Cosmosophy I
GA 207
8 October 1921, Dornach
Lecture VII
Our recent studies have led us to consider the relationship of the human being to the spiritual world, and this relationship has in its turn made it necessary for us to cast a glance at the development man goes through between death and a new birth. We will take this as our starting point today.
Yesterday we said that the human being carries through the portal of death what I called a mineral consciousness. It can be called this because essentially its content is the mineral world with its laws, and this consciousness therefore is tinged by, or rather steeped with man's moral feelings and experiences. Bearing with him what comes from these two directions, the human being makes his way in the world through which he journeys between death and a new birth. When we consider what the human being is after death, we find that the astral body and the I have wrested themselves free from what surrounded them as a kind of shell, that is, from the physical body and the etheric body.
Now, if we picture the cosmic evolution of humanity, together with the cosmic planetary bodies that have to do with it, we know, from the description given in my Occult Science, how in the past this cosmic evolution has gone through the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions, and how the human being then arrived at the Earth evolution, in which he is still involved. We also know that essentially in the Saturn evolution the first rudiments of the physical body were formed as a kind of universal sense organ that was developed further in the Sun, Moon, and Earth evolutions. We know that the first rudiments of the etheric body were added during the Sun evolution, those of the astral body during the Moon evolution, and that the Earth evolution is actually the time during which the I of man is evolved.
When we consider the human being as a whole, we find that he has his ego through the bond of the human being with the earth, for through those forces that exist on earth the I is formed, is molded. If we now say, therefore, that the human being passes through the portal of death, bearing his I through it, he really takes through the portal of death all that he has from his earthly evolution, all that he acquires within the earthly evolution. We bear through the portal of death just what belongs to the earthly evolution, and it is during the earthly evolution that the mineral world has been added to the other kingdoms. This, too, you may gather from my Occult Science. The outer, mineral world is, therefore, bound up with the evolution of the I. That the I goes through the portal of death with a mineral consciousness is essentially connected with what the human being actually has gained from the earth.
If we comprehend the earth only in a general way, however, as it first appears to us as world body, we understand it very imperfectly. The earth as world body, as it were, is a being that may be compared to a large drop in the infinite ocean of space; but this drop is constituted in such a way that it is differentiated in its substance—it contains substances of varying weight, varying density. We need only observe the metals in the earth to find that they are of varying density. What the human being incorporates into himself from the earth with the mineral consciousness originates from the whole earth, and it originates simply because the earth is a complete planet in the cosmos. What is differentiated into the various mineral substances then works in such a way that the human being takes with him through the portal of death not only what his I has become but also, for a time, what was his astral body. This has been described in my books, Occult Science and Theosophy, as the passage of the human being through the soul world.
We may therefore say that when the human being leaves the earth he develops the mineral consciousness. At first, however, this consciousness is permeated with all that the human being takes with him from the differentiated earth, from the earth insofar as it consists of various substances. This constitutes the period of his passage through the soul world. We can therefore say that the human being takes with him something that then goes on further and that to begin with is not only his I but is in a certain way an astral fruit of the earth (see drawing, page 119).
If we then follow the human being further, after he has laid aside this astral fruit of the earth, as described in my book, Theosophy—where it is shown how a short time after death man completes his passage through the soul world—we find that his I goes on further. At first, however, it is permeated by mineral consciousness. When we raise our spiritual gaze to where the human being is, we find the mineral consciousness of the deceased human being, that is, the thought world, which is related to what is mineral. It is actually the case that this thought world borne by man through death works on earth, and also in the cosmos, upon what is the mineral kingdom (see drawing at end of lecture).
This is an extraordinarily noteworthy and significant relationship. When we look at our minerals here on earth, when we observe the mineral kingdom that is also in the clouds—for there, too, there are mineral effects—and ask ourselves what spiritual essences are at work there, we must answer that in these mineral formations, which show us their outer side when as human beings on earth we observe them with our physical senses—in all these mineral effects live the thoughts to which human thought comes after death. If we look at the mineral kingdom intelligently, allowing our gaze to peruse this mineral kingdom, we can say that in all this mineral activity there is working inwardly that which constitutes the consciousness of the dead at the beginning of their career beyond the earth. We must therefore—and not merely for outer reasons—call the mineral kingdom a non-living, dead kingdom: but we must also call it a dead kingdom in the sense that at first the human thoughts, the actual human thoughts that man harbors immediately after death, work into this mineral kingdom.
When the human being then continues his journey, he comes ever nearer the Midnight Hour of Existence. Both before and after this time he develops, in the sense in which I spoke yesterday, a consciousness that is more plant-like in nature; it is not the mineral consciousness he possessed before but a consciousness that arises through the human entity being permeated with plant-creating forces. The human being receives from realms beyond the earth something different from what the earth as such can give him; in addition to what the earth can give him, he receives what is a kind of higher consciousness, and it can become apparent to us that he develops a plant-like consciousness. During this time he works on the plant realm both on earth and in the cosmos (see drawing at end of lecture).
It is one of the secrets of existence that when we study the plant covering of the earth, all the vegetable existence, we are shown only its outer side; it also has an inner side. Naturally we must seek this inner side, not under the roots but above the blossoms. When we picture to ourselves the blossoming plant, we see its inner aspect in what inclines astrally toward the plants, in what lives astrally, as it were, and has its-outer expression in the plant covering, in the processes of fructification, in all, therefore, that is unseen. It may be said that if one observes the plant itself purely from root to flower, the inner side would be that which is over the flower. If, therefore, we consider what can be perceived outwardly of the vegetation as an outer side, then the inner side consists of the sphere of those forces that in part have their point of origin in the consciousness of human beings in the middle period of their existence between death and a new birth—before and after the Midnight Hour of Existence. We therefore must look upon the vegetation of the earth as being connected in its cosmic existence with the whole of human evolution.
If we can say regarding the mineral kingdom that in this dead kingdom live the weaving thoughts of human beings in the first half of their life between death and a new birth, then we must say that in the vegetation of the earth is outwardly revealed what lives inwardly in the universe, so that it constitutes the world of human consciousness in the middle period between death and a new birth.
The intimate relationship between the human being and the world about which we spoke yesterday made it possible to close yesterday's study with the words, “Knowledge of the world is knowledge of man, and knowledge of man is knowledge of the world.” This relationship reveals itself here in a quite special way. It shows us that here on earth we actually behold something of what the human being is between death and a new birth. If we look at the minerals, they reveal to us in a kind of outer picture what human beings do in an inwardly conscious way in the period immediately following death. When we look at the plant world, we see revealed what man does inwardly in the middle period of his evolution between death and a new birth.
To an unprejudiced view such things can be observed in a certain outer way. Whenever we consider Goethe's very peculiar nature—which is only an outstanding example—each time we are surprised afresh. What constitutes the peculiarity of Goethe's nature? For one thing, Goethe attempted again and again to become a draughtsman or painter. He never accomplished this, but the drawings and paintings he left are striking in their sureness of touch. When one considers Goethe's poems, especially some that are unusually characteristic in this respect, one says to oneself that though Goethe could not become a painter his poems are expressed in a kind of displaced painting. In his poems Goethe does a good deal of painting. If this were to be expressed in the same way as some modern talented critics do, for example, one might say (though I do not think that it is such a good thing to do) that Goethe had the tendency to become a bad painter; he carried his painting tendency into his poetry and therefore became in that way merely a painterly poet.
One may say further that those people were somewhat justified who described many of Goethe's poems as being smooth and cold as marble, even “Iphigenia” and “Tasso,” in a certain sense, but still more so “The Natural Daughter.” Goethe offered dramatic poems in which a sculptor actually lives, and as dramatic poems they do not breathe forth the inner life that permeates the poems of Shakespeare. In a certain respect they are poems that have stopped short and are expressed in sculptural form.
Briefly, Goethe can appear as a special genius, perhaps for the very reason that he never actually came quite fully into the world. He came to the world as a painter, but never became one. He then turned to poetry but brought things to expression in a way half-painterly. He never fully mastered the art of dramatic poetry. For this he had poetic inclinations but never actually became a real dramatic poet; he stopped short of this, turned back again, and brought it to expression in a sculptural way. When one studies Goethe correctly, one becomes conscious of something that is most characteristic of him—Goethe is a human being who was never really born quite right. He produced a theory of color but was never in a true sense a physicist. He occupied himself with natural science but never completely entered into its technicalities. In short, there was actually nothing in the world into which he entered fully—he never came into the world properly.
One might go even further, considering his relationships to women. These also developed only to a certain stage, never to the point to which they develop in ordinary human beings born correctly into physical life. One could find confirmation of this everywhere, if one feels and senses these things, and if only this feeling and sensation is not limited by ordinary pedantic, commonplace ideas and obvious objections to which I need not refer here in detail. About this thesis that Goethe was not entirely born the objection naturally may be made that he was indeed born on such and such a day in Frankfurt, as may be seen in any of his biographies. Let me draw your attention, however, to a matter that calls for comment, that he arrived in the world half dead, his body absolutely black. He therefore did not enter the world robustly but in a way that was half dead.
Let us follow his life and see how he never fully arrives anywhere—how he has setbacks, even to the point of illness. Everything is like this, even the way he went about in Weimar, inapproachable in a certain respect; one could say that he never entered fully into the world. This has its origin in the fact that he brought with him an especially large portion of the plant-like consciousness that is developed in the Midnight Hour of Existence. Hence, the urge he had toward developing the metamorphosis of the plant, in which he accomplished his greatest work: this wonderful view of the plant world.
I can well imagine that it sounds unusual to speak seriously about Goethe not having come fully into the world. There are many people who prefer to speak of the outer world as a kind of maya, speaking in general, in the abstract. When we explore how the individual stages of maya are differentiated, however, it must be admitted that it is absolutely a maya if one takes Goethe completely outwardly as do Mr. Lewes or Professor Bielscbowski,8 George Henry Lewes, 1817–1878, Life of Goethe, 1855. Albert Bielschowski, 1847-1902, Goethe, 1895-1904. for example. He is most definitely not like that, however; he is quite different. His nature is such that its essential origin is really discovered in the sphere that lies just in the middle of man's life between death and a new birth.
We now come to the third part of this development, when a new incarnation, a new earthly life, is drawing near. In this period, as you may easily imagine, the human being develops a more active consciousness (see drawing below, red). Outwardly he has a consciousness such as I described to you yesterday, but he works with what now lives in his consciousness—chiefly with all that develops here on earth as the animal world. At this point, however, we cannot say that when we look at the animal world outwardly this signifies only the outer side and that the inner side leads us to human thoughts or to the contents of human consciousness during the third part of his life between death and a new birth. We cannot really say this, but we can say that if we look at the animal world this animal world yields us a kind of inner aspect. The mineral and plant realms therefore show us their outer side, as it were—the plants to a lesser degree, but they may nevertheless be included. The inner side of the plant-like is presented to us, in addition to other things, by the state of consciousness of those who have passed through the portal of death and are on the way to a new earthly life. When we look at the animal realm, however, we must actually say that this gives us its inner side, its outer side being the group-souls of the animals, which ascend up to the creativity of hierarchies beyond the earthly. There in the animal realm we cannot find in the animals themselves what works out of the human being, out of human consciousness. Rather we can say that human thoughts live and weave in the animal group-souls, in what is developing in the whole world of the animal group-souls.
During this third period the human being actually lives through all the subtle and complicated configurations of the world of the animal group-souls. This is what now becomes the human world, this world of animal group-souls. Out of what he beholds there in the world of the animal group-souls, out of what passes there in and out of his consciousness, the human being builds up his own organs. He gradually draws together, as it were, what he sees there in the breadths of the world into the active beholding of his own being. Man forms his own organism—his inner organs—out of the sum total of the animal group-souls.
We might say that the human being then builds up the principal forms of his brain—of course at first as forces, not as a lump of matter, as such, but as forces—his lungs, heart, blood vessels, and so on. The human being builds up his individual organs out of the whole relationship of the animal group-beings. Thus, whereas in the first part of his super-sensible life, man constructs the outer world, he now recedes more and more into himself, finally building up the individual organs of his inner organism out of the entire world of animal group-souls.
In the last stage of his becoming, the human being then enters, as I told you yesterday, the sphere of the planetary forces. This is a later stage, as it were, that the human being undergoes. After having gone through his activity in and out of the animal group-soul system, he becomes dependent on what lives in the outer world, of what lives in the movements of the planets and their constellations. Through this the etheric body of man is prepared. Man is drawn toward a new birth. His etheric body is developed. In this etheric body there now become visible the webs of thought of which I have spoken, which are to be found between the etheric body and the physical body. Man thus now weaves into his system of organs what he has worked upon more out of feeling—feeling, however, that has been thoroughly permeated by thought. Around this he then forms a web of thought. This web of thought is therefore a result of what the human being has experienced from the working of the planetary world on his being that is approaching a new birth. He thus becomes ready to enter the sheath provided for him by what is accomplished in successive generations.
What, then, is the human being who descends? Immediately after death he poured out of himself into the outer mineral world the thought element, the mineral thought element, that he took with him. By virtue of having poured out these thoughts, will impulses and feeling content gradually press upward. All this then permeates him with the content of the plant-like consciousness. The human being now begins to work with the plant realm in the outer world; then he withdraws into himself again, works out of the animal consciousness of the group-soul activity of the animals, and builds up his organs, which he then surrounds in a certain way with the sheath woven out of the substance of thought. This is what then wants to descend into physical existence.
How does this incorporation into physical existence now take place? In earlier lectures, and also again yesterday, I have pointed out that in modern science it is expected by many that someday cells will be found to have the most complicated chemical structure for which the most complicated chemical formula will be discovered. That idea, however, is completely wrong. In the cell, even in the ordinary organic cell (see drawing below, bright), the chemical cohesiveness is not stronger than in an ordinarily complicated chemical compound; on the contrary, the chemical affinities become most chaotic in the fertilized germ-cell. The fertilized germ-cell is chaos in relation to what is material, chaos that disintegrates, chaos that really disintegrates. Into this disintegrating chaos pours what I have described to you as the human being, which was formed as I just described (lilac). What is actually physical is then formed, not through the germ itself but through the processes taking place in the mother's body between the embryo and the environment. What descends from the spiritual world is thus actually placed into the emptiness and is only then permeated with mineral substance. What we have described here is, as you may see, an absolutely transparent process.
We cannot look upon the animal consciousness as working back but must rather say that it works up into the animal group-souls (see drawing, page 119, red arrows). Then, when the human being reaches the planetary realm, he fashions man himself and incorporates himself in this way into the place prepared for him, as I have just described.
If you bear in mind the beginning and the end of life between death and a new birth, you certainly must say that things appear that can be related to one another. In what we may call the passage of the human soul through the soul world after death there arises something that still has a relationship to the earth, something that points the human being back to what is earthly. We know that then, as I have often described for you, the human being proceeds backward through his earthly life in about one-third of the time his life lasted. What he experiences in the passage through the planetary system before birth is, as it were, the polar opposite to this. Something is imparted to the human being that he brings down with him from heaven to earth. Just as he bears out into the soul world something of what is in his astral body, by means of which he lives backward through his earthly life, so he brings with him out of the cosmos something that then permeates his etheric body—something that has to do with his etheric body in the same way as what I have called the astral fruit of the earth has to do with our astral body. What he brings from the cosmos bears the same relationship to his etheric body as what he carries as astral fruit of the earth bears to his astral body.
I may therefore say that the human being brings with him from the cosmos the etheric cosmic fruit. This etheric cosmic fruit actually lives on in his etheric body. From the first moment of his birth, the human being has in his etheric body something like a cosmic force impelling him forward, which works through his entire life. Karmic tendencies remaining from the past unite with this cosmic impelling force and are active in it.
We thus are able to show how perceptibly karma is related to the real human being. While telling ourselves that the human being has a pre-existent life, that he comes down from spiritual heights into earthly physical life and incorporates his I and astral body into his physical body and etheric body, we may also say that the karma he brings with him from his former life on earth incorporates itself into the etheric impelling force that he brings along with him from the influence of the planetary system that preceded his earthly incorporation.
Now you can grasp quite vividly how all that inwardly urges and impels the human being can be quite practically calculated from the planetary relationships. In this way one can look intimately into what is working in the human being and follow it out of the physical, sense activity into the soul-spiritual world, whence man again carries it down into his physical, bodily existence on earth where it continues to work. These things can be given in all their particulars.
When a person becomes filled with ideas that come from this knowledge, he will say: I enter this earthly existence in the form of physical man and am apparently shut off from the rest of the world. This consciousness of being shut off is given me where my super-sensible aspect is laid into the place prepared for it by the earthly, physical existence. When I am incorporated into this sheath, however, I again grow more and more into the cosmos through my perceptions, through my experiences. I grow into it especially when I form such mental pictures of the human being's connection with the world.
Through anthroposophical spiritual science man thus learns to feel himself at one with the universe. He feels the world in himself and himself in the world. He feels the life of the macrocosm pulsing in his own inner being, and he feels how all that he inwardly experiences pulses forth again into the whole cosmos. His breathing becomes for him a symbol of all-embracing existence. The indrawn breath assumes the form of the human body and becomes inner life. The breath that leaves the organism spreads itself out again into the world. It is the same with the soul-spiritual: the whole cosmos is, as it were, breathed in soul-spiritually and becomes man. All that originates in the human being is breathed out again soul-spiritually and disperses itself in the cosmos until it reaches the very periphery of the cosmos. Then it returns once more to form the human being. In the human being we may see the image of the world, and in the world we may see the finely dissolved essence of the human being. We thus may come to an all-embracing knowledge of the world and of man in the words:
O Man, thou art the condensed image of the world!
O World, thou art the being of Man poured out into infinite space!
Man should acquire a consciousness that really unites his being with the cosmos, so that his future evolution may proceed in an upward, not a downward, direction.
Siebenter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Die Betrachtung, die wir seit einiger Zeit angestellt haben, hat uns dazu geführt, die Beziehung des Menschen zur geistigen Welt ins Auge zu fassen, und diese Beziehung wiederum hat es notwendig gemacht, den Blick zu werfen auf diejenige Entwickelung, die der Mensch durchmacht zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. An diesem Punkte wollen wir heute einsetzen. Wir haben gestern gesagt, daß der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes trägt ein, ich nannte es mineralisches Bewußtsein. Es kann so genannt werden, weil es im wesentlichen zu seinem Inhalte hat die mineralische Welt mit ihren Gesetzen. Tingiert, also durchtränkt ist dieses Bewußtsein mit alldem, was aus den moralischen Gefühlen und Empfindungen des Menschen kommt. Mit demjenigen, was sich nun von diesen beiden Seiten her zusammensetzt, tritt der Mensch seinen Weg an durch die Welt, die er durchläuft zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Wenn wir das, was so der Mensch ist nach dem Tode, betrachten, so stellt sich uns das Folgende dar: Es hat sich entrungen demjenigen, was gewissermaßen wie eine Art von Schale war, dem physischen Leibe und dem ätherischen Leibe, der astralische Leib und das Ich.
[ 2 ] Nun, wenn wir uns die kosmische Entwickelung der Menschheit vorstellen mit den zu ihr gehörigen kosmisch-planetarischen Körpern, dann wissen wir ja aus der Darstellung in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß», wie diese kosmische Entwickelung in der Vergangenheit durchgeht durch die Saturnentwickelung, Sonnenentwickelung, Mondenentwickelung, und wie dann der Mensch in der Erdenentwickelung ankommt, in der er eben noch drinnensteht. Wir wissen auch, daß im wesentlichen die Saturnentwickelung den physischen Leib in seiner ersten Anlage bildet als eine Art universellen Sinnesorganes, das sich dann durch Sonnen-, Monden- und Erdenentwickelung weiterbildet. Wir wissen, daß der ätherische Leib während der Sonnenentwickelung dazukommt, der astralische Leib in der ersten Anlage während der Mondenentwickelung, und daß die Erdenentwickelung die eigentliche Ich-Entwickelung für den Menschen ist.
[ 3 ] Wenn wir das Menschenwesen im ganzen auffassen, so hat es sein Ich durch die Verbindung des Menschen mit der Erde; denn durch diejenigen Kräfte, die in der Erde vorhanden sind, wird das Ich gestaltet, gebildet. Wenn wir also sagen: Der Mensch tritt durch die 'Todespforte, indem er sein Ich durch sie durchträgt -, so bringt er ja eigentlich dasjenige durch die Todespforte hindurch, was er aus seiner irdischen Entwickelung hat, was er sich also innerhalb der irdischen Entwickelung aneignet. Wir tragen geradezu durch den Tod hindurch, was der irdischen Entwickelung angehört. Während der irdischen Entwickelung ist eben zu den anderen Reichen - das können Sie wiederum aus meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» entnehmen — die mineralische Welt dazugekommen. Also das Außere, die mineralische Welt, gehört gewissermaßen mit der Ich-Entwickelung zusammen. Daß das Ich mit einem mineralischen Bewußtsein durch des Todes Pforte tritt, das hängt im wesentlichen also mit dem zusammen, was der Mensch eigentlich von der Erde hat. Nun aber ist ja die Erde nur unvollständig aufgefaßt, wenn wir sie bloß so auffassen, wie sie uns zunächst als Weltkörper entgegentritt. Die Erde ist gewissermaßen als Weltkörper ein Wesen, das sich vergleichen läßt mit einem großen Tropfen im unendlichen Meere des Raumes. Aber dieser Tropfen ist ja gerade dadurch konstituiert, daß er in sich stofflich differenziert ist, daß er Stoffe enthält von verschiedener Schwere, verschiedener Dichte.
[ 4 ] Wir brauchen nur die Metalle, die in der Erde sind, ins Auge zu fassen. Wir finden Metalle verschiedener Dichte. Was der Mensch also in sich eingegliedert erhält von der Erde mit dem mineralischen Bewußtsein, das rührt von der ganzen Erde her, das rührt einfach davon her, daß die Erde eben dieser Gesamtplanet im Kosmos ist. Das nach den verschiedenen Mineralsubstanzen hin Differenzierte, das wirkt dann so, daß der Mensch nicht nur mitnimmt durch die Pforte des Todes, was sein Ich geworden ist, sondern daß er auch für einige Zeit mitnimmt, was sein astralischer Leib war, was ja auch beschrieben ist in der «Geheimwissenschaft» und im Buch «Theosophie» als der Durchgang des Menschen durch die Seelenwelt. (Während der folgenden Ausführungen wird an die Tafel gezeichnet, Zeichnung S. 129.) So daß wir sagen können: Wenn der Mensch die Erde verläßt, dann entwickelt er das mineralische Bewußtsein. Aber dieses mineralische Bewußtsein, es wird zunächst durchdrungen von demjenigen, was der Mensch von der differenzierten Erde mitnimmt, von der Erde, insofern sie aus verschiedenen Substanzen besteht. Das bildet dann die Zeit seines Durchganges durch die Seelenwelt. Und wir können sagen: Da nimmt der Mensch etwas mit, was zunächst nicht nur sein Ich ist, das dann weitergeht, sondern was in gewisser Weise eine astralische Erdenfrucht ist.
[ 5 ] Wenn wir dann den Menschen weiter verfolgen, wenn er diese astralische Erdenfrucht abgelegt hat in dem Sinne, wie ich das beschrieben habe in meinem Buche «Theosophie», wo gezeigt ist, wie er einige Zeit nach dem Tode seinen Durchgang durch die Seelenwelt vollendet hat, dann wandert sein Ich weiter. Aber es ist zunächst durchdrungen von mineralischem Bewußtsein. Richten wir den geistigen Blick da hinauf, wo der Mensch ist, so gewahren wir das mineralische Bewußtsein des verstorbenen Menschen, das heißt die Gedankenwelt, die sich auf das Mineralische bezieht. Und es ist in der Tat so: An demjenigen, was nun mineralisches Reich ist auf der Erde und auch im Kosmos, arbeitet mit diese von dem Menschen durch den Tod getragene Gedankenwelt.
[ 6 ] Das ist ein außerordentlich bemerkenswerter und bedeutsamer Zusammenhang. Wenn wir hier auf der Erde unsere Mineralien überschauen, wenn wir das mineralische Reich, das ja auch in den Wolken ist, denn das sind ja auch mineralische Wirkungen, überschauen und uns fragen: Was für geistige Essenzen wirken denn da drinnen? — so müssen wir uns zur Antwort geben: In diesen mineralischen Gebilden, die uns gewissermaßen, wenn wir als Menschen auf der Erde mit physischen Sinnen stehen, ihre Außenseite zeigen, in allen mineralischen Wirkungen leben die Gedanken, zu denen die Menschengedanken nach dem Tode werden. Wir können also geradezu, wenn wir verständnisvoll hinblicken auf das mineralische Reich, unseren Blick schweifen lassen über dieses mineralische Reich und können uns sagen: In der mineralischen Tätigkeit arbeitet innerlich dasjenige, was das Bewußtsein der Toten ist im Beginne ihrer überirdischen Laufbahn. — Wir müssen also das mineralische Reich nicht nur aus äußeren Gründen hier ein totes, unlebendiges Reich nennen, sondern wir müssen es auch in dem Sinne ein totes Reich nennen, als zunächst die Menschengedanken, die wesenhaften Menschengedanken, die der Mensch zu hegen hat nach dem Tode, hineinwirken in dieses mineralische Reich.
[ 7 ] Wenn der Mensch dann seine Wanderung fortsetzt, so kommt er ja immer mehr in die Nähe der Mitternachtsstunde des Daseins. Vorund nachher entwickelt er in dem Sinne, wie ich das gestern auseinandergesetzt habe, ein Bewußtsein, das mehr pflanzenhafter Natur ist, das also nicht das mineralische Bewußtsein ist von vorher, sondern ein Bewußtsein, das dadurch entsteht, daß die menschliche Wesenheit durchdrungen wird von den pflanzenschaffenden Kräften. Der Mensch nimmt ja etwas anderes auf aus dem außerirdischen Reiche, als die Erde als solche ihm geben kann. Der Mensch nimmt auf zu dem, was die Erde ihm geben kann, dasjenige, was eine Art höheren Bewußtseins ist, und es kann uns das dadurch anschaulich sein, daß wir sagen: Es entwickelt dann der Mensch ein pflanzliches Bewußtsein. Und während dieser Zeit arbeitet er sowohl auf der Erde wie auch im Kosmos mit an dem Pflanzenreich (siehe Zeichnung Seite 129).
[ 8 ] Das gehört zu den Geheimnissen des Daseins, daß, wenn wir die Pflanzendecke der Erde, wenn wir alles im vegetabilischen Dasein Befindliche betrachten, daß uns das dann ja natürlich auch nur die Außenseite zeigt; es hat auch eine Innenseite. Nur müssen wir natürlich die Innenseite nicht unter den Wurzeln suchen, sondern über den Blüten. Wenn wir die Pflanze uns vorstellen, die da blüht, so ist sie in dem, was sich so astralisch zur Pflanze niederneigt, was gewissermaßen astralisch lebt und seinen äußeren Ausdruck in der Pflanzendecke in dem Befruchtungsvorgange hat; das also, was nicht gesehen wird. Man möchte sagen: Die Außenseite wäre diese, wenn man die Pflanze selber rein von der Wurzel nach der Blüte anschaut, und das Innere wäre dann das, was über der Blüte ist. Wenn wir also das, was die Pflanzendecke äußerlich sinnlich ist, als eine Außenseite betrachten, so ist die Innenseite davon das Gebiet derjenigen Kräfte, welche zum Teil ihren Ausgangspunkt haben von dem Bewußtsein derjenigen Menschen, die in der Mitte zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt leben, die vor und nach der Mitternachtsstunde des Daseins leben. Also auch in der Pflanzendecke der Erde haben wir etwas zu sehen, demgegenüber wir sagen können: Es ist in seinem kosmischen Dasein etwas, was zusammenhängt mit der ganzen menschlichen Entwickelung.
[ 9 ] Wenn wir gegenüber dem mineralischen Reiche sagen können: In diesem toten Reiche leben die webenden Gedanken der Menschen, die in der ersten Hälfte, im Anfange ihrer Laufbahn zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt sind —, dann müssen wir sagen: In dem Pflanzenwachstum der Erde enthüllt sich uns auf eine äußerliche Weise, was innerlich im Weltenall lebt, so daß es auch ausmacht die Bewußtseinswelt der Menschen in der Mitte zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt.
[ 10 ] Jene innigen Beziehungen zwischen dem Menschen und der Welt, von denen wir gestern gesprochen haben und die es möglich machten, daß die gestrige Betrachtung schloß mit den Worten: Welterkenntnis ist Menschenerkenntnis und Menschenerkenntnis ist Welterkenntnis — diese Beziehungen enthüllen sich da noch auf eine ganz besondere Weise. Es zeigt sich uns, daß wir tatsächlich auch schon hier auf der Erde etwas anschauen von dem, was der Mensch ist zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Schauen wir die Mineralien an, so enthüllen sie uns — etwa so, wie eine Art äußeren Bildes irgendeinen Vorgang enthüllt -, was Menschen innerlich bewußt tun in der Zeit, die gleich nach dem Tode folgt. Und indem wir die Pflanzenwelt anblicken, enthüllt sich das, was der Mensch innerlich tut in der Mitte seines Entwickelungsganges zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt.
[ 11 ] Solche Dinge lassen sich für den unbefangenen Blick auch in einer gewissen äußerlichen Weise beobachten. Man wird, ich glaube, jedesmal aufs neue überrascht, wenn man die eigentümliche Natur Goethes sie ist eben nur ein hervorragendes Beispiel — betrachtet. Diese eigentümliche Natur Goethes, worin besteht sie denn? Sie besteht darin, daß Goethe zum Beispiel immer wieder und wiederum den Ansatz dazu gemacht hat, Zeichner oder Maler zu werden. Er ist niemals dazu gekommen, wirklich Zeichner oder Maler zu werden; aber was er hinterlassen hat von seiner Zeichnerei, von seiner Malerei, das frappiert in einer gewissen Beziehung durch das Treffsichere. Und wenn man dann Goethes Dichtungen, namentlich manche in dieser Beziehung außerordentlich charakteristische, ins Auge faßt, dann sagt man sich: Goethe hat zwar kein Maler werden können, aber seine Dichtungen zeigen, daß sie gewissermaßen sich ausgelebt haben wie eine verschlagene Malerei. - Goethe malt viel in seinen Dichtungen. Man könnte sagen, wenn man das zum Beispiel nach den Talenten mancher modernen Kritiker ausdrücken möchte - aber ich will nicht behaupten, daß es sehr gut ist, das zu sagen -: Goethe hat die Anlage gehabt, ein schlechter Maler zu werden, und er hat die malerischen Anlagen in die Dichtung hineingetragen und ist deshalb eine Art bloß malender Dichter geworden.
[ 12 ] Weiter kann man wiederum sagen: Etwas recht haben doch diejenigen Menschen gehabt, die manche Dichtungen Goethes, schon in einem gewissen Sinne «Iphigenie» und «Tasso», aber noch mehr «Die natürliche Tochter», marmorglatt und marmorkalt genannt haben. Goethe hat so dramatische Dichtungen gegeben, in denen eigentlich ein Bildhauer lebt, und so sind sie als dramatische Dichtungen in gewisser Beziehung nicht von jenem inneren Leben durchhaucht, von denen die Shakespearschen Dichtungen durchsetzt sind; sie sind in einer gewissen Beziehung Dichtungen, die steckengeblieben sind und die sich ausgelebt haben in gewissen plastischen Formen. Kurz, Goethe kann einem gerade vielleicht deshalb als ein besonderes Genie erscheinen, weil er eigentlich niemals richtig ganz zur Welt gekommen ist. Er ist zur Welt gekommen als Maler, ist es aber nicht geworden. Da hat er sich wiederum zurückgewandt zur Dichtung und hat in einer Dichtung, die halb malerisch ist, die Sache zum Ausdrucke gebracht. Er hat nicht vollständig die dramatische Dichtung herausgesetzt; er war dazu dichterisch veranlagt, ist aber niemals eigentlich ein wirklich dramatischer Dichter geworden, sondern ist vorher steckengeblieben, hat sich wiederum zurückgewendet und hat das in einer plastischen Weise zum Ausdrucke gebracht. Man könnte sagen, und das ist wirklich etwas, was Goethe charakterisiert, was einem kommt, wenn man ihn so recht betrachtet: Goethe ist ein Mensch, der eigentlich nie so recht geboren worden ist. - Er hat eine Farbenlehre verfaßt und war doch nicht im wirklichen Sinne ein Physiker. Er hat sich mit Naturwissenschaft befaßt, aber er hat es nicht in das vollständig Fachliche hineingebracht. Kurz, er ist eigentlich nirgends ganz in die Welt herausgetreten. Er ist nicht ordentlich zur Welt gekommen.
[ 13 ] Man könnte sogar noch weiter gehen, könnte zum Beispiel seine Beziehungen zu den Frauen ins Auge fassen. Die haben sich gewöhnlich auch nur bis zu einem gewissen Grade entwickelt und niemals bis zu demjenigen Punkt hin, bis zu dem sie sich bei ordentlichen Weltmenschen, die so recht ins physische Leben hereingeboren werden, entwickeln. Überall könnte man das bewahrheitet finden, wenn man nur diese Dinge fühlt und empfindet, wenn man nur nicht ein Hindernis hat für das Fühlen und Empfinden solcher Dinge an dem gewöhnlichen pedantisch-philiströsen Vorstellen, das ja natürlich all das einwenden kann, was ich Ihnen nicht zu nennen brauche. Man kann ja selbstverständlich gegen die These, Goethe sei nicht ganz geboren worden, einwenden: Ja, er ist am soundsovielten in Frankfurt geboren. Nicht wahr, das kann man in allen Biographien verzeichnet finden. Aber ich mache Sie darauf aufmerksam, daß auch da die Sache wiederum einen Haken hat. Er ist nämlich halbtot zur Welt gekommen und ganz schwarz am Körper. Also auch da liegt nicht ein so robustes Hereingehen in die Welt vor, sondern eine Art halbtotes Hereinkommen in die Welt.
[ 14 ] Und wiederum, verfolgen Sie sein Leben, wie er überall nicht ankommt, zurückgeschleudert wird bis zum Erkranktsein. Alles ist so — ich möchte sagen, bis zu der Art und Weise, wie er in Weimar herumging: unnahbar in einer gewissen Beziehung —, daß man sagen kann: Er ist nicht ganz herausgetreten zur Welt. Und das rührte doch davon her, daß er besonders viel mitbekommen hat von demjenigen, was da um die Mitternachtsstunde des Daseins an pflanzlichem Bewußtsein sich entwickelt. Daher auch sein Hindrängen zur Metamorphose der Pflanzen, wo er sein Allergrößtes geleistet hat: dieses wunderbare Anschauen der Pflanzenwelt.
[ 15 ] Ich kann mir wirklich vorstellen, daß es etwas Groteskes hat, wenn man wie im Ernst davon spricht, Goethe sei nicht ganz zur Welt herausgetreten. Aber es gibt eben viele Leute, die sprechen lieber davon, daß die äußere Welt eine Art Maja sei im Allgemeinen, im Abstrakten. Wenn man dann aber im besonderen darauf eingeht, wie sich die einzelnen Majastufen differenzieren, dann ist es zum Beispiel durchaus eine Maja, wenn man Goethe so ganz äußerlich nimmt, wie ihn etwa Mr. Lewes oder der Professor Bielschowsky und so weiter genommen haben! So ist er ganz sicherlich nicht, sondern er ist eben ganz anders. Er ist so, daß man wirklich an ihm das Urständen merkt in diesem Gebiete, das gerade hier in der Mitte dieses Lebenslaufes des Menschen zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt liegt.
[ 16 ] Wir kommen dann zu dem dritten Gliede in dieser Entwickelung, wo es schon zugeht der neuen Verkörperung, dem neuen Erdenleben. Da entwickelt der Mensch, wie Sie sich jetzt sehr leicht denken können, eine Art tierischen Bewußtseins (siehe Zeichnung Seite 129, rot). Er hat äußerlich ein solches Bewußtsein, wie ich es Ihnen gestern beschrieben habe, aber er arbeitet mit dem, was jetzt in seinem Bewußtsein lebt, vor allen Dingen mit in alldem auch, was sich als tierische Welt auf der Erde hier entwickelt. Nur können wir jetzt nicht gut sagen: wenn wir die Tierwelt äußerlich anschauen, dann bedeute sie uns die Außenseite; das Innere führe uns zu den Menschengedanken hinauf, die der Mensch hat, oder zu dem menschlichen Bewußtseinsinhalte hinauf, den der Mensch hat, wenn er schon im dritten Teile seines Lebenslaufes zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt ist. So können wir eigentlich nicht sagen, sondern wir können etwa so sagen: Wenn wir die tierische Welt anschauen, dann liefert uns diese tierische Welt gewissermaßen eine Art Inneres. Also: Das mineralische und das pflanzliche Reich — beim Pflanzlichen stimmt es nicht mehr so ganz, aber man kann es doch so nehmen — zeigen uns gewissermaßen die Außenseite; die Innenseite bietet uns neben anderem der Bewußtseinszustand derjenigen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind und auf dem Wege zu einem neuen Erdenleben sind. Aber indem wir das tierische Reich ansehen, müssen wir eigentlich sagen: Das bietet uns die Innenseite, und die Außenseite sind die Gruppenseelen der Tiere, die hinaufgehen bis ins Schaffen überirdischer Hierarchien. Und da, beim tierischen Reiche, können wir jetzt nicht in den Tieren selbst das finden, was vom Menschen aus, vom menschlichen Bewußtsein aus arbeitet, sondern wir können sagen: In demjenigen, was tierische Gruppenseele ist, was da in der Gesamtheit der tierischen Gruppenseelenwelt sich entwickelt, in dem weben und leben die menschlichen Gedanken mit. In der Tat durchlebt der Mensch in dieser Zeit alle die feinen und komplizierten Konfigurationen der tierischen Gruppenseelenwelt. Das wird jetzt des Menschen Welt, diese tierische Gruppenseelenwelt. Und aus dem, was der Mensch da anschaut in der tierischen Gruppenseelenwelt, aus dem, was von da aus- und eingeht in seinem Bewußtsein, konstituiert er seine eigenen Organe. Er zieht gewissermaßen das, was er da in den Weltenweiten sieht, allmählich ganz zusammen in das tätige Anschauen seines eigenen Wesens. Aus der Summe der tierischen Gruppenseelen heraus formt sich der Mensch seinen eigenen inneren organhaft gegliederten Organismus.
[ 17 ] Man möchte sagen: Der Mensch bildet da, sagen wir, die Hauptformen seines Gehirns — natürlich zunächst als Kräfte, nicht daß da solche Klumpen von Materie gebildet werden -, zunächst als Kräfte: Lunge, Herz mit Blutgefäßen und so weiter. Die einzelnen Organe bildet der Mensch aus dem ganzen Zusammenhang des tierischen Gruppenwesens heraus. Während also der Mensch eigentlich im ersten Teil seines übersinnlichen Lebensweges an der äußeren Welt baut, kommt er jetzt immer mehr und mehr in sich zurück und baut endlich aus der Gesamtheit der tierischen Gruppenseelenwelt die einzelnen Organe seines inneren Organismus auf.
[ 18 ] Und dann tritt ja der Mensch im letzten Stadium seines Werdens so auf, daß er, wie ich Ihnen gestern gesagt habe, in den Bereich der planetarischen Kräfte kommt. Das ist jetzt gewissermaßen eine spätere Stufe, die der Mensch durchmacht. Nachdem er durchgemacht hat das Wirken aus und in dem tierischen Gruppenseelensystem, wird der Mensch abhängig von dem in der Außenwelt, was in den Bewegungen, in den Konstellationen der Planeten lebt. Dadurch aber wird vorbereitet des Menschen Ätherleib. Der Mensch neigt sich hin zum Wiedergeborenwerden. Sein Ätherleib wird ausgebildet. Sichtbar werden jetzt in diesem Ätherleib die Gedankengewebe, von denen ich Ihnen gesprochen habe, die dann im Menschen anzutreffen sind zwischen dem Ätherleib und dem physischen Leib. So daß der Mensch jetzt gewissermaßen einspinnt hier in seinem Organsystem das, was er mehr aus Gefühlen heraus gearbeitet hat, aus Gefühlen heraus, die aber durchaus schon durchsetzt sind von Gedanken. Da bildet er dann das Gedankengewebe herum. Dieses Gedankengewebe ist also ein Ergebnis dessen, was der Mensch aus der Wirkung der planetarischen Welt auf sein Wesen, das sich der Wiedergeburt nähert, erfahren hat. Dadurch aber wird der Mensch reif, einzutreten in die Hülle, die ihm jetzt hergegeben wird von demjenigen, was sich in der Reihenfolge der Generationen vollzieht.
[ 19 ] Was ist denn da der Mensch, der da herunterkommt? Der Mensch, der da herunterkommt, ist so, daß er ausgegossen hat unmittelbar nach dem Tode das Gedankliche, das Mineralisch-Gedankliche, das er mitgenommen hat, in die mineralische Welt des Außeren. Dadurch, daß er die Gedanken ausgegossen hat, drängen sich allmählich Willensimpulse herauf, Gefühlsinhalte. Das alles durchsetzt ihn dann mit dem Inhalte des pflanzlichen Bewußtseins. Der Mensch kommt zuerst dazu, am Pflanzenreich der Außenwelt mitzuarbeiten, zieht sich dann in sich selbst zurück, arbeitet mit dem tierischen Bewußtsein aus der Gruppenseelenhaftigkeit der Tiere heraus und bildet sich da seine Organe, die er in gewissem Maße umgibt mit jener Hülle, die aus Gedankenstoffen gewoben ist. Das ist es, was nun hinunter will in das physische Dasein.
[ 20 ] Wie kommt nun diese Eingliederung in das physische Dasein zustande? Nun, ich habe schon früher und auch wieder gestern darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß man in der heutigen Wissenschaft vielfach erwartet, es werde sich einstmals ergeben, daß die Zellen eine sehr komplizierte chemische Struktur haben, so daß wir gewissermaßen die komplizierteste chemische Formel finden würden für das, was in der Zelle sich darbietet. Das ist aber ein vollständig unrichtiger Gedanke. In der Zelle, schon in der gewöhnlichen organischen Zelle ist es so (siehe Zeichnung, hell), daß das chemische Zusammenhalten darinnen nicht etwa stärker ist als in einer gewöhnlichen komplizierten chemischen Verbindung, sondern im Gegenteil: chaotisch werden die chemischen Wahlverwandtschaften gerade, und am allerchaotischsten sind sie in der befruchteten Keimzelle. Die befruchtete Keimzelle ist in bezug auf das Materielle direkt Chaos, Chaos, das zerfällt, Chaos, das wirklich zerfällt. In dieses verfallende Chaos ergießt sich das, was ich Ihnen als den Menschen geschildert habe, der sich eben in der Weise, wie ich es beschrieben habe, gebildet hat (lila). Und nicht durch den Keim selber, sondern durch die Prozesse, die im mütterlichen Leibe zwischen dem Embryo und der Umgebung vor sich gehen, bildet sich dann das eigentlich Physische aus. Es wird also tatsächlich dasjenige, was da aus der geistigen Welt herunterkommt, in das Leere hineingelegt und nur durchtränkt mit mineralischer Substanz. Es ist, wie Sie sehen können, ein durchaus durchsichtiger Vorgang, der hier geschildert wird.
[ 21 ] Das tierische Bewußtsein können wir nicht so sehen, daß es zurückwirkt, sondern wir müssen sagen, es wirkt hinauf in das Gruppenseelenhafte, in die Tiergruppenseelen (siehe Zeichnung Seite 129, roter Pfeil). Und dann, wenn der Mensch angekommen ist im planetarischen Bereich, dann bildet er den Menschen selber aus und gliedert sich in dieser Weise ein in das, was ihm Platz macht, wie ich eben davon gesprochen habe.
[ 22 ] Wenn Sie aber jetzt den Anfang und das Ende des Lebensweges zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt ins Auge fassen, dann werden Sie sich sagen müssen: Da tritt etwas auf, was durchaus aufeinander bezogen werden kann. In dem, was wir nennen können den Durchgang der Menschenseele durch die Seelenwelt nach dem Tode, tritt etwas auf, was noch auf das Irdische einen Bezug hat, was den Menschen zurück weist auf das Irdische. Wir wissen ja, daß der Mensch da zurücklaufend in ungefähr einem Drittel seines Lebenslaufes sein Erdenleben durchwandert, durchwandert eben in der Weise, wie ich Ihnen das beschrieben habe. Gewissermaßen das polarisch Entgegengesetzte ist das, was dann der Mensch im Durchgang durch das Planetensystem vor der Geburt erlebt. Es teilt sich ihm da als Mensch etwas mit, was er noch aus den Himmeln mit auf die Erde bringt. Geradeso wie er für die Seelenwelt noch etwas hinausträgt, was in seinem astralischen Leibe ist, wodurch er in einer Rückwärtswanderung sein Erdenleben durchlebt, so bringt der Mensch etwas mit sich aus dem Kosmos, was dann seinen ätherischen Leib durchsetzt, was jetzt ebenso etwas zu tun hat mit seinem ätherischen Leibe, wie das, was ich genannt habe die astralische Erdenfrucht mit seinem astralischen Leibe. Mit seinem ätherischen Leib hat das, was er sich aus dem Kosmos bringt, zu tun, ebenso wie das, was er als die astralische Erdenfrucht hinausträgt, mit seinem astralischen Leibe zu tun hat.
[ 23 ] Ich kann also sagen: Der Mensch bringt sich aus dem Kosmos herein die ätherische kosmische Frucht. Diese ätherische kosmische Frucht, die sich da der Mensch hereinbringt, die lebt tatsächlich in seinem ätherischen Leibe weiter. Der Mensch hat von der ersten Stunde, von dem ersten Augenblicke seiner Geburt an in seinem Ätherleibe etwas wie eine kosmische Stoßkraft nach vorwärts, die durchwirkt durch das ganze Leben. Mit dieser kosmischen Stoßkraft verbindet sich das, was als die karmischen Tendenzen zurückgeblieben ist. In dieser kosmischen Stoßkraft wirken die karmischen Tendenzen.
[ 24 ] Man kann also in gewissem Sinne sagen: Man ist selbst imstande, ganz anschaulich darauf hinzuweisen, wie das Karma sich zum wirklichen Menschen verhält. Während wir uns sagen, der Mensch hat ein präexistentes Leben, er kommt herein aus geistigen Höhen in das physisch-irdische Dasein, gliedert sich seinem physischen Leib, Ätherleib ein mit seinem Ich und seinem astralischen Leib -, kann man sagen, daß sein Karma, das er mitbringt aus dem früheren Erdenleben, sich eingliedert in diejenige ätherische Stoßkraft, die er mit hereinnimmt aus den Wirkungen des planetarischen Systems, die vorangehen seiner Erdeneingliederung.
[ 25 ] Und nun, ich möchte sagen, jetzt können Sie fast mit Händen greifen, wie man aus den planetarischen Beziehungen das, was im Menschen drängt und stößt, wenn man es sachgemäß macht, herausrechnen kann. In dieser Weise kann man intim in all das hineinschauen, was im Menschen so wirkt, daß es aus seinem physisch-sinnlichen Wirken in die geistig-seelische Welt hinausgeht und daß es von ihm aus der geistig-seelischen Welt hereingetragen wird und sich wiederum in sein physisch-leibliches Erdendasein gewissermaßen einhüllt und in demselben wirkt. Man kann diese Dinge durchaus im einzelnen angeben.
[ 26 ] Der Mensch kann sich erfüllen mit solchen Vorstellungen, wie sie durch diese Erkenntnisse kommen, und er wird sich dann sagen: Ich trete als physische Menschengestalt in dieses irdische Dasein, bin scheinbar abgeschlossen von der übrigen Welt. Diese Bewußtheit des Abgeschlossenwerdens, sie wird mir gegeben da, wo sich mein Übersinnliches hineinlegt in das Lager, das ihm zubereitet wird vom irdisch-physischen Dasein aus. Aber indem ich mich in diese Hülle eingliedere, wachse ich immer mehr und mehr wiederum in den Kosmos hinein durch mein Wahrnehmen, durch meine Erfahrungen. Und ich wachse insbesondere hinein, wenn ich mir solche Vorstellungen bilde vom Zusammenhang des Menschen mit der Welt.
[ 27 ] So lernt der Mensch, gerade durch anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft, sich als eins zu fühlen mit dem Weltenall. Er fühlt die Welt in sich, sich in der Welt. Er fühlt das Leben des Makrokosmos pulsieren in seinem eigenen Inneren, und er empfindet, wie das, was er im Inneren erlebt, wiederum hinauspulst in den ganzen Kosmos. Das Atmen wird ihm nur ein Symbolum für ein umfassendes Dasein: Die eingezogene Atemluft nimmt die Gestalt des menschlichen Leibes an, wird Innenleben; die den Organismus verlassende Atemluft zerstreut sich wieder in die Welt. So ist es aber auch mit dem Geistig-Seelischen: Der ganze Kosmos wird gewissermaßen geistig-seelisch eingeatmet, wird zum Menschen; das, was da im Menschen wird, wird wiederum geistig-seelisch ausgeatmet und zerstreut sich im Kosmos, bis es gewissermaßen an der Peripherie des Kosmos ankommt, um wiederum zurückzukommen und den Menschen zu bilden. Man kann schon im Menschen das Abbild der Welt sehen, und in der Welt das fein aufgelöste menschliche Wesen. So daß man eine umfassende Welt- und Menschenkenntnis zusammenfassen kann in die beiden Sätze:
Mensch, du bist das zusammengezogene Bild der Welt.
Welt, du bist das in Weiten ergossene Wesen des Menschen.
[ 28 ] Der Mensch soll sich, damit die Zukunft für ihn eine Aufgangs-, nicht eine Niedergangsentwickelung ist, ein solches Bewußtsein aneignen, das wirklich seine Wesenheit mit dem Kosmos zusammen schließt.
[ 29 ] Morgen wollen wir davon weiter sprechen.
Seventh Lecture
[ 1 ] The observations we have been making for some time now have led us to consider the relationship between human beings and the spiritual world, and this relationship in turn has made it necessary to look at the development that human beings undergo between death and a new birth. This is where we will begin today. Yesterday we said that human beings carry through the gate of death what I called mineral consciousness. It can be called this because its content essentially consists of the mineral world with its laws. This consciousness is tinged, or imbued, with everything that comes from the moral feelings and sensations of the human being. With what is now composed of these two sides, the human being sets out on his journey through the world he passes through between death and a new birth. When we consider what human beings are like after death, the following picture emerges: they have been freed from what was, in a sense, a kind of shell, the physical body and the etheric body, the astral body and the ego.
[ 2 ] Now, when we imagine the cosmic evolution of humanity with the cosmic planetary bodies that belong to it, then we know from the description in my book “The Secret Science in Outline” how this cosmic evolution passed through the Saturn evolution, the Sun evolution, the Moon evolution, and how humanity then arrived at the Earth evolution, in which it is now living. We also know that the Saturn evolution essentially forms the physical body in its first stage as a kind of universal sense organ, which then develops further through the Sun, Moon, and Earth evolutions. We know that the etheric body is added during the solar evolution, the astral body in its first form during the lunar evolution, and that the Earth's evolution is the actual development of the I for human beings.
[ 3 ] If we consider the human being as a whole, it has its I through the connection of the human being with the earth; for it is through the forces present in the earth that the I is shaped and formed. So when we say that the human being passes through the ‘gate of death’ by carrying his ego through it, he is actually bringing through the gate of death what he has gained from his earthly development, what he has acquired within the earthly development. We carry through death precisely what belongs to the earthly development. During earthly development, the mineral world was added to the other realms — you can find this again in my “Secret Science.” So the outer world, the mineral world, belongs, so to speak, to the development of the I. The fact that the I passes through the gate of death with a mineral consciousness is essentially connected with what the human being actually has from the earth. But now, the earth is only incompletely understood if we understand it merely as it first appears to us as a world body. The earth, as a world body, is in a sense a being that can be compared to a large drop in the infinite sea of space. But this drop is constituted precisely by the fact that it is materially differentiated within itself, that it contains substances of different weights and densities.
[ 4 ] We need only consider the metals that are in the earth. We find metals of different densities. What man thus receives from the earth with his mineral consciousness comes from the whole earth; it comes simply from the fact that the earth is this total planet in the cosmos. The differentiation according to the various mineral substances then has the effect that human beings do not only take with them through the gate of death what has become their ego, but that they also take with them for a time what was their astral body, which is also described in “The Secret Science” and in the book “Theosophy” as the passage of human beings through the soul world. (During the following explanations, a drawing is made on the board, drawing p. 129.) So we can say that when humans leave the earth, they develop mineral consciousness. But this mineral consciousness is initially permeated by what the human being takes with him from the differentiated earth, from the earth insofar as it consists of different substances. This then forms the time of his passage through the soul world. And we can say: Man takes with him something that is not only his ego, which then continues, but something that is in a certain sense an astral fruit of the earth.
[ 5 ] If we then follow the human being further, when he has laid down this astral fruit of the earth in the sense I have described in my book “Theosophy,” where it is shown how he completes his passage through the soul world some time after death, then his ego wanders on. But it is initially permeated by mineral consciousness. If we turn our spiritual gaze upward to where the human being is, we perceive the mineral consciousness of the deceased human being, that is, the world of thoughts that relates to the mineral realm. And it is indeed so: the world of thoughts carried by the human being through death works upon that which is now the mineral realm on Earth and also in the cosmos.
[ 6 ] This is an extraordinarily remarkable and significant connection. When we look at our minerals here on Earth, when we look at the mineral kingdom, which is also in the clouds, for these are also mineral effects, and ask ourselves: What spiritual essences are at work in there? — we must answer: In these mineral structures, which, in a sense, show us their outer side when we stand on Earth with our physical senses, all mineral effects contain the thoughts that become human thoughts after death. So when we look at the mineral kingdom with understanding, we can let our gaze wander over this mineral kingdom and say to ourselves: in mineral activity, what is the consciousness of the dead at the beginning of their super-earthly career is working inwardly. — We must therefore call the mineral kingdom a dead, lifeless kingdom, not only for external reasons, but also in the sense that human thoughts, the essential human thoughts that human beings have after death, initially work into this mineral kingdom.
[ 7 ] When the human being then continues his journey, he comes closer and closer to the midnight hour of existence. Before and after this, he develops, in the sense I explained yesterday, a consciousness that is more plant-like in nature, that is, not the mineral consciousness of before, but a consciousness that arises from the human being being permeated by the plant-forming forces. Human beings take in something different from the extraterrestrial realm than what the earth as such can give them. Human beings take in, in addition to what the earth can give them, something that is a kind of higher consciousness, and we can visualize this by saying that human beings then develop a plant consciousness. And during this time, they work on the plant kingdom both on earth and in the cosmos (see drawing on page 129).
[ 8 ] It is one of the mysteries of existence that when we look at the plant cover of the earth, when we look at everything in plant existence, we naturally only see the outside; there is also an inside. Of course, we do not have to look for the inside beneath the roots, but above the flowers. When we imagine the plant blooming, it is in what bends down astralistically toward the plant, what lives astralistically, so to speak, and finds its outer expression in the plant cover in the process of fertilization; that is, what cannot be seen. One might say that the outer side would be this if one looked at the plant itself purely from the root to the flower, and the inner side would then be what is above the flower. So if we consider what is outwardly perceptible in the plant cover as an outer side, the inner side is the realm of those forces which have their starting point in part in the consciousness of those human beings who live in the middle between death and a new birth, who live before and after the midnight hour of existence. Thus, in the plant cover of the earth, we also have something to see in relation to which we can say: There is something in its cosmic existence that is connected with the whole of human development.
[ 9 ] If we can say of the mineral kingdom: In this dead realm live the weaving thoughts of human beings who are in the first half, at the beginning of their career between death and a new birth — then we must say: In the growth of the earth's plants, what lives inwardly in the universe is revealed to us in an outward way, so that it also constitutes the world of consciousness of human beings in the middle between death and a new birth.
[ 10 ] Those intimate relationships between human beings and the world that we spoke of yesterday, and which made it possible for yesterday's reflection to conclude with the words: “Knowledge of the world is knowledge of human beings, and knowledge of human beings is knowledge of the world” — these relationships reveal themselves here in a very special way. It becomes clear to us that even here on earth we can already see something of what human beings are between death and a new birth. If we look at minerals, they reveal to us — much like a kind of external image reveals some kind of process — what human beings do consciously within themselves in the period immediately following death. And when we look at the plant world, what human beings do inwardly in the middle of their development between death and a new birth is revealed.
[ 11 ] Such things can also be observed in a certain external way by the unbiased eye. I believe that one is surprised anew every time one considers Goethe's peculiar nature — which is just one outstanding example. What does this peculiar nature of Goethe consist of? It consists in the fact that Goethe, for example, repeatedly attempted to become a draftsman or painter. He never actually became a draftsman or painter; but what he left behind of his drawings and paintings is striking in a certain respect because of their accuracy. And when one then considers Goethe's poems, some of which are extremely characteristic in this respect, one says to oneself: Goethe may not have been able to become a painter, but his poems show that they have, in a sense, lived out their lives like a devious painting. Goethe paints a lot in his poems. One could say, if one wanted to express it in the terms of some modern critics—but I don't want to claim that it's a very good thing to say—that Goethe had the makings of a bad painter, and he carried his painterly talents into his poetry, and that's why he became a kind of poet who merely paints.
[ 12 ] One could also say that those people were right who called some of Goethe's poems, already in a certain sense “Iphigenia” and “Tasso,” but even more so “The Natural Daughter,” marble-smooth and marble-cold. Goethe produced such dramatic poems in which a sculptor actually lives, and so, in a certain sense, they are not imbued with the inner life that pervades Shakespeare's poems; in a certain sense, they are poems that have become stuck and have lived out their lives in certain plastic forms. In short, Goethe may appear to us as a special genius precisely because he never really came into the world properly. He came into the world as a painter, but did not become one. So he turned back to poetry and expressed himself in a form that is half painterly. He did not fully develop his dramatic poetry; he had a poetic bent, but never really became a truly dramatic poet, instead getting stuck along the way, turning back, and expressing himself in a plastic form. One could say, and this is really something that characterizes Goethe, something that strikes you when you look at him closely: Goethe is a person who was never really born. He wrote a theory of colors, yet he was not a physicist in the true sense of the word. He studied natural science, but he did not bring it into the realm of pure scholarship. In short, he never really stepped fully into the world. He did not come into the world properly.
[ 13 ] One could even go further and consider, for example, his relationships with women. These usually only developed to a certain extent and never to the point where they would have developed in normal people who were properly born into physical life. One could find proof of this everywhere if one only felt and sensed these things, if one did not have an obstacle to feeling and sensing such things in the ordinary pedantic, philistine imagination, which can of course object to everything I need not mention to you. One can, of course, object to the thesis that Goethe was not fully born: Yes, he was born on such-and-such a date in Frankfurt. Isn't that what you can find in all the biographies? But I would point out to you that even there, there is a catch. He was born half dead and completely black in color. So even there, he did not enter the world in such a robust manner, but rather in a kind of half-dead state.
[ 14 ] And again, follow his life, how he never fits in anywhere, is rejected until he becomes ill. Everything is so — I would say, even the way he walked around in Weimar: aloof in a certain way — that one can say: He never really stepped out into the world. And that stemmed from the fact that he was particularly aware of what develops at the midnight hour of existence in plant consciousness. Hence his urge to metamorphose plants, where he achieved his greatest work: this wonderful observation of the plant world.
[ 15 ] I can really imagine that there is something grotesque about seriously saying that Goethe did not fully step out into the world. But there are many people who prefer to speak of the external world as a kind of Maya in general, in the abstract. But when you go into detail about how the individual stages of Maya differ, then it is indeed Maya, for example, to take Goethe so entirely externally, as Mr. Lewes or Professor Bielschowsky and others have done! He is certainly not like that, but quite different. He is such that one can really see in him the primordial state in this realm, which lies precisely here in the middle of the human life between death and a new birth.
[ 16 ] We then come to the third stage in this development, where the new incarnation, the new earthly life, is already approaching. As you can now easily imagine, the human being develops a kind of animal consciousness (see drawing on page 129, red). Outwardly, he has the kind of consciousness I described to you yesterday, but he works with what now lives in his consciousness, above all with everything that is developing here on earth as the animal world. However, we cannot say that when we look at the animal world externally, it represents the outer aspect, and that the inner aspect leads us up to the human thoughts that humans have, or to the contents of human consciousness that humans have when they are already in the third part of their life cycle, between death and a new birth. We cannot really say that, but we can say something like this: when we look at the animal world, this animal world provides us with a kind of inner aspect. So, the mineral and plant kingdoms — in the case of plants, this is not entirely true, but we can still take it that way — show us, in a sense, the outer aspect; the inner side offers us, among other things, the state of consciousness of those who have passed through the gate of death and are on their way to a new earthly life. But when we look at the animal kingdom, we must actually say: this offers us the inner side, and the outer side are the group souls of the animals, which ascend to the creation of super-earthly hierarchies. And there, in the animal kingdom, we cannot now find in the animals themselves what works from the human being, from human consciousness, but we can say: in what is the animal group soul, in what develops in the totality of the animal group soul world, human thoughts weave and live. In fact, during this period, the human being experiences all the subtle and complicated configurations of the animal group soul world. This animal group soul world now becomes the human being's world. And from what the human being sees in the animal group soul world, from what enters and leaves his consciousness, he constitutes his own organs. In a sense, they gradually draw together everything they see in the worlds into the active contemplation of their own being. From the sum of the animal group souls, human beings form their own inner organically structured organism.
[ 17 ] One might say that the human being forms, so to speak, the main forms of his brain — initially, of course, as forces, not as lumps of matter — initially as forces: lungs, heart with blood vessels, and so on. Human beings form the individual organs out of the whole context of the animal group being. So while human beings actually build the external world in the first part of their supersensible life path, they now return more and more into themselves and finally build the individual organs of their inner organism out of the totality of the animal group soul world.
[ 18 ] And then, in the final stage of their development, human beings enter the realm of planetary forces, as I told you yesterday. This is now, so to speak, a later stage that human beings go through. After they have gone through the workings of and within the animal group soul system, human beings become dependent on what lives in the outer world, in the movements and constellations of the planets. But this prepares the human etheric body. Human beings incline toward rebirth. His etheric body is formed. The thought patterns I have spoken to you about now become visible in this etheric body, which can then be found in the human being between the etheric body and the physical body. So that the human being now, in a sense, spins into his organ system what he has worked out more out of feelings, out of feelings that are, however, already thoroughly permeated by thoughts. He then forms the thought web around it. This thought web is thus a result of what the human being has experienced from the effect of the planetary world on his being, which is approaching rebirth. But this makes the human being ripe to enter the shell that is now given to him by that which is taking place in the sequence of generations.
[ 19 ] What then is the human being who comes down? The human being who comes down is such that immediately after death he pours out into the mineral world of the outer world the thought, the mineral-thought, which he has taken with him. As he pours out his thoughts, impulses of will and feelings gradually rise up. All this then permeates him with the content of plant consciousness. The human being first begins to work in the plant kingdom of the outer world, then withdraws into himself, works with the animal consciousness out of the group soul of the animals, and forms his organs, which he surrounds to a certain extent with that shell woven from thought substances. This is what now wants to descend into physical existence.
[ 20 ] How does this integration into physical existence come about? Well, I have already pointed out earlier, and again yesterday, that in modern science it is widely expected that it will one day be discovered that cells have a very complicated chemical structure, so that we would find, as it were, the most complicated chemical formula for what is presented in the cell. But this is a completely incorrect idea. In the cell, even in the ordinary organic cell, it is so (see drawing, light) that the chemical cohesion within it is not stronger than in an ordinary complex chemical compound, but on the contrary: the chemical affinities become chaotic, and they are most chaotic in the fertilized germ cell. The fertilized germ cell is, in terms of matter, pure chaos, chaos that disintegrates, chaos that truly disintegrates. Into this decaying chaos pours what I have described to you as the human being, who has formed in the manner I have described (purple). And it is not through the germ itself, but through the processes that take place in the mother's body between the embryo and its environment that the actual physical form develops. So what comes down from the spiritual world is actually placed into the void and only saturated with mineral substance. As you can see, what is described here is a completely transparent process.
[ 21 ] We cannot see animal consciousness as having a retroactive effect, but must say that it acts upward into the group soul, into the animal group souls (see drawing on page 129, red arrow). And then, when the human being has arrived in the planetary realm, he forms the human being himself and integrates himself in this way into that which makes room for him, as I have just spoken about.
[ 22 ] But if you now consider the beginning and end of the life path between death and a new birth, you will have to say to yourself: Something occurs that can definitely be related to each other. In what we can call the passage of the human soul through the soul world after death, something occurs that still has a connection to the earthly, that points the human being back to the earthly. We know that the human being, in passing back, traverses his earthly life in about one third of his life span, traverses it in the way I have described to you. In a sense, the polar opposite is what the human being experiences in passing through the planetary system before birth. Something communicates itself to him as a human being, something he brings with him from the heavens to the earth. Just as he carries something out of his astral body into the soul world, through which he lives through his earthly life in a backward journey, so the human being brings something with him from the cosmos that then permeates his etheric body, which now has just as much to do with his etheric body as what I have called the astral earth fruit has to do with his astral body. What he brings with him from the cosmos has to do with his etheric body, just as what he carries out as the astral earth fruit has to do with his astral body.
[ 23 ] I can therefore say: Man brings the etheric cosmic fruit into himself from the cosmos. This etheric cosmic fruit that man brings into himself actually continues to live in his etheric body. From the first hour, from the first moment of his birth, the human being has in his etheric body something like a cosmic impetus forward, which permeates his whole life. What remains as karmic tendencies is connected with this cosmic impetus. The karmic tendencies work in this cosmic impetus.
[ 24 ] So in a certain sense we can say that we are able to point out quite clearly how karma relates to the actual human being. While we say that human beings have a pre-existing life, that they come down from spiritual heights into physical, earthly existence, and that they integrate their physical body, etheric body with his ego and his astral body — one can say that the karma he brings with him from his previous earthly life is integrated into the etheric force that he takes in from the effects of the planetary system that precede his integration into the earth.
[ 25 ] And now, I would like to say, you can almost grasp with your hands how, if you do it properly, you can calculate from planetary relationships what urges and pushes within human beings. In this way, one can look intimately into everything that works in human beings in such a way that it goes out from their physical-sensory activity into the spiritual-soul world and is brought in from the spiritual-soul world and, in a sense, envelops itself in their physical-bodily earthly existence and works in it. These things can be specified in detail.
[ 26 ] Human beings can fulfill themselves with such ideas as come through these insights, and they will then say to themselves: I enter this earthly existence as a physical human being, apparently cut off from the rest of the world. This awareness of being cut off is given to me where my supersensible being enters into the bed prepared for it by earthly physical existence. But as I integrate myself into this shell, I grow more and more into the cosmos through my perceptions and experiences. And I grow into it especially when I form such ideas about the connection between human beings and the world.
[ 27 ] Thus, through anthroposophical spiritual science, human beings learn to feel themselves as one with the universe. They feel the world within themselves and themselves within the world. They feel the life of the macrocosm pulsating within themselves, and they sense how what they experience within themselves pulsates out again into the whole cosmos. Breathing becomes a symbol of a comprehensive existence: the air we breathe in takes on the form of the human body and becomes inner life; the air that leaves the organism disperses back into the world. But it is the same with the spiritual and soul life: the whole cosmos is, as it were, spiritually and soulfully inhaled, becomes human; what becomes human is in turn spiritually and soulfully exhaled and disperses into the cosmos until it reaches, as it were, the periphery of the cosmos, only to return and form the human being. One can already see in human beings the image of the world, and in the world the finely dissolved human being. Thus, a comprehensive knowledge of the world and of human beings can be summarized in the following two sentences:
Human being, you are the condensed image of the world.
World, you are the being of man poured out into vastness.
[ 28 ] In order for the future to be a development of ascent rather than decline, man must acquire a consciousness that truly unites his essence with the cosmos.
[ 29 ] We will talk more about this tomorrow.