The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] Last night I first attempted to show the path that leads the human soul to the observation of that spiritual world which lies hidden immediately behind our sensory-physical world, and I sought to draw attention to two classes, two categories of spiritual beings, which the occult gaze encounters when it lifts the veil from the sensory world in the manner described yesterday. Today we shall first discuss two other types, or categories, of nature spirits. One type—that is, a particular category—reveals itself to the occultly trained eye when one observes the gradual withering and dying off, let us say, of the plant world in late summer or autumn, or indeed the dying off of natural beings in general. Even when the plants begin to develop fruit in their blossoms, one can allow this development of the fruit to affect the soul in the way we described yesterday. And in the same way as was described yesterday, one then receives in one’s imagination the impression of spiritual beings who have something to do with the dying off, with the withering of natural beings. Just as we were able to describe yesterday that in spring the plants are, as it were, drawn out of the earth by certain beings who are subject to a continuous metamorphosis, so we can say: When, for example, the plants have gradually developed and the necessity arises once again for them to wither, then other beings intervene—beings of whom we cannot even say that they are constantly transforming their forms, for we can really only say of them that they have no distinct form. Flashing like lightning, appearing and disappearing like small meteors, they appear to us, flashing up and vanishing again, so that they actually have no definite form at all, but rather flit across our earth, flashing and fading like meteors or will-o’-the-wisps. These beings are initially connected with the maturing of everything that exists in the realms of nature. These forces or beings exist so that beings in the natural realms can mature. To the occult eye, these beings are actually perceptible only when it is directed solely at the air itself, and specifically at air that is as pure as possible. Yesterday we had to describe the second type of nature entities in such a way that we allow the water—whether spraying or gathering again—present in cloud formations or otherwise before our eyes to act upon us. Air as pure as water, permeated by sunlight and solar warmth, must act upon the soul if one wishes to retain the imagination of these beings that flare up and fade away like meteors, which live, as it were, invisibly in the water-pure air and greedily suck in the light that permeates the air and causes it to glisten and shine. It is these beings that then descend, for example, into the plant world or even the animal world and bring about maturation.

[ 2 ] We can already see from the way we come to understand these beings that they bear a certain relationship to what has been called the elements in occultism since ancient times. What we described yesterday as the first type of such beings can indeed be found when one descends into the depths of the earth, when one penetrates the solid core of our planet; there, beings of a certain form arise in our imagination, so that we can also call these beings the nature spirits of the solid core or the nature spirits of the earth. The second category, which we described yesterday, we found in water as it contracts and disperses; therefore, we can associate these spiritual beings with what occultism has traditionally called the liquid or water element. Within it they metamorphose, simultaneously taking on the role of drawing up from the earth’s soil everything that grows and sprouts. And the entities we were able to speak of today are connected with the element of air that is as free of water as possible. So that we can speak of nature spirits of the earth, of water, and of air.

[ 3 ] We can also consider a fourth category of such spiritual beings. The occult eye can become acquainted with this fourth category by waiting until a flower has produced fruit and a seed, and then observing how the seed gradually grows into a new plant. Only on this occasion can one easily—otherwise it is difficult—observe the fourth type of these beings, for the fourth type consists of the guardians of all seeds and all sprouts within our natural kingdoms. As guardians, they carry the seed from one generation of plants or other natural beings over to the next generation. And we can observe that these beings, who are the guardians of the seeds or the germs and thereby make it possible for the same beings to appear again and again on our Earth, that these beings live in harmony with the warmth of our planet, with what has been called since ancient times the element of fire or the element of warmth. That is why the seed forces are also connected to a certain degree of warmth, to a certain temperature. And when the occult gaze observes very closely, it finds that the necessary transformation of the ambient heat into the kind of heat that the seed or germ needs to mature—that this transformation of lifeless heat into living heat is carried out by such beings. Therefore, these beings can also be described as the nature spirits of heat or fire. So that we have now first—we will hear the details in the next lectures—become acquainted with four categories of nature spirits that have a certain relationship to what are called the elements earth, water, air, and fire, as if these spiritual beings had their domain, their territory, in these elements, just as human beings themselves have their domain, their territory, on the entire planet. Just as human beings are at home in relation to the universe, so do these beings have their territory in one of the aforementioned elements.

[ 4 ] We pointed out yesterday that these various entities represent for our entire Earth, with its natural kingdoms—that is, for our earthly, physical world—what the etheric body, or Life-Body, represents for the individual human being. However, as we said, this Life-Body is a unity, whereas the Earth’s etheric body consists of many, many such nature spirits, which are further divided into four categories. The Earth’s etheric or Life-Body consists of the living interplay of these nature spirits. It is therefore not a unity, but a multiplicity, a diversity. If one wishes to perceive this etheric body of the Earth with the occult gaze, then, as was described yesterday, one must allow the physical world to have a moral effect upon oneself and thereby draw back the veil of the physical world. Then, as it were, what lies immediately beneath this veil—this etheric body of the Earth—becomes visible.

[ 5 ] What happens, then, if we also remove what might be described as the Earth’s etheric body? We know, of course, that the third member of the human being, following the etheric body, is the astral body—the body that is the vehicle of our desires, our wishes, and our passions. So that, if we disregard the higher members of human nature, we can say: In human beings we first have the physical body, then behind the physical body the etheric body, and behind the etheric body the astral body. It is just the same with external nature: when we strip away the physical, we do indeed arrive at a multiplicity, but this presents us with the etheric body of our entire Earth with all its natural kingdoms. Can we now also speak of a kind of astral body of the Earth, of something that, in relation to the whole Earth, in relation to all the kingdoms of our Earth, corresponds to the astral body of the human being? However, one cannot advance to this astral body of the Earth as easily as to the etheric body. We have seen that one simply advances to the etheric body when one allows the phenomena of the world to affect oneself not merely through sensory impressions, but morally. But if one wishes to go further, deeper occult exercises are necessary for the human being, as you will find them described in part—insofar as they can be communicated in a public publication—in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* At a certain point in esoteric or occult development, as you can read there, a person begins to become conscious even during the time when they are otherwise unconscious—namely, from falling asleep until waking up. We know, of course, that the ordinary unconscious state, the ordinary state of sleep in humans, is based on the fact that when a person lies in bed, they withdraw their physical body, etheric body, astral body, and everything else that belongs to them; but then the person is also unconscious of the normal state. If he devotes himself more and more to those exercises that lie in meditation and concentration and so on, if he makes the slumbering, hidden powers of his soul ever stronger, then he can bring about a conscious state of sleep, so that the person is not unconscious when they have drawn their astral body out of the physical and etheric bodies, but rather that they then have around them—admittedly not the physical world, nor the world described so far, the world of nature spirits—but another, an even more spiritual, a more ethereal world than the one described so far. When the moment comes for a person to feel their consciousness awaken after they have freed themselves from their physical and etheric bodies, they perceive an entirely new kind of spiritual beings.

[ 6 ] The next thing that strikes the occult eye, which has been trained to this degree, is that this new kind of spirit it now perceives is, as it were, the commander of the nature spirits. Let us clarify to what extent they are the commanders. You see, I have told you that those beings we might call the nature spirits of water are particularly active in the plant world as it sprouts and wells up from the ground. Those nature spirits we might call the nature spirits of the air play a greater role when, in late summer and autumn, the plants are to wither and die. Then the meteor-like air spirits descend upon the plant world and, as it were, sate themselves on the plant world by causing it to wither in its summer and spring forms. This order—that in general the spirits of water act in one region of the Earth, and the spirits of air in another—varies according to the different regions of the Earth; in the northern hemisphere, of course, it is quite different from the southern. This arrangement—directing the appropriate nature spirits to their tasks at the right time, as it were—is carried out by those spiritual beings whom one only comes to recognize once the occult gaze has been trained to such an extent that, having freed oneself from one’s etheric body and physical body, one can still perceive something in one’s surroundings. So that we can say, for example: Spiritual beings are at work in connection with our Earth, with our Earth planet, who distribute the work of the nature spirits across the seasons; who thus bring about the change of seasons for the various regions of the Earth by distributing the work of the nature spirits. These spiritual beings represent what we might call the astral body of the Earth. They are also the same beings into which the human being, in the evening when he falls asleep, plunges with his own astral body. This astral body, consisting of higher spirits, is connected to the Earth, and during the night the human being’s own astral body plunges into the realm of these higher spirits, who play around the Earth and permeate it like a spiritual atmosphere.

[ 7 ] From an occult perspective, there is a significant difference between the categories of nature spirits described earlier—the spirits of the earth, the spirits of water, and so on—and these spirits who, in turn, direct the nature spirits. The nature spirits are concerned with causing natural beings to mature and wither, that is, with bringing life into the entire planetary sphere of the Earth. The situation is different with these spiritual beings, whom we can collectively refer to as the astral body of the Earth. These spiritual beings are such that when a person is able to become acquainted with them through occult vision, he already perceives them as beings that have something to do with his own soul, with his own astral body—beings that act upon the human astral body and also upon the astral bodies of animals in such a way that we cannot merely speak of a vitalizing effect, but of an effect akin to the way feelings and thoughts affect our own soul. The nature spirits of water and air—one observes them and can say they are in the environment; but these spiritual beings of whom we are now speaking—one cannot say they are in our environment, but rather one is actually always united with them, as if poured into them, when one perceives them. One merges with them, and they speak to one in the spirit. It is as if one were perceiving thoughts and feelings from the surroundings, and impulses of will, sympathies, and antipathies are also expressed in what these beings allow to flow to us in the form of thoughts, feelings, and impulses of will. So that we, one might say, already have to regard beings similar to human souls in this manner, in this category of spirits.

[ 8 ] If we look back once more at what we have discussed, we can say that all kinds of arrangements in time, of distribution within the relationships of time and space, are also connected with these beings. Therefore, in occultism, an ancient term has been preserved to designate these entities, which we recognize in their entirety as the astral body of the Earth, and this term, expressed in German, would be: Spirits of the Cycles. Thus, not only the regular annual cycle in the growth and withering of plants, but also the regular cycle expressed in relation to the Earth as day and night, is brought about by such spirits, which are to be counted among the astral body of the Earth. In other words, everything connected with rhythmic recurrence, rhythmic alternation, with the change in temporal conditions and the repetition of temporal events, is ordered by spiritual beings who all together belong to the astral body of the Earth and to whom the name “Spirits of the Cyclical Times of our Planet” applies. And what the astronomer discovers through his calculations regarding the Earth’s rotation around its axis is perceptible to the occult eye in that he knows these spirits of the orbital periods to be distributed all around the Earth; they are truly the bearers of the forces that cause the Earth to rotate around its axis. It is of the utmost importance that one sees in the astral body of the Earth everything connected with the ordinary cycle of change—the blooming and withering of plants—but also everything connected with the alternation, extending even to day and night, in the seasons, in the times of day, and so on. All that which occurs in this way evokes in the observer—who has progressed to the point where he can step out of his physical and etheric bodies with his astral body while remaining conscious—the impression of spiritual beings who belong precisely to the spirits of the cycles.

[ 9 ] In doing so, we have, as it were, drawn back the second veil, the veil woven from the nature spirits. We could say: We draw back the first veil, woven from sensory-physical impressions, and arrive at the etheric body of the Earth, at the nature spirits. Then we can draw back a second veil and arrive at the spirits of the cycles, who govern and order all that which recurs periodically, all that which is subject to rhythmic change.

[ 10 ] We now know that embedded within our own astral bodies is what we might call the higher aspects of human nature, which we may initially summarize as the “I” embedded within our astral body. We have already said that our astral body plunges into the realm of the spirits of the cycles, as it were, into the surging sea of the spirits of the cycles: our ego actually sleeps even more than the astral body in relation to normal consciousness. That this ‘I’ sleeps even more deeply becomes apparent to the person engaged in occult development, who is making esoteric progress, as they first learn to penetrate the perceptions of the astral body, into the spiritual world into which they submerge and which consists of the spirits of the cycles of time. This perception is actually, in a certain sense, a dangerous pitfall of esoteric development. For the human astral body is, in turn, a unity, whereas everything that lies within the realm of the spirits of the cycles is, in essence, a multiplicity, a diversity. And since the human being, as described, is united with this manifoldness, is immersed in this manifoldness, he feels, when his I is still asleep and his astral body has awakened, as if fragmented within the world of the spirits of the cycles. This must also be avoided in the course of proper esoteric development. Therefore, those who can provide guidance for such proper development take measures to ensure that the human being, if possible, does not allow his ego to fall asleep at all when his astral body has already awakened. For if the human being’s ego were to remain asleep while his astral body is already awake, he would lose his inner cohesion and would appear, like Dionysus, fragmented throughout the entire astral world of the Earth, which consists of the spirits of the cycles of time. In proper esoteric development, therefore, measures are taken to ensure that this does not happen. These measures consist in ensuring that the person who is to be led to clairvoyance through meditation, concentration, or other esoteric exercises retains two things within the entire realm of clairvoyant, occult observation—that they do not lose these two things. It is of the utmost importance that in every esoteric development, everything be arranged so that two things are not lost—things that a person possesses in ordinary life but which they can easily lose in esoteric development if it is not properly guided. But if it is properly guided, then they will not lose them. The first is that the individual must not lose the memory of all the experiences of the present incarnation, as they otherwise remain in his memory. The coherence of memory must not be destroyed. In the field of occultism, this coherence of memory means much more than it does in ordinary life. In ordinary life, this memory is understood to mean only that one can look back and has not lost important events of one’s life from one’s consciousness. In occultism, true memory also means that a person, through their perception and feelings, attaches value only to what they have already accomplished in the past, so that a person attributes no other value to themselves than the value conferred by their past deeds.

[ 11 ] Let us be perfectly clear on this point, my dear friends! This is an extraordinarily important point. If a person were driven by their occult development to suddenly say to themselves: “I am the embodiment of this or that spirit”—without any justification for doing so based on all that they have accomplished so far, on what already exists of them in this physical world—then, in the occult sense, their memory would be severed. An important principle in occult development is to attribute no other value to oneself than that which arises from one’s achievements in the physical world within the present incarnation. This is extraordinarily important. Any other value must first arise on the basis of a higher development, which can only come about once one has firmly established oneself on the ground that one considers oneself to be nothing other than what one has been able to accomplish in this incarnation. This is also natural, of course, when one views the matter objectively, for what one has accomplished in the present incarnation is also the result of previous incarnations; it is what karma has made of us so far. What karma will yet make of us, we must first allow to happen; we must not include that in our self-assessment. In short, when we are to evaluate ourselves at the beginning of our esoteric development, we will do so correctly only if we allow our value to be determined solely by what presents itself in our memory as our past. This is the one element that must remain with us so that our ego does not fall asleep while our astral body awakens.

[ 12 ] The second thing that we, as modern human beings, must not lose sight of is the degree of conscience we possess in the external physical world. Here again is something that is extremely important to note. You will have often heard that here or there someone is undergoing occult development. If this is not properly guided and directed, one often finds that the person takes matters of conscience less seriously than before their occult development. Previously, upbringing and social context had guided them in knowing what they were or were not permitted to do. After the onset of occult development, even some who would not have lied before begin to lie, taking matters of conscience less seriously than they did previously. We must not lose any degree of the conscience we have acquired. Memory in such a way that we derive our self-worth solely from contemplating what we have already become, not through any borrowing from the future, from what we will yet do; conscience to the extent that we have acquired it in the ordinary physical world thus far—this is what we must preserve. If we preserve these two elements in our consciousness—our sound memory, which does not delude us into thinking we are something other than what has emerged from our achievements, and our conscience, which does not allow us to take things morally any more lightly than we have hitherto, if anything even more seriously— if we have preserved these, then our ego can never fall asleep when our astral body has awakened. Then we carry the cohesion of our ego into the world in which we awaken with our astral body, when we sleep while awake, so to speak, when we carry our consciousness over into the state in which we are freed from the physical and etheric bodies with our astral body. And then, when we awaken with our I, we not only feel our astral body connected to all the spiritual beings we have described today as the spirits of our planet’s cycles, but we also feel in a very peculiar way that we no longer have a direct relationship to the individual human being, who is the bearer of this physical body, this etheric body, in which we usually find ourselves. We feel, so to speak, everything that arises merely as properties of our physical body, our etheric body, as having been taken from us. We therefore also feel, as having been taken from us, everything that can live only externally on any territory of our planet, for what lives on a territory of our planet is precisely connected with the spirits of the planetary cycles. But now, when we awaken with our I, we feel not only that we are poured out into the entire world of the spirits of the cycles, but we feel at one with the entire unified spirit of the planet itself; we awaken within the unified spirit of the planet itself.

[ 13 ] It is of the utmost importance that we feel we belong to the entire planet. To give a specific example, for the sufficiently awakened occult eye, this connection between this life and the planet manifests itself in such a way that when a person has reached the point where their ego and astral body awaken simultaneously, though during waking hours, when he is in the sensory world, he follows the sun as it moves across the sky from dawn to dusk, yet the sun does not disappear from him when he falls asleep. When he falls asleep, the sun remains connected to him. It does not cease to shine; it merely takes on a spiritual character. So that when the human being is truly asleep during the night, he follows the sun even during the night. The human being is such that he has something to do with the changing states of the planet only insofar as he lives in his astral body. But he has nothing to do with these changing states of the planet when he becomes conscious of his ego. Then he becomes aware of all the states his planet can undergo. He, the human being, then pours himself into the entire substance of the planetary spirit.

[ 14 ] You must not, when I say this, think that the statement: “Man has become one with the planetary spirit, lives in unity with this planetary spirit”—already implies something extraordinary in terms of clairvoyance. For, as it is meant here, this is, after all, only a beginning. For when a person awakens in the manner described, it is actually the case that they merely experience the planetary spirit in a general sense, whereas this planetary spirit consists of many, many details, of wonderful individual spiritual beings, as we shall hear in the following lectures. The details of the planetary spirit, the particular diversities of this spirit, are not yet perceived by the person. What they perceive is that they first know: I live immersed in the planetary spirit as in the sea that spiritually washes around the entire Earth and is thus the spirit of the Earth itself. — One can undergo immensely long processes of development to experience this becoming one with the planetary spirit further and further, but the beginning is made with what has been described. Just as we say of the human being: behind his astral body is his I, so we speak of the fact that hidden behind all that we call the totality of the spirits of the cycles is the spirit of the planet itself, the planetary spirit. While the spirits of the cycles direct the elemental spirits to bring about rhythmic changes, repetitions in time, and alternations in space on the Earth, the Spirit of the Earth has a different task. This Spirit of the Earth has the task of bringing the Earth itself into interaction with the other celestial bodies in its vicinity, directing and guiding it so that, over the course of time, it assumes the correct positions relative to the other celestial bodies. This Spirit of the Earth is, as it were, the Earth’s great sensory apparatus, through which the Earth, the Earth planet, comes into the right relationship with its environment.

[ 15 ] If, then, I am to summarize the succession of those spiritual beings with whom we first come into contact on our Earth—and to whom we can find our way through a gradual occult development—I must say: We have, as the outermost veil, the sensory world with all its diversity, with that which we see spread out before our senses, that which we can comprehend with the human intellect. Behind the sensory world lies the world of nature spirits. Behind the world of nature spirits lies the world of the spirits of the cycles, and behind that, the planetary spirit.

[ 16 ] If you wish to compare what is apparent to ordinary consciousness regarding this structure of the world with the structure of the world itself, you can picture it roughly as follows: the outermost veil of the world would be the sensory world; behind it lies the world of nature spirits, the world of the spirits of the cycles of time, and behind that, the planetary spirit. Now, however, we must say that the planetary spirit, in its activity, penetrates in a certain sense all the way to the sensory world, so that one can perceive its image in the sensory world in a certain way, just as one can perceive the spirits of the cycles and the nature spirits. So that when we observe the sensory world itself with normal consciousness, we have in this sensory world, as it were, an imprint from behind of the trace of these worlds that lie behind it, much as if, in the outermost layer that we have peeled away as the sensory world, we were to find precisely those spiritual beings that are active in stages behind it. Normal consciousness perceives the sensory world as its perceptions; the world of nature spirits expresses itself in these perceptions as what is called the forces of nature. Where science speaks of forces of nature, we actually have nothing real. For the occultist, the forces of nature are not real, but rather they are maya; they are the imprint of the nature spirits that work behind the sensory world.

[ 17 ] The imprint of the spirits of the cycles is what is commonly referred to as the laws of nature in ordinary consciousness. All laws of nature essentially exist because the spirits of the cycles act as guiding forces. Laws of nature are not real for the occultist. When the ordinary natural scientist speaks of laws of nature and combines them externally, the occultist knows that these laws of nature reveal their truth when a person, with an awakened astral body, listens to what the spirits of the cycles say and how they direct and command the nature spirits. This is expressed in maya, in outward appearance, in the laws of nature. And normal consciousness usually does not go any further. Normal consciousness usually does not go beyond the imprint of the planetary spirit in the outer world. The normal consciousness of humanity today speaks of the external world of perception, of the facts one perceives, speaks of the forces of nature: light, heat, magnetism, electricity, and so on; forces of attraction, repulsion, gravity, and so on. These are the perceptions in the world of Maya that are in reality based on the world of nature spirits, the etheric body of the Earth. Then external science speaks of laws of nature. This, in turn, is a maya. Underlying it is what we have described today as the world of the spirits of the cycles of time. Only when one penetrates even further does one arrive at the manifestation of the planetary spirit itself in the external sensory world. Science does not do this today. Those who still do so today are no longer really believed. The poets, the artists do it; they still seek a meaning behind things. Why does the plant world bloom? Why do animal genera and species arise and perish? Why does humanity enliven the Earth? When one asks such questions about the meaning of natural phenomena and seeks to analyze this meaning, to piece it together from external facts—as even deeper philosophy sometimes still attempts—then one approaches the manifestation of the planetary spirit itself in the physical world. But today, people no longer really believe in this search for the meaning of existence. The feeling still believes a little, but science no longer wants to know much about anything that might be found beyond the laws of nature in the flow of phenomena. If one seeks a meaning beyond the laws of nature in the things of the world as perceived by the senses, then one would be able to perceive this meaning as the imprint of the planetary spirit in the sensory world. That would be the outer maya. First of all, an outer maya is the sensory world itself, for it is what the etheric body of the Earth, the substance of the nature spirits, drives forth from itself. A second maya is what appears to human beings from the nature spirits in the forces of nature; a third maya is what appears as natural laws from the spirits of the cycles of time, and a fourth maya is something that, despite its maya nature, speaks to the human soul, because in the perception of nature’s meaning, the human being feels at least connected to the spirit of the entire planet, which guides the planet through the cosmos and gives the entire planet a meaning. In this maya lies the direct imprint of the planetary spirit itself.

[ 18 ] So we can say: Today we have ascended to the unified spirit of the planet. And if we wish to draw a parallel between what we have found here for the planet and the human being, we can say: The sensory world corresponds to the physical body of the human being, the world of nature spirits to the etheric body, the world of the spirits of the cycles to the astral body, and the planetary spirit to the human being’s I. Just as the human ego perceives the physical environment of the Earth, so the planetary spirit perceives everything that is in the surrounding space and in the wider cosmos outside the planet, and directs the planet’s actions and also the planet’s feelings—which we will discuss tomorrow—according to these perceptions from the cosmos. For what a planet does out in space as it travels through the vastness of the cosmos, and what it brings about within its own body—in the elements of which it is composed—is in turn the result of the Planetary Spirit’s observations of the external world. Just as the individual human soul lives on the Earth alongside other human beings and aligns itself with them, so does the planetary spirit live within its planetary body, which is precisely the ground upon which we stand; but this planetary spirit lives in the company of other planetary spirits, of other spirits of the celestial bodies in general.