The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. The Elementary World and its Beings

[ 1 ] Today I want to bring forward certain matters which are connected with what was spoken about yesterday and the day before, matters which concern mankind's evolution insofar as this evolution is dependent upon man's relationship with certain spiritual powers during the earth's future.

The day before yesterday we saw how man's inner being appears to spiritual examination. We saw how it is possible, through exact observation of this kind, to gain insight into the fact that within the physical-soul-spiritual being of man something comes together which, in a certain sense, belongs to the external world, insofar as this world consists of etheric forces and beings. Man draws together these forces to form his ether body as he descends to earthly life. We saw also that with this entity, consisting of forces from the external etheric world, there unites the effect of man's earthly deeds, of everything he causes to happen; in short, his karma.

[ 2 ] Yesterday we saw how, during the different epochs of human evolution, man not only sought but actually did, by various methods, gain insight into the spiritual world.

[ 3 ] I have often mentioned that a new stream of spirituality is now ready to pour into man's earthly existence. The present forms a link in mankind's evolution between an era of mainly intellectual development—which began in the first third of the 15th Century and has now practically run its course—and a future devoted to the spiritual. The most important task for mankind in the era of intellectuality was the development of reason through the investigation of external nature and the development of technology.

[ 4 ] In this direction great and impressive results have been accomplished in recent centuries. However, it must be said that the intellect has begun to lose its creativity, though we still live with its heritage. [ 5 ] The most creative period was from the time of Copernicus, Galileo and Giordano Bruno right up to the 19th Century. Especially in Western civilization the greatest intellectual achievements have been attained in recent centuries.

[ 6 ] It is obvious, even to an external unbiased observation, that the intellect has lost some of its creative power. In general, mankind has no longer the same enthusiasm for intellectual accomplishments. Yet the practice of centuries continues through a certain cultural inertia. Thoughts run along the old grooves, but the intellect brings nothing new of real importance to the fore. This is particularly noticeable in our young people. Not so long ago it was a real pleasure to listen to a young person who had studied some subject. It may not have applied to everyone but certainly to those who had achieved something; one was eager to hear what they had to say, and it was the same everywhere in Western academic circles. But a change has come about in the last few decades; when a young person, fresh from university, speaks, one is no longer curious about what he will say next. One is not curious because one knows it already; it comes out automatically; it is as if the brain itself has lost its vitality. One gets the feeling that the activity of the intellect has slid down from the head to some deeper region. That human intelligence has become something mechanical which no longer springs from the region of the head must be obvious even to external observation. This situation has come about because intelligence was originally a natural endowment which mankind was predestined to develop predominantly between the 15th and 19th Centuries.

[ 7 ] However, in order to fructify the developed intellect, a stream of spirituality, from higher regions of world existence, now seeks entry into the earthly life of mankind.

Whether this will happen depends upon man opening his heart and soul to what thus seeks entry, through many doors, as it were, into the earthly world from the spiritual world. It will be necessary for man not only to become conscious once more of the spiritual in all nature, but able to perceive it.

[ 8 ] Consider how in the older civilizations, like those described yesterday, mankind in general perceived—in all the kingdoms of nature, in every star, in every moving cloud, in thunder and lightning—spirit and soul. On the background of this general consciousness the Yoga exercises evolved. [ 9 ] As I explained yesterday, the Yogi attempted to penetrate to his own self. Through inner exercises he sought to attain what today is taken for granted because we are born with it: consciousness of the `I', the feeling of selfhood. This the Yogi had first to develop in himself.

[ 10 ] But, my dear friends, it would be a great mistake to compare the ordinary consciousness of self, that we have today, with that of the Yogi. It makes a difference whether something is achieved through one's own human effort or whether one simply has it. When, as was the case with the Yogi, one first had to struggle to attain consciousness of self, then, through the inner effort one was transported into the great universal laws; one participated in world processes. This is not the case when one is simply placed into the sphere of self-consciousness. To belong willy-nilly to a certain level of human evolution is not the same as attaining that level through inner exercises.

[ 11 ] You will realize from what was said yesterday that mankind must gradually acquire knowledge in a different way; he must set his thought processes free from the breathing process. As I explained yesterday, this has the effect that thinking, by no longer being bound up with the subject, is able to unite itself with the rhythm of the external cosmos. We must go with our thinking out of ourselves into the external world, whereas the Yogi crept into his inner being, by hitching together, as it were, the systems of thought and breath. In so doing he identified himself with what his spirit-soul nature was able to experience on the waves of the inner rhythm of breathing. By contrast, we must give ourselves up to the world in order to participate in all the various rhythms which go through the mineral, plant, animal and human worlds right up to the realm of the Hierarchies. We must enter into, and live within , the rhythm of external existence. In this way mankind will again gain insight into that spiritual foundation of nature which external knowledge does not reach.

[ 12 ] The sciences of physics, chemistry, and biology which are pursued nowadays provide mankind with a vast amount of popular information. What they actually do is explain how sense observation, interpreted by the intellect, sees the world. But the time has come when mankind must rediscover what lies behind the knowledge provided by external observation and intellectual interpretation.

[ 13 ] If one has in mind their physical aspect only, when speaking about the four elements of earth, water, air and fire, then it makes no difference whether one uses these terms or prefers the more recent ones of solid, liquid, aeriform bodies and conditions of heat. When they are referred to today all one has in mind is how the physical substances within them are either combined or mixed, or else separated. However, it must be stressed that everything of a solid, earthen nature has as its foundation an elementary spirituality. Today's “enlightened” people may laugh when reminded that older folks used to see gnomes in everything earthy. However, when knowledge is no longer obtained by means of combining abstract, logical thoughts, but by uniting ourselves through our thinking with the world rhythm, then we shall rediscover the elemental beings contained in everything of a solid earthy nature. The outstanding characteristic of these elemental begins, dwelling in solid earth, is cleverness, cunning, slyness, in fact, a one-sidedly developed intellect.

Thus, in the solid earth element live spiritual beings of an elementary kind who are very much more clever than human beings. Even a person of extreme astuteness intellectually is no match for these beings who, as supersensible entities, live in the realm of solid earth. One could say that just as man consists of flesh and blood, so do these beings consist of cleverness, of super cleverness. Another of their peculiarities is that they prefer to live in multitudes. When one is in a position to find out how many of these astute beings a suitable earthy object contains, then one can squeeze them out as if from a sponge—in a spiritual sense, of course—and out they flow in an endless stream. [ 14 ] But counting these gnome-like beings is a difficult task. If one tries to count them as one would cherries or eggs—i.e., one, two, three- one soon notices that they will not be counted that way. When one has reached say three, then there are suddenly a lot more. So counting them as one would on the physical plane is no use; nor is any other form of calculation, for they immediately play tricks on you. Suppose one put two on one side and two on the other in order to say that twice two makes four. One would be wrong, for through their super cunning they would appear as seven or eight, making out that two times two makes eight, or something like that. [ 15 ] Thus, these beings defy being counted. It must be acknowledged that the intellect, developed by man in recent times, is very impressive. But these super-intelligent beings show a mastery over the intellect even where it is merely a question of numbers.

[ 16 ] The elemental beings dwelling in the fluid element—i.e., in water—have particularly developed what is, in man, his life of feeling and sensitivity. In this respect we humans are really backward compared with these beings. We may take pleasure in a red rose or feel enchanted when trees unfold their foliage. But these beings go with the fluid which as sap rises in the rosebush and participate in the redness of the blossoms. In an intimate way they share feelingly in the world processes. We remain outside of things with our sensitivity, whereas they are right inside the process themselves and share in them.

[ 17 ] The elemental beings of air have developed to a high degree what lives in the human will. It is splendid that the analytical chemist discovers the atomic weight of hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, and that he finds out how hydrogen and oxygen combine into water to be further analyzed or else how chloride of lime is analyzed, and so on. But elemental spiritual beings are active behind all this and it is essential that man should acquire insight into their characteristics. During the period in which man developed the intellect—as already mentioned, this was from the first third of the 15th Century to the end of the 19th Century—these elemental beings were pushed to one side, as it were. While the intellect played a creative part in man's cultural life there was not much they could do; and because the elemental beings dwelling in solids had, in a certain sense, to hold back and leave the intellect to man, they also held back the beings of water and air. But now we live at a time when the intellect has begun to decline within the civilized world; it is falling into decadence. If mankind does not become receptive to what streams towards him from the spiritual world then the result of this dullness on man's part will be—and there are signs already of it happening—that these elemental beings will gather together to form a kind of union and place themselves under the leadership of the supreme intellectual power: Ahriman.

[ 18 ] If it should happen that the elemental beings come under the guidance of Ahriman with the clear intention of opposing human evolution, then mankind would be unable to make further progress. The possibility would arise that the Ahrimanic powers in union with the elemental beings would divert the earth from its intended course. The earth would not continue what is described in my Occult Science—an Outline as the Saturn-Sun-Moon-Earth evolution. The earth can only become what it was originally intended to become if man, in each epoch, tackles his task rightly.

[ 19 ] One can see already how matters stand. Those who have reached a certain age know that formerly one gained insight into another human being's inner thoughts and feelings simply through normal conversation and exchange of ideas. One took it for granted that a person's reason and intellect resided in his head, and what was in the head would be conveyed through the spoken word. There are many people today who no longer take it for granted that reason is located in the head of many of their contemporaries; rather do they assume it to have slid further down. So instead of listening they now analyze. This is just one example from one misunderstood aspect of the whole problem. But I would say that when one starts to psychoanalyze people instead of just letting them talk, then that is, in fact, an admission that reason no longer resides in the head. It is assumed to have slid down into deeper regions of human nature and must be psychoanalyzed to be brought up gain to consciousness. In this age of a declining intellect there are already people who dislike it if one appeals to their intelligence; they prefer to be analyzed. This is because they do not want to participate with the head in what their soul brings to light.

[ 20 ] Nothing is achieved by looking at these things merely from an external point of view. To see clearly what is involved they must be considered—as we have just done—in the wider context of world evolution. Certain aspects of psychoanalysis may do some good. There are conditions which formerly were simply accepted but are no longer tolerated and must be cured. However, as so many cures are needed, physical ones do not suffice, so one resorts to psychological ones. Why this should be so must be seen in a wider context.

[ 21 ] Superficially judged, there is no point in objecting to all the good reasons and beguiling arguments put forward by psychoanalysts, not even from the wider viewpoint of world evolution. People want to avoid seeing things in their wider context, though it would lead them to the recognition that a spiritual stream is seeking to enter our present civilization to replace the declining intellect.

[ 22 ] What we have considered so far amounts to one aspect of what in the future threatens mankind. There is another aspect—just as the lower elements of earth, water and air are inhabited by elemental beings, so are the higher elements of light ether, chemical ether and life ether. However, these beings of the higher elements differ considerably from those of the lower ones. The beings of light, and particularly those of life, do not aim at becoming multitudes. The ones who strive the most to become multitudes are the beings of the earth element. The beings of the etheric element strive rather towards unity. It is difficult to differentiate them from one another; they do not express any individuality and rather strive to amalgamate.

[ 25 ] Certain initiates in ancient times, through whom certain teachings of the Old Testament originated, turned their attention particularly towards the etheric elements. The strong tendency of these elements towards unification created an influence which resulted in the strict Monotheism of Judaism.

[ 26 ] The religion which is based on the worship of Jehovah originated mainly from a spiritual vision of the realm of the ethers. In this realm live spiritual beings who do not strive to separate from one another and become many individuals. Rather do they strive to grow together and disappear into one another; they seek to become a unity.

[ 27 ] If these beings are disregarded by man—i.e., if he does not turn to spiritual knowledge and the insight that what exists up in the sky is not merely the physical sun, but that with the sun's warmth and light ether beings stream down to earth—if man's comprehension stops at the external material aspect, then the possibility exists that these beings will unite with Luciferic powers. In order for the earth to become what it was originally intended to become, man must wake up to the dangers that threaten from both sides—on the one hand, the danger that those beings who dwell in the lower elements will join forces with Ahrimanic powers, and on the other, that the Luciferic powers will unite with those of the higher elements in their striving for unity.

[ 28 ] The significance of spiritual knowledge for man's earthly destiny cannot be emphasized too strongly. Unless man draws near to spiritual reality something completely different from what ought to happen will happen to the earth. No matter how far or how deeply our sophisticated sciences of physics and chemistry investigate the material world around us, the fact remains that what is investigated will all disappear along with earth existence itself. In the last resort, chemistry and physics have no value whatever beyond the earth. When the evolution of the earth comes to an end, all mineral substances will turn to dust and dissolve in the cosmos. Only what pertains to the plant, animal, and human world will pass over to the Jupiter existence. Therefore, all the magnificent achievements of these sciences are related only to what is transitory. It is essential that knowledge is attained of that which endures beyond the earth.

[ 29 ] As already mentioned, whatever physical laws are discovered, whatever is investigated concerning the atomic weight of individual elements or whatever chemical formulae are produced—all these things are concerned only with what has merely transient significance. Man must grow beyond earth existence through knowledge of the kind of things I have explained. These are matters of great import and significance.

Translation cuts off here. It is filled in for completion

[ 30 ] When one looks in all seriousness at such significant things as we have now, I would say, brought out as the result of yesterday's and the day before yesterday's considerations, then one would also like to look again at the anthroposophical movement, which is striving to take into account the fact that spiritual life wants to enter the earth. One would also like to turn to the anthroposophical movement itself, and so allow me to say a few words about this anthroposophical movement now.

[ 31 ] You sometimes get the impression from what is happening in the anthroposophical movement today that things are very different from how they were years ago. The entire anthroposophical movement actually arose more from an esoteric deepening into the spiritual world. And when anthroposophy began twenty years ago, at that time within the Theosophical Society, everything that was being pursued, presented, and put forward in smaller circles grew, but also everything that was carried out of the smaller circles into the public sphere grew out of esoteric foundations. And what kind of esoteric background this was can be felt today in a publication such as my cycle “The Orient in the Light of the Occident” in “Drei,” where this cycle was printed in 1909; one feels the esoteric impulse throughout this cycle.

[ 32 ] Now, my dear friends, some older members look back on the earlier days of the anthroposophical movement with a certain dissatisfaction because they believe that this esoteric current no longer exists today — not really with good reason, because more esoteric things than have been presented in these three days can hardly be presented in the present. So one cannot say that esotericism has ceased to be pursued in our inner circles, especially here in Dornach, and this esotericism also flows through the public lectures. But the older members do not look back because esotericism is no longer there, because it does not flow into what is being offered, but because today they find other things as well.

[ 33 ] People find that university courses and congresses are now being held. A whole series of university courses have already been held in Dornach and in other cities — Dornach is not a city — in Dornach and in other places. A conference has been held in Stuttgart, and now we are facing a conference in Vienna. Now, our older members notice that there is a different tone at these university courses, at these conferences, that anthroposophy is treated in a different way [than they are used to], that anthroposophy is treated with a certain scientific character. Some of the older members are angry about this and say: That doesn't really interest us. They engage in logical acrobatics, developing one thing from another according to the pattern that prevails in science today. We have become accustomed to approaching the spiritual world in great leaps through inner understanding; we find it possible to approach the spiritual world out of a certain inner understanding. And now people come along and talk from chemical and physical principles, and in recent times even from mathematical formulas, stringing one thing after another, just as is customary in science today, except that they speak anthroposophically and show how anthroposophy has no reason to shy away from appearing fully valid in scientific circles. That doesn't interest us, say the older members today.

[ 34 ] Yes, my dear friends, there is something peculiar about this lack of interest. It was not actually this second stream of anthroposophical life that we sought, but it came to us. Anthroposophy has such a widespread literature today that many more people in the world are familiar with it than one might think. They just don't dare to come forward. But it is nevertheless a rarity that a book like my “Outline of the Secret Science,” which is difficult to read — it was meant to be difficult to read! — which is not written in a way that endears itself to the soul — it is not exactly travel literature — has had fifteen editions since 1909, all of which are now out of print. So, anthroposophy came out into the world, and it was only natural that it became known to people with a scientific or pseudo-scientific education. And then one day we were faced with the fact that other people were drawing anthroposophy into the current scientific enterprise. That was not a matter of choice. It was indeed the case that one day we were faced with a fait accompli. Anthroposophy was scientifically examined, scientifically rebuked, scientifically criticized, and held accountable before science, even if only inadequately today. On the other hand, it was natural that a number of younger friends took a different path than older scientists in our movement.

[ 35 ] I may have already mentioned here an older scientist with whom an anthroposophical conversation years ago was downright exasperating. The person in question is an exceptionally learned botanist. Well, I was so naive, or thought I had to be naive for certain reasons, that I thought the best way to talk to this gentleman about anthroposophy would be to start with botany. So I spoke to the scholar about the essence of plants, the essence of flowering, the essence of germination, in such a way that these individual things pointed to anthroposophy. It did not occur to him to take an interest in this. On the other hand, he was interested in—and very well versed in—all the descriptions that came from the Theosophical Society about the etheric body, the astral body, and so on. For heaven's sake, he thought to himself, I have to lecture on botany and explain plants to my university students in the botanical cabinet; yes, if anthroposophy comes into play there, it will be a fatal story. That won't do, it must be protected from that; I have to be a respectable professor who is not so different from the others. — Therefore, he was not at all interested in how I could talk about plants from an anthroposophical point of view, even though he is a botanist. Yes, one had to speak quite separately from the etheric body and the astral body and, in his opinion, preferably from Kama-Manas and Budhi-Manas and so on, and one could already talk to him about races and rounds, because so-called empirical research does not go that far.

[ 36 ] Yes, you see, the learned people of the older generation were not very interested in integrating anthroposophy into their science. So younger friends gradually came along, but because of their more inwardly coherent soul nature, they felt the need to deal with anthroposophy in their science as well. And so, on the one hand, you had, forgive me, the mob that attacked anthroposophy, and on the other hand, the younger people who now wanted to engage with their sciences from an anthroposophical perspective. This meant that, in a completely natural way, from outside, the scientific work was able to take place. And then, of course, it couldn't be that in university courses and congresses, I myself would have spoken in a way that was, I don't want to say unscientific, but anti-scientific, that is, apart from science. And so, through what came from the world, these institutions, these enterprises, acquired a kind of scientific character, which was also demanded by the fact that anthroposophy gradually had to intervene in practical life, even in therapy. All this, as I said, came to anthroposophy as a demand from the world. As I said, if older friends take into account that esotericism is still continuing, and are content with this, taking note out of general interest of how the scientific current flows when it is fertilized by anthroposophy, then they will soon come to the conclusion: We go to the conferences, we hear things about differential equations, integrals, and so on, and we find: Yes, now things have changed somewhat, but it is necessary that they have changed in this way.

[ 37 ] The difficulty actually lies elsewhere; it does not lie so much in these two currents, which you can see everywhere and about which you have more or less mixed feelings. My dear friends, I did not want to talk so much about these two currents, but rather about what is important to me in the present. Today, when one participates in anthroposophical life, one experiences on the one hand the continuation of the old esotericism and on the other hand the exoteric, scientific striving. Between them there is still an abyss; there is no connection. And that is what needs to be considered above all else. We have very significant, beautiful debates of an anthroposophical nature in the individual sciences, and on the other hand we have the continuation of the old esotericism. But today we simply do not yet have enough people and workers who can build bridges across the abyss that yawns between them. Today, individuals speak very beautifully about anthroposophy in botany, about anthroposophy in chemistry, about anthroposophy in physics, and so on. One can also continue the old esotericism, but it does not build a bridge from one to the other, and therefore so many people are no longer familiar with it. This bridge is, of course, entirely possible, and it must be built at some point; but today there is still a chasm, and there are still too few active workers among us for what should actually happen to happen in all areas. However, such shortcomings – for they are indeed shortcomings – are still largely overlooked.

[ 38 ] My dear friends, if we develop the necessary seriousness that can arise from such considerations as those I put forward at the beginning today, as well as yesterday and the day before, if we face the whole seriousness of the present situation of humanity, then we will say to ourselves: However many shortcomings the anthroposophical movement may still have at present—and we must keep an open eye for these shortcomings—we must nevertheless recognize that patience is needed to wait until we have enough active workers so that something like this abyss between our present exoteric and esoteric endeavors can be filled or at least bridged.

[ 39 ] Of course, there is a difficulty in relation to the world in that, despite all our conferences, everything that is achieved there always remains, I would say, within the conference. One need only remember the wonderful Stuttgart conference, which was extremely successful as such, but remained an internal affair. There was no question of implementing the results of the congress or making known what had been achieved there. No one is concerned with implementation. And so it has been with every single undertaking so far. So today we have far too few active workers to be able to achieve in a thoroughgoing manner what actually needs to be done. As a result, it happens again and again—when someone gets a whiff of the anthroposophical movement and listens to a single lecture here or there, from which they cannot form a judgment, but nevertheless form a judgment—as a result, it happens again and again today that we are inundated with assessments of anthroposophy by people who actually know nothing about it. This is partly because we have too few active workers, and partly because the seriousness I spoke of again today is not sufficiently present in reality.

[ 40 ] You see, my dear friends, if the anthroposophical movement were working uniformly everywhere, the time would have come today when people would quietly begin — I must say “quietly” — here and there to strike a note showing that anthroposophy has to do with the most serious issues not only of our age but, in fact, of the entire future of humanity. What appears in journals and so on is mostly written with a complete ignorance of anthroposophy, and in some cases with malicious intent.

[ 41 ] You see, I received a review of my last lecture cycle in Germany from a person unknown to me. It concerns the lecture cycle which, as you will have heard, was subjected to those appalling disturbances, which are clearly aimed at further and more gruesome attempts to eradicate the anthroposophical essence. I have said so often that these things will increase more and more; there is no need to repeat it. But I am accustomed to the fact that when something happens again, no matter how terrible it may be, people in the widest circles, even within our society, are of the opinion that this is the worst that can happen and that we therefore need not concern ourselves with it. It is not the worst, you can be sure of that!

[ 42 ] But I do not want to talk about that. I would rather point out that here and there today there is a quiet awareness of the importance of the impulse of the times. The person who wrote what I am referring to here has no idea of the significance of what I said yesterday, for example: that we must not ignore what has been achieved in recent centuries within Western civilization as a culture of reason, that we cannot return to the ancient Indian yoga breathing techniques, for example, and that we must not seek in earlier, more primitive epochs of human development the forces that can enable us to penetrate the spiritual world. The author of the article is one of those who believe that there is no other way forward in the present, that since we are cut off from all real human dignity and all real human nature, we must return to earlier paths by which humanity entered the spiritual world. — That is the great error, that people cannot find their way into a path that is adapted to the immediate present, to the soul nature of the immediate present.

[ 43 ] So the person concerned believes that when I always say that we should take into account what is necessary in the present, I am making compromises. That is why he says:

[ 44 ] Steiners personal calling ends where he attempts practical compromises in the face of the enormous complex that is Europe.

[ 45 ] It is not a compromise, but rather what is necessary from the inner connection of the matter! We do not want to give anything away in the way he forms the terminology here. Well, I cannot now tidy up the whole essay, and so I will read the passage to you as it stands.

[ 46 ] However, it must be the prophets who are most dismayed by the harsh inviolability of a “ground of given facts.” But he ceases to be a “prophet” in the full sense of the word when he becomes a political philosopher and makes corresponding concessions to this ground.

[ 47 ] So these concessions are not made. That is precisely the great mistake.

[ 48 ] For it is precisely in its radicalism that the radiant power of all prophecy lies. The prophet must—without the intervention of any human small-mindedness in everyday politics—give birth to the living spirit; he must hurl the seeds of powerful principles into humanity like an insensitive mediator, seemingly unconcerned about the seasons of their realization. He must leave the realizations to the creative function of the peoples.

[ 49 ] With the recognition of the necessity of saving Europe — which, with its poor cosmic circulation, is gradually clogging up the entire planet — anthroposophy no longer stands alone.

[ 50 ] At least there is already a very faint awareness that there is something wrong with the current European civilization, that it is in a “bad circulation community with the cosmos.”

[ 51 ] The objectified synthesis of all European philosophy emerges: the doctrine of the polarity of contrasts and their central resolution and balance—creative indifference. This means a revolution of the entire human standpoint. We see the human complex on a rushing precipice, completely skewed toward the universal force, filled with one-sidedly differentiated energy, closed off from the entire cosmos, an arteriosclerotic giant carcass, a catastrophe in the solar system, a “digestive disorder of God.” — Here, insights converge, anthroposophy identifies with the doctrine of creative indifference, and the mystery cults of the Egyptians and the breathing exercises of the Indian yogis emerge with new meaning.

[ 52 ] Now the person in question would like to argue, according to his view, that there is no other solution to the disturbed digestive system of modern civilization with its arteriosclerosis and constipation than to return to the practice of yoga. But at least he is beginning to grasp the seriousness of the situation, albeit in a somewhat strange, uninformed, and amateurish way. The author continues:

[ 53 ] At night we switch off our consciousness — insofar as we are not yet so disturbed that we barricade ourselves with individuality in our sleep from cosmic renewal — ...

[ 54 ] This is, of course, a completely wrong view, because human beings cannot draw any forces of renewal from sleep; on the contrary, it is precisely when they do not turn to spirituality that they draw forces from sleep in the last resort.

[ 55 ] ... without the inhibition of isolated consciousness, they absorb the healing forces of the cosmos.

[ 56 ] This is not the case with sleep.

[ 57 ] The moment we isolate ourselves, our whole life becomes nothing more than a mere existence, a living off capital, a running down of stored energy, nothing but a process of decay. The consequence of all individuality (individuality in the sense of bourgeois ideology) is therefore inescapable: death. Nothing stands in the way of human immortality—today a great utopia—except the false disposition of humans toward central balance.

[ 58 ] He also has no real understanding of what this is all about, that it is ultimately something he describes in very abstract terms as balance, and which can be understood in concrete terms when one sees how the astral body and the etheric body come together in the region of the human heart. There is also the central point for a real balance. This balance has a cosmic meaning. People today talk in abstract terms; they are simply incapable of penetrating the concrete realities.

[ 59 ] Today, anthroposophy is approaching the practice of yoga.

[ 60 ] It does not do this, but rather through a different practice.

[ 61 ] Whatever objections one may have to the dogmatism of anthroposophy, Steiner has accomplished an unprecedented work of rebellion against the entire monistic-materialistic natural science, which is only historically burdened instead of historically oriented. Perhaps Rudolf Steiner will succeed in establishing the practice of yoga against the narrow-minded materialism and arrogance of Europe.

[ 62 ] It would not be the practice of yoga itself. But to assert something against the narrow-minded materialism and arrogance of Europe is certainly something that is right and that is interpreted here in an unhealthy but nevertheless subtle way.

[ 63 ] Having reached the limits of its viability, Europe will, out of organic necessity, turn to this ancient wisdom of Indian yogis and recognize the spiritual significance of the breath.

[ 64 ] It would be very, very bad for Europe if it did that, if it returned to the practice of yoga. But at least we can see that here and there a quiet awareness of the seriousness of the situation is beginning to emerge, something to which humanity should commit itself.

[ 65 ] Well, it is possible that anthroposophy will be brutally crushed before it is able to carry out what is entirely possible according to its inner nature. But that is at least something that is significant. I am not merely pointing to this newspaper article, whose author is unknown to me. It was sent to me by those who organized this series of lectures. As I said, quite apart from this article, one can say that today, here and there, people are quietly beginning to point out the seriousness of our situation, of our human situation in modern civilization.p>

[ 66 ] And I would like to say: Only from such an understanding of the tremendous seriousness of the situation can that which can truly stand up to anthroposophy in a genuine way emerge. And we should strive to summarize what is emerging today as currents, on the one hand esoteric and on the other exoteric-scientific, out of the necessity of the times. We should take into account that these things have developed out of necessity and that the time will come—if anthroposophy is not killed off, as I said—when enough active forces will be found to bridge the gulf between these two currents. You see, that is what I wanted to give you today as an internal guide, following on from such an important consideration as I have tried to present to you here over the last few days.

[ 67 ] I will announce when we will have the next lecture, as I cannot yet determine the exact day when I will return from the Vienna Congress. I hope that this Vienna Congress will be well attended. I have not had the opportunity to find out who from here has been able to attend. But hopefully this Vienna Congress will be something that will have a greater impact on the general anthroposophical movement than our other events have had. For it is indeed the case that what happens at these congresses should then flow over into the entire anthroposophical movement and from there be further developed throughout the world. Otherwise, the great energy that is always expended at such events is more or less wasted.