The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. About the Path of Knowledge

[ 1 ] Following the opening of the Pforzheim branch, we are gathered here together for the first time and will make the best use of our time by considering a spiritual topic, one that can show us that through anthroposophy, human beings not only absorb teachings and thoughts, but are also enriched, calmed, and reassured in their emotional and sensory lives. We must not imagine that teachings, ideas, and thoughts are unimportant for our emotional life. It is true that, especially in our time, people will say to themselves: There are enough thoughts and enough science in the world, and all we need to do is pick up this or that book that is supposed to teach us about the world of the stars or other things in order to obtain enough science for our intellect. Theosophy, however, is supposed to be something for the mind or the feelings. That is certainly true, and it is also true that science, as it presents itself to us in popular lectures and works, has little to offer the mind and the heart. But we must not conclude from this that teachings, views, and insights are worthless.

[ 2 ] Spiritual scientific insights are something different from the teachings of external science. If we allow them to work properly within us, they are transformed into feelings, impulses of the mind, and attitudes, and there is no other way to gain peace, certainty, and strength in life than by immersing ourselves in these insights. It is quite different to merely know the external, sensory things and processes and to know how things happen than to penetrate behind the sensory things to the spiritual processes. Through the spiritual processes, when we allow them to work in our souls, we become warm, healthy, and strong. We recognize the connection between ourselves and that which pervades the entire world as spirit and soul, from which all phenomena flow. And so let us first concern ourselves with the relationship between the external sensory world outside, the sensory things, and our soul. When we look into our own soul, we find, so to speak, those things that affect us most closely—suffering, joy, pain, and pleasure—and the question may arise: If spiritual science tells us that everything in the world is permeated by spirit, then it could perhaps say that suffering and joy, pleasure and pain are also present in the things around us, even in those things that otherwise appear to us as insensitive, painless, and insentient. - Through anthroposophy, we must learn to think about the things around us in the right way.

[ 3 ] For example, we see around us the various plants of the earth, animals, and minerals. Not only do animals experience joy and suffering, pleasure and pain just as we do; no one doubts that. When it comes to plants and the seemingly lifeless world of stones, we may well doubt whether they also contain feelings, pleasure, joy, and pain. This is precisely what we must acquire as a feeling toward the whole world around us: that all beings are not only physically connected to us, but that they are connected to us in such a way that they also have soul content, just as we have soul content. We just need to delve into what spiritual research and spiritual knowledge have to say about this in the right way. Even more sensual thinking in our time understands that there is something spiritual in plants, and one is inclined to admit that there could also be something spiritual in a seemingly lifeless stone. However, if we think about it, we will easily come to errors if we do not take spiritual science into account, for we can easily say: If I cut into a human being's physical body, it hurts him, just as it hurts an animal; if I cut a plant, does it also hurt it? And further, one might think that if one breaks a stone, it must also hurt it. Precisely because people, when they think about these things, believe too strongly that everything must be the same for other beings as it is for humans, precisely because people believe this, they find it so difficult to understand the insights of spiritual science. Spiritual science allows us to recognize something completely different about the soul nature of plants and stones, for example. When we look at a plant, it appears that when parts of it that grow up from the earth are damaged, the plant does not experience any pain; it does not hurt it, quite the contrary. What is the actual plant soul feels pleasure, even joy, when the parts of the plant above the surface of the earth are destroyed. Pain only begins for the plant soul when we pull the plant out of the earth, when we uproot it, and then the plant soul experiences a pain similar to that which we feel when we pull hair out of a human being or an animal, for example. This is something that only those who follow the so-called path of knowledge can gradually experience in their souls.

[ 4 ] These things can only be experienced by our own selves if we transform our souls in such a way that the genuine powers of knowledge slumbering within them are awakened. Then this soul begins to empathize not only with other human beings, but with the whole of nature, and then the rest of nature becomes understandable in a wonderful way.

[ 5 ] One might now say: Yes, but what do we gain from spiritual scientific research as long as we cannot feel such things ourselves? That would be an incorrect objection if we believed that anthroposophy had no meaning until then. It already has great value as a narrative of spiritual and soul facts. And when such insights speak, for example, about the relationship between plant suffering and plant joy, then we should certainly reflect on these insights and allow such thoughts to work on us. Simply thinking about them brings out the forces within us, and we soon feel that it is really as spiritual science says. But by looking into the wisdom of nature, we learn how the plant soul feels pleasure when we pick the plant. We can get an idea of this when we consider what would happen if the plant could feel pain. Just think of how a large part of the beings on our earth have to feed on plants, and how pain would then spread across the earth through the nutrition of humans and animals. This is not the case, however; instead, pleasure and joy spread across the earth when animals graze in the pasture. And those who understand this feel whole streams of pleasure flowing across the earth when the sickle cuts through the grain in autumn. When a young animal suckles its mother's milk, this does not mean pain, but a certain feeling of pleasure. We therefore see into the wisdom of nature when we experience this.

[ 6 ] One must never object to such things by saying: Yes, but it may seem more tender to dig up a plant with its roots and transplant it rather than plucking off the flower. Certainly, but that does not change the fact that uprooting causes pain to the actual soul of the plant. Wilfully tearing off flowers can, of course, be condemned from a certain point of view. But that does not change the fact that it gives pleasure to the soul of the plant. Everything looks different from different points of view. For example, from the point of view of beauty, a person may think that they should pull out their first gray hairs, and that may be entirely justified, but it still hurts them. But we are made aware of something else when we take the comparison seriously, that pulling out plants is like pulling out human hair. We will then understand what it means when spiritual science does not consider individual plants, but rather, so to speak, the growth of plants on the entire earth. Just as hair belongs to the whole human being, so plants form a unity with the earth, and we also understand and can imagine that what we call the I in spiritual science is not to be found in the individual plant, but in the center of the earth. The plant is therefore not an individual being at all, but becomes part of a large living being, which thus consists of many individual living beings, all of which have their I in the center of the earth.

[ 7 ] No one should raise the question here: “But is there room for all these I's?” Certainly, because they are spirit and can therefore interpenetrate each other. In this way, our Earth becomes a living being. In this way, every single plant becomes something that grows out of a great supersensible living being and becomes, on the surface, what nails or hair are to human beings. And if we take such a thing seriously, then we no longer speak merely in dry intellectual terms about a physical planet on which we live, but then we feel that not only are we ourselves living beings, but that we are connected to a great living being, which is our planet itself. We learn to pay attention to the spiritual nature of this living being, and we learn that it is more than a comparison when something like the blood flowing through the human body is seen in the sap flowing through the plant. We learn to transform this into feeling by perceiving things spiritually.

[ 8 ] When we touch a plant, we perceive something spiritual and soul-like, we feel secure in the spiritual and soul realm. And then it gradually becomes possible for us to think something when we are told in spiritual science: This earth has undergone manifold transformations. If we go back to the distant past, we find that this earth looked completely different, that, for example, there were no solid rocks like today, no rock masses. There was a time when the earth consisted only of air and water and a certain state of heat. Only gradually did a solid mass emerge from the liquid and soft substances. And when we look at this entire development, it seems to us as if the entire evolution of the earth were indeed a process of growth and flourishing. Once the earth was young, and one day it will be old and decrepit.

[ 9 ] We can apply all the ideas we have about ourselves to our Earth, and then we will understand that there have been certain particularly important points in the development of our Earth. We will be able to bring such important points in the development of our Earth to the forefront of our minds when we consider the following: From the growth of plants on our Earth, we have already recognized that, when we look at it as a whole, the Earth is a living being. The various other heavenly bodies that are related to us in a certain way are living beings just like us. Let us first consider our sun and our moon. Let us consider the sun. You all know what we owe to the sun. You all know that when you have rested at night, when you were in that state of consciousness which is brought about for human beings by the astral body and the I leaving the physical body and the etheric body, you know that when the astral body and the I return, they are, so to speak, awaited by everything that the earth owes to the sun. What would the earth be without the sun? It is the sun that provides all the matter on earth with warmth and light. But we must not think of the effect of one heavenly body on another as merely something material and physical. We must be clear that this sun is not only the physical body floating in space, but that it is populated by spiritual beings, and that with every ray of sunlight, not only physical light but also spiritual influences flow toward us.

[ 10 ] A spiritual exchange between the sun and the earth has always existed, but it has changed significantly in the course of the earth's development. While in the physical realm there has been no particular difference in the interaction between the sun and the earth for many, many millions of years, a significant point in this interaction has occurred in the spiritual realm. High beings live in the light and warmth of the sun and from there they work upon the earth and allow light and warmth to flow to us.

[ 11 ] A solar being, which until a certain point in time had its place in the sun and could only be seen during long, long periods of Earth's history by those who could see the spirits of the sun through clairvoyance, descended from the sun to the Earth at a certain point in time. This is what allows us to look deeply into the spiritual development of the Earth: through the event we call the Mystery of Golgotha, or in other words, through the life of Christ on Earth, the spirit that had been in the sun until then united with the Earth. It connected itself with the earth. And the reason why humanity divides the earth's time into a pre-Christian and a post-Christian era is that the living being we call the earth has indeed undergone an important development through the appearance of Christ on earth. What was previously found only in the sun is now to be found in the astral body of the earth. The astral body of the earth was changed by the mystery of Golgotha: at the very moment when the blood flowed from the wounds of the Savior on Golgotha, at that very moment the Christ Spirit felt itself united with the earth body.

[ 12 ] This must be understood in order to comprehend in the right sense what is reported to us from the history of Christianity. One may ask: What was one of the most important events in relation to the spread of Christianity? When one considers the spread of Christianity, one must say: More than those who were the physical companions of Christ Jesus in Palestine, more than they could have done, Paul did, Paul, who was not a physical companion of Christ Jesus, who even persecuted the Christians. Paul did not become a believer by participating in the life and suffering of Christ, but he became a fighter for Christ through the event at Damascus.

[ 13 ] Much dust is kicked up in theology about the event at Damascus. But no one can understand the event at Damascus except through spiritual science. Try to reconcile this with a few words that will now be spoken. At the moment when Paul's consciousness was transformed into higher consciousness, what did he see? At that moment, he saw in the astral world the spirit that had become the spirit of the earth; he saw the living Christ, who has been united with the earth since the event at Golgotha. One might well ask: What is the light that he saw, which could not have been seen before? Paul first encountered the Christ who has been united with the earth since the event at Golgotha. And so we can mark this important point in the earth by saying: The earth prepared itself to become a worthy body for the Christ Spirit, and when the earth was ready, the Christ Spirit united with the earth, and since that time the Christ Spirit has been working in it. According to the Gospel of John, Christ said: “He who eats my bread treads me underfoot.” The human being who walks on the earth tramples the earth underfoot. “He who eats my bread tramples me underfoot” is only an expression for the mystery in this important point of our earth's development.

[ 14 ] And how infinitely profound does the institution of the Lord's Supper become from this point of view, that from that moment on the earth became the body of Christ! How significant becomes the statement, “This is my body,” and that which flows through the plants as sap, “This is my blood.” We learn to take literally what can only be taken literally. Thus, when we regard the earth as alive, it becomes a living being that gradually matures, so to speak, in order to become ripe at the right moment to receive the Christ soul.

[ 15 ] Thus, what we encounter as the physical planet appears to us from all sides as spiritual; it appears to us as imbued with spirit. We learn to understand the connection between what we encounter in everyday life and the supersensible. And when we turn our gaze from the plant kingdom to the mineral kingdom, it is not the case that the clairvoyant consciousness feels pain when a stone is broken into dust; on the contrary, when stones are broken into dust, what we might call the soul of the stone feels pleasure and joy. Those who have this vision know that when the stone world is broken, joy flows out of the rock. For example, when salt is dissolved in a glass of water, pleasure spreads through the water because the salt particles separate. The opposite is true when the solution cools and the salt recrystallizes; the rock particles press together and pain arises. And we look deeply into the way the initiate speaks to us when he wants to tell people something like this.

[ 16 ] Things are not stated so simply. One must undergo a spiritual process to arrive at an understanding of the greatest religious documents. It has already been stated that there was originally no solid rock on Earth; the Earth was liquid. Its solidity only came into being when the parts contracted and solidified. What do humans and animals owe to the fact that the Earth has become so dense? They owe it to the fact that humans and animals can live on it in the way they do today. Without solid ground, the earth would not have been able to provide a foundation for humans and animals. And now let us imagine with our souls that this is actually a spiritual process. This is difficult to understand if one approaches it solely with the mind of a physicist. Only when one follows the development of the earth with the eye and heart of the spirit does one sense that a spiritual process took place in what underlies the mineral kingdom while the earth was solidifying. Suffering and pain took place, and it is thanks to this that humans and animals can live on earth.

[ 17 ] This is the underlying fact when Paul, who was able to see into these things after his initiation, utters the words: “All creatures suffer and groan under the pain of gradual solidification; all creatures groan, waiting for spiritualization.” With these profound words, he points us to the inner life, to the mind of the earthly being. Thus, everything becomes imbued with soul when we view it in the light of spiritual science, and only by seeing soul and spirit in everything does the world and everything around us gradually become more and more understandable to us. We then come to understand that the world around us is like a physiognomy, like the outer expression of inner life. Then we will begin to understand that the world looks the way it does to human beings. And we will learn to understand that behind everything physical there is the spiritual, which must also be the origin of everything physical, and that when the spiritual researcher leads us back, he shows us how, in the distant, primordial past, everything gradually developed out of the spiritual. Human beings, above all, gradually descended from the spiritual world into the physical world, and we must not imagine this descent into the physical world as something crude, as a materialistic view does today, but we must ask ourselves: Where does this material world that spreads out around us come from?

[ 18 ] There was a time when human beings were entirely spiritual, embedded in the soul-spiritual realm. Human beings developed out of this soul-spiritual realm, and this happened gradually. If we look back only a relatively short time—even if the periods are long, they are still short for spiritual researchers—we find that our Earth did not always look as it does today, but that its appearance has changed considerably, above all through the event of the Flood, which is referred to in spiritual science as the Atlantean Flood. We must imagine that during this Atlantic flood, the face of the Earth was completely transformed by the effects of air and water. Before that, human beings lived in an area of the Earth where the Atlantic Ocean is today. There was land there, and our souls actually lived there in their previous incarnations in Atlantic bodies. If we look at humans at the very beginning of these Atlantic times from a spiritual scientific point of view, they appear to us completely different in their souls than they do today. In the first Atlantic times, they appear to us as having perceived everything completely differently than later. Today, when human beings look around during their waking hours, they perceive objects in color and light. When the physical and etheric bodies are left by the ego and astral body in the evening, this world disappears. This is called unconsciousness.

[ 19 ] In the first Atlantean epoch, this was not the case; unconsciousness did not spread around human beings when they passed into another state during the night. At that time, everything that is soul and spirit in the physical world emerged. For example, human beings had seen flowers before they fell asleep. In sleep, they perceived what was spiritually and soulfully present in the flower in the spiritual and soul world. What we now call physical, the external objects, were not so sharply separated as they are today, but humans saw them as if in a mist and surrounded by colored edges. Thus we see how the soul has gradually changed its perception. And if we go back even further, we will find that the soul saw only spiritual things, because the physical had not yet condensed out of the spiritual.

[ 20 ] Now, a significant point in human development was reserved for us on Earth, so to speak, and this came precisely in the middle of the Atlantean evolution. In the middle of the Atlantean evolution, if a certain event had not occurred beforehand, human beings would not have ceased to see the spiritual world with their night consciousness. If a certain event had not occurred, human beings in the middle of the Atlantean epoch would not, for example, have seen any object, such as a flower, as yellow, but the spirit of the plant would have appeared to them. That this did not happen is due to the fact that human beings had already allowed themselves to be influenced by Lucifer and his hosts. They would have been, so to speak, unconscious of the outer physical world; it would have appeared transparent to them. They would have seen the spiritual world behind it everywhere.

[ 21 ] What happened when the physical world no longer spread like a transparent crystal cover over the spiritual world, but became opaque? Because the spiritual world was covered, it became possible for another influence to be exerted, the influence of Ahriman, or, as Goethe calls him, Mephistopheles. This allowed the spirit called Ahriman to penetrate, so that at a certain time error and illusion arose. What we call Maya, illusion, was able to interfere with our perception of the world. Thus, behind everything that is in the physical world stands what the Bible calls the prince of this world. His influence is mixed in everywhere. Without this influence, matter would appear transparent and reveal the spiritual behind it. But now, through all these processes, a tremendous change has also taken place within the human being, in his inner soul life. When we look at how human beings have developed on earth, we see how the Luciferic influence made itself felt at one time and the Ahrimanic influence at another.

[ 22 ] When we look back to the time when human beings were still spiritual, when the solid had not yet crystallized, we see how natural forces and humanity were not yet as separated as they are today. At that time, they were much closer to each other, when the earth was still permeated with watery elements. When the earth was still softer and human beings more spiritual, human thinking and feeling still had an influence on the forces of nature. If we go back beyond the Atlantean era, we find that when the human will became evil, it had a very definite influence on fire, and a large part of the earth was once destroyed because human beings developed evil instincts through the influence of Lucifer, to whom, in other respects, human beings owe their freedom and independence. So what we call natural forces were connected with human feelings in the Atlantean epoch. Now, after human beings had become independent, so to speak, through the influence of Lucifer, they were deprived of the possibility of influencing the forces of nature through their will. Human beings were gradually deprived of their influence on the forces of nature. This went hand in hand with the influence of Ahriman, who veiled the spiritual world from human beings. If human beings could still see the spiritual world, they would still have influence over the forces of nature. This influence was taken away from the individual human being, but not from humanity as a whole. Even today, the individual human being has very little direct influence on the forces of nature, but humanity as a whole does, and when we consider humanity as a whole, we see that alongside the karma of the individual, there must also be a karma of the whole earth, of the whole of humanity on earth.

[ 23 ] This is a consequence of the fact that there was once a Luciferic influence and once an Ahrimanic influence. For this being, whom we call Ahriman, stands in a mysterious connection with the fiery forces of the earth, which have withdrawn from the immediate influence of the individual human being. These fiery forces of the earth are a life element of the Ahrimanic spirits, and through Ahriman's influence, the collective karma of the entire human race is connected in a certain way with the karma of Ahriman. When certain spiritual attitudes and events occur in human evolution, the connection between human beings and Ahriman becomes apparent again, and what human beings were once able to do themselves, namely influence natural events, is now done by Ahriman and his spiritual companions.

[ 24 ] Whenever Ahriman stirs, it indicates nothing other than that something has happened in human history that has attracted Ahriman, causing him to become agitated and furious. Something is happening in the souls of human beings, for example, a large part of humanity is falling into materialism. This enables Ahriman to stir in his element, for he has an element of life, because he prefers human materialism to spiritualization. Ahriman stirs up storms, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. Here again we see how nature and spirit are connected. Nothing happens on earth that is not connected with spirit. Our soul, with its good and evil deeds, is connected with what is happening on earth. When the earth rages in earthquakes, we must never say that this depends on the karma of individual people, but rather that it is the karma of humanity as a whole. Everyone can knock on their own heart and say: It is also my individual karma that this individual had to perish here, because it was here that the earth's valve had to open. In the future, he will be rewarded for this. A materialistic worldview will say that this is superstition, but those who say so do not realize how childish they are talking. Just as no flower grows without a spiritual cause, without being an expression of spirit and soul, so no earthquake, no volcanic eruption occurs without a spiritual cause, without a spiritual reason. If, as we have said, we take karma into account, then this applies to the whole of human life.

[ 25 ] Only if we do not put spiritual science into motion does it appear cold and calculated for the intellect alone. But if we allow our feelings, our attitudes, and our perceptions to be completely permeated by it, then we will see the earth as a living being, animated and spiritualized, and we will see that spiritual beings of the most diverse kinds are connected with this earthly body, that an important event has taken place whose effects are only just beginning: the appearance of Christ on earth. Through Christ alone will the consequences of Ahriman's power be dispelled. Through spiritual science permeating human hearts with the Christ spirit, that which spreads on Earth as the spirit of humanity as a whole will be able to lead the Earth, even in its natural elements, to peace and harmony.

[ 26 ] When all human hearts experience the Christ spirit in the true sense, the power that will flow from it will be so strong that it will calm fire and water. Then the Christ Spirit will bring peace and harmony into the natural elements, and the earth itself will be an expression of the Spirit. The earth's body, which is a living being, will become gentle and mild in order to ascend with the human spirit and soul to its spiritualization. The earth will ascend to a high spiritual existence. One can present this as a lofty, distant ideal, but we can permeate ourselves with it at every moment. No moment is lost for the development of humanity if it is used in such a way that human beings permeate themselves with the insights and impulses of the spiritual.