The World of the Senses, the World of Thought, and Their Beings
GA 208
22 October 1921, Dornach
Translator Unknown
In the course of lectures on the life between death and a new birth which I gave in 1914, you will find many indications that may be regarded as a complement to what I have explained to you during the past days and weeks. To-day I want to speak in particular of the change which takes place in the conditions of life between death and a new birth, which greatly resembles the alternating states of waking and sleeping during the life between birth and death.
When we are awake we have our normal consciousness, and it is this which really gives us our human character between birth and death; and when we are asleep our consciousness is, as it were, dulled. Our consciousness then lies below the threshold of our waking life and we experience the processes in which we live from the moment of falling asleep to that of waking up, only in a blunt state of consciousness, either quite bluntly, quite asleep, or so that certain life-reminiscences or inner organic processes rise out of our sleep in form of pictures. A similar alternation may also be found in the life between death and a new birth, except that there, as you have seen, everything is, as it were, reversed in comparison with the conditions of our earthly life. I have described to you how radically different are man’s experiences between death and a new birth to his experiences on earth. This also applies to the alternating states of consciousness. As described in my last lecture, between death and a new birth our experiences show us the deeds, the will-impulses of our Ego. This state of consciousness in which our Ego then lives, is, as it were, the normal one, even as here, the waking state of consciousness is the normal one. We have seen that here we are built up, as it were, of our physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego, and there, of the Ego, the Spirit-Self, the Life-Spirit and Spirit-Man, which exist, to begin with, as a preliminary foundation. Between death and a new birth, the Ego is therefore the lowest member. But even as here we are inward1y conscious of our Ego through our waking consciousness, so there, through the corresponding state of consciousness, we grow aware of our Ego as an outer experience; we are conscious of our Ego by looking back upon our past deeds and volitional impulses, which, as already described, we experience as if they were reflected to us from the earth. This condition alternates with another; here on earth we may speak of a waking and of a sleeping consciousness, to which we may add a sub-conscious state, whereas between death and a new birth we must speak of the state of consciousness described above and of a kind of super-consciousness, where higher Beings grow conscious within us, that is to say, where higher Beings are the vehicles of our consciousness.
During our earthly condition of sleep we sink down to a kind of plant existence, but in the super-conscious state between death and a new birth we rise up to a kind of Archangel-consciousness, to one which lies above our own. I said that when we are in a normal condition we have behind us, as it were, the Hierarchies of the higher Spiritual Beings. In this super-conscious condition we positively move back towards them. And then we live within them. From them we learn more than we could know as human beings. If between death and a new birth we only experienced what we can experience through our Ego, that sends its rays after us and yet belongs to us, if we were limited to this, we could not experience, as already described, all the processes through which we must pass in order to build up our organism anew, for a new earthly life. We can do this only because our normal states of consciousness alternate with states of existence in which the knowledge (Wissens-zustände) of the Archangeloi and even of the Archai penetrate into our human being, also into our normal consciousness, where they rise up like memories, in the same way in which here on earth dreams enter our consciousness from the sub-conscious spheres. Between death and a new birth we thus live in such a way as to have the consciousness described above, but in between there are always super-conscious conditions, in which we also acquire a super-human knowledge which enables us to build up our existence exactly as required for our next earthly life. Consequently there are analogies between the earthly life from birth to death and the other life from death to a new birth. But we should bear in mind the strong, radical difference between these two conditions of life.
It is possible to see still more clearly into such things by perceiving also the uniting element between the two, by becoming acquainted with what penetrates as an essence of a higher kind into both states of existence—into our earthly life, and into the life between death and a new birth. As we pass through our earthly life, we have, to begin with, the external sensory impressions. We have seen that volitional impulses and actions interweave with these external sensory impressions. But let us now envisage first of all the external sensory impressions.
Try for a moment to set before your soul the fact that throughout your earthly life all the human senses give you a whole complex of sensory impressions, out of which is woven the web of sensory impressions. Generally these sensory impressions are viewed in such a way as to say that they form part of the objects, that the single objects or beings appear, for example, in colours which leave an impression upon the eye, whereas other beings emit sounds and leave an impression upon the organ of hearing. But let us now consider the whole world of sensory impressions and ask what they really are.
I have often drawn your attention to the following: It is out of the question that behind the sensory impressions there should be that fantastic world of atoms dreamed of by the physicists; behind the sensory world there is instead a spiritual world. The spiritual thus exists also in the physical world, but, to begin with, it cannot be perceived by our ordinary consciousness. The ordinary consciousness has before it this web of sensory impressions. But what does it contain? In reality, it contains Beings described in my “Occult Science” as the Spirits of Form. Everything that appears to us in space has a certain form, an object even obtains form through the colour-surface. The Spirits of Form live in everything which we experience through the senses in space. In it live the same Beings named “Elohim” in the Old Testament. For the Elohim are the Spirits of Form. We rightly call this world of physical manifestations a world which manifests itself, a world of phenomena. But this is correct only because with our ordinary consciousness we human beings at first perceive in this world nothing but phenomena, manifestations, the external appearance and semblance, or—as Orientals say—Maya. But when our consciousness awakens and becomes imaginative this whole world of semblance becomes filled with images, or rather transforms itself into a world of weaving images.
This world of weaving images immediately reveals that the world of the Angeloi or Angels is woven into it. And when we reach the stage of inspiration, we obtain inspirations which come to us from everywhere in this world, for it has changed into a world of inspiration. Into this inspiration are interwoven the Beings of the Archangeloi or Archangels.
The world which we experience afterwards is that of intuitions. There we advance to the world of the Archai, whereas ordinarily we only have before us the physical world.
To be sure, when in the world around us we have advanced to the world of the Archai, it is the world of the Archai which also enables us to look back upon what we have already experienced through the higher Hierarchies in former lives between death and a new birth. In the intuitive world we perceive that the Beings whom the Bible calls Elohim, the Beings that are described in my “Occult Science” as Spirits of Form, lie behind the Archai.
We may therefore say: By looking out into the world through our senses we really look into the world of the Spirits of Form, into the physical world.
When we have thus set the physical world before our soul by saying that there we move in the world of the Spirits of Form, we may return to our inner self, but to that inner being that is still very intimately connected with the external world and has to depict for us inwardly the external world in such a way that we can bear it within us in the form of memories. In other words: We may advance from the sensory world to our inner being, to our world of thought.
The thought-world is, to begin with, given to us as a world of picture-thoughts. You will not be tempted to consider as a reality the thoughts that ordinarily live in you, the thoughts that arise in your ordinary consciousness. But in the same way in which realities conceal themselves in the physical world, namely the realities of the Spirits of Form, so there are also realities in the thought-world. Thoughts first appear to our ordinary consciousness as the fleeting inner forms we know; but even as spiritual beings may be discovered in the web of the physical world when we ascend, in the manner described, to higher knowledge through imagination and inspiration, so it is also possible to perceive the activity of spiritual beings in the world of thought. These spiritual beings live in the accompanying phenomena of thought which take place when we think.
From former lectures you know what happens when we think. Processes are then continually taking place within us which may be described by using a comparison, namely as if salt were to dissolve completely in a glass of water leaving it transparent. But if the water cools off a little it gets dim; for the salt crystallizes. Similar processes, which are processes of densification, take place within us when we think. A kind of mineralization process really takes place within us when we think. This mineralization process within us is connected with spiritual Beings that weave through the element of thought. They are the Beings we have always called Archai. We are thus able to know that when we live in our thoughts the Archai live in our life of thought, even as the Elohim, or Spirits of Form, live in our sensory perceptions. In the external world, these Spirits of Form can only be perceived through imaginative knowledge.
When we study the external world with the consciousness which is the normal one to-day, we come to the so-called laws of Nature. These laws of Nature are abstractions. As soon as we proceed to imaginative knowledge we do not have abstract laws of Nature formulated in sentences, but we have pictures, imaginative life. These pictures are not the same as those I have mentioned before, but images which penetrate in a condensed form into the pictures which we obtain when beholding the Elohim, and they penetrate into them as a dimming, tinging element, as it were. This is the influence of the Archai in the external world. We may trace it in the outer and in the inner world.
Perhaps it is now good to turn our gaze away from man’s inner being and to envisage one of life’s manifestations. Thought first lives within us, although thought connects us with the external world; the secrets of the external world are revealed to us through thought, yet, to begin with, thought lives within us. But thought comes to expression when we communicate it to other people. In human life speech is the element through which we give expression to our thoughts, through which thought can manifest itself outwardly.
After having considered the world of thought, let us now consider the world of speech. I have often drawn attention to the fact that the human being of course has more experiences in connection with his world of speech than with his world of thought. Although the will also streams into the element of thought, man’s ordinary consciousness only notices this very slightly. But into speech the human will flows in a way which is quite noticeable to the ordinary consciousness. Yet ordinary consciousness only grasps very little of what really lives in speech. What lives in sound is perceived in the present intellectual age at the most as a sign denoting something. For modern man the inner life of sound is something which has to a great extent withdrawn to the background of consciousness. In regard to modern man we can only point out that sound, the resounding of speech, contains something which can be grasped as a life-element of its own.
Take, for example, a word containing two E (pronounced A in German), the word “gehen”, to walk. If we have a feeling for such things, we may well experience in these two sounds of “gehen” a tranquil way of walking that does not excite us. But when the A-sound (German E) is replaced by an OW-sound (German AU), as in “laufen”, to run, you will feel in it something which you do not experience when you are not walking calmly, but when greater claims are made on your breathing. You feel what takes place when you breathe more quickly, and this is expressed in the OW-sound (German AU). You could not experience the calm way of walking, “gehen”, better than by the two A-sounds (German E), which convey the experience of calm and tranquillity, whereas the running movement, “laufen” is expressend in the OW-sound (German AU) which it contains. There is a spiritual essence in language and many examples which I have given you draw attention to the inner genius undoubtedly contained in speech. Modern men hardly know of its existence, but in past times, when the inner essence of sound could still be experienced, men felt in speech, more consciously than through sensory observation and thought, something which may indeed be felt as a spiritual weaving, a spiritual life.
In this element of speech, in this world of speech, live the Archangeloi, the Archangels, even as the Archai live in the world of thoughts. And because the Archangeloi live in the genius of speech, they are at the same time the Folk-Spirits, the leading spirits of the nations, a fact which I have often described in connection with the Archangels. They live in the element of speech. More than we suppose, man himself is the product of speech, in the same way in which he is, on the other hand, the product of his thought-world. We derive our form completely from the external world, and through our will we again pour form into the external world. What constitutes our life comes from the same region as our thoughts. The Archai live in it. What comes to expression in our language, through which we belong to a nation, brings to expression physical qualities which limit us far more as human beings than that which comes from the thought-element. People have the same thoughts, yet different languages. In regard to language they differ, yet it is nevertheless something which they have in common with others, for man belongs to a small or large nation.
Let us now descend to the sphere of the Angeloi. As often explained, also in this lecture, man has an individual connection with his Angel. This comes to expression in two ways. It expresses itself inwardly. Man may submit to his inner life in such a way as to transcend his inner self. In ordinary life, a Luciferic element will immediately enter because this is an intimate experience; nevertheless man may transcend himself inwardly and experience, as it were, an objective element in phantasy. In many respects, his phantasy is a creative force, but individually creative, like speech. And in reality, the force of phantasy lies at the foundation of speech. Through speech, man only experiences something abstract, he cannot always feel the Archangel, who is the genius of speech, unfolding his wings in speech; similarly man cannot perceive in his phantasy—which becomes a play of fancy when pervaded by Luciferic elements—that an Angel is slipping through his individual life; whenever he lives in his phantasy, an Angel passes through him. A genuine poet, a genuine artist, who has not become cynical, frivolous or superficial, knows that a higher spirituality pervades him whenever he is artistically creative. It is the same higher spirituality that carries him from life to life, as our individual guardian spirit, as his Angelos, his Angel. It is the Angel that enters sound human phantasy. In some of Goethe’s mottoes we can recognise that Goethe was aware of an unconscious element working in him, the one that is really active in phantasy.
When the human being does not inwardly transcend himself, but is outside himself during sleep, and in sleep enters the sphere which is the source of phantasy during his waking life, then the same forces which openly manifest themselves in his phantasy come to expression more sub-consciously in the form of dreams. Phantasy may degenerate into an empty play of fancy when it is pervaded by Luciferic forces, and in the same way dreams may degenerate, become abnormal, and man may take them for realities when they are pervaded by Ahrimanic influences. Dreams as such enter the Luciferic sphere, but they may be pervaded by Ahrimanic influences. When, however, our dreams are innocent and purely human, they also contain the Being whom we call our Angelos, the same that lives in our phantasy when we transcend ourselves inwardly, as it were.
The world of speech, ruled by the Archangel, is shaded off inwardly to a world which exists between feeling and thought, to a world of representations—we might also say, to a world of feeling representations. Phantasy and dreaming are shaded off to a world of feeling and to the element of feeling contained in the will—we might also say, to volitional feeling. But when we descend still further, below the Angeloi, what sphere do we reach? We reach our own sphere, we come to the human Ego. There we must transcend ourselves more intensively than when the Angel lives in us. This occurs when we transform impulses of the will into external actions, as explained yesterday.
Elohim—Spirits of Form World of the Senses.
Archai—World of Thought.
Archangeloi—World of Speech – Feeling Representation.
Angeloi—Phantasy—Dreaming—Volitional Feeling.
Human Ego—Volitional Action—Will.
When we dream, we are completely outside ourselves, but we go out of ourselves only spiritually. When we do something through our will, we do not of course go out of ourselves physically, but we move our physical body, and these impulses of the will are really the foundation of our Ego. We may therefore say: The will lives in our volitional actions, the will digs itself, as it were, into the external world.
We have descended as far as the physical world. In the physical world we develop ourselves in an independent way only through our will-actions, only in what remains to us as the sum-total of our actions when we pass through death. Our Ego, upon which we look back after death, lives in our actions. In everything else, in our phantasy and dreams, in world of speech, in our world of thought and in what we obtain through the senses, live higher spiritual Beings that constantly pervade us.
We have now been able to conclude from ordinary life how we are connected with the spiritual cosmos. But the following consideration will lead us to the results which spiritual science can reach through these concepts. Let us take human life in the physical-sensory world. You pass through this world, you derive certain impressions from it. Perhaps you may still remember these impressions on the following day. I do not say that tomorrow all the people who are now sitting in this hall will have an inner experience of the lecture they are now hearing. But as a rule we may say that the things which we perceive in our surroundings continue to live within us.
I will now make a schematic drawing, in order that we may continue along this line of thought. Here is the surrounding world and at this point let us imagine man. What constitutes the surrounding world continues to live in him, for what you experience in connection with your environment continues to live within you physically. The external world, which we can only perceive through the senses, continues to live in the soul in the form of abstract experiences, in thoughts and feelings which stimulate our will impu1ses. You may now say: What lives within me, what I thus carry about with me (let us envisage this very exactly!), is the result of my ex-periences between birth and death, or between birth and the present moment.
But let us now turn our gaze to something which we do not carry within our soul in such an abstract, picture-like form, but which lives within us—I might say—in a concretely material way: the organs that lie under our skin, the lungs, the heart, the liver, and so forth. This too is something which we carry within us. A true mystic will say: This does not interest me in the least! I am only interested in the spiritual, in the soul. I am content to have within me soul-impressions which come from the surrounding world. Material things are far too low for me. But the mystic shows by this how deeply materialistic he really is, because he does not yet know that what apparently reveals itself materially is in reality spiritual. Spiritual is not only what we bear within us abstractly, the soul-experiences which are echoes of external experiences between birth and death, but spiritual are also our lungs, our liver, etc. Only to our ordinary consciousness do they appear in a material form, but they are altogether products of the spirit. When you are sitting in your study you may have the thought that man consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego. This thought is your inner property. But once it lived outside. It may first have approached you through a book or a lecture; that is to say, from the outside world. But you also bear within you materially the lungs, the heart, the liver, the brain, etc. Also these are the result of experiences. These inner organs that live in you were of course not produced by the physical substance which only comes through conception and birth, but their inner form, their inner structure is the result of experiences between death and birth. You now hear what I am saying and my words will become a soul-experience; similarly your heart, your lungs, your liver, are the result of experiences made between death and a new birth. We may therefore say:
“What I carry with me psychically within my inner being is the result of my experiences between birth and death.”
“What I carry within me as my bodily organisation is the result of my life between death and birth.”
Materialists will of course object that all the organs which live in man were inherited physically from the forefathers. But this is quite mistaken; it is not so. Certainly, the physical substance is transmitted by the ancestors, but the germ is generally viewed quite wrongly. It must be viewed wrongly if it is only considered from the material aspect. Conception does not consist therein that the human being is drawn down materially through the generations, but there arises, as it were, a vacuum, substance is destroyed in man, and in this vacuum the whole universe begins to work, to build up man. Physical structure penetrates into the spiritual structure, for the lungs, the heart, the liver, etc. are altogether spiritual in their structure. But all the organising forces come from the whole universe, and they are formed by our experiences between death and a new birth. This is what we experience through a super wakeful consciousness when we rise up into the sphere of the Archangeloi and of the Archai. Between death and new birth we experience consciously, indeed we must say super-consciously, our organic structure, the way in which we build up our organs.
Our organs are built up in a way which is entirely in keeping with our Karma; they correspond with what we bring with us from a former earthly life. The merely physical processes which apparently take place in the line of the generations are therefore not only physical processes, but they are brought about by the whole cosmos.
When ordinary, superficial materialists come along and say: “Do not explain man’s origin and development in his mother’s womb by drawing in the whole cosmos, do not lead us out into the whole cosmos, for we can explain all this by describing the continuity of the germ’s plasma throughout the generations”—when these materialists come along, the following picture I have used has often been of help: You have a magnetic needle pointing north and south. Now a person may say: Certain mad physicists declare that the whole earth is a magnet and that the needle’s south-pole is attracted by the earth’s soul-pole. But the reason why the needle points to the south must be sought in the needle itself. What does the magnetic needle matter to the earth?—Our biologists talk more or less in the same way when they speak of the human germ. They see nothing but this germ. But even as the whole earth is active in the magnetic needle, so the whole universe is active in the development of the germ. Except that man’s share in it lies further back, in the unconscious sphere.
You see, if things are considered in this light, man and his whole existence are linked up with a material and with a spiritual universe. We say to ourselves: Whenever we think or cognise something through our ordinary consciousness we change the outer world into an inner world. Yesterday I explained to you from a certain aspect that when the human being passes through the portal of death his inner world becomes his outer world, and his outer world his inner. To-day I explained to you from another aspect that everything which lies before birth, i.e. before conception, should be regarded in such a way that the processes which prepare our inner bodily structure should be sought in the life between death and a new birth. Outer life becomes inner life. Our experiences which lie spread out, as it were, in the whole cosmos, quietly and unconsciously change into inner experiences and become our organs.
The organs within us indeed contain a whole universe. If we only bear in mind the ordinary descriptions of our organs in anatomy and physiology we have before as an illusion, a Maya, which is far stronger than the one which faces us in the external world.
I have told you that when we look out into the sensory world we look as far as the sphere of the Elohim. But when we look down into our inner bodily structure we must rise still higher in regard to that which lives within us and forms our organs. From my “Occult Science” you also know that there are Beings above the Spirits of Form. They do not only live outside man, but work within him. We learn something about them between death and a new birth, when we rise to the sphere of the Archai, but with our own consciousness. Through the Archai we learn to know these higher Beings. In this super-conscious state they show us what we pour into our organism. Throughout our life we really carry the world of the Hierarchies within our organic structure.
Now it is again possible to investigate such things. In past epochs they were known through a certain instinctive clairvoyant consciousness. People still spoke of the fact that the human organism is a temple of the gods, and knowledge of the whole cosmos was sought within man’s being, the microcosm; it was sought by interpreting the microcosm.
Do we not remember everything by drawing it out of our memory, in connection with the world which we have experienced since we gained consciousness in our earthly existence? We look into our inner self, and there we find the world which we experienced outside; it lives within us and we can, as it were, look upon the pictures which we carry within our soul in such a way that the life outside has entered these pictures. We understand our earthly life anew by looking back upon these pictures of memory. And when we consider our bodily organisation and understand it, then we understand cosmic processes. Our inner memories enable us to understand our experiences. And if we know how to consider our whole human organisation, we grasp the cosmic processes. To understand man through and through is Anthroposophy.
Anthroposophy is therefore also a cosmosophy. Our life rises up before us when we remember; similarly Anthroposophy is a cosmic memory that sets before us the whole world-process: Cosmosophy. It is impossible to think of these two things apart. Cosmosophy and Anthroposophy are one. Man is to be found in the cosmos and the cosmos in man. Consequently my “Occult Science” is still anthropomorphic when it describes the evolution through Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, etc., for it is at the same time the evolution of mankind. It gives the evolution of the cosmos and that of man. The further we penetrate into the mysteries of life, the more cosmos and man flow together, and the more evident it becomes that the separation between man and cosmos which exists in earthly life is only an illusion, for man belongs to the cosmos and the cosmos to man; man is to be found in the cosmos and the cosmos in man.
Dreizehnter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Wenn Sie sich noch einmal ansehen den Kursus, den ich 1914 gehalten habe über das Leben zwischen dem 'Tode und einer neuen Geburt, so werden Sie darinnen manche Angaben finden, die sich ergänzend verhalten können zu demjenigen, was ich in diesen Tagen und Wochen vorbereitet habe. Heute möchte ich insbesondere aufmerksam machen auf jenen Wechsel in den Lebenszuständen, der auch stattfindet zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, wie hier im Leben zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode der Wechsel zwischen Wachen und Schlafen. Wir haben ja unser normales Bewußtsein, das uns eigentlich zwischen Geburt und Tod zu Menschen macht, eben im Wachen, und sind im Schlafe gewissermaßen heruntergestimmt in unserem Bewußtsein. Unser Bewußtsein ist dann unter der Schwelle unseres Wachseins, und wir erleben die Vorgänge, innerhalb welcher wir stehen zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen, nur dumpf, entweder ganz dumpf im vollen Schlafe, oder so, daß aus dem Schlafe in Form der Träume gewisse Lebensreminiszenzen oder innere Vorgänge des Organismus im Bilde sich darstellen. Ein ähnlicher Wechsel ist nun auch vorhanden in dem Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt. Nur ist da alles gewissermaßen umgekehrt im Verhältnis zu den Zuständen, in denen wir jetzt sind. Ich habe Ihnen ja gestern geschildert, wie radikal anders der Mensch erlebt zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt gegenüber dem Erleben hier auf der Erde. So ist es auch mit diesen Bewußtseinswechselzuständen. Wir haben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt die Erlebnisse, wie ich sie gestern geschildert habe: die Erlebnisse, die uns unser Ich in seinen Taten, seinen Willensimpulsen zeigen. Dieses Bewußtsein, in dem wir unser Ich haben, das ist für diese geistigen Lebenszustände gewissermaßen das normale, wie hier der Wachzustand der normale ist. Wir haben ja gesehen, daß wir hier gewissermaßen aufgebaut sind aus physischem Leib, Ätherleib; astralischem Leib und Ich, dort aus dem Ich, dem Geistselbst, Lebensgeist, Geistesmenschen, in der Anlage zunächst. Das Ich also ist das unterste Glied zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Aber so wie wir uns hier innerlich unseres Ich bewußt werden im Wachbewußtsein, so werden wir uns dort in dem mit dem hiesigen vergleichbaren Bewußtsein unseres Ich gewissermaßen wie eines Außenerlebnisses bewußt in den Taten, in den Willensimpulsen, auf die wir zurückschauen, die von uns so erlebt werden, als strahlten sie uns, wie ich es geschildert habe, von der Erde zurück.
[ 2 ] Dieser Zustand wechselt nun mit einem anderen, und zwar so, daß wir hier im Erdenleben sprechen können von Wachbewußitsein, Schlafbewußtsein, daß wir dem Wachbewußtsein gewissermaßen auch ein Unterbewußtsein anschließen können, während wir zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt sprechen müssen von dem eben geschilderten Bewußtsein und einer Art Überbewußtsein, wo in uns bewußt sind höhere Wesenheiten, beziehungsweise höhere Wesenheiten unser Bewußtsein erfüllen.
[ 3 ] Wir sinken in unserem irdischen Schlafzustand ja zu einer Art von Pflanzendasein herab. Wir steigen zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt hinauf in den überbewußten Zustand zu einer Art Erzengelbewußtsein, zu einem Bewußtsein, das über dem unsrigen liegt. Ich sagte, wir haben, wenn wir in unserem Normalzustande sind, gewissermaßen hinter uns die Hierarchien der höheren geistigen Wesenheiten. In diesem überbewußten Zustande bewegen wir uns förmlich zu ihnen zurück. Wir leben dann in ihnen. Wir erfahren von ihnen mehr, als wir sonst als Menschen wissen könnten. Wenn wir zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt nur das erleben würden, was wir gewissermaßen mit unserem Ich, das uns so nachstrahlt, das aber doch zu uns gehört, erleben - wir würden nicht in der Weise, wie ich es geschildert habe, all die Vorgänge erleben können, die notwendig sind zu erleben, um unseren Organismus in einem neuen Erdendasein wiederum aufzubauen. Das können wir nur dadurch, daß wir diese normalen Bewußtseinszustände abwechselnd haben mit dem Hereindringen von Wissenszuständen der Archangeloi in unser Menschenwesen, sogar der Archai, und diese kommen dann auch gewissermaßen wie Erinnerungen in das normale Bewußtsein herein, so wie die Träume hier aus dem Unterbewußtsein in unser Bewußtsein hereinkommen. Wir leben also zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt so, daß-wir das gestern beschriebene Bewußtsein haben, aber dazwischen immer überbewußte Zustände, in denen wir auch ein übermenschliches Wissen erlangen, das uns erst die Möglichkeit gibt, wirklich in der Weise unser eigenes Dasein dann im nächsten Erdenleben aufzubauen, wie das eben notwendig ist.
[ 4 ] Sie sehen also: Analogien bestehen schon zwischen dem Leben hier zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode und dem anderen Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt. Aber man muß durchaus die starken, die radikalen Unterschiede in Betracht ziehen, die da zwischen diesen beiden Lebenszuständen bestehen.
[ 5 ] Man wird nun in diese Dinge noch genauer hineinsehen, wenn man auch das Vermittelnde zwischen beiden sieht, wenn man sich bekannt macht mit dem, was gewissermaßen als Wesen höherer Art in beide Zustände, in unser Erdenleben und in unser Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt hineinragt. Da haben wir ja zunächst im Erdenleben, indem wir unser Dasein durchwandeln, die äußeren Sinneseindrücke. Wir haben gesehen, wie sich mit diesen äußeren Sinneseindrücken die Willens- und Tatimpulse ineinanderweben. Wir haben aber jetzt zunächst unser Augenmerk zu richten auf die äußeren Sinneseindrücke.
[ 6 ] Versuchen Sie einen Augenblick sich vor die Seele zu stellen, wie Sie die ganze Zeit, in der Sie wachend durch das Leben wandeln, eine Summe von äußeren Sinneseindrücken durch die sämtlichen menschlichen Sinne haben, wie sich daraus eben dieser Sinnesteppich webt. Gewöhnlich betrachtet man ja diese Sinneseindrücke nur so, daß man sagt, sie seien an den Dingen; die einzelnen Dinge oder Wesenheiten erscheinen in Farben, die auf die Augen einen Eindruck machen. Andere Wesenheiten tönen, machen also wiederum auf das Hörorgan einen Eindruck. Aber wir wollen uns diese gesamte Welt der Sinneseindrücke einmal vor die Seele stellen und wollen uns fragen, was das in der Wirklichkeit eigentlich ist.
[ 7 ] Ich habe Sie schon öfter darauf aufmerksam gemacht: Davon kann gar keine Rede sein, daß hinter diesen Sinneseindrücken etwa jene phantastische Welt von Atomen webte, wie der Physiker sie träumt, sondern hinter dieser Sinneswelt ist ein Geistiges vorhanden. Also auch innerhalb der Sinneswelt ist Geistiges vorhanden; nur ist es zunächst für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein nicht wahrnehmbar. Das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein hat eben diesen Sinnesteppich vor sich. Was ist aber eigentlich in diesem Sinnesteppich enthalten? In diesem Sinnesteppich ist in Wirklichkeit enthalten diejenige Summe von Wesenheiten, die Sie in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» zusammengefaßt finden als die Geister der Form. Alles, was uns räumlich erscheint, hat eine gewisse Form. Auch die Farbenoberfläche eines Dinges ist es ja, die dem Ding die Form gibt. In demjenigen, was wir da im Raume sinnesgemäß erleben, leben die Geister der Form, dieselben Wesenheiten, welche im Alten Testament genannt werden die Elohim. Das sind ja die Geister der Form.
[ 8 ] Wir nennen mit Recht diese Welt der Sinneserscheinungen eben eine Erscheinungswelt, eine Welt der Phänomene. Das ist aber nur deshalb richtig, weil wir Menschen zunächst mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein von dieser Welt weiter nichts wahrnehmen als eben diese Phänomene, die Erscheinungen, den äußeren Schein; wie der Morgenländer sagt: die Maja. Aber in dem Augenblicke, wo das Bewußtsein aufwacht und imaginativ wird, erfüllt sich diese ganze Sinneswelt, oder besser gesagt sogar, sie verwandelt sich in eine Welt webender Bilder. Diese Welt webender Bilder, sie zeigt sogleich in sich eingewoben die Welt der Angeloi, der Engel. Und kommen wir zur Inspiration, so werden wir ja überall aus dieser Welt heraus inspiriert. Sie verwandelt sich in eine Inspirationswelt. In diese Inspiration weben sich ein die Wesenheiten der Archangeloi, der Erzengel. Die Welt der Intuitionen ist es dann, die wir später erleben. Da dringen wir vor, statt daß wir sonst nur die Sinneswelt vor uns haben, zu der Welt der Archai.
[ 9 ] Nun, allerdings, wenn wir um uns herum vorgedrungen sind zu der Welt der Archai, dann ist es uns auch möglich, mit Hilfe dieser Welt der Archai wiederum zurückzublicken auf das, was wir schon aus höheren Hierarchien in früheren Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt erfahren haben. Wir werden gewahr, wie nun hinter den Archai innerhalb dieser Welt die Wesenheiten liegen, die in der Bibel Elohim genannt werden, die Sie in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» genannt finden die Geister der Form. Wir können also sagen: Indem wir durch unsere Sinne hinausblicken in die Welt, blicken wir eigentlich hinein in die Welt der Geister der Form (siehe Zusammenstellung Seite 40): Sinneswelt.
[ 10 ] Nun können wir, wenn wir die Sinneswelt vor unsere Seele gerückt haben und da sagen müßten, daß wir mit ihr in der Welt der Geister der Form weben, jetzt wiederum mehr in unser Inneres selbst hineingehen, in jenes Innere aber, das noch mit der Außenwelt in einem sehr innigen Verhältnis steht, das bestimmt ist, die Außenwelt für uns innerlich so abzubilden, daß wir sie erinnerungsmäßig in uns tragen können. Wir können, mit anderen Worten, vorrücken von der Sinneswelt nach dem Inneren zu unserer Gedankenwelt (siehe Zusammenstellung Seite 40).
[ 11 ] Die Gedankenwelt nun ist uns ja zunächst gegeben als die Welt der bildhaften Gedanken. Sie werden gar nicht versucht sein, das, was zunächst in Ihnen als Gedanke lebt, so wie es in diesem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein lebt, als eine Realität anzusehen. Aber geradeso wie in der Sinneswelt sich Realitäten verbergen, nämlich die Realitäten der Geister der Form, so ist es auch mit der Gedankenwelt. Dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein sind die Gedanken zunächst eben jene flüchtigen inneren Gebilde, als welche wir sie kennen; aber so wie in dem Gewebe der Sinneswelt geistige Wesenheiten entdeckt werden, wenn wir so, wie ich das beschrieben habe, durch Imagination, Inspiration zu höheren Erkenntnissen aufsteigen, so kann auch innerhalb der Gedankenwelt das Wirken von geistigen Wesenheiten wahrgenommen werden. Diese geistigen Wesenheiten, die sind es auch, welche in den Begleiterscheinungen der Gedanken leben, die in uns sich abspielen, während wir denken.
[ 12 ] Sie wissen ja aus früheren Vorträgen, was sich in uns abspielt, während wir denken. Während wir denken, spielen sich in uns fortwährend Prozesse ab, die wir vergleichsweise so schildern können, wie wenn, sagen wir, das Salz in einem Glase Wasser sich auflöst, so daß es völlig aufgelöst ist und das Glas durchsichtig ist. Wenn wir nun das Wasser etwas abkühlen lassen, so trübt es sich, es lagert sich das Salz aus dem Wasser heraus ab. Ebenso finden solche Trübungsprozesse in uns statt, welche Verdichtungsprozesse sind, während wir denken. Es ist durchaus eine Art Mineralisierungsprozeß in uns, während wir denken. Mit diesem Mineralisierungsprozeß in uns, der stattfindet, während wir denken, haben es nun die geistigen Wesenheiten zu tun, die eben eigentlich das Gedankenelement durchweben. Es sind jene Wesenheiten, die wir immer die Archai, die Urkräfte genannt haben. So daß wir wissen können: Leben wir in unseren Gedanken, so sind bei uns innerhalb unseres Gedankenlebens die Archai, wie es innerhalb unseres Sinneswahrnehmens die Elohim, die Geister der Form sind.
[ 13 ] In der Außenwelt können dann diese Geister der Form nur durch die imaginative Erkenntnis wahrgenommen werden. Wenn wir die Außenwelt studieren mit dem Bewußtsein, das der Mensch heute als sein normales hat, so kommt er auf sogenannte Naturgesetze. Diese Naturgesetze sind Abstraktionen. Sobald man zur imaginativen Erkenntnis vorrückt, hat man nicht solche abstrakten Naturgesetze, die man in Sätzen formuliert, sondern man hat Bilder, ein Bilderleben. Das sind jetzt nicht dieselben Bilder, von denen ich früher gesprochen habe, sondern das sind nun Bilder, die sich als trübende Bilder, gewissermaßen als tingierende Bilder in die Bilder, die wir bekommen beim Anblicke der Elohim, hineinverdichten. Da haben wir das Wirken der Archai in der Außenwelt. Wir können es in der Außenwelt, wir können es in der Innenwelt verfolgen.
[ 14 ] Nun ist es vielleicht ganz besonders nützlich, wenn Sie jetzt weniger nach dem Inneren des Menschen den Blick richten, sondern wenn Sie nach einer Lebensäußerung hinschauen. Der Gedanke lebt zunächst in uns, trotzdem wir durch ihn in einem Verhältnis zu der Außenwelt stehen, trotzdem sich uns die Geheimnisse der äußeren Welt ja durch die Gedanken enthüllen — der Gedanke lebt zunächst innerlich. Aber er spricht sich aus. Er spricht sich aus, wenn wir uns dem anderen Menschen mitteilen. Und die Sprache ist durchaus ein Element im menschlichen Leben, durch das wir unsere Gedanken in eine äußere Erscheinung bringen.
[ 15 ] Betrachten wir also nach der Gedankenwelt die Sprachwelt. Ich habe schon öfter darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß der Mensch natürlich mehr von seiner Sprachwelt als von seiner Gedankenwelt erlebt. Diese fließt ein in das Sprechen. Obwohl Wille auch einfließt in das Gedankenelement, so wird das ja nur in sehr geringem Grade vom gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein bemerkt. Aber in das Sprechen fließt, schon bemerkbar für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein, stark der menschliche Wille ein. Aber das, was in der Sprache eigentlich lebt, das wird doch von dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein außerordentlich wenig erfaßt. Es nimmt der Mensch von dem, was im Laute lebt, heute in dem intellektualistischen Zeitalter kaum mehr wahr als etwas Zeichenartiges, als etwas, was ihm etwas anderes bezeichnet. Das innere Leben des Lautes ist ja etwas, was für die gegenwärtige Menschheit sehr hinter das Bewußtsein zurückgetreten ist. Man kann für den heutigen Menschen nur noch hinweisen darauf, wie er sich besinnen kann, wie im Laute, im Tönen der Laute etwas liegt, was man als ein eigenes Lebenselement erfassen kann.
[ 16 ] Nehmen wir zum Beispiel ein Wort, wo Sie zwei E darinnen haben: gehen. Diese zwei E in «gehen», in denen kann man, wenn man dafür links oben ein Gefühl hat, gut das ruhige Hinwandeln, das einen nicht aufregt, das ruhige Gehen fühlen. Es ist durchaus in den zwei E dieses ruhige Hinwandeln vorhanden. Wenn Sie an der Stelle des E zum Beispiel ein A haben wie in «laufen», so fühlen Sie in dem Laute A das, was Sie erleben beim nicht gemächlichen Gehen, sondern bei demjenigen, das an Ihr Atmen größere Anforderungen stellt. Sie können fühlen, was Sie im schnelleren Atmen erleben, dadurch, daß Sie das in dem Au zum Ausdrucke bringen. Sie könnten nicht besser erleben das gemächliche Gehen als durch die beiden nun auch gemächlich zu erlebenden E-Laute, und das Laufen in dem Au, das da drinnen ist. Die Sprache hat eine Geistigkeit in sich, und ich habe Sie ja schon zu wiederholten Malen an den verschiedensten Beispielen darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie die Sprache durchaus einen innerlichen Genius hat. Es lebt also für den heutigen Menschen wenig, aber in den anderen Zeitaltern, wo der Mensch noch für die Laute das richtige innere Erleben hatte, da lebte, mehr bewußt als für die Sinneswahrnehmung und das Denken, die Gedankenwelt, da lebte mehr in der Sprache dasjenige, was man schon fühlen kann als ein geistiges Weben und Leben.
[ 17 ] In dem, was da Sprachelement ist, in dieser Sprachwelt leben nun, geradeso wie in der Gedankenwelt die Archai, die Archangeloi. Und weil sie in dem Sprachgenius leben, sind sie auch das, als was ich öfter die Archangeloi geschildert habe: sie sind durchaus die führenden Geister der Völker, die Volksgeister. Und sie leben sich aus eben in dem Elemente des Sprechens.
[ 18 ] Viel mehr als man meint, ist der Mensch nun selber ein Ergebnis seiner Sprache, wie er auf der anderen Seite ein Ergebnis ist seiner Gedankenwelt. Unsere Form haben wir ganz und gar von der Außenwelt, und wir gießen wiederum Form in die Außenwelt mit unserem Willen hinein. Das, was unser Leben ist, das stammt aus derselben Region, aus der unsere Gedanken stammen. Darinnen leben die Archai. Was sich in unserer Sprache ausdrückt, wodurch wir einem Volke angehören, darinnen drücken sich alle jene physischen Eigenschaften aus, die uns nun schon in einem viel stärkeren Maße als Menschen beschränken, als das beim Gedankenelemente der Fall ist. Die Gedanken haben die Menschen gleich, die Sprache haben sie verschieden. Die Menschen differenzieren sich in der Sprache; aber sie haben immerhin in der Sprache etwas gegeben — der Mensch gehört ja einem kleinen oder einem großen Volke an —, was sie mit vielen Menschen gemeinsam haben.
[ 19 ] Steigen wir aber herunter zu der Wesenheit der Angeloi, dann hat — wie ich Ihnen ja öfter und auch in diesem Vortrage wiederum auseinandergesetzt habe — der Mensch das singuläre, das individuelle Verhältnis zu seinem Angelos. Dieses individuelle Verhältnis, das der Mensch zu seinem Angelos hat, das drückt sich in einer zweifachen Weise aus. Es drückt sich aus nach innen, wenn der Mensch sich seinem Inneren so überläßt, daß er eigentlich in seinem Inneren selbst über sich hinausgeht. Im gewöhnlichen Leben wird allerdings, weil das ja ein intimes Erleben des Menschen ist, sogleich etwas Luziferisches in die Sache hineinkommen können; aber immerhin: der Mensch kann innerlich über sich hinausgehen und gewissermaßen innerlich etwas Objektives erleben in der Phantasie. Die Phantasie ist ja in vieler Beziehung etwas ebenso Schöpferisches, aber individuell Schöpferisches wie die Sprache, und im Grunde genommen liegt der Sprache die Phantasietätigkeit zugrunde. So wie der Mensch gewöhnlich von der Sprache nur etwas Abstraktes erlebt, so wie er den Sprachgenius, der ein Archangelos ist, in der Sprache nicht immer, ich möchte sagen, seine Fittiche entfalten spürt, so nimmt der Mensch auch in der Phantasie — die, wenn sie luziferisch durchwebt wird, zur Phantastik wird -, es nimmt der Mensch auch nicht in der Phantasie wahr, daß eigentlich ein Engel durchschlüpft durch sein individuelles Leben, indem er in der Phantasie lebt.
[ 20 ] Der wirkliche Dichter, der wirkliche Künstler, der nicht zum Zyniker oder zum Frivolling oder zum Oberflächling geworden ist, der weiß aber, daß ihn durchsetzt, indem er künstlerisch schafft, eine höhere Geistigkeit. Es ist dieselbe höhere Geistigkeit, die uns eigentlich von Leben zu Leben wie ein individueller Schutzgeist trägt: der Angelos, der Engel. Und es ist durchaus eigentlich das Denken des Angelos, das in die geregelte menschliche Phantasie hereinspielt. Man kann durchaus in gewissen Aussprüchen Goethes, ich möchte sagen, in einer dezenten Form erkennen, wie er sich bewußt ist, daß eigentlich ein Unbewußtes da hereinspielt, das aber eben in der Phantasie real wirkt.
[ 21 ] Wenn der Mensch nun aber nicht innerlich aus sich herausgeht, sondern im Schlafe wirklich aus sich heraus ist, und er im Schlafe dann eindringt in die Region, in der sonst die wachende Phantasie wurzelt, dann kündigt sich dasselbe, was sich in der Phantasie besonnen ankündigt, mehr unter dem Bewußtsein an als das Träumen. Geradeso wie die Phantasie zur Phantastik ausarten kann, wenn sie luziferisch durchsetzt wird, so kann das Träumen ausarten zu allem möglichen Irregulären, das der Mensch dann sogar für eine Realität hält, indem ahrimanische Einflüsse auf das Träumen stattfinden. Das Träumen als solches geht ja in die luziferische Region hinein, kann aber ahrimanisch durchsetzt werden. Aber eigentlich lebt in unseren Träumen, wenn sie, möchte man sagen, unschuldig und rein menschlich sind, wiederum das, was wir den Angelos nennen, diejenige Wesenheit, die also auch in der Phantasie uns durchsetzt, wenn wir innerlich gewissermaßen aus uns herausgehen.
[ 22 ] Nun schattet sich die Sprachwelt, die der Erzengel beherrscht, nach innen ab zu einer Welt, die zwischen Gefühl und Gedanken mitten drinnen lebt: zu der Welt der Vorstellungen; man könnte auch sagen: zu der Welt der gefühlsmäßigen Vorstellung (siehe Zusammenstellung). Die Phantasie und das Träumen schatten sich ab zu der Welt der Gefühle selbst - Gefühle und desjenigen, was in den Gefühlen lebt als Willensmäßiges; wir könnten auch sagen: willensmäßige Gefühle. Indem wir nun aber weiter herabsteigen, von dem Angelos weiter nach abwärts steigen, wohin kommen wir da? Nun, da kommen wir zu uns selbst, da kommen wir zum menschlichen Ich. Im menschlichen Ich, da müssen wir nun in einer intensiveren Weise aus uns herausgehen, als wir dann aus uns herausgehen, wenn der Angelos in uns lebt. Und dieses Herausgehen findet statt, wenn wir eben Willensimpulse in äußeren Handlungen ausführen, wie ich gestern gezeigt habe.
Elohim, Geister der Form: Sinneswelt
Archai: Gedankenwelt
Archangeloi: Sprachwelt: Gefühlsvorstellung
Angeloi: Phantasie. Träumen: Willensmäßig, Gefühl
Menschliches Ich: Willenshandlung: Wille
[ 23 ] Wir sind durchaus, wenn wir träumen, außer uns, aber wir gehen nur geistig aus uns heraus. Wir gehen in der Willenshandlung zwar nicht physisch aus uns heraus, aber wir bringen unseren physischen Leib in Bewegung, und auf diesen Willensimpulsen beruht eigentlich das Ich. So daß wir sagen können: In der Willenshandlung lebt — nun, es lebt eben der Wille in der Willenshandlung, und der Wille, der gräbt sich gewissermaßen in die Außenwelt ein. Wir sind hinuntergelangt bis zur physischen Welt. Wir entwickeln uns eigentlich in der physischen Welt selbständig nur in unseren Willenshandlungen. Nur in demjenigen, was uns dann im Tode verbleibt als das, was ich gestern als die Summe aller unserer Aktionen aufgezeichnet habe, da lebt unser Ich, auf das wir dann zurückschauen. Aber in allem anderen, in Phantasie und Träumen, in der Sprachwelt, in der Gedankenwelt, im Sinnesinhalte leben eigentlich höhere Geistigkeiten, die uns als Menschen fortwährend durchsetzen.
[ 24 ] Sehen Sie, nun haben Sie aus dem gewöhnlichen Leben herausgeholt die Beziehung des Menschen zu dem geistigen Kosmos. Nun können wir aber auch noch durch die folgende Vorstellung dem nahekommen, was sich der Geisteswissenschaft aus der übersinnlichen Anschauung ergibt. Nehmen Sie einmal Ihr Leben in der Sinneswelt. Sie gehen durch diese Sinneswelt hindurch. Sie haben jetzt gewisse Eindrücke. Sie können sich vielleicht an diejenigen Eindrücke, die Sie jetzt haben, morgen noch erinnern. Ich will ja nicht sagen, daß das jeder tut, denn ich weiß nicht, ob man annehmen darf, daß zum Beispiel jeder, der hier sitzt, morgen noch ein inneres Erlebnis von dem hat, was er hier heute als Vortrag hört! Aber im allgemeinen kann man doch sagen, daß das, was der Mensch aus seiner Umgebung herein wahrnimmt, dann in seinem Inneren als Erinnerung weiterlebt.
[ 25 ] Ich möchte Ihnen das einmal, damit wir etwas weiter kommen in Betracht (schraffierte Fläche), und sie nehmen wir eigentlich von innen gezeichnet die Welt der Umgebung (siehe Zeichnungen, hell); hier sei der Mensch (rot). Das, was Welt der Umgebung ist, lebt nun im Menschen weiter. Es lebt auf seelische Art weiter. Das, was Sie mit der Umwelt zusammen erleben - ich habe es hier aufgezeichnet -, das lebt als seelische Welt in Ihnen weiter. Sehen Sie, das ist in gewissem Sinne ein sehr abstraktes Erlebnis zunächst. Wenigstens lebt die Umwelt, die wir ja nur in der Form des sinnlichen Scheines erleben, sie lebt in den abstrakten Seelenerlebnissen, in Gedanken, Gefühlen weiter, die dann Willensimpulse anregen. Aber Sie können doch sagen — wollen wir das ganz genau vor unsere Seele führen -: Was ich im Inneren seelisch mit mir trage, ist das Ergebnis meines Erlebens zwischen Geburt und Tod respektive zwischen der Geburt und dem jetzigen Augenblick.
[ 26 ] Nun wenden wir aber unseren Blick auf dasjenige, was wir nicht bloß so seelisch abstrakt in uns tragen, so bildhaft in uns tragen, sondern wenden wir den Blick auf das, was wir, ich möchte sagen, materiell konkreter in uns tragen: auf die innerhalb unserer Haut liegenden Organe, Lunge, Herz, Leber und so weiter. Das ist nun auch etwas, was wir innerlich in uns tragen. So ein richtiger Mystiker wird sagen: Das interessiert mich ja gar nicht. Mich interessiert nur das Geistige, das Seelische. Ich bin schon zufrieden, daß ich von der Umwelt meine seelischen Eindrücke in mir trage. Das Materielle ist mir viel zu minder, zu unwichtig. — Ja, aber darin, in solcher Rede zeigt eben der Mystiker gerade, wie tief materialistisch er eigentlich noch ist; wie er noch nicht weiß, daß das, was scheinbar materiell auftritt, eigentlich in Wirklichkeit ein Geistiges ist. Nicht nur das, was wir in abstrakter Weise in uns tragen als seelische Erlebnisse, die Nachklänge sind der äußeren Erlebnisse zwischen Geburt und Tod, nicht nur das ist Geistiges, sondern geistig ist auch unsere Lunge, unsere Leber. Sie erscheinen uns nur, unserem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein, in materieller Form; sie sind durchaus Geist-Ergebnisse. Wenn Sie in Ihrem Kämmerchen sitzen, da fällt Ihnen ein: Der Mensch besteht aus physischem Leib, ÄÄtherleib, astralischem Leib, Ich. - Das haben Sie als Ihren innerlichen Besitz. Einmal war es Äußeres. Es ist zum erstenmal, meinetwillen aus einem Buch oder einem Vortrage, also von der Außenwelt heraus an Sie herangekommen, ich habe das schematisch hier aufgezeichnet. Sie tragen aber auch Lunge, Herz, Leber, Gehirn und so weiter in sich, materiell innerlich. Das tragen Sie auch als ein Ergebnis von Erlebnissen in sich. Wenn Sie also einfach schematisch den Menschen aufzeich Tafel4 nen würden mit seinen einzelnen Organen (Tafel 4, links unten), so ist dieses Innere das Ergebnis von alldem - natürlich nicht der physischen Materie, die erst kommt mit der Konzeption, Geburt und so weiter, sondern seiner Form, seinem inneren Organisiertsein nach ist es das Ergebnis dessen, was zwischen dem Tod und neuer Geburt durchlebt wird. So wie Sie hier hören, was ich rede, und das dann Ihr seelisches Erlebnis wird, so wird Ihr Herz, Ihre Lunge, Ihre Leber Ergebnis dessen, was Sie zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt durchleben. Wir können also sagen: Was ich im Inneren körperlich organisiert in mir trage, ist Ergebnis meines Erlebens zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt.
Was ich im Inneren seelisch mit mir trage,
ist Ergebnis meines Erlebens zwischen Geburt und Tod.Was ich im Inneren körperlich organisiert in mir trage,
ist Ergebnis meines Lebens zwischen Tod und Geburt.
[ 27 ] Natürlich wird der Materialist einwenden: Das alles, was da als Organe im Menschen ist, ist ja physisch ererbt von den Vorfahren. —Das ist ein vollständiger Irrtum. So ist es nicht. Gewiß, die Materie ist ererbt von den Vorfahren, aber das, was Keim ist, wird ja gewöhnlich ganz falsch angesehen. Es muß auch, wenn man es nur materiell anschaut, falsch angesehen werden. Denn die Befruchtung besteht nicht darin, daß der Mensch materiell von den Generationen heruntergeholt wird, sondern daß gewissermaßen leerer Raum entsteht, daß im Menschen Materie abgebaut wird und das ganze Universum hineinbaut in den Menschen. In diesen Geistbau — Lunge, Herz, Leber sind durchaus Geistbau -, in den schiebt sich dann die Materie hinein. Aber das, was organisierende Kräfte sind, das ist durchaus aus dem ganzen Universum, aus dem Erleben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt heraus gestaltet. Das ist es eben, was der Mensch in der Weise, wie ich es vorhin geschildert habe, in dem überwachen Bewußtsein erlebt, wenn wir hinaufgehoben werden in die Region der Archangeloi und Archai. Er erlebt bewußt - überbewußt, muß man sagen, zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt das, was er dann in seine Organe hineinbaut.
[ 28 ] Unsere Organe sind durchaus so gebaut, daß sie unserem Karma entsprechen, daß sie dem entsprechen, was wir aus früheren Erdenleben mitbringen. Was also scheinbar in der Generationenfolge als bloße physische Vorgänge sich abspielt, das sind nicht bloße physische Vorgänge, sondern das sind Vorgänge, die durchaus von dem ganzen Universum bewirkt werden.
[ 29 ] Ich habe ja oftmals schon ein Bild gebraucht, mit dem man sich helfen kann, wenn eben gewöhnliche materialistische Triviallinge kommen und sagen: Erkläre uns nur nicht die Entstehung des Menschen im Leibe der Mutter durch das ganze Universum, führe uns ja nicht ins Universum hinaus; das mußt du eben durch die Kontinuität des Keimplasmas durch die Generationen hindurch erklären. — Ich habe gesagt, man kann sich da so behelfen, daß man sagt: Irgend jemand hat eine Magnetnadel, die weist nach Norden und nach Süden. Nun kommt einer und sagt: Da gibt es verrückte Physiker, die sagen, daß die ganze Erde ein Magnet sei und daß der magnetische Erdsüdpol diesen Pol zu sich hinzieht. Die Gründe, daß die Magnetnadel sich so stellt, die darf man nur in der Magnetnadel selber suchen. Was geht da die Erde diese Magnetnadel an! — So ungefähr aber sprechen heute unsere Biologen, wenn sie von dem Keim sprechen. Sie schauen nur auf den Keim hin. Geradeso wie aber in der Magnetnadel die ganze Erde tätig ist, so ist das ganze Universum beim Gestalten des Keimes tätig. Nur liegt natürlich der Anteil, den der Mensch daran hat, zurück im Unbewußten.
[ 30 ] Sie sehen, der Mensch wird, wenn man die Sache so betrachtet, mit seinem ganzen Dasein an ein materielles und an ein geistiges Universum angeknüpft. Wir sagen uns: Im Erkennen, im gewöhnlichen bewußten Erleben machen wir die Außenwelt zu einer Innenwelt. Von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus habe ich Ihnen gestern gesagt: Wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geht, so wird das Innere Äußeres, das Äußere wird Inneres. Nun habe ich Ihnen heute einen anderen Gesichtspunkt vorgebracht, aus dem Sie ersehen können, wie das, was vor der Geburt beziehungsweise vor der Konzeption liegt, so zu behandeln ist, daß wir unser körperliches Inneres in der Außenwelt suchen müssen, in seinen vorbereitenden Prozessen in dem Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt: Das Äußere wird Inneres. Das, was wir gewissermaßen in Ausbreitung im ganzen Universum erleben, das wird tief unbewußtes Erlebnis in unseren Organen.
[ 31 ] Diese Organe in uns sind ja in der Tat so, daß in ihnen eine ganze Welt lebt. Und wenn wir einzig und allein das betrachten, was die äußere Anatomie und Physiologie gibt von unseren inneren Organen, so haben wir da eigentlich eine viel stärkere Maja vor uns, als wir in der äußeren Welt vor uns haben.
[ 32 ] Wenn wir in die Sinneswelt hinausblicken, sagte ich Ihnen, blicken wir bis zu den Elohim hin. Wenn wir aber jetzt in unser körperliches Innere hinunterschauen, da müssen wir für das, was nun in uns so lebt, daß es unsere Organe bildet, weiter hinaufsteigen. Sie wissen ja, Sie finden in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» über den Geistern der Form andere Wesenheiten. Und diese anderen Wesenheiten, die sind nun nicht etwa bloß außerhalb des Menschen, sondern sie wirken im Menschen. Von ihnen erfahren wir zwischen dem 'Tod und einer neuen Geburt, indem wir uns allerdings mit dem eigenen Bewußtsein nur hinaufleben bis zu den Archai, aber wir erfahren da durch die Archai von diesen Wesenheiten. Und in diesem Überbewußtsein erfahren wir von ihnen das, was wir dann in unsere Organisation hineingießen. Wir tragen tatsächlich die Welt der Hierarchien in unserer inneren Gestaltung mit durch das Leben.
[ 33 ] Solche Dinge kann man heute wieder erforschen. Solche Dinge hat man aus einem gewissen instinktiv hellseherischen Bewußtsein in alten Zeiten gewußt, in jenen Zeiten, in denen man davon gesprochen hat, daß der menschliche Organismus ein Tempel der Götter ist, in solchen Zeiten, in denen man gerade innerhalb des menschlichen Mikrokosmos durch die Deutung dieses Mikrokosmos versucht hat, sich Erkenntnis zu verschaffen von der ganzen Welt.
[ 34 ] Ist es denn nicht so, daß wir von der Welt, die wir, seit wir zum Bewußtsein gekommen sind hier im Erdenleben, die wir da als unsere Welt durchlebt haben, durch unsere Erinnerung wissen? Wir können uns einmal besinnen auf alles das, was wir nur herausbringen können aus unserer Erinnerung. Wir blicken da in unser Inneres und wir haben die Welt, die wir äußerlich erlebt haben, in uns, können gewissermaßen diese Bilder, die wir da in uns seelisch tragen, so anschauen, daß dieses Leben da draußen in diese Bilder eingeflossen ist. Wir verstehen unser Erleben neuerdings, wenn wir zurückblicken auf diese Erinnerungsbilder. Blicken wir jetzt auf unsere körperliche Organisation, verstehen wir diese körperliche Organisation, dann verstehen wir dadurch den Weltenprozeß. Durch unsere Erinnerung im Inneren verstehen wir unser Erleben. Durch unsere gesamte menschliche Organisation verstehen wir, wenn wir sie richtig anzuschauen wissen, den Weltenprozeß. Aber das ist erst Anthroposophie, wenn man den Menschen durch und durch verstehen kann.
[ 35 ] Aber Anthroposophie ist damit zu gleicher Zeit Kosmosophie. Denn so wie Erinnerung von uns Vergegenwärtigung unseres Lebens ist, so ist anthroposophische Erkenntnis Welterinnerung, Vergegenwärtigung des gesamten Weltenprozesses, Kosmosophie. Beide sind in Trennung voneinander gar nicht zu denken. Kosmosophie und Anthroposophie gehören zusammen, Der Mensch ist in der Welt, die Welt im Menschen zu finden. Daher ist es auch nicht Anthropomorphismus in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft», wenn, indem die Entwickelung gegeben ist durch Saturn, Sonne, Mond und so weiter, zu gleicher Zeit eine Menschheitsentwickelung gegeben ist. Weltenentwickelung ist gegeben, Menschheitsentwickelung ist gegeben, weil, je weiter man eindringt in die Geheimnisse des Daseins, um so mehr fließen Welt und Mensch zusammen; um so mehr zeigt sich, daß jene Trennung, die wir für unser Erdenleben haben zwischen Welt und Mensch, eigentlich nur eine Täuschung ist; daß der Mensch der Welt, die Welt dem Menschen angehört, in der Welt der Mensch, im Menschen die Welt zu finden ist.
Thirteenth Lecture
[ 1 ] If you look again at the course I gave in 1914 on life between death and a new birth, you will find many details that may complement what I have prepared in recent days and weeks. Today I would like to draw your attention in particular to the change in life states that also takes place between death and a new birth, just as here in life between birth and death there is a change between waking and sleeping. We have our normal consciousness, which actually makes us human between birth and death, when we are awake, and when we are asleep our consciousness is, so to speak, tuned down. Our consciousness is then below the threshold of our waking state, and we experience the processes within which we stand between falling asleep and waking up only dimly, either completely dimly in deep sleep, or in such a way that certain reminiscences of life or inner processes of the organism appear in images from sleep in the form of dreams. A similar change also occurs in the life between death and a new birth. Only there everything is, so to speak, reversed in relation to the states in which we now find ourselves. I described to you yesterday how radically different the human experience is between death and a new birth compared to the experience here on earth. The same is true of these states of consciousness. Between death and a new birth, we have the experiences I described yesterday: the experiences that our I shows us in its actions, its impulses of will. This consciousness in which we have our I is, in a sense, the normal state for these spiritual states of life, just as the waking state is normal here. We have seen that here we are, in a sense, made up of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and the I; there, we are made up of the I, the spirit self, the life spirit, and the spirit human being, initially in potential. The ego is therefore the lowest link between death and a new birth. But just as we become aware of our ego here in our waking consciousness, so there, in a consciousness comparable to the one here, we become aware of our ego as a kind of external experience in the deeds and impulses of the will that we look back on, which we experience as if as if they were shining back at us from the earth, as I have described.
[ 2 ] This state now changes to another, in such a way that here in earthly life we can speak of waking consciousness, sleep consciousness, that we can, in a sense, connect the waking consciousness with a subconsciousness, while between death and a new birth we must speak of the consciousness just described and a kind of superconsciousness, where higher beings are conscious within us, or rather higher beings fill our consciousness.
[ 3 ] In our earthly state of sleep, we sink down to a kind of plant existence. Between death and a new birth, we ascend to the superconscious state, to a kind of archangel consciousness, to a consciousness that lies above our own. I said that when we are in our normal state, we have, in a sense, the hierarchies of higher spiritual beings behind us. In this superconscious state, we literally move back toward them. We then live in them. We learn more from them than we could otherwise know as human beings. If, between death and a new birth, we experienced only what we experience with our ego, which continues to shine after us but still belongs to us, we would not be able to experience all the processes that are necessary to rebuild our organism in a new earthly existence in the way I have described. We can only do this by alternating these normal states of consciousness with the intrusion of states of knowledge from the archangels into our human being, even from the archai, and these then also enter our normal consciousness as memories, just as dreams enter our consciousness from the subconscious. So between death and a new birth, we live in such a way that we have the consciousness described yesterday, but in between there are always superconscious states in which we also attain superhuman knowledge, which alone gives us the possibility of truly building up our own existence in the next earthly life in the way that is necessary.
[ 4 ] So you see: analogies already exist between life here between birth and death and the other life between death and a new birth. But one must certainly take into account the strong, radical differences that exist between these two states of life.
[ 5 ] We will now look at these things in more detail, when we also see the mediating factor between the two, when we familiarize ourselves with what, in a sense, as a higher being, protrudes into both states, into our earthly life and into our life between death and a new birth. First of all, in our earthly life, as we go through existence, we have the external sensory impressions. We have seen how the impulses of will and action interweave with these external sensory impressions. But now we must first turn our attention to the external sensory impressions.
[ 6 ] Try for a moment to imagine how, during the entire time you are awake and going through life, you have a sum of external sensory impressions through all your human senses, and how this weaves together to form a tapestry of sensations. Usually, we view these sensory impressions only in such a way that we say they are in things; individual things or entities appear in colors that make an impression on the eyes. Other entities sound, thus making an impression on the hearing organ. But let us place this entire world of sensory impressions before our soul and ask ourselves what it actually is in reality.
[ 7 ] I have often pointed out to you that there can be no question of a fantastical world of atoms weaving behind these sensory impressions, as physicists dream, but that behind this sensory world there is something spiritual. So there is also a spiritual element within the sensory world; it is just not perceptible to ordinary consciousness at first. Ordinary consciousness has this sensory carpet in front of it. But what does this sensory carpet actually contain? This sensory tapestry actually contains the sum total of beings that you will find summarized in my “Outline of Secret Science” as the spirits of form. Everything that appears to us in space has a certain form. It is also the colored surface of a thing that gives it its form. In what we experience in space through our senses live the spirits of form, the same entities that are called the Elohim in the Old Testament. These are the spirits of form.
[ 8 ] We rightly call this world of sensory phenomena a world of appearances, a world of phenomena. But this is only correct because we humans, with our ordinary consciousness, perceive nothing more of this world than these phenomena, these appearances, the outer appearance; as the Easterners say: the Maya. But the moment consciousness awakens and becomes imaginative, this entire sensory world is filled, or rather, it is transformed into a world of weaving images. This world of weaving images immediately reveals the world of the Angeloi, the angels, woven into itself. And when we come to inspiration, we are inspired everywhere from this world. It is transformed into a world of inspiration. The beings of the archangels weave themselves into this inspiration. It is then the world of intuitions that we experience later. We advance there, instead of having only the sensory world before us, to the world of the archai.
[ 9 ] Now, however, when we have advanced around us to the world of the Archai, it is also possible for us, with the help of this world of the Archai, to look back on what we have already experienced from higher hierarchies in previous lives between death and a new birth. We become aware of how, behind the archai within this world, there lie the beings called Elohim in the Bible, which you will find in my “Secret Science” called the spirits of form. We can therefore say that by looking out into the world through our senses, we are actually looking into the world of the spirits of form (see summary on page 40): the sensory world.
[ 10 ] Now, when we have brought the sensory world before our soul and must say that we are weaving with it in the world of the spirits of form, we now go deeper into our inner being, but into that inner being which still has a very intimate relationship with the outer world, which is determined to represent the outer world for us inwardly in such a way that we can carry it within us in our memory. In other words, we can advance from the sensory world to the inner world of our thoughts (see summary on page 40).
[ 11 ] The world of thoughts is initially given to us as the world of pictorial thoughts. You will not be tempted to regard what initially lives in you as a thought, as it lives in this ordinary consciousness, as a reality. But just as realities are hidden in the sensory world, namely the realities of the spirits of form, so it is with the world of thoughts. To ordinary consciousness, thoughts are initially just those fleeting inner formations that we know them to be; but just as spiritual beings are discovered in the fabric of the sensory world when we ascend to higher knowledge through imagination and inspiration, as I have described, so too can the workings of spiritual beings be perceived within the world of thoughts. These spiritual beings are also those who live in the accompanying phenomena of the thoughts that take place within us while we think.
[ 12 ] You know from previous lectures what takes place within us while we think. While we think, processes are constantly taking place within us that we can describe in a way similar to, say, salt dissolving in a glass of water so that it is completely dissolved and the glass is transparent. If we now allow the water to cool down a little, it becomes cloudy and the salt precipitates out of the water. Similarly, processes of clouding take place within us, which are processes of condensation while we think. It is definitely a kind of mineralization process within us while we think. The spiritual beings that actually weave through the thought element have to deal with this mineralization process that takes place within us while we think. These are the beings we have always called the archai, the primal forces. So we can know that when we live in our thoughts, the archai are within our thought life, just as the Elohim, the spirits of form, are within our sensory perception.
[ 13 ] In the outer world, these spirits of form can only be perceived through imaginative knowledge. When we study the outer world with the consciousness that human beings today consider normal, we arrive at what are called natural laws. These natural laws are abstractions. As soon as we advance to imaginative knowledge, we no longer have such abstract natural laws that can be formulated in sentences, but rather we have images, a life of images. These are not the same images I spoke of earlier, but rather images that condense into the images we receive when we see the Elohim, as if they were clouding or tinging them. Here we have the workings of the Archai in the outer world. We can follow it in the outer world, we can follow it in the inner world.
[ 14 ] Now it is perhaps particularly useful if you now direct your gaze less toward the inner life of the human being and look instead for an expression of life. Thoughts live within us first, even though they connect us to the outside world, even though the secrets of the outside world are revealed to us through thoughts — thoughts live within us first. But they express themselves. They express themselves when we communicate with other people. And language is definitely an element of human life through which we bring our thoughts into external appearance.
[ 15 ] Let us therefore consider the world of language after the world of thoughts. I have often pointed out that human beings naturally experience more of their world of language than of their world of thoughts. The latter flows into speech. Although the will also flows into the element of thought, this is only noticed to a very small degree by ordinary consciousness. But the human will flows strongly into speech, in a way that is already noticeable to ordinary consciousness. But what actually lives in language is grasped very little by ordinary consciousness. In today's intellectual age, human beings perceive what lives in sound as little more than a sign, something that designates something else. The inner life of sound is something that has receded far behind consciousness for contemporary humanity. All we can do for people today is point out how they can reflect on how there is something in sound, in the tones of sounds, that can be grasped as a separate element of life.
[ 16 ] Let us take, for example, a word that contains two E's: gehen (to go). If you have a feeling for this in the upper left corner, you can easily sense the calm walking, the walking that does not excite you, in these two E's in “gehen.” This calm walking is definitely present in the two E's. If, for example, you have an A in place of the E, as in “laufen” (to run), you feel in the sound A what you experience when walking at a fast pace, which places greater demands on your breathing. You can feel what you experience when breathing faster by expressing it in the Au. You could not experience leisurely walking better than through the two E sounds, which can now also be experienced leisurely, and the running in the Au that is inside them. Language has a spirituality within it, and I have already pointed out to you repeatedly, using a wide variety of examples, how language definitely has an inner genius. So it has little meaning for people today, but in other ages, when people still had the right inner experience of sounds, when the world of thought lived more consciously than sensory perception and thinking, what we can already feel as a spiritual weaving and life lived more in language.
[ 17 ] In what is the element of language, in this world of language, live the Archai, the Archangeloi, just as in the world of thought. And because they live in the genius of language, they are also what I have often described as the Archangeloi: they are indeed the leading spirits of the peoples, the folk spirits. And they live out their lives in the element of speech.
[ 18 ] Much more than one might think, human beings are themselves a product of their language, just as they are a product of their world of thoughts. We derive our form entirely from the external world, and in turn we pour form into the external world with our will. What our life is comes from the same region as our thoughts. That is where the archai live. What is expressed in our language, through which we belong to a people, expresses all those physical characteristics that now limit us as human beings to a much greater extent than the element of thought. People have the same thoughts, but they have different languages. People differ in their language, but they have nevertheless given something to language — after all, human beings belong to a small or large people — which they have in common with many other people.
[ 19 ] But if we descend to the essence of the angeloi, then — as I have explained to you often, and again in this lecture — human beings have a singular, individual relationship to their angelos. This individual relationship that human beings have to their angelos is expressed in two ways. It is expressed inwardly when the human being surrenders himself to his inner being to such an extent that he actually transcends himself within himself. In ordinary life, however, because this is an intimate experience of the human being, something Luciferic can immediately enter into the matter; but nevertheless, the human being can transcend himself inwardly and, in a sense, experience something objective inwardly in the imagination. In many respects, imagination is just as creative as language, but it is individually creative, and language is fundamentally based on the activity of the imagination. Just as human beings usually experience language as something abstract, just as they do not always experience the genius of language, which is an archangelos, in language, I would say, feel its wings unfolding, so too in imagination — which, when interwoven with Lucifer, becomes fantasy — does man perceive that an angel is actually slipping through his individual life by living in imagination.
[ 20 ] The real poet, the real artist, who has not become cynical or frivolous or superficial, knows that a higher spirituality permeates him when he creates artistically. It is the same higher spirituality that actually carries us from life to life like an individual guardian spirit: the angelos, the angel. And it is actually the thinking of the angelos that plays into the regulated human imagination. In certain statements by Goethe, I would say in a subtle way, one can clearly see how he is aware that something unconscious is at work here, but that it has a real effect in the imagination.
[ 21 ] But when a person does not go out of themselves inwardly, but is truly outside themselves in sleep, and then enters the region where the waking imagination is rooted, then the same thing that announces itself in the imagination announces itself more under consciousness than dreaming. Just as the imagination can degenerate into fantasy when it is permeated by Lucifer, so dreaming can degenerate into all kinds of irregularities, which people then even take for reality, through Ahrimanic influences on dreaming. Dreaming as such enters the Luciferic region, but can be permeated by Ahriman. But actually, when our dreams are, so to speak, innocent and purely human, what we call the angelos lives in them, the being that also permeates us in our imagination when we go out of ourselves, so to speak.
[ 22 ] Now the world of language, which is ruled by the archangel, casts its shadow inward toward a world that lives in the midst of feeling and thought: the world of ideas; one could also say: the world of emotional ideas (see compilation). Imagination and dreaming shade into the world of feelings themselves—feelings and that which lives in feelings as volitional; we could also say: volitional feelings. But as we descend further, descending further from the Angelos, where do we arrive? Well, we arrive at ourselves, we arrive at the human I. In the human I, we must now go out of ourselves in a more intense way than we do when the angel lives in us. And this going out takes place when we carry out volitional impulses in external actions, as I showed yesterday.
Elohim, spirits of form: sensory world
Archai: world of thoughts
Archangeloi: world of language: emotional imagination
Angeloi: imagination. Dreaming: volitional, emotional
Human ego: volitional action: will
[ 23 ] When we dream, we are certainly outside ourselves, but we only leave ourselves spiritually. We do not physically leave ourselves in the act of will, but we set our physical body in motion, and the ego is actually based on these impulses of will. So we can say: In volition, the will lives—well, the will lives in volition, and the will, in a sense, digs itself into the external world. We have descended to the physical world. We actually develop independently in the physical world only in our acts of will. Only in what remains to us in death, as I described yesterday as the sum of all our actions, does our ego live, to which we then look back. But in everything else, in fantasy and dreams, in the world of language, in the world of thoughts, in the contents of the senses, higher spiritual beings actually live, which continually assert themselves in us as human beings.
[ 24 ] You see, now you have extracted from ordinary life the relationship of the human being to the spiritual cosmos. But now we can also come closer to what spiritual science derives from supersensible perception through the following idea. Take your life in the sensory world. You pass through this sensory world. You now have certain impressions. You may be able to remember the impressions you have now tomorrow. I am not saying that everyone does this, because I do not know whether we can assume that, for example, everyone sitting here will still have an inner experience tomorrow of what they are hearing here today in this lecture! But in general, one can say that what a person perceives from their environment continues to live on inside them as a memory.
[ 25 ] I would like to consider this with you so that we can move forward a little (hatched area), and we actually take the world around us as drawn from within (see drawings, light); here is the human being (red). What is the world around us now lives on in the human being. It lives on in a spiritual way. What you experience together with the environment – I have recorded it here – lives on as a spiritual world within you. You see, in a sense this is a very abstract experience at first. At least the environment, which we only experience in the form of sensory appearances, lives on in abstract spiritual experiences, in thoughts and feelings, which then stimulate impulses of the will. But you can say—let us bring this very clearly before our soul—that what I carry within me spiritually is the result of my experience between birth and death, or between birth and the present moment.
[ 26 ] Now let us turn our gaze to that which we do not merely carry within us in an abstract, spiritual sense, in a pictorial sense, but let us turn our gaze to that which we, I would like to say, carry within us in a more material, concrete way: the organs within our skin, our lungs, heart, liver, and so on. This is also something we carry within us. A true mystic will say: That doesn't interest me at all. I am only interested in the spiritual, the soul. I am satisfied that I carry my soul impressions from the environment within me. The material is far too insignificant, too unimportant to me. — Yes, but in such speech the mystic shows precisely how deeply materialistic he still is; how he does not yet know that what appears to be material is in reality spiritual. Not only what we carry within us in an abstract way as spiritual experiences, the echoes of external experiences between birth and death, not only that is spiritual, but our lungs and our liver are also spiritual. They only appear to us, to our ordinary consciousness, in material form; they are entirely the result of the spirit. When you sit in your little room, it occurs to you: the human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and the I. You have this as your inner possession. Once it was external. It came to you for the first time, for my sake, from a book or a lecture, that is, from the outside world. I have sketched this schematically here. But you also carry lungs, heart, liver, brain, and so on within you, materially, internally. You also carry these within you as the result of experiences. So if you were to simply sketch a diagram of a human being with his individual organs (Plate 4, bottom left), this inner part is the result of all that – not, of course, the physical matter that comes first with conception, birth and so on, but in terms of its form, its inner organisation, it is the result of what is experienced between death and new birth. Just as you hear what I am saying here and it becomes your spiritual experience, so your heart, your lungs, your liver become the result of what you experience between death and a new birth. We can therefore say: What I carry within me, physically organized, is the result of my experience between death and new birth.
What I carry within me spiritually
is the result of my experience between birth and death.What I carry within me physically, organized in my body,
is the result of my life between death and birth.
[ 27 ] Of course, the materialist will object: Everything that exists as organs in human beings is physically inherited from our ancestors. —That is a complete mistake. That is not how it is. Certainly, matter is inherited from our ancestors, but what is the germ is usually viewed completely wrongly. If one looks at it only materially, it must also be viewed incorrectly. For fertilization does not consist in the human being being brought down materially from previous generations, but in a kind of empty space being created, in matter being broken down in the human being and the whole universe being built into the human being. Matter then pushes itself into this spiritual structure — the lungs, heart, and liver are entirely spiritual structures — and then matter pushes itself into it. But what are the organizing forces? They are formed entirely out of the whole universe, out of the experience between death and new birth. This is precisely what human beings experience in the way I described earlier, in the superconsciousness, when we are lifted up into the realm of the archangels and archai. Between death and rebirth, we consciously—superconsciously, one must say—experience what we then build into our organs.
[ 28 ] Our organs are constructed in such a way that they correspond to our karma, to what we bring with us from previous earthly lives. So what appears to be mere physical processes in the succession of generations are not mere physical processes, but processes that are brought about by the entire universe.
[ 29 ] I have often used an image to help people when ordinary materialistic trivialists come and say: Don't explain to us the origin of human beings in the mother's womb through the whole universe, don't lead us out into the universe; you must explain it through the continuity of the germ plasma through the generations." I have said that one can help oneself by saying: Someone has a magnetic needle that points north and south. Now someone comes along and says: There are crazy physicists who say that the whole earth is a magnet and that the magnetic south pole of the earth attracts this pole to itself. The reasons why the magnetic needle points that way can only be found in the magnetic needle itself. What does the earth have to do with this magnetic needle? — That is roughly how our biologists speak today when they talk about the germ. They only look at the germ. But just as the whole earth is active in the magnetic needle, so the whole universe is active in the formation of the germ. Only, of course, the part that man has in this lies back in the unconscious.
[ 30 ] You see, when you look at it this way, man is connected with his whole existence to a material and a spiritual universe. We say to ourselves: in our cognition, in our ordinary conscious experience, we make the outer world into an inner world. From a certain point of view, I told you yesterday that when a human being passes through the gate of death, the inner becomes outer and the outer becomes inner. Today I have presented you with another point of view from which you can see how what lies before birth or conception must be treated in such a way that we must seek our physical inner being in the outer world, in its preparatory processes in the life between death and a new birth: the outer becomes the inner. What we experience, as it were, in expansion throughout the universe becomes a deeply unconscious experience in our organs.
[ 31 ] These organs within us are indeed such that a whole world lives in them. And if we consider only what the external anatomy and physiology reveal about our internal organs, we actually have a much stronger Maya before us than we have in the external world.
[ 32 ] When we look out into the sensory world, I told you, we look up to the Elohim. But when we now look down into our physical interior, we must ascend further for that which now lives within us in such a way that it forms our organs. You know, you find other beings in my “Secret Science” about the spirits of form. And these other beings are not merely outside of human beings, but they work within human beings. We learn about them between death and a new birth, although we only ascend with our own consciousness to the archai, but we learn about these beings through the archai. And in this superconsciousness we learn from them what we then pour into our organization. We actually carry the world of hierarchies in our inner constitution through life.
[ 33 ] Such things can be researched again today. Such things were known in ancient times from a certain instinctive clairvoyant consciousness, in those times when it was said that the human organism is a temple of the gods, in those times when, precisely within the human microcosm, through the interpretation of this microcosm, people tried to gain knowledge of the whole world.
[ 34 ] Is it not true that we know the world we have lived through as our world since we came to consciousness here in earthly life through our memory? We can reflect on everything we can bring forth from our memory. We look within ourselves and we have the world that we have experienced externally within us. We can, in a sense, look at these images that we carry within ourselves in such a way that this life out there has flowed into these images. We understand our experiences anew when we look back on these images of memory. If we now look at our physical organization, if we understand this physical organization, then we understand the world process. Through our inner memory, we understand our experiences. Through our entire human organization, if we know how to look at it correctly, we understand the world process. But this is only anthroposophy when one can understand the human being through and through.
[ 35 ] But anthroposophy is at the same time cosmosophy. For just as memory is the actualization of our life, so anthroposophical knowledge is world memory, the actualization of the entire world process, cosmosophy. The two cannot be thought of separately from each other. Cosmosophy and anthroposophy belong together. Man is to be found in the world, and the world in man. Therefore, it is not anthropomorphism in my “Secret Science” when, given that development is brought about by Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, and so on, there is at the same time a development of humanity. World evolution is a given, human evolution is a given, because the deeper one penetrates into the mysteries of existence, the more the world and the human being flow together; the more it becomes apparent that the separation we have in our earthly life between the world and the human being is actually only an illusion; that human beings belong to the world, the world belongs to human beings, human beings are to be found in the world, and the world is to be found in human beings.