Therapeutic Insights: Earthly and Cosmic Laws
GA 205
26 June 1921, Dornach
Lecture II
Two days ago we spoke of the time in which people still had a kind of inward knowledge. We gave as an example what an ancient Greek would have thought about the contemporary scientific world conception. Then I tried to show you how such a Greek, from the point of view of Imaginative cognition, would have described what we are accustomed to calling the human etheric body in relation to the element of water.
I said that Imaginative cognition would reveal a certain relationship of the entire activity of water, that surging and weaving of the water element, the striving toward the periphery, the sinking down toward the earth, a relationship of these forces of unfolding toward the periphery and toward the center with the shapes, with the pictures of the plant element in its individual forms. We thus arrive here at a concrete formulation of the content of the Imaginative world, at least one part of the Imaginative world. Such a knowledge can only be attained practically for human perception if a development is striven for, as it has been described in my book, How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, whose goal is Imaginative cognition.
Even with Imaginative cognition, however, one remains unacquainted with what, in an earlier world conception, was called the element of air. This airy element, such as it was conceived in more ancient times, can be penetrated only by so-called Inspired cognition. If you attempt to clarify the following to yourself, you will approach this Inspired cognition, this experience of the airy element. I have often mentioned to you that the human being today is studied quite superficially. Just call to mind how anatomical and physiological pictures of the human being are made today. Sharp outlines are drawn around the inner organs—heart, lungs, liver, and so on—and certainly these well-defined contours, these boundary lines of heart, lung, and liver, have a certain justification. In using such lines, however, we draw the human being as though he were through and through a solid body, which he really is not. Only the slightest portion of the human being consists of solid mineral substances. Even if we were to take a maximum, as it were, we could consider at most a mere 8 per cent as solid in the human being; 92 per cent of the human being is a column of fluid. Man is not solid at all; the solid is only deposited within the human being. There is very little consciousness of this fact at present among the pupils of physiology, anatomy, and so on. We do not learn to recognize the watery human being, the fluid human being, when we draw him with solid boundaries to his organs, for the fluid human being is something that is in a continual streaming. His organism is something that moves continually .within itself, and into this fluid organism the airy organism now inserts itself. The air streams in, uniting with the substances within and, if I may describe it in this way, stirring them up.
By means of the fact that the human being has this airy element within, he actually forms a complete unity with the outer world. The air that is now within me will presently be outside me again. We cannot really speak of the human being as enclosed within his skin if we observe him with reference to this third element, the airy element. And even less could we speak of him as living contained within his skin if we contemplated him with reference to the warmth element, the element of fire. One cannot say that man is a self-contained being.
Now, however, let us take the entire human being, that is, the human being who is organized not only in the solid element but also in the fluid, airy, and warmth elements, in a configured, moving warmth. Let us compare this entire human being with the human being as he is when he is asleep, with his soul and spirit outside the physical and etheric bodies. What permeates the human being as soul and spirit from awakening to falling asleep is simply not there in the time between falling asleep and awakening. In that time the human being is in another world that is penetrated by another lawfulness. We must ask ourselves, now, which lawfulness permeates the world in which man finds himself between falling asleep and awakening.
Yesterday we mentioned four kinds of lawfulnesses: first, the lawfulness within the earthly world; second the lawfulness within the cosmic world; third, the lawfulness within the world soul; and fourth, the lawfulness within the world spirit. Where, then, is the human being with his soul and spirit—or with his soul aspect and his I—between falling asleep and awakening? A consideration of what we have said up to now will show that the astral body and I at this time (between falling asleep and awakening) are in the realm of the world soul and the world spirit.
1. Lawfulness within the earthly world.
2. Lawfulness within the cosmic world.
3. Lawfulness within the world soul.
} AstralBody,I 4. Lawfulness within the world spirit.
We must take very seriously something we mentioned two days ago, that with the first two worlds, the earthly and the cosmic, we have exhausted the whole realm of space. By entering the realm of world soul and world spirit, we have already gone beyond the realm of space. This is something we must dwell upon within our souls again and again: every time the human being sleeps, he is led not only outside his physical body but beyond ordinary space. He is led into a world that should not be confused at all with the world that can be perceived by the senses. All lawfulness that lies at the basis of the rhythmical human being—the human being whose fluid and also whose airy element is organized through rhythm—comes from this world. Rhythm manifests itself in space, but the source of rhythm, the lawfulness that produces rhythm, streams into every point in space from extra-spatial depths. It is regulated everywhere by a real world that lies beyond the sense world. If we are confronted with that wonderful reciprocal play that takes place within the human rhythms, through breathing and the pulse, we actually perceive something in this rhythm that is regulated from extra-spatial spiritual depths and brought into the world in which the human being also finds himself as physical man. It is impossible to understand the airy element if we do not reach such a concrete understanding of the rhythmical expression of man within this airy element.
If one grasps with Imagination what I described two days ago as the weaving and being of the plant world and, parallel with this, the weaving and being of the human etheric body, then one remains still within the world in which one normally resides. One must think of oneself as being transported from the earth, so to speak, and poured out into the entire cosmos. Then, however, in passing into the airy element, one must remove oneself from space. Then there must be the possibility of knowing oneself in a world that is no longer spatial but that exists only in time, a world in which only the time element holds a certain significance. In the times in which such things were still livingly perceived, it was seen that what belonged to such worlds could really be observed in the way that the spiritual played into human activity through rhythm. I pointed out to you how the ancient Greek formulated the hexameter: three pulse beats with the caesura, which gives a breath, and three more pulse beats with the caesura, or with the end of the verse, which gives the full hexameter. In two breaths one has the corresponding eight pulse beats. The harmonious resounding of the pulse beats with the breathing was shaped artistically in the recitation of the Greek hexameter. The way in which the spiritual, super-sensible world permeates the human being, how it permeates the blood circulation, the blood rhythm, synthesizes four pulse beats, four pulse rhythms, to one breathing rhythm—all this was reflected in every speech formation that is in the hexameter. All original strivings to build verse derive from this rhythmic organization of the human being.
The world from which this rhythmic self-activity derives becomes real for the human being only when he becomes conscious during sleep. The activity in which the sleeping, but conscious human being then lives plays into this rhythm. Ordinary everyday consciousness remains unconscious of what lies at the foundation of this, and this is even more the case with the ordinary, present-day scientific consciousness. If this does become conscious, however, there begins to appear before the human being something more than what I described yesterday as the surging, weaving plant world. Something appears that is not a picture merely of the ordinary animal world, which must be spatial; there appears now a very clear consciousness, one which, however, can appear only outside the body and never within it, a consciousness whose content consists of the concrete pictures out of which the shapes of the animals in space are formed. Just as our human rhythmic activity streams in from the extra-spatial, so do the shapes that then organize themselves into the different animals stream in from the extra-spatial.
The first thing that is experienced if one undergoes consciously what otherwise is gone through only unconsciously between falling asleep and awakening, immersing oneself in the world that is the source of our rhythm, is that the animal world in all its forms becomes comprehensible. The animal world in all its forms cannot be explained by means of outer physical foundations or forces. If a zoologist or a morphologist believes that the form of the lion, the tiger, the butterfly, the beetle, is able to be explained by means of something found in physical space, he is very much fooling himself. In physical space one can never find an explanation for the different forms of the animals. One encounters the explanation in the way I have described it only if one enters the third lawfulness, the lawfulness of the world soul.
Now, I would like to return to the conversation I presented two days ago between the ancient Greek and the modern scholar who knows everything—that is to say, although occasionally he admits to not knowing everything, he still pretends that everything is able to be explained along lines similar to his own way of thinking. The ancient Greek would say, “Nothing at all can be explained by your method, though it has a kind of logic. You list all kinds of abstract conceptual forms, so-called categories—being, becoming, having, and so on. This logic is something that is supposed to represent the lawfulness of the concepts, the ideas.” (I am thinking now of a Greek of the pre-Socratic age, a Greek of the time from which the philosophies of Thales, Heraclitus, and Anaxagoras emanated, of which only a portion survives today.) “What you call logic,” this Greek would say, “was first constructed by a human being, a human being who really no longer knew much about the mysteries of the world. This logic was first made by Aristotle, after he had thoroughly applied his mundane intellect to Platonism. Truly Aristotle was a great man, but he was also a great Philistine who completely corrupted the actual logic, who made real logic into an ephemeral web that is related to reality in the same way as a thinly spun phantom is related to something densely real. The real logic,” our ancient Greek, being a scientist in his way, would have said, “the real logic encompasses all those forms that become outward and spatial in the animal world and that one discovers on becoming conscious in the time between falling asleep and awakening. That is logic, that is the real content of the logical consciousness.”
In the animal world there exists nothing but that which exists also in the human being, but in the human being it is spiritualized and thus he can think. He can think the logical formulas that swim in the outer world in space and become animals. When, between awakening and falling asleep, we manipulate our conceptual forms in ordinary consciousness, connecting one concept with another, it is so that we actually do the same thing in the realm of ideas that the outer world does in shaping the various forms of the animals. Just as it is possible to observe one's etheric when turning one's gaze to the plants and thinking of this plant world as embedded in the element of water, so, in the same way, one's soul world—or it can be called the astral world—can be comprehended if one permeates oneself with this living weaving that becomes conscious between falling asleep and awakening, understanding thereby the outer shapes of the animal world. One must then think of one's own shaping of the world of ideas as woven into the rhythm of the airy element.
You can make yourself a quite concrete mental image from the many things I have pointed out to you concerning the human being. Take the following process quite concretely: you breathe in, and the air follows the well-known pathway to the lungs. In breathing in, however, the inhaled air presses upon the space containing the spinal cord and spinal fluid. This fluid surrounding the spinal cord rhythmically courses through the subarachnoid space of the brain. The cerebral fluid comes into activity, and this activity is the activity of thought. In reality, thought rides on the breath, which is transmitted to the cerebro-spinal fluid, and this fluid in which the brain floats transmits the rhythmical beat of the breath directly onto the brain. In the brain live the impressions of the senses, the impressions of the eyes, the ears, through nerve-sense activity. The breathing rhythm comes into confrontation with what lives in the brain from the senses, and in this confrontation develops the interplay between sensation and thought activity, that formal thought activity which outwardly has its life in the animal forms. It is this thought activity, which is brought about by the breathing rhythm, transmitting itself to the cerebro-spinal fluid in the subarachnoid space, that commingles with what lives in the brain through the senses. 'Residing there is everything that becomes active in us in the form of ideas out of the rhythm.
What is essential, my dear friends, is that you attempt gradually to penetrate into the way in which the spiritual plays into the physical world. The great cultural defect of our time is that we have a science that arrives at the spirit in abstract forms, in purely intellectual forms, whereas the spiritual must be conceived in its creative element, for otherwise the material world remains like something hard, unconquered, outside the spiritual. We must penetrate into how this element of the third and fourth lawfulnesses plays concretely into what we ourselves carry out.
It is one of the most sublime things that can become clear to us if we recognize the actual inner basis that can prevail in every breathing rhythm—what is not fulfilled but what could be fulfilled each time an inhalation plays into the cerebro-spinal fluid. Now comes the recoil, the response: the cerebro-spinal fluid is again pressed down through the subarachnoid space of the spine, and there is an exhalation. This is a surrender once again to the world, a merging with the world. However, in this I-becoming/merging-with-the-world lies in essence what is expressed in the breathing rhythm.
This is the way one must speak if one wishes to speak of the reality that is meant when speaking of the element of air, whereas in speaking about the earth one simply encompasses everything that is included in our seventy-odd chemical elements. You see, what becomes a corpse is subject to the lawfulness of the seventy-two elements. What brings this dead body into movement, however, so that it can grow, can digest, is something that streams in from the cosmos. Then what penetrates this organism so that it not only grows and is able to digest but unfolds itself continually in a rhythmical activity, in the pulse, in the breathing rhythm, comes from an extra-spatial world. We study this extra-spatial world in the air element, for that is where it reveals itself, just as we study the cosmic—and not the earthly—world in the water element, for that is where the cosmic is revealed. What is revealed to the present-day chemist or physicist derives only from the earth element differentiated in itself.
We can also find the transition to the warmth element or element of fire. This is really possible only in the moment that is a practical result when a human being attains the ability not only to move out of his body consciously but to immerse himself with this consciousness into other beings. There is something else to consider here. One may already have had the ability for a long time to move out of one's body; if a little egotism is retained regarding the world, however, one is able to grasp everything of which I have spoken up to now, but one cannot really immerse oneself in this outer world. One cannot surrender oneself to this outer world. If, however, elements of true super-sensible love can be added during an immersion into that world in which one lives between falling asleep and awakening, then one learns to recognize by experience the element of warmth or fire. Only then does one recognize the true being of man, for what is looked at outwardly through the senses is only a semblance of man, is the human being from the other side, from the side of semblance.
If one ascends to the element of water, one has, to begin with, the experience of the etheric being of man dissolving. The etheric being of man becomes, you could say, a miniature picture of winter, summer, autumn, and so on. If one comes to the element of air, one becomes aware of a self-sustaining, rhythmical movement. The contained human being, the human being as he is eternal man, can be known only within the element of warmth. There everything comes into connection once again: the weaving movement of the water element and the rhythms of the air come together. They harmonize and deharmonize themselves in the warmth element, in the fire element, and there one can recognize the real being of man. There one is essentially in the fourth lawfulness, the lawfulness of the world spirit.
In hearing about an earlier science of the four elements—earth, water, air, and fire—one should not picture that we have progressed so wonderfully far with our modern science. One should rather picture that an altogether different consciousness existed concerning the roots of the human being in super-sensible depths. Something was known, therefore, of the various relationships of the earth element to this super-sensible. The earth element is, as it were, entirely outside the sphere of the super-sensible. The water element already begins to approach it; this water element is already much more closely connected with the world of spheres spread in cosmic space than with what the earth itself is. We leave space altogether, however, if we look for the source of what is within us as the air rhythm—and therefore our air organization—for regarding our air organization we are rhythmicizing, derhythmicizing, and so on. Finally we come to the universally extraspatial, to that which overcomes time, when we come into the fire element, into the warmth element. Only here do we come to recognize the entire, self-contained human being. One really finds this, though in a corrupted form, if one rediscovers—and it is already necessary today that one rediscover it—the literature that appeared before the fifteenth century.
There appeared a few years ago the work of a Swedish scientist concerning alchemy. This Swedish scientist read about a process described by an alchemist, and he commented, “If you investigate this process today, it turns out to be pure nonsense; you cannot picture anything of what they are saying.” It is easy to grasp that the chemist of today, even the Swede, who is somewhat less prejudiced than the Central European, takes the expressions in which are clothed what once existed in the corrupted literature of ancient times and then finds that nothing emerges from them. I looked up the process that the good Swedish scientist could not understand in the same literature that he had read: the process described there was actually an aspect of the embryonic process, of embryonic development in the human being! This became clear very soon. One must be able to read such matters, however. The modern scientist reads in such a way that he applies the expressions and vocabulary that he has learned from his chemistry text. He puts up his flasks and test tubes and imitates the process described: nonsense! What he has read is actually describing a portion of the process that takes place in the mother's body during embryonic development. You thus can see the abyss that has appeared between what the modern scientist is able to read and what was once meant.
All things that were described in the ancient literature, however, have also been described again today under the influence of the concepts of a new spiritual science. If these writings are not rediscovered, one cannot read them at all. They existed in an entirely different way from the way we discover them today. They existed in an instinctive, atavistic way, but they did exist, and humanity lifted itself, as it were, beyond an understanding of merely the earth element. We must find entrance again into the elements that do not explain to us merely the corpse of the human being but the whole human being, the living human being. For this it is necessary that one learn to take quite seriously within our civilization what is presented in the question of pre-existence.
When the concept of pre-existence was cast out of Western cultural evolution, selfless research was actually cast out as well. When preachers today preach about immortality, as I have indicated often before, they appeal basically to human egotism. It is known that man feels uncomfortable, feels afraid, of the cessation of life. Of course, life does not actually cease, but in speaking about immortality one appeals not to the forces of cognition but to man's fear of death, to man's will to continue living when the body is taken from him; in other words, man's egotism is appealed to. This is not possible when one speaks about preexistence. It is actually inconsequential to people today—from the point of view of their egotism—whether or not they lived before they were born or conceived. They are living now, and of that they are certain, and they are not very concerned, therefore, with pre-existence. Rather they are concerned about post-existence, for although they are now living, they do not know whether they will continue to live after death. This is connected with their egotism. Since they are already living, however, they say to themselves—perhaps only unconsciously or instinctively if they have not trained in cognition—“I am living now, and even if I didn't exist before my birth or conception, it makes no difference to me if I only began to live then, as long as I can continue to live from now on.”
This is the mood on the basis of which feelings today are called forth, through which human beings become enthusiastic about immortality. In the known languages, therefore, we have a word for immortality that directs us to the eternity at life's end, but we do not have a word, in the ordinary languages of our culture, for “unbornness.” This is something we must gradually acquire. Such a concept would speak more to cognition, would speak more to a lack of egotism, to a cognition of man that is free of egotism. This must be appealed to once again. Furthermore, cognition must become permeated by morality, by ethics. Unless our laboratory table becomes a kind of altar, and unless our synthesizing and analyzing become a kind of art of the spirit, and we become conscious that in doing this or that we participate in world evolution, our cultural evolution will not progress. We will come into a frightful descent if wider and wider circles do not perceive that one must achieve cognition free of egotism, a morally permeated cognition that must overcome today's analysis and synthesis, which do not take the higher worlds into any account. One must come to understand again something of the rhythm that plays into our lives, something of what plays into warmth. Into the warmth plays the moral element; and in the simple variations of warmth, varying intensities of warmth, there is in reality a world-permeating morality in which the human being develops himself. All this must gradually become conscious in humanity. This is not merely what I would like to call an idealistic whim demanding of us to interpret the signs of our times; rather, the signs of the times themselves speak of this deepening toward the super-sensible that must be attempted.
Vierter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Vorgestern sprachen wir davon, wie etwa ein Grieche derjenigen Zeit, in der noch eine gewisse verinnerlichte Erkenntnis vorhanden war, gedacht haben würde über die Weltanschauung, über das wissenschaftliche Weltbild der Gegenwart, und ich versuchte dann vorzuführen, wie von dem Gesichtspunkt imaginativer Erkenntnis solch ein Grieche dasjenige beschrieben haben würde, was wir gewohnt sind, den menschlichen Ätherleib zu nennen, im Verhältnis zu dem Elemente des Wassers. Ich sagte: Der imaginativen Erkenntnis würde sich ein gewisser Zusammenhang ergeben der gesamten Wasserwirkung, des Wellens und Webens des Wasserelementes, des Strebens nach der Weite, des SichSenkens nach der Erde, und ein Zusammenhang dieser, ich möchte sagen, Kräfteentfaltungen nach der Weite und nach dem Zentrum mit dem Gestalten, mit dem Bilden des pflanzlichen Elementes in seinen einzelnen Formen. Wir kommen da zu einer konkreten Gestaltung des Inhaltes der imaginativen Welt, wenigstens eines Teiles der imaginativen Welt. Praktisch für das menschliche Anschauen ist eine solche Erkenntnis nur zu erlangen, wenn eine Entwickelung angestrebt wird, wie sie eben beschrieben worden ist in meinem Buche: «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», zum Ziele der imaginativen Erkenntnis.
[ 2 ] Nun würde man aber mit einer solchen Erkenntnis noch immer unbekannt bleiben dem gegenüber, was in der früheren Weltanschauung das Luftelement genannt wurde. Dieses Luftelement, es kann so, wie es zum Beispiel die Alten aufgefaßt haben, nur in sogenannter inspirierter Erkenntnis durchdrungen werden. Sie werden nahekommen dieser inspirierten Erkenntnis, diesem Erleben des Luftelementes, wenn Sie versuchen, sich folgendes klarzumachen. Ich habe schon des öfteren erwähnt, wie heute der Mensch im Grunde genommen recht äußerlich betrachtet wird. Man braucht ja nur sich daran zu erinnern, wie heute anatomische, physiologische Bilder von dem Menschen gemacht werden. Sie werden so gemacht, daß man irgendwelche scharfen Konturen von den inneren Organen hinzeichnet, von Herz, Lunge, Leber. Gewiß, diese scharfen Konturen, diese Grenzlinien von Herz, Lunge, Leber und so weiter, sie haben ja eine gewisse Berechtigung. Allein wir zeichnen mit ihnen den Menschen so, wie wenn er durch und durch ein fester Körper wäre, aber er ist das ja nicht. Der Mensch besteht zum allergeringsten Teile aus festen mineralischen Substanzen. Wenn wir, ich möchte sagen, selbst ein Maximum nehmen, so können wir höchstens acht Prozent als fest im Menschen annehmen; zu zweiundneunzig Prozent ist der Mensch eine Flüssigkeitssäule, ist er gar nicht fest. Das Feste ist nur eingelagert im Menschen. Davon wird sehr wenig Bewußtsein erweckt bei den gegenwärtigen Schülern der Physiologie, der Anatomie und so weiter. Den wässerigen Menschen, den Flüssigkeitsmenschen lernen wir aber nicht kennen, wenn wir ihn so zeichnen mit den festen Grenzen seiner Organe, sondern der Flüssigkeitsmensch ist etwas, was in fortwährender Strömung ist; sein Organismus ist ein fortwährend in sich Bewegliches. Und in diesen Flüssigkeitsorganismus lagert sich ja jetzt der Luftorganismus erst ein. Die Luft strömt ein, verbindet sich mit den Substanzen im Inneren, quirlt sie, wenn ich so sagen darf, auf.
[ 3 ] Dadurch, daß der Mensch dieses Luftelement in sich hat, bildet er eigentlich eine vollständige Einheit mit der äußeren Welt. Die Luft, die ich jetzt in mir habe, ich habe sie ja vor ganz kurzer Zeit nicht in mir gehabt; sie war draußen. Die Luft, die ich jetzt in mir habe, sie wird nachher wiederum draußen sein. Man kann ja gar nicht davon sprechen, daß der Mensch, wenn wir ihn diesem dritten Elemente, dem Luftelement gemäß betrachten, innerhalb seiner Haut abgeschlossen ist, und erst recht nicht dem Wärme- oder Feuerelement gegenüber. Man kann nicht sagen, daß der Mensch ein abgeschlossenes Wesen ist.
[ 4 ] Nun stellen wir dem, was wir so als den vollständigen Menschen betrachten, als denjenigen Menschen, der nicht nur organisiert ist im Festen, sondern der organisiert ist im Flüssigen, im Luftförmigen und in dem Elemente der Wärme, in der konfigurierten, ineinander sich bewegenden Wärme, dem stellen wir gegenüber den Menschen, wie er ist, wenn er schlafend mit seiner Seele und mit seinem Geiste außerhalb des Leibes und Ätherleibes ist. Was vom Aufwachen bis zum Einschlafen den Menschen durchseelt und durchgeistet, das ist ja nicht da in der Zeit zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen. Das ist dann in einer andern Welt, die auch durchzogen ist von Gesetzmäßigkeit. Und wir müssen uns jetzt fragen: Von welcher Gesetzmäßigkeit ist die Welt durchzogen, in der sich der Mensch zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen befindet? - Wir haben gestern vier Arten von Gesetzmäßigkeiten angegeben: erstens die Gesetzmäßigkeit innerhalb der irdischen Welt, zweitens die Gesetzmäßigkeit innerhalb der kosmischen Welt, drittens die Gesetzmäßigkeit innerhalb der Weltenseele und viertens die Gesetzmäßigkeit innerhalb des Weltengeistes. Wir fragen uns: Wo ist jetzt der Mensch mit seiner Seele und mit seinem Geiste oder mit seinem seelischen Teil und mit seinem Ich zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen? - Nun, eine Überlegung und der Vergleich mit dem, was wir bisher besprochen haben, ergibt Ihnen, daß hier astralischer Leib und Ich sind in der Zeit zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen, in dem Gebiete der Weltenseele und des Weltengeistes.
1. Gesetzmäßigkeit innerhalb der irdischen Welt
2. Gesetzmäßigkeit innerhalb der kosmischen Welt
3. Gesetzmäßigkeit innerhalb der Weltenseele +
4. Gesetzmäßigkeit innerhalb des Weltengeistes = Astr. Leib, Ich
[ 5 ] >Und wir müssen ganz ernst nehmen, was wir vorgestern erwähnt haben, daß wir ja mit den beiden ersten Welten, mit der irdischen und der kosmischen Welt, das gesamte Gebiet des Raumes erschöpft haben. Wir kommen also, indem wir diese Gebiete betreten, schon außerhalb der Gebiete der Räumlichkeit. Das ist etwas, was wir uns immer klarer vor die Seele stellen müssen: Jedes Schlafen führt den Menschen nicht nur, wie man oftmals sagt, außerhalb seines physischen Leibes, sondern es führt ihn außerhalb des gewöhnlichen Raumes. Es führt ihn in eine Welt, die überhaupt nicht verwechselt werden darf mit der Welt, die sinnlich angeschaut werden kann. Aus dieser Welt heraus ist aber alle Gesetzmäßigkeit, welche zugrunde liegt dem rhythmischen Menschen, jenem Menschen, der sein Flüssigkeitselement und auch sein Luftelement mit Rhythmus durchorganisiert. Der Rhythmus erscheint im Raume, aber der Quell des Rhythmus, die Gesetzmäßigkeit, welche den Rhythmus hervorbringt, die strömt in jedem Punkte des Raumes aus außerräumlichen Tiefen hervor. Die wird überall reguliert von einer realen Welt, die jenseits des Sinnesraumes ist. Und stehen wir gegenüber jenem wunderbaren Wechselspiel, das sich abspielt im innermenschlichen Rhythmus durch die Atemzüge und durch den Puls, dann nehmen wir eigentlich in diesem Rhythmus etwas wahr, was aus geistigen, außerräumlichen Untergründen hereinreguliert wird in die Welt, in der sich der Mensch auch als physischer Mensch befindet. Wir können gar nicht das Element des Luftartigen verstehen, wenn wir nicht zu einem solchen konkreten Verstehen der rhythmischen Äußerung des Menschen innerhalb dieses Luftartigen kommen können.
[ 6 ] Wenn man noch mit der Imagination dasjenige erfaßt, was ich Ihnen vorgestern beschrieben habe, das Weben und Wesen der pflanzlichen Welt und das damit parallel gehende Weben und Wesen des menschlichen Ätherleibes, dann ist man noch in der Welt, in der man sonst auch ist; man muß sich nur erdentrückt denken, gewissermaßen hinausergossen in den ganzen Kosmos. Aber geht man über zu dem Luftelemente, dann muß man sich herausversetzen aus dem Raum, dann muß man die Möglichkeit haben, in einer Welt sich zu wissen, die nun nicht mehr räumlich ist, sondern nur noch zeitlich, in der nur noch das Zeitliche eine gewisse Bedeutung hat. In Zeiten, in denen man solche Dinge lebendig angeschaut hat, sah man das, was solchen Welten angehört, auch in einer solchen Weise an, daß man das Hineinspielen des Geistigen in die menschliche Betätigung auf dem Umwege durch den Rhythmus wirklich sah. Und ich habe aufmerksam darauf gemacht, wie der Grieche der griechischen Urzeit herausgegliedert hat den Hexameter: drei Pulsschläge mit der Zäsur, was einen Atemzug gibt, weitere drei Pulsschläge mit der Zäsur oder mit dem Ende des Verses gibt den vollen Hexameter: in zwei Atemzügen die entsprechenden acht Pulsschläge. Das Zusammenklingen der Pulsschläge mit der Atmung, es wurde kunstvoll gestaltet beim Rezitativ des griechischen Hexameters. Wie, man möchte sagen, die geistig-übersinnliche Welt den Menschen durchrieselt, wie sie hereinrieselt in die Blutzirkulation, in den Blutrhythmus und sich synthetisiert, vier Pulsschläge, vier Pulsrhythmen zu einem Atmungsrhythmus, das wurde wiedergegeben in jener Sprachgestaltung, die der Hexameter ist. Alle ursprünglichen Bestrebungen, Verse zu bauen, sind hervorgeholt aus dieser rhythmischen Organisation des Menschen.
[ 7 ] Real wird für den Menschen selbst die Welt, aus der dieses rhythmische Sich-Betätigen kommt, erst dann, wenn der Mensch schlafend bewußt wird. Die Tätigkeit, in der der Mensch dann schlafend, aber bewußt lebt, spielt eben in seinen Rhythmus herein. Was da zugrunde liegt, bleibt unbewußt dem gewöhnlichen Alltagsbewußtsein und erst recht dem gewöhnlichen heutigen wissenschaftlichen Bewußtsein. Wird das aber bewußt, dann tritt nicht nur dasjenige auf vor dem Menschen, was ich gestern beschrieb, die wogende, webende, wellende Pflanzenwelt, sondern dann tritt etwas auf, was jetzt nicht Bilder der gewöhnlichen Tierwelt sind, denn die wären räumlich, sondern es tritt auf ein deutliches Bewußtsein — das aber nur außerhalb des Leibes, nicht innerhalb des Leibes auftreten kann -, welches zum Inhalte hat die konkreten Bilder, aus denen sich dann die Gestalten der Tiere im Raume bilden. Geradeso wie unsere menschliche rhythmische Tätigkeit hereinsprudelt aus dem Außerräumlichen, so sprudeln herein aus dem Außerräumlichen die Gestalten, die dann in den verschiedenen Tieren sich organisieren.
[ 8 ] Das erste, was erlebt wird, wenn man bewußt jenen Zustand durchmacht, der sonst unbewußt zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen durchgemacht wird, was man da erlebt, indem man untertaucht in diese Welt, die der Quell unseres Rhythmus ist, das ist, daß einem die tierische Welt in ihren Formen verständlich wird. Die Tierwelt kann nicht in ihren Formen erklärt werden aus äußeren physischen Grundlagen, Kräften. Wenn die Zoologen oder Morphologen glauben, die Löwenform, die Tigerform, die Schmetterlingsform, die Käferform aus irgend etwas erklären zu können, was hier im physischen Raume zu finden ist, so täuschen sie sich sehr. Es ist das, woraus die Formen der Tiere zu erklären sind, nicht aus irgend etwas zu erklären, was hier im physischen Raume zu finden ist. Man trifft es an auf die Weise, wie ich es jetzt beschrieben habe, wenn man eben in die dritte der Gesetzmäßigkeiten hineinkommt, in die Gesetzmäßigkeiten der Weltenseele.
[ 9 ] Und ich möchte jetzt wiederum zurückverweisen auf den Griechen, den ich ja vorgestern in ein Gespräch gebracht habe mit dem modernen Gelehrten, der alles weiß; das heißt, er gibt ja zuweilen zu, daß er nicht alles weiß, aber er prätendiert, daß auf seine Art mindestens alles erklärt werden müsse. Der Grieche würde sagen: Auf deine Art kann überhaupt nichts erklärt werden, denn ich habe davon gehört, daß du so etwas hast wie eine Logik. Da zählst du allerlei abstrakte Begriffsformen, Kategorien auf, Sein, Werden, Haben und so weiter. Diese Logik ist etwas, was eine Gesetzmäßigkeit der Begriffe, der Ideen darstellen soll. Ja, aber diese abstrakte Logik — ich denke jetzt an einen Griechen der vorsokratischen Zeit, an einen Griechen derjenigen Zeit, aus der dann die Philosophien des T’hales, des Heraklit, des Anaxagoras hervorgegangen sind, die ja äußerlich nur zum Teil erhalten sind -, das, was ihr die Logik nennt — würde ein solcher Grieche sagen -, das hat ja erst ein Mensch gemacht, der eigentlich nicht mehr viel gewußt hat von den Geheimnissen der Welt. Das hat erst Aristoteles gemacht, nachdem er gründlich seinen Philisterverstand auf den Platonismus angewendet hat. Gewiß, Aristoteles ist ein großer Mann, aber eben ein großer Philister, der die wirkliche Logik ganz korrumpiert hat, der die wirkliche Logik zu einem Gespinst gemacht hat, das sich zur Realität verhält, wie eben etwas ganz dünn gesponnenes Wesenloses zu etwas dicht Realem. Und die wirkliche Logik - würde ein Grieche dieser Zeit sagen, der eben in seiner Art ein Wissenschafter gewesen wäre - umfaßt diejenigen Formen, die in der Tierwelt äußerlich-räumlich werden, und die man findet, wenn man bewußt wird zwischen Einschlafen und Aufwachen. Das ist Logik, das ist der reale Inhalt des logischen Bewußtseins.
[ 10 ] In der Tierwelt ist eben nichts anderes vorhanden als das, was im Menschen auch vorhanden ist, aber im Menschen ist es vergeistigt, und so kann er denken, so kann er die logischen Formen denken, die in der äußeren Welt in den Raum schießen und Tiere werden. Es ist schon so: Wenn wir zwischen dem Aufwachen und Einschlafen im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein unsere Begriffsformen wälzen, die eine Begriffsform mit der andern verbinden, dann tun wir in ideeller Beziehung dasselbe, was die Außenwelt tut, indem sie die verschiedenen Formen des Getieres gestaltet. Geradeso wie man sein Ätherisches betrachtet, wenn man den Blick wendet auf die Pflanzen und diese Pflanzenwelt sich eingebettet denkt in das Element des Wassers, geradeso begreift man die eigene Seelenwelt - meinetwillen kann sie die Astralwelt genannt werden -, wenn man mit diesem lebendigen Weben, das bewußt wird dem Bewußtsein zwischen Einschlafen und Aufwachen, sich durchdringt und das äußere Gestalten der Tierwelt versteht. Man muß sich dann das eigene Gestalten der ideellen Welt eingesponnen denken in den Rhythmus des luftigen Elementes.
[ 11 ] Sie können sich ja eine ganz konkrete Vorstellung machen aus mancherlei, das ich Ihnen über den Menschen angedeutet habe. Nehmen Sie den Vorgang ganz konkret: Sie atmen ein, die Luft geht die Ihnen bekannten Wege durch die Lunge. Dadurch aber, daß Sie eingeatmet haben, schlägt in den Raum, in dem das Rückenmark, aber auch die Rückenmarksflüssigkeit eingebettet ist, die Einatmungsluft hinein; durch den Arachnoidealraum wird dieses Wasser, das das Rückenmark umgibt, gegen das Gehirn hin rhythmisch geworfen. Das Gehirnwasser kommt in Tätigkeit. Diese Tätigkeit, in die das Gehirnwasser kommt, das ist die Tätigkeit des Gedankens. In Wirklichkeit wellt der Gedanke auf dem Atemzuge, der sich dem Gehirnwasser überträgt, und dieses Gehirnwasser, in dem das Gehirn schwimmt, das überträgt seinen rhythmischen Schlag nun auf das Gehirn selbst. Im Gehirn leben die Eindrücke der Sinne, die Eindrücke der Augen, der Ohren durch die Nerven-Sinnesbetätigung. Mit dem, was da von den Sinnen her im Gehirn lebt, schlägt der Atemrhythmus zusammen, und in diesem Zusammenschlagen entwickelt sich jenes Wechselspiel zwischen Sinnesempfinden und jener Gedankentätigkeit, jener formalen Gedankentätigkeit, die äußerlich in den Tierformen ihr Leben hat, und die dasjenige ist, was der Atmungsrhythmus bewirkt, indem er sich unserem Gehirnwasser im Arachnoidealraum mitteilt und dann dasjenige umspielt, was im Gehirn durch die Sinne lebt. Da lebt alles dasjenige drinnen, was nun ideell in uns zur Tätigkeit gelangt aus dem Rhythmus heraus.
[ 12 ] Das ist das Wesentliche, daß Sie versuchen, allmählich einzudringen in die Art, wie das Geistige hereinspielt in die physisch-sinnliche Welt. Das ist gerade der große Kulturschaden unserer Zeit, daß wir eine Wissenschaft haben, die zum Geiste in abstrakten Formen, in rein intellektualistischen Formen gelangt, während das Geistige begriffen werden muß in seinem schöpferischen Elemente, sonst bleibt die materielle Welt wie ein Hartes, Unbezwungenes außerhalb des Geistigen da. Wir müssen hineinschauen, wie dieses Element der dritten und vierten Gesetzmäßigkeit ganz konkret hereinspielt in das, was wir selber ausführen.
[ 13 ] Es gehört zu dem Wunderbarsten, was wir da gewahr werden, wenn wir den eigentlichen inneren Grund dessen kennenlernen, was sich mit jedem Atemzug vollziehen kann; was sich nicht vollzieht, sondern vollziehen kann, indem die Einatmung heraufspielt ins Gehirnwasser. Nun kommt der Rückschlag: Das Gehirnwasser wird wiederum durch den Arachnoidealraum heruntergedrängt, und dann kommt es zur Ausatmung. Das ist dann wieder ein Hingeben an die Welt, das ist ein Zusammengehen mit der Welt. Aber in diesem Ich-Werden - Zusammengehen mit der Welt - Ich-Werden - Zusammengehen mit der Welt, darin liegt im wesentlichen dasjenige, was sich im Atmungsrhythmus ausdrückt.
[ 14 ] So muß man reden, wenn man von jener Wirklichkeit redet, die gemeint ist mit dem Elemente der Luft, während Erde eben alles das umfaßt, was in unseren etlichen siebzig chemischen Elementen enthalten ist. Sie sehen ja: Das, was Leichnam wird, ist der Gesetzmäßigkeit der zweiundsiebzig Elemente unterworfen. Dasjenige aber, was diesen Leichnam zunächst in Regsamkeit bringt, so daß er wächst, daß er verdauen kann, das ist aus dem Kosmos hereingeströmt. Was diesen Organismus durchdringt, so daß er nicht nur wächst, nicht nur verdauen kann, sondern daß er immerzu in rhythmischer Tätigkeit sich entfaltet, in Puls- und Atmungsrhythmus, das kommt aus einer außerräumlichen Welt. Und wir studieren diese außerräumliche Welt ebenso im Luftelemente, denn da offenbart sie sich, wie wir die kosmische, nicht die irdische Welt, im Wasserelemente studieren, denn da offenbart sie sich. Und was sie für den heutigen Chemiker, für den heutigen Phyisker offenbart, das kommt nur aus dem in sich differenzierten Erdenelemente.
[ 15 ] Wir können dann auch den Übergang finden zu dem Wärme- oder Feuerelemente; aber das ist eigentlich nur möglich in einem Momente, der sich praktisch für den Menschen ergibt, wenn er die Fähigkeit erlangt hat, nicht nur bewußt aus seinem Leibe herauszugehen, sondern mit diesem Bewußtsein in die andern Wesen unterzutauchen. Das ist ein Unterschied. Man kann lange die Fähigkeit haben, aus seinem Leibe herauszugehen, wenn noch etwas Egoismus zurückgeblieben ist gegenüber der Welt, so kann man zwar alles das auffassen, wovon ich bis jetzt gesprochen habe, aber man kann nicht in diese äußere Welt wirklich untertauchen, man kann sich ihr nicht hingeben. Kommen solche Elemente einer wirklichen übersinnlichen Liebe hinzu, eines Untertauchens in diejenige Welt, in der man lebt zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen, dann erst lernt man eigentlich praktisch das Element der Wärme oder des Feuers kennen. Und dann lernt man im Grunde genommen erst kennen das wahre Wesen des Menschen. Denn was äußerlich durch die Sinne angesehen wird, das ist ja zunächst nur ein Scheinbild des Menschen, das ist der Mensch von der andern Seite, von der Seite des Scheines.
[ 16 ] Steigt man auf zu dem Elemente des Wassers, so zerfließt einem ja zunächst die ätherische Wesenheit des Menschen. Sie wird, ich möchte sagen, zu einem Miniaturbild von Winter, Sommer, Herbst und so weiter. Kommt man zu dem Elemente der Luft, dann gewahrt man ein rhythmisches Sich-Bewegen. Den geschlossenen Menschen, den Menschen, wie er als ewiger Mensch ist, den lernt man nur kennen innerhalb des Elementes der Wärme. Da schließt sich wiederum alles zusammen, schließen sich zusammen jene Bewegungen und Webungen des Wasserelementes und die Rhythmen und Rhythmisierungen des Luftelementes. Sie gleichen sich aus, sie harmonisieren sich und entharmonisieren sich im Wärmeelemente, im Feuerelemente, und da kann man das wirkliche Wesen des Menschen kennenlernen. Da ist man eigentlich erst wirklich in dem vierten, in der Gesetzmäßigkeit des Weltengeistes darinnen.
[ 17 ] Wenn man also heute hört aus früherer Wissenschaft von Erde, Wasser, Feuer, Luft, sollte man sich nicht vorstellen: Wie haben wir es so herrlich weit gebracht mit unserer gegenwärtigen Wissenschaft -, sondern man sollte sich vorstellen: Ein ganz anderes Bewußtsein von dem Wurzeln des Menschen in übersinnlichen Tiefen war vorhanden. Daher wußte man auch etwas von der verschiedenen Stellung des Erdenelementes zu diesem Übersinnlichen. Gewissermaßen ist das Erdenelement ganz außerhalb der Sphäre des Übersinnlichen. Es kommt ihm schon nahe das Wasserelement; mit der im kosmischen Raume ausgebreiteten Sphärenwelt ist eigentlich dieses Wasserelement viel verwandter als mit dem, was Erde selber ist. Wir kommen aber aus dem Raume völlig heraus, wenn wir den Quell dessen suchen, was in uns den Luftrhythmus, also unsere Luftorganisation ausmacht; denn in bezug auf unsere Luftorganisation sind wir rhythmisierend, entrhythmisierend und so weiter. Und wir kommen endlich zu dem universellen Außerräumlichen, zu dem, was auch die Zeit noch überwindet, wenn wir in das Feuerelement hineinkommen, in das Wärmeelement. Da aber lernen wir erst den ganzen in sich abgeschlossenen Menschen kennen. Dieses findet man dann wirklich, wenn man es wieder entdeckt hat - und es ist schon einmal notwendig, daß man es heute wiederum entdeckt —, man findet es dann noch, obwohl korrumpiert, in der Literatur, die zurückliegt hinter dem 15. Jahrhundert.
[ 18 ] Da ist vor ein paar Jahren das Werk eines schwedischen Gelehrten erschienen über die Alchemie. Dieser schwedische Gelehrte liest einen Vorgang, von einem Alchemisten beschrieben, und er sagt: Wenn man diesen Vorgang heute nachprüft, dann ist er der reine Unsinn, dann kann man sich gar nichts dabei vorstellen. - Man kann ganz gut begreifen, wenn der Chemiker von heute, selbst der schwedische, der etwas vorurteilsloser ist als der mitteleuropäische, die Ausdrücke nimmt, in die dasjenige gekleidet ist, was auch nur in der korrumpierten Literatur der älteren Zeiten vorhanden ist, das nachmacht und dann sagt, daß gar nichts dabei herauskommt! Ich habe den Vorgang, den der gute schwedische Gelehrte nicht verstehen kann, aufgesucht in der Literatur, die dem schwedischen Gelehrten vorgelegen hat, und in diesem Vorgang, der dort beschrieben ist in der Literatur, war allerdings ein Stück des Embryonalvorganges, der Embryoentwickelung des Menschen gegeben! Das zeigte sich sehr bald. Aber man mußte die Sache lesen können! Der heutige Gelehrte liest so etwas, er wendet die Ausdrücke an, die in seiner Chemie stehen, die er gelernt hat. Nun stellt er seine Retorten auf und macht den Vorgang nach: Unsinn! - Dasjenige, was er gelesen hat, ist das Stück eines Vorganges, das sich im mütterlichen Leibe bei der Embryonalbildung vollzieht. Sehen Sie, so ist der Abgrund, der aufgetan ist zwischen dem, was der heutige Gelehrte lesen kann, und dem, was einmal gemeint war.
[ 19 ] Aber all die Dinge, die da beschrieben werden, sind beschrieben unter dem Einflusse solcher Vorstellungen, wie wir sie heute wiederum hervorsuchen aus neuerer Geisteswissenschaft. Entdeckt man sie nicht wieder, dann kann man diese Schriften gar nicht lesen. Sie waren in einer ganz andern Weise, als wir sie heute entdecken, vorhanden. Sie waren instinktiv, atavistisch vorhanden, aber sie waren eben vorhanden und die Menschheit hat sich gewissermaßen herausgehoben zum Verständnisse des bloßen Erdenelementes. Wir müssen wiederum den Eingang finden in die Elemente, die uns nun nicht bloß den Leichnam des Menschen erklären, sondern die uns wiederum den ganzen Menschen, den lebenden Menschen erklären. Dazu ist allerdings notwendig, daß man lernt, innerhalb unserer Zivilisation ganz ernst zu nehmen, was in der Präexistenzfrage gegeben ist.
[ 20 ] Als die Präexistenz hinausgeworfen wurde aus der abendländischen Kulturentwickelung, da war eigentlich das selbstlose Forschen aus dieser Kulturentwickelung herausgeworfen. Wenn heute die Prediger von Unsterblichkeit predigen: bitte, nehmen Sie alle Predigten, ich habe ja schon öfter darauf aufmerksam gemacht, sie appellieren im Grunde genommen an den menschlichen Egoismus. Man weiß, der Mensch fühlt sich unbehaglich, er hat Furcht vor dem Aufhören des Lebens. Gewiß, es hört nicht auf. Aber man appelliert nicht an seine Erkenntniskräfte, wenn man davon spricht, sondern man appelliert an seine Todesfurcht, an seinen Willen, fortleben zu wollen, wenn der Leib ihm genommen ist; man appelliert an seinen Egoismus mit andern Worten. Das kann man nicht, wenn man von der Präexistenz spricht. Eigentlich ist es insbesondere den Leuten der Gegenwart zunächst höchst einerlei, wenn sie auf ihren Egoismus schauen, ob sie vorher, bevor sie geboren oder konzipiert worden sind, gelebt haben. Sie leben jetzt, dessen sind sie gewiß. Deshalb sind sie nicht sehr besorgt um die Präexistenz, sie sind um die Postexistenz besorgt; denn wenn sie auch jetzt leben, so wissen sie nicht, ob sie nach dem Tode leben werden. Das hängt mit ihrem Egoismus zusammen. Aber da sie schon einmal leben, so sagen sie sich, wenn auch unbewußt oder instinktiv, wenn sie nicht Erkenntnis getrieben haben: Nun, ich lebe, und wenn ich auch vor meiner Geburt oder Konzeption nicht gelebt habe, so macht mir das nichts aus, wenn ich nur jetzt angefangen habe zu leben und nicht wieder aufhöre! Das ist die Stimmung, aus der heraus im Grunde heute die Gefühle geholt werden, durch welche die Menschen für die Unsterblichkeit begeistert werden. Deshalb haben wir in den bekannten Sprachen ein Wort für Unsterblichkeit als Anweisung zur Ewigkeit an dem Ende des Lebens, aber nicht, wie ich Ihnen ja auch schon öfter gesagt habe, in den gebräuchlichen Kultursprachen ein Wort für Ungeborenheit. Das müssen wir natürlich nach und nach ebenso erobern. Das spricht mehr zu der Erkenntnis, das spricht mehr zu der Unegoität, zu dem egoismusfreien Erkennen des Menschen. An das muß wiederum appelliert werden. Und überhaupt muß die Erkenntnis mit der Moral, mit der Ethik durchzogen werden. Ehe nicht wiederum der Laboratoriumstisch eine Art Altar, ehe nicht das Synthetisieren und Analysieren eine Art Geisteskunst ist und man sich bewußt ist, man greift ein in die Weltenentwickelung, indem man dies oder jenes tut, eher kann es mit unserer Kulturentwickelung nicht aufwärtsgehen. Wir kommen unbedingt in einen furchtbaren Niedergang hinein, wenn nicht in weiteren Kreisen eingesehen wird: Man muß zu egoismusfreier Erkenntnis, zu durchmoralisierter Erkenntnis gelangen, muß jene mit den höheren Welten gar nicht rechnenden Analysen und Synthesen, wie wir sie heute haben, überwinden. Man muß wiederum so etwas verstehen lernen wie den Rhythmus, der hineinspielt in unser Leben, wie dasjenige, was in die Wärme hineinspielt. Denn in die Wärme spielt eben das Moralische hinein; und indem es einfach Wärmeunterschiede, Wärmetingierungen gibt, gibt es in Wirklichkeit die weltdurchwellende Moralität, in der sich der Mensch entwickelt. Das alles muß nach und nach der Menschheit bewußt werden. Und es ist nicht bloß, möchte ich sagen, eine idealistische Schrulle, die uns auffordert, in dieser Zeit die Zeichen der Zeit zu deuten, sondern es sprechen die Zeichen der Zeit selber dahingehend, daß diese Vertiefung nach dem Übersinnlichen versucht werden muß.
Fourth Lecture
[ 1 ] The day before yesterday, we talked about how a Greek of that time, when a certain inner knowledge still existed, would have thought about the worldview, about the scientific worldview of the present, and I then tried to show how, from the point of view of imaginative knowledge, such a Greek would have described what we are accustomed to calling the human etheric body in relation to the element of water. I said: Imaginative knowledge would reveal a certain connection between the entire effect of water, the undulation and weaving of the water element, the striving toward expansiveness, the sinking toward the earth, and a connection between these, I would say, unfolding forces toward expansiveness and toward the center, with the shaping, with the formation of the plant element in its individual forms. This brings us to a concrete form of the content of the imaginative world, at least of a part of the imaginative world. In practical terms, such knowledge can only be attained by striving for the kind of development I have just described in my book How to Know Higher Worlds, with the goal of imaginative knowledge.
[ 2 ] However, with such knowledge, we would still remain ignorant of what was called the air element in the earlier worldview. This air element, as the ancients understood it, for example, can only be penetrated through so-called inspired knowledge. You will come close to this inspired knowledge, this experience of the air element, if you try to understand the following. I have often mentioned how, today, human beings are basically viewed from a very external perspective. One need only remember how anatomical and physiological images of human beings are produced today. They are made in such a way that sharp contours of the internal organs, of the heart, lungs, and liver, are drawn. Certainly, these sharp contours, these boundary lines of the heart, lungs, liver, and so on, have a certain justification. But we use them to draw the human being as if he were a solid body through and through, which he is not. The human being consists of the smallest amount of solid mineral substances. If we take the maximum, we can assume that at most eight percent of the human being is solid; ninety-two percent of the human being is a column of fluid, it is not solid at all. The solid is only stored in the human being. Very little awareness of this is awakened in the present-day students of physiology, anatomy, and so on. But we do not get to know the watery human being, the fluid human being, when we draw him with the solid boundaries of his organs. Rather, the fluid human being is something that is in constant flow; his organism is constantly moving within itself. And it is in this fluid organism that the air organism is now first deposited. The air flows in, connects with the substances inside, and stirs them up, if I may say so.
[ 3 ] Because humans have this air element within them, they actually form a complete unity with the external world. The air that I now have within me, I did not have within me a short time ago; it was outside. The air that I now have within me will be outside again later. One cannot say that human beings, when viewed in terms of this third element, the air element, are enclosed within their skin, and certainly not in relation to the heat or fire elements. One cannot say that human beings are closed beings.
[ 4 ] Now let us contrast what we consider to be the complete human being, the human being who is not only organized in the solid, but who is organized in the liquid, in the gaseous, and in the element of warmth, in the configured, intermingling warmth, with the human being as he is when he is asleep with his soul and spirit outside his body and etheric body. What animates and inspires the human being from the moment of waking to the moment of falling asleep is not present in the time between falling asleep and waking up. It is then in another world, which is also permeated by laws. And now we must ask ourselves: What laws govern the world in which human beings find themselves between falling asleep and waking up? Yesterday we mentioned four kinds of laws: first, the laws within the earthly world; second, the laws within the cosmic world; third, the laws within the world soul; and fourth, the laws within the world spirit. We ask ourselves: Where is the human being with his soul and spirit, or with his soul part and his ego, between falling asleep and waking up? - Well, consideration and comparison with what we have discussed so far shows you that the astral body and the ego are in the realm of the world soul and the world spirit in the time between falling asleep and waking up.
1. Lawfulness within the earthly world
2. Lawfulness within the cosmic world
3. Lawfulness within the world soul +
4. Lawfulness within the world spirit = astral body, I-self
[ 5 ] >And we must take very seriously what we mentioned the day before yesterday, that with the first two worlds, the earthly and the cosmic world, we have exhausted the entire realm of space. So when we enter these realms, we are already outside the realms of space. This is something we must keep ever more clearly in mind: every time we sleep, we are not only taken outside our physical body, as is often said, but outside ordinary space. We are taken into a world that must not be confused with the world that can be perceived by the senses. But out of this world comes all the lawfulness that underlies the rhythmic human being, the human being who organizes his fluid element and also his air element with rhythm. Rhythm appears in space, but the source of rhythm, the law that produces rhythm, flows out from extra-spatial depths at every point in space. It is regulated everywhere by a real world that is beyond the sensory realm. And when we stand before that wonderful interplay that takes place in the inner human rhythm through the breaths and the pulse, then we actually perceive something in this rhythm that is regulated from spiritual, extra-spatial depths into the world in which human beings also exist as physical beings. We cannot understand the element of air if we cannot arrive at such a concrete understanding of the rhythmic expression of human beings within this air.
[ 6 ] If you use your imagination to grasp what I described to you the day before yesterday, the weaving and essence of the plant world and the parallel weaving and essence of the human etheric body, then you are still in the world in which you otherwise are; you only have to think of yourself as earth-bound, as it were, poured out into the whole cosmos. But when you move over to the air element, you have to remove yourself from space, you have to be able to know yourself in a world that is no longer spatial, but only temporal, in which only the temporal has a certain meaning. In times when people viewed such things in a living way, they also viewed what belongs to such worlds in such a way that they really saw the spiritual playing into human activity via the detour through rhythm. And I have pointed out how the Greeks of ancient times divided the hexameter: three beats with a caesura, which gives one breath, followed by another three beats with a caesura or with the end of the verse, giving the full hexameter: the corresponding eight beats in two breaths. The harmony of the pulse beats with the breathing was artfully crafted in the recitative of the Greek hexameter. It is as if the spiritual, supernatural world flows through human beings, as if it flows into the blood circulation, into the rhythm of the blood, and synthesizes itself, four beats, four pulse rhythms into a breathing rhythm, which was reproduced in the language form that is the hexameter. All original efforts to construct verses are drawn from this rhythmic organization of the human being.
[ 7 ] The world from which this rhythmic activity originates only becomes real for the human being when he becomes conscious while sleeping. The activity in which humans then live while asleep but conscious plays into their rhythm. What underlies this remains unconscious to ordinary everyday consciousness and even more so to ordinary scientific consciousness today. But when this becomes conscious, then not only does what I described yesterday appear before humans, the surging, weaving, undulating plant world, but then something appears that is not images of the ordinary animal world, for those would be spatial, but rather a clear consciousness appears—which, however, can only appear outside the body, not within the body— which has as its content the concrete images from which the forms of animals then take shape in space. Just as our human rhythmic activity bubbles in from outside space, so the forms bubble in from outside space and then organize themselves into the various animals.
[ 8 ] The first thing one experiences when consciously going through that state which is otherwise experienced unconsciously between falling asleep and waking up, what one experiences when one submerges into this world which is the source of our rhythm, is that the animal world becomes understandable in its forms. The animal world cannot be explained in its forms by external physical foundations or forces. If zoologists or morphologists believe they can explain the form of a lion, a tiger, a butterfly, or a beetle from something that can be found here in physical space, they are very much mistaken. It is from this that the forms of animals are to be explained, not from anything that can be found here in physical space. One encounters this in the way I have just described when one enters into the third of the laws, into the laws of the world soul.
[ 9 ] And now I would like to refer back to the Greek whom I mentioned the day before yesterday in a conversation with the modern scholar who knows everything; that is, he sometimes admits that he does not know everything, but he pretends that everything must at least be explained in his own way. The Greek would say: Nothing at all can be explained in your way, because I have heard that you have something like logic. You list all kinds of abstract concepts, categories, being, becoming, having, and so on. This logic is something that is supposed to represent a lawfulness of concepts, of ideas. Yes, but this abstract logic—I am thinking now of a Greek of the pre-Socratic period, a Greek of that time, from which the philosophies of Thales, Heraclitus, and Anaxagoras emerged, which, outwardly, have only been partially preserved — what you call logic — such a Greek would say — was created by a person who actually didn't know much about the mysteries of the world. It was only Aristotle who did that, after he had thoroughly applied his philistine understanding to Platonism. Certainly, Aristotle is a great man, but he is also a great philistine who completely corrupted real logic, who turned real logic into a web that relates to reality like something very thinly spun and insubstantial relates to something densely real. And real logic—as a Greek of that time who was a scientist in his own way would say—encompasses those forms that become external and spatial in the animal world and that one finds when one becomes conscious between falling asleep and waking up. That is logic; that is the real content of logical consciousness.
[ 10 ] In the animal world, there is nothing else than what is also present in humans, but in humans it is spiritualized, and thus humans can think, can think the logical forms that shoot into space in the external world and become animals. It is indeed so: when, between waking and falling asleep in ordinary consciousness, we roll around our conceptual forms, connecting one conceptual form with another, we are doing, in an ideal sense, the same thing that the external world does in shaping the various forms of animals. Just as when one considers the etheric, when one turns one's gaze to plants and imagines this plant world embedded in the element of water, one understands one's own soul world—for my sake it can be called the astral world—when one is permeated by this living weaving that becomes conscious between falling asleep and waking up and understands the outer forms of the animal world. One must then imagine one's own shaping of the ideal world woven into the rhythm of the airy element.
[ 11 ] You can form a very concrete idea from some of the things I have hinted at about human beings. Take the process quite concretely: you breathe in, the air travels through the lungs along the paths you know. But because you have breathed in, the inhaled air strikes the space in which the spinal cord, but also the spinal fluid, is embedded; through the arachnoid space, this water surrounding the spinal cord is rhythmically thrown toward the brain. The cerebral fluid becomes active. This activity of the cerebral fluid is the activity of thought. In reality, thought undulates on the breath, which is transmitted to the cerebral fluid, and this cerebral fluid, in which the brain floats, now transmits its rhythmic beat to the brain itself. The impressions of the senses, the impressions of the eyes and ears, live in the brain through the activity of the nerves and senses. The rhythm of the breath beats together with what lives in the brain from the senses, and in this beating together, the interplay between sensory perception and that thought activity, that formal thought activity, develops. which lives outwardly in animal forms, and which is what the breathing rhythm brings about by communicating with our brain fluid in the arachnoid space and then playing around what lives in the brain through the senses. Everything that now becomes active in us as ideas out of the rhythm lives there.
[ 12 ] The essential thing is that you try to gradually penetrate the way in which the spiritual plays into the physical-sensory world. This is precisely the great cultural damage of our time, that we have a science that approaches the spirit in abstract forms, in purely intellectual forms, whereas the spiritual must be understood in its creative elements, otherwise the material world remains as something hard and unconquered outside the spiritual. We must look into how this element of the third and fourth laws plays a very concrete role in what we ourselves do.
[ 13 ] It is one of the most wonderful things we become aware of when we learn the actual inner reason for what can take place with every breath; what does not take place, but can take place, as the inhalation rises up into the brain fluid. Now comes the backlash: The cerebral fluid is pushed down again by the arachnoid space, and then exhalation occurs. This is then again a surrender to the world, a merging with the world. But in this becoming-I—merging with the world—becoming-I—merging with the world—lies essentially what is expressed in the rhythm of breathing.
[ 14 ] This is how one must speak when talking about the reality that is meant by the element of air, while earth encompasses everything contained in our seventy-odd chemical elements. You see, what becomes a corpse is subject to the laws of the seventy-two elements. But that which initially brings this corpse to life, so that it grows and can digest, flows in from the cosmos. That which permeates this organism, so that it not only grows and can digest, but also continually unfolds in rhythmic activity, in pulse and breathing rhythms, comes from a world outside space. And we study this extra-spatial world in the air element, for there it reveals itself, just as we study the cosmic, not the earthly world, in the water element, for there it reveals itself. And what it reveals to today's chemists and physicists comes only from the differentiated earth element within itself.
[ 15 ] We can then also find the transition to the heat or fire element; but this is actually only possible in a moment that arises practically for the human being when he has acquired the ability not only to consciously leave his body, but to immerse himself in other beings with this consciousness. That is a difference. One can have the ability to leave one's body for a long time, but if there is still some egoism left toward the world, one can understand everything I have spoken about so far, but one cannot really immerse oneself in this outer world, one cannot surrender to it. When elements of real supernatural love are added, of immersing oneself in the world in which one lives between falling asleep and waking up, only then does one actually learn about the element of warmth or fire in a practical way. And then, basically, one only then gets to know the true nature of the human being. For what is seen externally through the senses is, at first, only a false image of the human being, it is the human being from the other side, from the side of appearances.
[ 16 ] When one ascends to the element of water, the etheric essence of the human being initially dissolves. It becomes, I would say, a miniature image of winter, summer, autumn, and so on. When one reaches the element of air, one perceives a rhythmic movement. The closed human being, the human being as he is in his eternal state, can only be known within the element of warmth. There everything comes together again, the movements and weavings of the water element and the rhythms and rhythmic patterns of the air element come together. They balance each other out, they harmonize and disharmonize in the element of warmth, in the element of fire, and there you can get to know the real essence of the human being. Only then are you really in the fourth, in the lawfulness of the world spirit.
[ 17 ] So when we hear today about the ancient science of earth, water, fire, and air, we should not think: How wonderfully far we have come with our present science — but rather: A completely different consciousness of the roots of the human being in supersensible depths existed. That is why people also knew something about the different position of the earth element in relation to the supersensible. In a sense, the earth element is completely outside the sphere of the supersensible. The water element comes close to it; this water element is actually much more closely related to the sphere world spread out in cosmic space than to what the earth itself is. However, we leave space completely behind when we seek the source of what constitutes the air rhythm within us, that is, our air organization; for in relation to our air organization, we are rhythmic, derhythmic, and so on. And we finally arrive at the universal, non-spatial, at that which even time cannot overcome, when we enter the element of fire, the element of warmth. But it is only there that we come to know the whole human being in his or her own right. This can be found once we have rediscovered it — and it is necessary that we rediscover it today —; we can still find it, albeit corrupted, in literature dating back to before the 15th century.
[ 18 ] A few years ago, a Swedish scholar published a work on alchemy. This Swedish scholar reads about a process described by an alchemist and says: If you examine this process today, it is pure nonsense; you cannot imagine anything at all. It is quite understandable that today's chemists, even Swedish ones, who are less prejudiced than their Central European counterparts, take the expressions used in the corrupt literature of earlier times, imitate them, and then say that nothing comes of it! I looked up the process that the good Swedish scholar cannot understand in the literature available to him, and in this process described there in the literature, there was indeed a piece of the embryonic process, the embryonic development of the human being! This became apparent very quickly. But one had to be able to read it! Today's scholars read something like this and use the terms they have learned in chemistry. Then they set up their retorts and repeat the process: nonsense! What they have read is a part of a process that takes place in the mother's womb during embryonic formation. You see, this is the gulf that has opened up between what today's scholars can read and what was once meant.
[ 19 ] But all the things that are described there are described under the influence of ideas such as we are now rediscovering in the new spiritual science. If we do not rediscover them, we cannot read these writings at all. They existed in a completely different way than we discover them today. They existed instinctively, atavistically, but they did exist, and humanity has, in a sense, lifted itself out of the understanding of the mere earthly element. We must find our way back to the elements that not only explain the corpse of the human being, but also explain the whole human being, the living human being. To do this, however, it is necessary to learn to take seriously within our civilization what is given in the question of pre-existence.
[ 20 ] When pre-existence was thrown out of Western cultural development, selfless research was actually thrown out of that cultural development. When preachers preach immortality today, please take all their sermons—I have pointed this out many times before—they are basically appealing to human egoism. We know that human beings feel uncomfortable; they are afraid of the end of life. Of course, life does not end. But when we talk about this, we do not appeal to their powers of understanding; we appeal to their fear of death, to their desire to live on after their bodies are taken from them; in other words, we appeal to their egoism. You cannot do that when you talk about pre-existence. Actually, when they look at their egoism, people today do not really care whether they lived before they were born or conceived. They live now, of that they are certain. Therefore, they are not very concerned about pre-existence; they are concerned about post-existence; for even though they live now, they do not know whether they will live after death. This is connected with their egoism. But since they are already living, they say to themselves, even if unconsciously or instinctively, if they have not sought knowledge: Well, I am alive, and even if I did not live before my birth or conception, it does not matter to me, as long as I have now begun to live and will not cease to exist! This is the mood from which, basically, the feelings are drawn today that make people enthusiastic about immortality. That is why we have a word for immortality in the known languages as an instruction for eternity at the end of life, but not, as I have often told you, a word for unbornness in the common cultural languages. Of course, we must gradually conquer this as well. This speaks more to knowledge, it speaks more to unegoity, to the egoism-free recognition of human beings. This must be appealed to again. And in general, this realization must be permeated with morality and ethics. Until the laboratory table is no longer a kind of altar, until synthesizing and analyzing are no longer a kind of intellectual art, and until we are aware that we are intervening in the development of the world by doing this or that, our cultural development cannot progress. We will inevitably fall into a terrible decline unless wider circles realize that we must attain knowledge free of egoism, knowledge permeated by morality, and overcome the analyses and syntheses we have today, which do not take the higher worlds into account at all. We must learn to understand something like the rhythm that plays into our lives, like that which plays into warmth. For it is precisely morality that plays into warmth; and inasmuch as there are simply differences in warmth, gradations of warmth, there is in reality a morality that pervades the world, in which human beings develop. All this must gradually become conscious to humanity. And it is not merely, I would say, an idealistic quirk that calls on us to interpret the signs of the times in this age, but the signs of the times themselves speak to us that this deepening toward the supersensible must be attempted.