Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation
GA 233a
11 January 1924, Dornach
IV. The Relationship of Earthly Man to the Sun
What I have been telling you in recent lectures requires to be carried a little further. I have tried to give you a picture of the flow of spiritual knowledge through the centuries, and of the form it has taken in recent times, and I have been able to show how from the fifteenth until the end of the eighteenth or even the beginning of the nineteenth century, the spiritual knowledge that was present before that period as clear and concrete albeit instinctive knowledge, showed itself in this later age more in a devotion of heart and soul to the Spiritual, to all that is of the Spirit in the world.
We have seen how the knowledge man possessed of Nature and of how the spiritual world works in Nature, is still present in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In a personality like Agrippa of Nettesheim, whom I have described in my book Mysticism and Modern Thought, we have one who was still fully possessed of the knowledge, for example, that in the several planets of our system are spiritual Beings of quite definite character and kind.
In his writings, Agrippa of Nettesheim assigns to each single planet what he calls the Intelligence of the planet. This points to traditions which were still extant from olden times, and even in his day were something more than traditions. To look up to a planet in the way that became customary in later Astronomy and is still customary today, would have been utterly impossible to a man like Agrippa of Nettesheim. The external planet, nay, every external star was no more than a sign, an announcement, so to say, of the presence of spiritual Beings, to whom one could look up with the eye of the soul, when one looked in the direction of the star. And Agrippa of Nettesheim knew that the Beings who are united with the single stars are the Beings who rule the inner existence of the star or the planet, rule also the movements of the planet in the Universe, the whole activity of the particular star. And such Beings he called: the Intelligence of the star.
Agrippa knew also how, at the same time, hindering Beings work from the star, Beings who undermine the good deeds of the star. They too work from out of the star and also into it; and these Beings he called Demons of the star. And together with this knowledge went an understanding of the Earth, that saw in the Earth too a heavenly body having its Intelligence and its Demon. The understanding however for star Intelligence and star Demonology was little by little completely lost, with all that was involved in it. What was essentially involved in it may be expressed in the following way.
The Earth was of course looked upon as ruled in her inner activity, in her movement in the Cosmos, by Intelligences whom one could bring together under the name of the Intelligence of the Earth star. But what was the Intelligence of the Earth star, for the men of Agrippa's time? It is exceedingly difficult today even to speak of these things, because the ideas of men have travelled very far away from what was accepted as a matter of course in those times by men of insight and understanding. The Intelligence of the Earth star was Man himself, the human being as such. They saw in Man a being who had received a task from the Spirituality of the Worlds, not merely, as modern man imagines, to walk about on the Earth, or to travel about it in trains, to buy and sell, to write books, and so forth and so forth—no, they conceived Man as a being to whom the World-Spirit had given the task to rule and regulate the Earth, to bring law and order into all that has to do with the place of the Earth in the Cosmos. Their conception of Man was expressed by saying: Through what he is, through the forces and powers he bears within his being, Man gives to the Earth the impulse for her movement around the Sun, for her movement further in Universal Space.
There was in very truth still a feeling for this. It was known that the task had once been allotted to Man, that Man had really been made the Lord of the Earth by the World-Spirituality, but in the course of his evolution had not shown himself equal to the task, had fallen from his high estate. When men are speaking of knowledge nowadays it is very seldom that one hears even a last echo of this view. What we find in religious belief concerning the Fall really goes back ultimately to this idea; for there the point is that originally Man had quite another position on the Earth and in the Universe from the position he takes today; he has fallen from his high estate. Setting aside however this religious conception and considering the realm of thought, where men think they have knowledge that they have attained by definite and correct methods, it is only here and there that we can still find today an echo of the ancient knowledge that once proceeded from instinctive clairvoyance, and that was well aware of Man's task and of his Fall into his present narrow limitations.
It may still happen, for example, that one may have a conversation with a person—I am here relating facts—who has thought very deeply, who has also acquired very deep knowledge concerning this or that matter in the spiritual realm. The conversation turns on whether Man, as he stands on Earth today, is really a creature who is self-contained, who carries his whole being and nature within him. And such a personality as I have described will say to you, that this cannot be. Man must really in his nature be a far more comprehensive being—otherwise he could not have the striving he has now, he could not develop the great idealism of which we can see such fine and lofty examples; in his true nature Man must be a great and comprehensive being, who has somehow or other committed a cosmic sin, as a consequence of which he has been banished within the limits of this present earthly existence, so that today he is really sitting imprisoned as it were in a cage. You may still meet with this view here and there as a late straggler, as it were. But speaking generally, where shall we find one who accounts himself a scientist, who seriously occupies himself with these great and far-reaching questions? And yet it is only by facing them that man can ever find his way to an existence worthy of him as man.
It was, then, really so that Man was regarded as the bearer of the Intelligence of the Earth. But now, a person like Agrippa of Nettesheim ascribed to the Earth also a Demon. When we go back to the twelfth or thirteenth century, we find this Demon of the Earth to be a Being who could only become what he became on the Earth, because he found in Man the tool for his activity.
In order to understand this, we must acquaint ourselves with the way men thought about the relationship of the Earth to the Sun, or of Earthly man to the Sun, in those days. And if I am now to describe to you how they understood this relationship, then I must again speak in Imaginations: for these things will not suffer themselves to be confined in abstract concepts. Abstract concepts came later, and they are very far from being able to span the truth; we have therefore to speak in pictures, in Imaginations.
Although, as I have described in my Outline of Occult Science, the Sun separated itself from the Earth, or rather separated the Earth off from itself, it is nevertheless the original abode of Man. For ever since the beginning of the Saturn existence Man was united with the whole planetary system including the Sun. Man has not his home on Earth, he has on Earth only a temporary resting place. He is in truth, according to the view that prevailed in those olden times, a Sun-being. He is united in his whole being and existence with the Sun. And since this is so, he ought as a being of the Sun to stand quite differently on the Earth than he actually does. He ought to stand on the Earth in such a way that it should suffice for the Earth to have the impulse to bring forth the seed of Man in etheric form from out of the mineral and plant kingdoms, and the Sun then to fructify the seed brought forth from the Earth. Thence should arise the etheric human form, which should itself establish its own relationship to the physical substances of the Earth, and itself take on Earth substantiality. The contemporaries of Agrippa of Nettesheim—Agrippa's own knowledge was, unfortunately, somewhat clouded, but better contemporaries of his did really hold the view that Man ought not to be born in the earthly way he now is, but Man ought really to come to being in his etheric body through the interworking of Sun and Earth, and only afterwards, going about the Earth as an etheric being, give himself earthly form. The seeds of Man should grow up out of the Earth with the purity of plant-life, appearing here and there as ethereal fruits of the Earth, darkly shining; these should then in a certain season of the year be overshone, as it were, by the light of the Sun, and thereby assume human form, but etheric still; then Man should draw to himself physical substance—not from the body of the mother, but from the Earth and all that is thereon, incorporating it into himself from the kingdoms of the Earth. Thus—they thought—should have been the manner of Man's appearance on the Earth, in accordance with the purposes of the Spirit of the Worlds.
And the development that came later was due to the fact that Man had allowed to awaken within him too deep an urge, too intense a desire for the earthly and material. Thereby he forfeited his connection with the Sun and the Cosmos, and could only find his existence on Earth in the form of the stream of inheritance. Thereby, however, the Demon of the Earth began his work; for the Demon of the Earth would not have been able to do anything with men who were Sun-born. When Sun-born man came to dwell on the Earth, he would have been in very truth the Fourth Hierarchy. And one would have had to speak of Man in the following manner. One would have had to say: First Hierarchy: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Second Hierarchy: Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes; Third Hierarchy: Angels, Archangels, Archai; Fourth Hierarchy: Man—three different shades or gradations of the human, but none the less making the Fourth Hierarchy.
But because Man gave rein to his strong impulses in the direction of the physical, he became, not the being on the lowest branch, as it were, of the Hierarchies, but instead the being at the summit of the highest branch of the earthly kingdoms: mineral kingdom, plant kingdom, animal kingdom, human kingdom. This was the picture of how Man stood in the world.
Moreover, because Man does not find his proper task on the Earth, the Earth herself has not her right and worthy position in the Cosmos. For since Man has fallen, the true Lord of the Earth is not there. What has happened? The true Lord of the Earth is not there, and it became necessary for the Earth, not being governed from herself in her place in the Cosmos, to be ruled from the Sun; so that the tasks that should really be carried out on Earth fell to the Sun. The man of mediaeval times looked up to the Sun and said: In the Sun are certain Intelligences. They determine the movement of the Earth in the Cosmos; they govern what happens on the Earth. Man ought, in reality, to do this; the Sun-forces ought to work on Earth through Man for the existence of the Earth. Hence that significant mediaeval conception that was expressed in the words: The Sun, the unlawful Prince of this world.
And now reflect, my dear friends, how infinitely the Christ Impulse was deepened through such conceptions. The Christ became, for these mediaeval men, the Spirit Who was not willing to find His further task on the Sun, Who would not remain among those who directed the Earth in unlawful manner from without. He wanted to take His path from the Sun to the Earth, to enter into the destiny of Man and the destiny of Earth, to experience Earth events and pass along the ways of Earth evolution, sharing the lot of Man and of Earth.
Therewith, for mediaeval man, the Christ is the one Being Who in the Cosmos saved the task of Man on the Earth. Now you have the connection. Now you can see why, in Rosicrucian times, it was again and again impressed upon the pupil: “O Man, thou art not what thou art; the Christ had to come, to take from thee thy task, in order that He might perform it for thee.”
A great deal in Goethe's Faust has come down from mediaeval conceptions, although Goethe himself did not understand this. Recall, my dear friends, how Faust conjures up the Earth Spirit. With these mediaeval conceptions in mind, we can enter with feeling and understanding into how this Earth Spirit speaks.—
In the tides of Life,
In Action's storm,
A fluctuant wave,
A shuttle free,
Birth and the Grave,
An eternal Sea,
A weaving, flowing
Life, all glowing:
Thus at Time's humming loom ‘tis my hand prepares
The garment of Life which the Deity wears.
Who is it that Faust is really conjuring up? Goethe himself, when he was writing Faust, most assuredly did not fully know. But if we go back from Goethe to the mediaeval Faust and listen to this mediaeval Faust in whom Rosicrucian wisdom was living, then we learn how he too wanted to conjure up a spirit. But whom did he want to conjure up in the Earth Spirit? He did not ever speak of the Earth Spirit, he spoke of Man. The deep longing and striving of mediaeval man was: to be Man. For he felt and knew that as Earth man he is not truly Man. How can manhood be found again? The way Faust is rebuffed, pushed on one side by the Earth Spirit is a picture of how man in his earthly form is rebuffed by his own being. And this is why many accounts of conversion to Christianity in the Middle Ages show such extraordinary depth of feeling. They are filled with the sense that men have striven to attain the manhood that is lost, and have had to give up in despair, have rightly despaired of being able to find in themselves, within earthly physical life, this true and genuine manhood; and so they have arrived at the point where they must say: Human striving for true manhood must be abandoned, earthly man must leave it to the Christ to fulfil the task of the Earth.
In this time, when man's relation to true manhood as well as his relation to the Christ was still understood in what I would call a superpersonal-personal manner—in this time Spirit-knowledge, Spirit-vision was still a real thing, it was still a content of experience. It ceased to be so with the fifteenth century. Then came the tremendous change, which no one really understood. But those who know of such things know how in the fifteenth, in the sixteenth centuries, and even later, there was a Rosicrucian school, isolated, scarcely known to the world, where over and over again a few pupils were educated, and where above all, care was taken that one thing should not be forgotten but be preserved as a holy tradition. And this was the following.—I will give it to you in narrative form.
Let us say, a new pupil arrived at this lonely spot to receive preparation. The so-called Ptolemaic system was first set before him, in its true form, as it had been handed down from olden times, not in the trivial way it is explained nowadays as something that has been long ago supplanted, but in an altogether different way. The pupil was shown how the Earth really and truly bears within herself the forces that are needed to determine her path through the Universe. So that to have a correct picture of the World, it must be drawn in the old Ptolemaic sense: the Earth must be for Man in the centre of the Universe, and the other stars in their corresponding revolutions be controlled and directed by the Earth. And the pupil was told: If one really studies what are the best forces in the Earth, then one can arrive at no other conception of the World than this. In actual fact, however, it is not so. It is not so on account of man's sin. Through man's sin, the Earth—so to speak, in an unauthorised, wrongful way—has gone over into the kingdom of the Sun; the Sun has become the regent and ruler of earthly activities. Thus, in contradistinction to a World-System given by the Gods to men with the Earth in the centre, could now be set another World-System, that has the Sun in the centre, and the Earth revolving round the Sun—it is the system of Copernicus.
And the pupil was taught that here is a mistake in the Cosmos, a mistake in the Universe brought about by human sin. This knowledge was entrusted to the pupil and he had to engrave it deeply in his heart and soul.—Men have overthrown the old World-System (so did the teacher speak) and set another in its place; and they do not know that this other, which they take to be correct, is the outcome of their own human guilt. It is really nothing else than the expression, the revelation of human guilt, and yet men take it to be the right and correct view. What has happened in recent times? (The teacher is speaking to the pupil.) Science has suffered a downfall through the guilt of man. Science has become a science of the Demon.
About the end of the eighteenth century such communications became impossible, but until that time there were always pupils here and there of some lonely Rosicrucian School, who received their spiritual nourishment imbued as it were with this feeling, with this deep understanding.
Even such a man as Leibnitz, the great philosopher, was led by his own thought and deliberation to try and find somewhere a place of learning where the relation between the Copernican and Ptolemaic Systems could be correctly formulated. But he was not able to find any such place.
Things like this need to be known if one is to understand aright, in all its shades of meaning, the great change that has come about in the last centuries in the way man looks on himself and on the Universe. And with this weakening of man's living connection with himself, with this estrangement of man from himself came afterwards the tendency to cling to the external intellect that today rules all. Is this external intellect verily human experience? No, for were it human experience, it could not live so externally in mankind as it does. The intellect has really no sort of connection with what is individual and personal, with the single individual man; it is well nigh a convention. It does not flow out of inner human experience; rather it approaches man as something outside him.
You may feel how the intellect became external by comparing the way in which Aristotle himself imparted his Logic to his pupils with the way in which it was taught much later, say in the seventeenth century.—You will remember how Kant says that Aristotle's Logic has not advanced since his time.—In the time of Aristotle, Logic was still thoroughly human. When a man was taught to think logically, he had a feeling as though—if again I may be allowed to express myself in imaginative terms—as though he were thrusting his head into cold water and thereby became estranged from himself for a moment; or else he had a feeling such as Alexander expressed when Aristotle wanted to impart Logic to him: You are pressing together all the bones of my head! It is the feeling of something external. But in the seventeenth century this externality was taken as a matter of course. Men learned how from the major and minor premise the consequent must be deduced. They learned what we find treated so ironically in Goethe's Faust:
“The first was so, the second so.
Therefore the third and fourth are so:
Were not the first and second, then
The third and fourth had never been!
There will your mind be drilled and braced,
As if in Spanish boots ‘twere laced!”
Whether, like Alexander, one feels the bones of one's head all pressed together, or whether one is laced up in Spanish boots with all this First, Second, Third, Fourth—we have in either case a true picture of what one feels.
But this externality of abstract thought was no longer felt in the time when Logic began to be taught in the schools. Today of course this has more or less ceased. Logic is no longer specifically taught in the schools. It is rather as if there had once been a time when hundreds and hundreds of people had put on the same uniform under direction, and done it with enthusiasm, and then afterwards there came a time when they did it of their own free will without giving it a thought.
During all the time however when the Logic of the abstract was gaining the upper hand, the old spiritual knowledge was incapable of going forward. Hence we see it in its turn becoming external, and assuming a form of which examples are to be found in the writings of Eliphas Levi or the publications of Saint-Martin. These are the last offshoots of the old Spirit-knowledge and Spirit-vision.
What do we find in a book such as Eliphas Levi's, The Dogma and Ritual of High Magic? In the first place there are all kinds of signs—Triangles, Pentagrams and so forth. We find words from languages in use in bygone ages, especially from the Hebrew. And we find that what in earlier times was life and at the same time knowledge that could pass over into man's action and into man's ideas—this we find has become bereft of ideas on the one hand, and on the other hand has degenerated into external magic. There is speculation as to the symbolic meaning of this or that sign, concerning all of which the modern man, if he is honest, would have to confess that he can find nothing particular in it. There are also practices connected with all manner of rites, while those who spoke of these rites and frequently practised them were far from having any clear notion at all of their spiritual connection. Such books are invariably pointers to what was once understood in olden times, was once an inward knowledge-experience, but when Eliphas Levi, for example, was writing his books, was no longer understood. As for Saint-Martin—of him I have already written in the Goetheanum Weekly.
Thus we see how what had once been interwoven into the soul-and-spirit of man's life, could not he held there but fell a victim to complete want of understanding. The common impulse and striving for the Divine that shows itself in the feeling of man from the fifteenth to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is genuine and true. Beautiful things are to be found in this impulse, things lovely and sublime. Much that has come from these times and that is far too little noticed today has about it as it were a magic breath—the genuine spell of the Spiritual.
Side by side, however, with all this, a seed is sprouting, the seed of the lack of understanding of old spiritual truths. We have therewith a hardening, ossifying process, and a growing impossibility to approach the Spiritual in a way that is in accord with the age. We come across men of the eighteenth century who speak of a downfall of all that is human, and of the rise of a terrible materialism. Often it seems as though what these men of the eighteenth century say applies just as well to our own time. And yet it is not so; what they say does not apply to the last two-thirds of the nineteenth century. For in the nineteenth century a further stage has been reached. What was still regarded in the eighteenth century with a certain abhorrence on account of its demoniacal character, has come to be taken quite as a matter of course. The men of the nineteenth century had not the power to say: Copernicus!—Yes; but such a conception of the Universe was only able to arise because man did not become on Earth that which he should have become, and so the Earth was left without a ruler, and the rulership passed over to the unrighteous lords of the world (the expression occurs again and again in mediaeval writings), these took over the leadership of the Earth—even as the Christ left the Sun and united Himself with the destiny of the Earth.
Only now, at the end of the nineteenth century, has it again become possible to look into these things with a clear vision such as man possessed in olden times; only now in the Michael Age has the possibility come again. We have spoken repeatedly of the dawn of the Michael Age, and of its character. But there are tasks that belong to this Michael Age, and it is possible now to point to these tasks, after all that we have been considering in the Christmas Meeting and since, about the evolution of Spirit-vision throughout the centuries.
Vierter Vortrag
Es obliegt mir, noch einiges Ergänzendes hinzuzufügen zu den Auseinandersetzungen, die ich in den letzten Zeiten hier gemacht habe. Ich habe versucht darzustellen, wie der Gang der geistigen Erkenntnis durch die Jahrhunderte war und welche Gestalt er dann gerade in den neuesten Zeiten angenommen hat, und ich konnte darstellen, wie etwa vom 15. Jahrhundert ab bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts, ja bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts, der Verlauf der war, daß dasjenige, was früher in einer konkreten, wenn auch instinktiven Erkenntnis da war, sich eigentlich in dieser Zeit mehr ausgelebt hat in einem gefühlsmäßigen Hingegebensein an das Geistige der Welt überhaupt.
Wir sehen ja, wie die realen Erkenntnisse der Menschen in bezug auf die Natur, in bezug auf das Wirken der geistigen Welt in der Natur im 11., 12., 13. Jahrhundert durchaus noch da sind. Wir können es selbst bei einer solchen Persönlichkeit wie Agrippa von Nettesheim, den ich ja dargestellt habe in meinem Buche über die Mystik, sehen, wie er durchaus noch eine Erkenntnis davon hat, daß zum Beispiel in den Planeten unseres Planetensystems in ganz bestimmter Weise geartete geistige Wesenheiten vorhanden sind. Agrippa von Nettesheim führt in seinen Schriften für jeden einzelnen Planeten dasjenige an, was er die Intelligenz des Planeten nennt, und dann dasjenige, was er den Dämon des Planeten nennt. Das weist hin auf Traditionen, die aus alten Zeiten damals noch durchaus vorhanden waren, die aber eben auch in dieser Zeit nicht bloße Traditionen waren. Das Hinaufschauen zu einem Planeten in dem Sinne, wie es die spätere Astronomie getan hat und noch heute tut, das wäre einem solchen Geiste wie Agrippa von Nettesheim noch ganz und gar unmöglich gewesen. Der äußere Planet, überhaupt der äußere Stern war nur etwas wie eine Ankündigung für geistige Wesenheiten, auf die der Seelenblick fiel, wenn man in der Richtung des Sternes sah. Und er wußte, daß die Wesenheiten, die mit den einzelnen Gestirnen verbunden sind, solche sind, welche das innere Dasein des Planeten regeln, aber auch die Bewegungen des Planeten im Weltenall regeln, welche die ganze Tätigkeit eines Gestirnes regeln und so weiter. Und solche Wesenheiten faßte er zusammen unter dem Namen Intelligenz des Gestirnes.
Aber er wußte auch, wie aus dem Gestirn heraus und in dasselbe hineinwirken hemmende, man möchte sagen, die guten Taten des Gestirnes untergrabende Wesenheiten. Die faßte er zusammen unter dem Namen des Dämons des Gestirnes. Solch eine Erkenntnis war aber durchaus in der damaligen Zeit damit verbunden, daß auch die Erde als ein solcher Weltenkörper aufgefaßt worden ist, der seine Intelligenz und der seinen Dämon hat. Aber gerade das Wesentliche, das mit dieser Auffassung von der Gestirn-Intelligenz und von der Gestirn-Dämonologie verbunden war, ging ja ganz und gar verloren, denn es drückte sich dieses Wesentliche gerade in dem Folgenden aus.
Die Erde betrachtete man natürlich auch als in ihrer inneren Tätigkeit, in ihrer Bewegung im Kosmos geregelt durch eine Summe von Intelligenzen, die man zusammenfassen konnte unter der Intelligenz des Erdengestirns. Aber was war für diese Persönlichkeiten noch die Intelligenz des Erdengestirns? Es ist heute ja außerordentlich schwer, überhaupt von diesen Dingen noch zu reden, weil die Vorstellungen der Menschen so weit weggegangen sind von dem, was in der damaligen Zeit wie etwas Selbstverständliches galt für die einsichtigen Menschen. Die Intelligenz des Erdengestirns war der Mensch als solcher. Man sah den Menschen an als dasjenige Wesen, welches von der Weltengeistigkeit die Aufgabe erhalten hat, nicht etwa bloß, wie der heutige Mensch meint, auf der Erde herumzugehen oder mit der Eisenbahn herumzufahren, Waren einzukaufen und zu verkaufen, Bücher zu schreiben und dergleichen, sondern man faßte den Menschen so auf, daß er von der Weltengeistigkeit die Aufgabe erhalten hat, in alles das, was sich bezieht auf die Stellung der Erde im Kosmos, regelnd, ordnend, gesetzmäßig einzugreifen. Den Menschen faßte man so auf, daß man sagte: Er gibt der Erde durch dasjenige, was er ist, durch die Kräfte, die er innerhalb seines Wesens birgt, den Impuls zu ihrer Bewegung um die Sonne, zu ihrer Bewegung weiter im Weltenraume.
Man hatte damals noch ein Gefühl dafür, daß das dem Menschen einstmals zugeteilt war, daß der Mensch wirklich zu dem Herrn der Erde von der Weltengeistigkeit gemacht war, daß er aber dieser Aufgabe sich nicht gewachsen gezeigt hat im Verlaufe seiner Entwickelung, daß er von seiner Höhe heruntergestürzt sei. Man trifft heute nur noch sehr selten die Nachklänge dieser Ansicht da, wo von Erkenntnis die Rede ist. Alles, was in religiöser Auffassung von dem Sündenfall gedacht wird, geht ja schließlich auch auf diese Vorstellung zurück. Das handelt ja davon, daß der Mensch ursprünglich eine ganz andere Stellung auf der Erde und im Weltenall hatte, als er sie heute einnimmt, daß er von seiner Höhe herabgestürzt sei. Aber außer dieser religiösen Auffassung, da, wo man glaubt, Erkenntnisse, die methodisch erworben werden, zu haben, da gibt es heute eigentlich nur noch Nachklänge an jene alte, aus instinktivem Hellsehen hervorgegangene Erkenntnis von der einstigen Aufgabe des Menschen und von seinem Herunterstürzen in seine heutige Eingeschlossenheit in so enge Grenzen.
Es kommt zum Beispiel heute noch vor, daß man diese oder jene Persönlichkeit einmal zum Sprechen bekommt, sagen wir — ich erzähle Tatsachen -, man kommt in ein Gespräch mit dieser oder jener Persönlichkeit, die tiefer nachgedacht, nachgesonnen hat, auch sich tiefere Erkenntnisse erworben hat über das oder jenes auf geistigem Felde; man kommt ins Gespräch, ob denn der Mensch heute, so wie er auf der Erde steht, eigentlich ein in sich geschlossenes, sein Wesen in sich tragendes Geschöpf sei. Und da sagen einem dann solche Persönlichkeiten: Das kann er nicht sein. Der Mensch müsse eigentlich - sonst könne er nicht das Streben in sich haben, das er nun einmal hat, sonst könne er in seinen höchsten Exemplaren nicht den großen Idealismus entfalten, den er oftmals entfaltet-, der Mensch müsse eigentlich seiner Natur nach ein umfassendes Wesen sein, das aber irgendwie eine kosmische Sünde auf sich geladen hat, durch die er beschränkt worden ist in das heutige irdische Dasein herein, so daß er heute eigentlich wie in einem Käfig sitzt.
Gewiß, diese Anschauung trifft man noch da oder dort als Nachzügler jener alten Anschauung. Aber im ganzen und großen, wo ist es denn, daß sich diejenigen, die sich heute für Wissenschafter halten, überhaupt im Ernste mit diesen umfassenden Fragen beschäftigen, die aber doch schließlich das einzige sind, was den Menschen wirklich zu einem menschenwürdigen Dasein bringen kann?
Und so war es schon so, daß der Mensch einst als der Träger der Intelligenz der Erde angesehen wurde. Aber auch der Erde schrieb eine solche Persönlichkeit wie Agrippa von Nettesheim einen Dämon zu. Nun, dieser Dämon des Irdischen, er ist eigentlich, wenn wir in das 12., 13. Jahrhundert noch zurückgehen, ein Wesen, das so, wie es geworden ist, auf der Erde hat nur werden können, weil es eben in den Menschen die Werkzeuge gefunden hat zu seinem Wirken.
Wenn man dies verstehen will, muß man sich eigentlich mit der Art und Weise bekanntmachen, wie in jener Zeit über das Verhältnis der Erde zur Sonne beziehungsweise des irdischen Menschen zur Sonne gedacht wurde. Und wenn ich Ihnen die Anschauung über dieses Verhältnis charakterisieren soll, so muß ich im Grunde wiederum in Imaginationen reden, denn diese Dinge lassen sich nicht in abstrakte Begriffe bannen. Das eigentliche Zeitalter der abstrakten Begriffe hat ja erst später begonnen, und die abstrakten Begriffe sind weit davon entfernt, die Wirklichkeit zu umspannen, und so muß schon in Imaginationen dargestellt werden.
Die Sonne, sie ist eigentlich - nachdem sie sich in der Art, wie ich das in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» dargestellt habe, von der Erde getrennt hat oder die Erde von sich abgetrennt hat -, sie ist eigentlich doch, da der Mensch seit dem Saturndasein mit dem gesamten Planetensystem einschließlich der Sonne verbunden war, die Ursprungsstätte des Menschen. Der Mensch hat nicht seine Heimat auf der Erde, sondern der Mensch hat einen vorübergehenden Aufenthalt auf der Erde. Er ist in Wirklichkeit nach jener alten Anschauung ein Sonnenwesen. Er ist in seinem ganzen Sein mit der Sonne verbunden. Da er dieses ist, sollte er eigentlich als Sonnenwesen anders auf der Erde dastehen, als wie er ist. Er sollte so auf der Erde dastehen, daß die Erde ihrem Drange genügen könnte, aus dem mineralischen und dem pflanzlichen Reiche heraus den Samen des Menschen in ätherischer Form hervorzubringen, und der Sonnenstrahl sollte dann diesen von der Erde hervorgebrachten Samen befruchten. Und daraus sollte die ätherische Menschengestalt erscheinen, die erst durch dasjenige, was sie als eigenes, von sich selbst aus begründetes Verhältnis zu den physischen Erdenstoffen macht, die physische Erdenstofflichkeit annehmen sollte. Also es war etwa von den Zeitgenossen des Agrippa von Nettesheim - Agrippa hatte leider schon etwas von Trübung in seiner Erkenntnis -, aber von seinen besseren Zeitgenossen war eigentlich gedacht worden, daß der Mensch nicht so, wie es nun einmal ist auf der Erde, irdisch geboren werden sollte, sondern daß der Mensch in seinem ätherischen Leibe durch das Zusammenwirken von Sonne und Erde zustande kommen sollte und sich seine irdische Gestalt, wandelnd als ätherische Wesenheit auf der Erde, erst geben sollte. Gewissermaßen in pflanzlicher Reinheit sollten erwachsen auf der Erde die Menschensamen, ätherisch da und dort auftretend als dunkel funkelnde Erdenfrüchte, dann überglänzt werden von dem Lichte der Sonne in bestimmter Jahreszeit, und durch jenes Überglänzen ätherisch Gestalt annehmend in menschlicher Art. Denn nicht aus dem Leibe der Mutter, sondern aus der Erde und dem, was auf ihr ist, sollte der Mensch selber heranziehen dasjenige, was er an physischer Substanz aus dem Erdenbereiche sich einverleiben sollte. So dachte man, wäre es eigentlich im Sinne der Weltengeistigkeit gewesen, daß der Mensch die Erde betritt.
Und dasjenige, was später gekommen ist, ist dadurchgekommen, daß der Mensch einen zu tiefen Drang, eine zu intensive Begierde in sich hat erwachen lassen zu dem Irdisch-Stofflichen. Dadurch ist er verlustig geworden seines Zusammenhanges mit Sonne und Kosmos, und er konnte auf der Erde nur in Form der Vererbungsströmung sein Dasein finden. Dadurch aber hat gewissermaßen der Dämon der Erde seine Arbeit begonnen, denn mit Menschen, die sonnengeboren wären, hätte sich der Dämon des Irdischen nicht beschäftigen können. Dann aber, wenn der Mensch also die Erde betreten hätte, dann wäre er wirklich die vierte Hierarchie. Da würde stets, wenn über den Menschen geredet würde, so geredet werden müssen, daß man sagte: Erste Hierarchie - Seraphim, Cherubim, Throne; dann zweite Hierarchie - Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes; dritte Hierarchie - Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai; vierte Hierarchie - der Mensch, in drei Abstufungen des Menschlichen, aber eben eine vierte Hierarchie. Dadurch aber, daß der Mensch nach dem Physischen hin seinen starken Drang geltend gemacht hat, dadurch wurde er nicht das Wesen auf der untersten Sprosse der Hierarchien, sondern das Wesen an der Spitze, auf der höchsten Sprosse der irdischen Naturreiche: Mineralreich, Pflanzenreich, Tierreich, Menschenreich. So hat man die Stellung des Menschen damals angesehen.
Dadurch aber, daß der Mensch seine Aufgabe auf der Erde nicht gefunden hat, dadurch hat die Erde auch nicht ihre würdige Stellung im Kosmos. Denn es ist ja eigentlich dadurch, daß der Mensch gefallen ist, der eigentliche Regent der Erde nicht da. Was ist nun gekommen? Der eigentliche Regent der Erde fehlt, und notwendig wurde, daß die Erde in ihrer Stellung im Kosmos nicht von sich aus regiert wurde, sondern regiert wurde von der Sonne aus, so daß der Sonne die Aufgaben zugefallen sind, die eigentlich auf Erden verrichtet werden sollen. Also es sah der mittelalterliche Mensch zur Sonne hinauf und sagte: In der Sonne sind gewisse Intelligenzen. Sie bestimmen die Bewegung der Erde im Kosmos, sie regeln, was auf der Erde selber geschieht. Der Mensch sollte es tun. Die Sonnenkräfte sollten auf der Erde durch den Menschen für das Dasein der Erde wirken. - Dadurch entstand jene bedeutsame Vorstellung des mittelalterlichen Menschen, die eingeschlossen ist in die Worte: Die Sonne, der unrechtmäßige Fürst dieser Welt.
Und jetzt bedenken Sie, meine lieben Freunde, wie unendlich vertieft für diesen mittelalterlichen Menschen gerade durch solche Vorstellungen der Christus-Impuls wurde. Der Christus wurde zu dem Geiste, der auf der Sonne seine weitere Aufgabe nicht finden wollte, der nicht bleiben wollte unter denjenigen, die von außen her unrechtmäßig die Erde dirigieren. Er wollte seinen Weg von der Sonne zur Erde finden, einziehen in Menschengeschick und Erdengeschick, wandeln durch die Erdenereignisse und durch die Erdenentwickelung in Menschengeschick und Erdengeschick. Damit war für den mittelalterlichen Menschen der Christus die einzige Wesenheit, die im Kosmos die Aufgabe des Menschen auf Erden gerettet hat. Und nun haben Sie den Zusammenhang. Denn nun können Sie wissen, warum in der Rosenkreuzerzeit dem Schüler immer wieder eingeschärft wurde: © Mensch, du bist ja nicht das, was du bist. Der Christus mußte kommen, um dir deine Aufgabe abzunehmen, um für dich deine Aufgabe zu verrichten.
Im Goetheschen «Faust» ist so manches auf eine Art, die Goethe selber nicht verstanden hat, herübergekommen aus tief mittelalterlichen Vorstellungen. Erinnern Sie sich an Fausts Beschwörung des Erdgeistes. Hat man diese mittelalterlichen Vorstellungen in sich, dann empfindet man recht tief, wie dieser Erdgeist, den Faust beschwört, davon redet, daß er im Tatensturm auf und ab wallt, Geburt und Grab, ein ewiges Weben, ein glühend Leben, daß er schafft am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit und wirkt der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid. Denn wen beschwört Faust eigentlich? Goethe hat es ganz sicher, als er den «Faust» schrieb, nicht in voller Tiefe gewußt. Aber gehen wir vom Goetheschen Faust zum mittelalterlichen Faust zurück, belauschen wir diesen mittelalterlichen Faust, in dem rosenkreuzerische Weisheit lebte, dann lehrt uns dieses Lauschen, wie dieser mittelalterliche Faust auch eine Beschwörung vollführen wollte. Aber wen wollte er im Erdgeist beschwören? Er sprach gar nicht vom Erdgeist, er sprach vom Menschen. Das war der Drang des mittelalterlichen Menschen, Mensch zu sein, denn er empfand es tief, daß er als Erdenmensch eben nicht Mensch ist. Wie kann man die Menschheit wieder erringen? Die Art und Weise, wie Faust hinweggestoßen wird von dem Erdgeist, das ist die Nachbildung, wie der Mensch in seiner irdischen Gestalt von seiner eigenen Wesenheit zurückgestoßen wird. Und deshalb, weil das so aufgefaßt wurde, tragen manche im Mittelalter vorkommende - ja, wie soll man es nennen — Bekehrungsgeschichten zum Christentum einen außerordentlich tiefen Charakter, den Charakter, daß gewisse Menschen nach der verlorenen Menschlichkeit strebten, aber verzweifeln mußten, mit Recht verzweifeln mußten, innerhalb des irdisch-physischen Lebens diese echte Menschlichkeit in sich erleben zu können, und dann von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus einsahen: Also muß menschliches Streben zum Menschtum aufgegeben werden, und der irdische Mensch muß es dem Christus überlassen, die Aufgabe der Erde zu vollziehen.
In der Zeit, in der also noch, ich möchte sagen, in einer überpersönlich-persönlichen Art vom Menschen sowohl das Verhältnis zur Menschheit selber wie das Verhältnis zum Christus aufgefaßt wurde, in dieser Zeit war Geist-Erkenntnis, Geistesschau eben noch real. Da war sie noch Erlebnisinhalt. Das hörte mit dem 15. Jahrhundert fast ganz auf. Und da vollzog sich denn jener Umschwung, über den sich eigentlich niemand mehr aufklärte.
Aber für den, der solche Dinge weiß, gibt es im 15., im 16. Jahrhundert, ja auch noch später, eine einsame, der Welt kaum bekannt gewordene Rosenkreuzerschule, wo immer wieder und wiederum wenige Zöglinge erzogen wurden und wo vor allen Dingen darauf gesehen wurde, daß eines als eine heilige Tradition bewahrt worden ist. Diese heilige Tradition war die folgende. Ich will Ihnen das Ganze in Form einer Erzählung geben.
Sagen wir, wiederum kam ein neuer Zögling zur Vorbereitung in diese einsame Stätte. Da wurde ihm zunächst in der wirklichen Gestalt, wie das von alten Zeiten überliefert war, das sogenannte Ptolemäische Weltensystem beigebracht, nicht so trivial, wie es heute als etwas Überwundenes vor die Leute hingestellt wird, sondern anders. Es wurde ihm gezeigt, wie die Erde die Kräfte tatsächlich in sich trägt, ihren Gang durch die Welt von sich aus zu bestimmen. So daß in der richtigen Weise das Weltensystem vorgestellt, es eben im alten Ptolemäischen Sinne gezeichnet werden muß: die Erde für den Menschen im Mittelpunkt des Weltenalls, die anderen Gestirne in einer entsprechenden Umkreisung durch die Erde dirigiert. Dann wurde dem Schüler gesagt: Wenn man dasjenige, was der Erde beste Kräfte sind, wirklich studiert, so kommt man zu keinem anderen Weltensystem als diesem. Aber so ist es eben nicht. Es ist nicht so durch die Schuld des Menschen. Durch die Schuld des Menschen ist die Erde unberechtigterweise in den Sonnenbereich übergegangen, und die Sonne ist der Regent der irdischen Betätigungen geworden. Und so kann man einem Weltensystem, das von den Göttern den Menschen gegeben werden sollte im Sinne des alten Ptolemäischen Weltensystems mit der Erde im Mittelpunkte, ein solches entgegenstellen, das die Sonne im Mittelpunkte hat, die Erde sich drehend um die Sonne, das Kopernikanische Weltensystem.
Und es wurde dem Schüler anvertraut, daß hier ein Weltenirrtum vorliegt, ein durch menschliche Schuld bewirkter Weltenirrtum. Und dann wurde zusammengefaßt für diesen Schüler dasjenige, was er sich tief in die Seele und tief ins Herz schreiben sollte: Da haben nun die Menschen das alte Weltensystem überwunden und ein anderes an die Stelle gesetzt und wissen nicht einmal, daß dieses andere, das sie für richtig ansehen, das Ergebnis der eigenen Menschenschuld ist. Was nur der Ausdruck, was nur die Offenbarung der Menschenschuld ist, sieht man einfach als das Richtige gegenüber dem Falschen an. - Was ist geschehen in der neueren Zeit?, so sagten dann die Lehrer diesem Schüler. Die Wissenschaft ist gestürzt worden durch die Schuld des Menschen. Die Wissenschaft ist eine Wissenschaft des Dämonischen geworden. - Bis dann am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts auch solche Dinge unmöglich geworden sind, hat es immer wenigstens einzelne Schüler gegeben, welche mit dieser Gemütserkenntnis, mit dieser Gemütsanschauung aus einer einsamen Rosenkreuzer-Schulstätte ihre geistige Nahrung bezogen haben. Es ist zum Beispiel noch so gewesen, daß der große Leibniz, der Philosoph, aus seinen Gedankenerwägungen heraus den Antrieb in sich erhalten hat, irgendwo zu finden diejenige Lehrstätte, in der man in der richtigen Weise formulieren kann, wie es sich eigentlich verhält mit dem Kopernikanischen und Ptolemäischen Weltsystem. Er hat sie nicht finden können.
Solche Dinge muß man kennen, um die richtige Nuance herauszubekommen für den Umschwung, der in den letzten Jahrhunderten in bezug auf des Menschen Anschauung über sich selbst und über das Weltenall stattgefunden hat. Und mit dem Hinuntersinken dieses lebendigen Zusammenhanges des Menschen mit sich selbst, mit diesem Entfremden des Menschen von sich selbst, kam dann das Anklammern des Menschen an den äußeren Verstand, der heute alles beherrscht. Denn dieser äußere Verstand, ist er denn menschliches Erlebnis? Er ist nicht menschliches Erlebnis. Denn wäre er menschliches Erlebnis, so könnte er nicht in so äußerlicher Weise innerhalb der Menschheit leben, in der er lebt. Der Verstand ist ja im Grunde genommen gar nicht verbunden mit dem einzelnen Persönlichen, mit dem einzelnen individuellen Menschen, der Verstand ist ja fast etwas Konventionelles. Er sprudelt nicht hervor aus innerem menschlichem Erlebnis. Er tritt eigentlich als etwas Äußerliches an den Menschen heran.
Und wie er etwas Äußerliches geworden ist, man empfindet es, wenn man vergleicht, wie etwa Aristoteles selber seine Logik, die ja nach Kants Ausdruck seit Aristoteles nicht fortgeschritten ist, seinen Schülern beigebracht hat, und wie dann etwa im 17. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert Logik gelehrt worden ist. Es war in der Aristoteles-Zeit Logik etwas recht Menschliches noch. Denn indem der Mensch darauf hingewiesen wurde, logisch zu denken, hatte er ja damals noch eine Empfindung, die Empfindung, als ob er, wenn ich mich eben wiederum imaginativ ausdrücken darf, seinen Kopf, sein Haupt in kaltes Wasser stecken würde und dadurch sich selber für einen Moment entfremdet würde, oder auch eine andere Empfindung, diejenige Empfindung, die Alexander dem Aristoteles entgegengehalten hat, als er ihm die Logik beibringen wollte: Du drückst mir ja alle Kopfknochen zusammen - wie etwas Äußerliches. Im 17. Jahrhundert empfand man diese Äußerlichkeit als etwas Selbstverständliches. Man lernte, wie man aus dem Obersatz, aus dem Untersatz den Schlußsatz finden müsse. Man lernte dasjenige, was Sie noch im Goetheschen «Faust» ironisch behandelt finden: Das erst’ war so, das zweite so, und drum das dritt’ und vierte so, und wenn das erst’ und zweit’ nicht war’, das dritt’ und viert’ wär” nimmermehr. Und so wird der Geist Euch wohl dressiert, in spanische Stiefeln eingeschnürt. - Ob man nun, wie Alexander es empfunden hat, den Kopf in seinen Knochen zusammengedrückt empfindet, oder ob man in spanische Stiefel eingeschnürt wird durch das erst’ und zweit’ und dritt’ und viert’, es ist ja schon dieses ein Bild für dasselbe, was der Mensch empfindet.
Diese Äußerlichkeit des abstrakten Denkens, sie empfand man in der Zeit nicht mehr, als man Logik bewußt lernte in den Schulen. Heute hat das mehr oder weniger aufgehört. Es wird auch Logik nicht mehr bewußt gelernt auf den Schulen. Nun, das ist ja ungefähr so, als wenn es irgendwo eine Zeit gegeben hätte, wo die Leute mit Enthusiasmus nach Hunderten und Hunderten sich die gleiche Uniform nach der Vorschrift angezogen hätten, und nachher eine Zeit gefolgt wäre, in der sie, ohne erst darüber nachzudenken, das freiwillig getan haben. Aber in dieser Zeit, in der die Logik des Abstrakten immer mehr und mehr überhandnahm, in dieser Zeit konnte die alte geistige Erkenntnis ja nicht mehr fortschreiten. Daher sehen wir sie äußerlich werden und jene Gestalt annehmen, die in solchen Erscheinungen auftritt wie zum Beispiel in den Schriften des Eliphas Levi oder in den Veröffentlichungen von Saint-Martin. Man hat schon in diesen Veröffentlichungen die letzten Ausläufer alter Geist-Erkenntnis und -Geistesschau.
Aber was ist in einer solchen Schrift enthalten wie etwa in Eliphas Levis «Dogma und Ritual der hohen Magie»? Da sind zum Beispiel zunächst zu finden allerlei Zeichen, Triangel, Pentagramme und so weiter, da finden Sie wieder heraufgeholt aus alten Zeiten gewisse Worte aus früher herrschenden Sprachen, namentlich aus der hebräischen, und da finden Sie dasjenige, was früher Leben war, aber auch Erkenntnis, was in die Tat des Menschen übergehen konnte, aber auch in die Ideen des Menschen übergehen konnte, das finden Sie ideenlos auf der einen Seite und in äußerliche Zauberei auf der anderen Seite ausgeartet; Spekulationen über die symbolische Bedeutung dieses oder jenes Zeichens, denen gegenüber der moderne Mensch, wenn er ehrlich sein will, sich gestehen müßte, daß gar nichts Besonderes darinnen enthalten ist, schauderhafte Verrichtungen, anknüpfend an allerlei Riten, deren geistiger Zusammenhang denjenigen, die von solchen Riten sprechen und sie auch oftmals übten, nicht im entferntesten klar war. Überall wiesen solche Bücher hin auf dasjenige, was einmal verstanden wurde in alten Zeiten, innerlich erkenntnismäßig erlebt wurde, aber in der Zeit, wo zum Beispiel Eliphas Levi seine Bücher schrieb, eben nicht mehr verstanden wurde. Und über Saint-Martin habe ich mich ja in der Wochenschrift «Goetheanum» selber einmal ausgesprochen. Und so sehen wir denn, man möchte sagen, mit vollem Unverständnis dasjenige behandelt, was einmal in das seelisch-geistige Menschenleben einverwoben war, was aber in diesem seelisch-geistigen Menschenwesen nicht erhalten werden konnte.
Echt und wahr ist vom 15. bis ins 18., 19. Jahrhundert herein dasjenige, was als ein allgemeiner Drang nach dem Göttlichen sich dem Gemüte ergeben hat. Da ist Schönes, Wunderschönes und Herrliches zu finden. Und da ist über manchem, was heute viel zu wenig beachtet wird, ein wirklicher Zauberhauch des Spirituellen. Aber neben alledem geht eine sich verknöchernde Saat auf des Unverstandes alter spiritueller Wahrheiten, und einher geht damit das Unvermögen, in einer der Zeit entsprechenden Weise an das Geistige heranzukommen. Man kann Menschen kennenlernen aus dem 18. Jahrhundert, die geradezu von einer Zerstörung alles Menschlichen sprechen und von einem Heraufkommen eines furchtbaren Materialismus. Manchmal ist es einem so, als ob dasjenige, was diese Menschen des 18. Jahrhunderts sagen, auch auf unsere Zeit passen würde. Dennoch paßt es nicht, paßt auf die letzten zwei Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts nicht. Denn in diesem 19. Jahrhundert ist das, was man noch mit einem gewissen, ich möchte sagen, Abscheu vor seinem dämonischen Charakter im 18. Jahrhundert angesehen hat, etwas Selbstverständliches geworden. Man hatte nicht die Kraft, sich zu sagen: Kopernikus - sehr schön, aber eine Anschauung, die nur dadurch hat kommen können, daß der Mensch eben nicht das geworden ist auf der Erde, was er auf der Erde hätte werden sollen, daß die Erde regentenlos dastand und das Erdenregiment an den widerrechtlichen Fürsten der Welt - das Wort kommt im Mittelalter immer wieder vor — übergegangen ist, weshalb der Christus die Sonne verlassen hat und sich mit dem Erdengeschick vereinigt hat.
Und es ist ja in der Tat erst wiederum am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts möglich geworden, in diese Dinge mit ursprünglicher menschlicher Klarheit hineinzusehen. Es ist erst wiederum möglich geworden in der Michael-Zeit. Von dem Anbruche und dem Charakter dieser Michael-Zeit haben wir ja wiederholt gesprochen. Aber es gibt Aufgaben, welche verbunden sind mit dieser Michael-Zeit und auf die nun auch jetzt hier hingedeutet werden kann, nachdem dasjenige, was über die Entwickelung der Geistesschau in den verschiedenen Jahrhunderten in der Weihnachtszeit und nachher hier gesprochen worden ist, vorangegangen ist.
Fourth Lecture
I would like to add a few more things to the discussions I have had here in recent times. I have tried to describe the course of spiritual knowledge through the centuries and the form it has taken in recent times, and I have been able to show how, from about the 15th century to the end of the 18th century, indeed to the beginning of the 19th century, the course was that what was previously there in a concrete, albeit instinctive knowledge, actually lived out more in this time in an emotional devotion to the spiritual of the world in general.
We can see how people's real knowledge of nature, of the workings of the spiritual world in nature, was still present in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. We can see it even in such a personality as Agrippa von Nettesheim, whom I have described in my book on mysticism, how he still has a realization that, for example, in the planets of our planetary system there are spiritual beings of a very specific kind. In his writings Agrippa von Nettesheim mentions for each individual planet what he calls the intelligence of the planet, and then what he calls the demon of the planet. This points to traditions that still existed in ancient times, but which were not mere traditions at that time either. Looking up to a planet in the sense that later astronomy did and still does today would have been quite impossible for a mind like Agrippa von Nettesheim's. The outer planet, the outer star in general, was only something like an announcement for spiritual beings on which the soul's gaze fell when one looked in the direction of the star. And he knew that the entities connected with the individual heavenly bodies are those which regulate the inner existence of the planet, but also regulate the movements of the planet in the universe, which regulate the whole activity of a heavenly body and so on. And he summarized such entities under the name intelligence of the celestial body.
But he also knew how out of the celestial body and into the same inhibiting, one might say, undermining the good deeds of the celestial body. He summarized them under the name of the demon of the heavenly body. At that time, however, such a realization was certainly connected with the fact that the earth was also understood as such a world body, which has its intelligence and its demon. But precisely the essence that was connected with this view of celestial intelligence and celestial demonology was completely lost, because this essence was expressed in the following.
Of course, the earth was also considered to be regulated in its inner activity, in its movement in the cosmos, by a sum of intelligences that could be summarized under the intelligence of the earth star. But what else was the intelligence of the earth celestial body for these personalities? Today it is extremely difficult to talk about these things at all, because people's ideas have moved so far away from what was taken for granted by people of insight at that time. The intelligence of the earthly body was man as such. Man was regarded as the being who had received from the world spirituality the task of not merely, as today's man thinks, walking about on the earth or riding about on the railroad, buying and selling goods, writing books and the like, but man was conceived as having received from the world spirituality the task of intervening in all that relates to the position of the earth in the cosmos in a regulating, ordering, lawful way. Man was conceived in such a way that it was said: Through what he is, through the forces he harbors within his being, he gives the earth the impulse for its movement around the sun, for its movement further in world space.
At that time one still had a feeling that this was once allotted to man, that man was really made the lord of the earth by the world spirituality, but that he did not prove to be up to this task in the course of his development, that he had fallen down from his height. Today one only very rarely encounters the echoes of this view where there is talk of knowledge. After all, everything that is thought of in the religious view of the Fall of Man goes back to this idea. It deals with the fact that man originally had a completely different position on earth and in the universe than he occupies today, that he fell from his height. But apart from this religious view, where one believes to have knowledge that is methodically acquired, today there are actually only echoes of that old knowledge, which emerged from instinctive clairvoyance, of man's former task and of his fall into his present confinement within such narrow limits.
It still happens today, for example, that one gets this or that personality to speak, let us say - I am relating facts - one gets into a conversation with this or that personality who has thought more deeply, pondered more deeply, has also acquired deeper knowledge about this or that in the spiritual field; one gets into a conversation as to whether man today, as he stands on earth, is actually a self-contained creature, carrying his being within himself. And then such personalities tell you: He can't be that. Man must actually - otherwise he could not have the striving within himself that he has, otherwise he could not develop the great idealism in his highest examples that he often develops - man must actually be a comprehensive being by nature, but one that has somehow brought a cosmic sin upon himself, through which he has been limited into today's earthly existence, so that today he actually sits as if in a cage.
Of course, this view can still be found here and there as a latecomer to that old view. But on the whole and on a large scale, where is it that those who consider themselves scientists today are at all seriously concerned with these comprehensive questions, which are, after all, the only thing that can really bring man to an existence worthy of a human being?
And so it was that man was once regarded as the bearer of the intelligence of the earth. But such a personality as Agrippa von Nettesheim also attributed a demon to the earth. Now, this demon of the earthly is actually, if we go back to the 12th, 13th century, a being that could only become what it has become on earth because it found the tools for its work in human beings.
If you want to understand this, you actually have to familiarize yourself with the way in which the relationship of the earth to the sun or of earthly man to the sun was thought of at that time. And if I am to characterize the view of this relationship for you, then I must basically speak again in imaginations, because these things cannot be captured in abstract concepts. The actual age of abstract concepts only began later, and abstract concepts are far removed from encompassing reality, and so they must already be represented in imaginations.
The sun, it is actually - after it has separated itself from the earth in the way I have described in my “Secret Science”, or has separated the earth from itself - it is actually the place of origin of man, since man has been connected with the entire planetary system including the sun since Saturn's existence. Man does not have his home on earth, but man has a temporary stay on earth. In reality, according to that ancient view, he is a solar being. His entire being is connected to the sun. Since he is this, he should actually stand on earth as a solar being in a different way than he is. He should stand on the earth in such a way that the earth could satisfy its urge to bring forth the seed of man in etheric form from the mineral and vegetable kingdoms, and the sunbeam should then fertilize this seed brought forth by the earth. And from this the etheric human form was to appear, which was only to take on the physical earth materiality through that which it made as its own, self-established relationship to the physical earth substances. So it was actually thought by the contemporaries of Agrippa of Nettesheim - Agrippa unfortunately already had something of cloudiness in his knowledge - but by his better contemporaries, that man should not be born earthly as it is on earth, but that man should come into being in his etheric body through the interaction of sun and earth and should first give himself his earthly form, walking as an etheric being on earth. In a certain sense, the human seeds were to grow on the earth in vegetable purity, appearing etherically here and there as darkly sparkling earth fruits, then to be shone over by the light of the sun in a certain season, and through this shining over to take on etheric form in human kind. For it is not from the mother's body, but from the earth and what is on it, that man himself should draw what he should assimilate of physical substance from the earthly realm. Thus it was thought that it was actually in the spirit of the world spirituality that man should enter the earth.
And that which came later came about because man allowed too deep an urge, too intense a desire to awaken in himself for the earthly material. As a result he lost his connection with the sun and the cosmos, and he could only find his existence on earth in the form of the hereditary current. In this way, however, the demon of the earth has, so to speak, begun his work, for the demon of the earthly could not have occupied himself with people who were born of the sun. But then, if man had entered the earth, he would really be the fourth hierarchy. Then, whenever man was spoken of, it would have to be said: First Hierarchy - Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; then Second Hierarchy - Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes; Third Hierarchy - Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai; Fourth Hierarchy - man, in three gradations of the human, but a fourth Hierarchy. But because man has asserted his strong urge towards the physical, he has not become the being on the lowest rung of the Hierarchies, but the being at the top, on the highest rung of the earthly kingdoms of nature: Mineral Kingdom, Plant Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Human Kingdom. This is how man's position was viewed at the time.
But because man has not found his task on earth, the earth does not have its worthy position in the cosmos. For the fact that man has fallen means that the actual ruler of the earth is not there. What has happened now? The actual ruler of the earth is missing, and it became necessary that the earth in its position in the cosmos was not ruled by itself, but was ruled by the sun, so that the tasks that should actually be performed on earth fell to the sun. So medieval man looked up at the sun and said: "There are certain intelligences in the sun. They determine the movement of the earth in the cosmos, they regulate what happens on the earth itself. Man should do it. The forces of the sun should work on the earth through man for the existence of the earth. - This gave rise to that significant idea of medieval man, which is encapsulated in the words: The sun, the unrighteous prince of this world.And now consider, my dear friends, how infinitely deepened the Christ impulse became for this medieval man precisely through such ideas. The Christ became the spirit that did not want to find its further task on the sun, that did not want to remain among those who unlawfully direct the earth from outside. He wanted to find his way from the sun to earth, to enter into human destiny and earth destiny, to walk through earth events and through earth development in human destiny and earth destiny. Thus, for medieval man, the Christ was the only being in the cosmos who saved man's task on earth. And now you have the connection. For now you can know why the disciple was repeatedly inculcated in the Rosicrucian period: © Man, you are not what you are. The Christ had to come to take your task from you, to perform your task for you.
In Goethe's Faust, many things have come over from deeply medieval ideas in a way that Goethe himself did not understand. Remember Faust's invocation of the earth spirit. If one has these medieval ideas within oneself, then one feels quite deeply how this earth spirit, which Faust conjures up, speaks of how it surges up and down in the storm of deeds, birth and grave, an eternal weaving, a glowing life, that it creates on the whirring loom of time and works the living garment of the Godhead. For whom does Faust actually conjure? Goethe certainly did not know this in depth when he wrote Faust. But if we go back from Goethe's Faust to the medieval Faust, if we eavesdrop on this medieval Faust, in whom Rosicrucian wisdom lived, then this eavesdropping teaches us how this medieval Faust also wanted to perform an incantation. But who did he want to conjure up in the earth spirit? He wasn't talking about the earth spirit at all, he was talking about man. That was the medieval man's urge to be human, for he deeply felt that as an earthling he was not human. How can humanity be regained? The way in which Faust is pushed away by the earth spirit is the reproduction of how man in his earthly form is pushed back by his own being. And therefore, because this was understood in this way, many stories of conversion to Christianity that occurred in the Middle Ages - yes, what shall we call them - have an extraordinarily deep character, the character that certain people strove for the lost humanity, but had to despair, rightly had to despair, of being able to experience this genuine humanity in themselves within the earthly-physical life, and then realized it from this point of view: So human striving to be human must be given up, and the earthly man must leave it to the Christ to accomplish the task of the earth.
In the time in which, I would like to say, the relationship to humanity itself as well as the relationship to Christ was still understood by man in a supra-personal-personal way, in this time spirit knowledge, spirit vision was still real. It was still the content of experience. This ceased almost completely in the 15th century. And that is when the turnaround took place, about which no one was really aware any more.
But for those who know such things, there was a solitary Rosicrucian school in the 15th and 16th centuries, indeed even later, which had hardly become known to the world, where again and again a few pupils were educated and where, above all, it was ensured that one thing was preserved as a sacred tradition. This sacred tradition was the following. Let me give you the whole thing in the form of a story.
Say, again a new pupil came to this lonely place for preparation. There he was first taught the so-called Ptolemaic world system in its real form, as it had been handed down from ancient times, not as trivially as it is presented to people today as something that has been overcome, but in a different way. He was shown how the earth actually carries within itself the power to determine its own course through the world. So that the world system must be presented in the right way, it must be drawn in the old Ptolemaic sense: the earth for man at the center of the universe, the other heavenly bodies directed by the earth in a corresponding orbit. Then the pupil was told: "If one really studies that which is the best power of the earth, one arrives at no other world system than this. But it is not like that. It is not so through the fault of man. Through the fault of man, the earth has unjustifiably passed over into the solar realm, and the sun has become the regent of earthly activities. And so one can oppose a world system, which should be given to men by the gods in the sense of the old Ptolemaic world system with the earth in the center, with one that has the sun in the center, the earth rotating around the sun, the Copernican world system.
And it was confided to the pupil that there is a world error here, a world error caused by human guilt. And then that which was to be written deep into the soul and deep into the heart was summarized for this disciple: People have now overcome the old world system and put another in its place and do not even know that this other, which they regard as right, is the result of their own human guilt. What is only the expression, what is only the revelation of human guilt is simply regarded as the right as opposed to the wrong. - What has happened in recent times? the teachers told this pupil. Science has been overthrown by the guilt of man. Science has become a science of the demonic. - Until such things became impossible at the end of the 18th century, there were always at least a few pupils who drew their spiritual nourishment from a solitary Rosicrucian school with this knowledge of the mind, with this view of the mind. It was still the case, for example, that the great Leibniz, the philosopher, was driven by his own thoughts to find somewhere that place of learning in which one could formulate in the right way how the Copernican and Ptolemaic world systems actually relate to each other. He was unable to find it.
Such things must be known in order to get the right nuance for the change that has taken place in the last centuries with regard to man's view of himself and of the universe. And with the decline of this living connection between man and himself, with this alienation of man from himself, came man's clinging to the outer intellect, which today dominates everything. For is this external intellect a human experience? It is not human experience. For if it were human experience, it could not live in such an external way within the humanity in which it lives. The intellect is basically not connected with the individual personal, with the individual individual human being, the intellect is almost something conventional. It does not bubble up from inner human experience. It actually approaches the human being as something external.
And how it has become something external can be felt when you compare how Aristotle himself taught his logic to his students, which, according to Kant's expression, has not progressed since Aristotle, and how logic was taught in the 17th century after Christ. In Aristotle's time, logic was still something quite human. Because when man was instructed to think logically, he still had a sensation at that time, the sensation as if, if I may again express myself imaginatively, he were to put his head in cold water and thereby alienate himself for a moment, or another sensation, the sensation that Alexander held up to Aristotle when he wanted to teach him logic: 'You are pressing all the bones of my head together - like something external. In the 17th century, this externality was taken for granted. People learned how to find the final sentence from the upper sentence, from the lower sentence. They learned what you still find ironically treated in Goethe's “Faust”: The first was thus, the second thus, and therefore the third and fourth thus, and if the first and second had not been, the third and fourth would never have been. And so your mind is well trained, laced into Spanish boots. - Whether one feels, as Alexander felt, that one's head is pressed into one's bones, or whether one is constricted in Spanish boots by the first and second and third and fourth, this is already an image for the same thing that man feels.
This externality of abstract thinking was no longer felt in the days when logic was consciously taught in schools. Today this has more or less ceased. Logic is no longer consciously taught in schools. Well, that's a bit like if there had been a time somewhere when people had enthusiastically put on the same uniform according to the regulations after hundreds and hundreds, followed by a time when they did it voluntarily without thinking about it. But in this time, in which the logic of the abstract became more and more prevalent, in this time the old spiritual knowledge could no longer progress. That is why we see it becoming external and taking on the form that appears in such phenomena as the writings of Eliphaz Levi or the publications of Saint Martin. These publications already contain the last remnants of ancient spiritual knowledge and spiritual vision.
But what is contained in a writing such as Eliphas Levi's “Dogma and Ritual of High Magic”? There, for example, you will first find all kinds of signs, triangles, pentagrams and so on, you will find certain words brought up again from ancient times from earlier dominant languages, namely from Hebrew, and there you will find that which was formerly life, but also knowledge, which could pass over into the deeds of man, but could also pass over into the ideas of man, which you will find devoid of ideas on the one hand and degenerated into external sorcery on the other; Speculations about the symbolic meaning of this or that sign, to which modern man, if he wants to be honest, would have to confess that there is nothing special in them at all, ghastly practices, linked to all kinds of rites whose spiritual connection was not at all clear to those who spoke of such rites and often practiced them. Everywhere such books pointed to that which was once understood in ancient times, experienced inwardly in terms of knowledge, but which was no longer understood at the time when Eliphas Levi, for example, wrote his books. And I myself once spoke about Saint-Martin in the weekly magazine “Goetheanum”. And so we see, one might say, that which was once interwoven into the soul-spiritual human life, but which could not be preserved in this soul-spiritual human being, treated with complete incomprehension.
From the 15th to the 18th and 19th centuries, that which has surrendered to the mind as a general urge for the divine is genuine and true. There is beauty, wonder and splendor to be found. And there is a real magic touch of the spiritual over many things that are given far too little attention today. But alongside all this, a seed of ignorance of old spiritual truths is growing, and with it comes the inability to approach the spiritual in a way that is appropriate to the times. You can meet people from the 18th century who speak of the destruction of everything human and the rise of a terrible materialism. Sometimes it seems as if what these people of the 18th century say would also fit our time. Yet it does not fit, it does not fit the last two thirds of the 19th century. For in this 19th century, what was still regarded with a certain, I would say, abhorrence of its demonic character in the 18th century has become something taken for granted. People did not have the strength to say to themselves: Copernicus - very nice, but a view that could only have come about because man had not become on earth what he should have become on earth, because the earth was without a ruler and the earthly regiment had passed to the unlawful prince of the world - the word occurs again and again in the Middle Ages - which is why the Christ left the sun and united himself with the earthly fate.
And it was indeed only at the end of the 19th century that it became possible to see into these things with original human clarity. It only became possible again in the Michael era. We have repeatedly spoken of the dawn and the character of this Michael Age. But there are tasks which are connected with this Michael time and which can now also be pointed out here, after what has been said about the development of the spiritual vision in the various centuries during the Christmas period and afterwards.