Man as Symphony of the Creative Word
Part One. The Connection between Cosmic Conditions, Earthly Conditions, the Animal World and Man
GA 230
20 October 1923, Dornach
You cannot deal with man through logic alone, but through an understanding that can only be reached when intellect shall see the world as a work of art.
Lecture II
Having considered in the lecture yesterday the nature of the animals of the heights, represented by the eagle, the animals of the middle region, represented by the lion, and the animals of the earth-depths, represented by the ox or cow, we can today turn our attention to man's connection with the universe from that particular aspect which reveals the inner structural relationship of the human being to these representatives of the animal world.
Let us first turn our gaze to the upper regions, about which we said yesterday that when the animal derives its particular forces from them, they do then in fact cause the whole animal to become head-organization. There we see how the bird owes its very being to the sun-irradiated atmosphere. This sun-irradiated atmosphere—everything, that is to say, which can be absorbed by the bird through the fact that it owes the most important part of its being to it—is a necessity to the bird. And I told you yesterday that it is upon this that the actual formation of the plumage depends. The bird has its actual being within. What is brought about in the bird by the outer world is embodied in its plumage. But when the influence of this sun-irradiated air is not impressed on the being from without, as in the case of the eagle, but is activated within, as in the case of the human nervous system, then thoughts arise—momentary thoughts, as I said, thoughts of the immediate present.
When we thus turn our gaze upwards to the heights, and are filled with all that results from such a contemplation, it is to the tranquil atmosphere and to the streaming sunlight that our attention is drawn. We must not, however, think of the sun in isolation. The sun maintains its power through the fact that it comes into connection with the different regions of the universe. Human knowledge has expressed this relationship by connecting the sun activities with the so-called animal circle or zodiac, so that when the sunlight falls to earth from Leo, from Libra or from Scorpio, its significance also signifies something different for the earth according to whether it is strengthened or weakened by the other planets of our planetary system. And here different relationships arise in regard to the different planets; the relationships in regard to the so-called outer planets, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, are different from those in regard to the so-called inner planets, Mercury, Venus and Moon.
If we now consider the organization of the eagle, it is most important first of all to observe how far the Sun-forces become modified, strengthened or weakened, by their interaction with Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. It is not for nothing that legend speaks of the eagle as the bird of Jupiter. In general Jupiter stands as the representative of the outer planets. And if we were to draw a diagram illustrating what is meant here, we would have to draw the sphere which Saturn has in world-space, in the cosmos, as also that of Jupiter and Mars.
Let us draw this, so that we may actually see it, in a diagram: (see next page) the Saturn sphere, the Jupiter sphere, the Mars sphere; then we find the transition to the Sun sphere, giving us in the outermost part of our planetary system the working together of Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn.
And when we see the eagle circling in the air we do in fact utter a reality when we say: These forces which stream through the air from the Sun in such a way that they are composed of the working together of Sun with Mars, Jupiter and Saturn—these forces are those which live in the whole structure, in the very being of the eagle. But at the same time they live in the formation of the human head. And when we place man into the universe in accordance with his true nature—on earth he is only, so to speak, a miniature picture of himself—as regards his head we must place him into the eagle-sphere.
We must, therefore, think of Man in regard to his head as belonging to the eagle-sphere; and therewith we have indicated that element in the human being which is connected with the upward tending forces.
The lion is the representative of those animals which are in the real sense Sun-animals, in which the sun unfolds its own special force. The lion prospers best when the constellations above the sun and the constellations below the sun are so ordered that they exert the least influence upon the sun itself. Then those special characteristics appear which I described to you yesterday, namely that the forces of the sun itself, permeating the air, produce in the lion a breathing system of just such a kind that in its rhythm it is in perfect balance with the rhythm of the blood-circulation, not as regards number but as regards its dynamic. In the lion this balances itself out in a wonderfully beautiful way. The lion regulates his blood-circulation through the breathing, and the blood-circulation continually stimulates the stream of the breath. I told you that this can be seen even in the form, in the very structure of the lion's mouth. In this form itself the wonderful relationship between the rhythm of the blood and the rhythm of the breath is actually expressed. One can see this, too, in the remarkable gaze of the lion, resting in itself, and yet turned boldly outwards.
But what lives in the lion's gaze lives also in the other elements of human nature, the metabolic system, the head system, and the breast or heart system, that is the rhythmic system of Man.
And if we picture the special Sun-activity we must so draw the diagram of the human being that we place his heart, and the lungs connected to it, into the region of this Sun-activity. It is here, in this sphere, that we have the lion-nature in man.
When we turn to the inner planets nearer the earth, we have first the Mercury sphere. This has to do in particular with the finer parts of the digestive organism of man, the region where the foodstuffs are transformed into lymphatic substance, which is then carried into the circulation of the blood.
Progressing further, we come into the region of Venus-activity. This is connected with the somewhat coarser parts of man's digestive system, to that part of the human organism which works primarily from the stomach upon the foodstuffs which have been taken in. We next come into the sphere of the Moon. (I am drawing this in the sequence customary today in astronomy; I could also draw it differently.) There we enter that region where those digestive processes which are connected with the Moon act and re-act upon the human being.
In this way we have placed man into the entire universe. By turning our minds to those cosmic activities which the Sun carries out in conjunction with Mercury, Venus, Moon, we come into the region containing the forces which are taken up by the order of the animals represented for us by the cow, in the sense which I spoke of yesterday. There we have what the Sun cannot do by itself alone, but what the Sun can only do when its own forces are conducted to the earth by means of the planets which are nearest to the earth. When these forces are all at work, when they do not only stream through the air, but penetrate through the earth's surface in various ways, then these forces work up again from the earth depths. And what thus works up from earth depths belongs to the sphere which we see embodied outwardly in the organism of the cow.
The cow is the animal of digestion. It is, moreover, the animal which accomplishes digestion in such a way that there lies in its digestive processes the earthly reflection of something actually super-earthly; its whole digestive process is permeated with an astrality which reflects the entire cosmos in a wonderful light-filled way. There is—as I said yesterday—a whole world in this astral organism of the cow, but everything is heavy, everything is so organized that the weight of the earth works there. You have only to consider that the cow is obliged to consume an eighth of her weight in foodstuffs each day. Man can be satisfied with a fortieth part and remain healthy. Thus the cow needs earth-gravity in order fully to meet the needs of her organism. Her organism is orientated towards this need for the weight of matter. Every day the cow must digest an eighth of her weight. This binds the cow with her material substance to the earth, whereas, through her astrality she is at the same time an image of the heights, of the cosmos.
This is why, as I said yesterday, the cow is an object of so much veneration for those who confess to the Hindu religion. The Hindu says to himself: The cow lives here on the earth; but through this fact she forms in solid physical substance an image of something super-earthly. It is indeed the case that man's nature is organized in a normal way when he can bring into harmony these three cosmic activities manifested in a one-sided way in eagle, lion and cow; when he himself is the confluence of the activities of eagle, lion and cow.
In accordance with the general course of world events, however, we are now living in an age when the evolution of the world is threatened by a certain danger; and this danger will—if I may so express myself—actually take effect in man also in a one-sided way. From the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries up to our own day the facts of human earthly evolution are such that, to an ever increasing degree, the eagle activities wish to make one-sided claims upon the human head, the lion activities upon the human rhythmic system, and the cow activities upon the human metabolism and upon all man's activity on the earth.
This is the stamp of our age, that it is the aim of the cosmic powers to bring about a threefold division of man, and that, each form of these cosmic powers is always striving to suppress the others. The eagle strives to subjugate the lion and the cow and make them of no account, and in like manner with each of the other elements. Just in our present age something particularly alluring is working upon the subconscious in man; alluring because in a certain sense there is also something beautiful about it. In his conscious life man today is unaware of this but, for his sub-consciousness, three calls surge and sound through the world seeking to tempt him with their allurement. And I must say that it is the secret of our present time that, from the sphere of the eagle, there sounds down to man what actually gives the eagle his eagle nature, what gives him his plumage, what hovers around him as astrality. It is the eagle nature itself which becomes audible for the sub-consciousness of man. This is the alluring call:
Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To create a universe
In thine own head.
Thus speaks the eagle. That is the call from above, which today wishes to impose one-sidedness upon man.
And there is a second alluring call. This is the call which comes to us from the middle region, where the forces of the cosmos form the lion-nature, where, through the mingling of sun and air, they bring about that equilibrium between the rhythms of breathing and blood-circulation which constitutes the nature of the lion. What thus vibrates through the air, from the nature of the lion, what wills to make man's own rhythmic system one-sided, this today speaks alluringly to man's sub-consciousness, saying:
Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To embody the universe
In the radiance1German Schein for which there is no exact English equivalent. of the encircling air.
Thus speaks the lion.
These voices, which speak to man's sub-consciousness, have more effect than is supposed. Yes, my dear friends, there are certain human natures on earth organized in such a way that they are particularly liable to absorb their influences. Thus, for instance, all those who populate the west are so organized that they are specially prone to be allured, to be led astray, by the voice of the eagle. Thus American civilization, on account of the special organization of its people, is particularly exposed to the temptation offered by what the eagle speaks. And Central Europe, which is imbued with much of the culture of classical antiquity, which contains so much of what caused Goethe, for instance, to make his journey to Italy, a journey which acted on his life like a liberation—central Europe is particularly exposed to what is uttered by the lion.
Oriental civilization is pre-eminently exposed to what is uttered by the cow. And just as both other animals give utterance in their cosmic representation, so there sounds upwards from earth-depths, like a rumbling, muffled roaring, the call of what lies in the heaviness of the cow. It is actually the case, as I described to you yesterday, that when one sees a herd of cattle replete with grazing, sees them as they lie there in their own peculiar way, their very form revealing that they are given over to earth-gravity, then all this is conditioned by the fact that this bodily form must assimilate daily an eighth of its own weight. And to this must be added that the earth-depths, which, under the influence of Sun, Mercury, Venus and Moon, bring all this about in the digestive system of the cow—that these earth-depths, as if with demonic rumbling power, resound through such a herd with the words:
Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To wrest from the universe
Measure, number and weight.
Thus speaks the cow. And it is the orient which is specially exposed to the allurement of this call. What is meant here, however, is that, though it is the orient which is primarily exposed to this alluring call of the cow on account of the ancient veneration of the cow in Hinduism, yet, if this allurement were actually so to seize hold of mankind that what arises from this call would gain the mastery, then these influences emanating from the orient would produce a civilization, which, spreading over centre and west, would hinder progress and engender decadence. The demonic earth-forces would work in a one-sided way upon earth-civilization. What then would actually happen?
The following would happen. In the course of the last centuries, under the influence of a technology brought about by external science, an external technological life has come about on the earth. Certainly our technical achievement is wonderful in every sphere. But in technology nature forces work in their lifeless form. And the important factors in bringing these lifeless nature forces into play so absolutely and utterly that they would impose a stratum of civilization over the earth—these factors are number, measure and weight.
The scales, the measuring rod—to weigh, to count, to measure—these are the ideal of the modern scientist, of the modern technician, whose entire profession is actually dependent upon external science. We have brought things to such a pass that an important mathematician of our times, in response to the question: What is the guarantee of existence?, gives the following answer. (Philosophers of all ages have tried to answer the question: What is actually real?) This important physicist says: What can be measured is real; what cannot be measured is unreal. The ideal is to regard all being in such a way that it can be brought into the laboratory, and weighed, measured and counted; and from what is weighed, measured and counted, science, or what stands for it, is constructed. All this then streams out into technology. Number, measure and weight have become the standards of the whole of civilization.
Now as long as people only apply themselves with their ordinary understanding to measure, number and weight, things are not particularly bad. People are certainly very clever, but they are still a long way from being as clever as the universe. And this is why things cannot become particularly bad so long as, in comparison with the universe, they go about the measuring, weighing and counting in a dilettante way. But if present-day civilization were to be transformed into initiation, things would be bad indeed, if this attitude of mind remained. And this can happen if the civilization of the west, which stands entirely under the sign of measure, number and weight, were to be flooded by what might well come to pass in the east, namely, that through initiation-science people might fathom what actually lives spiritually in the organism of the cow. For if you penetrate into the organism of the cow, burdened with earthly heaviness, with this eighth of her weight in foodstuffs, with all that can be weighed, measured and counted, you learn what is being organized spiritually in the cow by this earth-heaviness, you learn to understand the whole organism of the cow as it lies in the meadow digesting, and in this process of digestion manifesting wonderful revelations from the astrality of the universe. Then you learn how to form what can be weighed, measured and counted into a system with which you could overcome all other forms of civilization and impose upon the whole earth-globe one civilization, which would do nothing but weigh, count and measure, making everything else disappear. For what would result from initiation into the organization of the cow? That is a question of utmost gravity, a question of immense significance. What would be the result?
Well, the whole way in which people construct machines varies greatly according to the nature of the machine in question; but everything tends towards the gradual development of these still imperfect, primitive machines into a kind of machine which depends upon vibrations, and where the aim is to make the machines effective by means of vibrations or oscillations, by means of movements which run a periodic course. Everything is hastening towards such machines. But if once these machines in their coordinated activity could be constructed in such a way as can be learned from the distribution of foodstuffs in the organization of the cow, then the vibrations which would be conjured up on the earth-globe through the machines, these small earth-vibrations, would so run their course that what is above the earth would sound together with, vibrate together with what is happening on the earth; so that our planetary system in its movements would be compelled to vibrate with our earth-system, just as a string tuned to a certain pitch vibrates in sympathy when another one is struck in the same room.
That is the terrible law of the sounding in unison of vibrations which would be fulfilled if the alluring call of the cow would so decoy the orient that it would then be able to penetrate in an absolutely convincing way into the unspiritual, purely mechanistic civilization of the west and centre; and thereby it would become possible to conjure up on the earth a mechanistic system fitting exactly into the mechanistic system of the universe. Through this everything connected with the working of air, with the forces of the circumference, and everything connected with the working of the stars, would be exterminated from human civilization. What man experiences, for instance, through the cycle of the year, what he experiences through living together with the sprouting, budding life of spring, with the fading, dying life of autumn—all this would lose its import for him. Human civilization would resound with the clattering and rattling of the vibrating machines and with the echo of this clattering and rattling which would stream down upon the earth from the cosmos as a reaction to this mechanisation of the earth.
If you observe a part of what is active at the present time, you will say to yourselves: A part of our present-day civilization is actually on the way to having this terrible element of degeneracy as its goal.
Now turn your thoughts to what would happen if the centre fell a prey to the allurements of what is spoken by the lion. Then, it is true, the danger I have just described would not be present. Then mechanism would gradually disappear from the face of the earth. Civilization would not become mechanistic, but, with a one-sided power, man would be given over to all that lives in wind and weather, in the cycle of the year. Man would be yoked to the year's course, and thereby compelled to live particularly in the interaction of his rhythms of breathing and blood-circulation. He would develop in himself what his involuntary life can give him. He would primarily develop his breast-nature. Through this, however, such human egoism would come over earth civilization that everyone would be intent upon living for himself alone, that no-one would bother about anything save his own immediate wellbeing. It is this temptation to which the civilization of the centre is exposed, such is the existence which could hang like a fate over the civilization of the earth.
And yet again, if the alluring call of the eagle were to seduce the west, so that it would succeed in spreading its way of thinking and attitude of mind over the whole earth, binding itself up in a one-sided way in this kind of thinking and mental attitude, then, in mankind as a whole there would arise the urge to enter into connection with the super-earthly world, as this once was, as it was in the beginning, at the outset of earth-evolution. People would feel the urge to extinguish what man has won for himself in freedom and independence. They would come to live only and entirely in that unconscious will which allows the gods to live in human muscles and nerves. They would revert to primitive conditions, to original, primitive clairvoyance. Man would seek to free himself from the earth by turning back to beginnings.
And I must say that, for exact clairvoyant vision, this is further emphasized through the fact that man is continually approached by what may be called the voice of the grazing cow, which says: “Do not look upwards; all power comes from the earth. Learn to know all that lies in earth-activity. Thou shalt become the lord of the earth. Thou shalt perpetuate the results of thy work on earth.” Yes, if man were to succumb to this alluring call, it would be impossible to avoid the danger of which I have spoken: the mechanizing of earth civilization. For the astrality of this animal of digestion wills to make the present enduring, to make the present eternal. From the lion-organization proceeds not what wills to make the present endure, but rather what would make the present as fleeting as possible, what would make everything a mere sport of the cycle of the year, always repeating itself, what would spend itself in wind and weather, in the play of the sunbeams, in the currents of the air. And civilization, too, would take on this character.
If, with real understanding, one contemplates the eagle as he soars through the air, it appears as though he were bearing upon his plumage the memory of what was there at the very inception of the earth. He has preserved in his plumage the forces which have still worked into the earth from above. It can be said that in every eagle we see the past millennia of the earth; with his physical nature he has not touched the earth, or at the most only for the purpose of seizing his prey, and in no way for the satisfaction of his own life. To fulfil his own life the eagle circles in the air, because he is indifferent to what has developed on the earth, because he has his joy and inspiration from the forces of the air, because he actually despises the life of earth and wishes to live in that same element in which the earth itself lived when it was not yet earth, but when, in the beginning of its evolution, it was still imbuing itself with heavenly forces. The eagle is the proud creature which would not partake in the evolution of the solid earth, which withdrew from the influence of this solidifying process, and wished to remain united only with those forces which were there at the inception of the earth.
Such are the teachings given to us by this threefold representation of the animal kingdom, if we can conceive it as an immense and mighty script, written into the universe for the elucidation of its riddles. For, in very truth, every single thing in the universe is a written character if we could but read it. And especially when we can read their connection do we understand the riddle of the universe.
How full of significance it is to have to realize: What we do when we measure with the compasses or measuring rod, when we weigh with the scales, when we count—this is in fact only a putting together of something which is fragmentary; it becomes a whole when we understand the organization of the cow in its inner spirituality. This means to read in the secrets of the universe. And this reading in the secrets of the universe leads into the understanding of the being of the world and of man. This is modern initiation wisdom. It is this which must be uttered at the present time from out of the depths of spiritual life.
It is difficult indeed today for man to be really man. For, if I may put it so, in face of the three animal types, man conducts himself like the antelope in the fable which I told you yesterday. What wills to be one-sided takes on a particular form. The lion remains lion, but he wishes to have his fellow beasts of prey as metamorphoses of the other animal representatives. Thus for what in truth is eagle he substitutes a fellow beast of prey, the hyena, whose nature it is to live upon what is dead, upon that element of death which is induced in our head, and which continually, at every moment, contributes atomistic particles towards our death. So this fable replaces the eagle with the hyena, the hyena which consumes decay; and in the place of the cow—in line with the degeneration—the lion puts his fellow beast of prey, the wolf. Thus we have in the fable the other threefold animal group, the lion, the hyena, the wolf. And as today the alluring calls stand over against each other, their cosmic symbolism is confronted with its opposite, in that, when the alluring calls resound, the eagle sinks to earth and becomes the hyena, and the cow no longer desires in her holy, humble way to be an image of the cosmos, but becomes the ravening wolf.
And now we can translate the legend with which I ended my lecture yesterday from the negro version into that of modern civilization. Yesterday I had to narrate this legend from what may be called the negro point of view: The lion, the wolf and the hyena went out hunting. They killed an antelope. First the hyena was asked to divide the prey; he apportioned it according to hyena-logic, and said: “A third for everyone: a third for the lion, a third for the wolf, and a third for me.” Whereupon the hyena was consumed. And now the lion said to the wolf, “You divide it.” So the wolf said, “You get the first third because you have killed the hyena, and therefore the hyena's share is also your due. The second third is yours because, according to the verdict of the hyena, you would have had a third in any case, for each of us was to have had a third; and you got the last third as well, because of all the beasts you are the wisest and bravest.” And the lion said to the wolf, “Who taught you to divide in so excellent a way?” The wolf said, “The hyena taught it me.”
The logic is the same in both cases, but in its application to reality something quite different results according to whether the hyena, or the wolf with the hyena's experience, applied the logic. It is in the application of logic to reality that the essential matter lies.
Now we can also translate this fable into what I may call the version of modern civilization and tell the story somewhat differently. But please notice that what I am telling is in terms of the whole development of the great course of culture. Thus, expressed in modern fashion, the story could perhaps run as follows: The antelope is killed. The hyena withdraws and delivers a silent verdict; he does not dare to arouse the growling of the lion. He draws back, delivers a silent verdict, and waits in the background. The lion and the wolf now begin to fight for the body of the antelope. They fight and fight, until they have so severely wounded each other that both die from their wounds. Now comes the hyena, and consumes antelope, wolf and lion, after they have entered into a state of decay. The hyena is the image of what lies in the human intellect, the element in human nature which kills. He is the reverse side, the caricature, of the eagle civilization.
If you feel what I wish to convey by the europeanizing of the old negro fable, you will understand that just at the present time these things should be rightly understood. But they will only be rightly understood when, in opposition to the threefold alluring call—the call of the eagle, and of the lion, and of the cow—man learns what he himself should utter, that utterance which today should be the good shibboleth of man's strength, and thinking, and activity:
I must learn
Thy power, O Cow,
From the language
Which the stars reveal in me.
To comprehend earth-gravity, not as mere weighing, measuring and counting; to understand not merely what lies in the physical organization of the cow, but what is embodied in her; humbly to turn our gaze away from her organization up to the heights—this alone will ensure the spiritualisation of what would otherwise become the mechanistic civilization of the earth.
And the second utterance of the human being must be:
I must learn
Thy power, O Lion,
From the language
Which, through year and day,
Encircling space makes active in me.
Notice the words “reveal”, “make active”.
And the third utterance which man must learn is:
I must learn
Thy power, O Eagle,
From the language
Which earth-born life creates in me.
Thus man must oppose his threefold utterance to the one-sided alluring calls, that threefold utterance whose meaning can bring what is one-sided into harmonious balance. He must learn to look towards the cow, but then, after entering with deep experience into her nature, turn his gaze upwards to what is revealed by the language of the stars. He must learn to direct his gaze upwards to the eagle, but then, after deeply experiencing within himself the eagle's nature, he must look down with the clear gaze that the eagle's nature has bestowed upon him, and behold what springs and sprouts forth from the earth, and what also works from below upwards in the organization of man. And he must learn so to behold the lion that the lion reveals to him what is wafted around him in the wind, what flashes towards him in the lightning, what rumbles around him in the thunder, what wind and weather, in the course of the seasons, bring about in the life of the earth into which man himself is yoked. Thus, when man shall direct his physical gaze upwards with his spiritual gaze downwards, when he shall direct his physical gaze downwards with his spiritual gaze upwards, when he shall direct his physical gaze outwards towards the east with his spiritual gaze in the opposite direction towards the west—thus when man shall allow above and below, forwards and backwards, spiritual gaze and physical gaze to interpenetrate each other, then he will be able to receive and understand the true calls, bringing him strength and not weakness—the calls of the eagle from the heights, of the lion from the circumference, of the cow from below within the earth.
This is what man should learn in regard to his connection with the universe, so that thereby he may become ever more fitted to work for earth-civilization, and to serve, not its decadence, but its upward progress.
Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To create a universe
In thine own head.
Thus speaks the Eagle. (West).
Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To embody the universe
In the radiance of the encircling air.
Thus speaks the Lion. (Centre).
Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To wrest from the universe
Measure, number and weight.
Thus speaks the Cow. (Orient).
I must learn
Thy power, O Cow,
From the language
Which the stars reveal in me.I must learn
Thy power, O Lion,
From the language
Which, through year and day,
Encircling space makes active in me.I must learn
Thy power, O Eagle,
From the language
Which earth-born life creates in me.
Zweiter Vortrag
Nachdem wir gestern das Verhältnis der Tiere der Höhe, die im Adler repräsentiert sind, der Tiere der Mitte, die im Löwen repräsentiert sind, und der Tiere der Erdentiefe, die im Rind, in der Kuh repräsentiert sind, kennengelernt haben, können wir ja gerade heute des Menschen Beziehung zum Weltenall ins Auge fassen von dem Gesichtspunkte aus, der sich eben aus der inneren gestaltmäßigen Beziehung des Menschen zu diesen Repräsentanten der Tierwelt ergibt.
Richten wir einmal den Blick hinauf in diejenigen Regionen, von denen wir gestern sagen mußten: wenn sie die Regionen sind, aus denen heraus das Tier seine besonderen Kräfte zieht, daß sie dann eigentlich das ganze Tier zur Kopfesorganisation machen. Richten wir den Blick hinauf in diese Regionen. Wir sehen da, wie das Tier das, was es ist, der sonnendurchglänzten Atmosphäre verdankt. Die sonnendurchglänzte Atmosphäre muß es sein, alles das, was gewissermaßen von dem Tiere dadurch bezogen werden kann, daß es die Hauptsache seines Daseins der Atmosphäre, die sonnendurchströmt ist, verdankt. Ich habe Ihnen gestern gesagt: Davon rührt ja die eigentliche Gestaltung des Gefieders her. Das Tier hat gewissermaßen sein Wesen im Äußeren. Was die Außenwelt aus ihm macht, verkörpert sich in seinem Gefieder. Und wenn dasjenige, was aus dieser sonnendurchglänzten Luft gemacht werden kann, nicht von außen an das Wesen herangetragen wird wie beim Adler, sondern im Inneren erregt wird, wie aus dem menschlichen Nervensystem heraus, dann entstehen, sagte ich Ihnen, die Gedanken, die Gedanken des Augenblicks, die Gedanken der unmittelbaren Gegenwart.
Nun, wenn wir unseren Blick in dieser Weise, ich möchte sagen, beschwert mit alledem, was sich durch eine solche Betrachtung ergibt, in die Höhe wenden, werden wir eben verwiesen auf die ruhende Atmosphäre und auf das durchströmende Sonnenlicht. Aber wir können in einem solchen Falle nicht die Sonne so für sich betrachten. Die Sonne erhält ja ihre Kraft dadurch, daß sie in Beziehung tritt zu den verschiedenen Gegenden des Universums. Ausgedrückt wird diese Beziehung dadurch, daß der Mensch mit seinen Erkenntnissen die Sonnenwirkungen bezieht auf den sogenannten Tierkreis, so daß, wenn der Sonnenschein zur Erde fällt aus dem Löwen, aus der Waage, aus dem Skorpion, er immer etwas anderes für die Erde bedeutet. Aber er bedeutet auch etwas anderes für die Erde, je nachdem er verstärkt oder entkräftet wird durch die anderen Planeten unseres Planetensystems. Und da bestehen verschiedene Beziehungen zu den verschiedenen Planeten unseres Planetensystems. Es bestehen andere Beziehungen zu den sogenannten äußeren Planeten Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, und andere Beziehungen zu den sogenannten inneren Planeten Merkur, Venus und dem Mond.
Wenn wir nun die Organisation des Adlers ins Auge fassen, dann haben wir vor allen Dingen darauf zu sehen, inwiefern dieSonnenkräfte modifiziert werden, verstärkt oder geschwächt werden durch das Zusammenwirken der Sonne mit Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. Nicht umsonst spricht die Legende davon, daß der Adler eigentlich Jupiters Vogel ist. Der Jupiter steht überhaupt da als Repräsentant für die äußeren Planeten. Wenn wir uns schematisch das hinzeichnen, um was es sich dabei handelt, dann müssen wir uns hinzeichnen die Sphäre, die im Weltenraum, im Kosmos der Saturn hat, die Sphäre, die der Jupiter hat, die Sphäre, die der Mars hat.
Stellen wir das einmal vor unser Auge hin: die Saturnsphäre, die Jupitersphäre, die Marssphäre; dann finden wir den Übergang zur Sonnensphäre, und wir haben sozusagen im KÄußersten unseres Planetensystems ein Zusammenwirken von Sonne, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. Und wenn wir den Adler in den Lüften kreisen sehen, dann sprechen wir durchaus eine Realität aus, wenn wir sagen: Diejenigen Kräfte, die von der Sonne aus die Luft durchströmen, so daß sie zusammengesetzt sind aus dem Zusammenwirken von Sonne mit Mars, Jupiter und Saturn, die sind es, die in der ganzen Gestalt, in der Wesenheit des Adlers leben. Sie leben aber zugleich in dem Gebilde des menschlichen Hauptes. Und wenn wir den Menschen hineinstellen in bezug auf sein wirkliches Dasein - man möchte sagen, auf Erden ist er ja nur in seinem Miniaturbilde - in das Weltenall, dann müssen wir ihn hineinstellen in die Adlersphäre seinem Haupte nach. Wir müssen uns also den Menschen seinem Haupte nach hineingestellt vorstellen in die Adlersphäre, und haben damit dasjenige im Menschen gegeben, was mit den Kräften nach oben zusammenhängt.
Der Löwe ist der Repräsentant desjenigen Getiers, das im eigentlichen Sinne Sonnengetier ist, wo die Sonne gewissermaßen ihre eigene Kraft entfaltet. Der Löwe gedeiht am besten, wenn die Gestirne über der Sonne, die Gestirne unter der Sonne so in Konstellation vorhanden sind, daß sie am wenigsten Einfluß auf die Sonne selber ausüben. Dann entsteht jenes Eigentümliche, was ich Ihnen gestern beschrieben habe, daß die Kräfte der Sonne selber, die die Luft durchdringen, gerade ein solches Atmungssystem in dem Löwen anregen, daß dieses Atmungssystem in seinem Rhythmus in vollständigem Gleichgewichte ist mit dem Blutzirkulationsrhythmus, nicht der Zahl nach, aber der Dynamik nach. Das gleicht sich beim Löwen wunderschön aus. Der Löwe setzt der Blutzirkulation die Atmungshemmung entgegen, und die Blutzirkulation regt fortwährend die Atmungsströmung an. Ich sagte Ihnen, daß man das der Form nach sogar in der Gestaltung des Löwenmauls sehen kann. Da drückt sich diese wunderbare Beziehung des Blutrhythmus und des Atmungsrhythmus der Form nach schon aus. Man kann es sehen aus dem eigentümlichen, in sich ruhenden und doch wiederum kühn nach auswärts gewendeten Blick des Löwen. Aber dasjenige, was da im Löwen im Blick lebt, lebt wiederum angeschlossen an die anderen Elemente der Menschennatur, an die Hauptesorganisation, an die Stoffwechselorganisation, in der Brust- oder Herzorganisation, in der rhythmischen Organisation des Menschen.
Stellen wir daher vor uns hin die eigentliche Sonnenwirkung, so müssen wir der Sonnensphäre entsprechend den Menschen uns so einzeichnen, daß wir sein Herz, die dazugehörige Lunge in die Region der Sonnenwirksamkeit stellen, und wir haben in diesem Gebiete die Löwennatur des Menschen.
Wenn wir übergehen zu den inneren Planeten, zu den erdennahen Planeten, dann haben wir zunächst die Merkursphäre, welche es nun schon zu tun hat namentlich mit den feineren Partien des Stoffwechselsystems, des Stoffwechselorganismus des Menschen, da wo die Nahrungsstoffe umgewandelt werden in den Iymphartigen Stoff, wo sie dann übertragen werden in die Blutzirkulation hinein.
Wenn wir dann weitergehen, kommen wir in die Region des Venuswirkens. Wir kommen zu den etwas gröberen Partien des Stoffwechselsystems des Menschen, wir kommen zu dem, was im menschlichen Organismus die aufgenommenen Nahrungsmittel zunächst verarbeitet vom Magen aus. Wir kommen dann in die Sphäre des Mondes. Ich zeichne diese Folge so, wie sie heute in der Astronomie üblich ist; ich könnte sie auch anders zeichnen. Wir kommen also nun in die Sphäre des Mondes und kommen da in diejenige Region, wo auf den Menschen wirkt und gewirkt wird in jenen Stoffwechselvorgängen, die mit dem Monde zusammenhängen.
Wir haben den Menschen auf diese Weise hineingestellt in das gesamte Weltenall. Indem wir uns an diejenigen kosmischen Wirkungen wenden, die die Sonne im Verein mit Merkur, Venus, Mond vollführt, kommen wir dann hinein in das Gebiet, das die Kräfte enthält, die jenes Getier aufnimmt, das uns repräsentiert wird durch die Kuh in dem Sinne, wie ich das gestern auseinandergesetzt habe. Da haben wir das, was die Sonne nicht durch sich selbst machen kann, sondern was die Sonne machen kann, wenn sie durch die erdennahen Planeten in ihren Kräften gerade an die Erde herangeführt wird. Wenn diese Kräfte alle dann wirken, wenn sie nicht nur die Luft durchströmen, sondern die Oberfläche der Erde in verschiedener Art durchsetzen, dann wirken diese Kräfte herauf aus den Erdentiefen. Und das, was da heraufwirkt aus den Erdentiefen, das gehört der Region an, die wir äußerlich verkörpert sehen eben in der Organisation der Kuh.
Die Kuh ist das Verdauungstier. Aber die Kuh ist zugleich dasjenige Tier, welches die Verdauung in einer solchen Weise ausführt, daß in diesem Verdauungsvorgange die irdische Abbildung eines wirklich Überirdischen liegt, daß dieser ganze Verdauungsvorgang der Kuh durchsetzt ist von einer Astralität, hell und wunderbar abbildend den ganzen Kosmos. Es ist - wie ich schon gestern sagte - eine ganze Welt in diesem astralischen Organismus der Kuh, aber alles getragen von Schwere, alles so eingerichtet, daß die Schwere der Erde sich auswirken kann. Sie brauchen nur zu bedenken, daß die Kuh genötigt ist, jeden Tag etwa ein Achtel ihres Körpergewichtes an Nahrungsstoffen aufzunehmen. Der Mensch kann sich mit einem Vierzigstel begnügen und gesund bleiben dabei. Die Kuh braucht also, damit sie ihre Organisation voll ausfüllen kann, Erdenschwere. Ihre Organisation ist daraufhin orientiert, daß die Stoffe Schwere haben. Ein Achtel muß jeden Tag an Schwere ausgewechselt werden bei der Kuh. Das bindet die Kuh mit ihren Materien an die Erde, während sie durch ihre Astralität zu gleicher Zeit eben ein Abbild der Höhen, des Kosmos ist.
Deshalb ist die Kuh für den Bekenner der Hindureligion - wie ich gestern sagte — ein so verehrungswürdiges Objekt, weil er sich sagen kann: Die Kuh lebt hier auf der Erde; allein indem sie hier auf der Erde lebt, bildet sie in der physischen Schwere-Materie ab, man kann schon sagen, ein Überirdisches, wenn man im Sinne des Bekenners der Hindureligion redet. Und es ist durchaus so, daß die menschliche Natur dann ihre Normalorganisation hat, wenn der Mensch diese drei in Adler, Löwe und Kuh vereinseitigten kosmischen Wirkungen in Harmonie bringen kann, wenn er also wirklich der Zusammenfluß der Adler-, Löwen- und Kuh- oder Stierwirkungen ist.
Aber nach dem allgemeinen Weltengang leben wir in einer Zeit, in welcher der Entwickelung der Welt eine gewisse - wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf - Gefahr droht: die Gefahr, daß die einseitigen Wirkungen auch wirklich im Menschen einseitig zum Ausdrucke kommen. Seit dem 14.,15. Jahrhundert, bis in unsere Tage sich immer mehr und mehr verstärkend, ist die Sache so in der irdischen Menschheitsentwikkelung, daß die Adlerwirkungen das menschliche Haupt einseitig in Anspruch nehmen wollen, die Löwenwirkungen den menschlichen Rhythmus einseitig in Anspruch nehmen wollen, die Kuhwirkungen den menschlichen Stoffwechsel und das ganze menschliche Wirken auf Erden einseitig in Anspruch nehmen wollen.
Das ist die Signatur unserer Zeit, daß der Mensch sozusagen durch die kosmischen Mächte dreigeteilt werden soll, und daß immer die eine Form der kosmischen Mächte das Bestreben hat, die anderen Elemente zu unterdrücken. Der Adler hat das Bestreben, Löwe und Kuh in die Geltungslosigkeit hinunterzuwerfen; ebenso haben die anderen das Bestreben, jeweilig die beiden anderen Elemente in die Bedeutungslosigkeit versinken zu lassen. Und auf dasjenige, was menschliches Unterbewußtsein ist, wirkt eigentlich fortwährend gerade in der heutigen Zeit außerordentlich Verlockendes; verlockend schon aus dem Grunde, weil es auch in gewisser Beziehung schön ist. Im Oberbewußtsein nimmt es der Mensch heute nicht wahr, aber für sein Unterbewußtsein durchwellt und durchtönt die Welt eine Dreiheit der Rufe, die den Menschen locken wollen. Und ich möchte sagen, es ist das Geheimnis der heutigen Zeit, daß aus der Adlerregion herunter dasjenige tönt, was den Adler eigentlich zum Adler macht, was dem Adler sein Gefieder gibt, was den Adler astralisch umschwebt. Die Adlerwesenheit selber ist es, die hörbar wird für das Unterbewußtsein des Menschen. Das ist der verlockende Ruf:
Lerne mein Wesen erkennen!
Ich gebe dir die Kraft,
Im eignen Haupte
Ein Weltenall zu schaffen.
So spricht der Adler. Das ist der Ruf von oben, der heute die Menschen vereinseitigen will.
Und es gibt einen zweiten Lockruf. Das ist derjenige, der aus der mittleren Region kommt, da, wo die Kräfte des Kosmos die Löwennatur formen, da, wo die Kräfte des Kosmos aus dem Zusammenflusse von Sonne und Luft jenes Gleichmaß der Rhythmen, der Atmung und der Blutzirkulation bewirken, wie es die Löwennatur konstituiert. Was da die Luft durchzittert, ich möchte sagen, im Löwensinne, was des Menschen eigenes rhythmisches System vereinseitigen will, das spricht zum Unterbewußtsein des Menschen heute verlockend also:
Lerne mein Wesen erkennen!
Ich gebe dir die Kraft,
Im Schein des Luftkreises
Das Weltenall zu verkörpern.
So spricht der Löwe.
Und mehr als man glaubt, haben diese Stimmen, die zum Unterbewußtsein des Menschen sprechen, Wirkung. Ja, meine lieben Freunde, es sind verschiedene Menschenorganisationen auf Erden besonders dazu organisiert, diese Wirkungen aufzunehmen. So zum Beispiel ist besonders organisiert, verlockt zu werden, verführt zu werden durch die Stimme des Adlers alles, was den Westen bewohnt. Namentlich die amerikanische Kultur ist durch die besondere Organisation ihrer Menschheit ausgesetzt der Verführung dessen, was der Adler spricht. Die europäische Mitte, die vieles von dem in sich enthält, was antike Kultur ist, die vieles von dem in sich enthält, was Goethe zum Beispiel veranlaßt hat, zur Befreiung seines Lebens den Zug nach Italien zu machen, die ist besonders ausgesetzt dem, was da spricht der Löwe.
Die orientalische Zivilisation ist vor allen Dingen ausgesetzt dem, was da spricht die Kuh. Und ebenso, wie die beiden anderen Tiere in ihrer kosmischen Repräsentanz ertönen, ertönt, man möchte sagen, unten aus Erdentiefen heraus wie grollend, gröhlend der Ruf dessen, was in der Schwere der Kuh lebt. Es ist wirklich so, wie ich es Ihnen gestern schon beschrieben habe: daß man die Herde, die gesättigt weidet, in ihrer eigentümlichen, sich der Erdenschwere hingebenden Art lagern sieht in einer Gestalt, welche ausdrückt dieses der Erdenschwere Unterliegen, dieses dem Umstande Unterliegen, daß es jeden Tag ein Achtel seines eigenen Körpergewichtes zu seiner Beschwerung in sich auswechseln muß. Zu dem kommt hinzu, daß die Tiefen der Erde, die unter dem Einfluß von Sonne, Merkur, Venus und Mond all das in der Ernährungsorganisation der Kuh bewirken, daß diese Tiefen der Erde wie mit dämonisch grollender Kraft eine solche Herde durchtönen mit den Worten:
Lerne mein Wesen erkennen!
Ich gebe dir die Kraft,
Waage, Meßlatte und Zahl
Dem Weltenall zu entreißen.
So spricht die Kuh. Und ausgesetzt ist dem Lockruf besonders der Orient. Nur ist die Sache so gemeint, daß der Orient zwar zunächst ausgesetzt ist diesem Lockruf der Kuh, weil er die alte Kuhverehrung hat in dem Hinduismus, daß aber, wenn dieser Lockruf wirklich die Menschheit so ergreifen würde, daß dasjenige, was aus diesem Lockruf entsteht, siegen würde, dann würde gerade dasjenige, was aus dem Orient wirkt, über die Mitte und den Westen sich als eine den Fortschritt hemmende, Niedergang bewirkende Zivilisation kundgeben. Einseitig würden die erdendämonischen Kräfte auf die Erdenzivilisation wirken. Denn, was würde dann eigentlich geschehen?
Was dann geschehen würde, das ist das Folgende: Wir haben auf der Erde im Laufe der letzten Jahrhunderte eine unter dem Einfluß der äußeren Wissenschaft stehende Technik bekommen, ein äußeres technisches Leben. Wunderbar ist ja unsere Technik auf allen Gebieten. Die Naturkräfte wirken in der Technik in ihrer leblosen Gestaltung. Und was da gilt, um diese Naturkräfte ins Spiel zu bringen, sozusagen ganz und gar zu einer Zivilisationsschichtung über der Erde zu machen, das ist Waage, Meßlatte und Zahl.
Waage, der Maßstab, Wägen, Zählen, Messen, das ist das Ideal des heutigen Wissenschafters, des heutigen Technikers, der von der äußeren Wissenschaft eigentlich seinen ganzen Beruf heute hat. Wir haben es so weit gebracht, daß ein bedeutender Mathematiker der Gegenwart auf die Frage: Was verbürgt das Sein? - die folgende Antwort gibt. Nun, die Philosophen aller Zeiten haben versucht, die Frage: Was ist denn eigentlich wirklich? -zu beantworten. Dieser bedeutende Physiker sagt: Dasjenige ist wirklich, was man messen kann; was man nicht messen kann, ist nicht wirklich. — Es ist das Ideal sozusagen, alles Sein so anzusehen, daß man es in das Laboratorium hereinbringen und wiegen, messen und zählen kann, und aus dem, was gewogen und gemessen und gezählt ist, wird dann eigentlich das zusammengestellt, was man als Wissenschaft, die dann in die Technik ausströmt, noch gelten läßt. Zahl, Maß und Gewicht ist dasjenige geworden, was sozusagen orientierend für die ganze Zivilisation wirken soll.
Nun, solange die Menschen nur allein mit ihrem Verstande das Messen, Zählen und Wiegen anwenden, so lange ist es nicht besonders schlimm. Die Menschen sind zwar sehr gescheit, aber so gescheit wie das Weltenall eben noch lange nicht. Daher kann es nicht besonders schlimm werden, solange nur sozusagen dem Weltenall gegenüber herumdilettiert wird in bezug auf Messen, Wiegen und Zählen. Aber wenn sich gerade die heutige Zivilisation in Einweihung verwandeln würde, dann würde es schlimm, wenn sie bei ihrer Gesinnung bliebe. Und das kann entstehen, wenn die Zivilisation des Westens, die ganz im Zeichen von Waage, Maßstab und Zählen steht, überflutet würde von dem, was immerhin im Orient passieren könnte: daß durch Initiationswissenschaft ergründet werden könnte, was eigentlich geistig in der Organisation der Kuh lebt. Denn dringen Sie in die Organisation der Kuh ein, lernen Sie erkennen, wie da dieses Achtel an Nahrungsstoffen, belastet mit irdischer Schwere, mit alledem, was man wägen, messen und zählen kann, lernen Sie das, was geistig dieses Erdenschwere in der Kuh organisiert, lernen Sie diesen ganzen Organismus der Kuh erkennen, wie er auf der Weide liegt und verdaut und in seiner Verdauung Wunderbares aus dem Weltenall astralisch zur Offenbarung bringt: dann lernen Sie erkennen, einzuspannen das Gewogene, Gemessene, Gezählte in ein System, mit dem Sie überwinden können alles andere an Zivilisation, und dem ganzen Erdball einzig und allein eine Zivilisation geben, die nur mehr wiegt, zählt und mißt und alles andere aus der Zivilisation verschwinden macht. Denn, was würde die Initiation der Kuhorganisation ergeben? Das ist eine tief eingreifende Frage, eine ungeheuer bedeutungsvolle Frage. Was würde die ergeben?
Ja, die Art und Weise, wie man zum Beispiel Maschinen konstruiert, die ist sehr verschieden, je nach den einzelnen Maschinen; aber alles tendiert darauf hin, daß die noch unvollkommenen, primitiven Maschinen allmählich solche werden, die auf Schwingungen beruhen: wo irgend etwas schwingt, und wo durch Schwingungen, durch Oszillation, durch periodisch verlaufende Bewegungen der Effekt der Maschine erzielt wird. Auf solche Maschinen läuft alles hinaus. Wenn man aber einmal diese Maschinen in ihrem Zusammenwirken wird so konstruieren können, wie man es lernen kann an der Verteilung der Nahrungsmittel in der Organisation der Kuh, dann werden die Schwingungen, die auf dem Erdball durch die Maschinen erzeugt werden, diese kleinen Erdenschwingungen werden so verlaufen, daß mittönt, mitschwingt mit dem, was auf der Erde geschieht, dasjenige, was über der Erde ist; daß unser Planetensystem in seinen Bewegungen mitschwingen wird müssen mit unserem Erdensystem, wie mitklingt eine entsprechend gestimmte Saite, wenn eine andere in demselben Raum angeschlagen wird.
Das ist das furchtbare Gesetz des Zusammenklingens der Schwingungen, welches sich erfüllen würde, wenn der Lockruf der Kuh den Orient verführen würde, so daß er dann in überzeugender Weise durchdringen könnte die geistlose, rein mechanistische Zivilisation des Westens und der Mitte, und dadurch auf der Erde ein mechanistisches System erzeugt werden könnte, das genau eingepaßt ist in das mechanistische System des Weltenalls. Damit würde alles, was Luftwirkung ist, Umkreiswirkung ist, und alles, was Sternenwirkung ist, in der Menschheitszivilisation ausgerottet werden. Das, was der Mensch zum Beispiel erlebt durch den Jahreslauf, das, was er erlebt, indem er mitmacht das sprießende, sprossende Leben des Frühlings, das sich ertötende, erlähmende Leben des Herbstes, das alles würde seine Bedeutung für den Menschen verlieren. Es würde die menschliche Zivilisation durchtönen das Geklimmgeklapper der schwingenden Maschinen und das Echo dieses Geklimmgeklappers, das aus dem Kosmos herein auf die Erde als eine Reaktion des Erdenmechanismus strömen würde.
Wenn Sie einen Teil dessen, was in der Gegenwart wirkt, betrachten, dann werden Sie sich sagen: Ein Teil unserer gegenwärtigen Zivilisation ist durchaus auf dem Wege, dieses furchtbare Niedergangsmäßige als Ziel zu haben.
Nun denken Sie sich einmal, wenn die Mitte verlockt würde durch dasjenige, was der Löwe spricht, dann würde zwar die Gefahr nicht vorhanden sein, die ich eben geschildert habe. Es würden die Mechanismen allmählich wiederum vom Erdboden verschwinden. Die Zivilisation würde keine mechanische werden, aber der Mensch würde in einer einseitigen Stärke hingegeben werden alldem, wasin Wind und Wetter, was im Jahreslauf lebt. Der Mensch würde eingespannt werden in den Jahreslauf, und er würde dadurch insbesondere in der Wechselbeziehung seines Atmungsrhythmus und Zirkulationsrhythmus leben müssen. Er würde dasjenige in sich ausbilden, was sein unwillkürliches Leben ihm geben kann. Er würde gewissermaßen die Brustnatur besonders ausbilden. Dadurch aber würde beim Menschen ein solcher Egoismus über die Erdenzivilisation kommen, daß eigentlich jeder nur sich selbst leben wollte, daß kein Mensch sich auch kümmerte um etwas anderes als um das Wohlsein der Gegenwart. Dem ist ausgesetzt die Zivilisation der Mitte, die durchaus ein solches Leben über die Erdenzivilisation verhängen könnte.
Undhinwiederum, wenn der Lockruf des Adlers verlocken würde den Westen, so daß es ihm gelingen würde, seine Denkweise und Gesinnung über die ganze Erde zu verbreiten und sich selber in dieser Denkweise und Gesinnung zu vereinseitigen, dann würde überhaupt in der Menschheit der Drang entstehen, sich in der Weise unmittelbar mit der überirdischen Welt in Verbindung zu setzen, die einmal da war, die da war am Erdenausgang, am Erdenanfang. Man würde den Drang bekommen, auszulöschen, was der Mensch in seiner Freiheit und Selbständigkeit errungen hat. Man würde dazu kommen, ganz nur in jenem unbewußten Willen zu leben, der die Götter in den menschlichen Muskeln, Nerven leben läßt. Man würde zu primitiven Zuständen, zu ursprünglichem, primitivem Hellsehen zurückkommen. Der Mensch würde suchen, von der Erde dadurch loszukommen, daß er an den Erdenanfang zurückkehrte.
Ich möchte sagen, für den exakt clairvoyanten Blick wird das noch erhärtet dadurch, daß ihn eigentlich die weidende Kuh immer fort und fort wiederum mit einer Art von Stimme durchdringt, die da sagt: Schaue nicht nach oben; alle Kraft kommt von der Erde. Mache dich bekannt mit alledem, was in den Erdenwirkungen liegt. Du wirst der Herr der Erde. Du wirst dasjenige zum Dauernden machen, was du dir auf Erden erarbeitest. - Ja, wenn der Mensch unterliegen würde diesem Lockruf, dann würde eben jene Gefahr nicht beseitigt werden können, von der ich gesprochen habe: die Mechanisierung der Erdenzivilisation. Denn das Astralische des Verdauungstieres will das Gegenwärtige dauernd machen, das Gegenwärtige verewigen. Aus der Löwenorganisation geht dasjenige hervor, was nicht das Gegenwärtige dauernd machen will, aber was die Gegenwart so flüchtig als möglich machen will, was alles zu einem Spiel des Jahreslaufes, der sich immer wiederholt, machen will, was aufgehen will in Wind und Wetter, in dem Spiel des Sonnenstrahls, in den Lüften. Diesen Charakter würde auch die Zivilisation annehmen.
Der Adler, wenn man ihn wirklich verständnisvoll betrachtet, wie er die Lüfte durchschwebt, erscheint so, wie wenn er auf seinem Gefieder trüge das Gedächtnis von dem, was am Erdenausgangspunkte da war. Er hat bewahrt in seinem Gefieder die Kräfte, die von oben gewirkt haben noch in die Erde herein. Man möchte sagen, jedem Adler sieht man die Erdenjahrtausende an, und er hat die Erde mit seinem Physischen nicht berührt als höchstens zum Erfassen der Beute, jedenfalls nicht zum Befriedigen des Eigenlebens. Er aber kreist in den Lüften, wenn er dieses Eigenleben pflegen will, weil ihm dasjenige, was auf der Erde geworden ist, gleichgültig ist, weil er seine Freude und seine Begeisterung von den Kräften der Lüfte hat, weil er das Erdenleben sogar verachtet und leben will in demjenigen Element, in dem die Erde selber gelebt hat, als sie noch nicht Erde war, sondern als sie im Beginn ihres Erdendaseins noch mit himmlischen Kräften sich selber durchsetzte. Der Adler ist das stolze Tier, das nicht mitmachen wollte die feste Erdenentwickelung, das sich entzog dem Einflusse dieser festeren Erdenentwickelung, und das nur mit denjenigen Kräften vereint bleiben wollte, die am Erdenausgangspunkte waren.
Das sind die Lehren, die uns dieses Dreigetier gibt, wenn wir es betrachten können als eine große, mächtige Schrift, die zur Erklärung der Weltenrätsel in das Weltenall hineingeschrieben ist. Denn imGrunde genommen ist jegliches Ding im Weltenall ein Schriftzeichen, wenn wir es lesen können; namentlich, wenn wir den Zusammenhang lesen können, dann verstehen wir die Rätsel des Weltenalls.
Wie ist es doch bedeutungsvoll, sich sagen zu müssen: Was wir da tun, wenn wir messen mit dem Zirkel oder Maßstab, wenn wir mit der Waage wiegen, wenn wir zählen -, da stellen wir eigentlich etwas zusammen, was ja alles nur Fragment ist; ein Ganzes wird es, wenn wir die Kuhorganisation begreifen in ihrer inneren Geistigkeit. Das heißt lesen in den Geheimnissen des Weltenalls. Und dieses Lesen in den Geheimnissen des Weltenalls führt hinein in das Verständnis des Weltenund des Menschendaseins. Das ist moderne Initiationsweisheit. Das ist, was heute aus den Tiefen des Geisteslebens heraus gesprochen werden muß.
Es ist dem Menschen heute eigentlich schwer, Mensch zu sein. Denn, ich möchte sagen, der Mensch nimmt sich heute gegenüber dem Dreigetier aus wie die Antilope in der gestrigen Fabel, die ich Ihnen erzählt habe. Was sich vereinseitigen will, das nimmt besondere Form an. Der Löwe bleibt als Löwe, aber er will seine Raubtiergenossen als Metamorphosen haben für das andere Getier. Er verwendet für das, was eigentlich Adler ist, einen Raubtiergenossen, die Hyäne, die im Grunde genommen von dem Toten lebt, von jenem Toten, das in unserem Haupte erzeugt wird, das zu unserem Sterben fortwährend atomistische Stücke in jedem Augenblicke liefert. So daß diese Fabel den Adler durch die Hyäne ersetzt, durch die Verwesung verzehrende Hyäne, und an die Stelle der Kuh setzt der Löwe, dem Niedergange entsprechend — die Legende konnte aus der Negerkultur heraus entstehen -, seinen Raubtiergenossen, den Wolf. Und so haben wir in der Fabel das andere Dreigetier: den Löwen, die Hyäne, den Wolf. Wie heute sich die Lockrufe gegenüberstehen, so eigentlich steht sich gegenüber, ich möchte sagen, der kosmische Symbolismus, indem allmählich, wenn die Lockrufe ertönen, der Adler sich zur Erde senkt und zur Hyäne wird, und das Rind nicht mehr in heiliger geduldiger Art das Weltenali abbilden will, sondern zum reißenden Wolfe wird.
Dann haben wir die Möglichkeit, jene Legende, die ich Ihnen gestern am Schlusse erzählt habe, zu übersetzen aus der Negersprache in unsere moderne Zivilisationssprache. Gestern mußte ich Ihnen, ich möchte sagen, in der Negergesinnung erzählen: Es gingen auf die Jagd Löwe, Wolf und Hyäne. Sie erlegten eine Antilope. Die Hyäne sollte zunächst teilen; sie teilte nach Hyänenlogik und sagte: Ein Drittel einem jeden; ein Drittel dem Löwen, ein Drittel dem Wolf, ein Drittel mir. - Da wurde die Hyäne gefressen. Jetzt sagte der Löwe zum Wolf: Nun teile du. - Der Wolf sagte jetzt: Das erste Drittel bekommst du, weil du die Hyäne getötet hast, so gebührt dir auch der Anteil der Hyäne. Das zweite Drittel bekommst du, weil du ja ohnedies ein Drittel bekommen hättest nach dem Ausspruch der Hyäne, jeder hätte ein Drittel zu bekommen, so bekommst du also ein zweites Drittel. Das dritte Drittel bekommst auch du, weil du der Weiseste und Tapferste der Tiere bist. Und der Löwe sagte zum Wolf: Wer hat dich so vorzüglich das Teilen gelehrt? - Der Wolf sagte: Das hat mich die Hyäne gelehrt. - Die Logik ist bei beiden gleich, aber es kommt in der Wirklichkeitsanwendung etwas ganz anderes heraus, je nachdem die Hyäne, oder, mit den Erfahrungen der Hyäne, der Wolf die Logik anwendet. In der Anwendung der Logik auf die Wirklichkeit liegt das Wesentliche.
Nun, wir können auch, ich möchte sagen, ins modern Zivilisatorische übersetzt, etwas anders die Sache erzählen. Aber ich erzähle immer, beachten Sie das, ich erzähle immer dasjenige, worum es sich im großen Gang der Kultur handelt. Und da möchte ich sagen, modern ausgedrückt ließe sich die Erzählung vielleicht so machen: Die Antilope wird erlegt. Die Hyäne zieht sich zurück und gibt ein stummes Urteil ab; sie wagt es nicht, erst den Groll des Löwen zu erregen: sie zieht sich zurück. Sie gibt ein stummes Urteil ab, wartet im Hintergrunde. Der Löwe und der Wolf fangen nun an zu kämpfen um die Beute der Antilope, und kämpfen und kämpfen, und kämpfen so lange, bis sie sich so stark verwundet haben, daß sie beide an den Wunden sterben. Nun kommt die Hyäne und verzehrt Antilope und Wolf und Löwen, nachdem sie in die Verwesung übergegangen sind. Die Hyäne verbildlicht dasjenige, was im menschlichen Intellekt liegt, was das Ertötende in der Menschennatur ist. Sie ist die Kehrseite, die Karikatur der Adlerzivilisation.
Wenn Sie fühlen, was ich mit dieser Europäisierung der alten Negerfabel sagen will, dann werden Sie verstehen, daß heute eigentlich diese Dinge richtig verstanden werden sollten. Sie werden nur richtig verstanden, wenn dem dreifachen Lockruf, dem des Adlers, dem des Löwen, dem der Kuh, der Mensch entgegensetzen lernt seinen Spruch, den Spruch, der heute das Schibboleth des menschlichen Kraftens und Denkens und Wirkens sein sollte:
Ich muß lernen:
O Kuh,
Deine Kraft aus der Sprache,
Die die Sterne in mir offenbaren.
Nicht Erdenschwere, nicht bloß Wiegen, Zählen und Messen, nicht bloß dasjenige lernen, was in der physischen Organisation der Kuh liegt, sondern dasjenige, was in ihr verkörpert ist, das scheue Abwenden des Blicks von der Kuhorganisation zu dem, was sie verkörpert; hinaufwenden den Blick in die Höhen: dann, dann wird vergeistigt, was sonst mechanistische Zivilisation der Erde würde.
Das Zweite, wovon der Mensch sich sagen muß:
Ich muß lernen:
O Löwe,
Deine Kraft aus der Sprache,
Die in Jahr und Tag
Der Umkreis in mir wirket.
Achten Sie auf das «offenbaren», auf das «wirken»! Und das Dritte, was der Mensch lernen muß, ist:
O Adler:
Deine Kraft aus der Sprache,
Die das Erd-Entsprossene in mir erschafft.
So muß der Mensch seinen Dreispruch entgegensetzen den einseitigen Lockrufen, jenen Dreispruch, dessen Sinn die Einseitigkeiten zum harmonischen Ausgleich bringen kann. Er muß lernen, zur Kuh zu schauen, aber von der Kuh, nachdem er sie gründlich empfunden hat, aufzuschauen zu dem, was die Sprache der Sterne offenbart. Er muß lernen, aufzurichten den Blick zum Adler, und, nachdem er die Natur des Adlers gründlich in sich empfunden hat, mit dem Blick, mit dem, was ihm die Natur des Adlers gegeben hat, hinunterzuschauen auf das, was in der Erde sprießt und sproßt und auch im Menschen in seiner Organisation wirkt von unten herauf. Und er muß lernen, den Löwen so anzuschauen, daß ihm vom Löwen geoffenbart wird, was ihn umweht im Winde, anblitzt im Blitze, was um ihn herum grollt im Donner, was Wind und Wetter im Jahreslaufe in dem ganzen Erdenleben, in das der Mensch eingespannt ist, bewirken. Wenn der Mensch also - physischen Blick nach aufwärts mit nach abwärts gerichtetem Geistesblick, physischen Blick nach abwärts mit nach aufwärts gerichtetem Geistesblick, geradeaus nach Osten gerichteten physischen Blick mit geradeaus entgegengesetzt nach Westen gerichtetem Geistesblick -, wenn der Mensch also imstande ist, oben und unten und vorne und rückwärts, Geistesblick und physischen Blick einander durchdringen zu lassen, dann vermag er die wirklichen, die ihn kräftigenden und nicht schwächenden Rufe des Adlers aus den Höhen, des Löwen aus dem Umkreis, der Kuh aus dem Inneren der Erde zu vernehmen.
Das ist es, was der Mensch lernen soll über sein Verhältnis zum Weltenall, auf daß er immer geeigneter werde im Wirken für die Erdenzivilisation, und nicht dem Niedergange, sondern dem Aufgange diene.
Lerne mein Wesen erkennen!
Ich gebe dir die Kraft,
Im eignen Haupte
Ein Weltenall zu schaffen.—So spricht der Adler (Westen)
Lerne mein Wesen erkennen!
Ich gebe dir die Kraft,
Im Schein des Luftkreises
Das Weltenall zu verkörpern.—So spricht der Löwe (Mitte)
Lerne mein Wesen erkennen
Ich gebe dir die Kraft,
Waage, Meßlatte und Zahl
Dem Weltenall zu entreißen.So spricht die Kuh (Orient)
Ich muß lernen
O Kuh: deine Kraft
Aus der Sprache,
Die die Sterne in mir offenbaren —O Löwe: deine Kraft
Aus der Sprache,
Die in Jahr und Tag
Der Umkreis in mir wirketO Adler: deine Kraft
Aus der Sprache,
die das Erd-Entsprossene in mir erschafft.
Second Lecture
After we learned yesterday about the relationship between the animals of the heights, represented by the eagle, the animals of the middle, represented by the lion, and the animals of the depths of the earth, represented by the ox and the cow, we can now consider man's relationship to the universe from the point of view that arises from the inner formative relationship of man to these representatives of the animal world.
Let us look up into those regions of which we had to say yesterday: if they are the regions from which the animal draws its special powers, then they actually make the whole animal a head organization. Let us look up into these regions. There we see how the animal owes what it is to the sunlit atmosphere. It must be the sunlit atmosphere, everything that can be derived from the animal, so to speak, by the fact that it owes the main part of its existence to the atmosphere, which is sunlit. I told you yesterday that the actual design of the plumage comes from this. To a certain extent, the animal has its essence in the outside world. What the outside world makes of it is embodied in its plumage. And if what can be made of this sunlit air is not brought to the creature from the outside, as in the case of the eagle, but is excited from within, as from the human nervous system, then, I told you, thoughts arise, the thoughts of the moment, the thoughts of the immediate present.
Now, if we turn our gaze upwards in this way, I would like to say, weighed down with everything that arises from such contemplation, we are referred to the resting atmosphere and to the sunlight streaming through. But in such a case we cannot look at the sun in isolation. The sun receives its power from the fact that it enters into a relationship with the various regions of the universe. This relationship is expressed by the fact that man, with his knowledge, relates the effects of the sun to the so-called zodiac, so that when the sunshine falls to earth from Leo, Libra or Scorpio, it always means something different for the earth. But it also means something different for the earth, depending on whether it is strengthened or weakened by the other planets in our planetary system. And there are different relationships with the different planets in our planetary system. There are other relationships with the so-called outer planets Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and other relationships with the so-called inner planets Mercury, Venus and the Moon.
When we now consider the organization of the eagle, we have to look above all at the extent to which the solar forces are modified, strengthened or weakened by the interaction of the sun with Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. It is not for nothing that the legend says that the eagle is actually Jupiter's bird. Jupiter stands there as a representative of the outer planets. If we draw a schematic diagram of what this means, then we have to draw the sphere that Saturn has in the universe, in the cosmos, the sphere that Jupiter has, the sphere that Mars has.
Let us place this before our eyes: the sphere of Saturn, the sphere of Jupiter, the sphere of Mars; then we find the transition to the sphere of the sun, and we have, so to speak, in the outermost part of our planetary system an interaction of the sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. And when we see the eagle circling in the skies, then we are certainly expressing a reality when we say: Those forces that flow through the air from the sun, so that they are composed of the interaction of the sun with Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, are the ones that live in the whole form, in the essence of the eagle. But at the same time they live in the structure of the human head. And if we place man in relation to his real existence - one might say that on earth he is only in his miniature image - in the universe, then we must place him in the eagle sphere according to his head. We must therefore imagine man placed in the eagle sphere according to his head, and have thus given that in man which is connected with the forces upwards.
The lion is the representative of that animal which is in the true sense a solar animal, where the sun unfolds its own power, so to speak. The lion thrives best when the stars above the sun and the stars below the sun are constellated in such a way that they exert the least influence on the sun itself. Then that peculiarity arises which I described to you yesterday, that the forces of the sun itself, which penetrate the air, stimulate just such a respiratory system in Leo that this respiratory system in its rhythm is in complete equilibrium with the blood circulation rhythm, not in terms of numbers, but in terms of dynamics. This is beautifully balanced in Leo. The lion opposes the blood circulation with the respiratory inhibition, and the blood circulation continually stimulates the respiratory flow. I told you that this can even be seen in the shape of the lion's mouth. There this wonderful relationship between the blood rhythm and the respiratory rhythm is already expressed in form. You can see it in the lion's peculiar, inwardly resting and yet again boldly outwardly turned gaze. But that which lives in the lion's gaze lives in turn connected to the other elements of human nature, to the main organization, to the metabolic organization, in the chest or heart organization, in the rhythmic organization of the human being.
If we therefore place before us the actual effect of the sun, we must draw the human being according to the solar sphere in such a way that we place his heart and the corresponding lungs in the region of the sun's activity, and in this region we have the lion nature of the human being.
When we move on to the inner planets, to the planets close to the earth, then we first have the sphere of Mercury, which now has to do with the finer parts of the metabolic system, the metabolic organism of the human being, where the nutrients are transformed into the Iymph-like substance, where they are then transferred into the blood circulation.
If we then move on, we come to the region of the Venus effect. We come to the somewhat coarser parts of the human metabolic system, we come to what in the human organism first processes the ingested food from the stomach. We then come to the sphere of the moon. I am drawing this sequence as it is customary in astronomy today; I could also draw it differently. We now enter the sphere of the moon and come to the region where the human being is affected and influenced by those metabolic processes that are connected with the moon.
In this way we have placed the human being into the entire universe. By turning to those cosmic effects which the Sun accomplishes in union with Mercury, Venus and the Moon, we then enter the region which contains the forces which are absorbed by the animals represented to us by the cow in the sense in which I explained it yesterday. Here we have what the sun cannot do by itself, but what the sun can do when its forces are brought to the earth by the planets close to it. When these forces are all at work, when they not only flow through the air but also permeate the surface of the earth in various ways, then these forces work upwards from the depths of the earth. And that which works up from the depths of the earth belongs to the region that we see embodied externally in the organization of the cow.
The cow is the digestive animal. But the cow is at the same time the animal that carries out digestion in such a way that in this digestive process lies the earthly representation of something truly supernatural, that this whole digestive process of the cow is permeated by an astrality, brightly and wonderfully depicting the whole cosmos. There is - as I said yesterday - a whole world in this astral organism of the cow, but everything is carried by gravity, everything is so arranged that the gravity of the earth can have an effect. You need only consider that the cow is compelled to take in about an eighth of its body weight in food every day. A human being can make do with one fortieth and remain healthy. The cow therefore needs earthly gravity in order to be able to fully complete its organization. Her organization is oriented towards the substances having weight. One eighth of the cow's weight must be replaced every day. This binds the cow with its matter to the earth, while at the same time, through its astrality, it is an image of the heights, of the cosmos.
That is why, as I said yesterday, the cow is such a venerable object for the followers of the Hindu religion, because they can say to themselves: The cow lives here on earth; just by living here on earth, it represents in the physical gravity-matter, one can already say, a supernatural, if one speaks in the sense of the confessor of the Hindu religion. And it is certainly the case that human nature has its normal organization when man can bring these three cosmic effects, united in eagle, lion and cow, into harmony, when he is really the confluence of the eagle, lion and cow or bull effects.
But according to the general course of the world, we are living in a time in which the development of the world is threatened by a certain danger - if I may express myself thus - the danger that the one-sided effects will also really find one-sided expression in man. Since the 14th and 15th centuries, and intensifying more and more up to the present day, the situation in the earthly development of mankind has been such that the eagle effects want to make one-sided use of the human head, the lion effects want to make one-sided use of the human rhythm, the cow effects want to make one-sided use of the human metabolism and all human activity on earth.
This is the signature of our time, that man is to be divided into three, so to speak, by the cosmic powers, and that one form of the cosmic powers always endeavors to suppress the other elements. The eagle endeavors to throw the lion and the cow down into insignificance; likewise the others endeavor to let the other two elements sink into insignificance. And that which is the human subconscious is actually constantly being acted upon by something extraordinarily tempting, especially at the present time; tempting for the very reason that it is also beautiful in a certain respect. Today man does not perceive it in his superconscious, but for his subconscious the world waves and resounds with a trinity of calls that want to entice man. And I would like to say that it is the secret of the present time that what actually makes the eagle an eagle, what gives the eagle its plumage, what astrally surrounds the eagle, sounds down from the eagle region. It is the eagle being itself that becomes audible to the subconscious of man. This is the enticing call:
Learn to recognize my being!
I give you the power,
In your own head
To create a universe.
Thus speaks the eagle. This is the call from above that wants to unite people today.
And there is a second call. This is the one that comes from the middle region, where the forces of the cosmos form the lion nature, where the forces of the cosmos, from the confluence of sun and air, bring about the balance of rhythms, breathing and blood circulation that constitutes the lion nature. What trembles through the air, I would like to say in the lion's sense, what wants to unify man's own rhythmic system, speaks to the subconscious of man today in a tempting way:
Learn to recognize my nature!
I give you the strength,
In the glow of the circle of air
To embody the universe.
Thus speaks the lion.
And more than you think, these voices that speak to the subconscious of man have an effect. Yes, my dear friends, various human organizations on earth are especially organized to receive these effects. For example, everything that inhabits the West is especially organized to be enticed, to be seduced by the voice of the eagle. American culture, in particular, through the special organization of its humanity, is exposed to the seduction of what the eagle speaks. The European center, which contains much of what ancient culture is, which contains much of what caused Goethe, for example, to make the journey to Italy to free his life, is particularly exposed to what the lion speaks.
Oriental civilization is above all exposed to what the cow speaks. And just as the two other animals resound in their cosmic representation, the call of that which lives in the heaviness of the cow resounds, one might say, from the depths of the earth, as if rumbling, roaring. It is really as I described it to you yesterday: that one sees the herd, which is grazing full, lying in its peculiar way, surrendering to the heaviness of the earth, in a form which expresses this subjection to the heaviness of the earth, this subjection to the circumstance that every day it has to replace an eighth of its own body weight for its own weight. Added to this is the fact that the depths of the earth, which under the influence of the sun, Mercury, Venus and the moon bring about all this in the nutritional organization of the cow, that these depths of the earth resound through such a herd as if with demonic rumbling power with the words:
Learn to recognize my nature!
I give you the power,
Scales, yardstick and number
To snatch from the universe.
So speaks the cow. And the Orient in particular is exposed to this lure. Only the matter is meant in such a way that the Orient is at first exposed to this lure of the cow, because it has the old cow worship in Hinduism, but that if this lure were really to take hold of mankind in such a way that that which arises from this lure would prevail, then precisely that which works from the Orient would manifest itself through the Middle and the West as a civilization that hinders progress and brings about decline. The earth-demonic forces would have a one-sided effect on earth civilization. Because what would actually happen then?
What would happen then is the following: In the course of the last few centuries we have acquired a technology on earth that is under the influence of external science, an external technical life. Our technology is wonderful in all areas. The forces of nature are at work in technology in its lifeless form. And what is needed to bring these forces of nature into play, to make them, so to speak, completely into a stratification of civilization above the earth, is scale, measuring rod and number.
Scales, the yardstick, weighing, counting, measuring, that is the ideal of today's scientist, today's technician, who actually has his whole profession today from external science. We have come so far that an eminent mathematician of the present day gives the following answer to the question: What guarantees existence? - gives the following answer. Well, the philosophers of all times have tried to answer the question: What is actually real? -to answer it. This important physicist says: That which can be measured is real; that which cannot be measured is not real. - It is the ideal, so to speak, to view everything that exists in such a way that it can be brought into the laboratory and weighed, measured and counted, and from what is weighed, measured and counted, we then actually compile what is still valid as science, which then flows out into technology. Number, measure and weight have become the things that are supposed to provide orientation for the whole of civilization, so to speak.
Now, as long as people only use their intellect to measure, count and weigh, it is not particularly bad. People may be very clever, but they are nowhere near as clever as the universe. Therefore, it can't be particularly bad as long as people only dabble in measuring, weighing and counting in relation to the universe, so to speak. But if today's civilization were to turn into initiation, then it would be bad if it were to stick to its way of thinking. And that could happen if the civilization of the West, which is completely dominated by scales, measures and counting, were to be flooded by what could happen in the Orient: that through initiation science it would be possible to fathom what actually lives spiritually in the organization of the cow. For if you penetrate into the organization of the cow, if you learn to recognize how this eighth of food substances, burdened with earthly heaviness, with everything that can be weighed, measured and counted, learn what spiritually organizes this earthly heaviness in the cow, learn to recognize this whole organism of the cow as it lies on the pasture and digests and in its digestion brings wonderful things from the universe astrally to revelation: Then you will learn to harness the weighed, measured and counted into a system with which you can overcome all other civilization and give the whole globe only a civilization that only weighs, counts and measures and makes everything else disappear from civilization. For what would the initiation of the cow organization result in? That is a profound question, a tremendously significant question. What would that result in?
Yes, the way in which machines are constructed, for example, is very different, depending on the individual machines; but everything tends towards the fact that the still imperfect, primitive machines will gradually become machines based on vibrations: where something vibrates, and where the effect of the machine is achieved through vibrations, through oscillation, through periodic movements. Everything boils down to such machines. But when we are able to construct these machines in their interaction, as we can learn from the distribution of food in the organization of the cow, then the vibrations produced on the globe by the machines, these small earth vibrations, will proceed in such a way that what happens on earth will resonate, resonate with what happens above the earth; that our planetary system will have to resonate in its movements with our earth system, just as a suitably tuned string resonates when another is struck in the same space.
This is the terrible law of the resonance of vibrations, which would be fulfilled if the cow's lure were to seduce the Orient, so that it could then penetrate in a convincing manner the spiritless, purely mechanistic civilization of the West and the Centre, and thereby a mechanistic system could be created on earth which is exactly fitted into the mechanistic system of the universe. Thus everything that is air effect, orbital effect, and everything that is star effect, would be eradicated in human civilization. That which man experiences, for example, through the course of the year, that which he experiences by participating in the sprouting, budding life of spring, the dying, paralyzing life of autumn, all this would lose its significance for man. Human civilization would be resounded by the clambering clatter of the vibrating machines and the echo of this clambering clatter that would stream in from the cosmos to the earth as a reaction of the earth mechanism.
If you consider a part of what is at work in the present, you will say to yourself: a part of our present civilization is well on the way to having this terrible decline as its goal.
Now just think, if the center were enticed by what the lion speaks, then the danger that I have just described would not exist. The mechanisms would gradually disappear from the face of the earth. Civilization would not become a mechanical one, but man would be devoted in a one-sided way to everything that lives in the wind and weather, in the course of the year. Man would be harnessed into the course of the year, and he would thus have to live in particular in the interrelation of his respiratory rhythm and circulation rhythm. He would develop within himself that which his involuntary life can give him. He would, so to speak, develop his chest nature in particular. As a result, however, such an egoism would come over the civilization of the earth that everyone would actually only want to live for himself, that no one would care about anything other than the well-being of the present. Exposed to this is the civilization of the middle, which could well impose such a life on earth civilization.
And again, if the lure of the eagle were to entice the West, so that it would succeed in spreading its way of thinking and attitude over the whole earth and to unite itself in this way of thinking and attitude, then the urge would arise in humanity in general to make direct contact with the supernatural world that was once there, that was there at the end of the earth, at the beginning of the earth. One would get the urge to erase what man has achieved in his freedom and independence. One would come to live only in that unconscious will which lets the gods live in the human muscles and nerves. One would return to primitive states, to original, primitive clairvoyance. Man would seek to get away from the earth by returning to the beginning of the earth.
I would like to say that for the exact clairvoyant gaze this is even more substantiated by the fact that the grazing cow actually penetrates him again and again with a kind of voice that says: Do not look upwards; all power comes from the earth. Familiarize yourself with all that lies in the earth's workings. You will become the master of the earth. You will make permanent that which you acquire on earth. - Indeed, if man were to succumb to this lure, then the very danger of which I have spoken could not be eliminated: the mechanization of earthly civilization. For the astral nature of the digestive animal wants to make the present permanent, to perpetuate the present. Out of the lion organization emerges that which does not want to make the present permanent, but that which wants to make the present as fleeting as possible, that which wants to make everything a play of the course of the year, which always repeats itself, that which wants to rise in wind and weather, in the play of the sun's rays, in the air. Civilization would also take on this character.
The eagle, if one really looks at it with understanding as it soars through the air, appears as if it carried on its plumage the memory of what was there at the point of origin on earth. It has preserved in its plumage the forces that have worked from above into the earth. One might say that every eagle can see the millennia on earth, and that it has not touched the earth with its physical body except to grasp its prey, and certainly not to satisfy its own life. But it circles in the air when it wants to cultivate this life of its own, because it is indifferent to what has become on earth, because it derives its joy and enthusiasm from the forces of the air, because it even despises earthly life and wants to live in that element in which the earth itself lived when it was not yet earth, but when it still asserted itself with heavenly forces at the beginning of its earthly existence. The eagle is the proud animal that did not want to take part in the solid earth development, that withdrew from the influence of this more solid earth development, and that only wanted to remain united with those forces that were at the earth starting point.
These are the teachings that this triune animal gives us, if we can regard it as a great, mighty scripture that is written into the universe to explain the riddles of the world. For basically, every thing in the universe is a character if we can read it; in particular, if we can read the context, then we understand the riddles of the universe.
How meaningful it is to have to say to ourselves: What we do there, when we measure with the compass or scale, when we weigh with the scales, when we count - we are actually putting something together that is only a fragment; it becomes a whole when we understand the cow organization in its inner spirituality. That means reading in the secrets of the universe. And this reading in the secrets of the universe leads into the understanding of the world and human existence. This is modern initiatory wisdom. This is what must be spoken today from the depths of spiritual life.
It is actually difficult for people today to be human. Because, I would like to say, man today is like the antelope in yesterday's fable that I told you. What wants to unite takes on a special form. The lion remains a lion, but he wants to have his fellow predators as metamorphoses for the other animals. For what is actually the eagle, he uses a fellow predator, the hyena, which basically lives from the dead, from that dead which is produced in our head, which continually supplies atomistic pieces to our dying at every moment. So that this fable replaces the eagle by the hyena, by the hyena that consumes decay, and in place of the cow the lion, in accordance with the decline - the legend could arise out of the Negro culture - puts his fellow predator, the wolf. And so we have the other three animals in the fable: the lion, the hyena and the wolf. Just as the lure calls face each other today, so actually, I would say, the cosmic symbolism faces each other, in that gradually, when the lure calls sound, the eagle lowers itself to the earth and becomes a hyena, and the bovine no longer wants to depict the worldly ali in a holy, patient manner, but becomes a ravening wolf.
Then we have the opportunity to translate the legend I told you yesterday at the end from the Negro language into our modern civilized language. Yesterday I had to tell you, I might say, in the Negro tongue: A lion, a wolf and a hyena went hunting. They killed an antelope. The hyena was supposed to share first; it divided according to hyena logic and said: One third to each; one third to the lion, one third to the wolf, one third to me. - Then the hyena was eaten. Now the lion said to the wolf: Now you share. - The wolf now said: You get the first third because you killed the hyena, so you are also entitled to the hyena's share. You get the second third because you would have gotten a third anyway after the hyena said that everyone should get a third, so you get a second third. You also get the third third because you are the wisest and bravest of the animals. And the lion said to the wolf: Who taught you so well how to share? - The wolf said: The hyena taught me that. - The logic is the same for both, but in the application to reality something quite different emerges, depending on whether the hyena or, with the hyena's experience, the wolf applies the logic. The essence lies in the application of logic to reality.
Now, we can also, I would say, translated into modern civilizational terms, tell the story somewhat differently. But I always tell the story, please note, I always tell the story of what is at stake in the great course of culture. And I would like to say that, in modern terms, the story could perhaps be told like this: The antelope is killed. The hyena withdraws and gives a silent verdict; it does not dare to arouse the lion's resentment first: it withdraws. She gives a silent verdict, waits in the background. The lion and the wolf now begin to fight over the antelope's prey, and fight and fight and fight until they have wounded each other so badly that they both die of their wounds. Now the hyena comes and consumes the antelope and the wolf and the lion after they have passed into decay. The hyena symbolizes that which lies in the human intellect, that which is killing in human nature. It is the flip side, the caricature of eagle civilization.
If you feel what I want to say with this Europeanization of the old Negro fable, then you will understand that today these things should actually be understood correctly. They will only be understood correctly if man learns to counter the threefold call, that of the eagle, that of the lion, that of the cow, with his saying, the saying which today should be the shibboleth of human power and thought and action:
I must learn:
O cow,
Your power from language,
Which the stars reveal in me.
Not earthly heaviness, not merely weighing, counting and measuring, not merely learning that which lies in the physical organization of the cow, but that which is embodied in it, the shy turning away of the gaze from the cow's organization to that which it embodies; turning the gaze upwards into the heights: then, then is spiritualized what would otherwise become the mechanistic civilization of the earth.
The second thing of which man must tell himself:
I must learn:
O Lion,
Your power from language,
Which in year and day
The circumference works in me.
Pay attention to the “reveal”, to the “work”! And the third thing man must learn is:
O Eagle:
Your power from speech,
Which creates the earth-sprouted in me.
So man must set his triad against the one-sided calls, that triad whose meaning can bring the one-sidedness to a harmonious balance. He must learn to look to the cow, but to look up from the cow, after he has thoroughly felt it, to what the language of the stars reveals. He must learn to raise his gaze to the eagle, and, after he has thoroughly felt the nature of the eagle within himself, to look down with his gaze, with what the nature of the eagle has given him, to what sprouts and sprouts in the earth and also works in man in his organization from below. And he must learn to look at the lion in such a way that the lion reveals to him what blows around him in the wind, what flashes in the lightning, what rumbles around him in the thunder, what wind and weather in the course of the year bring about in the whole earthly life in which man is involved. So when man - physical gaze upwards with spiritual gaze directed downwards, physical gaze downwards with spiritual gaze directed upwards, physical gaze directed straight ahead to the east with spiritual gaze directed straight ahead in the opposite direction to the west -, If man is thus able to let above and below and forward and backward, spiritual sight and physical sight penetrate each other, then he is able to hear the real calls of the eagle from the heights that strengthen and not weaken him, of the lion from the periphery, of the cow from the interior of the earth.
This is what man should learn about his relationship to the universe, so that he may become ever more suitable in his work for earthly civilization, and serve not the decline but the rise.
Learn to recognize my nature! I give you the strength,
In your own head
To create a universe.So says the eagle (west)
Learn to recognize my nature! I give you the power,
In the glow of the circle of air
To embody the universe.Thus speaks the lion (center)
Learn to recognize my essence
I give you the power,
Scales, yardstick and number
To snatch from the universe.Thus speaks the cow (Orient)
I must learn
O cow: your power
From the language,
Which the stars reveal in me -O lion: your strength
From the language,
Which in year and day
The circumference within me worksO Eagle: your power
From the language,
which creates the earth-sprouted in me.