“Heaven and Earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.”
GA 162
3 June 1915, Dornach
Translator Unknown
All problems of a conception of the Cosmos—whether that of Spiritual Science or any other—contain this basic query: What is the evolutionary path of Man within the Cosmos?
One, who has not yet had his thoughts educated through Spiritual Science, may also ask: What is the ultimate aim of human evolution! He would like to know what will happen to man when arrived at the end of all evolution! We have often indicated how a question such as this can only come from uneducated thought, and that, for the mind cultured through Spiritual Science, the aim is to find the way, to perceive rightly any particular point in evolution; for when we know the path evolution has taken, we certainly take a good step forward.
So, let us once again consider—from a certain view-point,—the above query—the query of the direction of the evolutionary way.
You all know that human evolution has arrived at the earth-stage only after passing through various previous stages, and that this earth-state was preceded by the Moon-stage. And we must remind ourselves of the fact that, in a certain sense, the former Moon-stage is preserved in a later stage, is active therein; we can put it this way: that we are earth men, but that we in a certain sense, carry the Moon man in us. We have developed from the Moon-state, yet the Moon-man lives in us,—he is, so to speak, part of us. We could show this in diagrammatic form thus:

or, in other words, we can say: we carry with us the Earth man, but the Earth man surrounds the Moon man.
We can now easily proceed further, namely that the Moon man also encloses the Sun man, and the Sin man in turn encloses the Saturn man; so we carry within us, in addition to the Moon man, the Sun man and Saturn man also.
We must, of course, not imagine that this diagram in any sense reproduces the truth. In reality, of course, the Moon man does not sit inside as if he were surrounded by a shell; but if we wish to imagine the reality related to this ‘dual’ man, the matter stands thus, for example: That, which in a specific sense, belongs to the earth, we would have to imagine as residing chiefly in the trunk, the lower and upper limbs and as far as the throat region. And if trying to imagine the Moon man we must visualize him as the surmounting head; the Sun man has certain—already disintegrating organs in the head, and the Saturn man has head organs now scarcely discernable.

And now, if we consider the evolution of the earth, we say: The first, second, third and fourth earth period (Atlantean) have passed. Now we live in the fifth—the post-Atlantean period. The three first earth periods were, in a sense, repetitions of the Saturn—Sun—and Moon period. Then comes a mean (or middle) period, a time of equalization, of which the first half again represents a repetition, and the second a preparation for the future. And only now, in the post-Atlantean epoch, do we live in a time which, compared with the Saturn, Sun and Moon periods, is something quite new. Therefore, only since about the middle of the Atlantean period—though already prepared in the Lemurian become evolved in the human being that which we now call the earth man; previously we have to do with evolutions or developments that were repetitions of the Saturn, Sun and Moon man.
Only in the post-Atlantean age man begins his development as earth man, his true, active development. Hence, we find that the first three cultural periods of the post-Atlantean period—the Indian, Persian and Egypto-Chaldean—though revealing extensive new changes of organization—yet contain something of repetition. The real deciding point came with the fourth post-Atlantean cultural period in the progress of man, and in our fifth post-Atlantean cultural point we stand in a most important and significant time.
You will all be aware that in this our fifth post-Atlantean age mankind has gradually replaced the old clairvoyance inherited from the Moon with the real, outer, objective perception of things, which later became the scientific attitude that has led to a materialistic conception of the Universe,—and that, this materialism we endeavour to impregnate with the concepts of Spiritual Science. If we consider all we are able to think and know of the world,—all, that constitutes man's perceptions, conceptions and ideas today—we have all this as faculties, because our psychic-Spiritual is reflected on our physical body, so that in our waking life on earth we are able to perceive because the psycho-Spiritual in us evokes certain processes in the physical part, and that these processes become a kind of reflective medium, which, in turn, constitutes the content of our consciousness. As we thus possess a certain content of our earth-consciousness between awaking and falling asleep,—by these ‘contents’ we mean all perceptions, emotions, will impulses, etc.—so is the physical earth-man rightly the apparatus for everything that he has accumulated during his life on earth as content of his consciousness.
And so, during waking life on earth, we experience by means of our physical earth-man, but we also have in us the Moon man. This Moon man is incapable of serving us as a direct instrument of perception. Upon the Moon he could build up the old dreamlike perceptions; but today he is unsuitable to form the clear perceptions of waking life. And yet this Moon man resides in us, and he is not idle! How is he occupied? Well, he continues what he did on the Moon: he dreams. And because, during waking life, we do not usually perceive these dreams within our subconsciousness, we fail to take notice of them. As we go through the world with our waking consciousness, the burden of this dreamer also accompanies us. Even though you are perfectly unaware of this dreamer, other Beings know him, and they are the Beings of the Hierarchy of Angeloi—and the dreams of this dreamer are transposed by them into their own conceptions.

Thus, during the Moon age this dreamer developed the only possible consciousness that could evolve on the Moon. As earth man came, the dreamer entered into him; but his experiences in the earth man are developed into clear, conscious ideas, which, for them, are imaginations. Our dreams are transformed into imaginations. In other words—the dreamer in us becomes ideas for the Angeloi Beings, and they change these to imaginations: what man dreams, the Angelos imagines. (Diagram I.)
We may now go a step further to something that can be depicted by diagram, which this time is true to fact. The man in us has a still duller consciousness—one similar to that of the plants (Diagram II). Thus, we carry not only the dreamer in us, but also a kind of plant man, who always sleeps like the plants. His dull imaginations are transmitted by the Beings of the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi to inspirations. So: what the Sun man experiences in sleep, the Archangelos inspires.

In a still deeper sleep is our Saturn man; so deep is it that it can be likened to the sleep of the minerals. This Saturn man, in his turn, with his deep-sleep consciousness, gives the Beings of the Hierarchy of Archai the material—the means to create intuitions. Hence: The Saturn man in his deep sleep becomes intuition of the Spirit of Personality. (original Force) (Diagram III)
And now it is necessary to be quite clear of the fact that imaginations, inspirations and intuitions are no mere abstract things like our own thoughts, concepts or feelings. Imaginations are something very real, inspirations something still more real. For, inspirations do not remain pent up within a Being, but resound out into the universe as the music of the Spheres and are productive forces. Intuitions are actualities entering the universe and filling it. The state or condition of the Saturn man in his deep sleep is sent out into the worlds by the Spirits of Personality as intuitions.
And so it is to-day. But the earth will pass through another evolutionary period in the future. Then will the intuitions of the Spirits of Personality become more and more densified. In our own age they still are extremely attenuated forms, but as we progress from the 5th to the 6th and 7th earth-periods these intuitions become denser. The earth will pass away, but these intuitions are preserved within the Spirits of Personality. But when Jupiter begins to exist, these Spirits of Personality advance to the rank of Spirits of Form, and. the impulses they have learned to form during the earth-age now become actual forms; and because they are Saturn forms, they will be mineral. Thus: at the end of the earth period these intuitions become densified cosmic impulses and later, forms. (Jupiter) (Diagram III.) And when they become forms upon Jupiter, they constitute the mineral foundation of Jupiter. During the second evolutionary half period of the earth the Spirits of Personality continuously work there—penetrate—into our Saturn man; they win for themselves the impulses which they then ray forth into the world; and these again send out forms, but these forms are the Jupiter; Jupiter will be constituted of nothing but these forms. We have in us the Saturn man, but as this Saturn man is in close connection with the activity of the Spirits of Personality, he is the germ for Jupiter. Jupiter will obtain all his mineral foundation from the Saturn man we carry in us.

So now you have obtained a glimpse of the Spirits of Personality and their task during earth evolution. And you will realize that, if this is the fact, we, by means of everything we may develop in this direction, will be able to evolve a mineral Jupiter. But this mineral Jupiter will take shape under any circumstances. That is definitely provided for, and is a certainty, in the further evolution of the Cosmos. But consider, that this Jupiter possesses as yet nothing equivalent to our plants, animals and human beings; we ourselves—as mankind—would find it impossible to exist upon such a Jupiter, for the hidden Saturn man within us is transformed to this Jupiter, because this Saturn man in his deep sleep, dreams what the earth man consciously imagines.
You see, under these conditions the Sun man could bring it to nothing actual in us. The Archangelos would realize only inspirations; and were things to proceed as they have so far been described, a mineral Jupiter would arise and over and around it would flow inspirations—densified, certainly, but they would merely pass over Jupiter. In order that some equivalent to our vegetable kingdom shall come into existence, something additional is necessary,—we must evolve something else beyond the earth man. And this is nothing else then something that earthly man can never again experience with his physical body: it is what we can imbibe from spiritual Science. Hence, I propose to call this man the Spiritual-Scientific Man, despite its queer sound, who aspires to and reaches out for things that extend far beyond the earth
With all that we absorb from Spiritual Science, the Sun man in us can really do something. He can transmute his dim, sleeping, vegetable-like sensations and conceptions into inspirations, which will become more and more densified during the remainder of the earth period; and these will ensure, that not only indefinite sphere harmony shall enclose Jupiter, but that this harmony of the spheres definitely becomes growth of vegetation, as this took place also in the case of earthly plants: they are created by the sphere harmony and drawn out by light.

We therefore come to this conclusion: If the development which the earth itself has so far achieved, and which does not lead to the Spiritual-Scientific man, were alone to permeate the world in the future, there could arise only a mineral Jupiter in the cosmos. Toward this end all materialistic world conceptions are aiming. Materialists hate the very idea that Jupiter should produce a vegetable kingdom; in the depths of their souls they ask nothing better than that Jupiter be constructed of minerals only. If today we search through the entire materialistic science, laboratories, etc., we shall find that everything is working in the direction of a mineral Jupiter. And without Spiritual Science this would merely prove to be a dead slagheap, quite incapable of sustaining growth of plants.
The task of the (present) Beings of the hierarchy of Archangeloi on Jupiter—the production of the equivalent of our vegetable kingdom—is prepared by us when we raise ourselves to the stage of Spiritual Science. We may therefore say: The experiences of the sleeping Sun man, mature at the end of the earth period, so as to furnish cosmic impulses for the Jupiterian plant world through the Archangeloi.
And so we will not try and become conscious of the aim of Spiritual Science; we will learn to know that our Spiritual Science really does give the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi the possibility of endowing Jupiter with a cover of vegetation. What the sun man experiences through the concepts of Spiritual Science can be used by the Archangeloi in the development of vegetation upon Jupiter.
Then a time will approach in the evolution of the earth when those who have embraced Spiritual Science will say: Spiritual Science is all; it is the ultimate Good, and all those who, in their Soul, accept or practice anything else, are visionaries and dreamers!—The followers of Spiritual Science will speak of those others as the materialists do of us. And just as Spiritual Science of today stands to the materialist; so will, in future, be found a little community of people who will transcend Spiritual Science and reach out to something that will constitute something new, as spiritual Science of to-day is something new in relation to materialistic science. That will make a great many more demands upon the activities of man than our Spiritual Science, which already is found to be very uncomfortable. It will be something which the dreamer in man, the Moon man, will dream in a tremendously more intensive manner than the Sun man to-day can experience the conceptions of Spiritual Science in his sleep. But the experiences of the dreamer in a future age will be grasped and reformed by the Beings of the Angeloi and carried by them to Jupiter, to further enrich Jupiter by adding, upon the mineral and vegetable foundation, another kingdom, the equivalent of the animals. And we say: The dream conceptions of the Moon man (or the dreamer in man) becomes for Jupiter condensed imaginations, foundation of an animal kingdom through the Angeloi.
And finally, something further will appear during the evolution of the earth. We look forward into a future where we can sense something very wonderful. That which will then come to pass will produce the germ which will enable the human being of the earth himself to erect his kingdom upon Jupiter, and it will be something entirely new.
Thus, all that to-day can be developed with the help of the earthly man will progress further, and then, after the ages during which something new will have continually been developed, will arise something which this earth man can now conceive as the highest flower, the apex of the Spiritual evolution of the earth. And out of this conception will be born the power by which earth man upon Jupiter can continue his progress through himself. Thus, we can say: The conceptions of earth man become impulses—through the Soul-contents of the most evolved of humanity—for the evolution of humanity upon Jupiter.
Our Spirits of Personality will then have advanced to Spirits of Form; our Archangeloi to Spirits of Personality; our Angeloi to Archangeloi; man will have risen to the ranks of the Angeloi. Then it will be possible for man, by means of the highest and purest conceptions of earth man, in the Hierarchy of the Jupiter-angeloi which he himself will then constitute to continue his Jupiterean Spiritual development. His possession in the form of evolutionary progress will then be similar to those possessed by man at the end of the Atlantean period to enable them to inaugurate the true evolution of the earth!
Now you will see that we can look deeply into the direction taken by us in the Cosmos. And when we can consider how man will have evolved—as he has progressed up to our times—all that the earthly man can yield, and begins at a higher stage where he will no longer be able to contribute anything more as earth man—when he must aspire to things beyond the powers of earthly humanity—when we thus ponder over the subject, we know why we cultivate Spiritual Science. We then know that the pursuit of Spiritual science has a profound import, and feel how brutally abstract are the questions propounded by philosophical temperaments: What is the ultimate aim of mankind? We have quite enough to do if we aim at the next goal!
And we might ask: Can not this Science of the Spirit—conscious of its task in the Cosmos—truly move our hearts, penetrate our minds and consciousness? But we feel that in us abides something that is the seed of the future in the Cosmos! And we can truly transform what we thus carry in us as knowledge into a pure mental and soul content.
And let us be quite sure of this: All that is physical world on this earth will be destroyed, will not merely pass into a state of sleep, but of destruction—and something new must evolve. But whence will this “something new” come?
Well, from the stones of earth, from the plants and animals of earth—in short—from the physical bodies of the earth—nothing new can evolve,—they are there in order to be discarded—but from the Saturn man in you the mineral Jupiter comes into existence. So true is this, as it is true that in the fowl that runs out of your way nothing exists of this parent fowl but a tiny germ within the egg—so nothing exists upon the earth as a basis for the future Jupiter than the Saturn germs that live in the human body. That is all that will pass intact through the pralaya to Jupiter; all the rest is discarded—falls away from the physical earth. (I am now referring to the physical earth, not to souls). And should anyone harbour the notion that the physical earth will become transformed, he holds a nebulous idea, for the concrete fact is that everything is dispersed into the cosmos, with the exception of all the Saturn seeds, which are absorbed by the Archai, to be transmuted into the atoms intended to form the mineral atoms on Jupiter. Many years ago, to a small circle in Berlin, I spoke upon this subject. I endeavoured to explain how childish an idea it is, to imagine the atoms of the earth as the physicist sees them. Instead, we must think of these atoms as the most inner essence of the Moon man—i.e., the man on the old moon—but used by those Beings who were in advance of man in evolution, who transmuted this very central part of the Moon man to an earth atom. To-day this resides no longer in the Saturn man, but in the earth.
This is the atom in its reality, compared with which the physicist's atom is a very childish concept. For this atom in actual fact has come into being in a most complicated manner. Think for a moment that this atom must evolve from that which man has developed upon Saturn, and which he has preserved during the Sun, Moon and earth periods, and that later is to be changed to an atom for Jupiter by the Spirits of Personality, who, upon Jupiter, will hold the rank of Spirits of Form. Thus, is the world complicated.
I have often referred to the way we have to look at these things: I have illustrated it as follows: Suppose the time is 3 p.m. At that time, we find two persons A and B, standing together at a street corner. We go away and relate this to a third person. But let us also suppose that A has been standing there since 9 a.m. while B arrived there at 12 noon, went away again, and returned at 3 p.m.!—We discovered the same fact—two persons standing together at 3 p.m. But the one who has been standing there for six hours and the other who walked away and back again are not alike. These human beings differ fundamentally, and that is the important thing—they are not equal but different.
This will show you that it is not the observation of a fact, but rather the circumstances through which the fact is brought about that matters. For example, a man who microcosmically examines living beings cannot penetrate to their inner nature, but must be content with the outer fact. Very naturally, people will say: “I do not merely substantiate the fact, but I also trace its evolution.” But they only trace the evolution of the physical,—they always cling to the fact.
Through this has arisen the error which mixes up phenomena that have a very different value and significance for the various kingdoms of nature,—for instance, the death of an animal or man, to say nothing of plants. Death is, by no means, the same process in the human kingdom as in the animal world. When death comes to a man, it comes to a being who has behind him the earth—Moon—Sun and Saturn evolutions, while the animal has evolved through the earth evolution in part, and the Moon and Sun evolutions; therefore is the death of an animal a very different phenomenon than that of men. When one considers death in the animal and human kingdoms this abstract manner as identical, one could with equal justification, call the evaporation of a drop of Mercury “death”.
And I have already said that man in our time thinks and judges along that line: Certain biologists, thinking themselves particularly advanced, say: As many plants have the characteristic quality of consuming insects, such plants possess something akin to the animal or human soul! An outer analogy causes them to make this assert. But it is no more logical than to say that a mouse-trap possesses a soul!
It is that monstrous superficiality, this clinging to externals, that manage to give an impression of a terribly attractive logic, but which has originated only in an unreal, dead Ahrimanic thinking. And more and more will mankind submit to this kind of thinking unless impregnated by Spiritual Science.
All these considerations ultimately aim at the realisation of the importance of the incidence of Spiritual Science into the human evolution on earth. We must not ignore this simulated logic, though lifeless as it is, to which our Ahrimanic culture has brought us. This Ahrimanic culture can do nothing but pass the key, like Mephistopheles. But we must develop the Faustian attitude towards that which the Ahrimanic spirits call “the nothing” (of chaos)—the attitude that says: “within thy Nothing I hope to find the All.”
But we must permeate ourselves entirely with this idea. We must not expect that we can carry over into the future new evolution, anything of this old culture! Though we don't do so consciously, yet unconsciously can Ahriman again and again become the tempter. Of highest importance is it that we absorb the fundamentals of Spiritual Science, however uncomfortable they may appear to be. The culture of Spiritual Science demands deep earnestness in our devotion to it. Therefore must all flowers gained from the evolutionary progress of the soul be placed at the disposal of the impulses emerging from the heart of Spiritual Science.
And now I shall make—I might say—a very objective, but essential remark.
In one of my last lectures I mentioned something relative to the idea—which must be realised if we are to complete our Bau—of the Group to be erected in the east—with the representative of humanity in the centre—(you may call him the Christ, if you wish), with Lucifer above, falling with broken wings, Ahriman below in a cave, crouching down under his feeling of defeat. That is the idea. What its completion will be like, will be seen only when we have the group erected. For, to the inner significance or meaning of it, belongs not only all that has been said (in the preceding pages) but also to every characteristic in the features of the Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman. Should anyone attempt to incorporate this concept into a composition (group), he would no doubt make use of the old materials, and that would be wrong, for the result would be a symbolical representation of an idea—part of materialistic art! Or it would have to be taken from clairvoyant perception; each separate form must be artistically created—I might say—out of the primeval elements. That, indeed, is possible only if one can really become absorbed in the impulses of Spiritual Science. But one must take time, and not work further with the old mediums of artistic production.
It is difficult to implant the germ of Spiritual Science into all our cultural impulses, but from what has here been said will emerge the necessity for that effort. Naturally this cannot be accomplished today or tomorrow, but only very gradually. A beginning must be made; if we are not conscious of the fact that our Bau represents a beginning only, we shall view it from the wrong angle. A very long time must elapse before the attainment, (the consummation of all that is intended.)
The great task is to transform the entire frame of mind and mood of the Soul from what they have up to the present become, through the contributions earthly man has been able to make towards that end. Of course, it would be entirely wrong for someone to say: Well then, all that earthly man has been able to give, is useless; away with it!... wrong because earthly men carries in him the Moon, Sun, and Saturn man, and the new man of Spiritual Science will, in his turn, carry also the earthly man in him. We must carry this in us,—this earth culture. It is therefore not unnecessary for us to learn all there is to know in this earth culture.
But little by little we must, even now, absorb a sort of Spiritual Science consciousness, not with pride or a feeling of superiority, but with humility. It will never do for people who belong to the Spiritual Science movement to keep on saying: “What we learn (or practice) is esoteric! What you learn is only exoteric! We have something, something quite new! ”
That is most undesirable, and only instigated by pride and arrogance, as so much else within our movement! The fewer of those sort of remarks the better, on the other hand, the more we try to impregnate our entire Soul moods with Spiritual Science, so much the better.
One would hardly believe how one-sided words, and everything else, are used today. We talk, without any sort of attempt to understand the other—to “think ourselves into his mind”, as it were. All this must vanish if the Spiritual impulses are really to take a place of honor in our Souls. And so much has arrived at the culminating point today which must be removed through Spiritual Science.—In our sorrowful times we see men engaged in a war of words; we see one group passing judgment upon the other. The Spiritual Scientist must realize that such arguments and judgment are of no more value than a person who says: “that is a house”, while the other disagrees and claims that “it is a villa!”
That may be expressed rather coarsely, but it indicates the worth of those discussions which are today entered into with so much vehemence. It seems singular, of course, when one tried to describe some complicated idea in so crass and simple a form as above, but it is most desirable to ponder over the relationship between great world-discussions and the simple idea! One will then discover the reality behind the comparison.
And when we look back upon much that has, during the last few years, revealed itself before our souls as Spiritual truth, we will find that we can again and again confirm ourselves in those feelings and perceptions that we can make our own, concerning the impulses of Spiritual Science. When we think that all the Spiritual culture that men can attain here will form the inner foundation of Jupiter; that the endeavours of our Spiritual Science will form the future vegetable kingdom upon Jupiter; and that future (and further) progress will be the seed of the animal kingdom on Jupiter, and, finally, seriously ponder over the truth that within the Saturn man in us lies the germ for the physical shell of Jupiter, that in our Sun man resides that which we must convert into the Jupiterean vegetation, again the Moon man holds potencies that will be transformed into the animal kingdom of Jupiter—and that everything belonging to the earth—including the stars, will cease to be—will enter into pralaya—when we ponder over these marvels, we become a pupil of Him who said:
“Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.”
Fünfter Vortrag
Es ist im Grunde genommen eine durch alle, ob geisteswissenschaftliche, ob sonstige Weltanschauungsprobleme, durchgehende Frage diese: Welchen Weg hat der Mensch überhaupt mit seiner Entwickelung im Weltall durchzumachen?
Derjenige, welcher sein Denken noch nicht geschult hat durch Geisteswissenschaft, der frägt auch mal, wenn er durchaus beseelt ist von Weltanschauungssinn, nach den letzten Zielen der menschlichen Entwickelung; er möchte am liebsten wissen, wie es mit dem Menschen bestellt sein werde, wenn er am Ende aller Entwickelung angelangt ist. Wir haben ja oft davon gesprochen, daß solch eine Frage nur aus einem ungeschulten Denken hervorgehen kann, und daß es für ein durch Geisteswissenschaft geschultes Denken darauf ankomme, den Weg richtig in irgendeinem Punkte der Entwickelung kennenzulernen; denn wenn man weiß, welchen Weg die menschliche Entwickelung eingeschlagen hat, dann kommt man eben ein Stück weiter vorwärts. Nun wollen wir heute von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus die angedeutete Frage wiederum betrachten, die Frage nach der Richtung des Weges, den die menschliche Entwickelung nimmt.
Sie wissen ja, daß die menschliche Entwickelung erst nachdem sie Vorstadien durchgemacht hat, beim Erdenstadium angekommen ist, und daß diesem Erdenstadium vorangegangen ist das Mondenstadium. Nun muß gesagt werden, daß in einem gewissen Sinne in einem späteren Stadium das frühere Stadium erhalten bleibt, fortwirkt. Wir können sagen, daß wir Erdenmenschen sind, daß wir aber in einem gewissen Sinne den Mondenmenschen in uns tragen. Wir haben uns vom Monde her vervollkommnet, aber der Mondenmensch ist doch in uns, er steckt in uns drinnen, er ist gewissermaßen in uns involviert. So daß wir sagen können: Wenn wir etwa dieses schematisch als Erdenmensch bezeichnen, so steckt in diesem Erdenmenschen der Mondenmensch drinnen. - Man kann also sagen: Wir tragen den Erdenmenschen an uns, der Erdenmensch aber umschließt den Mondenmenschen.

Nun werden Sie leicht aufsteigen zu dem anderen: daß der Mondenmensch wiederum den Sonnenmenschen umschließt, und der Sonnenmensch den Saturnmenschen, so daß wir also noch in uns tragen den Sonnenmenschen und den Saturnmenschen. Sie müssen sich allerdings nicht vorstellen, daß diese schematische Zeichnung irgend etwas gibt von der Wirklichkeit. Es ist ganz selbstverständlich, daß in der Wirklichkeit der Mondenmensch nicht von dem Erdenmenschen wie von einer Schale umschlossen darinnensitzt, sondern, wenn wir die Wirklichkeit bezüglich des Erden- und Mondenmenschen uns vorstellen, ist es zum Beispiel so: Dasjenige, was in spezifischem Sinne der Erde angehört, das müßten wir uns etwa so vorstellen, daß es hauptsächlich sitzt im Rumpf, den unteren und oberen Gliedmaßen bis hinein in die Halsgegend. Und wenn wir uns den Mondenmenschen vorstellen wollen, so müssen wir diesen Mondenmenschen als das darüber befindliche Haupt vorstellen; während wir uns den Sonnenmenschen als gewisse schon sehr in Zerstörung begriffene Organe im Kopfe, und den Saturnmenschen als schon kaum mehr wahrnehmbare Organe im Kopfe vorzustellen haben.
Wenn wir nun die Entwickelung unserer Erde betrachten, so können wir sagen: Die erste Erdenperiode, die zweite, dritte und die vierte Periode — das ist ja die atlantische - sind vorübergegangen. Jetzt leben wir in der fünften, in der nachatlantischen Erdenperiode.
Die drei ersten Erdenperioden waren in gewisser Beziehung reine Wiederholungen der Saturn-, der Sonnen- und der Mondenzeit. Dann ist eine mittlere Zeit da, eine Zeit des Ausgleiches, die in ihrer ersten Hälfte auch noch eine Wiederholung darstellt, in ihrer zweiten Hälfte Vorbereitung zu dem Kommenden darstellt. Und erst jetzt in der nachatlantischen Zeit leben wir in etwas gegenüber der Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondenentwickelung ganz Neuem. Daher ist auch ungefähr erst seit der Mitte der atlantischen Zeit, aber vorbereitet seit der lemurischen Zeit, vollständig ausgebildet in der menschlichen Wesenheit dasjenige, was wir den Erdenmenschen nennen; vorher haben wir es noch zu tun mit sich wiederholenden Ausbildungen des Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondenmenschen.
Erst in der nachatlantischen Zeit beginnt dann der Mensch seine Entwickelung mit dem Erdenmenschen; erst da beginnt sozusagen die richtige aktive Entwickelung des Erdenmenschen. Und daher haben auch die drei ersten Kulturperioden der nachatlantischen Entwickelung, die indische, persische, ägyptisch-chaldäische, trotzdem sie schon weitgehende Neubildungen im Menschen darstellen, noch etwas von Wiederholung in sich. Entscheidend war erst die griechisch-lateinische, die vierte nachatlantische Kulturperiode für den Menschen, und in unserer fünften nachatlantischen Kulturperiode sind wir ja in einer ganz besonders wichtigen, bedeutungsvollen Zeit.
Sie wissen ja, daß in dieser fünften nachatlantischen Zeit die Menschen angefangen haben, allmählich an die Stelle des alten, noch vom Monde herüber vererbten Hellsehens die wirklich äußere, gegenständliche Beobachtung der Dinge zu setzen, die dann allmählich zu der wissenschaftlichen Betrachtung der Dinge geworden ist, die zu einer materialistischen Weltauffassung geführt hat, und daß wir in diese materialistische Weltauffassung hineinstellen wollen die geisteswissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Nehmen Sie all dasjenige zusammen, was wir imstande sind zu erdenken, zu wissen von der Welt, betrachten Sie all dasjenige, was der Mensch heute an Wahrnehmungen, Begriffen, Ideen haben kann. Nicht wahr, wir haben öfter besprochen, wie das eigentlich ist: wir haben alles dies dadurch, daß sich unser Geistig-Seelisches am Physisch-Leiblichen spiegelt. Im wachen Erdenleben stellt heute der Mensch dadurch vor, daß sein Geistig-Seelisches gewisse Vorgänge im Physisch-Leiblichen hervorruft, und daß diese Vorgänge zu einem Spiegelungsapparat werden: und dieser Spiegelungsapparat bildet dann den Inhalt unseres Bewußtseins. Indem wir also einen. gewissen Inhalt unseres Erdenbewußtseins haben vom Aufwachen bis zum Einschlafen - Vorstellungen, Empfindungen, Willensimpulse, das ist alles gemeint -, ist zunächst der physische Erdenmensch richtig der Apparat für all das, für den Inhalt, den der Mensch während des Erdenlebens angesammelt hat.
Also während des wachen Erdenlebens erleben wir mit unserem physischen Erdenmenschen; aber wir tragen ja in uns den Mondenmenschen. Der Mondenmensch in uns, der ist nicht geeignet, uns direkt als Werkzeug für unsere Wahrnehmung zu dienen. Der Mondenmensch war geeignet, auf dem Monde die alten traumhaften Vorstellungen zu bilden; heute ist er nicht geeignet, unsere hellen Erden-Wachvorstellungen zu bilden. Aber er ist doch in uns, dieser Mondenmensch, und er tut nicht etwa nichts! Was tut er, dieser Mondenmensch? - Nun, er tut dasselbe, was er während der Mondenzeit getan hat: er träumt. Und da wir, wenn wir wach sind, in der Regel die im Unterbewußtsein wirkenden Träume nicht wahrnehmen, so bemerken wir das zunächst nicht. Sie gehen - ebenso wie Sie mit Ihrem wachen Bewußtsein durch die Welt gehen - mit dem Inhalte dieser Träume durch die Welt. Wenn Sie auch nichts wissen von diesem Träumer, so wissen doch andere Wesen davon. Diese anderen Wesen sind die Wesen der Hierarchie der Angeloi; und was dieser Träumer träumt, das wird Vorstellung in den Seelen der Angeloi, die erheben das zu ihrer Vorstellung.
Während des Mondes hat also dieser Träumer das Bewußtsein entwickelt, das man überhaupt während der Mondenzeit haben konnte. Als der Erdenmensch entstanden ist, ist dieser Träumer in ihn hineingekrochen; aber das, was er erlebt, das entwickeln nun die Angeloi zu klaren, bewußten Vorstellungen, und bei ihnen sind es Imaginationen. Sie wandeln unsere Träume um zu Imaginationen. Der Träumer in uns also, der wird Vorstellung für die Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi, und die machen Imaginationen daraus. So daß wir also sagen können: Was der Mondenmensch träumt, imaginiert der Angelos.

Jetzt werden Sie leicht zu dem anderen aufsteigen können, was sich schematisch Ihnen ergeben kann, aber es ist dieses Schema wahr. Der Sonnenmensch hat noch dumpfere Vorstellungen in uns, solche Vorstellungen, wie sie die Pflanzen haben. Wir tragen also nicht nur den Träumer in uns, sondern wir tragen eine Art Pflanzenmenschen in uns, der eigentlich immer schläft, wie die Pflanzen schlafen. Seine dumpfen Vorstellungen, die werden in den Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Archangeloi Inspirationen. So daß man sagen kann: Was der Sonnenmensch schlafend erlebt, inspiriert der Archangelos.

In einem noch dumpferen Schlafe ist in uns der Saturnmensch; so dumpf schläft er, wie die Mineralien schlafen. Dieser Saturnmensch, der gibt wiederum mit seinen tiefschlafenden Vorstellungen den Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Archai das Material, die Möglichkeit, zu intuitieren. So daß wir sagen können: Was der Saturnmensch tiefschlafend ist, intuitiert der Geist der Persönlichkeit, die Urkraft.

Nun bekommen Sie aber eine richtige Vorstellung nur, wenn Sie sich klar sind darüber, daß Imaginationen, Inspirationen, Intuitionen nicht solche abstrakten Gebilde sind, wie unsere Gedanken und unsere Vorstellungen, unsere Empfindungen; sondern Imaginationen haben schon etwas Reales, Inspirationen etwas noch Realeres. Denn Inspirationen, die bleiben nicht sitzen innerhalb eines Wesens, sondern sie tönen hinaus in die Welt und werden zur Sphärenmusik und schaffen etwas in der Welt. Intuitionen gehen wesenhaft hinein, erfüllen die Welt. Was der Saturnmensch in seinem Tiefschlaf ist, das senden die Geister der Persönlichkeit hinaus in die Welt als Intuitionen.
So ist es heute. Aber nun wird die Erde in der Zukunft noch eine Entwickelung durchmachen. Und da werden die Intuitionen der Geister der Persönlichkeit immer dichter und dichter werden. Jetzt sind sie noch außerordentlich dünne Gebilde; aber indem man aus der fünften in die sechste und siebente Erdenzeit hineingeht, werden diese Intuitionen immer dichter und dichter. Die Erde wird vergehen, diese Intuitionen werden erhalten in den Seelen der Geister der Persönlichkeit. Wenn aber der Jupiter geworden ist, werden diese Geister der Persönlichkeit aufsteigen zum Range der Geister der Form; dann werden diese Impulse, die sie während der Erdenzeit zu bilden gelernt haben, Formen sein, und weil das Saturnformen sind, werden sie mineralische Formen sein. So daß wir sagen können: Am Ende der Erdenzeit werden diese Intuitionen dichte kosmische Impulse und später auf dem Jupiter Formen. (Siehe Zeichnung Seite 99).
Wenn sie aber nun Formen werden auf dem Jupiter, dann sind sie überhaupt die mineralische Grundlage des Jupiter. Während der zweiten Entwickelungszeit der Erde arbeiten sich fortwährend hinein in unseren Saturnmenschen die Geister der Persönlichkeit; sie erringen sich die Impulse, die sie dann ausstrahlen in die Welt; die strahlen dann Formen hinaus, aber diese Formen sind der Jupiter. Der Jupiter wird nichts anderes sein als diese Formen. Wir tragen also einen Saturnmenschen in uns; aber dadurch, daß dieser Saturnmensch eingeschaltet ist in die Tätigkeit der Geister der Persönlichkeit, ist er der Keim für den Jupiter. Der Jupiter wird alles, was er als seine mineralische Grundlage haben wird, zu erwerben haben aus demjenigen, was wir in uns tragen als Saturnmensch.
Und jetzt sehen Sie hinein in die Aufgabe der Geister der Persönlichkeit während der Erdenentwickelung. Aber Sie sehen auch, daß, wenn diese Sache so ist, wir durch all dasjenige, was wir auf diese Weise entwickeln, nur einen mineralischen Jupiter entwickeln könnten. Und dieser mineralische Jupiter wird sich unter allen Umständen entwickeln. Dafür ist gesorgt, und es steht in ganz sicherer Aussicht in der kosmischen Entfaltung, daß sich dieser mineralische Jupiter entwickelt. Aber nun bedenken Sie, daß dieser Jupiter noch nicht etwas den Pflanzen, Tieren und Menschen Entsprechendes haben würde. Wir selber als Menschen könnten nicht auf diesem Jupiter sein; denn das Verborgene in uns, der Saturnmensch, wird zu diesem Jupiter umgestaltet dadurch, daß dieser Saturnmensch in seinem Tiefschlaf träumt von dem, was der Erdenmensch in seinem Bewußtsein vorstellt.
Sehen Sie, der Sonnenmensch, der kann es unter solchen Umständen zu nichts Wirklichem bringen in uns. Der Archangelos, der würde nur zu Inspirationen kommen, und wenn alles so fortginge, wie es bis jetzt beschrieben ist, so würde der mineralische Jupiter entstehen und über diesem mineralischen Jupiter würden hinüberwellen Inspirationen, zwar dichte Inspirationen, aber sie würden nur so hinüberwellen. Damit etwas entstehen kann, was unserem Pflanzenwachstum entspricht, muß noch etwas hinzukommen, wir müssen außerhalb des Erdenmenschen noch etwas entwickeln. Und dieses ist nichts anderes als das, was der Erdenmensch mit seinem physischen Leib nimmermehr erfahren kann: es ist das, was wir aus der Geisteswissenschaft aufnehmen. Ich will daher diesen Menschen nennen den geisteswissenschaftlichen Menschen - so sonderbar dieser Name klingt -, den geisteswissenschaftlichen Menschen, der sich hinaufrafft zu dem, was über die Erde selber hinausgeht.

Mit dem, was wir in der Geisteswissenschaft in uns aufnehmen, kann nun der Sonnenmensch in uns wirklich richtig etwas anfangen. Er kann seine im Schlafe befindlichen dumpfen, pflanzenartigen Vorstellungen zu Inspirationen umwandeln, und die werden immer dichter und dichter in dem Rest der Erdenzeit, und die werden bewirken, daß nicht nur unbestimmte Sphärenharmonie über den Jupiter hinüberweht, sondern daß diese Sphärenharmonie zu bestimmtem Pflanzenwachstum wird, wie es ja auch mit den Pflanzen auf der Erde geschehen ist: sie sind von der Sphärenharmonie geschaffen und dann von dem Lichte herausgeholt worden.
So daß wir sagen können: Würde jene Entwickelung, die die Erde von selbst hergegeben hat, die nicht zum geisteswissenschaftlichen Menschen führt, würde die allein in Zukunft die Erde erfüllen, so würde allein ein mineralischer Jupiter im Weltall hier ausgeführt werden. Daraufhin arbeiten alle materialistischen Weltanschauungen. Es ist den Materialisten eigentlich in tiefster Seele verhaßt, daß der Jupiter auch pflanzlich sein werde. Sie wollen eigentlich in tiefster Seele nichts anderes, als daß der Jupiter nur mineralisch sei. Und wenn man heute alle materialistische Wissenschaft durchsucht, die Laboratorien, Kabinette und so weiter, so sieht man, wie das alles darauf hinarbeitet, daß nur ein mineralischer Jupiter entsteht. Und ohne Geisteswissenschaft würde dieser eine tote Schlacke sein, wirklich nicht einmal Pflanzenwachstum enthalten.
Dasjenige, was auf dem Jupiter die jetzigen Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Archangeloi bewirken können, was dem Pflanzenwachstum entspricht, das bereiten wir vor, indem wir uns zu der Geisteswissenschaft aufschwingen. So daß wir sagen können: Was der Sonnenmensch schlafend erlebt, wird am Ende der Erdenzeit reif, kosmische Impulse für die Jupiterpflanzenwelt durch die Archangeloi abzugeben.
Und so wollen wir uns denn nun der kosmischen Aufgabe der Geisteswissenschaft bewußt werden: wollen wissen lernen, daß wir mit dem, was wir in unserer geisteswissenschaftlichen Arbeit treiben, wirklich den Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Archangeloi die Möglichkeit geben, zum Jupiter eine Pflanzendecke hinüberzutragen. Was der Sonnenmensch in uns erlebt durch die geisteswissenschaftlichen Vorstellungen, das können die Archangelo: benützen, um Pflanzenwachstum auf dem Jupiter zu entwickeln.
Dann wird eine Zeit kommen in der Erdenentwickelung, wo diejenigen, die Geisteswissenschafter geworden sind, sagen werden: Geisteswissenschaft ist schon alles, Geisteswissenschaft ist das letzte Heil, und alle diejenigen, die in ihrer Seele etwas anderes unternehmen als Geisteswissenschaft, sind Phantasten und Träumer! - Die Geisteswissenschafter werden über diese anderen reden, wie die Materialisten über uns reden. Aber geradeso wie die Geisteswissenschafter von heute stehen zu den Materialisten, so wird es in der Zukunft ein kleines Häuflein von Menschen geben, die über die Geisteswissenschaft hinausgehen werden zu etwas, was sich in dieser Zukunft zu Geisteswissenschaft als etwas so Neues verhält, wie die Geisteswissenschaft jetzt zu der bloß äußeren Wissenschaft. Das wird noch viel mehr Ansprüche stellen an die Aktivität des Menschen als die Geisteswissenschaft, die schon so unbequem gefunden wird. Es wird etwas sein, was der Träumer im Menschen, der Mondenmensch, in einer ungeheuer viel intensiveren Weise träumen wird, als heute natürlich der Sonnenmensch die geisteswissenschaftlichen Vorstellungen schlafend erleben kann. Aber das, was da der Träumer in uns erleben kann in einer zukünftigen Zeit, das wird erfaßt und erarbeitet werden von den Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi, und die werden es in derselben Weise zum Jupiter hinübertragen, und auf Grundlage des mineralischen und pflanzlichen Reiches im Jupiter etwas begründen, was dem Tierreiche entspricht. So daß wir sagen können: Die Traumvorstellungen des Mondmenschen, oder des Träumers im Menschen, werden für den Jupiter zu verdichteten Imaginationen, Grundlage eines Tierreiches, durch die Angeloi.
Dann wird zuletzt noch etwas kommen während der Erdenentwikkelung. Wir sehen in eine Zukunft hinein, in der wir etwas so Wunderbares ahnen können. Das, was dann kommt, das wird erst den Keim abgeben können, daß der Erdenmensch selber auf dem Jupiter sein Reich wird aufrichten können, etwas Neues wird aufrichten können.
Also dasjenige, was heute mit Hilfe des Erdenmenschen entwickelt werden kann, das wird weiter fortschreiten, und dann wird nach der Zeit, welche immer Neues und Neues entwickelt haben wird, etwas kommen, was dieser Erdenmensch nun wissen kann als die höchste Blüte der geistigen Erdenentfaltung. Und aus diesem Wissen als höchste Blüte der geistigen Erdenentfaltung wird dasjenige entstehen, wodurch der Erdenmensch auf dem Jupiter dann weiter kann durch sich selbst. So daß man sagen kann: Die Vorstellungen des Erdenmenschen werden durch den Seeleninhalt der höchstentwickelten Menschen vom Ende der Erdenzeit zu Impulsen für die Menschheitsentwickelung auf dem Jupiter.
Unsere Geister der Persönlichkeit werden dann aufgestiegen sein zu Geistern der Form; unsere Archangeloi werden aufgestiegen sein zu Geistern der Persönlichkeit; unsere Angeloi werden aufgestiegen sein zu Archangeloi; der Mensch wird aufgestiegen sein zum Range der Angeloi. Dann wird er, aus den höchsten Vorstellungen des Erdenmenschen, in der Hierarchie der Jupiter-Angeloi - die er selber darstellen wird - die Jupiter-Geistesentwickelung fortsetzen können. Er wird dann an dem, was da am Ende der Erdenzeit entwickelt wird, etwas Ähnliches haben, wie man es gegen das Ende der atlantischen Zeit hatte, um eine eigentliche Erdenentwickelung zu inaugurieren.
So sehen wir, daß wir tief hineinblicken können in die Richtung, die unser Weg einschlägt im Kosmos. Und wenn man sich sagen kann: Nun haben sich die Menschen, indem sie sich bis in unsere Zeit entwickelt haben, zu dem entfaltet, was der Erdenmensch hergeben kann, und wir beginnen nun mit demjenigen, was der Erdenmensch nicht mehr hergeben kann, was man außerhalb des Erdenmenschen erfahren muß -, wenn man das sich sagt, so weiß man, warum man Geisteswissenschaft treibt. Man weiß, daß dieses Betreiben von Geisteswissenschaft wirklich einen kosmischen Sinn hat; und man empfindet, wie brutal-abstrakt die Fragen sind, die die philosophischen Gemüter stellen: Was ist das letzte Ziel des Menschen? Man hat genug zu tun, wenn man nach dem nächsten Ziele strebt.
Und man möchte fragen: Kann denn nicht wirklich eine solche Geisteswissenschaft, die sich bewußt wird dieser ihrer Aufgabe im ganzen Kosmos, kann die denn nicht wirklich unser Herz bewegen, unser Gemüt und Gefühl auch in Anspruch nehmen? Fühlen wir doch, was wir in uns tragen als Keim für die Zukunft im Kosmos! Und wir können das, was wir in uns tragen an bloßem Wissen, verwandeln in Gefühls- und Gemütsinhalt.
Und seien wir uns nur dessen klar: Alles, was physische Welt der Erde ist, das wird zugrunde gehen, das wird in eine nicht nur Schlaf-, sondern Zerstörungsperiode übergehen; und etwas Neues muß entstehen. Woraus muß dieses Neue entstehen?
Ja, aus den Steinen der Erde, aus den Pflanzen der Erde, aus den Tieren der Erde, aus den physischen Leibern der Erde entsteht nichts Neues. Die sind da, um sich abzuschälen. Aber aus dem Saturnmenschen, den Sie in sich tragen, entsteht der mineralische Jupiter. So wahr es ist, daß von dem Huhn, das vor Ihnen läuft, nichts in dem anderen Huhn, das als Tochterhuhn da sein wird, lebt, als nur der kleine Keim im Ei, so wahr lebt auf der ganzen Erde für den künftigen Jupiter nichts als allein die Saturnkeime, die im Menschenleibe leben. Das ist alles, was durch das Pralaya hindurch zum Jupiter geht. Alles andere fällt ab von der physischen Erde. Ich rede jetzt nicht von Seelen, sondern von der physischen Erde.
Und wenn irgend jemand die Vorstellung haben sollte, daß die physische Erde sich auch umwandle, so ist das eine nebulose Vorstellung, denn das Konkrete ist, daß alles in die Welt hinein zerstäubt, mit Ausnahme von all diesen Saturnkeimen, die aufgenommen werden von den Archai, und aus denen die Atome, die mineralischen Atome des Jupiter werden. Ich habe ein Ähnliches einmal vor vielen Jahren in Berlin in einem kleinen Kreise angedeutet, indem ich dazumal versuchte auseinanderzusetzen, was für eine kindliche Vorstellung es ist, wenn man sich die Atome der Erde so vorstellt, wie die Physiker sie sich vorstellen. Diese Atome müssen wir uns vielmehr vorstellen als das Innerste des Mondenmenschen - das heißt des Menschen auf dem damaligen Monde -, aber verwendet von denjenigen Wesenheiten, die auf dem Monde dem Menschen voraus waren und die dieses innerste Wesen des Menschen zu Erdenatomen umgebildet haben. Heute ist es nicht mehr in dem Saturnmenschen, sondern in der Erde drinnen.
So ein Atom, das ist also in seiner Wirklichkeit etwas, wogegen das Atom des Physikers eine ganz kindische Vorstellung ist. Denn es ist tatsächlich dieses Atom auf eine ganz komplizierte Weise entstanden. Denken Sie sich, daß das Atom entstehen muß aus dem, was der Mensch auf dem Saturn entwickelt hat und sich bewahrt hat während Sonnen-, Monden- und Erdenzeit, und was dann durch die Geister der Persönlichkeit, die auf dem Jupiter Geister der Form sein werden, zu Atomen für den Jupiter umgewandelt werden muß. So kompliziert ist die Welt.
Ich habe auf die Vorstellungsweise, die diesen Dingen zugrunde liegt, öfter hingewiesen. Ich habe gesagt: Nehmen wir an, wir haben drei Uhr nachmittags. Da stehen um drei Uhr nachmittags zwei Menschen nebeneinander. Wir kommen dazu und sagen: Der Mensch A steht da mit dem Menschen B. Wir gehen jetzt weg und erzählen das einem Dritten. Aber nehmen wir an, der Mensch A sei von neun Uhr vormittags bis drei Uhr nachmittags hier stehengeblieben, der Mensch B aber sei bis um zwölf Uhr hierher gegangen und dann zurück, und sei um drei Uhr hier angekommen. Dann haben wir denselben Tatbestand gefunden: zwei Menschen stehen nebeneinander. Aber der Mensch, der da sechs Stunden gestanden oder gesessen hat, der wird anders dastehen als der Mensch, der da sechs Stunden hin- und hergegangen ist. Innerlich sind die Menschen grundverschieden, und darauf kommt es an; die Menschen sind nicht gleichwertig, sondern verschiedenwertig.

Das soll Ihnen zeigen, daß es nicht auf die Beobachtung eines Tatbestandes ankommt, sondern darauf, wie der Tatbestand zustandegekommen ist. Derjenige zum Beispiel, der mikroskopisch untersucht die Lebewesen, der untersucht wirklich nicht das Innerste, sondern nur den äußern Tatbestand. Und das ist im Grunde genommen der Inhalt aller biologischen Wissenschaft: äußerer Tatbestand, wie derjenige ist, daß man um drei Uhr zwei Menschen nebeneinander konstatiert. Selbstverständlich werden die Menschen sagen: Ich konstatiere nicht nur den Tatbestand, sondern ich verfolge die Entwickelung -, aber sie verfolgen nur die Entwickelung im Physischen, das heißt, sie sehen immer auf einen Tatbestand hin.
Dadurch ist der Irrtum entstanden, der die Erscheinungen zusammenwirft, die für die verschiedenen Reiche der Natur ganz verschiedene Bedeutung haben, zum Beispiel den Tod bei Tieren und Menschen, geschweige denn bei Pflanzen. Der Tod ist durchaus nicht dieselbe Tatsache im Tier- und im Menschenreich, weil der Tod des Menschen eintritt bei einem Wesen, das hinter sich hat die Erdenentwickelung, die Monden-, Sonnen- und Saturnentwickelung; das Tier hat hinter sich die Erdenentwickelung zum Teil, Monden- und Sonnenentwickelung. Dadurch ist der Tod bei Tieren eine ganz andere Erscheinung als beim Menschen. Wenn man so abstrakt urteilt, daß man den Tod beim Tier und beim Menschen durcheinanderwirft, so kann man auch das Verdunsten eines Quecksilbertropfens als Tod bezeichnen. Und ich habe schon gesagt, daß man in unserer Zeit wirklich so urteilt. Gewisse Biologen, die sich besonders fortgeschritten dünken, sagen: da manche Pflanze die Eigenschaft hat, Insekten aufzufressen, so haben diese Pflanzen etwas der tierischen oder menschlichen Seele Ähnliches an sich. - Nach einer äußeren Analogie sagen sie das. Die Logik darin ist nicht mehr, als wenn man sagt, daß eine Mausefalle auch eine Seele habe.
Das ist das ungeheuer Äußerliche, das allmählich in unserer Geistesentwickelung aufgetreten ist, dieses ungeheuer Äußerliche, das den Eindruck macht, ich möchte sagen, von einer gräßlich-schönen Logik, das aber nur herrührt von einem unwesenhaften, toten, ahrimanischen Denken. Zu diesem Denken werden die Menschen immer mehr und mehr kommen, wenn sie nicht befruchtet werden durch die Geisteswissenschaft.
Alle diese Betrachtungen zielen ja zuletzt darauf hinaus, uns wirklich von der Wichtigkeit des Hereintragens der Geisteswissenschaft in die menschliche Erdenentwickelung zu durchdringen. Wir müssen schon hinschauen auf das scheinbar Logische, aber in Wirklichkeit Unlebendige, Tote, zu dem es die ahrimanische Kultur der Gegenwart gebracht hat; diese ahrimanische Kultur der Gegenwart, die ja nichts anderes tun kann als den Schlüssel reichen, wie Mephistopheles. Aber wir müssen die Faustische Stimmung entwickeln gegenüber dem, was die ahrimanischen Geister das Nichts nennen, wir müssen die Stimmung entwickeln: «In deinem Nichts hoff’ ich das All zu finden.»
Doch wir müssen uns ganz und gar von dieser Sache durchdringen. Wir dürfen nicht glauben, daß wir irgend etwas von den Denkgewohnheiten der alten Kultur in das Neue hinübernehmen können. Bewußt tun wir das ja nicht, aber unbewußt kann uns Ahriman immer wieder zum Versucher werden. Das ist das Wichtige, daß wir das Tiefeingreifende der Geisteswissenschaft in uns aufnehmen, wenn es auch unbequem ist. Die geisteswissenschaftliche Kultur erfordert wirklich Ernst, tiefen Ernst in der Hingabe. Daher müssen schon alle, alle Kräfte der menschlichen Seelenentwickelung hineingestellt werden in die Impulse, die aus der Geisteswissenschaft kommen können. Und es ist nichts als eine ganz sachliche, ich möchte sagen, sachlich-ermahnende Bemerkung, die ich jetzt machen will.
Ich habe in einem der letzten Vorträge etwas erwähnt von der Idee, welche zur Ausführung gelangen muß, wenn wir mit unserem Bau fertig werden sollten, von der im Osten aufgestellt werdenden Gruppe mit dem Menschheits-Repräsentanten - Sie können ihn den Christus nennen, wenn Sie wollen - in der Mitte; mit dem Luzifer oben, stürzend mit den zerbrochenen Flügeln; Ahriman unten in einer Höhle in sich kauernd, sich überwunden fühlend. So ist das eine Idee. Was aus dieser Sache werden soll, wird man wirklich erst sehen können, wenn man die fertig aufgestellte Gruppe haben wird. Denn zu dem, was da gemeint wird, gehört nicht nur dies, was da in diesen paar Worten gesagt ist, sondern gehört jeder Zug in dem Antlitz des Christus, Luzifer und Ahriman. Wenn nun jemand versuchen würde, mit dieser Idee eine Komposition auszuführen, so würde er es mit den alten Mitteln tun, und das wäre ganz falsch, das wäre eine symbolische Darstellung einer Idee, es wäre dann aus der materialistischen Kunst genommen. Oder aber es müßte aus der hellseherischen Anschauung heraus genommen werden, wie die Gruppe drüben. Jede einzelne Form muß künstlerisch, ich möchte sagen, aus den Urelementen heraus geschaffen werden. Das kann man wirklich nur, wenn man sich ganz ernst in die Impulse der Geisteswissenschaft vertiefen kann. Aber man muß sich Zeit lassen, man kann nicht mit den alten Kunstmitteln weiterarbeiten.
Es ist schwierig in alle Kulturimpulse Geisteswissenschaft hineinzutragen; aber aus alledem was gesagt worden ist, ergibt sich schon die Notwendigkeit dazu. Natürlich kann die Sache nicht von heute auf morgen geschehen, sondern kann nur ganz allmählich geschehen. Ein Anfang muß gemacht werden. Würde man sich nicht bewußt sein, daß mit unserem Bau nur ein Anfang gemeint ist, so würde man ihn ganz falsch ansehen. Es wird lange, lange Zeiten brauchen, um dasjenige zu erreichen, was mit ihm intendiert wurde.
Es handelt sich wirklich darum, die ganze Verfassung und Stimmung unserer Seele zu einer anderen zu machen, als sie bisher durch das, was der Erdenmensch hergegeben hat, werden konnte. Natürlich ist es ebenso unrichtig, wenn etwa jemand nun sagen würde: Dann ist also alles falsch, was der Erdenmensch hergegeben hat; darum weg damit. - Das wäre ganz falsch, denn der Erdenmensch trägt den Monden-, Sonnen- und Saturnmenschen in sich, und der neue geisteswissenschaftliche Mensch muß auch wiederum den Erdenmenschen in sich tragen. Wir müssen sie in uns tragen, diese bisherige Erdenkultur. Es ist daher nicht unnötig, uns bekannt zu machen mit allem, was wir aus der bisherigen Erdenkultur wissen können und kennen können.
Aber ein wenig müssen wir uns schon in aller Demut - nicht in Stolz und Überhebung, sondern in aller Demut - von einer Art geisteswissenschaftlichem Bewußtsein durchdringen lassen. Es würde gar nicht gut sein, wenn die Leute, die zur geisteswissenschaftlichen Bewegung gehören, immer wieder und wiederum bemerken würden: Was wir machen, das ist esoterisch; was ds machst, ist exoterisch! Wir machen etwas ganz Neues!
Das würde nicht gut sein, denn das ist nur vom Hochmut aufgestachelt, wie so vieles leicht vom Hochmut aufgestachelt sein mag, was innerhalb der geisteswissenschaftlichen Bewegung auftreten kann. Je weniger man so etwas hören würde, um so besser wäre es. Aber je mehr man auf der anderen Seite versuchen würde, daß die ganze Seelenstimmung von der Geisteswissenschaft ergriffen wird, desto besser wäre es.
Man glaubt gar nicht, wie einseitig alle Worte, alles, alles jetzt gebraucht wird, wie man reden kann, ohne daß man sich bemüht den andern zu verstehen, sich in den andern hineinzudenken. All das muß verschwinden, wenn wirklich die Impulse der Geisteswissenschaft in den Seelen der Menschen Platz greifen sollen. Und vieles ist heute auf einem Höhepunkt angelangt, was gerade ausgemerzt werden soll durch die Geisteswissenschaft. Man sieht in unserer traurigen Zeit die Menschen sich befehden mit Worten; man sieht, wie die eine Gruppe über die andere Urteile fällt. Der Geisteswissenschafter muß darauf kommen, daß solche Urteile wirklich nicht mehr wert sind, als wenn irgend jemand mit einem andern darüber streitet, was das ist. (Es wird ein Haus gezeichnet.) Der eine sagt: Das ist ein Haus. - Der andere sagt: Nee, das ist la maison!
Das ist kraß ausgedrückt, aber von diesem Werte sind durchaus die Diskussionen, die heute mit so vieler Leidenschaft geführt werden. Es sieht nur kurios aus, wenn man das, was kompliziert ist, in der einfachen, krassen Form darstellt. Aber es ist gut, über den Zusammenhang großer Weltendiskussionen heute mit diesem Einfachen einmal meditierend sich zu ergehen. Man wird dann schon sehen, was hinter diesem Vergleich eigentlich in Wirklichkeit steckt.
Und wenn wir auf manches, was in der letzten Zeit schon immer an geistigen Wahrheiten vor unsere Seele getreten ist, zurückblicken, dann werden wir uns immer wieder und wiederum festigen können in der Empfindung, die wir gegenüber den geisteswissenschaftlichen Impulsen uns erwerben können. Wenn wir daran denken, daß dasjenige, was der Erdenmensch hergibt an Geisteskultur, das innere Grundgerüst des Jupiter ergeben wird; das, was wir in der Geisteswissenschaft treiben, den künftigen Pflanzenkeim des Jupiter bilden wird; dasjenige, was in der Zukunft kommen wird, das künftige Tierreich des Jupiter bilden wird, und wenn wir dann wirklich ernst nehmen, daß in unserem Saturnmenschen der Keim liegt zu der physischen Jupiterschale, daß in unserem Sonnenmenschen dasjenige liegt, was wir zur Pflanzendecke des Jupiter umwandeln müssen, und in unserem Mondenmenschen das, was zur Tierwelt des Jupiter umgewandelt wird, und daß alles, was zur Erde gehört - auch die Sterne gehören dazu, die gehen auch in das Pralaya hinein -, daß alles das vergehen wird, wenn wir dieses bedenken, dann werden wir Schüler Dessen, der gesagt hat:
«Himmel und Erde werden vergehen, aber meine Worte werden nicht vergehen!»
Denn Himmel und Erde sind dasjenige, was durch den geisteswissenschaftlichen Menschen, durch den magischen Menschen erneuert wird. Alles wird vergehen, aber «meine Worte» werden dasjenige abgeben, was zur kosmischen Weltenbildung wird.
Geisteswissenschaft muß auch dazu führen, daß man solche Worte verstehen lernt, wie es diese Worte des Christus sind:
«Himmel und Erde werden vergehen, aber meine Worte werden nicht vergehen.»
Fifth Lecture
Fundamentally, this question runs through all spiritual science and other worldview problems: What path must human beings take in their development in the universe?
Those who have not yet trained their thinking through spiritual science, but who are deeply inspired by a sense of worldview, sometimes ask about the ultimate goals of human development; they would like to know what will become of human beings when they reach the end of their development. We have often said that such a question can only arise from untrained thinking, and that it is important for thinking trained by spiritual science to know the right path at any point in evolution; for when one knows the path that human evolution has taken, one is already a step further forward. Now let us look again at the question we have raised from a certain point of view, the question of the direction of the path that human development takes.
You know that human development only reached the Earth stage after passing through preliminary stages, and that this Earth stage was preceded by the Moon stage. Now it must be said that in a certain sense, the earlier stage is preserved and continues to have an effect in a later stage. We can say that we are earth humans, but that in a certain sense we carry the moon humans within us. We have perfected ourselves from the moon, but the moon human is still within us, he is inside us, he is, so to speak, involved in us. So we can say that if we schematically designate this as the Earth human being, then the Moon human being is inside this Earth human being. We can therefore say that we carry the Earth human being within us, but the Earth human being encloses the Moon human being.

Now you will easily ascend to the next step: that the lunar human being in turn encloses the solar human being, and the solar human being encloses the Saturn human being, so that we still carry the solar human being and the Saturn human being within us. However, you must not imagine that this schematic drawing has anything to do with reality. It is quite obvious that in reality the lunar human being does not sit enclosed within the earthly human being like a shell, but when we imagine reality in relation to the earthly and lunar human beings, it is, for example, like this: That which belongs to the earth in a specific sense, we must imagine as sitting mainly in the trunk, the lower and upper limbs, extending into the neck region. And if we want to imagine the moon man, we must imagine this moon man as the head above it; while we must imagine the sun man as certain organs in the head that are already in a state of destruction, and the Saturn man as organs in the head that are already barely perceptible.
If we now consider the development of our Earth, we can say: The first Earth period, the second, third, and fourth periods—that is, the Atlantean period—have passed. We are now living in the fifth, the post-Atlantean Earth period.
The first three Earth periods were, in a certain sense, pure repetitions of the Saturn, Sun, and Moon periods. Then there is a middle period, a time of balance, which in its first half is also a repetition, and in its second half is a preparation for what is to come. And only now, in the post-Atlantic era, are we living in something completely new compared to the Saturn, Sun, and Moon eras. Therefore, it is only since the middle of the Atlantic epoch, although prepared since the Lemurian epoch, that what we call the earthly human being has been fully developed in the human being. Before that, we were still dealing with repetitive developments of the Saturn, Sun, and Moon human beings.
It is only in the post-Atlantean era that human beings begin their development with the Earth human being; only then does the real active development of the Earth human being begin, so to speak. And that is why the first three cultural periods of post-Atlantean development, the Indian, Persian, and Egyptian-Chaldean, still have something of repetition in them, even though they represent far-reaching new formations in human beings. It was only the Greek-Latin, the fourth post-Atlantean cultural period, that was decisive for human beings, and in our fifth post-Atlantean cultural period we are, of course, in a particularly important and significant time.
You know, of course, that in this fifth post-Atlantean period, human beings have gradually begun to replace the old, clairvoyance inherited from the Moon with the truly external, objective observation of things, which then gradually became the scientific observation of things, leading to a materialistic worldview, and that we want to place the spiritual scientific worldview within this materialistic worldview. Take everything we are capable of thinking and knowing about the world, consider everything that human beings can perceive, conceive, and imagine today. We have often discussed how this actually works: we have all this because our spiritual and soul life is reflected in the physical and bodily life. In waking life on earth today, human beings represent this by means of their spiritual and soul life causing certain processes in their physical bodies, and these processes become a mirroring apparatus: and this mirroring apparatus then forms the content of our consciousness. So, in that we have a certain content of our earthly consciousness from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep—meaning ideas, feelings, impulses of the will, everything—the physical earthly human being is, at first, the apparatus for all of this, for the content that the human being has accumulated during earthly life.
So during our waking earthly life we experience things with our physical earthly human being; but we also carry the lunar human being within us. The lunar human being within us is not suited to serve us directly as a tool for our perception. The lunar human being was suited to form the old dreamlike ideas on the moon; today it is not suited to form our clear earthly waking ideas. But this lunar human being is still within us, and he is not doing nothing! What is this lunar human being doing? Well, he is doing the same thing he did during the lunar period: he is dreaming. And since we are not usually aware of the dreams working in our subconscious when we are awake, we do not notice this at first. You go through the world with the contents of these dreams, just as you go through the world with your waking consciousness. Even if you know nothing about this dreamer, other beings know about him. These other beings are the beings of the hierarchy of the Angeloi; and what this dreamer dreams becomes an idea in the souls of the Angeloi, who raise it to their consciousness.
During the moon, this dreamer developed the consciousness that was possible during the lunar period. When the earth human being came into being, this dreamer crept into him; but what he experiences is now developed by the Angeloi into clear, conscious ideas, and in them these are imaginations. They transform our dreams into imaginations. The dreamer within us thus becomes an idea for the beings of the Angeloi hierarchy, and they turn these ideas into imaginings. So we can say that what the lunar human dreams, the Angelos imagines.

Now you will easily be able to ascend to the other thing that can be schematically presented to you, but this scheme is true. The sun man has even duller ideas within us, ideas such as those possessed by plants. So we do not only carry the dreamer within us, but we also carry a kind of plant man within us who is actually always asleep, just as plants sleep. His dull ideas become inspirations in the beings of the hierarchy of the Archangeloi. So we can say: What the Sun Man experiences in his sleep inspires the Archangelos.

In an even deeper sleep, the Saturn man is within us; he sleeps as deeply as minerals sleep. This Saturn man, with his deep-sleeping ideas, gives the beings from the hierarchy of the Archai the material, the possibility to intuit. So we can say: What the Saturn man is in deep sleep, the spirit of the personality, the primal force, intuits.

However, you can only gain a proper understanding of this if you are clear that imaginations, inspirations, and intuitions are not abstract constructs like our thoughts, ideas, and feelings; rather, imaginations have something real about them, and inspirations something even more real. For inspirations do not remain within a being, but resound out into the world and become the music of the spheres, creating something in the world. Intuitions enter into the essence of things and fill the world. What the Saturn man is in his deep sleep, the spirits of the personality send out into the world as intuitions.
That is how it is today. But now the earth will undergo further development in the future. And then the intuitions of the spirits of personality will become denser and denser. Now they are still extremely thin structures; but as we move from the fifth into the sixth and seventh earth ages, these intuitions will become denser and denser. The earth will pass away, but these intuitions will be preserved in the souls of the spirits of personality. When Jupiter has become, however, these spirits of personality will ascend to the rank of spirits of form; then these impulses, which they have learned to form during the earth age, will be forms, and because they are Saturn forms, they will be mineral forms. So we can say that at the end of the Earth's time, these intuitions will become dense cosmic impulses and later, on Jupiter, forms. (See illustration).
But when they become forms on Jupiter, they are then the mineral basis of Jupiter. During the second stage of Earth's development, the spirits of personality continually work their way into our Saturn human beings; they acquire the impulses which they then radiate into the world; these impulses then radiate outwards as forms, but these forms are Jupiter. Jupiter will be nothing other than these forms. We therefore carry a Saturn human being within us; but because this Saturn human being is involved in the activity of the spirits of personality, he is the seed for Jupiter. Jupiter will have to acquire everything that will be its mineral basis from what we carry within us as Saturn human beings.
And now you see the task of the spirits of personality during the development of the earth. But you also see that if this is the case, we could only develop a mineral Jupiter through all that we develop in this way. And this mineral Jupiter will develop under all circumstances. This is ensured, and it is a certainty in cosmic development that this mineral Jupiter will develop. But now consider that this Jupiter would not yet have anything corresponding to plants, animals, and humans. We ourselves as humans could not be on this Jupiter, for the hidden part of us, the Saturn man, is transformed into this Jupiter by the fact that this Saturn man dreams in his deep sleep of what the Earth man imagines in his consciousness.
You see, under such circumstances, the solar human being cannot bring about anything real within us. The Archangelos would only come up with inspirations, and if everything continued as described so far, the mineral Jupiter would come into being, and inspirations would surge over this mineral Jupiter, dense inspirations, but they would only surge over it. In order for something to arise that corresponds to our plant growth, something else must be added; we must develop something outside of the earthly human being. And this is nothing other than what the earthly human being can never experience with his physical body: it is what we take in from spiritual science. I therefore want to call this human being the spiritual scientific human being — as strange as this name may sound — the spiritual scientific human being who raises himself up to what goes beyond the earth itself.
With what we take in through spiritual science, the solar human being within us can now really do something. He can transform his dull, plant-like ideas, which are dormant during sleep, into inspirations, and these become denser and denser during the rest of the Earth's time, and they will cause not only an indefinite harmony of the spheres to waft over Jupiter, but this harmony of the spheres will become definite plant growth, as has happened with the plants on Earth: they were created by the harmony of the spheres and then brought out by the light.
So we can say: If the development that the Earth has given of itself, which does not lead to spiritual science, were to fill the Earth alone in the future, then only a mineral Jupiter would be realized here in the universe. All materialistic worldviews work toward this. It is actually deeply abhorrent to materialists that Jupiter will also be vegetal. In their deepest souls, they want nothing else than for Jupiter to be purely mineral. And if one searches through all materialistic science today, the laboratories, cabinets, and so on, one sees how everything is working toward the creation of a purely mineral Jupiter. And without spiritual science, this would be a dead slag, not even capable of plant growth.
What the present beings from the hierarchy of the Archangeloi can bring about on Jupiter, which corresponds to plant growth, we prepare by rising to spiritual science. So that we can say: What the Sun Man experiences in sleep will, at the end of the Earth's time, mature into cosmic impulses for the Jupiter plant world through the Archangeloi.
And so let us now become aware of the cosmic task of spiritual science: let us learn to know that through our spiritual scientific work we are truly giving the beings from the hierarchy of the archangels the opportunity to carry a plant cover over to Jupiter. What the Sun-human being experiences in us through spiritual scientific ideas, the Archangels can use to develop plant growth on Jupiter.
Then a time will come in the evolution of the earth when those who have become spiritual scientists will say: Spiritual science is everything, spiritual science is the ultimate salvation, and all those who undertake anything other than spiritual science in their souls are fantasists and dreamers! The spiritual scientists will talk about these others as the materialists talk about us. But just as today's spiritual scientists stand in relation to the materialists, so in the future there will be a small group of people who will go beyond spiritual science to something that will be as new to spiritual science in that future as spiritual science is now to mere external science. This will place even greater demands on human activity than spiritual science, which is already considered so inconvenient. It will be something that the dreamer in human beings, the moon man, will dream in an immensely more intense way than the sun man can experience spiritual scientific ideas in his sleep today. But what the dreamer in us can experience in a future time will be grasped and worked out by beings from the hierarchy of the Angeloi, and they will transfer it in the same way to Jupiter and, on the basis of the mineral and plant kingdoms in Jupiter, establish something corresponding to the animal kingdom. So we can say: The dream images of the lunar human being, or of the dreamer within the human being, become condensed imaginations for Jupiter, the basis of an animal kingdom, through the Angeloi.
Then, finally, something else will come during the development of the Earth. We look into a future in which we can sense something so wonderful. What then comes will only be able to sow the seed that the Earth human being himself will be able to establish his kingdom on Jupiter, will be able to establish something new.
So what can be developed today with the help of the Earth human being will continue to progress, and then, after the time that will have developed ever new things, something will come that this Earth human being can now know as the highest flowering of spiritual Earth development. And from this knowledge as the highest flowering of spiritual development on Earth, there will arise that through which human beings on Earth will then be able to continue on Jupiter through themselves. So that one can say: The ideas of human beings on Earth will become impulses for the development of humanity on Jupiter through the soul content of the most highly developed human beings at the end of the Earth's time.
Our spirits of personality will then have ascended to spirits of form; our archangels will have ascended to spirits of personality; our angels will have ascended to archangels; human beings will have ascended to the rank of angels. Then, from the highest conceptions of earthly human beings, he will be able to continue the spiritual development of Jupiter in the hierarchy of the Jupiter Angeloi, which he himself will represent. He will then have something similar to what existed at the end of the Atlantean epoch in order to inaugurate the actual development of the earth.
Thus we see that we can look deeply into the direction our path is taking in the cosmos. And when we can say to ourselves: Now, by developing to the point we have reached in our time, human beings have unfolded what the earthly human being can give, and we are now beginning with what the earthly human being can no longer give, what must be experienced outside the earthly human being — when we say this to ourselves, we know why we are engaged in spiritual science. You know that this pursuit of spiritual science really has a cosmic meaning; and you feel how brutally abstract the questions are that philosophical minds ask: What is the ultimate goal of human beings? You have enough to do if you strive for the next goal.
And one would like to ask: Can such spiritual science, which is conscious of its task in the whole cosmos, really move our hearts, our minds, and our feelings? Let us feel what we carry within us as a seed for the future in the cosmos! And we can transform what we carry within us as mere knowledge into feelings and emotions.
And let us be clear about this: everything that is the physical world of the earth will perish, will pass into a period not only of sleep but of destruction; and something new must arise. From what must this new thing arise?
Yes, nothing new arises from the stones of the earth, from the plants of the earth, from the animals of the earth, from the physical bodies of the earth. They are there to be shed. But from the Saturn man you carry within you arises the mineral Jupiter. Just as it is true that nothing from the chicken running in front of you lives in the other chicken that will be its daughter, except for the tiny germ in the egg, so it is true that nothing lives on the whole earth for the future Jupiter except the Saturn germs that live in the human body. That is all that passes through Pralaya to Jupiter. Everything else falls away from the physical earth. I am not talking now about souls, but about the physical earth.
And if anyone should have the idea that the physical earth also transforms itself, that is a nebulous idea, for the concrete fact is that everything is scattered into the world, with the exception of all these Saturn germs, which are taken up by the archai and from which the atoms, the mineral atoms of Jupiter, are formed. I hinted at something similar many years ago in Berlin in a small circle, when I tried to explain what a childish idea it is to imagine the atoms of the earth as physicists imagine them. We must rather imagine these atoms as the innermost being of the lunar human being—that is, of the human being on the moon at that time—but used by those beings who preceded human beings on the moon and who transformed this innermost being of human beings into Earth atoms. Today it is no longer in the Saturn human being, but inside the Earth.
Such an atom is therefore in reality something that makes the atom of the physicist seem like a very childish idea. For this atom has actually come into being in a very complicated way. Imagine that the atom must arise from what human beings developed on Saturn and preserved during the Sun, Moon, and Earth periods, and which must then be transformed into atoms for Jupiter by the spirits of personality, who will become spirits of form on Jupiter. That is how complicated the world is.
I have often pointed out the way of thinking that underlies these things. I have said: Let us suppose it is three o'clock in the afternoon. At three o'clock in the afternoon, two people are standing next to each other. We come along and say: Person A is standing there with person B. We now go away and tell this to a third person. But let us assume that person A has been standing here from nine o'clock in the morning until three o'clock in the afternoon, but person B came here at twelve o'clock and then returned, arriving here at three o'clock. Then we have found the same facts: two people are standing next to each other. But the person who has been standing or sitting there for six hours will be standing differently than the person who has been walking back and forth for six hours. Internally, the people are fundamentally different, and that is what matters; the people are not equal, but different.

This is to show you that it is not the observation of a fact that matters, but how the fact came about. For example, someone who examines living beings under a microscope is not really examining their innermost being, but only the external fact. And that is basically the content of all biological science: external facts, such as the fact that at three o'clock two people are observed sitting next to each other. Of course, people will say: I do not merely observe the fact, but I follow its development—but they only follow the development in the physical realm, that is, they always look at a fact.
This has given rise to the error of conflating phenomena that have completely different meanings for the different realms of nature, for example, death in animals and humans, not to mention plants. Death is by no means the same fact in the animal and human kingdoms, because human death occurs in a being that has gone through the Earth's development, the Moon's development, the Sun's development, and Saturn's development; animals have gone through part of the Earth's development, the Moon's development, and the Sun's development. This makes death in animals a completely different phenomenon than in humans. If one judges so abstractly that one confuses death in animals and humans, one can also describe the evaporation of a drop of mercury as death. And I have already said that this is indeed how people judge in our time. Certain biologists who consider themselves particularly advanced say that since some plants have the property of eating insects, these plants have something similar to the animal or human soul. They say this based on an external analogy. The logic in this is no greater than saying that a mousetrap also has a soul.
This is the tremendous external factor that has gradually emerged in our spiritual development, this tremendous external factor that gives the impression, I would say, of a gruesomely beautiful logic, but which stems only from an unreal, dead, Ahrimanic way of thinking. People will increasingly come to this way of thinking if they are not fertilized by spiritual science.
All these considerations ultimately aim at truly impressing upon us the importance of introducing spiritual science into human evolution on earth. We must look at what appears to be logical but is in reality lifeless and dead, which is what the Ahrimanic culture of the present has brought about; this Ahrimanic culture of the present, which can do nothing else but hand over the key, like Mephistopheles. But we must develop a Faustian attitude toward what the Ahrimanic spirits call nothingness; we must develop the attitude: “In your nothingness I hope to find the whole.”
But we must thoroughly permeate ourselves with this idea. We must not believe that we can carry over anything from the thinking habits of the old culture into the new. We do not do this consciously, but unconsciously Ahriman can always tempt us. It is important that we take in the profound implications of spiritual science, even if it is uncomfortable. Spiritual science culture really requires seriousness, deep seriousness in devotion. Therefore, all the forces of human soul development must be put into the impulses that can come from spiritual science. And it is nothing more than a completely factual, I would say factual and admonishing remark that I would like to make now.
In one of my last lectures, I mentioned something about the idea that must be carried out when we finish our building, about the group being formed in the East with the representative of humanity — you can call him Christ if you like — in the middle; with Lucifer above, falling with broken wings; Ahriman below, crouching in a cave, feeling overcome. That is one idea. What will become of this will only really be seen when the group is finally in place. For what is meant here is not only what is said in these few words, but every feature in the faces of Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman. If someone were to try to execute a composition based on this idea, they would do so using the old methods, and that would be completely wrong; it would be a symbolic representation of an idea, taken from materialistic art. Or it would have to be taken from clairvoyant observation, like the group over there. Every single form must be created artistically, I would say, from the primordial elements. This can only really be done if one can immerse oneself seriously in the impulses of spiritual science. But one must take time; one cannot continue working with the old artistic means.
It is difficult to incorporate spiritual science into all cultural impulses, but from everything that has been said, the necessity for doing so is already apparent. Of course, this cannot happen overnight, but only gradually. A start must be made. If we were not aware that our structure is only a beginning, we would view it completely wrongly. It will take a long, long time to achieve what was intended with it.
It is really a matter of changing the entire constitution and mood of our soul into something different from what it has become through what human beings on earth have given up. Of course, it would be just as wrong for someone to say: So everything that earthly human beings have given up is wrong; let's get rid of it. That would be completely wrong, because earthly human beings carry within themselves the moon, sun, and Saturn human beings, and the new spiritual scientific human being must in turn carry the earthly human being within themselves. We must carry this previous earthly culture within us. It is therefore not unnecessary to familiarize ourselves with everything we can know and understand about the previous earthly culture.
But we must allow ourselves to be permeated, in all humility—not in pride and arrogance, but in all humility—by a kind of spiritual scientific consciousness. It would not be good at all if people who belong to the spiritual scientific movement were to repeatedly remark: What we are doing is esoteric; what you are doing is exoteric! We are doing something completely new!
That would not be good, because it is only fueled by arrogance, as so much that can arise within the spiritual science movement is easily fueled by arrogance. The less one hears such things, the better. But on the other hand, the more one tries to let the whole mood of the soul be seized by spiritual science, the better it would be.
One cannot believe how one-sided all words, everything, everything is used now, how one can speak without making any effort to understand the other, to think oneself into the other. All this must disappear if the impulses of spiritual science are really to take root in the souls of human beings. And much has reached a climax today that is precisely what spiritual science is intended to eradicate. In our sad times, we see people fighting each other with words; we see one group passing judgment on another. Spiritual scientists must realize that such judgments are really no more valuable than if someone were arguing with someone else about what something is. (A house is drawn.) One person says: That is a house. - Another says: No, that is la maison!
That is expressed in stark terms, but the discussions that are being conducted with such passion today are of this value. It just looks strange when you present something that is complicated in a simple, stark form. But it is good to meditate on the connection between the great world debates of today and this simple example. Then we will see what this comparison actually means.
And when we look back on some of the spiritual truths that have come to our souls in recent times, we will be able to strengthen ourselves again and again in the feeling we can acquire toward the spiritual scientific impulses. When we think that what human beings on Earth give in spiritual culture will form the inner framework of Jupiter; that what we do in spiritual science will form the future plant germ of Jupiter; that what will come in the future will form the future animal kingdom of Jupiter; and if we then take seriously that in our Saturn human being lies the germ for the physical shell of Jupiter, that in our Sun human being lies that we must transform into the plant cover of Jupiter, and in our lunar human being lies that which will be transformed into the animal world of Jupiter, and that everything that belongs to the earth—including the stars, which also go into pralaya—will pass away, then we will become disciples of the One who said:
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away!”
For heaven and earth are that which is renewed by the spiritual scientist, by the magical human being. Everything will pass away, but “my words” will give forth that which becomes the cosmic world-formation.
Spiritual science must also lead us to understand words such as these words of Christ:
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”