Materialism and the Task of Anthroposophy
GA 204
13 May 1921, Dornach
Lecture XIV
The lectures I have just given on the nature of color and the lecture last Thursday preceding the ones on color1Lectures of May 6, 7, and 8, 1921 in Colour, RSE 623, Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1977. may have served to show that we can approach the true nature of man only if we consider the human being in connection with the whole universe. Yet, when asking about the nature of the human being, we must at length learn to look up from the earth to what is extraterrestrial. Our age in particular stands in need of this. For, as we have seen, the human intellect has grown more and more shadowlike. Particularly since the developments of the nineteenth century it is no longer rooted in reality.
All this indicates to us that human beings absolutely have to think of receiving new impulses into their soul life. All this will become even clearer to us as we turn our minds today again to certain incisive cosmic events; having studied them already from outer points of view, we shall bring these cosmic events once more before our souls.
You will no doubt remember and probably also know from your reading of my Occult Science that one of those mighty events that intervened in the earth's evolution was the moon's withdrawal from the earth being. The moon we see shining down upon us from the cosmos was once united with the earth. It separated from the earth and has been circling it ever since as its satellite.
We know of the profound changes in human evolution that are connected with this separation of the moon from the earth. You know that we have to go far back—far beyond the Atlantean flood—to reach that time when the moon departed from earth existence.
Today, we will only consider what became manifest on earth with respect to the human being and the surrounding kingdoms of nature through the moon's separation from the earth. We have already seen that the variously colored minerals basically derive their colors from this relationship of the moon to the earth. This insight has enabled us to bring these cosmic events together with an artistic conception of existence. Very important other things are also connected with this. The human being, as we know, has brought his nature with him from the preceding metamorphoses of earth existence, from the Saturn, Sun, and Moon nature. Now, while he evolved as a Saturn, Sun, and Moon being, no mineral kingdom existed as yet in his environment. The mineral kingdom and everything of a mineral nature appeared only during earth evolution. Hence, what is now considered mineral matter permeated the human being only during the earth age. During the ancient Saturn, Sun, and Moon age, the human being contained nothing of a mineral element. Nor was he as yet a being who depended on spending his existence on earth. On the contrary, he was a being who, through his very constitution, belonged to the whole cosmos.
Prior to the moon leaving the earth, before the mineral kingdom in its multicolored nature developed within the earth, the human being was as yet not adapted at all to the earth. And, if we may so express ourselves, the question of what to do with man was indeed a very real one for the spiritual beings guiding this earth evolution. Should he be placed upon the earth or should he spend his existence outside and beyond it? We can actually call it a decision on the part of the beings who guide the evolution of mankind that the moon was separated and that the whole earth and man along with it were changed. For through the fact that the crude moon substance was separated from the earth the human being acquired the organization that enabled him to become an earth being. Hence, through this event—through the moon separation and the incorporation of the mineral kingdom into earth—the human being became an earthly being. Basically, it was this that gave man his earthly weight. On the other hand, he would never have become a being capable of inner freedom if he had not received this earthly weight. Earlier, he was not a personality in the proper sense. He became a personality due to the fact that the forces intended to form his body drew together. This densification took place because of the moon separation and the incorporation of the mineral kingdom. The human being became a personality and thus accessible to freedom.
This evolution of man on earth since the departure of the moon has gone through the most diverse stages. One can say that as long as nothing else had occurred except that the moon had left the earth, it was always possible for the human being to receive images of ancient clairvoyance due to his whole organization and nature of body and soul.
The human being was not deprived of this faculty of having clairvoyant images by the moon's separation. He beheld the world in images, something we have often described. If nothing else had taken place, human beings would be living in that world of images to this day. But as we know, evolution went still further. The human being did not remain in a condition that merely fetters him to the earth. He was in turn induced to a regressive development, as it were, and the nineteenth century was the culmination point of this development. I have characterized this repeatedly in my recent lectures. Already in ancient times it had come about that although in a sense man was earth-bound, weighted down in his metabolic system, in his head system he was enabled to cosmic existence. Human beings developed their intellect. The images of ancient clairvoyance condensed into this intellect, something that continued up until the fourth century A.D. It was only then, and particularly after the fifteenth century, that the human intellect became more and more shadowy. Though it is something entirely spiritual, this human intellect has no real existence at all; basically, it possesses only what would have to be described as a picturelike existence. When a person thinks today merely by means of his intellect, his thoughts are not rooted in reality. Human thoughts only move about in a shadowy existence and this is becoming more and more the case. This development reached an extreme in the nineteenth century and today human beings altogether lack a sense of reality. They live in a spiritual element but are materialists. With their spiritual thoughts that are, however, only shadow thoughts, they think only in terms of material existence.
Thus this second event came to pass. The human being has again become more spiritual, but the spiritual contents bestowed on him by matter in earlier times no longer ensoul him. He has become more spiritual; yet, with what is spiritual he merely thinks of things material.
Now you know that one day the moon will reunite with the earth. The point in time when this reunion of moon and earth will occur is placed by astronomers and geologists who live in abstractions, many, many thousands of years in the future; that, however, is an illusion. In reality, we are not so very far away from that point in time. As you know, humanity as such is becoming younger and younger. It is becoming more and more the case that the development of body and soul only continues up to a certain point in life. At the time of the death of the Christ when the event of Golgotha took place, mankind in general was capable of physical and soul development until age thirty-three. Today, people are able to develop only until age twenty-seven. In the fourth millennium A.D., a time will come when human beings will be capable of development only until age twenty-one. Again, in the seventh millennium, a time will come when their bodily nature will be capable of development only until the fourteenth year of life. Then, women will cease to be fertile; an entirely different form of living on earth will come about. That will be the time when the moon will again approach the earth and will be incorporated into it.
You see, my dear friends, human beings must now begin to pay attention to such extraterrestrial events. They must not go on dreaming, vaguely and abstractly, of something divine. They must begin to focus on the events connected with their evolution. They must know: The moon once separated from the earth; the moon will reunite with the earth again. And just as this moon separation had a tremendous impact, so will the moon's reentry. It is true that we will still be inhabiting the earth then as human beings, but we shall no longer be born in the ordinary way. We shall be connected with the earth in a way other than through birth. We shall have evolved in a certain manner by the time this point is reached. We must now learn to connect what is happening today—the increasing shadowiness of the intellect—with what will occur one day in earth evolution as an incisive event, namely, the moon's whirling back into earth's matter.
Our intellect is becoming more and more shadowy. If this were to go on, if men were never to make up their minds to receive what can come to them from spiritual worlds, the human being would gradually become completely absorbed in the shadowy cast of his intellect.
Try to realize what this shadowlike intellect actually contains. It cannot really understand the human being himself; it comprehends the minerals. That, after all, is the only thing the shadowy intellect can understand to a certain degree. Already the life of the plant remains a riddle for it; this is true even more so of the life of the animals, and its own life becomes completely obscure for it. Thus people go on evolving views of the world that, in reality, are but questions, because all they contain is unable to approach the nature of plant and animal, least of all that of the human being. Yet, this forming of pictures will increase more and more unless we make up our minds to receive what is being given us by way of new Imaginations in which the existence of the world is described. Into our shadowy intellectual concepts the living wisdom that spiritual science is able to give must be received. The shadow images of the intellect must in this way be called to life.
This calling to life of the shadow images of the intellect is not only a human event, it is a cosmic event. Remember what I described in my Occult Science—how once upon a time human souls migrated up to the planets and afterward returned to earth existence. I outlined in my Occult Science how the human beings of Mars, Jupiter, and so on came down again to earth. Now, a most important event took place—it can only be described from the facts that are confirmed as truths in the spiritual world—a very important event occurred at the end of the seventies of the nineteenth century. Whereas in ancient Atlantean times these human beings descended to earth from Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and the other planets—and it was therefore a matter of human soul beings entering the earth existence then—now a time is beginning when beings who are not human are coming down to earth from cosmic regions beyond. These beings are not human but depend for the further development of their existence on coming to earth and on entering here into relationships with men.
Thus, since the eighties of the nineteenth century, heavenly beings are seeking to enter this earth existence. Just as the Vulcan men were the last to come down to earth,T1This occurred during the Atlantean age. so Vulcan beings are now actually entering this earth existence. Heavenly beings are already here in our earth existence. And it is thanks to the fact that beings from beyond the earth are bringing messages down into this earthly existence that it is possible at all to have a comprehensive spiritual science today.
Taken as a whole, however, how does the human race behave? If I may say so, the human race behaves in a cosmically rude way toward the beings who are appearing from the cosmos on earth, albeit, to begin with, only slowly. Humanity takes no notice of them, ignores them. It is this that will lead the earth into increasingly tragic conditions. For in the course of the next few centuries, more and more spirit beings will move among us whose language we ought to understand. We shall understand it only if we seek to comprehend what comes from them, namely, the contents of spiritual science. This is what they wish to bestow on us. They want us to act according to spiritual science; they want this spiritual science to be translated into social action and the conduct of earthly life.
Since the last third of the nineteenth century, we are actually dealing with the influx of spirit beings from the universe. Initially, these were beings dwelling in the sphere between moon and Mercury, but they are closing in upon earth, so to say, seeking to gain a foothold in earthly life through human beings imbuing themselves with thoughts of spiritual beings in the cosmos. This is another way of describing what I outlined earlier when I said that we must call our shadowy intellect to life with the pictures of spiritual science. That is the abstract way of describing it. The description is concrete when we say: Spirit beings are seeking to come down into earth existence and must be received. Upheaval upon upheaval will ensue, and earth existence will at length arrive at social chaos if these beings descended and human existence were to consist only of opposition against them. For these beings wish to be nothing less than the advance guard of what will happen to earth existence when the moon reunites once again with earth.
Nowadays it may appear comparatively harmless to people when they think only those automatic, lifeless thoughts that arise through comprehension of the mineral world itself and the mineral element's effects in plant, animal, and man. Yes, indeed, people revel in these thoughts; as materialists, they feel good about them, for only such thoughts are conceived today. But imagine that people were to continue thinking in this way, unfolding nothing but such thoughts until the eighth millennium when moon existence will once more unite with the life of the earth. What would come about then? The beings I have spoken about will descend gradually to the earth. Vulcan beings, Vulcan supermen, Venus supermen, Mercury supermen, sun supermen, and so on will unite themselves with earth existence. Yet, if human beings persist in their opposition to them, this earth existence will pass over into chaos in the course of the next few thousand years. People will indeed be capable of developing their intellect in an automatic way; it can develop even in the midst of barbaric conditions. The fullness of human potential, however, will not be included in this intellect and people will have no relationship to the beings who wish graciously to come down to them into earthly life.
All the beings presently conceived so incorrectly in people's thoughts—incorrectly because the mere shadowy intellect can only conceive of the mineral, the crudely material element, be it in the mineral, plant, animal or even human kingdom—these thoughts of human beings that have no reality all of a sudden will become realities when the moon and the earth will unite again. From the earth, there will spring forth a horrible brood of beings. In character they will be in between the mineral and plant kingdoms. They will be beings resembling automatons, with an over-abundant intellect of great intensity. Along with this development, which will spread over the earth, the latter will be covered as if by a network or web of ghastly spiders possessing tremendous wisdom. Yet their organization will not even reach up to the level of the plants. They will be horrible spiders who will be entangled with one another. In their outward movements they will imitate everything human beings have thought up with their shadowy intellect, which did not allow itself to be stimulated by what is to come through new Imagination and through spiritual science in general.
All these unreal thoughts people are thinking will be endowed with being. As it is covered with layers of air today, or occasionally with swarms of locusts, the earth will be covered with hideous mineral-plant-like spiders that intertwine with one another most cleverly but in a frighteningly evil manner. To the extent that human beings have not enlivened their shadowy, intellectual concepts, they will have to unite their being, not with the entities who are seeking to descend since the last third of the nineteenth century, but instead with these ghastly mineral-plant-like spidery creatures. They will have to dwell together with these spiders; they will have to seek their further progress in cosmic evolution in the evolutionary stream that this spider brood will then assume.
You see, this is something that is very much a reality of earth humanity's evolution. It is known today by a large number of those human beings who hold mankind back from receiving spiritual scientific knowledge. For there are those who are actually conscious allies of this spidery entangling of human earth existence. Today, we must no longer recoil from descriptions such as these. For descriptions of this kind are behind what is said to this day by many people who, based on ancient traditions, still have some awareness of things like these, and who would like to surround these ancient traditions with a certain veil of secrecy. The evolution of earthly humanity is not such that it can be veiled in secrecy any longer. However great the resistance in hostile quarters, these things must be said; for, as I have stated again and again, the acceptance or rejection of spiritual scientific knowledge is a serious matter facing mankind. It is not something that can be decided on the basis of more or less indifferent sympathies or antipathies; we are dealing with something that definitely affects the whole configuration of the cosmos.
We are dealing with the question of whether humanity at the present time will resolve to grow gradually into what benevolent spirits, wishing to ally themselves with human beings, bring down from the universe, or whether mankind will seek its continued cosmic existence in the gradual entanglement, in the spider-brood of its own, merely shadowy thoughts. It does not suffice today to set down in abstract formulas the need for spiritual scientific knowledge. It is necessary to show how thoughts become realities. This is what is so dreadful about all abstract theosophists who appear on the scene and place abstractions before people, for example: Thoughts will become realities in the future. But it does not occur to them to present the full and actual implications of these matters. For the concrete implication is that the intellectual, shadow-like thoughts, spun inwardly by human beings today, will one day cover the earth like a spider's web. Human beings will become entangled in it if they are not willing to rise above these shadowy thoughts.
The path of the ascent, my dear friends, is indeed outlined. We must take profoundly serious thoughts such as the one with which I concluded my lectures on color last Sunday where I said: The point is to lift the comprehension of color out of the abstractions of physics into a region where the creative fancy, the feeling of the artist who understands the being of color, will harmonize effectively with a spiritual scientific insight into the world. We have seen how the beings and nature of color can be taken hold of, how the artistic element, which physics with its dreadful diagrams lets slide down into the ahrimanic sphere, can be lifted up. Thus, a theory of color can be founded; it would be remote from the established thought habits of modern science, yet can provide a basis for artistic creativity, if we will only imbue ourselves with its insight. Such thoughts must certainly be taken seriously.
Another thought must be earnestly considered. What do we witness today throughout the civilized world? Our young people are sent into the hospitals and to the scientific faculties of the universities; there the human being is explained to them. They become acquainted with the human skeleton and with the human organism by studying the corpse. They learn to put together the human being logically in abstract thoughts.
Yet, my dear friends, this is no way to comprehend the human being; in this way, one only gets to know the mineral aspect of man. What we learn about the human being through such a science is something that simply and solely has significance from the moon's separation until its return, something that out of the spider thoughts of today will then turn into spider beings. A knowledge must be prepared that takes hold of the human being quite differently, and this can be done only if science is lifted into artistic vision. We must admit that science in the present-day sense of the word can reach only to a certain level. It reaches only as far as the mineral element in the mineral, plant, and human kingdoms. Already in the plant kingdom science must change into art; still more so in the animal. It is sheer nonsense to try to understand the animal form in the way the anatomists and physiologists do. And as long as we do not admit that it is nonsense, the shadowy intellect cannot really be transformed into a living, spiritual grasp of the world.
What our young people are taught in so wretchedly abstract a form in the universities must everywhere turn into an artistic comprehension of the world. For nature around us creates artistically. Unless it is understood that nature around us is an artistic creation and can be grasped only with artistic concepts, no good will come of our world conceptions. The idea should take hold that the torture chambers in medieval castles, where people were locked into the “Iron Maiden,” for instance, and them pierced through with spears, remind us of a procedure that, though more physical and concrete, is the same as the one that occurs when young people today are introduced to anatomy and physiology and told that this will make them understand something of human nature. No, they comprehend nothing but what has been produced by a soul-spiritual element of torture: The human being torn limb from limb, the mineralized human being—that part of man that one day will be woven into the spider-cover of the earth.
Is it not sad that the power of civilization belongs now to those who consider the thoughts of truth itself, which most inwardly and intimately relate to the salvation and whole mission of mankind's development in the world, nonsense! It is tragic and we must be mindful of this tragedy. For only if we place this clearly and objectively before our soul's eye, shall we perhaps bestir ourselves to resolve to do what we can so that the intellect, shadowy as it has become, may find the way to admit the spiritual world that is approaching from the heavenly realms. Then, this shadowy intellect will be made fit for the potential it is to achieve. After all, this shadowy intellect should not be cast back into the realm beneath the plant kingdom, into a spider brood that will spread over the earth. No, it is intended that the human being shall be lifted up, in that time when women will no longer be fertile, when the eighth millennium will have arrived and the moon will unite again with the earth. The earthly shall then remain behind, and the human being only direct it from outside—like a foot stool. It will be something he is not supposed to take along with him into his cosmic existence. Human beings should prepare themselves so that they need not become one with what will someday have to develop on the surface of this earth in the manner described above.
Mankind entered from a pre-earthly existence into this physical existence. At the time of the departure of the moon, physical birth commenced. The human being began to be born of woman. Just as this came to pass, so in the future the human being will no longer be born of woman. For that is only a passing episode in the whole of cosmic evolution. It is the episode that is to bring to man the feeling of freedom, the consciousness of freedom, the integrated wholeness of individuality and personality. It is an episode that must not be disdained, an episode that was necessary in the whole cosmic process, but it must not be retained. Human beings must not give themselves up to the indolence of merely looking up to an abstract divine principle; they must concretely behold everything connected with their evolution. For they can attain a true inner revitalization of the whole soul-spirit being only if they comprehend that great period of time—but in its concrete evolutionary configuration—through which they will live in successive earth incarnations.
This is what a true spiritual science tells us today. Yet, such a spiritual science encounters opposition. We are threatened by a conscious will that would exclude us from spirituality and unite us with the spider web of the earth. This conscious will dwells in some people, for they believe that it will be to their advantage if they train only themselves spiritually and leave the others to live in ignorance. In most cases, however, this is done in ignorance; basically, people do not have the remotest idea of the appalling earthly destiny they are approaching by uniting themselves with what an ancient spiritual knowledge called the sixteen paths of human perdition. For, my dear friends, just as there are many ways in which we can turn with the shadowy intellect toward what can come to us as a message from the spiritual worlds, so there are variations of the shadowy intellect itself, various ways of uniting ourselves through this intellectual activity with the elements of spidery incrustation that will be spun over the whole earth in the future. In that time, the intellect will hold sway objectively in the manifold limbs these spider creatures will possess. They will entwine and wind themselves around one another; in doing so, in these convolutions reminiscent of the caduceus, they will produce the most marvelous, clever, the most ingenious formations—ingenious in todays's sense of the word. However, by again acquiring an understanding of the artistic from within, human beings will be able to show understanding for what goes beyond the mineral and is expressed in the formation of the plant.
It is symptomatic that in the course of mankind's evolution it was Goethe who discovered the teaching of metamorphosis—Goethe, who was artistically inclined. All the pedants around him considered it to be dilettantism, and they think so even today. In Goethe, however, the artistic conception of the world and his clarity of mind in general combined with the power of vision that recognizes, even in nature herself, nature as the artist. He was not yet capable of seeing the animal kingdom in the same way, except for the formation of the vertebra and the skull. That wondrous transmutation of a previous existence of man, where the present shape of the head develops from the form of the earlier remainder of the body, that marvelously artistic transformation of the long bones of the limbs into the spherical bones of the skull—only when this will truly be perceived will a real inner comprehension of the difference between the head and the whole remaining human form result. Such is the insight we must attain if we would plastically connect the head with the remainder of the human organism.
Yet, as art, this is at the same time true science, for all science that does not rise to the level of art is a deceptive science, a science casting humanity into cosmic misfortune. Thus, we see, on the one hand, that a true spiritual science shows us the way to an artistic grasp of things. Like a great hymn, I might say, this dwelled in Goethe's soul, when, as early as 1780, he wrote “Nature” his hymn in prose: “Nature, we are surrounded and encompassed by her ...” The whole hymn weaves a tapestry of thoughts such that one would like to say: It is like the unfolding of a mighty longing to receive spirit beings from the whole universe. Indeed, to pursue and develop further the thoughts living in Goethe's hymn "Nature" would be to provide a dwelling place for those beings who are seeking to descend from the cosmos to the earth. On the other hand, the torturous concepts developed in the nineteenth century concerning human physiology, biology, the system of plants, and so on, actually have nothing to do with the true being of the plants, something we had occasion to point out during our reflections on color. These inartistic concepts neither provide real insight nor do they penetrate to the human level. Therefore, what is held to be science today is essentially a product of Ahriman; it leads mankind to earthly doom and does not allow the human being to reach the sphere that, if I may say so, is brought toward him since the last third of the nineteenth century by beings from the cosmos.
The cultivation of spiritual science, my dear friends, is no abstract pursuit. It implies opening doors to cosmic influences that have been trying to enter upon the earth since the last third of the nineteenth century. It is a real, cosmic event to cultivate spiritual science. We need to become conscious of this fact.
Thus we may say, we overlook the whole span of time from the moon's departure until its return. This moon, which reflects the sunlight to us, has indeed a profound connection to our existence. It separated from the earth in order that the human being might become free. Humanity, however, must make use of this period so as not to provide for the moon, when the latter will have returned again, the material that can be bound up with the moon existence in the earth in that new kingdom of nature, of which I have now told you a little in a more or less graphic form.
We can say that now and then there arises in human beings some kind of forboding of what is to come. I do not know what meaning has been attached by readers to what Nietzsche describes in the chapter on the ugliest man in the valley of death in his Zarathustra. It is a touching, tragic description. Of course, Nietzsche had no vision of the valley of death into which earth existence will be transformed when the above-mentioned spider brood will cover the earth. Nevertheless, at the time when this fantasy of the valley of death arose in Nietzsche, there lived in him subconsciously something of this picture of the future. Therefore, he placed the ugliest of human beings into this vale of death. It was indeed some sort of foreboding of the time to come when human beings will be carried along in the most hideous shapes by the moon existence as it sinks down upon the earth, if they continue to cultivate only their shadowy thoughts. As the ugliest of men, they will fall into this swarm of spiders and be united with it.
What would be the use of keeping these things secret today, as many people would have us do? It would mean pulling the wool over people's eyes. After all, a large part of what is disseminated as spirituality today is nothing else but throwing dust in people's eyes. Occasionally one encounters people who realize what this means, namely, not to comprehend a single historical event as it is in reality. How many people are there today who know that events of fundamental importance are taking place in our days? I have already drawn attention to these things. How few are prepared really to enter into them? People would like to close their eyes to them. They would like to say: Well, these things are really not of so much importance. Yet, the signs of the times are there, and should be understood by human beings.
This is what I wished to add to my considerations on the world of color and man's relationship with the cosmos beyond the earth. We shall continue with these studies in the future.
Vierzehnter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Vielleicht haben gerade die Vorträge, die ich hier gehalten habe über das Wesen der Farben, und der Vortrag, der am letzten Donnerstag diesen Farbenvorträgen vorangegangen ist, gezeigt, wie man an das Wesen des Menschen nur herankommen kann, wenn man ihn im Zusammenhange betrachtet mit dem ganzen Weltenall. Dahin müssen wir ja aber gelangen, wenn wir uns nach dem Wesen des Menschen fragen, aufzublicken von der Erde zu demjenigen, was außerirdisch ist. Und unsere Zeit erfordert das ganz besonders. Wir haben gesehen, wie der menschliche Intellekt immer schattenhafter und schattenhafter geworden ist, wie er eigentlich gerade durch die Entwickelung des 19. Jahrhunderts nicht mehr in der Wirklichkeit wurzelt.
[ 2 ] Das alles weist uns darauf hin, daß der Mensch unbedingt daran denken müsse, neue Einschläge in sein Seelenleben zu bekommen. Es wird uns dies nun insbesondere noch dadurch klarwerden, daß wir heute einschlägige, einschlagende kosmische Ereignisse, die von gewissen Gesichtspunkten schon betrachtet worden sind, noch einmal vor unsere Seele führen wollen.
[ 3 ] Sie erinnern sich ja und wissen es wohl auch aus der Lektüre meiner «Geheimwissenschaft», daß eines jener großen Ereignisse, die in die Erdenentwickelung hereingespielt haben, das Austreten des Mondes aus dem Erdenwesen ist. Dasjenige, was heute als Mond uns zuglänzt aus dem Weltenraum, war ja einmal mit der Erde verbunden, hat sich von der Erde getrennt und umkreist sie des ferneren als ihr Nebenplanet.
[ 4 ] Wir wissen, welche eingreifenden Veränderungen in der ganzen Menschenentwickelung mit diesem Austritt des Mondes aus der Erde zusammenhängen. Sie wissen, wit müssen weit zurückgehen, hinter die atlantische Flut, wenn wir zu der Zeit kommen wollen, in der eben der Mond aus dem Erdensein hinausgegangen ist.
[ 5 ] Nun wollen wir uns heute nur dasjenige vorführen, was in bezug auf den Menschen und die ihn umgebenden Naturwesen .auf der Erde dadurch zutage getreten ist, daß der Mond sich von der Erde getrennt hat. Wir haben es ja gesehen, daß eigentlich die verschieden gefärbten Mineralien, also die farbigen mineralischen Körper, ihre Farben, ihre Farbigkeit im Grunde genommen auch herleiten von diesem Verhältnis des Mondes zur Erde. Dadurch sind wir gerade in die Lage gerückt worden, diese kosmischen Ereignisse zusammenzubringen mit dem künstlerischen Erfassen des Daseins. Damit hängen aber noch wichtige, sehr bedeutsame andere Dinge zusammen. Der Mensch hat ja seine Wesenheit herübergebracht aus den vorhergehenden Metamorphosen des Erdendaseins, aus Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondenwesen; und während er sich entwickelt hat als Saturn-, Sonnen-, Mondenwesen, gab es ja in seiner Umgebung noch kein Mineralreich. Das Mineralreich, alles Mineralische, es ist erst während der Erdenzeit aufgetreten. Und dadurch ist ja auch erst dasjenige, was wir mineralische Materie nennen, in den Menschen hereingezogen während der Erdenzeit. Der Mensch hatte nichts Mineralisches in sich in der alten Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondenzeit. Er war auch noch nicht ein Wesen, das darauf angewiesen war, sein Dasein auf der Erde zu verbringen, sondern der Mensch war ein Wesen, das durch die Konstitution schon dem ganzen Kosmos eigentlich angehörte. Bevor der Mondenaustritt geschah auf der Erde, und bevor das Mineralische in seiner Farbigkeit innerhalb der Erde sich entwickelte, war der Mensch eigentlich noch gar nicht für die Erde geeignet. Wenn man sich so ausdrücken darf: Es war durchaus eine Frage der die Erdenentwickelung leitenden Geistwesen, was mit dem Menschen geschehen soll: soll er auf die Erde versetzt werden, oder soll er sein Dasein außerhalb der Erde verbringen? - Und man könnte es einen Beschluß der Wesen, welche die Menschheitsentwickelung lenken, nennen, daß der Mond abgetrennt worden ist, dadurch aber die ganze Erde und mit ihr der Mensch verändert wurde. Dadurch, daß diese grobe Mondenmaterie ausgesondert worden ist, ist der Mensch zu derjenigen Organisation gekommen, die es ihm ermöglichte, Erdenmensch zu werden. Erdenmensch ist ‚ also der Mensch durch dieses Ereignis, durch den Austritt des Mondes und die Eingliederung des Mineralreiches in die Erde, geworden. Dadurch hat der Mensch im Grunde genommen seine Erdenschwere erhalten. Aber er wäre niemals ein der Freiheit fähiges Wesen geworden, wenn er nicht diese Erdenschwere erhalten hätte. Er war gewissermaßen vorher noch nicht richtig eine Persönlichkeit. Eine Persönlichkeit wurde er dadurch, daß sich die Kräfte, die seinen Leib bilden sollten, eben zusammenzogen. Und das taten sie durch den Mondenaustritt und durch die Eingliederung des Mineralteiches. Der Mensch wurde also eine Persönlichkeit, dadurch der Freiheit zugänglich.
[ 6 ] Diese Entwickelung des Menschen auf der Erde bei herausgetretenem Monde, sie vollzog sich seit diesem Mondenaustritt durch die verschiedensten Stadien hindurch. Und man kann sagen: so lange nichts anderes geschehen war, als daß der Mond ausgetreten war, hatte der Mensch eigentlich fortwährend die Möglichkeit, aus seinem ganzen Organismus heraus, aus seinem leiblich-seelischen Wesen heraus Bilder des alten Hellsehens zu haben.
[ 7 ] Diese Fähigkeit, Bilder des alten Hellsehens zu haben, wurde dem Menschen nicht genommen durch den Mondenaustritt. Der Mensch sah die Welt in Bildern, wie wir das ja oftmals beschrieben haben. Wäre nichts anderes geschehen, der Mensch würde bis heute in dieser Bilderwelt leben. Allein wir wissen ja, die Entwickelung ist weiter vorwärtsgeschritten. Der Mensch ist nicht so geblieben, daß er nur an die Erde gefesselt ist. Der Mensch ist gewissermaßen wieder zu einer Rückentwickelung veranlaßt worden, und für diese Rückentwickelung hat eigentlich im 19. Jahrhundert sich der Höhepunkt vollzogen. Ich habe es in den letzten Vorträgen wiederholt charakterisiert. Aber schon in alten Zeiten ist ja das eingetreten, daß der Mensch gewissermaßen, wenn er nun auch als Stoffwechselmensch erdenschwer geworden ist, doch wiederum als Kopfmensch, man könnte sagen, zum kosmischen Dasein befähigt wurde. Der Mensch entwickelte seinen Intellekt. In diesen Intellekt hinein verdichteten sich die Bilder des alten Hellsehens noch bis in das 4. nachchristliche Jahrhundert. Dann erst wurde, und namentlich seit dem 15. Jahrhundert, der menschliche Intellekt immer schattenhafter und schattenhafter. Dieser menschliche Intellekt hat nunmehr überhaupt, trotzdem er ein ganz Geistiges im Menschen ist, kein Sein eigentlich; er hat nur etwas, was im Grunde genommen ein Bildsein ist. Wenn der Mensch heute bloß durch seinen Verstand denkt, so wurzeln diese Gedanken nicht in der Wirklichkeit. Diese Gedanken bewegen sich nur in einem Schattendasein. Und immer mehr und mehr bewegen sich die menschlichen Gedanken in einer Schattendasein. Und das ist am stärksten geworden im 19. Jahrhundert. Und heute fehlt dem Menschen durchaus der Wirklichkeitssinn. Der Mensch lebt in einem geistigen Elemente, ist aber Materialist. Mit seinen geistigen Gedanken, die aber nur Schattengedanken sind, denkt er nur das materielle Dasein.
[ 8 ] So ist dieses zweite Ereignis eingetreten. Der Mensch ist wieder geistiger geworden; aber dasjenige, was ihm früher die Materie gegeben hat an geistigen Inhalten, das durchseelt ihn nicht mehr. Er ist geistiger geworden, aber er denkt durch sein Geistiges nur das Materielle.
[ 9 ] Nun wissen Sie ja, daß der Mond einstmals sich wiederum mit der Erde vereinigen wird. Dieser Zeitpunkt, wo der Mond sich wiederum mit der Erde vereinigen wird, der wird von den in der Abstraktion lebenden Astronomen und Geologen ja Jahrtausende weit hinausgeschoben; das ist aber nur ein Wahn. In Wirklichkeit stehen wir dem Zeitpunkt gar nicht so fern. Sie wissen ja, die Menschheit als solche wird immer jünger und jünger. Sie wissen, daß die Menschen immer mehr und mehr dazu kommen, ihre leiblich-seelische Entwickelung nur bis zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte zu haben. In der Zeit von Christi Tod, als das Ereignis von Golgatha stattfand, waren die Menschen bis zum dreiunddreißigsten Jahr im allgemeinen leiblich-seelisch entwickelungsfähig. Heute sind sie es nurmehr bis zum siebenundzwanzigsten Jahre. Und es wird eine Zeit kommen im 4. Jahrtausend, da werden die Menschen nur bis zum einundzwanzigsten Jahre noch entwickelungsfähig sein. Dann wird eine Zeit kommen im 7. Jahrtausend, da werden die Menschen nur bis zum vierzehnten Jahr noch entwickelungsfähig sein durch ihre Leiblichkeit. Die Frauen werden dann aufhören, fruchtbar zu sein; es wird eine ganz andere Art und Weise des Erdenlebens eintreten. Es wird die Zeit sein, in der der Mond sich der Erde wiederum nähert, sich der Erde wiederum eingliedert.
[ 10 ] Sehen Sie, meine lieben Freunde, auf solche außerirdischen Ereignisse muß der Mensch gegenwärtig anfangen zu sehen. Er muß nicht nur im allgemeinen abstrakt von irgendeinem Göttlichen träumen, sondern er muß die Ereignisse, die mit seiner Entwickelung zusammenhängen, ins Auge fassen. Er muß wissen: der Mond ist einmal von der Erde ausgetreten; der Mond wird wiederum in die Erde eintreten. Und so, wie es ein einschlagendes Ereignis war, dieser Mondenaustritt, so wird es ein einschlagendes Ereignis sein, dieser Mondeneintritt. Wir als Menschen werden die Erde allerdings dann noch bevölkern, aber wir werden nicht mehr in der gewöhnlichen Weise geboren werden, wir werden in einer anderen Weise als durch die Geburt mit der Erde verbunden sein. Aber wir werden uns bis dahin in einer gewissen Weise entwickelt haben. Und wir müssen dasjenige, was jetzt geschieht, das Schattenhaftwerden des Intellektes, das müssen wir in Zusammenhang bringen mit dem, was einmal als ein einschlägiges Ereignis in der Erdenentwickelung kommen wird: das wiederum Hereinschwirren des Mondes in die Erdenmaterie.
[ 11 ] Schattenhafter und immer schattenhafter wird unser Intellekt. Würde das so fortgehen, würde sich die Menschheit nicht entschließen, dasjenige, was aus geistigen Welten herauskommen kann, in sich aufzunehmen, dann würde eben der Mensch nach und nach in der Schattenfarbe seines Intellekts immer mehr und mehr aufgehen.
[ 12 ] Denken Sie einmal daran, was dieser schattenhafte Intellekt eigentlich nur enthält. Dieser schattenhafte Intellekt kann ja das menschliche Wesen selber nicht verstehen. Er versteht die Mineralien. Das ist schließlich das einzige, was dieser schattenhafte Intellekt bis zu einem gewissen Grade verstehen kann. Schon das Leben der Pflanze bleibt ihm ein Rätsel, das Leben der Tiere bleibt ihm erst recht ein Rätsel, und sein eigenes Leben wird völlig undurchsichtig. So gestaltet sich der Mensch Bilder von der Welt, die aber eigentlich nur eine Weltfrage sind, die eigentlich nur, man möchte sagen, etwas enthalten, was an das eigentliche Wesen von Pflanze, Tier und insbesondere des Menschen nicht herantritt. Dieses Bildergestalten wird immer weiter und weiter fortgehen, wenn der Mensch sich nicht entschließen würde, dasjenige anzunehmen, was ihm überliefert wird von Imaginationen, von neuen Imaginationen, durch die ihm das Weltendasein geschildert wird. In die schattenhaften Verstandesbegriffe und in die schattenhaften intellektuellen Vorstellungen muß aufgenommen werden dasjenige, was an lebendiger Weisheit die Geisteswissenschaft geben kann. Dadurch müssen die Schattenbilder des Verstandes belebt werden.
[ 13 ] Dieses Beleben der Schattenbilder des Verstandes ist aber nicht nur ein menschliches Ereignis, es ist ein kosmisches Ereignis. Erinnern Sie sich an dasjenige, was ich in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» dargestellt habe, daß da einmal die Menschenseelen hinaufgewandert sind zu den Planeten und wiederum heruntergekommen sind ins Erdendasein. Ich habe es in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» dargestellt, wie nacheinander die Mars-, Jupiter- und so weiter Menschen wiederum herunterkamen auf die Erde. Sehen Sie, es ist ein bedeutsames Ereignis vorgegangen — man kann das nut schildern aus den Tatsachen, die einem in der geistigen Welt bewahrheitet werden -, es ist ein bedeutsames Ereignis vorgegangen am Ende der siebziger Jahre des 19. Jahrhunderts. Während in der alten atlantischen Zeit diese Menschen von Saturn, Jupiter, Mars und so weiter auf die Erde heruntergekommen sind, während da also die menschlichen Seelenwesen das Erdendasein bezogen haben, beginnt jetzt eine Zeit, in der andere Wesen, die nicht Menschen sind, aber die zur weiteren Entwickelung ihres Daseins darauf angewiesen sind, auf die Erde zu kommen und auf der Erde mit Menschen in ein Verhältnis zu treten, in der solche Wesen von den außerirdischen Weltengebieten auch herunterkommen. Seit dem Ende der achtziger Jahre des 19. Jahrhunderts wollen in das Erdendasein herein überirdische Wesenheiten. So wie die Vulkanmenschen die letzten waren, die sich hier auf die Erde herunterbegeben haben, so begeben sich Vulkanwesen tatsächlich jetzt in das Erdendasein herein. Wir haben im Erdendasein schon überirdische Wesenheiten. Und diesem Umstand, daß überirdische Wesenheiten die Botschaften herunterbringen in dieses irdische Dasein, diesem Umstande ist zu verdanken, daß wir überhaupt eine zusammenhängende Geisteswissenschaft haben können.
[ 14 ] Aber im ganzen, wie benimmt sich das Menschengeschlecht? Das Menschengeschlecht benimmt sich in einer, man möchte sagen, kosmisch-rüpelhaften Weise gegen diese aus dem Kosmos, auf der Erde allerdings erst langsam, aber eben doch erscheinenden Wesenheiten. Es kümmert sich nicht um sie, es ignoriert sie, dieses Menschengeschlecht. Und das ist dasjenige, was die Erde in immer tragischere und tragischere Zustände bringen wird; denn unter uns werden im Laufe der nächsten Jahrhunderte immer mehr und mehr Geistwesen wandeln, deren Sprache wir verstehen sollten. Und wir verstehen sie nur, wenn wit dasjenige zu verstehen suchen, was von ihnen kommt: den Inhalt der Geisteswissenschaft. Das wollen sie uns geben, und sie wollen, daß im Sinne der Geisteswissenschaft gehandelt werde, daß umgesetzt werde die Geisteswissenschaft in die soziale Handlungsweise des Erdendaseins.
[ 15 ] Wir haben es wirklich zu tun seit dem letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts mit einem Hereindringen von geistigen Wesen aus dem Weltenall, zunächst von solchen Wesenheiten, die in der Sphäre zwischen Mond und Merkur wohnen, die aber durchaus, ich möchte sagen, schon hereinstürmen ins Erdendasein und versuchen im Erdendasein dadurch Fuß zu fassen, daß die Menschen sich erfüllen mit dem Gedanken an die geistigen Wesenheiten des Weltenalls. So kann man es auch schildern, was ich vorhin schilderte, daß wir unseren schattenhaften Intellekt mit den Bildern der Geisteswissenschaft beleben müssen. So schildert man es abstrakt. Konkret schildert man es, wenn man sagt: Geisteswesen wollen herunter ins irdische Dasein, und sie sollen empfangen werden. Erschütterung über Erschütterung wird es geben, und zuletzt müßte das Erdendasein in das soziale Chaos einmünden, wenn diese Wesenheiten herunterkommen und das Menschendasein nur Opposition gegen das Herunterkommen dieser Wesenheiten wäre. Nichts anderes wollen ja diese Wesenheiten, als die Vorposten sein für dasjenige, was mit dem Erdendasein geschehen wird, wenn der Mond sich wiederum mit der Erde vereinigen wird.
[ 16 ] Sehen Sie, heute kann es den Menschen verhältnismäßig noch harmlos erscheinen, wenn sie nur diejenigen Gedanken ausdenken, automatische, leblose Gedanken, welche entstehen, wenn man erfaßt die mineralische Welt und das Mineral an Pflanzen, das Mineral an Tieren, das Mineral am Menschen. Ich möchte sagen, an diesen Gedanken, an denen laben sich heute die Menschen, mit denen fühlen sie sich als Materialisten wohl, denn nur sie werden heute gedacht. Aber bedenken Sie einmal, die Menschen dächten so fort, die Menschen würden wirklich nichts anderes ausbilden als solche Gedanken, bis zu dem Zeitpunkte, wo im 8. Jahrtausend das Mondendasein wiederum sich mit dem Erdendasein vereinigt, was würde dann entstehen? Ja, die Wesenheiten, von denen ich gesprochen habe, sie werden nach und nach auf die Erde herunterkommen, Vulkanwesenheiten, vulkanische Übermenschen, Venus-Übermenschen, Merkur-Übermenschen, Sonnen-Übermenschen und so weiter werden sich mit dem Erdendasein vereinigen. Aber wenn die Menschen fortfahren, ihnen bloß Opposition zu machen, so wird das Erdendasein in ein Chaos im Laufe der nächsten Jahrtausende übergehen. Die Erdenmenschen werden ihren Intellekt ja weiter automatisch entwickeln können; der kann sich auch innerhalb der Barbarei entwickeln; aber das Vollmenschentum wird nicht hineingezogen sein in diesen Intellekt, und die Menschen werden keine Beziehung haben zu denjenigen Wesenheiten, die sich ihnen hinunterneigen wollen ins Erdendasein herein. Und alle diejenigen Wesen, welche nun vom Menschen unrichtig gedacht werden, die Wesen, welche unrichtig gedacht werden aus dem Grunde, weil der bloße schattenhafte Intellekt nur das Mineralische, ich möchte sagen das grob Materielle im Mineralreich, im Pflanzen-, im Tierreich und sogar im Menschenreich denkt, diese Gedanken der Menschen, die keine Wirklichkeit haben, die bekommen mit einem Schlage Wirklichkeit, wenn der Mond sich mit der Erde vereinigt. Und aus der Erde wird aufsprießen ein furchtbares Gezücht von Wesenheiten, die in ihrem Charakter zwischen dem Mineralreich und dem Pflanzenreich drinnenstehen als automatenartige Wesen mit einem überreichlichen Verstande, mit einem intensiven Verstande. Mit dieser Bewegung, die über der Erde Platz greifen wird, wird die Erde überzogen werden wie mit einem Netz, einem Gewebe von furchtbaren Spinnen, Spinnen von einer riesigen Weisheit, die aber in ihrer Organisation nicht einmal bis zum Pflanzendasein heraufreichen, furchtbare Spinnen, die sich ineinander verstricken werden, die in ihren äußeren Bewegungen alles das imitieren werden, was die Menschen ausdachten mit dem schattenhaften Intellekt, der sich nicht anregen ließ von demjenigen, was durch eine neue Imagination, was überhaupt durch Geisteswissenschaft kommen soll. All dasjenige, was die Menschen an solchen Gedanken denken, die irreal sind, das wird wesenhaft. Die Erde wird überzogen sein, wie sie jetzt mit einer Luftschicht überzogen ist, wie sie sich manchmal mit Heuschreckenschwärmen überzieht, mit furchtbaren mineralisch-pflanzlichen Spinnen, die sehr verständig, aber furchtbar bösartig sich ineinanderspinnen. Und der Mensch wird, insoweit er nicht seine schattenhaften intellektuellen ..Begriffe belebt hat, statt sein Wesen mit den Wesen, die heruntersteigen wollen seit dem letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts, zu vereinigen, er wird sein Wesen mit diesen furchtbaren mineralisch-pflanzlichen Spinnengetieren vereinigen müssen. Er wird selber zusammenleben mit diesen Spinnentieren, und er wird sein weiteres Fortschreiten im Weltendasein suchen müssen in derjenigen Entwickelung, die dann annimmt dieses Spinnengetier.
[ 17 ] Sehen Sie, das ist dasjenige, was durchaus in der Realität der Erdenmenschheitsentwickelung liegt, und was von einer großen Anzahl derjenigen Menschen, die die Menschheit zurückhalten von der Aufnahme geisteswissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse, heute durchaus gewußt wird. Denn es gibt auch solche, welche durchaus die bewußten Verbündeten des Verspinntwerdens des Erdenmenschendaseins sind. Man muß sich heute nicht mehr abschrecken lassen von Schilderungen dieser Art. Denn Schilderungen dieser Art, sie stecken hinter dem, was viele Menschen heute noch sagen, die aus alten Traditionen heraus noch irgendein Bewußtsein von solchen Dingen haben, die die alten Überlieferungen haben, und die diese alten Überlieferungen mit einem gewissen Schleier des Geheimnisses umgeben möchten. Unsere Erdenmenschheitsentwickelung ist nicht so, daß sie weiterhin mit dem Schleier des Geheimnisses überzogen werden darf; und wenn die Widerstände noch so groß sind von feindlicher Seite, die Dinge müssen gesagt werden, denn es ist, wie ich immer wieder und wiederum sage, ein Ernstes, was als Angelegenheit der Menschheit vorgelegt ist in der Annahme oder in der Ablehnung der geisteswissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse. Da hat man es nicht mit irgend etwas zu tun, aus dem heraus Entschlüsse gefaßt werden könnten, die nur mit einer gleichgültigen Sympathie oder Antipathie zusammenhängen könnten, sondern da hat man es mit etwas zu tun, was durchaus eingreift in das ganze Gefüge des Kosmos, da hat man es damit zu tun, ob die Menschheit sich entschließen will in der gegenwärtigen Zeit, allmählich hineinzuwachsen in dasjenige, was ihr gute Geister, die sich mit den Menschen verbinden wollen, aus dem Weltenall heruntertragen, oder aber ob die Menschheit in dem Spinnengezücht der eigenen, bloß schattenhaften Gedanken, im Verstricktwerden, das weitere kosmische Dasein suchen will. Es genügt heute nicht, daß man bloß in abstrakten Formeln die Notwendigkeit geisteswissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse hinzeichnet, sondern es ist heute notwendig, daß man zeigt, wie Gedanken Wirklichkeiten werden. Das ist dasjenige, was so schrecklich ist bei allen abstrakten Theosophen, die auftreten, daß sie solche Abstraktionen hinstellen vor die Menschen, wie: Gedanken werden später Wirklichkeiten -, aber es ihnen nicht einfällt, die volle Tragweite, die konkrete Tragweite der Sache hinzustellen. Und diese konkrete Tragweite der Sache ist diese, daß die intellektuellen, schattenhaften Gedanken, die von den Menschen heute innerlich gesponnen werden, daß die einstmals als ein Spinnengewebe die Erde überziehen werden, und daß die Menschen verstrickt werden in dieses Spinnengewebe, wenn sie sich nicht erheben wollen von diesen schattenhaften Gedanken.
[ 18 ] Und der Weg des Erhebens, meine lieben Freunde, er ist einmal vorgezeichnet. Wir müssen durchaus solche Dinge tief ernst nehmen wie den Gedanken, mit dem ich meine Farbenvorträge geschlossen habe letzten Sonntag, wo ich gesagt habe, es handelt sich darum, daß die Erkenntnis der Farbe herausgeholt werde aus der abstrakten Physik, daß wirklich die Erkenntnis der Farbe heraufgeholt werde in ein Gebiet, wo durchaus zusammenwirkt die Phantasie, die Empfindung des Künstlers, der das Farbenwesen begreift, und ein geistigwissenschaftliches Hineinschauen in die Welt. Wir haben gesehen, wie die Farbenwesen und das Farbenwesen ergriffen werden können, wie man heraufheben kann dasjenige, was die Physik hinunterstürzt ins Ahrimanische mit ihren schrecklichen Zeichnungen, wie das Künstlerische heraufgehoben wird, so daß tatsächlich eine Farbenlehre begründet werden kann, die allerdings weit weg liegt von den Denkgewohnheiten der heutigen Wissenschaft, die aber durchaus eine Grundlage sein kann für das künstlerische Schaffen, wenn der Mensch sich damit durchdringt. Solche Gedanken müssen durchaus ernst genommen werden.
[ 19 ] Und ein anderer Gedanke muß ernst genommen werden. Was erleben wit heute in der ganzen zivilisierten Welt? Unsere jungen Leute werden in die Kliniken und an die naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultäten geschickt; da wird ihnen der Mensch erklärt. Sie lernen das menschliche Knochensystem und den Menschen überhaupt in seiner Organisation durch die Leiche kennen. Sie lernen den menschlichen Organismus in abstrakten Gedanken logisch aufbauen.
[ 20 ] Aber, meine lieben Freunde, so lernt man den Menschen nicht kennen, so lernt man nur das Mineralische am Menschen kennen. Einzig und allein lernt man am Menschen kennen durch diese Wissenschaft, was eine Bedeutung hat vom Mondenaustritt bis zur Mondenzurückkunft, und was sich verwandelt in Spinnenwesen, aus Spinnengedanken der Gegenwart. Vorbereitet muß werden eine Erkenntnis, welche den Menschen anders erfaßt, und die kann nur vorbereitet werden, wenn Wissenschaft heraufgehoben wird in künstlerisches Anschauen, wenn man einmal gesteht: Ja, bis zu einem gewissen Punkte kann die Wissenschaft, wie sie heute gemeint ist, kommen: bis zu dem Mineralischen im Mineralteiche, im Pflanzenreich, im Tierreiche, im Menschenreiche. Aber schon im Pflanzenreich muß die Wissenschaft sich umwandeln in Kunst, noch mehr im Tierreiche. Eine Tierform so begreifen wollen, so verstehen wollen, wie es die Anatomen oder Physiologen tun - Unsinn! Und ehe man nicht sich gesteht, daß dieses Unsinn ist, eher kann der schattenhafte Verstand sich nicht in lebendiges Geist-Erfassen der Welt umwandeln. Es muß dasjenige, was heute in einer so trostlos abstrakten Form unseren jungen Leuten gelehrt wird, wenn sie an die Universitäten kommen, überall auslaufen in künstlerisches Erfassen. Denn dasjenige was uns als Natur umgibt, schafft künstlerisch. Und ehe man nicht verstehen wird, daß dasjenige, was uns in der Natur rings umgibt, künstlerisches Schaffen ist und nur mit künstlerischen Begriffen erfaßt werden kann, kann kein Heil in unsere Weltanschauung hineinkommen. Die Vorstellung sollte Platz greifen, daß die Folterkammern in den mittelalterlichen Schlössern, wo man die Leute in die «eiserne Jungfrau» hineingetan und sie dann mit Spießen durchdrungen hat, nur an eine physisch etwas anschaulichere Prozedur erinnern, die aber dieselbe Prozedur ist, die man vollzieht, wenn man dem jungen Menschen unserer Zeit Anatomie und Physiologie vorführt und dabei sagt, damit verstünde er etwas vom Wesen des Menschen. Nein, nichts versteht er, als etwas, was dutch ein geistig-seelisches Folterelement erzeugt worden ist: Den zerfleischten Menschen, den mineralisierten Menschen versteht er, dasjenige vom Menschen, das einstmals in den Spinnenüberzug der Erde hineinverwoben sein wird.
[ 21 ] Ist es nicht hart, daß die Macht der Zivilisation heute bei denjenigen ist, welche die wahrsten Gedanken, dasjenige, was im Innersten und Intimsten zusammenhängt mit dem Heile der Menschheitsentwickelung, mit der ganzen Mission der Menschheitsentwickelung in der Welt, anschauen wie etwas, was eine Narretei ist! Es ist tragisch, und man muß sich diese Tragödie vor Augen stellen. Denn nur wenn man sich diese Tragödie ganz anschaulich vor das Seelenauge stellt, wird man vielleicht sich aufraffen zu einem wirklichen Entschluß, so viel man kann, an diesem Platze einzutreten dafür, daß der schattenhaft gewordene Intellekt die Möglichkeit finde, die aus dem Überirdischen hereintretende Geisteswelt hereinzulassen, so daß dieser schattenhafte Intellekt für dasjenige geeignet gemacht wird, in das er eintreten soll. Dieser schattenhafte Intellekt soll ja nicht zurückgestoßen werden ins Unterpflanzliche, in das Spinnengezücht, das sich über die Erde verbreitet, sondern es soll der Mensch hinaufgehoben werden, wenn einstmals die Frauen nicht mehr fruchtbar sein werden, wenn das 8. Jahrtausend eingetreten sein wird, wenn der Mond sich wieder mit der Erde vereinigen wird. Es soll dann zurückbleiben das Irdische, das der Mensch nur von außen zu dirigieren hat wie den Fußschemel, dasjenige, was er nicht in das kosmische Dasein mit hinüberzunehmen hat. Es soll der Mensch sich vorbereiten, daß er nicht eins zu werden braucht mit dem, was sich einst auf diese Weise auf der Erdoberfläche entwickeln muß. Denn so wie der Mensch hereingezogen ist aus vorirdischem Dasein in dieses irdische Dasein, wie mit dem Mondenaustritt die physische Geburt, das Geborenwerden des Menschen vom Weibe eingetreten ist, so wird wiederum eintreten dasjenige, was ein nicht mehr Geborenwerden des Menschen durch das Weib ist, denn das ist nur eine vorübergehende Episode in der ganzen kosmischen Entwickelung; das ist diejenige Episode, die dem Menschen das Freiheitsgefühl, das Freiheitsbewußtsein, die Geschlossenheit der Individualität und Persönlichkeit bringen soll, eine Episode, die nicht verachtet werden darf, eine Episode, die notwendig war im ganzen kosmischen Fortgang, aber es ist etwas, was nicht festgehalten werden darf. Und der Mensch darf nicht sich der Bequemlichkeit hingeben, auf ein bloß abstraktes Göttliches hinzuschauen, sondern er muß in Konkretheit schauen dasjenige, was mit seiner Entwickelung zusammenhängt. Er kann nur dadurch zu einer wirklichen inneren Belebung seines ganzen Geist-Seelenwesens kommen, daß er diesen großen Zeitraum, aber in seiner konkreten Entwickelungsgestaltung, erfaßt, durch den er in seine aufeinanderfolgenden Erdenleben übergeht.
[ 22 ] Das ist dasjenige, was uns heute wirkliche Geisteswissenschaft sagt. Es stoßen eben die Dinge zusammen. Es droht heute der Wille, ausgestoßen zu werden von der Geistigkeit, mit dem Spinnennetz der Erde vereinigt zu werden; dieser Wille lebt bewußt in einzelnen Menschen, weil diese glauben, ihre Rechnung dabei zu finden, wenn sie selber sich nur geistig erziehen und die anderen in Unwissenheit lassen. Bei den meisten aber ist die Sache so, daß sie unwissend dahinleben, daß sie im Grunde genommen ja nicht ahnen, welchem furchtbaren Erdenschicksale sie entgegengehen, indem sie sich verbinden mit demjenigen, was eine ältere Geisteswissenschaft die sechzehn Wege des menschlichen Verderbens nannte. Denn, meine lieben Freunde, so wie es mannigfaltige Wege gibt, sich mit dem schattenhaften Verstande zu wenden an dasjenige, was als Kunde, als Botschaft von der geistigen Welt kommen kann, so gibt es natürlich Variationen, Varianten des schattenhaften Verstandes, um sich mit dem Spinnenkrustenwesen, das in der Zukunft die Erde umspinnen wird, zu verbinden durch diese Verstandestätigkeit. Der Verstand wird dann objektiv walten in den verschiedenen Gliedmaßen, welche dieses Spinnengetier haben wird, die sich ineinanderweben werden, die sich umschlingen werden, und die in diesem Umschlingen, in diesen gegenseitigen merkurstabartigen Umschlingungen die wunderbarsten, klügsten, geistreichsten - im Sinne des heutigen Wortes geistreich -— Gestaltungen hervorrufen werden. Aber dadurch, daß der Mensch wiederum dazu kommt, das Künstlerische von innen heraus zu verstehen, wird er ein Verständnis entgegenbringen können demjenigen, was übermineralisch ist, demjenigen, was in der Gestaltung der Pflanze sich auslebt.
[ 23 ] Sehen Sie einmal, wie es symptomatisch ist im Werdegang der Menschheit, daß Goethe die Metamorphosenlehre gefunden hat, er, der künstlerisch veranlagt war. Alle die Pedanten, die ringsherum waren, haben ja das für einen Dilettantismus angesehen, und die Pedanten sehen es heute noch für einen Dilettantismus an. In Goethe aber hat sich verbunden die künstlerische Anschauung der Welt, überhaupt der klare Sinn, auch mit demjenigen Anschauen, das in der Natur schon selber die Natur als Künstlerisches sieht. Er war noch nicht so weit, das Tierische weiter als nur in der Gestaltung der Wirbelknochen, der Schädelknochen gerade noch sehen zu können. Jene wunderbare Umgestaltung eines vorigen Daseins des Menschen, welche die übrige Körperlichkeit bildet zu der Hauptesgestalt, dieses wunderbare künstlerische Umgestalten der Längsknochen in die kugelförmigen Knochen, das ist dasjenige, was, wenn es wirklich durchschaut wird, erst abgibt ein wirkliches inneres Durchdringen des Unterschiedes der ganzen übrigen Menschengestalt vom Haupte. Das muß man haben, wenn man angliedern will plastisch das menschliche Haupt an den übrigen menschlichen Organismus.
[ 24 ] Das ist aber zugleich als Kunst die wahre Wissenschaft, denn alle Wissenschaft, die sich nicht bis zu dieser Kunst erhebt, ist trügerische Wissenschaft, ist eine Wissenschaft, welche den Menschen ins kosmische Unglück stürzt. So daß wir in der Tat sehen, wie auf der einen Seite eine wirkliche Geisteswissenschaft hinweist zu einem künstlerischen Erfassen. Es lebte, ich möchte sagen hymnenartig, in Goethes Seele, als er schon etwa 1780 seinen Prosahymnus «Die Natur» hinschrieb: «Natur, wir sind von ihr umgeben und umschlungen...» Das ganze webt ein solches Vorstellungsgewebe, daß man sagen möchte, es ist wie die Entwickelung einer Sehnsucht, Geistwesen aus dem ganzen All aufzunehmen. Ja, die Fortbildung dieser Gedanken, die in diesem Goetheschen Prosahymnus «Die Natur» leben, die Fortbildung dieser Gedanken würde eine Stätte abgeben für diejenigen Wesenheiten, die aus dem außerirdischen Kosmos herunter möchten. Dasjenige aber, was ausgebildet worden ist im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts, diese furchtbaren Folterbegriffe von menschlicher Physiologie, Biologie, von Pflanzensystemen und so weiter, die im Grunde genommen nichts zu tun haben mit demjenigen, was wirkliches Pflanzenwesen ist, worauf wir wiederum hindeuten konnten bei unserer Farbenbetrachtung, alle diese unkünstlerischen Begriffe, sie sind dasjenige, was keine Erkenntnis geben kann, was nicht an den Menschen herandringen kann. Daher ist im wesentlichen dasjenige, was heute als Wissenschaft angesehen wird, ein Ahrimanprodukt, etwas, was den Menschen hineinführt in das irdische Verderben, was ihn nicht kommen läßt in diejenige Sphäre, die ihm, ich möchte sagen, entgegengetragen wird seit dem letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts von außerirdischen Wesenheiten.
[ 25 ] Geisteswissenschaft pflegen, meine lieben Freunde, ist nicht bloß irgend etwas Abstraktes, Geisteswissenschaft pflegen, heißt zugleich Tore aufmachen für außerirdische Einflüsse, die vom letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts an auf die Erde herein wollen. Es ist ein reales kosmisches Ereignis, Geisteswissenschaft pflegen; dessen sollen wir uns nur bewußt werden.
[ 26 ] So können wir sagen: wir überblicken den Zeitraum vom Mondenaustritt bis wiederum zu der Mondenzurückkunft. Dieser Mond, der uns das Sonnenlicht, wie wir sagen, reflektiert, hat also eigentlich eine tiefe Beziehung zu unserem Dasein. Er hat sich von der Erde getrennt, damit der Mensch auf der Erde frei werden kann. Aber der Mensch soll diese Zeit anwenden, um dem Monde nicht zu liefern das Material, das zusammengebunden werden kann mit dem Mondendasein innerhalb der Erde, wenn der Mond wiederum zurückgekehrt sein wird, in jenem neuen Naturreiche, von dem ich Ihnen jetzt einiges dargestellt habe in einer einigermaßen anschaulichen Form.
[ 27 ] Man kann sagen, es tritt manchmal heute im Menschen schon irgendeine Vorahnung auf von dem, was da sein wird. Ich weiß nicht, mit welchem Sinne die Menschen dasjenige gelesen haben, was Nietzsche in seinem «Zarathustra» schildert in dem Kapitel über den häßlichsten Menschen im Tale des Todes. Es ist eine ergreifende tragische Schilderung. Nietzsche hat natürlich keine Anschauung gehabt von jenem Tal des Todes, in das das Erdendasein verwandelt werden wird, wenn dieses Spinnengezücht, von dem ich gesprochen habe, die Erde bedecken wird. Aber in derjenigen Zeit, in der die Phantasie in Nietzsche entstanden ist von diesem Tal des Todes, lebte eben unterbewußt in ihm durchaus etwas von diesem Zukunftsbilde, und er versetzte in dieses Tal des Todes dann den häßlichsten Menschen. Es ist das etwas wie eine Vorahnung, wie die Menschen einmal, wenn sie nur ihre schattenhaften Gedanken weiterpflegen werden, als häßlichste Gestalten mitgenommen werden von dem auf die Erde heruntersinkenden Mondendasein, um als häßlichste Menschen hineinzufallen in diesen Spinnenschwarm und mit ihm vereinigt zu werden.
[ 28 ] Was würde es denn nützen, diese Dinge heute geheim zu halten, was viele wollen? Es würde heißen, den Menschen Sand in die Augen streuen. Ein großer Teil desjenigen, was heute als Geistigkeit verbreitet wird, heißt ja im Grunde genommen nichts anderes, als den Menschen Sand in die Augen streuen. Man trifft zuweilen Menschen, welche es einsehen, was es heißt, den Menschen Sand in die Augen zu streuen, kein einziges historisches Ereignis so aufzufassen, wie es in Wirklichkeit ist. Wie viele Menschen sind denn heute, die wissen, daß sich in unseren Tagen Ereignisse von fundamentaler Bedeutung zutragen. Ich habe auf solche Dinge schon aufmerksam gemacht. Wie viele Menschen wollen eingehen auf solche Dinge? Die Menschen möchten die Augen verschließen vor diesen Dingen, möchten sagen: Nun, die Dinge haben doch nicht diese Bedeutung. Aber die Zeichen sind eben durchaus da, und die Zeichen sollten von den Menschen verstanden werden.
[ 29 ] Das ist dasjenige, meine lieben Freunde, was ich noch habe hinzufügen wollen zu meinen Betrachtungen über die Farbenwelt und über den Zusammenhang des Menschen mit dem außerirdischen Kosmos. Wir werden solche Betrachtungen in der Zukunft fortsetzen.
Fourteenth Lecture
[ 1 ] Perhaps the lectures I have given here on the nature of colors, and the lecture that preceded these lectures on colors last Thursday, have shown how the nature of human beings can only be approached by considering them in connection with the entire universe. But this is what we must do if we ask ourselves about the nature of human beings, if we look up from the earth to what is extraterrestrial. And our time demands this in a very special way. We have seen how the human intellect has become more and more shadowy, how, precisely through the development of the 19th century, it is no longer rooted in reality.
[ 2 ] All this points to the fact that human beings must absolutely remember to allow new impressions to enter their soul life. This will become particularly clear to us now that we want to bring before our souls once again relevant, striking cosmic events that have already been considered from certain points of view.
[ 3 ] You will remember, and you will also know from reading my “Secret Science,” that one of the great events that played a role in the development of the Earth was the departure of the Moon from the Earth's sphere. What shines down on us today as the moon from outer space was once connected to the earth, separated from it, and now orbits it as its satellite.
[ 4 ] We know what profound changes in the entire evolution of humanity are connected with this departure of the moon from the earth. You know that we must go far back, beyond the Atlantean flood, if we want to arrive at the time when the moon left the earth.
[ 5 ] Now let us consider only what has become apparent on Earth in relation to human beings and the natural beings surrounding them as a result of the Moon's separation from the Earth. We have seen that the different colored minerals, that is, the colored mineral bodies, derive their colors, their colorfulness, from this relationship between the moon and the earth. This has enabled us to bring these cosmic events together with the artistic understanding of existence. However, there are other important and very significant things connected with this. Human beings brought their essence with them from the previous metamorphoses of earthly existence, from Saturn, Sun, and Moon beings; and while they were developing as Saturn, Sun, and Moon beings, there was no mineral kingdom in their environment. The mineral kingdom, everything mineral, only came into being during the Earth period. And it is through this that what we call mineral matter was drawn into human beings during the Earth period. Human beings had nothing mineral in them during the ancient Saturn, Sun, and Moon periods. They were not yet beings that were dependent on spending their existence on Earth, but rather beings that, by their very constitution, actually belonged to the entire cosmos. Before the moon left the earth, and before the mineral element developed its colors within the earth, human beings were not yet suited to life on earth. If one may express it in this way: it was entirely a question for the spirit beings guiding the development of the Earth what should happen to human beings: should they be transferred to the Earth, or should they spend their existence outside the Earth? And one could call it a decision of the beings who guide the development of humanity that the moon was separated, thereby changing the entire Earth and, with it, human beings. Through the separation of this coarse lunar matter, human beings attained the organization that enabled them to become earthly human beings. Earthly human beings thus came into being through this event, through the departure of the moon and the incorporation of the mineral kingdom into the earth. Through this, human beings essentially received their earthly heaviness. But they would never have become beings capable of freedom if they had not received this earthly heaviness. In a sense, they were not yet truly personalities before that. They became personalities through the contraction of the forces that were to form their bodies. And they did this through the departure of the moon and the incorporation of the mineral kingdom. Human beings thus became personalities, and thereby accessible to freedom.
[ 6 ] This development of man on earth after the moon left took place through various stages after the moon left. And one can say that as long as nothing else happened except the moon's departure, human beings actually had the possibility of seeing images of the old clairvoyance from their entire organism, from their physical and soul nature.
[ 7 ] This ability to have images of the old clairvoyance was not taken away from human beings when the moon left. Human beings saw the world in images, as we have often described. If nothing else had happened, human beings would still be living in this world of images today. But we know that development has progressed further. Human beings have not remained bound to the earth. In a sense, human beings have been prompted to regress, and this regression actually reached its peak in the 19th century. I have repeatedly characterized this in recent lectures. But even in ancient times, it happened that human beings, even though they had become earthbound as metabolic beings, were nevertheless enabled to return to a cosmic existence as intellectual beings. Human beings developed their intellect. The images of ancient clairvoyance continued to condense in this intellect until the 4th century AD. Then, especially since the 15th century, the human intellect became increasingly shadowy. This human intellect, despite being entirely spiritual in nature, has no actual existence; it only has something that is essentially an image. When people today think solely with their intellect, these thoughts are not rooted in reality. These thoughts move only in a shadow existence. And more and more, human thoughts move in a shadow existence. This became most pronounced in the 19th century. And today, human beings completely lack a sense of reality. Human beings live in a spiritual element, but they are materialists. With their spiritual thoughts, which are only shadow thoughts, they think only of material existence.
[ 8 ] Thus this second event has come about. Man has become more spiritual again; but that which matter formerly gave him in spiritual content no longer animates him. He has become more spiritual, but through his spirituality he thinks only of the material.
[ 9 ] Now you know that the moon will one day reunite with the earth. The astronomers and geologists who live in abstraction push this date thousands of years into the future, but that is only a delusion. In reality, we are not so far from that time. You know that humanity as such is becoming younger and younger. You know that human beings are increasingly coming to have their physical and soul development only up to a certain point in time. At the time of Christ's death, when the event of Golgotha took place, people were generally capable of physical and spiritual development until the age of thirty-three. Today, they are only capable of this until the age of twenty-seven. And a time will come in the fourth millennium when people will only be capable of development until the age of twenty-one. Then a time will come in the 7th millennium when people will only be capable of development through their physicality until the age of fourteen. Women will then cease to be fertile; a completely different way of life on earth will begin. It will be the time when the moon approaches the earth again and reintegrates itself into the earth.
[ 10 ] You see, my dear friends, human beings must now begin to see such extraterrestrial events. They must not just dream abstractly about some divine being, but must contemplate the events that are connected with their own development. They must know that the moon once left the earth and that the moon will enter the earth again. And just as the moon's departure was a momentous event, so will the moon's return be a momentous event. We as human beings will still populate the Earth, but we will no longer be born in the usual way; we will be connected to the Earth in a different way than through birth. But by then we will have developed in a certain way. And we must relate what is happening now, the shadowing of the intellect, to what will one day come as a significant event in the evolution of the Earth: the re-entering of the moon into the Earth's matter.
[ 11 ] Our intellect is becoming more and more shadowy. If this were to continue, if humanity did not decide to take in what can come out of the spiritual worlds, then human beings would gradually become more and more absorbed in the shadow color of their intellect.
[ 12 ] Think for a moment about what this shadowy intellect actually contains. This shadowy intellect cannot understand the human being itself. It understands minerals. That is ultimately the only thing that this shadowy intellect can understand to a certain degree. Even the life of a plant remains a mystery to it, the life of animals remains even more of a mystery, and its own life becomes completely opaque. In this way, human beings form images of the world, but these are really only questions about the world, which actually contain, one might say, something that does not approach the actual essence of plants, animals, and especially human beings. This creation of images will continue further and further unless human beings decide to accept what is handed down to them by imaginations, by new imaginations through which the world's existence is described to them. What spiritual science can offer in terms of living wisdom must be incorporated into the shadowy concepts of the intellect and the shadowy intellectual ideas. This will enliven the shadow images of the intellect.
[ 13 ] This enlivening of the shadow images of the intellect is not only a human event, it is a cosmic event. Remember what I described in my “Secret Science,” that human souls once ascended to the planets and then descended again into earthly existence. I have described in my “Secret Science” how, one after the other, the Martian, Jovian, and so on, human beings came down again to Earth. You see, a significant event has taken place—one can only describe it from the facts that are confirmed in the spiritual world—a significant event took place at the end of the 1870s. While in the ancient Atlantean era these people descended to Earth from Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and so on, while human soul beings took up existence on Earth, a time is now beginning in which other beings, who are not human but who are dependent on coming to Earth and entering into a relationship with humans in order to further develop their existence, in which such beings also descend from extraterrestrial regions of the world. Since the end of the 1880s, super-earthly beings have wanted to enter earthly existence. Just as the volcanic people were the last to descend here to Earth, so volcanic beings are now actually entering earthly existence. We already have super-earthly beings in earthly existence. And it is thanks to this circumstance, that super-earthly beings bring messages down into this earthly existence, that we can have a coherent spiritual science at all.
[ 14 ] But on the whole, how does the human race behave? The human race behaves in a manner that one might call cosmically boorish toward these beings from the cosmos, which are appearing on Earth slowly, but nevertheless. The human race does not care about them, it ignores them. And that is what will bring the earth into ever more tragic conditions; for in the course of the next centuries, more and more spirit beings will walk among us, whose language we should understand. And we can only understand them if we seek to understand what comes from them: the content of spiritual science. That is what they want to give us, and they want us to act in accordance with spiritual science, to implement spiritual science in the social behavior of earthly existence.
[ 15 ] Since the last third of the 19th century, we have really been dealing with an invasion of spiritual beings from the universe, initially beings that dwell in the sphere between the moon and Mercury, but who, I would say, already storming into earthly existence and trying to gain a foothold in earthly existence by filling human beings with thoughts of the spiritual beings of the universe. This is another way of describing what I said earlier, that we must enliven our shadowy intellect with the images of spiritual science. That is how it is described in abstract terms. In concrete terms, it is described as follows: spiritual beings want to descend into earthly existence, and they must be received. There will be upheaval upon upheaval, and ultimately earthly existence would descend into social chaos if these beings were to descend and human existence were only opposed to the descent of these beings. These beings want nothing more than to be the outposts for what will happen to earthly existence when the moon reunites with the earth.
[ 16 ] You see, today it may still seem relatively harmless to people when they only think automatic, lifeless thoughts that arise when they grasp the mineral world and the mineral in plants, the mineral in animals, the mineral in humans. I would like to say that these are the thoughts that people feed on today, the thoughts with which they feel comfortable as materialists, because they are the only thoughts that are thought today. But consider for a moment that people continued to think in this way, that people really formed nothing but such thoughts, until the point in time in the 8th millennium when the moon's existence reunites with the earth's existence. What would then come into being? Yes, the beings I have spoken of will gradually descend to Earth, volcanic beings, volcanic superhumans, Venus superhumans, Mercury superhumans, Sun superhumans, and so on, will unite with the Earth's existence. But if humans continue to oppose them, the Earth's existence will descend into chaos over the course of the next millennia. Earth humans will be able to continue developing their intellect automatically; it can also develop within barbarism; but full humanity will not be drawn into this intellect, and humans will have no relationship with those beings who want to descend into earthly existence. And all those beings that are now thought of incorrectly by humans, the beings that are thought of incorrectly because the mere shadow-like intellect thinks only of the mineral, I would say the coarse material in the mineral kingdom, in the plant kingdom, in the animal kingdom, and even in the human kingdom, these thoughts of humans, which have no reality, will become reality with one blow when the moon unites with the earth. And from the earth will spring forth a terrible brood of beings, whose character lies between the mineral and the plant kingdom, as automaton-like beings with an excessive intellect, with an intense intellect. With this movement, which will take hold over the earth, the earth will be covered as with a net, a web of terrible spiders, spiders of enormous wisdom, but whose organization does not even reach the level of plant life, terrible spiders that will become entangled with one another, imitating in their outward movements everything that humans have devised with their shadowy intellect, which could not be inspired by what is to come through a new imagination, through spiritual science in general. Everything that people think in such unreal thoughts will become real. The earth will be covered, as it is now covered with a layer of air, as it is sometimes covered with swarms of locusts, with terrible mineral-plant spiders that spin themselves together in a very intelligent but terribly malicious way. And human beings, insofar as they have not enlivened their shadowy intellectual concepts, instead of uniting their being with the beings that have been descending since the last third of the 19th century, will have to unite their being with these terrible mineral-plant spider creatures. He will live together with these spider creatures, and he will have to seek his further progress in world existence in the development that this spider creature then takes on.
[ 17 ] You see, this is what lies at the heart of the reality of the development of humanity on Earth, and what is well known today by a large number of those who are holding humanity back from accepting spiritual scientific knowledge. For there are also those who are the conscious allies of the spider-like development of human existence on earth. Today, we must no longer be deterred by descriptions of this kind. For descriptions of this kind lie behind what many people still say today who, out of old traditions, still have some awareness of such things, who have the old traditions and who want to surround these old traditions with a certain veil of mystery. The development of our earthly humanity is not such that it can continue to be shrouded in mystery; and no matter how great the resistance from hostile quarters, things must be said, for it is, as I say again and again, a serious matter for humanity to accept or reject the insights of spiritual science. We are not dealing here with something from which decisions can be made that are based solely on indifferent sympathy or antipathy, but with something that intervenes in the entire structure of the cosmos. We are dealing with whether humanity will decide in the present time gradually grow into what good spirits who want to connect with human beings are bringing down from the universe, or whether humanity wants to seek further cosmic existence in the web of its own shadowy thoughts, becoming entangled in them. Today, it is not enough to merely outline the necessity of spiritual scientific knowledge in abstract formulas; today, it is necessary to show how thoughts become realities. This is what is so terrible about all abstract theosophists who present such abstractions to people as: “Thoughts later become realities” — but it does not occur to them to present the full significance, the concrete significance of the matter. And this concrete significance of the matter is this: that the intellectual, shadowy thoughts that are spun inwardly by people today will one day cover the earth like a spider's web, and that people will become entangled in this spider's web if they do not want to rise above these shadowy thoughts.
[ 18 ] And the path to rising, my dear friends, has already been laid out. We must take things like the thought with which I concluded my lectures on color last Sunday very seriously, when I said that it is a matter of that the knowledge of color be brought out of abstract physics, that the knowledge of color really be brought up into a realm where the imagination, the feeling of the artist who understands the nature of color, and a spiritual-scientific insight into the world work together. We have seen how the nature of colors and the essence of color can be grasped, how one can lift up that which physics plunges down into the Ahrimanic with its terrible drawings, how the artistic is raised up, so that a theory of color can actually be established, which is certainly far removed from the thinking habits of today's science, but which can certainly be a basis for artistic creation if people allow themselves to be permeated by it. Such thoughts must be taken very seriously.
[ 19 ] And another thought must be taken seriously. What are we experiencing today throughout the civilized world? Our young people are sent to clinics and to the natural science faculties, where the human being is explained to them. They learn about the human skeletal system and the human being in general through the cadaver. They learn to construct the human organism logically in abstract thoughts.
[ 20 ] But, my dear friends, that is not how you get to know human beings; that is only how you get to know the mineral aspect of human beings. The only thing one learns about human beings through this science is what has meaning from the new moon to the full moon, and what transforms into spider beings from the spider thoughts of the present. What must be prepared is a knowledge that grasps human beings differently, and this can only be prepared if science is elevated to artistic contemplation, if one admits once and for all: Yes, to a certain point, science as it is understood today can go: to the mineral in the mineral kingdom, in the plant kingdom, in the animal kingdom, in the human kingdom. But already in the plant kingdom, science must transform itself into art, even more so in the animal kingdom. To want to comprehend an animal form, to want to understand it as anatomists or physiologists do—nonsense! And until we admit that this is nonsense, the shadowy intellect cannot transform itself into a living spiritual understanding of the world. What is taught to our young people today in such a bleakly abstract form when they enter the universities must everywhere give way to artistic understanding. For what surrounds us as nature is artistically creative. And until we understand that what surrounds us in nature is artistic creation and can only be grasped with artistic concepts, no salvation can come into our worldview. The idea should take hold that the torture chambers in medieval castles, where people were put into the “iron maiden” and then pierced them with spikes, are only a physically more vivid reminder of the same procedure that is carried out when young people of our time are taught anatomy and physiology and told that this will give them an understanding of the nature of human beings. No, they understand nothing except something that has been created as an element of mental and spiritual torture: they understand the mutilated human being, the mineralized human being, that part of the human being that will one day be woven into the spider's web of the earth.
[ 21 ] Is it not harsh that the power of civilization today lies with those who regard the truest thoughts, that which is most intimately connected with the well-being of human development, with the entire mission of human development in the world, as something foolish! It is tragic, and we must face this tragedy. For only when we visualize this tragedy clearly before the eye of our soul will we perhaps be able to summon up the strength to make a real decision, as far as we can, to step in at this point and ensure that the intellect, which has become shadowy, finds the possibility of letting in the spiritual world that is entering from the super-earthly, so that this shadowy intellect is made suitable for what it is to enter. This shadowy intellect should not be pushed back into the sub-vegetable, into the spider breeding that spreads over the earth, but man should be lifted up when women are no longer fertile, when the eighth millennium has begun, when the moon will reunite with the earth. What will then remain is the earthly, which man has only to direct from outside, like a footstool, that which he does not have to take with him into cosmic existence. Man must prepare himself so that he does not need to become one with what must once develop in this way on the surface of the earth. For just as man was drawn from pre-earthly existence into this earthly existence, just as with the departure of the moon the physical birth, the birth of man from woman, took place, so will that which is no longer the birth of man through woman take place again, for that is only a temporary episode in the whole cosmic evolution; that is the episode which is to bring to human beings the feeling of freedom, the consciousness of freedom, the unity of individuality and personality, an episode which must not be despised, an episode which was necessary in the whole cosmic process, but it is something which must not be held on to. And human beings must not indulge in the comfort of looking at a merely abstract divinity, but must look concretely at that which is connected with their own development. He can only achieve a real inner revitalization of his entire spirit-soul being by grasping this great period of time, but in its concrete form of development, through which he passes into his successive earthly lives.
[ 22 ] This is what true spiritual science tells us today. Things are colliding. Today, the will threatens to be cast out of spirituality and united with the spider's web of the earth; this will lives consciously in individual human beings because they believe that they will find their reward if they educate themselves spiritually and leave others in ignorance. For most people, however, the situation is such that they live in ignorance, that they have no idea of the terrible fate that awaits them on earth by connecting themselves with what an older spiritual science called the sixteen paths of human destruction. For, my dear friends, just as there are many ways of turning with the shadow-mind to that which can come as news, as a message from the spiritual world, so there are naturally variations, variants of the shadow-mind, of connecting with the spider-crusted being that will envelop the earth in the future through this activity of the mind. The intellect will then objectively rule in the various limbs that these spider creatures will have, which will weave themselves together, entwine themselves, and in this entwining, in these mutual mercury-rod-like entwining, will bring forth the most wonderful, cleverest, most ingenious—in the sense of the present-day word ingenious—creations. But by coming to understand the artistic from within, human beings will be able to understand that which is super-mineral, that which lives out its life in the formation of plants.
[ 23 ] See how symptomatic it is in the development of humanity that Goethe, who was artistically gifted, discovered the theory of metamorphosis. All the pedants around him regarded it as dilettantism, and pedants still regard it as dilettantism today. In Goethe, however, the artistic view of the world, and indeed clear thinking in general, was combined with a way of seeing that already perceived nature itself as artistic. He was not yet able to see the animal nature as anything more than the structure of the vertebrae and the skull bones. That wonderful transformation of a previous existence of man, which forms the rest of the body into the shape of the head, this wonderful artistic transformation of the long bones into spherical bones, is what, when truly understood, gives rise to a real inner penetration of the difference between the rest of the human form and the head. This is necessary if one wants to plastically connect the human head to the rest of the human organism.
[ 24 ] But this is also true science as art, for all science that does not rise to this art is deceptive science, a science that plunges humanity into cosmic misfortune. So that we see in fact how, on the one hand, a true spiritual science points to an artistic understanding. It lived, I would say hymnicly, in Goethe's soul when he wrote his prose hymn “Nature” around 1780: “Nature, we are surrounded and enveloped by her...” The whole thing weaves such a web of ideas that one might say it is like the development of a longing to take in spirit beings from the whole universe. Yes, the further development of these thoughts, which live in Goethe's prose hymn “Nature,” would provide a place for those beings who want to come down from the extraterrestrial cosmos. But what has been developed in the course of the 19th century, these terrible torturous concepts of human physiology, biology, plant systems, and so on, which basically have nothing to do with what real plant beings are, which we were able to point out again in our consideration of colors, all these unartistic concepts are what cannot give knowledge that cannot reach human beings. Therefore, what is essentially regarded as science today is an Ahriman product, something that leads human beings into earthly ruin, something that prevents them from entering the sphere that, I would say, has been carried toward them since the last third of the 19th century by extraterrestrial beings.
[ 25 ] Cultivating spiritual science, my dear friends, is not merely something abstract. Cultivating spiritual science means opening the gates to extraterrestrial influences that have been trying to enter the earth since the last third of the 19th century. Cultivating spiritual science is a real cosmic event; we must simply become aware of this.
[ 26 ] So we can say that we are looking back over the period from the moon's departure to its return. This moon, which reflects the sunlight, as we say, actually has a deep relationship with our existence. It separated from the earth so that human beings on earth could become free. But human beings should use this time not to supply the moon with material that can be bound to the moon's existence within the earth when the moon returns to that new realm of nature, which I have now described to you in a somewhat vivid form.
[ 27 ] One might say that today people sometimes have a premonition of what is to come. I do not know with what meaning people have read what Nietzsche describes in his “Zarathustra” in the chapter about the ugliest man in the valley of death. It is a moving and tragic description. Nietzsche, of course, had no idea of that valley of death into which earthly existence will be transformed when the spider brood I have spoken of covers the earth. But at the time when Nietzsche's imagination conceived this valley of death, something of this image of the future was certainly living subconsciously within him, and he then placed the ugliest man in this valley of death. It is something like a premonition that if people continue to cultivate their shadowy thoughts, they will one day be taken away by the moon sinking down to earth as the ugliest of creatures, to fall into this swarm of spiders and be united with it.
[ 28 ] What good would it do to keep these things secret today, as many want to do? It would mean throwing sand in people's eyes. Much of what is spread today as spirituality is basically nothing more than throwing sand in people's eyes. One sometimes meets people who understand what it means to throw sand in people's eyes, not to understand a single historical event as it really is. How many people today know that events of fundamental importance are taking place in our day? I have already drawn attention to such things. How many people are willing to listen to such things? People want to close their eyes to these things and say, “Well, things don't have that kind of meaning.” But the signs are definitely there, and people should understand them.
[ 29 ] That, my dear friends, is what I wanted to add to my reflections on the world of colors and on the connection between human beings and the extraterrestrial cosmos. We will continue such reflections in the future.