Denken wir nur zum Beispiel an gewisse Vogelarten: welche Weisheit liegt darin, daß sie in ganz bestimmten Höhen und in ganz bestimmten Richtungen dahinziehen, um dem Winter zu entgehen und im Frühling auf anderen Wegen wieder zurückzukehren. Da erkennen wir in diesem Vogelflug weise Wirkungskräfte der Gruppen-Iche. Wir können sie überall im Tierreich finden.
[ 16 ] Die Menschen sind sehr engherzig, wenn sie die menschlichen Fortschritte zu verzeichnen haben. Erinnern wir uns an unsere Schulstunden, wo wir lernten, wie im Mittelalter allmählich die Strömung der neueren Zeit heraufgekommen ist. Das Mittelalter hat gewiß Bedeutsames zu verzeichnen, wie die Entdeckung von Amerika, die Erfindung des Schießpulvers, der Buchdruckerkunst und endlich auch des Leinenpapiers. Wohl war es ein bedeutsamer Fortschritt, daß man dieses Produkt verwandte an Stelle des Pergaments, aber die Wespengruppenseele hat schon vor Tausenden von Jahren dasselbe gemacht, denn das Wespennest ist genau aus demselben Stoff wie das vom Menschen hergestellte Papier; es besteht aus Papier.
[ 17 ] Der Mensch wird erst allmählich herausfinden, wie gewisse Kombinationen seines Geistes zusammenhängen mit dem, was die Gruppenseelen hineingearbeitet haben in die Welt.
[ 18 ] Die Gruppenseelen sind in fortwährender Bewegung. Der Seher sieht längs des Rückgrats der Tiere ein beständiges Flimmern. Das Rückgrat ist wie von Flimmerlicht eingeschlossen. Die Tiere werden durchzogen von Strömungen, die um die ganze Erde gehen in allen Richtungen in unendlicher Zahl, wie die Passatwinde, und welche auf die Tiere wirken, indem sie das Rückenmark umströmen. Diese Tiergruppenseelen sind fortwährend in kreisförmiger Bewegung in jeder Höhe und Richtung um die Erde begriffen. Diese Gruppenseelen sind sehr weise, aber es fehlt ihnen eines, was sie noch nicht haben: sie kennen nicht die Liebe, was auf der Erde so genannt wird. Liebe ist nur beim Menschen mit der Weisheit in der Individualität verbunden.
[ 19 ] Die Gruppenseele ist weise, aber das einzelne Tier hat die Liebe als Geschlechtsliebe und Elternliebe. Die Liebe ist im Tiere individuell, aber die weise Einrichtung, die Weisheit des Gruppen-Ichs ist noch liebeleer. Der Mensch hat Liebe und Weisheit vereint; das Tier hat im physischen Leben die Liebe und auf dem astralischen Plan hat es die Weisheit. Bei solchen Erkenntnissen werden den Menschen ungeheuer viele Lichter aufgehen.
[ 20 ] Nun ist der Mensch zu seinem heutigen Ich erst nach und nach gekommen. Der Mensch hatte früher auch eine Gruppenseele und erst allmählich hat sich die Individualseele herausentwickelt. Verfolgen wir einmal die Entwickelung der Menschheit nach rückwärts bis in die alte Atlantis. Früher lebte der Mensch in der alten Atlantis, einem Kontinent, der jetzt vom Atlantischen Ozean bedeckt ist. Damals waren die weiten sibirischen Flächen mit großen Meeren bedeckt. Das Mittelmeer war damals ganz anders verteilt. Auch in unseren europäischen Gegenden waren weite Meeresflächen. Je weiter wir zurückgehen in der alten atlantischen Zeit, desto mehr ändern sich alle Lebenszustände, desto mehr ändert sich der Wachzustand und der Schlafzustand beim Menschen.
[ 21 ] Wenn jetzt der Mensch schläft, bleibt im Bett der physische Leib mit dem Ätherleib; Astralleib und Ich gehen heraus. Das Bewußtsein verdunkelt sich, alles wird dunkel, finster, stumm. In der atlantischen Zeit war der Unterschied zwischen Schlafen und Wachen noch nicht so groß. Da sah im Wachzustand der Mensch noch nicht so feste Grenzen, so scharfe Umrisse, so starke Farben an den Gegenständen anhaftend. Wenn er morgens aufwachte, tauchte er ein wie in eine Nebelmasse. Größere Deutlichkeit gab es nicht, als wenn wir zum Beispiel Lichter durch Nebel hindurch mit einer Aura sehen. Dafür aber hörte sein Bewußtsein nicht genau auf im Schlafe, er sah dann die geistigen Dinge.
[ 22 ] Als der Mensch fortschritt, bekam die physische Welt immer mehr ihre Konturen, aber dafür verlor der Mensch sein Hellsehen. Dann wurde der Unterschied immer größer: Oben in der geistigen Welt wurde es immer dunkler, unten in der physischen Welt immer heller. Aus der Zeit, wo der Mensch noch wahrnahm da oben in der astralischen Welt, stammen alle Mythen und Sagen. Wenn er hinaufkam in die geistige Welt, da lernte er Wotan, Baldur, Thor und Loki kennen und Wesenheiten, die noch nicht heruntergestiegen waren auf den physischen Plan. Das erlebte man früher, und alle Mythen sind Erinnerungen an lebendige Wirklichkeiten.
[ 23 ] Alle Mythologien sind solche Erinnerungen. Diese geistigen Wirklichkeiten sind den Menschen einfach entschwunden. Wenn damals der Mensch am Morgen hinuntertauchte in den physischen Leib, dann bekam er das Gefühl: Du bist ein Einzelner, ein Einziger. Wenn er aber am Abend zurücktauchte in die geistige Welt, da kam ihm das Gefühl: Du bist ja gar kein Einzelner, du bist nur ein Glied eines großen Ganzen, du gehörst zu einer großen Gemeinschaft.
[ 24 ] Noch Tacitus erzählt, daß die alten Völker, die Heruler, die Cherusker, sich gefühlt haben mehr als Volksstamm denn als ein einzelner Mensch. Aus diesem Gefühl heraus, daß der Einzelne zur Stammesgruppe gehörte, der Stammesgemeinschaft sich zurechnete, stammen auch noch gewisse Gebräuche wie die Blutrache. Alles, was zu der ganzen Stammesgruppenseele gehörte, war ein Körper. Alles geschieht gradweise in der Entwickelung. Aus diesem absoluten Stammesgruppenbewußtsein hat sich erst nach und nach das individuelle Bewußtsein herausentwickelt.
[ 25 ] Auch in den Schilderungen der Patriarchenzeit haben wir Spuren des Übergangs von der Gruppenseele zur Individualseele. In der Zeit vor Noah war das Gedächtnis ganz anders: es reichte zurück über das, was der Vater, Großvater, Urgroßvater erlebt hatte. Die Geburtsgrenze war keine Grenze. Im gleichen Blute strömte die gleiche Erinnerung fort bis in weit zurückgelegene Generationen. Heute interessiert es die Behörden, den Namen des Einzelnen zu wissen. In der Zeit, als der Mensch sich erinnerte, was sein Vater und sein Großvater getan hatten, da wurde dies mit einem gemeinsamen Namen belegt. Was damals zusammenhing durch gleiches Blut und gleiche Erinnerung, das wurde gemeinsam benannt. Man nannte das «Adam» oder «Noah». Namen wie Adam und Noah bezeichnen nicht das Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod eines Einzelnen, sondern den Strom der Erinnerungen soweit dieser reichte. Die alten Namen umfassen ganze Menschengemeinschaften, die in der Zeit sich auslebten.
[ 26 ] Wie ist es nun, wenn wir einmal gewisse Wesenheiten vergleichen: die menschenähnlichen Affen mit dem Menschen? Der gewaltige Unterschied ist, daß die Affen eine Gruppenseele haben und der Mensch eine Individualseele, wenigstens die Anlage zur Entwickelung einer solchen. Die Affengruppenseele befindet sich nun in einer ganz besonderen Lage (Zeichnung). Denken wir uns die Erde (siehe Zeichnung, die horizontale Linie). Darüber schweben in der astralischen Welt wie in einer Wolke die Gruppenseelen der Tiere, die sich über unsere physische Welt ausbreiten. Nehmen wir nun das Löwen-Gruppen-Ich und das Affen-Gruppen-Ich. Jeder Löwe ist ein einzelnes Glied, in das die Gruppenseele einen Teil ihrer Substanz hineingießt. Wenn ein Löwe stirbt, fällt von der Gruppenseele das äußere Physische ab, wie beim Menschen ein Fingernagel. Die Gruppenseele nimmt dann zurück, was sie hineingesandt hatte und gibt es einem anderen Löwen, der neu geboren wird. Oben bleibt die Gruppenseele. Sie streckt gleichsam Fangarme aus, die sich im Physischen verhärten, dann abfallen und wieder ersetzt werden.
[ 27 ] Daher kennt die Tiergruppenseele nicht Geburt und Tod. Das einzelne Tier ist etwas, was abfällt und anwächst; die Gruppenseele bleibt unberührt von Leben und Tod. Für die Löwen ist es durchaus so, daß jedesmal, wenn ein Löwe stirbt, alles, was ausgesandt war von der Gruppenseele, wieder zurückgeht in die Gruppenseele. Nicht so ist es jedoch beim Affen. Es gibt einzelne Tiere, die reißen etwas ab von der Gruppenseele, das kann dann nicht wieder zurück. Wenn der Affe stirbt, geht der wesentliche Teil zurück, aber es schnürt sich ein Teil der Gruppenseele ab. Der Affe macht gleichsam zu fest, was vorgestreckt wird, und wenn er stirbt, schnürt sich ein Teil der Gruppenseele ab, so daß ein Stück von ihr gewissermaßen herausbricht, von ihr abreißt und nicht wieder zurückkann. So entstehen Abschnürungen von der Gruppenseele. Bei allen Affenarten entstehen Abschnürungen von der Gruppenseele.
[ 28 ] Ähnliches haben wir bei gewissen Amphibien, bei gewissen Vogelarten, besonders deutlich auch beim Känguruh. Durch diese Abschnürungen bleibt etwas zurück von der Gruppenseele und dasjenige, was von warmblütigen Tieren auf diese Art zurückbleibt, wird ein Elementarwesen, ein Naturgeist — der Salamander. Diese Elementarwesen, diese Naturgeister sind also gleichsam Abfälle, Abfallprodukte höherer Welten, die in Dienst genommen werden von höheren Wesenheiten. Sie würden, sich selbst überlassen, den Kosmos stören. So verwendet die höhere Weisheit zum Beispiel die Sylphen, um die Bienen zu den Blumen zu führen. So wird das große Heer der Elementarwesen unter die höhere weise Führung gestellt und dadurch das Schädliche, was sie anrichten könnten, ins Nützliche umgewandelt.
[ 29 ] So geht es zu in den Reichen, die unter dem Menschen liegen. Nun kann es aber auch passieren, daß der Mensch selbst sich abschnürt von seiner Gruppenseele und als Individualseele keine Möglichkeit findet, sich weiterzuentwickeln. Denn während er als Glied seiner Gruppenseele von höheren Wesenheiten gelenkt und geleitet wurde, ist er dann seiner eigenen Führung anheim gegeben. Nimmt der Mensch nicht entsprechende geistige Kenntnisse auf, dann ist er in Gefahr, sich abzuschnüren. Das ist dasjenige, was sich als Frage aufwirft.
[ 30 ] Was ist es nun, was den Menschen bewahrt vor dem Abschnüren, vor dem Herumirren ohne Richtung und Ziel, während ihm früher die geistige Gruppenseele eine Richtung gegeben hat? Wir müssen uns klar darüber sein, daß der Mensch sich immer mehr individualisiert und daß er immer mehr und mehr in der Zukunft den Zusammenschluß mit anderen Menschen freiwillig finden muß. Früher bestand der Zusammenhang durch Blutsverwandtschaft, durch Stämme und Rassen. Aber dieser Zusammenschluß geht mehr und mehr zu Ende. Alles im Menschen geht immer mehr darauf hinaus, ein individueller Mensch zu werden. Nun ist nur ein umgekehrter Weg möglich. Denken Sie sich eine Anzahl von Menschen auf der Erde, die sich sagen: Wir gehen unsere eigenen Wege, wir wollen in unserem Innern selbst Richtung und Ziel des Weges finden, wir sind alle auf dem Wege, immer mehr individuelle Menschen zu werden. — Da liegt die Gefahr der Zersplitterung vor. Jetzt halten die Menschen auch schon geistige Zusammenschlüsse nicht mehr aus. Heute gehen wir so weit, daß jeder seine eigene Religion hat und seine eigene Meinung als höchstes Ideal hinstellt. Aber wenn die Menschen die Ideale verinnerlichen, so führt das zur Einigung, zu gemeinsamer Meinung. Wir erkennen innerlich zum Beispiel, daß 3 mal 3 = 9 ist, oder daß drei Winkel in einem Dreieck 180 Grad sind. Das ist eine innerliche Erkenntnis. Über innerliche Erkenntnisse braucht man nicht abzustimmen, über innerliche Erkenntnisse entstehen keine Meinungsunterschiede, sie führen zur Einigung. Solcher Art sind alle geistigen Wahrheiten. Was die Geisteswissenschaft lehrt, das findet der Mensch durch seine innerlichen Kräfte. Diese führen ihn zu einer absoluten Einigkeit, zu Friede und Harmonie. Es gibt nicht zwei Meinungen über eine Wahrheit, ohne daß eine davon falsch ist. Das Ideal ist größtmögliche Verinnerlichung; sie führt zur Einigung, zum Frieden.
[ 31 ] Erst war eine Menschengruppenseele da. Dann wurde die Menschheit in der Vergangenheit entlassen aus der Gruppenseele. Aber in der Zukunft der Entwickelung müssen sich die Menschen ein sicheres Ziel setzen, dem sie zustreben. Wenn sich Menschen vereinigen in einer höheren Weisheit, dann steigt aus höheren
[ 32 ] Welten wieder eine Gruppenseele herab — wenn aus den gebundenen natürlichen Gemeinschaften freie Gemeinschaften entstehen. Was gewollt ist von den Leitern der geisteswissenschaftlichen Bewegung, das ist, daß wir in ihr eine Gesellschaft finden, in welcher die Herzen der Weisheit zuströmen, wie die Pflanzen dem Sonnenlichte zuströmen. Wo die gemeinschaftliche Wahrheit die verschiedenen Iche verbindet, da geben wir der höheren Gruppenseele Gelegenheit zum Herabstieg. Indem wir unsere Herzen gemeinsam einer höheren Weisheit zuwenden, betten wir die Gruppenseele ein. Wir bilden gewissermaßen das Bett, die Umgebung, in der sich die Gruppenseele verkörpern kann. Die Menschen werden das Erdenleben bereichern, indem sie etwas entwickeln, was aus höheren Welten geistige Wesenheiten herniedersteigen läßt. Das ist das Ziel der geisteswissenschaftlichen Bewegung.
[ 33 ] Das ist in großartiger, gewaltiger Form einmal vor die Menschheit hingestellt worden, um zu zeigen, daß der Mensch ohne dieses geistlebendige Ideal in ein anderes Verhältnis übergehen würde: es ist ein Wahrzeichen, das den Menschen mit überwältigender Kraft zeigen kann, wie die Menschheit den Weg finden kann, um im seelischen Zusammenschluß dem gemeinsamen Geist eine Verkörperungsstätte zu bieten. Dieses Wahrzeichen ist uns hingestellt in der Pfingstgemeinde, als gemeinsame Empfindung inbrünstiger Liebe und Hingabe eine Anzahl Menschen durchglühten, die sich zu gemeinsamer Tat versammelt hatten. Da ist eine Anzahl von Menschen, deren Seelen noch nachbeben von dem erschütternden Ereignis, so daß in allen das Gleiche lebte. In dem Zusammenströmen dieses einen, gleichen Gefühles lieferten sie das, worin sich ein Höheres, eine gemeinsame Seele verkörpern konnte. Das wird ausgedrückt mit jenen Worten, die besagen, daß der Heilige Geist, die Gruppenseele, sich herniederließ und sich zerteilte wie feurige Zungen. Das ist das große Symbolum für die Menschheit der Zukunft.
[ 34 ] Hätte der Mensch diesen Anschluß nicht gefunden, so würde der Mensch in ein Elementarwesen übergehen. Nun soll die Menschheit eine Stätte suchen für die sich herabneigenden Wesen aus höheren Welten. In dem Osterereignisse wurde dem Menschen die Kraft gegeben, solche mächtige Vorstellungen in sich aufzunehmen und einem Geiste zuzustreben. Das Pfingstfest ist die Frucht der Entfaltung dieser Kraft.
[ 35 ] Immerdar soll durch das Zusammenströmen der Seelen zu der gemeinsamen Weisheit sich das vollziehen, was eine lebendige Beziehung herstellt zu den Kräften und Wesenheiten höherer Welten und zu etwas, was jetzt noch so wenig Bedeutung hat für die Menschheit wie das Pfingstfest. Durch die Geisteswissenschaft wird es dem Menschen wieder etwas werden. Wenn die Menschen wissen werden, was die Herabkunft des Heiligen Geistes in der Zukunft für die Menschen bedeuten wird, dann wird das Pfingstfest wieder lebendig werden. Es wird dann nicht nur eine Erinnerung sein an jenes Ereignis in Jerusalem, sondern es wird eintreten für die Menschen jenes immer dauernde Pfingstfest des seelischen Zusammenstrebens. Es wird ein Symbolum werden für die dereinstige große Pfingstgemeinde, wenn die Menschheit sich in einer gemeinsamen Wahrheit zusammenfinden wird, um höheren Wesenheiten die Möglichkeit zur Verkörperung zu geben. Von den Menschen selbst wird es abhängen, wie wertvoll dadurch die Erde für die Zukunft werden wird und wie wirkungsvoll solche Ideale für die Menschheit sein können. Wenn die Menschheit in dieser rechten Weise zu der Weisheit hinstrebt, dann werden höhere Geister sich mit den Menschen verbinden.
The Pentecost Festival of Spiritual Striving and Working for the Spiritualization of the World
[ 1 ] It has been emphasized on various occasions that the spiritual development to which the spiritual scientific movement aspires must bring human beings into a living relationship with their entire environment. Much in the environment has become dead and dull for human beings, things that our ancestors still filled with reverence. A large number of people, for example, view our annual festivals with indifference and coldness. The urban population in particular has only a faint memory of the meaning of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost.
[ 2 ] The powerful emotions that our ancestors associated with the festive seasons, because they knew the connection with the great facts of the spiritual world, are no longer present in humanity today. People today view Christmas, Easter, and especially Pentecost with cold indifference. The descent of the Spirit has become an abstract event for many people. But things will change: they will only become life and reality when people come to a true spiritual understanding of the whole world.
[ 3 ] Today, people talk a lot about natural forces, but they say very little about the beings behind these natural forces. When one speaks of nature beings, modern man regards this as a rehashing of old superstitions. That the words used by our ancestors are based on reality — that gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders mean something real — is considered old superstition. What people believe in terms of theories and ideas is, in a certain sense, irrelevant at first; but when people are led by these theories to not see certain things and to apply their theories in practical life, then the matter begins to take on its full meaning.
[ 4 ] Let us take a grotesque example: Who believes in beings whose existence is bound to the air or who are embodied in water? If, for example, someone says: Our ancestors believed in certain beings, in gnomes, undines, sylphs, salamanders, but that is all fantastic stuff! — then one would like to reply: Ask the bees. — And if the bees could talk, they would answer: For us, sylphs are not superstition, because we know very well what we get from the sylphs! — And those whose spiritual eyes are open can see what power draws the little bee to the flower. “Instinct, natural impulse,” as humans respond, are empty words. It is beings that lead the bees to the flower's calyx to seek nourishment there, and throughout the entire swarm of bees that swarms out in search of food, there are beings at work that our ancestors called sylphs.
[ 5 ] Wherever different realms of nature touch, there is an opportunity for certain beings to reveal themselves. For example, inside the earth, where stone touches metal veins, special beings settle. At the source, where moss covers the stone and thus the plant kingdom touches the mineral kingdom, such beings settle. Where animals and plants touch, in the calyx of a flower, when a bee touches a flower, certain beings incarnate, as well as where humans touch the animal kingdom. This is not the case in the ordinary course of contact. Not, for example, when the butcher slaughters the cow or when humans eat the meat of animals, not in the normal course of life, such a thing does not happen. But where, in the extraordinary course of life, as with bees and flowers, the realms touch each other as if through an excess of life, beings embody themselves. And especially where the human mind, the intellect, is particularly engaged in dealing with animals, in a relationship such as that between a shepherd and his sheep, a relationship of the mind, such beings are embodied.
[ 6 ] We find such intimate relationships between humans and animals more frequently when we go back to ancient times. In times of lower cultures, people often had a relationship like that of the Arab to his horse, not like that of a racehorse owner to his horses. There we find those emotional forces that play across from realm to realm, as between the shepherd and the lambs. Or where the forces of smell and taste are developed and radiate across, as between the bee and the flower, there an opportunity is created for certain beings to incarnate. When the bee sucks at the flower, the clairvoyant can observe how a small aura forms at the edge of the flower. This is the effect of taste: the bee's sting in the calyx has become a kind of flavoring agent; the bee senses the taste and radiates it like a flower aura, which is nourishment for sylph-like beings. Similarly, the emotional element that plays between shepherd and sheep is nourishment for salamanders.
[ 7 ] That question does not apply to those who understand the spiritual world: Why are the beings there and not elsewhere? We must not ask about their origin; their origin lies in the universe. But if we give them cause to feed, the beings are there. For example, bad thoughts that humans emit attract bad beings into the human aura because they find nourishment there. Then certain beings incarnate in the aura.
[ 8 ] Wherever different natural realms touch each other, there is an opportunity for certain spiritual beings to incarnate. Where metal clings to stone inside the earth, the seer sees, when the miner chops away at the earth, strange beings huddled together in various places, in a very small space. They scatter and spray apart when the earth is removed. These are strange beings that, for example, are not entirely unlike humans in certain respects. Although they have no physical body, they do have intelligence. However, the difference between them and humans is that they have intelligence without responsibility. Therefore, they do not feel that they are doing anything wrong when they play various pranks on humans. These beings are called gnomes, and the earth is home to numerous species of them, where they live where stone meets metal. They used to be very useful to humans in ancient mining, not in coal mining, but in metal mining. The way mines were laid out in ancient times, the knowledge of how the layers are deposited, was learned from these beings. And these beings knew the best-suited veins, knowing how the layers are arranged inside the earth, and could therefore give the best instructions on how to work them. If one does not want to work with spiritual beings and relies only on the senses, one ends up in a dead end. One must learn a certain procedure from these spiritual beings in order to explore the earth.
[ 9 ] Likewise, beings are embodied at the source. Where the stone touches the source, beings bound to the element of water are embodied: the undines. Where animals and plants touch, the sylphs are at work. The sylphs are bound to the element of air; they guide the bees to the flowers. Thus, we owe almost all useful knowledge of beekeeping to ancient traditions, and it is precisely in beekeeping that we can learn a great deal from them. For what exists today as science about bees is completely riddled with error, and the ancient wisdom that has been passed down through tradition is only confused by it. Science proves to be useless here. Only the old techniques, whose origins are unknown, are useful, because in those days people used the spiritual world as a guide.
[ 10 ] People today are also familiar with salamanders, for when someone says, “Something is flowing toward me, I don't know where from,” it is usually the effect of salamanders.
[ 11 ] When humans enter into intimate contact with animals, as a shepherd does with his sheep, they receive knowledge whispered to them by beings living in their environment. The shepherd's knowledge about his flock was whispered to him by the salamanders in his environment. This ancient knowledge has been lost today and must now be regained through well-proven occult insights.
[ 12 ] If we take these thoughts further, we will have to say to ourselves: We are completely surrounded by spiritual beings! We walk through the air, and it is not just a chemical substance, but every breath of wind, every air current is the revelation of spiritual beings. We are surrounded and completely permeated by these spiritual beings, and in the future, if humans are not to experience a very sad, life-drying fate, they must have knowledge of what lives around them. Without this knowledge, they will not be able to progress. Humans must ask themselves: Where do these beings come from? Where do these beings originate?
[ 13 ] This question leads us to an important insight, and in order to form an opinion about it, we must realize how certain facts unfold in higher worlds, where through certain things that which is harmful and evil is transformed into good through wise guidance. Take, for example, waste, fertilizer: it is what has been discarded and, through wise use, acts in the economy as a basis for later plant germination. Things that appear to have fallen away from higher development are taken up again by higher forces and transformed. This is particularly evident in the beings we have been talking about, and we recognize this to a very special degree when we investigate the origin of these beings.
[ 14 ] How do salamander beings come into being? Let us now examine this question. Salamanders are beings that need a certain relationship between humans and animals. Animals do not have an ego like humans do. Such an ego exists only in humans on Earth today. These human egos are such that every human being has an ego enclosed within themselves. It is different with animals: animals have a group ego, a group soul. What does that mean? A group of animals of the same kind and shape has a common ego; for example, all individual lions have a common ego, all tigers, all pike.
[ 15 ] Animals have their ego in the astral world. It is like a human being standing behind a wall with ten holes and sticking his ten fingers through them. The human being cannot be seen, but anyone with common sense would conclude that there is a central power behind the wall that belongs to the ten fingers. So it is with the group ego. The individual animals are merely the limbs. What they belong to is in the astral world. These animal egos are not human-like, although, spiritually speaking, they can be compared to each other, for an animal group ego is a very, very wise being. The human being as an individual soul is not nearly as wise. Let us think, for example, of certain species of birds: what wisdom lies in their flying at very specific altitudes and in very specific directions in order to escape winter and return by other routes in spring. In this flight of birds, we recognize the wise forces of the group egos. We can find them everywhere in the animal kingdom.
[ 16 ] People are very narrow-minded when it comes to recording human progress. Let us remember our school lessons, where we learned how the current era gradually emerged in the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages certainly had significant achievements, such as the discovery of America, the invention of gunpowder, the art of printing, and finally, linen paper. It was certainly a significant advance that this product was used instead of parchment, but the wasp group soul had already done the same thing thousands of years ago, because the wasp nest is made of exactly the same material as the paper produced by humans; it consists of paper.
[ 17 ] Man will only gradually discover how certain combinations of his mind are connected with what the group souls have worked into the world.
[ 18 ] The group souls are in constant motion. The seer sees a constant flickering along the spine of animals. The spine is as if enclosed by flickering light. The animals are permeated by currents that go around the whole earth in all directions in infinite numbers, like the trade winds, and which act on the animals by flowing around the spinal cord. These animal group souls are constantly in circular motion at every height and in every direction around the earth. These group souls are very wise, but they lack one thing that they do not yet have: they do not know love as it is called on earth. Love is only connected with wisdom in individuality in human beings.
[ 19 ] The group soul is wise, but the individual animal has love as sexual love and parental love. Love is individual in animals, but the wise institution, the wisdom of the group ego, is still devoid of love. Humans have united love and wisdom; animals have love in their physical life and wisdom on the astral plane. Such insights will open up an immense amount of light for humans.
[ 20 ] Now, humans have only gradually arrived at their present self.
Humans used to have a group soul, and only gradually did the individual soul develop. Let us trace the development of humanity backwards to ancient Atlantis. Humans used to live in ancient Atlantis, a continent that is now covered by the Atlantic Ocean. At that time, the vast Siberian plains were covered by large seas. The Mediterranean Sea was distributed quite differently then. There were also vast expanses of sea in our European regions. The further back we go in ancient Atlantean times, the more all conditions of life change, and the more the waking and sleeping states of human beings change.[ 21 ] When humans sleep now, the physical body remains in bed with the etheric body; the astral body and the ego leave. Consciousness darkens, everything becomes dark, gloomy, silent. In the Atlantean era, the difference between sleeping and waking was not yet so great. When awake, humans did not yet see such fixed boundaries, such sharp outlines, such strong colors clinging to objects. When they woke up in the morning, they were immersed in a mass of fog. There was no greater clarity than when we see lights through fog with an aura, for example. But their consciousness did not cease completely during sleep; they could see spiritual things.
[ 22 ] As humans progressed, the physical world became more and more defined, but humans lost their clairvoyance. Then the difference became greater and greater: above, in the spiritual world, it became darker and darker, while below, in the physical world, it became lighter and lighter. All myths and legends originate from the time when humans still perceived the astral world above. When they ascended to the spiritual world, they met Wotan, Baldur, Thor, Loki, and other beings who had not yet descended to the physical plane. This was experienced in the past, and all myths are memories of living realities.
[ 23 ] All mythologies are such memories. These spiritual realities have simply disappeared from human consciousness. When people descended into their physical bodies in the morning, they had the feeling that they were individuals, unique beings. But when they returned to the spiritual world in the evening, they had the feeling that they were not individuals at all, but only links in a great chain, belonging to a great community.
[ 24 ] Tacitus also recounts that the ancient peoples, the Heruli and the Cherusci, felt themselves to be more of a tribe than individual human beings. Certain customs, such as blood feuds, also stem from this feeling that the individual belonged to the tribal group and considered himself part of the tribal community. Everything that belonged to the soul of the entire tribal group was one body. Everything happens gradually in development. It was only gradually that individual consciousness developed out of this absolute tribal group consciousness.
[ 25 ] In the descriptions of the patriarchal age, we also find traces of the transition from the group soul to the individual soul. In the time before Noah, memory was completely different: it extended back beyond what the father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had experienced. The boundary of birth was not a boundary. The same memory flowed in the same blood, reaching back to distant generations. Today, the authorities are interested in knowing the name of the individual. In the time when people remembered what their father and grandfather had done, this was recorded under a common name. What was connected at that time by the same blood and the same memory was given a common name. It was called “Adam” or “Noah.” Names like Adam and Noah do not describe the life between the birth and death of an individual, but the stream of memories as far as it reached. The old names encompass entire communities of people who lived out their lives in that time.
[ 26 ] What happens when we compare certain beings: the human-like apes with humans? The huge difference is that apes have a group soul and humans have an individual soul, or at least the potential to develop one. The group soul of the apes is in a very special situation (drawing). Let us imagine the Earth (see drawing, the horizontal line). Above it, in the astral world, float the group souls of animals, which spread out over our physical world like a cloud. Now let us take the lion group ego and the monkey group ego. Each lion is an individual member into which the group soul pours a part of its substance. When a lion dies, the outer physical body falls away from the group soul, like a fingernail in humans. The group soul then takes back what it had sent in and gives it to another lion that is newly born. The group soul remains above. It extends tentacles, as it were, which harden in the physical world, then fall off and are replaced.
[ 27 ] Therefore, the animal group soul does not know birth and death. The individual animal is something that falls away and grows; the group soul remains untouched by life and death. For lions, it is certainly true that every time a lion dies, everything that was sent out from the group soul returns to the group soul. However, this is not the case with monkeys. There are individual animals that tear something away from the group soul, which then cannot return. When the monkey dies, the essential part returns, but a part of the group soul is cut off. The monkey, as it were, holds on too tightly to what is put forward, and when it dies, a part of the group soul is cut off, so that a piece of it breaks away, so to speak, tears itself away and cannot return. This is how severances from the group soul arise. Severances from the group soul arise in all species of monkeys.
[ 28 ] We see something similar in certain amphibians, in certain species of birds, and particularly clearly in kangaroos. Through these severances, something remains of the group soul, and what remains of warm-blooded animals in this way becomes an elemental being, a nature spirit — the salamander. These elemental beings, these nature spirits, are thus, as it were, waste products of higher worlds, which are put into service by higher beings. Left to themselves, they would disturb the cosmos. For example, higher wisdom uses the sylphs to guide bees to flowers. In this way, the great army of elemental beings is placed under higher wise guidance, and the harm they could cause is transformed into something useful.
[ 29 ] This is how things are in the realms below man. However, it can also happen that man himself cuts himself off from his group soul and, as an individual soul, finds no way to develop further. For while he was guided and directed by higher beings as a member of his group soul, he is then left to his own devices. If man does not acquire the appropriate spiritual knowledge, he is in danger of cutting himself off. That is the question that arises.
[ 30 ] What is it that protects human beings from cutting themselves off, from wandering around without direction or goal, whereas in the past the spiritual group soul gave them direction? We must be clear that human beings are becoming increasingly individualized and that in the future they will increasingly have to find voluntary union with other human beings. In the past, the connection existed through blood ties, through tribes and races. But this union is increasingly coming to an end. Everything in human beings is increasingly moving toward becoming an individual human being. Now only the opposite path is possible. Imagine a number of people on earth who say to themselves: We will go our own ways, we want to find the direction and goal of the path within ourselves, we are all on the path to becoming more and more individual human beings. — Therein lies the danger of fragmentation. Nowadays, people can no longer tolerate even spiritual unions. Today we have gone so far that everyone has their own religion and holds their own opinion as the highest ideal. But when people internalize ideals, this leads to unity, to a common opinion. For example, we recognize inwardly that 3 times 3 = 9, or that three angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees. This is an inner realization. There is no need to vote on inner insights; they do not give rise to differences of opinion, but lead to unity. All spiritual truths are of this nature. What spiritual science teaches, human beings discover through their inner powers. These lead them to absolute unity, peace, and harmony. There cannot be two opinions about a truth without one of them being false. The ideal is the greatest possible internalization; it leads to unity and peace.
[ 31 ] First there was a group soul of human beings. Then, in the past, humanity was released from the group soul. But in the future of development, people must set themselves a secure goal to strive for. When people unite in a higher wisdom, then a group soul descends again from higher worlds — when free communities arise from bound natural communities.
[ 32 ] What is desired by the leaders of the spiritual scientific movement is that we find in it a society in which the hearts of wisdom flow together like plants toward the sunlight. What the leaders of the spiritual scientific movement want is for us to find in it a society in which the hearts of wisdom flow together like plants toward the sunlight. Where communal truth connects the different egos, we give the higher group soul the opportunity to descend. By turning our hearts together toward a higher wisdom, we embed the group soul. We form, as it were, the bed, the environment in which the group soul can embody itself. Human beings will enrich earthly life by developing something that allows spiritual beings to descend from higher worlds. That is the goal of the spiritual scientific movement.
[ 33 ] This has been presented to humanity in a magnificent, powerful form to show that without this spiritual ideal, human beings would pass into a different relationship: it is a symbol that can show human beings with overwhelming power how humanity can find the way to offer the common spirit a place of embodiment in spiritual union. This symbol was presented to us in the Pentecostal community, when a number of people who had gathered for a common purpose were filled with a fervent feeling of love and devotion. There are a number of people whose souls are still reverberating from the earth-shattering event, so that the same thing lived in all of them. In the confluence of this one, same feeling, they provided that in which something higher, a common soul, could be embodied. This is expressed in those words which say that the Holy Spirit, the group soul, descended and divided itself like tongues of fire. This is the great symbol for the humanity of the future.
[ 34 ] Had human beings not found this connection, they would have degenerated into elemental beings. Now humanity must seek a place for the beings from higher worlds who are descending. In the Easter event, humans were given the power to take such powerful ideas into themselves and strive toward a spirit. Pentecost is the fruit of the unfolding of this power.
[ 35 ] Through the gathering of souls to the common wisdom, what establishes a living relationship to the forces and beings of higher worlds and to something that now has so little meaning for humanity as the Feast of Pentecost should always be accomplished. Through spiritual science, it will become something again for human beings. When people come to know what the descent of the Holy Spirit will mean for them in the future, then the feast of Pentecost will come alive again. It will then not only be a memory of that event in Jerusalem, but the everlasting Pentecost of spiritual striving will come into being for humanity. It will become a symbol of the great Pentecost community of the future, when humanity will come together in a common truth to give higher beings the opportunity to incarnate. It will depend on human beings themselves how valuable this will make the earth for the future and how effective such ideals can be for humanity. If humanity strives toward wisdom in this right way, then higher spirits will connect with people.