The Four Seasons and the Archangels
GA 229
13 October 1923, Dornach
V. The Working Together of the Four Archangels
During the last few days I have brought before you the four cosmic Imaginations which can be called up through an intimate human experience of the seasons of the year. If we are to arrive at an understanding of the whole place and situation of man in the world, we must seek it through the working together of the Beings who appear in conjunction with these imaginative pictures. And here I would like first to say something by way of introduction.
If we open our souls to the impressions which may come to us from the content of these pictures, then at the same time there will come to us much that has been experienced in the course of human evolution as an echo of old, instinctive clairvoyance; to-day this is sometimes treated historically, but fundamentally it is not understood. Real poets and spiritually inspired men lay hold of these often wonderful voices which sound from the traditions of the past, and make use of them just when they wish to express their highest and greatest conceptions. But even then they are very little understood. So in the first part of Faust there rings out a wonderful saying which is scarcely at all understood, though it is quoted often enough. It occurs when Faust, having opened the book of Nostradamus, comes upon the sign of the Macrocosm:
How each the Whole its substance gives,
each in the other works and lives!
See heavenly forces rising and descending,
their golden urns reciprocally lending:
on wings that winnow sweet blessing
from heaven through the earth they're pressing,
to fill the All with harmonies caressing.1From the translation of Faust: Part One, by Bayard Taylor, revised and edited by Stuart Atkins. Published by Collier Books, New York, 1962.
A magnificent picture—but if one knows Goethe one must say that it is real to him only through his feelings. For what Goethe has evidently drawn from his reading of old traditions and his feeling for them—all this stands in its full significance before our souls only if we have in mind the four great cosmic Imaginations, as I described them to you—the Autumn Imagination of Michael, the Christmas Imagination of Gabriel, the Easter Imagination of Raphael, and the Midsummer, St. John's Day, Imagination of Uriel. You must really picture to yourselves how from all these Beings, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Michael, forces stream out through the cosmos and as formative forces stream again into man. In order to understand this, we must see how man stands within the cosmos in—I might almost call it—a purely material way.
In this connection there is very little understanding, unfortunately, for how things really are. For example, medical textbooks always describe how man breathes in oxygen from the air and how the carbon within him takes up the oxygen; this process is then compared with external combustion, in which all sorts of external substances combine with oxygen. The whole process in the human organism, whereby oxygen is taken up by carbon, is then called combustion.
All this is said because one essential fact is not known—the fact that all external substances and processes become different directly they enter into the human organism. Anyone who speaks of this peculiar combination of oxygen with carbon in man and thinks of it as combustion is talking in just the same way as if someone said: “There is no need for a man to have two living lungs; he could equally well have a pair of stones suspended inside him.” That is more or less how these people talk in speaking of the combustion of oxygen and carbon within the human organism.
Everything that takes place externally in nature is different as soon as it enters a human being. No process within the human organism takes place in the same way as in outer nature. A flame that burns externally is dead fire; that which corresponds to it within the human being is flame living and ensouled: Just as a stove stands towards a lung, so does the external flame stand towards the living activity that goes on in the human organism when carbon unites with oxygen there—a process which, viewed externally, is indeed combustion in chemical terms. All spiritual progress at the present day depends on our being able to grasp these things in the right way. Suppose you take salt with your food, or eat some albumen or anything else, people assume that it remains just the same substance within you as it was outside. That is not true. Whatever enters the human being becomes different immediately. And the forces which make it different proceed in a quite definite way from those Beings whom I have pictured in the four Imaginations.
Let us recall the last picture: how at St. John's tide, Uriel hovers in the heights, weaving his body out of golden light in the golden radiance of the Sun (see Plate V, red.) As I told you, we must picture him with grave, judicial eyes, for his gaze is directed down towards the crystal realm of the earth, and he sees how little are human errors compatible with the abstract but none the less shining beauty of the crystallisation process that goes on below the surface of the earth. That is the reason for his gravely judging gaze, as he looks down and compares human errors with the living activity in the crystals of the earth.
I spoke also of Uriel's gesture as a warning gesture, indicating to men what they ought to do. It calls upon them, if they understand it rightly, to transform their faults into virtues. For up above in the clouds appear the shining pictures of beauty, woven out of the Sun-gold, and they are pictures of all that by dint of virtue humanity has achieved.
Now from the Being who has to be described in this way—and can be described in no other way—there proceed forces which work directly in man, but have also a characteristic further effect. All that I am depicting goes on in high summer. The Uriel-Being, however, is not at rest, but in majestic movement. This must be so, for when it is summer with us, it is winter in the opposite hemisphere, and Uriel is there in the heights. We must picture this clearly, so that if we have the Earth here (see sketch), Uriel appears to us in summer, and then follows a course which brings him after six months to the other side. Then it is winter with us. While Uriel descends (yellow arrow) and while his forces are thus coming to us from a descending line, summer with us passes over into winter, and then Uriel is over the other hemisphere. But the Earth does not hinder his forces from coming to us; they penetrate through the forces which come to us directly from above (red arrows), seeking to permeate us with the Sun-gold of summer, penetrate right through the Earth in winter and permeate us as an ascending stream (red) from the other side.

If we bring before our souls the midsummer working of Uriel through nature into man—for his activity works into the forces of nature—we must picture the forces of Uriel streaming out in the cosmos, raying into the clouds, the rain, the thunder and lightning, and raying also into the growth of plants. In winter, after Uriel has made his way round the Earth, his forces stream up through the Earth and come to rest in our heads. And then these forces, which at other times are outside in nature, have the effect of making us citizens of the cosmos. For they actually cause an image of the cosmos to arise in our heads, illuminating us so that we become possessors of human wisdom.
We speak rightly if we say: Uriel makes his descent as summer passes through autumn into winter. Then in winter he begins to re-ascend, and from this descending and ascending power of Uriel we get the inner forces of our heads. Thus Uriel works in nature at midsummer, and during the winter season he works in the human head, so that in this connection man is truly a microcosm over against the macrocosm.
We understand the human being only if we place him in the world not merely as a being of nature, but as a spiritual being. And just as we can follow the forces of Uriel and see how they stream into man through the course of the year, so must we do with Raphael, who pours his forces into the forces of nature in spring, as I have described. I had to show you how the Easter Imagination is completed through the teaching that Raphael, the great cosmic physician, can give to mankind. For precisely when we allow all that Raphael brings about, working in the springtime forces of nature as Uriel does in summer—when we allow all this to work on us at Easter through the spiritual hearing of Inspiration, then we have the crowning of all the truths of healing for mankind.
But the springtime activity of Raphael travels round the Earth, as Uriel does. In terms of the cosmos Uriel is the spirit of summer; he moves round the Earth and in winter creates the inner forces of the human head. Raphael is the spirit of spring, and in autumn, as he travels round the Earth, he engenders the forces of human breathing. Hence we can say: While during autumn Michael is the cosmic spirit up above, the cosmic Archangel, at Michaelmas Raphael works in human beings—Raphael who is active in the whole human breathing-system, regulating it and giving it his blessing. And we shall form a true picture of autumn only if on the one hand, up above, we have the powerful Michael-Imagination, with the sword forged from meteoric iron, the garment woven out of Sun-gold and shot through with the Earth's silver-sparkling radiance, while Raphael below is working in man, aware of every breath that is drawn, of everything that flows from the lungs into the heart and from the heart through the whole circulation of the blood. Thus man learns to recognise in himself the healing forces which play through the cosmos in the Raphael-time of spring, if in autumn, when the rays of Raphael pass through the Earth, he comes to know how Raphael is active in human breathing.
For this is a great secret: all the healing forces reside originally in the human breathing system. And anyone who understands truly the circuit of the breath, knows the healing forces from the human side. They do not reside in the other systems of the human organism; these other systems have themselves to be healed.
Look back and see what I have said about education: the breathing system comes specially into activity between the ages of seven and fourteen. There are great possibilities of illness during the first seven years of life, and again after fourteen; they are relatively least during the period when the breath pulses through the body with the help of the etheric body. A secret activity of healing resides in the breathing system, and all the secrets of healing are at the same time secrets of breathing. And this is connected with the fact that the workings of Raphael, which are cosmic in spring, permeate the whole mystery of human breathing in autumn.
We have learnt to know Gabriel as the Christmas Archangel. He is then the cosmic Spirit; we have to look up above to find him. During the summer Gabriel carries into man all that is effected by the plastic, formative forces of nourishment. At midsummer they are carried into man by the Gabriel forces, after Gabriel has descended from his cosmic activity during the winter to his human activity in summer, when his forces stream through the Earth and it is winter on the other side.
And when at last we come to Michael, we have him as the cosmic Spirit in autumn. He is then at his highest; he has reached his cosmic culmination. Then he begins his descent; in spring his forces penetrate up through the Earth and live in all that comes to expression in man as movement and the power of will, enabling him to walk and work and take hold of things.
Now bring before you the complete picture. First, the summer picture at the time of St. John: up above, the grave countenance of Uriel, with his judicial look, his warning mien and gesture—and, drawing near to men and permeating them, the mild and loving gaze of Gabriel, Gabriel with his gesture of blessing. So during summer we have the working together of Uriel in the cosmos, Gabriel on the human side.
If we pass on to autumn, we have the—I will not say commanding, but rather the guiding—look of Michael. For if we see it in the right light, Michael's gaze is like a pointing finger, as though wishing not to look into itself, but to look outwards into the world. Michael's gaze is positive, active. And his sword forged out of cosmic iron is held so that at the same time his hand points out to men their way. That is the picture up above.
Below, in autumn, is Raphael, with deeply thoughtful gaze, who brings to mankind the healing forces which he has first—one might say—kindled in the cosmos. Raphael, with deep wisdom in his gaze, leaning on the staff of Mercury, supported by the inner forces of the Earth. Thus we have the working together of Michael in the cosmos, Raphael on Earth.
Now we go on to winter. Gabriel is then the cosmic Angel; Gabriel up above, with his mild and loving look and his gesture of benediction, weaving his garment of snow in the clouds of winter. And below, Uriel, with his grave judgment and warning, at the side of men: the positions are reversed.
And as we come round again to spring, up above we find Raphael, with his deeply thoughtful gaze; with the staff of Mercury which now in the airy heights has become something like a fiery serpent, a serpent of shining fire, no longer resting on the Earth, but as though held forth, using the forces of the air, mingling and combining fire, water and earth, so as to transmute them into healing forces, working and weaving in the cosmos.
And below, quite specially visible, is Michael, coming to meet mankind, with his positive gaze; a gaze that shows the way, as it were, into the world and would gladly draw the eyes of men in the same direction, as he stands close to mankind, the complement of Raphael, in spring.
So there, you see, are the pictures:
Winter: Gabriel above, Uriel below.
Spring: Raphael above, Michael below.
Summer: Uriel above, Gabriel below, with man.
Autumn: Michael above, Raphael below, with man.
Now let us take the words which have come down through the ages like an old magical saying and were used again by Goethe:
Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt,
Eins in dem andren wirkt und lebt!How each the Whole its substance gives,
each in the other works and lives
Yes, indeed, Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael and Michael work together, one working in the other, living in the other, and when man is placed in the universe as a being of spirit, soul and body, these forces work magically in him. And how far-reaching is the truth in these words, how far they go! Think what they mean:
Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt,
Eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt!
Wie Himmelskräfte auf- und niedersteigenHow each the Whole its substance gives,
each in the other works and lives!
See heavenly forces rising and descending,
—rising and descending! And then the lines that follow:
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen,
Mit segenduftenden Schwingen
Vom Himmel durch die Erde dringen,
Harmonisch all das All durchlingen!their golden urns reciprocally lending:
on wings that winnow sweet blessing
from heaven through the earth they're pressing,
to fill the All with harmonies caressing.
Remember how in yesterday's lecture I spoke of it all passing over from plastic form into musical sound, universally resounding harmony.
I cannot tell you what I felt when this stood before my soul and I read again these lines by Goethe: vom Himmel durch die Erde dringen! This durch—it can shake one profoundly, for that is just how it is—it is true! It is staggering to realise that these words ring through the world like a peal of bells and are regarded as poetic licence or something of the sort—or as words that anyone might write in letters or articles. It is not so. These are words which correspond to a cosmic fact. It is really shattering to read these words in the context of Goethe's Faust and to know how true they are.
Now we will go further. We have seen how the heavenly Powers with golden pinions—the Archangels—permeate the universe in harmony, working and living in one another. But that is not all.
Let us look at Gabriel, who draws nutritive forces out of the cosmos and carries them into man at midsummer. These forces are active in the human metabolic system.
Raphael rules in the breathing system. And now Gabriel and Raphael, as they ascend and descend, work together in such a way that Gabriel passes up into the breathing system those forces of his which are otherwise active in human nutrition, and there they become healing forces. Gabriel hands on the nourishment to Raphael, and it then becomes a means of healing. When that which is otherwise only a nutritive process in the human organism is interwoven with the secret of breathing, it becomes a healing force.
We must indeed observe carefully the transformation which external substances undergo in the nutritive system itself: then we come to recognise the significance of the Gabriel forces, the nutritive forces, in man. But these forces are led over into the breathing system. And in working on further there, they become not only a means of quenching hunger and thirst, and not only restorative forces: they turn into forces for the inward correction of illness. The transmuted nutritive forces become healing forces. Anyone who understands nutrition correctly, understands the first stage of healing. If he knows what salt should do in a healthy man, then, if he allows the metamorphosis from the Gabriel-way to the Raphael-way to work on him, he will know how salt can act as a means of healing, in this or that case. The healing forces within us are metamorphoses of the nutritive forces. Raphael receives the golden vessel of nutrition from Gabriel; it is passed on to him.

And now we come to a secret, familiar in early times but entirely lost to-day. Anyone who can read Hippocrates, or, if he cannot read Galen, can still gather something from him, will notice that, in Hippocrates, and even in Galen, those old physicians, there survived something of what is really a great human secret. The forces that prevail in our breathing system are healing forces; they are healing us continually. But when these breathing forces rise into the head, the healing forces become spiritual forces, active in sense-perception and in thinking. Here is the secret that was known at one time; the secret that is almost explicit in Hippocrates and can at least be drawn out of Galen. Thought, perception, the inner spiritual life of man, are a higher metamorphosis of therapy, the healing process; and when the healing element in the breathing system, which lies between the head and the digestive system, is driven further up, as it were, it becomes the material foundation for the spiritual life of man.
So we can say: The thought which flashes through the human head is really a transmutation of the healing impulses that reside in the various substances. Hence if a man sees truly into the heart of this, and has some healing salt-substance, let us say, in his hand, or some remedial plant-substance, he can look at it and say: Here is a beneficent healing force which I can give to man in accordance with his need. But if this substance penetrates into the man and passes beyond the realm of breathing, so that it works in his head, it becomes the material bearer of the power of thought: Raphael then hands on his vessel to Uriel.
Why does a remedy heal? Because it is on the way to the spirit. And if one knows how far on the way to the spirit a remedy is, one knows its healing power. The spirit cannot of itself lay hold directly on the earthly in man; but the lower stage of the spirit is a therapeutic force.
And just as Gabriel passes on to Raphael the nutritive forces, to be transmuted into forces of healing—in other words, he passes on his golden vessel—and just as Raphael passes on his golden vessel to Uriel, whereby the healing forces are made into the forces of thought, so it is Michael who receives from Uriel the thought-forces, and through the power of cosmic iron, out of which his sword is forged, transforms these thought-forces into forces of will, so that in man they become the forces of movement.
Hence we have this second picture: Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, ascending and descending; Uriel and Gabriel, let us say, working in one another, but also working with one another, one giving his possession to the other, so that it can work on further in him. We see how the heavenly Powers rise and descend, passing to one another golden vessels—the golden vessels of nourishment, of healing, of the forces of thought and of movement. So these golden vessels move on from one Archangel to another, while at the same time each Archangel works with the other in cosmic harmony.
And again in Faust we find:
Wie Himmelskräfte auf- und niedersteigen
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen!See heavenly forces rising and descending,
their golden urns reciprocally lending:
True indeed, down to the very word “golden,” for these things are woven out of the Sun-gold radiating from Uriel, as I described yesterday.
Goethe had of course read the old saying to which he then gave poetic expression, and it made a tremendous impression on him. But the meaning I have been able to picture for you here—that he did not know. It is just this which staggers one—to find that when out of a certain poetic feeling a spirit such as Goethe's takes hold of something handed down from old traditions, it so incredibly reflects the truth! This is the splendid thing that unites us, if we are cultivating Spiritual Science to-day and these things are revealed to us: when we truly see how Uriel and Raphael and Michael and Gabriel are working together, and how they really do pass on to one another their own particular forces. If we first see this for ourselves and then, having perhaps come across indirectly an ancient saying, through Goethe in this case, we let it work upon us, we see how an old instinctive truth—no matter whether mythical or legendary—was at one time widely current in the world. And then times change, and in our own time we see how the ancient truth has to be raised to a higher level.
O Hippocrates—it is all the same whether we now give the name of Raphael, or Mercury, or Hermes to the one who stood at his side—this Hippocrates lived at a time when twilight was falling over the knowledge of this working together of Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel, and of how the healing forces in the human organism lie between the thoughts and the nutritive forces. This was the source from which an ancient instinctive wisdom drew those wonderful old remedies which in fact are always being renewed. Today they are found among so-called primitive folk, and people cannot imagine how they have been come by. All this is connected with the fact that a primeval wisdom was once possessed by mankind.
But now there must really be a problem left in your minds. It is this. If you take everything I have put before you—how for example the Raphael forces are active in spring and in autumn are carried over by Raphael into the inwardness of the breathing system—you must have been led to suppose that man is entirely bound up with the working of the forces of the cosmos through the course of the year. Originally, indeed, that is how it was. But because man is a being who remembers, so that an outer experience is preserved in memory and after days or years can be relived as an inner experience, so these truths remain entirely valid for the cosmos; but a man does not inwardly experience the Raphael force in his breathing system only in the autumn, but on through the winter, summer and spring. A kind of memory of it, more substantial than ordinary memory, remains.
So while things are arranged in the way I have described, their effects are active in human beings throughout the year. As an experience remains fixed in the memory, so these effects continue all through the year; otherwise man could not be a uniformly developing being all the year round. In physical life, one person forgets more readily, or less readily, than another. But the influence Raphael has implanted in our breathing system during the autumn would disappear by the following autumn when Raphael came again. Until then this nature-memory in the breathing organ remains active, but then it has to be renewed.
So is man placed in the course of nature; he is not excluded from the way the world goes, but planted in the midst of it. But he is placed there in yet another way. It is true that man, standing here on Earth, enclosed within his skin, with his organs embedded in his body, feels himself somewhat isolated in the cosmos, for the connections I have described are indeed full of mystery. But this is not so when man is a being only of spirit and soul—in his pre-earthly existence, for example. Between death and a new birth he lives in a realm of spirit; his soul gazes down not at an individual human body—it chooses this in the course of time—but at the whole Earth, and indeed at the Earth in connection with the whole planetary system, and with all the interwoven activities of Raphael, Uriel, Gabriel, Michael. In that realm, one is looking at oneself from outside.
It is there that the door opens for the entry of souls who are returning from pre-earthly to earthly life. It opens only during the period from the end of December to the beginning of spring, when Gabriel hovers above as cosmic Archangel, while below at man's side is Uriel, carrying cosmic forces into the human head. In the course of these three months the souls who are to be embodied during the whole year come down from the cosmos towards the Earth. They remain waiting there until an opportunity occurs in the Earth's planetary sphere: even the souls who will be born in October, let us say, are already within the Earth sphere, awaiting their birth. Much, very much, depends on whether a soul, after it has entered the Earth sphere and is already in touch with it, has to wait for its earthly embodiment. One soul has a longer wait; another, a shorter one.
The particular secret here is that—just as, for example, the fructifying seed enters the ovum at only one spot—the heavenly seeds enters into the whole yearly being of the Earth only when Gabriel rules above as the cosmic Angel, with his mild, loving look and gesture of benediction, while below is Uriel, with judicial gaze and warning gesture. That is the time when the Earth is impregnated with souls. It is the time when the Earth has its mantle of snow and surrenders to its crystallising forces; then man can be united with the Earth as the thinking earth-body in the cosmos. Then the souls pass out of the cosmos and assemble, as it were, in the Earth sphere. That is the annual impregnation of the Earth's seasonal being.
To all these things we come, if we have insight not only into the physical aspect of the cosmos, but into the activities of those cosmic Beings I have described for you in the four pictures. And if we have arrived at that, we can find in many a poem some indications of the cosmic creative activity, for it is there in the world:
How each the Whole its substance gives,
each in the other works and lives
See heavenly forces rising and descending,
their golden urns reciprocally lending:
on wings that winnow sweet blessing
from heaven through the earth they're pressing,
to fill the All with harmonies caressing.
In these very words we can discern something of that wonderful working together of the four Archangel Beings who, in conjunction with the forces of nature, permeate and animate the bodily nature, the soul and the spirit in man—working in one another, working with one another.

Fünfter Vortrag
Ich habe in der letzten Zeit vor Ihre Seele hingestellt die vier kosmischen Imaginationen, die herausgeholt werden können aus einem Miterleben des Menschen mit dem Jahreslaufe. Wenn man den Menschen in seiner ganzen Stellung und Lage in der Welt verstehen will, so muß man eigentlich dieses Verständnis suchen durch ein Zusammenwirken der Kräfte derjenigen Wesenhaftigkeiten, die einem erscheinen im Zusammenhange mit diesen Gestalten. Und da möchte ich Ihnen zunächst heute einleitungsweise eines sagen. Wenn man die Seele aufschließt all den Eindrücken, die über einen kommen können aus dem Anblicke desjenigen, was in diesen vier Gestalten liegt, dann stellt sich zu gleicher Zeit vor die Seele manches hin, was im Laufe der Menschheitsentwickelung empfunden worden ist, empfunden worden ist als ein Nachklang alter instinktiver hellseherischer Schauungen, und was eigentlich heute zuweilen nur historisch angeführt wird, aber im Grunde genommen nicht verstanden wird. In der Empfindung greifen dann diese oft wunderbaren Stimmen, die traditionell .herüberklingen aus den Zeiten, wirkliche Dichter oder Geistesmenschen auf und gebrauchen sie, gebrauchen sie gerade dann, wenn sie das Höchste, das Größte ausdrücken wollen. Aber eigentlich finden sie auch damit recht wenig Verständnis. So klingt in einer ganz wunderbaren Weise aus dem ersten Teil des «Faust» ein Wort heraus, das oftmals zitiert wird, von dem man aber findet, daß es kaum wirklich verstanden wird. Es ist das Wort, das ertönt im «Faust», nachdem Faust das Buch des Nostradamus aufgeschlagen hat, das Zeichen des Makrokosmos erblickt und dann in die Worte ausbricht:
Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt,
Eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt!
Wie Himmelskräfte auf und nieder steigen
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen,
Mit segenduftenden Schwingen
Vom Himmel durch die Erde dringen,
Harmonisch all das All durchklingen!
Ein großartiges Bild, von dem man eigentlich, wenn man GoeZhe kennt, nur sagen kann, daß er es in der Empfindung erfaßt hat. Denn das, was ja Goethe offenbar aus seiner Lektüre aus alten Traditionen geschöpft hat, herausgenommen hat für sein Gefühl, steht eigentlich erst ganz vor unserer Seele, wenn wir das vor uns haben, was ich Ihnen darlegen konnte in den vier großen kosmischen Imaginationen, der Herbstes-Imagination des Michael, der Weihnachts-Imagination des Gabriel, der Oster-Imagination des Raphael, und der Hochsommer-, der Johanni-Imagination des Uriel. Denn von allen diesen Wesenheiten, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Michael, sollen Sie sich eigentlich vorstellen, daß durch den Kosmos hin Kräfte ausstrahlen, Kräfte wiederum einströmen in den Menschen, den Menschen bilden. Um das zu verstehen, muß man schon etwas hinschauen, wie, ich möchte sagen, rein materiell der Mensch im Kosmos drinnensteht.
In dieser Beziehung ist ja leider heute recht wenig Verständnis vorhanden für das, was ist. Sie werden zum Beispiel finden, daß überall in naturforscherischen, medizinischen Kreisen beschrieben wird, wie der Mensch den Sauerstoff aus der Luft einatmet, wie der Kohlenstoff in ihm den Sauerstoff aufnimmt; dann wird dieser Vorgang verglichen mit einer äußeren Verbrennung, wo ja auch irgendwelche äußeren Stoffe mit dem Sauerstoff der Luft sich verbinden, und dann wird geradezu dasjenige, was da im Menschen vor sich geht, eine Verbrennung genannt. Ja, es wird auch der ganze Prozeß, der sich da abspielt im Blute, diese Aufnahme des Sauerstoffes durch den Kohlenstoff, so äußerlich geschildert wie eine Verbrennung, weil man eines nicht weiß: Man weiß nicht, daß alle die Prozesse und alle die Stoffe, die außerhalb des Menschen irgend etwas sind, wenn sie in den Menschen hineinkommen, gleich etwas anderes werden. Und derjenige, der von dieser eigentümlichen Verbindung des Kohlenstoffes mit dem Sauerstoff im Menschen spricht und sie als eine Verbrennung auffaßt, der redet eigentlich geradeso wie einer, der sagt: Es ist nicht notwendig, daß im Menschen zwei lebendige Lungen sind, es können auch zwei Steine drinnen sein; man könnte da zwei Steine hineinhängen. — So redet ungefähr derjenige, der für den Menschen von der Verbrennung des Kohlenstoffes mit dem Sauerstoff spricht.
Alles das, was äußerlich in der Natur geschieht, ist anders, wenn es in den Menschen hineindringt. Es ist kein Prozeß im Menschen so, wie er äußerlich in der Natur verläuft. Und dasjenige, was wir äußerlich in der Flamme haben, wenn sie brennt, das ist totes Feuer; dasjenige, was wir entsprechend im Menschen haben, ist die belebte Flamme, die lebendige, durchseelte Flamme. Und so wie sich der Stein zur Lunge verhält, so verhält sich äußerlich die Flamme zu dem, was unter der Wirkung des Lebens im Menschen vorgeht, wenn sich der Kohlenstoff mit dem Sauerstoff verbindet, was äußerlich angesehen, chemisch, auch eine Verbrennung ist. Aller geistige Fortschritt der Gegenwart hängt davon ab, daß solche Dinge in der richtigen Weise aufgefaßt werden können. Wenn Sie äußerlich Salz haben und das mitessen mit den Speisen, oder wenn Sie irgend etwas anderes essen, Eiweiß, oder was es ist: die Leute stellen sich ja heute vor, als ob es auch im Menschen drinnen noch solches Eiweiß bliebe, wie es äußerlich ist, daß solch ein Stoff bliebe zum Beispiel Salz, wie es äußerlich ist. Das ist nicht wahr. Dasjenige, was den Menschen betritt, wird gleich etwas anderes. Und die Kräfte, die das zu etwas anderem machen, gehen aus von jenen Wesenheiten, die ich in den vier Imaginationen geschildert habe, und zwar in einer ganz bestimmten Weise.
Stellen wir das allerletzte Bild vor uns hin, wie ich es geschildert habe: wie für die Johanni-Impression, in dem webenden Sonnengolde sich seinen Leib aus goldigem Lichte webend, Uriel oben schwebt in den Höhen (Tafel V, rot). Man muß sich ihn vorstellen, wie ich Ihnen: sagte, mit ernst urteilendem Auge, denn diese Augen sind hingerichtet auf die Kristallsphäre der Erde, und er schaut, wie wenig die menschlichen Fehler angemessen sind der abstrakten, aber deshalb nicht minder glänzenden Schönheit desjenigen, was an Kristallisation unten in der Kristallsphäre der Erde vor sich geht. Das gibt ihm das ernst urteilende Auge, das nach abwärts gerichtet ist, vergleichend die menschlichen Fehler mit dem, was in den Kristallen der Erde wirkt und lebt. Und ich habe Ihnen davon gesprochen, wie die Gebärde des Uriel eine mahnende Gebärde ist, gewissermaßen ein an die Menschen gerichtetes Soll, das sie auffordert, wenn sie es verstehen, die Fehler in Tugenden zu verwandeln. Denn oben in den Wolken erscheinen die Schönheitsbilder, die aus dem Sonnengolde gewobenen Schönheitsbilder alles desjenigen, was die Menschen an Tugenden vollbringen.
Von der Wesenheit, die man so beschreiben muß — man kann sie nicht anders beschreiben -, von dieser Wesenheit gehen Kräfte aus, die nun aber im Menschen wirken, aber auf eine eigentümliche Art im Menschen weiterwirken. Dasjenige, was ich Ihnen schildere, geht zur Hochsommerzeit vor sich. Wir müssen uns nun vorstellen, daß diese Wesenheit des Uriel nicht eigentlich ruht, sondern in einer majestätischen Bewegung ist. Und das muß sie ja sein, denn wenn bei uns Sommer ist, dann ist auf der abgewandten Halbkugel der Erde Winter, und wenn bei uns Winter sein wird, dann ist auf der abgewandten Halbkugel Sommer; dann ist der Uriel dort für die Höhen. Und wir müssen uns eigentlich vorstellen, daß, wenn wir hier die Erde haben (siehe Zeichnung Seite 73), hier für uns, für unsere Sommerzeit, Uriel erscheint und dieser Uriel eine Bewegung vollführt, die ihn nach einem halben Jahre auf die andere Seite bringt: da haben wir dann Winter. Während Uriel absteigt (gelber Pfeil), während also seine Kräfte in absteigender Linie zu uns kommen, verwandelt sich für uns der Sommer in den Winter: wir sind hier im Winter, Uriel ist auf der andern Seite. Aber die Erde ist kein Hindernis dafür, daß die Kräfte des Uriel zu uns kommen. Wenn Uriel für die Bewohner der andern Halbkugel da unten ist, dann dringen seine Kräfte durch die Erde zu uns. So daß wir sagen können: Dasjenige, was auf direktem Wege von oben nach unten von Uriel zu uns dringt (rote Pfeile) und uns mit sommerlichem Sonnengold durchdringen will, das wirkt zur Winterzeit durch die Erde hindurch und durchdtingt uns von der andern Seite; da ist es in aufsteigender Linie, da hat es eine aufsteigende Strömung (rot).

Wenn wir zur Johannizeit im Hochsommer das, was durch die Natur im Menschen geschieht -— denn das, was Uriel da wirkt, wirkt in die Kräfte der Natur hinein —, wenn wir das vor unsere Seele stellen, dann müssen wir eigentlich diese Kräfte des Uriel uns vorstellen ausstrahlend im Kosmos, einstrahlend in unsere Wolken, in unseren Regen, in unseren Blitz und Donner, einstrahlend in das Pflanzenwachstum. So müssen wir uns alles das vorstellen. Im Winter, nachdem Uriel sozusagen seinen Weg um die Erde gemacht hat, strömt uns das durch die Erde zu und macht Halt in unserem Haupte. Und in unserem Haupte werden dann die Kräfte, die sonst in der Natur draußen sind, die wir Urielkräfte nennen können, zu den Kräften, die eigentlich uns zum Bürger des ganzen Kosmos machen, die wirklich in unserem Haupte wieder erstehen lassen ein Abbild des Kosmos, die in unserem Haupte erleuchtend wirken, so daß wir eben Besitzer der menschlichen Weisheit sind. Und wir sprechen richtig, wenn wir sagen: Uriel steigt nieder vom Sommer gegen den Herbst bis zum Winter, Uriel beginnt im Winter aufzusteigen, und von dieser ab- und aufsteigenden Kraft des Uriel haben wir die innerlichen Kräfte unseres Menschenhauptes. Und sehen Sie, so wie Uriel zur Hochsommerzeit in der Natur wirkt, wie er zur Winterzeit im Menschenkopfe wirkt, so daß der Mensch wirklich auch in dieser Beziehung ein Mikrokosmos gegenüber dem Makrokosmos ist — wir verstehen den Menschen nur, wenn wir ihn nicht bloß natürlich, sondern geistig in die Welt hineinstellen —, so wie wir da verfolgen die von UÜtiel ausstrahlenden, im Menschen durch den Jahreslauf einströmenden Kräfte, so müssen wir dasselbe zum Beispiel von Raphael sagen, der seine Kräfte einströmen läßt während des Frühlings in die Naturkräfte, wie ich Ihnen das geschildert habe. So daß ich Ihnen schildern mußte, daß die Oster-Imagination ergänzt wird durch die Lehre, die Raphael, ich möchte sagen, als der große Weltenmediziner der Menschheit geben kann. Denn gerade wenn wir alles dasjenige, was Raphael vollzieht während der Frühlingszeit, webend in den Naturkräften wie Uriel während der Sommerzeit, wenn wir das durch das inspirierte geistige Ohr zur Osterzeit auf uns wirken lassen, dann kommt, wie ich Ihnen dargestellt habe, die Krönung aller Heilwahrheiten über den Menschen.
Aber das, was da Raphael während der Frühlingszeit webt, das wiederum umkreist die Erde, wie Uriel die Erde umkreist. Uriel ist der Sommergeist in kosmischer Richtung, der die Erde umkreist und während des Winters die Kräfte des inneren menschlichen Hauptes schafft. Raphael ist der Frühlingsgeist, der die Erde umkreist, und der während der Herbsteszeit die Kräfte der menschlichen Atmung eigentlich schafft. So daß wir sagen können: Während Michael zur Herbsteszeit oben der kosmische Geist ist, der kosmische Erzengel, webt im Menschen während der Michaelzeit Raphael, Raphael, der ordnend, segnend, wirkend im ganzen menschlichen Atmungssystem tätig ist. Und wir stellen uns im Grunde genommen den Herbst nur richtig vor, wenn wir auf der einen Seite die mächtige Michael-Imagination haben mit dem Schwerte, das aus dem Meteoreisen herausgeschmiedet ist, mit dem Kleide, das aus dem Sonnengold, durchglänzt von den Silberstrahlungen der Erde, durchwoben ist, wenn wir das oben uns vorstellen, im Menschen aber wirkend Raphael, Raphael, Sinn habend für jeden Atemzug, Sinn habend für alles dasjenige, was von den Lungen aus zum Herzen, und vom Herzen wiederum durch den ganzen Blutkreislauf geht. Daher lernt der Mensch jene heilenden Kräfte, die in der Raphaelzeit im Frühling den Kosmos durchweben, in sich selber kennen, wenn er dasjenige, was da Raphael, indem dann seine Strahlungen durch die Erde durchgehen, zur Herbsteszeit, wenn Michael oben ist, in der Atmung des Menschen tut.
Denn es gibt ein großes Geheimnis: Alle heilenden Kräfte liegen nämlich ursprünglich im menschlichen Atmungssystem. Und wer den ganzen Umfang des Atmens wirklich versteht, der kennt aus dem Menschen heraus die heilenden Kräfte. Nicht in den andern Systemen liegen die heilenden Kräfte. Die andern Systeme müssen selbst geheilt werden.
Das Atmungssystem — sehen Sie nach in dem, was ich über Pädagogik gesagt habe - kommt ja insbesondere zur Tätigkeit zwischen dem siebenten und vierzehnten Lebensjahr des Kindes. Währenddem die Krankheitsmöglichkeiten in den ersten sieben Lebensjahren groß sind, nach dem vierzehnten Lebensjahre wiederum groß werden, sind sie relativ am geringsten in der Zeit, wo das Atmungssystem durch den menschlichen Leib hindurch mit Hilfe des Ätherleibes durchpulsiert. Es liegt ein geheimnisvolles Heilungsweben gerade im Atmungssystem. Und alle Geheimnisse des Heilens sind zugleich die Geheimnisse des Atmens. Und das hängt damit zusammen, daß jene Raphael-Wirkungen, die im Frühling kosmisch sind, eindringen zur Herbsteszeit in das ganze Geheimnis des menschlichen Atmens.
Gabriel haben wir als den Weihnachts-Erzengel kennengelernt. Er ist dann der kosmische Geist. Wir müssen hinaufschauen, um ihn zu finden. Während der Sommerzeit trägt Gabriel in den Menschen hinein all dasjenige, was die nährenden Kräfte im Menschen bewirken, die nährend gestaltenden, die nährend plastischen Kräfte. Sie sind während der Hochsommerzeit durch die Gabriel-Kräfte in den Menschen wiederum hineingetragen, nachdem Gabriel seinen Abstieg durchgemacht hat von seiner kosmischen Wirksamkeit während des Winters zu seiner menschlichen Wirksamkeit während des Sommers, wo seine Kräfte durch die Erde strömen, weil jetzt der Winter auf der andern Seite ist.
Und wenn wir endlich zu Michael kommen, so haben wir Michael als kosmischen Geist im Herbste. Dann ist er am höchsten, dann ist er in seiner kosmischen Kulmination. Dann beginnt sein Abstieg, und seine Kräfte durchdringen die Erde zur Frühlingszeit, steigen auf, und sie leben in all dem, was im Menschen Bewegung wird, was im Menschen Ausdruck des Willens ist, was den Menschen gehen und greifen und arbeiten läßt.
Und jetzt stellen Sie sich die vollständigen Bilder vor. Stellen Sie sich vor das Sommerbild, das Johannibild: Oben der ernste Uriel mit dem urteilenden Blick, der mahnenden Gebärde und Geste, und, an den Menschen herantretend, ihn innerlich durchdringend, den milden liebenden Blick des Gabriel, die segnende Gebärde des Gabriel; da haben Sie während der Sommerzeit die Zusammenwirkung von Uriel im Kosmos, von Gabriel an der Seite des Menschen.
Und gehen Sie vom Sommer nach dem Herbste zu, da haben Sie, so wie ich es Ihnen geschildert habe, den, ich kann nicht sagen befehlenden, ich möchte sagen den weisenden Blick des Michael. Denn Michaels Blick ist, wenn man die Gestalt richtig anschaut, so, wie wenn das Auge ein Fingerzeiger wäre, wie wenn das Auge nicht in sich hineinschauen wollte, sondern hinausschauen.wollte mit dem Blick in die Welt. Der Blick ist ein aktiver, ein positiver, ein tätiger bei Michael. Und das aus dem kosmischen Eisen geschmiedete Schwert wird so vom Michael in der Hand gehalten, daß die Hand zugleich eine den Menschen auf seine Wege weisende ist. Das ist das Bild oben. Und drunten der mit dem tiefsinnigen Blicke schauende Raphael, der an den Menschen herantritt und die heilenden Kräfte, die er erst, ich möchte sagen, im Kosmos entzündet hat, nun an den Menschen heranbringt, Raphael mit dem tiefen, sinnenden Blicke, gestützt auf den Merkurstab, gestützt auf die inneren Kräfte der Erde; da haben Sie das Zusammenwirken des Michael im Kosmos, des Raphael auf der Erde.
Und gehen Sie zur Winterzeit. Gabriel ist der kosmische Engel, Gabriel oben mit dem mild liebenden Blick, mit der segnenden Gebärde, in den Winterwolken webend, ich möchte sagen, im weißen Schneegewande; unten der ernste, urteilende und mahnende Uriel an der Seite des Menschen. Die Positionen sind vertauscht.
Und eben wiederum, wenn wir nach dem Frühling zu kommen: Raphael oben mit dem tiefsinnigen Blick, mit dem Merkurstab, der aber jetzt in den Lüften etwas wie eine feurige Schlange geworden ist, wie eine in Feuer erglänzende Schlange; nicht mehr sich stützend auf die Erde, sondern wie hingehalten, die Kräfte der Luft benutzend, alles das, was an Feuer, Wasser, Erde vorhanden ist im Kosmos, gewissermaßen zusammenmischend und zusammenwirkend, um es in Heilkräfte, die im Kosmos wirken und weben, zu verwandeln. Und unten dann,an den Menschen herantretend Michael, der da ganz besonders sichtbar wird, mit seinem Blick — positiv habe ich ihn genannt - hinweisend: ein Blick, der wie zeigt in der Welt, und der gerne den Menschenblick mitnehmen möchte, wenn da Michael im Frühling, Raphael ergänzend, neben dem Menschen steht.
Sehen Sie, da haben wir die Bilder: Winter - Gabriel oben, Uriel unten, Frühling — Raphael oben, unten Michael, Sommer — Uriel oben, Gabriel unten beim Menschen, Herbst - Michael oben, Raphael unten beim Menschen.
Und nun nehmen Sie das, was wie ein altes Zauberwort durch viele Zeiten gegangen ist, von Goethe wieder aufgenommen worden ist:
Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt,
Eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt!
Jawohl, Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, sie wirken zusammen, eins wirkt in dem andern, lebt in dem andern, und wenn der Mensch als geistig-seelisch-physisches Wesen in das All hineingestellt ist, so wirken zauberisch diese Kräfte in ihm. Und bis wie weit gehend sind solche Worte richtig, bis wie weit! Denken Sie sich doch, daß das Wort ja heißt:
Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt,
Eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt!
Wie Himmelskräfte auf und nieder steigen
— auf und nieder steigen! — auf die nächste Zeile komme ich gleich:
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen,
Mit segenduftenden Schwingen
Vom Himmel durch die Erde dringen,
Harmonisch all das All durchklingen!
Erinnern Sie sich an den gestrigen Vortrag, wie alles herausforderte das Übergehen von dem Plastischen zum Klanghaften: harmonisch all das All durchklingen.
Ich kann Ihnen nicht sagen, was ich empfunden habe, als dies vor meiner Seele stand, und ich dieses Wort bei Goethe wieder las: «Vom Himmel durch die Erde dringen!» Dieses «durch» — es kann einen furchtbar erschüttern in seiner einzigartigen Richtigkeit; denn jetzt hat man es, es ist wahr! Und es erschüttert einen, daß diese Worte wie Schellenklänge durch die Welt gehen, daß man da glaubt, es ist dichterische Freiheit, es ist irgend etwas, ein Wort, wie es die Menschen sonst in ihren Briefen hinschreiben, oder wie es sonst die Menschen hinschreiben in ihren Artikeln. Es ist nicht so. Es ist ein Wort, das einer kosmischen Tatsache entspricht. Es ist etwas furchtbar Erschütterndes, im Zusammenhange mit der Wahrheit an dieser Stelle des Goetheschen «Faust» dieses Wort zu lesen.
Und nun gehen wir weiter. Es hat sich uns enthüllt bisher, wie die Himmelskräfte mit den goldenen Schwingen - es sind die Erzengel harmonisch all das All durchdringen, wie eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt. Aber es ist mehr da. Betrachten wir Gabriel, der aus dem Kosmos die nährenden Kräfte nimmt, der diese nährenden Kräfte einführt in den Menschen zur Hochsommerzeit. Diese nährenden Kräfte sind im Stoffwechselsystem des Menschen tätig. Raphael waltet im Atmungssystem. Und nun wirken, während sie auf- und niedersteigen, Gabriel und Raphael so zusammen, daß Gabriel seine Kräfte, die sonst in den ernährenden Impulsen des Menschen sind, hinaufreicht im Atmen: da werden die ernährenden Kräfte heilende Kräfte. Gabriel reicht die Nährung dem Raphael: da wird die Nährung Heilung. Wenn von dem Geheimnisse der Atmung dasjenige durchzogen wird, was im Menschen sonst nur Ernährung ist, dann wird es Heilung.
Ja, man muß hinschauen auf jene Wandlung, welche die äußeren Stoffe durchmachen im Ernährungssystem: dann erkennt man die Bedeutung der Gabriel-Kräfte, der Ernährungskräfte im Menschen. Aber diese Kräfte werden übergeführt ins Atmungssystem. Und indem sie im Atmungssystem weiterwirken, werden sie nicht bloß hunger- und durststillende Kräfte, werden sie nicht nur den Menschen ausbessernde Kräfte: sie werden den kranken Menschen innerlich kortigierende Kräfte. Die metamorphosierten Ernährungskräfte sind Heilkräfte. Wer die Ernährung richtig versteht, versteht den Anfang der Heilung. Wer weiß, was das Salz im gesunden Menschen soll, der weiß, wenn er jene Metamorphose auf sich wirken läßt, die von der Gabrielweise auf die Raphaelweise übergeht, wie dann das Salz als Heilmittel in diesem oder jenem Falle wirkt. Die heilenden Kräfte in uns sind Metamorphosen der ernährenden Kräfte. Raphael empfängt den goldenen Eimer der Ernährung von Gabriel. Er wird ihm gereicht.

Und nun kommt ein Geheimnis, von dem man auch findet, daß es in alten Zeiten den Menschen geläufig war, aber es ist eigentlich ganz erloschen. Derjenige, der heute den Hippokrates lesen kann, ja, vielleicht derjenige, der den Galen nicht lesen, sondern etwas interpretieren kann, der merkt, daß bei Hippokrates, selbst bei Galen, den alten Medizinern, noch etwas lebt von dem, was eigentlich ein großes menschliches Geheimnis ist. In unserem Atmungssystem walten die heilenden Kräfte, sie heilen uns fortwährend. Unsere Atmung ist fortwährend eine Heilung. Aber wenn diese Atmungskräfte heraufkommen in das menschliche Haupt, dann werden die heilenden Kräfte die geistigen Kräfte des Menschen, die in Sinneswahrnehmung, im Denken wirken. Und daß das Denken, das Wahrnehmen, das innerliche Geistleben des Menschen die höhere Metamorphose der Therapie, der Heilung ist, daß dasjenige, was zwischen dem Kopf und dem Stoflwechselsystem des Menschen als das Atmungs-Heilungssystem liegt gewissermaßen noch weiter nach oben getrieben, als wenn es als heilende Kräfte wirkt — die Grundlage ist, die stoffliche Grundlage für das Geistleben des Menschen: das ist das Geheimnis, das man einmal gewußt hat, das bei Hippokrates fast ganz deutlich gelesen, bei Galen wenigstens noch interpretiert werden kann.
So daß man sagen kann: Der Gedanke, der das menschliche Haupt durchzuckt, der ist eigentlich eine metamorphosierte Kraft der heilenden Impulse, die in den verschiedenen Stoffen vorhanden sind. - Wenn man dies durchschaut und, sagen wir, in seiner Hand hat irgendein heilendes Salz, irgendeinen heilenden Pflanzenstoff, dann schaut man sich die Sache an und sagt: Hier bist du die wohltätige Heilungskraft, wenn ich dich je nach Bedarf in den Menschen bringe; dringst du aber selber ein, passierst du die Atmungssphäre, wirkst du im menschlichen Haupte, dann bist du der stoffliche Träger der menschlichen Gedankenkraft, denn Raphael reicht seinen Eimer dem Uriel. - Was Raphael von der Nährung empfangen hat und in die Heilung verwandelt hat, das reicht Raphael dem Uriel, und es wird Gedankenkraft.
Warum ist ein Heilmittel heilend? Ein Heilmittel ist heilend, weil es auf dem Wege zum Geist ist. Und weiß man, inwiefern ein Heilmittel auf dem Wege zum Geist ist, so kennt man die Heilkraft des Heilmittels. Der Geist allein kann im Menschen in das Irdische nicht unmittelbar eingreifen, aber die untere Stufe des Geistes ist die therapeutische Kraft.
Und ebenso wie Gabriel die nährenden Kräfte dem Raphael zur Umwandlung in heilende Kräfte, das heißt seinen goldenen Eimer reicht, wie Raphael seinen goldenen Eimer dem Uriel reicht, indem er die heilenden Kräfte zu den Gedankenkräften macht, so ist es Michael, der von Uriel die Gedankenkräfte empfängt und kraft des kosmischen Eisens, aus dem sein Schwert geschmiedet ist, diese Gedankenkräfte umsetzt in den Willen, so daß sie Bewegungskräfte im Menschen werden. UÜtiel reicht seinen Eimer dem Michael, und es werden aus den Gedankenkräften Bewegungskräfte. So daß wir wirklich auch dieses zweite Bild bekommen: Auf- und absteigend Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, ineinanderwirkend, sagen wir, Uriel und Gabriel zusammen, aber auch miteinander wirkend, einer dem andern seinen Besitz abgebend, so daß er in ihm weiterwirken kann. Wir sehen, wie Himmelskräfte auf- und niedersteigen und sich die goldenen Eimer reichen, die goldenen Eimer des Nährenden, des Heilenden, des Gedankenhaften, des Bewegenden. So bewegen sich diese goldenen Eimer von einem zum andern, während zu gleicher Zeit der eine mit dem andern in Weltenharmonie zusammenwirkt.
Und wieder haben wir ein solches Wort an dieser Stelle des «Faust»:
Wie Himmelskräfte auf und nieder steigen
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen!
Bis zum «goldnen» ist das Wort richtig, denn diese Dinge werden ja aus dem Sonnengolde gewoben, von Uriel ausgehend, wie ich Ihnen beschrieben habe.
Goethe hat dasjenige, was er in diesen Spruch dichterisch hineingebracht hat, eben gelesen. Es hat auf ihn einen großartigen Eindruck gemacht. Dasjenige, was hier geschildert werden konnte, das kannte er nicht. Aber gerade das ist es, was einen so erschüttert, daß, wenn aus einer gewissen dichterischen Empfindung heraus ein solcher Geist wie Goethe etwas aufgreift, was durch alte Traditionen heraufgekommen ist, daß es dann so unglaublich die Wahrheit wiedergebend ist. Das ist jenes Großartige, das uns wieder verbindet, wenn wir Geisteswissenschaft in der Gegenwart treiben und diese Dinge sich für uns ergeben: wenn wir wirklich sehen, wie Uriel und Raphael und Michael und Gabriel zusammenwirken, wie sie wirklich das, was ihre eigenen Kräfte sind, einer dem andern reichen, wenn wir das ursprünglich sehen und dann uralte Sprüche, die vielleicht auf einem Umwege, wie hier durch Goethe, auf uns gekommen sind, auf uns wirken lassen und sehen, wie eine alte instinktive Wahrheit - meinetwillen mythisch, meinetwillen legendarisch — einstmals durch die Welt gebraust ist! Wie dann eine andere Zeit gekommen ist, und wie in unserer Zeit das wiederum auf eine höhere Stufe gehoben werden muß.
Oh, Hippokrates — ob wir ihn Raphael nun nennen, der an seiner Seite stand, ob er Merkur, ob er Hermes genannt worden ist, das ist schon einerlei —, dieser Hippokrates lebte in einer Zeit, in der schon in der Abenddämmerung war jenes Wissen vom Zusammenwirken von Gabriel, Raphael und Uriel, so daß in der Mitte zwischen den Gedanken und den ernährenden Kräften die heilenden Kräfte drinnenstehen. Das gab einer instinktiven Urweisheit jene merkwürdigen alten Heilmittel, die eigentlich immer wieder erneut worden sind, die man heute bei sogenannten primitiven Völkern findet, und wo sich die Leute gar nicht vorstellen können, wie die Menschen darauf gekommen sind. Das alles hängt aber mit dem zusammen, daß die Menschheit einmal eine Urweisheit besessen hat.
Ein Rätsel muß jetzt eigentlich in Ihrer Seele klingen, meine lieben Freunde, das ist, daß, wenn Sie alles dasjenige nehmen, was ich Ihnen dargestellt habe, Sie dann eigentlich zum Beispiel glauben müßten: die Raphael-Kräfte weben und leben zur Frühlingszeit, werden zur Herbsteszeit von Raphael in das Innere des menschlichen Atmungssystems getragen, und der Mensch wäre ganz eingespannt in die webend-wirkenden Kräfte des Kosmos nach dem Zeitenlaufe. Das ist auch das Ursprüngliche. Aber wie der Mensch ein Wesen ist, das sich an das, was es einmal erlebt hat, dann weiter fort erinnert, wie also dasjenige, was ein äußeres Erlebnis im Menschen ist, durch das Gedächtnis aufbewahrt wird und nach Tagen, nach Jahren noch inneres gegenwärtiges Nacherlebnis sein kann, so bleiben auch diese für den Kosmos durchaus richtigen Wahrheiten bestehen. Aber der Mensch erlebt nicht nur die Raphael-Kraft zum Beispiel innerlich im Atmungssysteme im Herbste, sondern dann auch durch den Winter, Frühling, Sommer hindurch. Es bleibt gewissermaßen eine dichtere Erinnerung davon.
Während also die Sache so veranlagt ist, wie ich sie geschildert habe, bleiben im Menschen das ganze Jahr hindurch Wirkungen. Wie ein Erlebnis im Gedächtnisse haften bleibt, so bleiben das ganze Jahr hindurch Wirkungen da, sonst könnte der Mensch ja nicht ein gleichmäßig durch das Jahr hindurch sich entwickelndes Wesen sein. Im physischen Erdenleben ist es so, daß der eine leichter, der andere schwerer vergißt; dasjenige aber, was Raphael in einem Herbst in unser Atmungssystem gepflanzt hat, das würde verschwinden im nächsten Herbste, wenn nicht Raphael wieder käme. Bis dahin wirkt das Gedächtnis, dieses Naturgedächtnis in dem Atmungsorgan; dann aber muß das wiederum aufgefrischt werden.
Und so ist der Mensch dennoch hineingestellt in den Lauf der Natur, ist nicht herausgeworfen aus dem Weltengang, ist hineingestellt in diesen Weltengang. Aber er ist noch in einer andern Weise hineingestellt in diesen Weltengang. Es ist nun schon einmal so, daß der Mensch, wenn er hier auf Erden steht, von seiner Haut umgrenzt, von seinen Organen durchdrungen, dann sich schon etwas isoliert vorkommt im Kosmos, weil die Zusammenhänge, wie ich sie geschildert habe, eben eigentlich geheimnisvolle sind. Aber so ist es nicht, wenn der Mensch geistig-seelisch ist, zum Beispiel im vorirdischen Dasein. Da webt ja zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt das GeistigSeelische im geistigen Gebiete, in der geistigen Sphäre. Da schaut dieses Seelische gewissermaßen herab, nun nicht auf einen einzelnen Menschenkörper zunächst, den wählt es sich dann im Laufe der Zeit, aber es schaut herab auf die ganze Erde, ja auf die Erde im Zusammenhang mit dem ganzen planetarischen System, mit all diesem Leben und Weben von Raphael, Uriel, Gabriel, Michael. Da ist man außerhalb, schaut es sich von außerhalb an.
Und da öffnet sich das Tor für den Eintritt der Seelen, die vom vorirdischen Leben ins irdische Leben kehren, nur während der Zeit, während welcher von Ende Dezember an bis zum Frühlingsbeginn Gabriel oben webt als kosmischer Erzengel, unten an der Seite des Menschen Uriel, in das menschliche Haupt hineintragend die kosmischen Kräfte. Während dieser drei Monate kommen die Seelen, die das ganze Jahr verkörpert werden, alljährlich vom Kosmos zur Erde nieder. Dann bleiben sie und warten, bis sich ihnen die Gelegenheit bietet in der planetarisch-irdischen Sphäre; auch diejenigen Seelen, die meinetwillen im Oktober geboren werden, haben schon innerhalb der irdischen Sphäre gewartet auf ihre Geburt. Und es hängt im Grunde genommen viel davon ab, ob eine Seele, nachdem sie schon in die Erdensphäre eingetreten ist, schon berührt worden ist davon, noch warten muß innerhalb der Erdensphäre aufihre irdische Verkörperung. Bei der einen Seele ist es länger, bei der andern kürzer der Fall.
Aber das ist noch das besondere Geheimnis, daß ebenso, wie zum Beispiel in das Ei nur an einer Stelle der befruchtende Samen eindringt, so der Himmelssamen in das ganze Jahreswesen der Erde nur eindringt, wenn oben waltet Gabriel als kosmischer Engel mit dem milden, liebenden Blick, mit der segnenden Gebärde, unten Uriel ist mit dem urteilenden Blick und der mahnenden Gebärde. Da ist die Zeit, wo die Erde von Seelen befruchtet wird. Das ist die Zeit, wenn die Erde Schneehülle hat, wenn die Erde in ihre Kristallisationskräfte übergeht, wenn der Mensch mit der Erde als dem denkenden irdischen Weltenkörper verbunden sein kann: dann ziehen die Seelen aus dem Kosmos in die Erdensphäre ein, versammeln sich gewissermaßen. Das ist die jährliche Befruchtung des irdischen Jahreslaufwesens.
Auf alle diese Dinge kommen wir, wenn wir uns den Einblick in den Kosmos eröffnen nicht nur auf physische Art, sondern im Wirken jener kosmischen Wesenheiten, dieich Ihnen durch die vier Bilder geschildert habe. Und dann, wenn man das hat, dann kommt schon etwas in manche Dichtung hinein wie kosmisches Wehen und Weben, denn das ist in der Welt:
Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt,
Eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt!
Wie Himmelskräfte auf und nieder steigen
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen,
Mit segenduftenden Schwingen
Vom Himmel durch die Erde dringen,
Harmonisch all das All durchklingen!
Man kann etwas empfinden gerade auch in diesen Worten von jenem wunderbaren Miteinander- und Zusammenwirken der vier Archangeloi-Wesen, die im Zusammenhange mit den Naturkräften auch im Menschen das Natürliche, Seelische und Geistige weben und leben im Ineinanderwirken, im Miteinanderwirken.

Fifth Lecture
I have recently placed before your soul the four cosmic imaginations which can be extracted from a co-experience of man with the course of the year. If you want to understand man in his whole position and situation in the world, you must actually seek this understanding through the interaction of the forces of those beings that appear to you in connection with these forms. And here I would like to say one thing to you today by way of introduction. If one opens the soul to all the impressions that can come over one from the sight of what lies in these four forms, then at the same time many things present themselves to the soul that have been felt in the course of human development, that have been felt as an echo of old instinctive clairvoyant visions, and which are actually today sometimes only cited historically, but are basically not understood. These often wonderful voices, which traditionally resonate from the past, are then taken up by real poets or spiritual men and used by them, used precisely when they want to express the highest, the greatest. But they actually find very little understanding with it. Thus, in a quite marvelous way, a word emerges from the first part of “Faust” which is often quoted, but which one finds is hardly really understood. It is the word that resounds in “Faust” after Faust has opened the book of Nostradamus, sees the sign of the macrocosm and then breaks out into the words:
A magnificent image, of which, if you know Goethe, you can only say that he captured it in his feelings. For that which Goethe evidently drew from his reading of ancient traditions, took out for his feeling, is actually only fully before our soul when we have before us what I have been able to present to you in the four great cosmic imaginations, the Autumn Imagination of Michael, the Christmas Imagination of Gabriel, the Easter Imagination of Raphael, and the Midsummer Imagination, the St. John Imagination of Uriel. For of all these beings, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Michael, you should actually imagine that forces radiate through the cosmos, that forces in turn flow into the human being, form the human being. In order to understand this, you have to look a little at how, I would like to say, purely materially, the human being stands within the cosmos.How everything weaves itself into the whole,
One works and lives in the other! How celestial forces rise and fall
And pass the golden buckets to each other,
With wings fragrant with blessing
Penetrate from heaven through the earth,
Harmoniously resounding through all the universe!
In this respect, unfortunately, there is very little understanding today of what is. You will find, for example, that everywhere in natural scientific and medical circles it is described how man inhales oxygen from the air, how the carbon in him absorbs the oxygen; then this process is compared with an external combustion, where some external substances also combine with the oxygen in the air, and then what happens in man is called a combustion. Yes, the whole process that takes place in the blood, this absorption of oxygen by the carbon, is also described externally as a combustion, because one thing is not known: one does not know that all the processes and all the substances that are something outside the human being, when they enter the human being, immediately become something else. And he who speaks of this peculiar combination of carbon with oxygen in man, and conceives it as a combustion, is actually speaking just like one who says: "It is not necessary that there should be two living lungs in man, there can also be two stones inside; one could hang two stones in there. - This is more or less what someone says when he speaks of the combustion of carbon with oxygen in humans.
Everything that happens externally in nature is different when it penetrates into the human being. No process in man is the same as it is externally in nature. And that which we have externally in the flame, when it burns, is dead fire; that which we have correspondingly in man is the animated flame, the living, ensouled flame. And just as the stone relates to the lung, so the flame relates externally to that which takes place under the effect of life in the human being when the carbon combines with the oxygen, which, seen externally, chemically, is also a combustion. All spiritual progress in the present depends on being able to understand such things in the right way. If you have salt on the outside and eat it with your food, or if you eat anything else, protein or whatever it is, people today imagine that such a substance as salt, for example, remains on the outside, as if it were still protein on the inside, as it is on the outside. That is not true. That which enters the human being immediately becomes something else. And the forces that turn it into something else emanate from those entities that I have described in the four imaginations, and in a very specific way.
Let us place the very last picture before us, as I have described it: as for the St. John impression, in the weaving gold of the sun, weaving his body out of golden light, Uriel hovers above in the heights (panel V, red). You have to imagine him, as I told you, with a seriously judging eye, for these eyes are directed towards the crystal sphere of the earth, and he sees how little human faults are appropriate to the abstract, but therefore no less brilliant beauty of that which takes place in crystallization below in the crystal sphere of the earth. This gives him the serious judging eye, which is directed downwards, comparing human errors with what works and lives in the crystals of the earth. And I have told you how Uriel's gesture is a warning gesture, in a sense an exhortation addressed to human beings, urging them, if they understand it, to transform their faults into virtues. For up in the clouds appear the images of beauty, the images of beauty woven from the gold of the sun of all the virtues that men accomplish.
From the entity that must be described in this way - it cannot be described in any other way - forces emanate from this entity, which now work in man, but continue to work in man in a peculiar way. What I am describing to you takes place at the height of summer. We must now imagine that this entity of Uriel is not actually at rest, but is in a majestic movement. And it must be, because when it is summer with us, then it is winter on the opposite hemisphere of the earth, and when it will be winter with us, then it is summer on the opposite hemisphere; then Uriel is there for the heights. And we must actually imagine that when we have the earth here (see drawing on page 73), Uriel appears here for us, for our summer time, and this Uriel performs a movement that brings him to the other side after half a year: there we then have winter. While Uriel descends (yellow arrow), while his powers come to us in a descending line, summer turns into winter for us: we are here in winter, Uriel is on the other side. But the earth is no obstacle to Uriel's powers coming to us. If Uriel is down there for the inhabitants of the other hemisphere, then his powers penetrate through the earth to us. So that we can say: That which penetrates from Uriel to us in a direct way from above downwards (red arrows) and wants to penetrate us with summer sun-gold, that works through the earth in wintertime and penetrates us from the other side; there it is in an ascending line, there it has an ascending current (red).

When, at the time of St. John in midsummer, we imagine what happens through nature in man - for what Uriel works there works into the forces of nature - when we place this before our soul, then we must actually imagine these forces of Uriel radiating in the cosmos, radiating into our clouds, into our rain, into our thunder and lightning, radiating into the growth of plants. This is how we must imagine it all. In winter, after Uriel has made his way around the earth, so to speak, it flows towards us through the earth and stops in our head. And in our head the forces which are otherwise outside in nature, which we can call Uriel forces, then become the forces which actually make us citizens of the whole cosmos, which really allow an image of the cosmos to arise again in our head, which have an enlightening effect in our head, so that we are precisely the possessors of human wisdom. And we speak correctly when we say: Uriel descends from summer towards autumn until winter, Uriel begins to ascend in winter, and from this descending and ascending power of Uriel we have the inner powers of our human head. And you see, just as Uriel works in nature at midsummer time, just as he works in the human head at winter time, so that man is really also in this respect a microcosm in relation to the macrocosm - we only understand man when we place him not merely naturally but spiritually in the world -, just as we follow the forces radiating from UÜtiel and flowing into man through the course of the year, so we must say the same of Raphael, for example, who lets his forces flow into the forces of nature during the spring, as I have described to you. So that I had to describe to you that the Easter imagination is supplemented by the teaching which Raphael, I would like to say, as the great world physician, can give to mankind. For it is precisely when we allow all that which Raphael accomplishes during the springtime, weaving in the forces of nature like Uriel during the summertime, when we allow this to work on us through the inspired spiritual ear at Easter time, that the crowning of all healing truths comes over man, as I have shown you.
But that which Raphael weaves during the spring time, that in turn orbits the earth, just as Uriel orbits the earth. Uriel is the summer spirit in the cosmic direction, orbiting the earth and creating the forces of the inner human head during the winter. Raphael is the spring spirit who orbits the earth and who actually creates the forces of human respiration during the fall season. So that we can say: While Michael is the cosmic spirit above during the autumn season, the cosmic archangel, Raphael weaves in the human being during the Michael season, Raphael, who is ordering, blessing, working in the whole human respiratory system. And basically we can only imagine autumn correctly if we have on the one hand the mighty Michael-imagination with the sword forged out of the meteoric iron, with the garment woven from the gold of the sun, shining through with the silver rays of the earth, Raphael, Raphael, working in man, having a sense for every breath, having a sense for everything that goes from the lungs to the heart, and from the heart again through the whole blood circulation. Therefore man learns to know in himself those healing powers that weave through the cosmos in the Raphael time in spring, when he does in the breathing of man what Raphael does in the autumn time, when Michael is above, by his radiations passing through the earth.
For there is a great secret: all healing powers originally lie in the human respiratory system. And anyone who really understands the whole scope of breathing knows the healing powers from within the human being. The healing powers do not lie in the other systems. The other systems must be healed themselves.
The respiratory system - see what I said about pedagogy - is particularly active between the seventh and fourteenth year of a child's life. While the possibilities of illness are great in the first seven years of life, and become great again after the age of fourteen, they are relatively lowest at the time when the respiratory system pulsates through the human body with the help of the etheric body. There is a mysterious healing web in the respiratory system. And all the secrets of healing are at the same time the secrets of breathing. And this is connected with the fact that those Raphael effects, which are cosmic in spring, penetrate into the whole mystery of human breathing in autumn.
We have come to know Gabriel as the Christmas archangel. He is then the cosmic spirit. We have to look up to find him. During the summer time, Gabriel carries into the human being all that which the nourishing forces in the human being bring about, the nourishing formative, the nourishing plastic forces. They are carried into the human being through the Gabriel forces during the midsummer time, after Gabriel has gone through his descent from his cosmic activity during the winter to his human activity during the summer, where his forces flow through the earth, because now winter is on the other side.
And when we finally come to Michael, we have Michael as a cosmic spirit in autumn. Then he is at his highest, then he is in his cosmic culmination. Then his descent begins, and his powers permeate the earth at springtime, rise up, and they live in all that becomes movement in man, that is the expression of will in man, that makes man walk and grasp and work.
And now imagine the complete pictures. Imagine the summer picture, the Johanni picture: Above the serious Uriel with the judging look, the admonishing gesture and gesture, and, approaching the human being, penetrating him inwardly, the mild loving look of Gabriel, the blessing gesture of Gabriel; there you have the interaction of Uriel in the cosmos, of Gabriel at the side of the human being during the summer time.
And if you go from summer to autumn, there you have, as I have described it to you, the, I cannot say commanding, I would like to say the guiding gaze of Michael. For Michael's gaze, if you look at the figure correctly, is as if the eye were a finger pointer, as if the eye did not want to look into itself, but wanted to look out into the world. Michael's gaze is active, positive, active. And the sword forged from the cosmic iron is held in Michael's hand in such a way that the hand is at the same time a hand pointing people in his direction. That is the picture above. And below, Raphael, looking with a profound gaze, who approaches man and now brings the healing powers, which he has first, I would like to say, ignited in the cosmos, to man, Raphael with the deep, contemplative gaze, supported by the staff of Mercury, supported by the inner forces of the earth; there you have the interaction of Michael in the cosmos, of Raphael on earth.
And go to the winter time. Gabriel is the cosmic angel, Gabriel above with the mildly loving look, with the blessing gesture, weaving in the winter clouds, I would like to say, in the white robe of snow; below the serious, judging and admonishing Uriel at the side of man. The positions are reversed.
And again, when we come to spring: Raphael above with the profound gaze, with the staff of Mercury, but which has now become something like a fiery serpent in the air, like a serpent glowing with fire; no longer leaning on the earth, but as if held out, using the powers of the air, all that is present in the cosmos in fire, water and earth, mixing and working together, so to speak, to transform it into healing powers that work and weave in the cosmos. And then below, approaching the human being, Michael, who becomes particularly visible there, pointing with his gaze - I have called it positive: a gaze that shows how in the world, and who would like to take the human gaze with him when Michael stands next to the human being in spring, complementing Raphael.
You see, here we have the pictures: Winter - Gabriel above, Uriel below, Spring - Raphael above, Michael below, Summer - Uriel above, Gabriel below with the human being, Autumn - Michael above, Raphael below with the human being.
And now take what has gone through many ages like an old magic word, taken up again by Goethe:
How everything weaves itself into the whole,
One works and lives in the other!
Yes, Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, they work together, one works in the other, lives in the other, and when man as a spiritual-soul-physical being is placed in the universe, these forces work magically in him. And to what extent are such words correct, to what extent! Just think that the word yes means:
How everything weaves itself into the whole,
One works and lives in the other! How heavenly forces ascend and descend
- rise up and down! - I will come to the next line in a moment:
And reach out the golden buckets,
With wings fragrant with blessing
From heaven through the earth penetrate,
Harmoniously resound through all the universe!
Remember yesterday's lecture, how everything challenged the transition from the plastic to the sonorous: harmoniously resounding through all the universe.
I can't tell you what I felt when this stood before my soul and I read these words from Goethe again: “To penetrate from heaven through the earth!” This “through” - it can shake one terribly in its unique rightness; for now one has it, it is true! And it shakes one that these words go through the world like the sound of bells, that one believes it is poetic freedom, it is something, a word, as people usually write it in their letters, or as people usually write it in their articles. It is not like that. It is a word that corresponds to a cosmic fact. It is something terribly shocking to read this word in connection with the truth at this point in Goethe's “Faust”.
And now we go further. So far it has been revealed to us how the heavenly forces with their golden wings - they are the archangels - harmoniously permeate all the universe, how one works and lives in the other. But there is more. Let us consider Gabriel, who takes the nourishing forces from the cosmos, who introduces these nourishing forces into the human being at midsummer time. These nourishing forces are active in the human metabolic system. Raphael works in the respiratory system. And now, as they ascend and descend, Gabriel and Raphael work together in such a way that Gabriel reaches up his forces, which are otherwise in the nourishing impulses of the human being, in the breathing: there the nourishing forces become healing forces. Gabriel hands the nourishment to Raphael: there the nourishment becomes healing. When that which is otherwise only nourishment in man is permeated by the mystery of breathing, then it becomes healing.
Yes, one must look at the transformation which the outer substances undergo in the nourishing system: then one recognizes the significance of the Gabriel forces, the nourishing forces in man. But these forces are transferred into the respiratory system. And as they continue to work in the respiratory system, they do not merely become hunger- and thirst-quenching forces, they do not merely become forces that mend the human being: they become forces that corticate the sick human being inwardly. The metamorphosed nutritional forces are healing forces. Whoever understands nutrition correctly, understands the beginning of healing. He who knows what salt is supposed to do in a healthy person knows, when he allows that metamorphosis to take effect on him, which passes from the Gabriel way to the Raphael way, how salt then acts as a healing agent in this or that case. The healing powers in us are metamorphoses of the nourishing powers. Raphael receives the golden bucket of nourishment from Gabriel. It is handed to him.

And now comes a secret, which is also found to have been familiar to people in ancient times, but it has actually died out completely. Those who can read Hippocrates today, or perhaps those who cannot read Galen but can interpret it, will notice that in Hippocrates, even in Galen, the ancient physicians, something of what is actually a great human secret still lives on. The healing forces are at work in our respiratory system, they are constantly healing us. Our breathing is constantly healing. But when these respiratory powers come up into the human head, then the healing powers become the spiritual powers of the human being, which work in sensory perception, in thinking. And that thinking, perception, the inner spiritual life of man is the higher metamorphosis of therapy, of healing, that that which lies between the head and the metabolic system of man as the respiratory-healing system is, so to speak, driven even further upwards than when it acts as healing forces - is the basis, the material basis for the spiritual life of man: this is the secret that was once known, that can be read almost quite clearly in Hippocrates, that can at least still be interpreted in Galen.
So that one can say: The thought that thrills through the human head is actually a metamorphosed power of the healing impulses present in the various substances. - If one sees through this and, let us say, has in one's hand some healing salt, some healing plant substance, then one looks at the matter and says: Here you are the beneficent healing power when I bring you into the human being as needed; but if you yourself penetrate, if you pass through the respiratory sphere, if you work in the human head, then you are the material carrier of the human power of thought, for Raphael hands his bucket to Uriel. - What Raphael has received from nourishment and transformed into healing, Raphael hands to Uriel, and it becomes thought power.
Why is a remedy healing? A remedy is healing because it is on the way to the spirit. And if you know to what extent a remedy is on the way to the spirit, you know the healing power of the remedy. The spirit alone cannot directly intervene in the earthly in man, but the lower level of the spirit is the therapeutic power.
And just as Gabriel hands the nourishing powers to Raphael for transformation into healing powers, that is, his golden bucket, just as Raphael hands his golden bucket to Uriel by turning the healing powers into the powers of thought, so it is Michael who receives the powers of thought from Uriel and, by virtue of the cosmic iron from which his sword is forged, transforms these powers of thought into will, so that they become powers of movement in man. UÜtiel hands his bucket to Michael, and the powers of thought become powers of movement. So that we really also get this second picture: Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, ascending and descending, working together, let us say, Uriel and Gabriel together, but also working together, one giving his possession to the other, so that he can continue to work in him. We see how heavenly forces ascend and descend and pass the golden buckets to each other, the golden buckets of the nourishing, the healing, the thoughtful, the moving. Thus these golden buckets move from one to the other, while at the same time one interacts with the other in world harmony.
And again we have such a word in this passage of “Faust”:
How heavenly forces rise up and down
And pass the golden buckets to each other!
Up to the “golden” the word is correct, for these things are woven from the gold of the sun, starting from Uriel, as I have described to you.
Goethe has just read what he poetically put into this saying. It made a great impression on him. He did not know what could be described here. But that is precisely what is so shocking, that when out of a certain poetic feeling such a spirit as Goethe takes up something that has come up through old traditions, that it is then so unbelievably reflective of the truth. That is the great thing that connects us again when we do spiritual science in the present and these things arise for us: when we really see how Uriel and Raphael and Michael and Gabriel work together, how they really hand to each other what are their own powers, when we see this originally and then let ancient sayings, which have perhaps come to us in a roundabout way, as here through Goethe, work upon us and see how an old instinctive truth - mythical for my sake, legendary for my sake - once roared through the world! How then another time has come, and how in our time it must again be raised to a higher level.
Oh, Hippocrates - whether we call him Raphael, who stood at his side, whether he was called Mercury, whether he was called Hermes, that is all the same - this Hippocrates lived in a time in which already in the twilight there was that knowledge of the interaction of Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel, so that in the middle between the thoughts and the nourishing forces the healing powers are inside. This gave an instinctive primal wisdom to those strange old remedies which have actually been repeated again and again, which are found today among so-called primitive peoples, and where people cannot even imagine how people came up with them. But all this is connected with the fact that mankind once possessed a primordial wisdom.
A riddle must now actually ring in your soul, my dear friends, and that is that if you take everything that I have presented to you, you would then actually have to believe, for example, that the Raphael forces weave and live in the springtime and are carried by Raphael into the interior of the human respiratory system in the autumn, and that man would be completely involved in the weaving-working forces of the cosmos according to the course of time. This is also the original. But just as man is a being who continues to remember what he has once experienced, just as that which is an external experience in man is retained by the memory and can still be an inner present after-experience after days, after years, so these truths, which are quite correct for the cosmos, also remain. But the human being not only experiences the Raphael force inwardly in the respiratory system in autumn, for example, but also through winter, spring and summer. In a sense, a denser memory of it remains.
So while the matter is predisposed as I have described it, effects remain in the human being throughout the year. Just as an experience remains in the memory, so effects remain throughout the year, otherwise man could not be a being that develops evenly throughout the year. In physical life on earth it is the case that one person forgets more easily, another more difficultly; but that which Raphael has planted in our respiratory system in one autumn would disappear in the next autumn if Raphael did not come again. Until then the memory, this natural memory, works in the respiratory organ; but then it must be refreshed again.
And so man is nevertheless placed in the course of nature, is not thrown out of the course of the world, is placed in this course of the world. But he is also placed in this course of the world in another way. It is true that when man stands here on earth, surrounded by his skin, permeated by his organs, he feels somewhat isolated in the cosmos, because the connections, as I have described them, are actually mysterious ones. But this is not the case when man is spiritual-soul, for example in the pre-earthly existence. There, between death and a new birth, the spiritual-soul weaves in the spiritual realm, in the spiritual sphere. In a sense, this soul looks down, not initially on an individual human body, which it then chooses in the course of time, but it looks down on the whole earth, indeed on the earth in connection with the whole planetary system, with all this life and weaving of Raphael, Uriel, Gabriel, Michael. There you are outside, looking at it from outside.
And there the gate opens for the entry of the souls who return from pre-earthly life to earthly life, only during the time when from the end of December until the beginning of spring Gabriel weaves above as cosmic archangel, below at the side of man Uriel, carrying the cosmic forces into the human head. During these three months, the souls that are embodied throughout the year come down to earth from the cosmos every year. Then they remain and wait until the opportunity presents itself to them in the planetary-earthly sphere; even those souls who are born in October for my sake have already waited within the earthly sphere for their birth. And basically much depends on whether a soul, after it has already entered the earthly sphere, has already been touched by it, still has to wait within the earthly sphere for its earthly embodiment. With one soul it is longer, with the other shorter the case.
But that is still the special secret, that just as for example the fertilizing seed penetrates into the egg only at one place, so the heavenly seed only penetrates into the whole yearly being of the earth, when Gabriel rules above as cosmic angel with the mild, loving look, with the blessing gesture, below is Uriel with the judging look and the admonishing gesture. This is the time when the earth is fertilized by souls. This is the time when the earth is covered with snow, when the earth passes over into its crystallizing powers, when man can be connected with the earth as the thinking earthly world body: then the souls from the cosmos move into the earth sphere, gather together as it were. This is the annual fertilization of the earthly yearly being.
We come to all these things when we open up an insight into the cosmos not only in a physical way, but in the work of those cosmic beings that I have described to you through the four pictures. And then, when you have that, something like cosmic weaving and weaving comes into some poetry, because that is in the world:
How everything weaves itself into the whole,
One works and lives in the other!
How celestial forces rise and fall
And pass the golden buckets to each other,
With wings fragrant with blessing
Penetrate from heaven through the earth,
Harmoniously resounding through all the universe!
You can also sense something in these words of the wonderful cooperation and collaboration of the four Archangeloi beings who, in connection with the forces of nature, also weave and live the natural, spiritual and mental in man in interaction, in cooperation.
