The World of the Senses and the World of the Spirit
GA 134
30 December 1911, Hannover
Lecture IV
It is only by means of conceptions which are comparatively difficult that the nature of what is commonly called matter can be grasped. If we wish to give some description of matter in an occult sense we have first to ask, what is its outstanding characteristic? And if we proceed to investigate without prejudice we find that it is its extension in space. No one would think of ascribing occupation of space to feeling, thought or will. It would be ridiculous to suggest that some thought—let us say the thought you have about a hero—were five square yards larger than the thought you have about any ordinary person. One sees at once that this feeling of space, this extension in space, cannot be applied at all to things of the soul. But there is another characteristic of matter, namely weight. This, as we shall see in the course of these lectures, is not so simple. For merely in observing the world we do not so immediately notice anything of the weight, but only of the extension in space.
Now we know that this extension is usually reckoned according to three dimensions, height, breadth and depth or length. It is, you will agree, a common, almost a trivial truth that things are extended in space according to three dimensions. We must, therefore, recognise as the most evident characteristic of matter its extension in three dimension. Now, as we saw, we cannot apply conditions of space to what lies in the soul. It is, therefore, obvious that something else must exist in the world, other than what fills up space as substance or matter. For we have evidence, even on the physical plane, of processes and conditions that are not extended in space—soul experiences, as we call them.
Now if we approach soul experiences with as little prejudice as we did the conditions of matter in space we shall very soon find in them another quality without which these soul experiences would not be there at all. And that is, we are bound to admit, that soul experiences take their course in time. Although we cannot say that a feeling or an impulse of will is five yards long or five square yards in size, yet we must admit that what we think or feel, in short all soul experiences, take their course in time. It is not only that we need a particular period of time for experiencing them, but also one soul experience comes earlier, another later. In short, what we, experience in the soul is subject to time. Now as a matter of fact, in our reality, in all that surrounds us and in what we ourselves are, space and time conditions are everywhere mixed. In the outer world things happen in such a way that they are spread out in space and also follow one another in time, each requiring for itself a certain time. Before we can come to the occult truth about all this we must put the question: How then does space stand in relation to time? And so, you see, in this anthroposophical course of lectures we come quite innocently up against a very great philosophical question, one upon which—to speak metaphorically—countless heads have been broken! We come, that is, to the relation of time to space. Perhaps it will not be easy for you to follow the train of thought fully now that we have in such an innocent way come up against the relation of time to space; for the greater number of you have had no special philosophical training. But if you will take a little trouble to try to follow, you will see how fruitful such thoughts are, and how, if you work them over in meditation, they can lead you further in your study.
It is good to take your start from the time which you experience in your own soul. Ask yourself how you experience time in your own soul? Let me speak more clearly. I do not ask you to think of time as you see it on the clock; there you only compare your inner experience with outer processes. I want you now to put right out of your mind all reading of the clock and other outer events. Consider only how does the time relationship express itself in your soul? Ponder over it as deeply as you will, and you will find that you can think of nothing as a standard for time but the following: you can grasp a thought when it is aroused in you by some external perception. You are looking at something, and a thought or idea arises in your soul. When you enquire more exactly into the relationship between yourself and the idea or the thought, you have to answer: While I have the thought, I myself am actually the thought. Try and think the thing over to the very end and you will say: While I am engrossed in the thought, then I am, in my innermost being, the thought. It would be mere prejudice to say that together with this concept you had also the idea of the “I am.” The “I am” is not there while you have surrendered yourself to the thought. You are yourself the thought. Without a certain practical training you cannot be something else simultaneously with the thought which you hold.
Firstly then, man is in the thoughts and feelings which are directly given to him. Suppose you let this piece of chalk incite you to a thought; then, if you exclude everything else, if you are absorbed in the idea that has been stimulated in you by the perception of chalk, your inmost being is one with the idea of chalk. But now suppose you have grasped this idea and all at once you remember that yesterday you also saw chalk; and you compare the idea of chalk that has been given you by direct perception with what you experienced yesterday. And you will be aware that though you are completely identified with the chalk observed to-day you cannot identify yourself with the chalk of yesterday. This latter is a memory picture and must remain so. You have truly become one with the chalk of to-day, but the chalk of yesterday has become something external for you. The chalk observed to-day is identified with your own inner being of to-day; your memory picture is, to be sure, something upon which you look back, but in comparison with the other it is objective and external. And it is the same with everything you have experienced in your soul with the exception of the present moment. The present moment is for the moment your inner being; everything that you have experienced—you have rid yourself of, it is already outside you. You may imagine, if you wish to have a picture of it, that the present moment with your concepts is a snake, and what you put outside you is the cast-off skin of the snake. And as the snake casts its skin again a second and a third time so you can have ever so many cast-off ideas which are for you something external in comparison with your temporary present inwardness. That is to say, as far back as you can remember, you have continually been making outward what was first inward. The idea of the chalk, for example, which you now have, the very next moment you have made it external to you, while you yourself have passed on to something else. That is to say, you are working at a continual exteriorisation. You are perpetually creating something within you and then leaving it behind; this innermost that you have in you at once becomes an outer, just like a sloughed skin. Our soul-life consists in this—that the inner is continually becoming an outer; so that within our own being, within this inner spiritual process, we are able to distinguish between the real innermost and the outer within the inner. We are all the time within our own being, but we have there to distinguish two parts: first, our real inwardness, and secondly, the part of our inwardness which has become an outer.
Now this process which we have seen accomplished of the inner becoming an outer—this really gives the content of our soul-life; for if you think it over you will find you can call your “soul” all you have experienced, right back to the time which you first remember in early childhood. One who has forgotten all that he has ever experienced would actually have lost his ego. Thus in the fact that we can put memories behind us, and yet keep them, like continually cast-off skins—in this possibility lies the reality of our soul-life. Now one can conceive of this reality of soul-life as being fashioned in all manner of different ways. Let me ask you to observe how in each single moment the soul is shaped differently from what it is in any other moment. Suppose you go out into a beautiful starlit night or suppose you listen to a Beethoven symphony; you have in those moments identified with your own inner being a wide region of soul-life. Suppose you step from this starlit night into a dark room; it is as if this soul-life of yours were suddenly shrunk together; only a few ideas are there. Or suppose the symphony comes to an end; then the region of ideas, in so far as they come from hearing, dwindles away for you. And when you sleep then your soul-life shrinks right up until you wake up again and spread it, like a bird ruffling its feathers. So you have a continuous re-shaping of the soul-life. And if we now draw—but this is only a symbol; for we must draw in space, and yet we mean time, which is not spatial—if we would draw the content of our life of soul, then we could form it in many different ways. Here (a) it is shrunk, here (b) it expands, we should have to think of it as shaped most variedly, while here (c) there is always the content of soul-life. From this symbol, making the invisible visible, you can recognise the shrinking and the enlarging. A soul-life which listens to a symphony is richer than one which hears only a single note. So one can say that the soul-life opens out and then draws itself together, expands and contracts—only as we say this we must not let any space conceptions mix in with it. During this expansion and contraction one thing is unquestionably present, and that is inner spiritual movement. Movement! Soul-life is movement.

Only we must think of movement not as movement in space but as we have described it. And this expansion and contraction gives forms. So you have movement, and the outer expression of movement in certain forms. But there are no space forms. The forms here meant are not spatial forms, but forms of expanding and contracting soul-life. And what lives in this expansion and contraction? You will get near the reality if you consider a little what must live therein. Therein live your feelings, thoughts, impulses of will, in so far as that is all spiritual. It is like water which swims along, moving in forms, but it is all spiritual. And now we shall need still another conception in order to realise the whole. We said: Thoughts live therein, conceptions, feelings, impulses of will. But the impulses of will are, in a certain sense, more fundamentally necessary than the thoughts themselves. For if you consider how this soul-life is at times in quicker motion and at times in slower motion, you will perceive that it is really will itself which brings it into motion. If you stimulate your will you can bring the thoughts and feelings into quicker flow; if the will is indolent then it all moves along more slowly. You need the will in order to expand your life of soul. So we have seriatim, first, Will; then, all that lives in feelings and conceptions, all that is within our soul-life—I say advisedly, our life of soul—and this we can grasp as a manifestation of Wisdom; then we have Movement—expansion and contraction; and then Form, which appears as the expression of movement. You can quite exactly differentiate within your soul-life: will, wisdom, movement, form. These weave and live within the life of soul.
It is a pity that this cycle of lectures could not last a month for then we could speak more exactly and fully. And you would see how it can be accurately established that there, in your own soul-life, a process takes place which has its root in the will, and contains within it wisdom and movement and form. Now you will see that the series we have here given for the life of soul follows, in a wonderful way, the names we had to give for the successive hierarchies—Spirits of Will, of Wisdom, and of Movement, and Spirits of Form. In presenting our soul-life in this manner we have, so to say, surprised the hierarchies in one spot, we have really caught them inside there. There they reveal themselves in a most singular way in the inner soul-life of man—and they reveal themselves in such a way that their activity is entirely unspatial. And if we have gained nothing more, we have at least established this important point; we have gained, as it were, a first conception of an important quality of these four hierarchies, namely that they are not of space. We know, therefore, that by “Form” is meant the unspatial spiritually formative power of form. That is very important. So when we speak of “forms” created by the Spirits of Form we do not mean external forms in space but those inner formations that only exist for consciousness and that we can grasp in the course of our soul-life. Everything passes there in time alone. Without time you cannot imagine it at all. If you look away from the illustration, which is of no importance for the thing itself, you must imagine it in so far as you remain within the soul-life, as unspatial space.
And so, my dear friends, when we say that the Spirits of Will worked first on Old Saturn, the Spirits of Wisdom on Old Sun, the Spirits of Movement on Old Moon and the Spirits of Form on the Earth, we must bear in mind the purely inner quality of the Spirits of Form, and we shall have to say: The Spirits of Form created man on the earth in such a way that he still has an invisible form. This agrees, in a wonderful way, with what emerged yesterday. Invisible forms, not forms of space, were first given to man by the Spirits of Form at the beginning of his earthly evolution. And now we must at the same time bear in mind that not only we ourselves but all outer objects that come to meet us, and of which we are aware in the outer world by means of our senses, are nothing less than an external expression of an inner spiritual. Behind every external material thing in space we have to look for something similar in kind to what lives in our own soul. Only, of course, we do not encounter it with the outer senses; it is behind what the outer senses offer.
How can we now represent an activity out beyond that of the Spirits of Form, beyond what they create as not yet spatial form? This is the question we now have to face. When this activity goes further—beyond will, wisdom, movement, form—still further beyond form, what happens then? That is the question. You see, if a process in the universe has come as far as Form—which is still altogether in the realm of soul and spirit, and is not spatial at all—if the process has advanced as far as this super-sensible form, then the next step is only possible through the form, as such, breaking up. And that is exactly what shows itself to occult knowledge. When certain forms, created under the influence of the Spirits of Form, have developed up to a certain point, then they break to pieces. And if you now fix your mind upon these shattered forms, if you think of something that arises through the breaking up of forms that are still super-sensible—then you have the transition from the super-sensible to the sensible and spatial. Broken-up form is matter. Matter, as it occurs in the universe, is for the occultist nothing more than form broken, shattered and split asunder. If you could imagine that this chalk were invisible and yet had this characteristic parallelepiped form, and if you were then to take a hammer and strike the chalk smartly so that it crumbled into a lot of little pieces, then you would have broken up the form. Supposing in the moment in which you broke up the form the invisible were to become visible—then you would have a picture of the origin of matter. Matter is spirit that has developed as far as form and then burst and broken into pieces and fallen together in itself.
Matter is a heap of ruins of the spirit. It is extraordinarily important to grasp this definition. Matter is a heap of ruins of the spirit. Matter is, therefore, in reality spirit, but shattered spirit.
When you come to think it over, my dear friends, you will perhaps say: “Yes, but we have spatial forms such as the beautiful crystals; in the crystals we have very beautiful spatial forms—and now you say that all matter is ‘a heap of ruins of the spirit,’ is ‘shattered spirit.’” Let me give you a picture of it.

Think of a falling cascade of water [see diagram (a)]. But imagine it is invisible, you do not see it. And here (b) you put an obstacle in its way. When the water strikes here (b) it scatters into drops (c). Now we are imagining that the cascade of water is invisible, but that what is broken up becomes visible. Then you would have here a cascade shattered in pieces, and would have a picture of the origin of matter. But now you must think away this obstacle down below, for it does not exist; if it did we should have to assume that there was already matter there. You must imagine it in this way. Without there being any such obstacle you have matter—spiritually, that is, supersensibly—you have matter in movement. In the act of assuming form, it is in movement; for movement precedes form. There is not anything anywhere but is permeated by the deeds of the Spirits of Movement. And this movement, this form, arrives at last at a point where it becomes, so to say, exhausted and splits asunder in itself. We must so grasp it that we have, to begin with, something streaming out which is entirely soul and spirit. Its impetus is limited, it comes, as it were, to the end of its energy, is thrown back upon itself and thus breaks to pieces. So wherever we see matter we can say: Behind this matter lies a super-sensible, which has come to the limit of its activity and there split up. But before it split up it still had—inwardly and spiritually—form. And when it shattered the spiritual form went on working in the separate scattered ruins. Where it works strongly, then, after the breaking and scattering, the lines of the spiritual forms continue, and in the lines they then describe we can still trace an after-working of the spiritual lines. There you have the origin of crystals. Crystals are reproductions of spiritual forms which through their own impetus still kept their original direction but in the opposite sense.
What I have here sketched for you is very nearly exactly what occult observation finds in the case of hydrogen. The origin of hydrogen is as though a ray rushed out from eternity, became exhausted and flew asunder; but we must draw it as if here the lines overshot themselves and so kept their form.

This is what hydrogen looks like to the occult observer. There is something like an invisible ray coming from endless world distances and finally breaking—like a ray which flies asunder. In short, matter everywhere can be called broken spirituality. Matter is indeed nothing else than spirit, but spirit in a broken-up condition.
There is still another difficult idea which I must place before you, which is connected with what I said at the beginning of the lecture. I said that within the soul and spirit itself we have to distinguish between an outer and an inner. Now it is of such contrasts that all space dimensions are really composed; so that everywhere where you have a dimension of space you can think of it as proceeding somewhere or other from a point. That point is the “inner,” and all the rest is the “outer.” For the plane, the straight line is an inner and all the rest an outer. Space is, therefore, nothing else than something that originates together with matter when spirit is shattered and thereby goes over into material existence.
Now it is extremely important to understand the following. Suppose this breaking-up of spirit into matter happens in such a way that the spirit breaks, shatters, of itself, without having come up against any kind of external obstacle that should cause it to split up and shatter. Imagine that the breaking-up takes place, so to say, in the void. If spirit breaks into the void then mineral matter results. Thus spirit must first of all actually break up in itself from out of spirit: then mineral matter arises. But now suppose you do not have a process that takes place in the universe in such a virginal way; suppose you have a breaking that takes place out of the spirit but finds a world already prepared; a breaking in pieces that does not take place into the void but, for example, into an etheric corporality that is already there. As I said, if it develops into the void the result is mineral matter. But we are supposing now that it develops into an already present etheric corporality. Thus the spirituality splits up and breaks into an etheric body, and the breaking material and the etheric body are already present and prepared. Not into the “virgin soil” of the world but into the etheric body, spirit breaks and becomes matter. And when this is the case plant matter originates.
Now yesterday we came across a peculiar etheric substance. You will remember what we wrote on the blackboard. We found an etheric body which outweighed the astral substance, which, so to say, overshot the astral substance. And we said that that was due to Luciferic influences which had been brought to bear upon man. But we found something more. We found also physical corporality which had a preponderance over etheric substance, that is to say over the etheric body. As a matter of fact, we found that first, did we not? I want you now to give your attention for a moment to this remarkable connection that we found in the badly combined organisation of man—a connection between the bodies which is really entirely due to Luciferic influence. There, where the physical meets with the etheric body and the etheric body is everywhere diverted by the preponderance of the physical body, we have, not a condition where spirit breaks and scatters merely into etheric substance as such, but where it rushes into a bodily condition that is certainly etheric, but which is outweighed by the physical. And when spirit breaks into such a substance, then nerve substance, nerve material, arises. Spirit streaming into etheric corporality that is overweighed by physical corporality gives rise to nerve matter.
We have now three stages in materiality. First, the ordinary mineral matter that we come across in the sense world. Then the matter that we find in the bodies of the plants; and, lastly, the matter that we find in the body of man and of animals, and that arises owing to the presence of irregularities in these bodies. Now think of all we should have to do if we wished to reckon up all the various conditions that give rise to the manifold kinds of matter in the world! We saw yesterday what a number of irregularities can occur through the Luciferic influence. We saw, for example, how the etheric body may outweigh the astral body. When spirit rushes into an astral body of this kind, that is, into an astral body which is outweighed by an etheric body, then we have muscle matter. This is why the matter of which nerves and muscles are composed has such a strange and unique appearance; you cannot compare it with anything else. It is because in both cases the matter comes into existence in such a complicated manner. It will help you to form a true picture if you think of the different results you obtain when you take some molten metal, and first let it spurt up into the air, then into water and then, let us say, into a hard firm substance. In a like complicated way do the various kinds of matter in the world arise. My main purpose in all I am telling you to-day is to show you into what depths of existence we have to descend if we want to investigate these things at their, foundation. Consider, for instance, a condition that takes us still further into matter; consider the irregularity brought about where the ego outweighs in its ego-ness the astral body, when you have spirit spraying and dispersing into this condition, the result—but only after long détours—is bony matter. It all depends ultimately, as you see, on the conditions under which the matter sprays up and scatters when it arises out of spirit. Keep well in mind what I have told you even if you have not been able to follow every thought in detail. You will have grasped the main point, which really comes to this—that we have to look upon matter always and everywhere as spirit that is splitting up and scattering, but that there can also be something already there which opposes the breaking spirit. And according as this or that meets it, the spirit will spray out into something different; and thus arise the various configurations of matter—matter that composes nerves, muscles, plants, etc.
But now a question will arise in your minds. You will ask: How would it have been with man if the Luciferic influence had not entered into him in this connection? We related yesterday how it would have been in many different aspects, but what would have happened in this connections. Well, you see, man could not have had such nerves as he has to-day. For these nerves only arise in their particular form of matter through the fact of the irregular connection of the bodies of man. Similarly he could not have had bones or muscles if it had not been for the Luciferic influence. In short, we have seen how the various kinds of matter arise through forms being spiritually poured into something which is only there at all because of Luciferic influence. None of these different substances—muscle, nerve, etc.—could have come into existence without the Luciferic influence. With still more intensity than we did yesterday must we ask the question: What then is man altogether as material man? Man as he meets us externally is simply and solely a result of the Luciferic influence. For unless the Luciferic influence had been there he would have had no nerves, no muscles, no bones in the present-day sense of the words. Materialism describes nothing but what Lucifer has made of man. Materialism is thus in the most eminent degree discipleship of Lucifer; it rejects all else.
Let us then ask: What would man be like if he had remained in Paradise? In order that tomorrow we may be able to carry our study further—and with rather easier conceptions—I will give you now to-day a brief sketch of what man would have become if it had not been for the Luciferic influence. If it had not been for this influence, then we should have in human evolution on the earth, to begin with, what came from the influence of the Spirits of Form. For the Spirits of Form were the last Spirits of the higher hierarchies who worked into man. Now these Spirits of Form created a purely super-sensible form—nothing spatial at all. What man would have been—I will only sketch it for you in quite a cursory manner to-day—what man would have been, no outer eye could see, no outer senses could perceive; for pure soul forms cannot be perceived by outer senses. What man would have been coincides with something I have described in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds—it coincides with what is there given as Imaginative knowledge. An “Imagination” would man have been, created by the Spirits of Form. Nothing of a sense nature, purely super-sensible Imagination.
If we were to draw a rough diagram of what man would have been like—(see following diagram)—we should have an Imagination picture of what the Spirits of Form created as an Imagination of man. But it would also be permeated with what remained over in man from the creative working of the earlier hierarchies. We should have to show it in our diagram as permeated first of all with what was left in man from the Spirits of Movement, the Spirits of inner Movement (2). That would reveal itself to us as what we have described in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds with the words “Inspired Knowledge.” For these movements would only be recognisable as Inspiration. This means that we should have first the complete man, consisting of Imagination, and then we should have as well movement—Inspiration. And what the Spirits of Wisdom give would be Intuition. This would be a positive inner content with which all the rest would be in a manner filled out. We must put here (3) Intuition, that is to say, immediate being—Beings. And the whole we would behold as proceeding out of the cosmos and enclosed in an egg-shaped aura which would be the outcome of the working of the Spirits of Will. Such would be the super-sensible nature of man, consisting of contents which would be accessible to super-sensible knowledge alone. Fantastic as it may appear, it is the real Man.

If we may say so symbolically, it is Man in Paradise, who does not consist of the material contents of which man now consists but who has a super-sensible nature throughout.
And what happened through the Luciferic influence. Breaking-up spirit (that is to say, matter), spurted, as it were, into the Imaginations, and the result stands there to-day in the bony system of man. The bony system is the Man of Imagination filled out with matter. Matter does not belong to what is really the higher Man; through the Luciferic influence it has been shot into what would otherwise only be Imagination. We must picture to ourselves—if such a thing were not absurd—that there was a time when one could quite easily pass through a human being, but that then these Imaginations drew together, and, in addition, were afterwards filled out with bony substance. Nowadays we should knock up against bones if we tried to pass through a human being. But man only later became impenetrable.
That which is in man from the Spirits of Movement is filled out with muscle substance, and that which would be perceived as Intuition is filled out with nerve substance. It is only when we get beyond all these that we come to the super-sensible. With the etheric body of man we are already in the super-sensible. The etheric body is to-day only in the smallest degree material; it appears as very fine jets or sprays of the etheric, giving rise to a matter finer than that of which nerves are made, a kind of matter that does not really come into consideration for us here at all.
So you see, man is really a being who has undergone a great coarsening in his nature. For were he as he was originally intended in the purposes of the Gods he would have no bones, but his form would consist in super-sensible “Imagined” bones; he would have no muscles to serve as an apparatus for movement, but he would have super-sensible substance moving within him; whereas now what moves in him has been everywhere interlarded with muscle substance. The super-sensible movement which was given to man by the Spirits of Movement has become physical movement in the muscles, and the intuition given by the Spirits of Wisdom has become in the man of the senses nerve substance. Nerve substance has been, so to say, crammed into the Intuition. And so when you find a drawing of the skeleton in an anatomy book you can think to yourself: It was originally intended to be a pure Imagination and has become so coarsened by the Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences that it meets us to-day as dense, thick, hard bones that can be broken and fractured. So fast and firm have the Imaginations become! And now do you still say that man cannot find in the physical world any reflection of the world of Imagination! Whoever knows what the skeleton really is may find, when he looks at it, a picture of the world of Imagination. And when you see a picture of the man of muscle you really ought to say to yourself: That is an utterly unnatural picture, it is inwardly untrue. In the first place I see it, whereas I ought to hear it spiritually. For the true state of the matter is this—rhythmic movement has been interlarded, by a super-sensible process, with muscle substance which does not really belong to it at all; what remains ought not to be seen but heard, like the swaying movement of music. You should really hear Inspirations. And what you see pictured there as the man of muscle—are the Inspirations of Man made rigid in matter.
Finally we come to the man of nerves. The man of nerves we ought really neither to see nor to hear, but only to perceive in an altogether spiritual manner. From a cosmic point of view there is a complete distortion in the fact that we have visibly before us what should only be grasped in purest spirituality. It is in reality a spiritual sheath that has been, so to speak, injected with physical matter. We see before us visibly what should only be perceived as an Intuition. The expulsion from Paradise means simply this—that man was originally in the spiritual world, that is to say, in Paradise, and he there consisted of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition—that is, he was in an entirely super-earthly existence. And then, owing to the very conditions he had himself induced under the Luciferic influence, he received into him an inrush of breaking spirit, of matter. Matter is thus something with which we are filled but which does not belong to us. We bear it in us, this matter, and because we bear it in us we must die a physical death. There you have, in point of fact, the cause of physical death, and of much besides. For inasmuch as man has left his spiritual condition he lives here in physical existence only until matter gains the victory over what holds it together. For the nature of matter is such that it is perpetually trying to break up and go to pieces, and the matter in the bones is only held together by the power of Imagination. When the power of the bones gains the upper hand then the bones become incapable of life. It is the same with the muscles and the nerves. So soon as the matter in the bones, muscles and nerves gains the upper hand over Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition and is able to break asunder, in that moment must man lay down his physical body. There you have the connection between physical death and the Luciferic influence. We shall follow it up tomorrow by showing how evil, too, and many other things—illnesses, etc.—have come into the world.
Vierter Vortrag
Dasjenige, was man gewöhnlich die Materie nennt, ist für den Menschen eigentlich nur durch verhältnismäßig schwierige Vorstellungen zu erreichen. Und wenn man im okkulten Sinn aufklären will über das Wesen des Materiellen, des Stofflichen, dann muß man vor allen Dingen sich fragen: Was ist das hervorstechendste Eigentümliche an dem, was wir gewöhnlich die Materie nennen? Nun wird man, wenn man ohne Vorurteil zu Werke geht, denn doch finden müssen, daß das Hervorstechendste alles Materiellen die Raumerfüllung ist, die Ausgedehntheit im Raum. Es wird nämlich niemandem einfallen, bei irgend etwas, das ihm in der Seele selbst entgegentritt — sagen wir, bei einem Gefühl, bei einem Gedanken oder selbst bei einem Willensimpuls —, davon zu sprechen, daß der Wille oder der Gedanke oder das Gefühl einen Raum einnehmen. Jeder Mensch wird sogleich einsehen, daß er einen Unsinn sagen würde, wenn er behaupten wollte, daß irgendein Gedanke — sagen wir der Gedanke meinetwillen an einen Helden — um fünf Quadratmeter größer ist als der Gedanke an einen gewöhnlichen Menschen, nicht wahr? Wenn man sich das ausdenken will, so merkt man gleich, daß man auf das, was eigentlich unsere seelischen Zustände, unsere seelischen Vorgänge sind, die Raumerfüllung, das Ausgedehntsein, gar nicht anwenden kann.
Nun könnte man ja allerdings sagen, es gäbe ein anderes Merkmal für die Materie: das wäre das, daß die Materie ein Gewicht haben müsse. Aber mit dieser Eigenschaft des Gewichtes steht es nicht so einfach, wie wir noch sehen werden im Verlauf dieser Vorträge. Denn wenn wir uns nur betrachtend der Welt gegenüberstellen, so können wir im unmittelbaren Betrachten und Anschauen auch gar nicht irgend etwas merken von dem Gewicht, wohl aber von der Raumerfüllung, von der Ausdehnung, von dem Ausgedehntsein.
Nun wissen wir ja ferner, daß dieses Ausgedehntsein gewöhnlich nach den drei Dimensionen zu zählen ist, die wir für den Raum anführen, nach der Dimension der Höhe, der Breite und der Tiefe oder Länge, wie man das dann nennen will. Es ist ja, nicht wahr, eine allgemeine, man möchte sagen, triviale Wahrheit, daß die Dinge im Raum nach den drei Dimensionen ausgedehnt sind. Also die Ausdehnung nach den drei Dimensionen würden wir anerkennen müssen sozusagen als das hervorstechendste Charakteristikon des Materiellen. Nun wird jeder, wenn er das bedenkt, was vorher gesagt worden ist — daß wir nämlich gegenüber dem, was in der Seele liegt, nicht von Raumerfüllung sprechen können —, sich sagen müssen, daß es gegenüber der Raumerfüllung noch etwas anderes gibt als eben das, was den Raum erfüllt, als die Materie oder den Stoff. Denn es gehört durchaus auch zu den Beobachtungen, die man schon auf dem physischen Plan machen kann, daß es eben nicht ausgedehnte Vorgänge, Zustände, wie man es nennen will, als Seelenerlebnisse gibt.
Wenn Sie sich nun die Seelenerlebnisse in derselben Weise vorurteilslos anschauen wie die Stofferlebnisse im Raum, so werden Sie eine andere Eigentümlichkeit der Seelenerlebnisse sehr bald finden, ohne die die Seelenerlebnisse als solche nicht sein können. Das ist — wir können gar nicht anders, als es vorurteilslos zugeben —, daß die Seelenerlebnisse in der Zeit ablaufen. Wenn wir auch nicht sagen können, daß ein Gefühl, ein Willensimpuls fünf Meter lang oder fünf Quadratmeter’ groß ist, so müssen wir doch immer zugestehen, daß das, was wir fühlen und denken, insofern diese Dinge Seelenerlebnisse sind, in der Zeit abläuft und daß wir nicht nur eine bestimmte Zeit brauchen, um diese Dinge zu erleben, sondern daß auch das eine früher, das andere später ist, kurz, daß das, was wir in der Seele erleben, der Zeit unterworfen ist.
Nun handelt es sich darum, daß ja in unserer Wirklichkeit in alledem, was uns umgibt und was wir selber sind, tatsächlich Raum- und Zeitverhältnisse durcheinandergemischt sind. Namentlich in der Außenwelt, da verlaufen die Dinge so, daß sie im Raum ausgedehnt sind, sie verlaufen aber auch nacheinander in der Zeit, beanspruchen selber eine gewisse Zeit. Es wird daraus sich schon, bevor man auf okkulte Wahrheiten eingeht, die Frage ergeben: Wie steht denn überhaupt der Raum zur Zeit im Verhältnis? Wir berühren da, ich möchte sagen, innerhalb eines anthroposophischen Vortragszyklus in höchst unschuldiger Weise eine Frage, welche tatsächlich als eine große philosophische Frage immer durch die Welt gegangen ist, über welche, wenn wir bildlich sprechen dürfen, sich Unzählige die Köpfe zerbrochen haben: das Verhältnis der Zeit zum Raum. Nun wird es Ihnen ja vielleicht nicht ganz leicht werden, in bezug auf dieses Verhältnis der Zeit zum Raum heute, wo wir eben, wie gesagt, in höchst unschuldiger Weise an diese Frage herantreten, die Gedanken, die da gemeint sind, zu verfolgen, weil doch der größte Teil der Zuhörer ohne besondere philosophische Vorbildung ist. Aber wenn Sie sich die Mühe geben, solche Gedanken zu verfolgen, dann werden Sie sehen, wie unendlich fruchtbar solche Gedanken sind und wie Sie, namentlich wenn Sie sie in der Meditation verarbeiten, diese Gedanken weiterführen können.
Es ist gut, wenn Sie da zunächst ausgehen von der Zeit, die Sie in Ihrer eigenen Seele erleben. Fragen Sie sich aber dabei, wie Sie denn die Zeit in Ihrem eigenen Innern erleben. Ich will nun deutlicher sprechen dadurch, daß ich Sie bitte, nicht die Zeit ins Auge zu fassen, die Sie an der Uhr ablesen; da vergleichen Sie natürlich nur Ihr Innenleben mit äußeren Vorgängen. Also sehen Sie ganz ab von dem Ablesen der Zeit von der Uhr oder sonstigen äußeren Vorgängen. Versuchen Sie sich nur so zu fragen, wie die Frage an die eigene Seele gestellt werden kann: Inwiefern äußert sich das Zeitverhältnis in der eigenen Seele? Da werden Sie, so tief Sie auch nachdenken und so gründlich Sie die Frage in Erwägung ziehen, sich auf nichts anderes besinnen können als maßgebend für die Zeit, als wiederum darauf, daß Sie einen Gedanken jetzt fassen können, den Sie sich erregen lassen durch eine äußere Wahrnehmung. Sie schauen oder hören sich etwas an und dann entsteht ein Gedanke oder eine Vorstellung in Ihrer Seele. Und wenn Sie sich da genauer fragen, wie dieses Verhältnis von Ihnen selber zu dieser Vorstellung, zu diesen Gedanken eigentlich ist, so müssen Sie sich sagen: Während Sie den Gedanken haben, sind Sie eigentlich selber der Gedanke. Versuchen Sie nur einmal gründlich über diese Sache nachzudenken, so werden Sie sich sagen müssen: Während Sie der Gedanke in Anspruch nimmt, sind Sie in Ihrem innersten Wesen der Gedanke. Es wäre Vorurteil, daß Sje dann nebenbei noch die Vorstellung hätten von «Ich bin» oder dergleichen. Das «Ich bin» ist nicht da, während Sie selbst dem Gedanken hingegeben sind. Sie sind selbst der Gedanke. Da müssen Sie schon selbst eine gewisse Praxis anwenden, wenn Sie neben dem Gedanken, den Sie haben, noch etwas sein wollen.
Zunächst geht der Mensch in den Gedanken oder Gefühlen auf, die ihm unmittelbar gegeben sind. Nehmen wir aber an, Sie lassen sich durch dieses Stück Kreide solch einen Gedanken erregen, so ist, wenn Sie von allem übrigen absehen, wenn Sie nur an die Vorstellung Kreide, die durch die Wahrnehmung erregt wird, hingegeben sind, Ihr eigenes Inneres eins mit der Vorstellung Kreide. Wenn Sie aber diese Vorstellung nun gefaßt haben, und es kommt Ihnen nun in den Sinn, daß Sie gestern auch Kreide gesehen haben, so vergleichen Sie das, was Ihnen unmittelbar als die Vorstellung der Kreide gegeben ist, mit dem, was Sie gestern erlebt haben als Kreide. Und wenn Sie genau den Gedanken nehmen, nämlich, daß Sie sich mit der heutigen Kreide unmittelbar identifizieren, so werden Sie auch gewahr werden, daß Sie sich so, wie Sie sich mit der heutigen Kreide identifizieren, nicht identifizieren können mit der Kreide von gestern. Die Kreide von gestern muß Ihnen als eine Erinnerungsvorstellung geblieben sein. Wenn Sie also wahrhaftig eins geworden sind mit der Vorstellung Kreide von jetzt, dann ist Ihnen die Kreide von gestern in Ihrem eigenen Innern etwas Äußeres geworden, das heißt, die heutige Kreide ist Ihre eigentliche heutige Innerlichkeit. Ihre Erinnerungsvorstellung ist etwas, worauf Sie zwar zurückschauen, aber was Ihnen gegenüber der heutigen Vorstellung ein Äußeres ist. Und so ist es mit allem, was Sie in der Seele erlebt haben, mit Ausnahme des gegenwärtigen Momentes. Der gegenwärtige Moment ist Ihr jeweiliges Inneres. Alles, was Sie erlebt haben, das haben Sie fortgeschafft, das ist schon draußen aus Ihrem eigenen Innern. Und Sie können sich vorstellen — wenn Sie ein Bild haben wollen —, daß der gegenwärtige Augenblick mit den Vorstellungen, die Sie haben, die Schlange ist, und das, was Sie fortgeschafft haben, die abgestreifte Haut der Schlange. Wie wenn nun die Schlange eine Haut und noch eine und eine dritte Haut abgestreift und hinter sich gelassen hätte, so könnten Sie alle abgestreiften Vorstellungen haben als ein Äußeres gegenüber Ihrem jeweiligen gegenwärtigen Innern. Das heißt, soweit Sie sich erinnern, haben Sie eigentlich sozusagen fortwährend ein Inneres zu einem Äußeren gemacht, denn Sie machen die Vorstellung der Kreide, die Sie jetzt haben, im nächsten Moment zu einem Äußeren, indem Sie zu einer anderen Vorstellung übergehen. Das heißt, Sie arbeiten an einem fortwährenden Veräußerlichen. Sie schaffen hinter sich Ihr Inneres, indem dieses Innere sogleich wie eine Haut ein Äußeres wird. Darin besteht das Seelenleben, daß das Innere fortdauernd ein Äußeres wird, so daß wir in unserem eigenen Innern, in diesem inneren geistigen Prozeß unterscheiden können zwischen dem eigentlichen Innern und dem Äußern in dem Innern drinnen. Wir sind im Innern geblieben, haben aber im Innern selber zwei Partien zu unterscheiden: die Partie von unserm eigenen Innern und die von unserm zum Äußeren gewordenen Innern.
Nun sehen Sie, dieser Prozeß, den wir da sich jetzt haben vollziehen sehen, indem das Innere zu einem Äußeren geworden ist, der bewirkt eigentlich den Inhalt unseres Seelenlebens. Denn wenn Sie wieder einmal darüber nachdenken, so werden Sie finden, daß Sie Ihre Seele das nennen können, was Sie alles, seitdem der Zeitpunkt gekommen ist, bis zu dem Sie sich erinnern können in Ihrer früheren Kindheit, durchlebt haben. Ein Mensch, der alles vergessen würde, was er da durchlebt hat, würde eigentlich sein Ich verloren haben. Also in dieser Möglichkeit, hinter uns zu schaffen die Erinnerungen und sie doch zu behalten wie fortwährend abgelegte Häute, darin besteht die Realität unseres Seelenlebens.
Nun können Sie sich ja diese Realität des Seelenlebens in der mannigfaltigsten Weise gestaltet denken. Ich bitte Sie, einmal darauf zu achten, daß in einem jeden Augenblicke das Seelenleben eigentlich verschieden gestaltet ist. Nehmen Sie einmal an, Sie gehen draußen in einer sternenhellen, wunderschönen Nacht, oder Sie lauschen einer Beethoven-Symphonie, so haben Sie in dem jeweiligen Augenblick mit Ihrem Innern identifiziert ein weites Gebiet des Seelenlebens. Nehmen Sie an, Sie treten von dieser sternenhellen Nacht in ein finsteres, ärmliches Zimmer, so ist es, wie wenn dieses Seelenleben plötzlich zusammengeschrumpft wäre; es sind nur wenige Vorstellungen da. Oder wenn die Symphonie verstummt, so sind Sie in bezug auf Gehörvorstellungen zusammengeschrumpft, und gar wenn Sie schlafen, dann haben Sie Ihr Seelenleben ganz zusammengeschrumpft, bis es sich wiederum aufplustert mit dem Erwachen. Sie haben also ein fortwährendes Gestalten des Seelenlebens. Und wenn wir jetzt — es ist das nur ein Symbolum, denn wir müssen es räumlich zeichnen und meinen doch die Zeit, die nicht räumlich ist —, wenn wir es zeichnen wollen, so könnten wir es in der mannigfaltigsten Weise gestaltet zeichnen. Hier in der Zeichnung (a) wäre es zusammengeschrumpft, hier (b) geht es auf. Wir müßten es in der mannigfaltigsten Weise gestaltet denken, wobei dieses hier (c) immer der Inhalt des Seelenlebens ist. Nun, sehen Sie, aus dem Symbolum können Sie schon erkennen — und dieses soll nichts anderes geben als sichtbar anschaulich das, was nicht sichtbar ist — das Aufplustern und Zusammenschrumpfen des Seelenlebens. Ein Seelenleben, das eine Symphonie anhört, ist reicher als eines, das nur einen einzigen Schlag hört. Man kann also sagen, daß dieses Seelenleben sich aufplustert und sich zusammenzieht, wobei man dann keine räumlichen Vorstellungen einmischen muß. Während dieses Aufplusterns und Zusammenziehens ist ja zweifellos eine innere geistige Bewegung vorhanden. Bewegung! Seelenleben ist Bewegung.

Jetzt müssen Sie sich nur Bewegung so denken, daß Sie sich nicht eine Bewegung im Raum denken, sondern das, was wir beschrieben haben. Und dieses Aufplustern und Zusammenziehen, das gibt Formen; so daß Sie haben Bewegung und äußern Ausdruck der Bewegung in gewissen Formierungen, in gewissen Formen. Aber das alles ohne räumliche Formen! Diese Formen, die hier gemeint sind, sind keine räumlichen Formen, sondern die Formen des sich erweiternden und zusammenziehenden Seelenlebens. Und was lebt da drinnen in diesem Ausgedehntwerden und Zusammenziehen, was lebt da drinnen eigentlich? Nun, da werden Sie schon nahekommen der, man möchte sagen, Wirklichkeit, wenn Sie ein wenig nachdenken, was da drinnen leben muß: Da drinnen leben Ihre Empfindungen, Gedanken, Willensimpulse, insofern das alles geistig ist. Das ist gleichsam das Wasser, das da schwimmt, in Formen sich bewegt, aber alles geistig. Und nun brauchen Sie nur noch eine Vorstellung, um die ganze Sache zu durchdringen. Wir sagten: Gedanken leben da drinnen, Vorstellungen, Gefühle, Willensimpulse. Aber die Willensimpulse sind in einer gewissen Weise etwas, was in fundamentalerer Beziehung notwendig ist als die Gedanken selber; denn wenn Sie sich überlegen, daß dieses Seelenleben zuweilen in raschere, zuweilen in langsamere Bewegung gebracht werden kann, so spüren Sie in Ihrem Innern, daß das eigentlich der Wille selber ist, der das in Bewegung bringt. Wenn Sie den Willen anspornen, können Sie die Gedanken und Gefühle in rascheren Fluß bringen; wenn der Wille träge ist, so läuft das alles langsamer ab. Sie brauchen den Willen, um auszuweiten dieses Seelenleben. So daß wir da drinnen der Reihe nach haben: Willen; dann alles das, was in Gefühlen, in Vorstellungen lebt und was innerhalb unseres Seelenlebens — unseres Seelenlebens, sage ich — dasjenige ist, was wir als Ausdruck fassen können der Weisheit; dann haben wir die Bewegung, das Aufplustern und Zusammenziehen; und dann haben wir die Formierung, die Form, die als Ausdruck der Bewegung erscheint. Sie können genau unterscheiden innerhalb Ihres Seelenlebens Willen, Weisheit, Bewegung und Form. Das webt und lebt da drinnen im Seelenleben.
Es ist schade, daß wir den Zyklus nicht auf einen Monat ausdehnen können, dann könnten wir genauer sprechen. Dann würden Sie schen, daß sich das genau begründen läßt, daß da in Ihrem eigenen Seelenleben dasjenige verläuft, was gleichsam in dem Willen seine Wurzel hat, was dann in sich enthält Weisheit und Bewegung und Form. Nun werden Sie in merkwürdiger Weise sehen, daß die Reihenfolge, die hier für das Seelenleben aufgeschrieben ist, in sonderbarer Art übereinstimmt mit den Namen, die wir geben konnten den aufeinanderfolgenden Hierarchien, von den Geistern des Willens, der Weisheit, der Bewegung bis zu den Geistern der Form. Und wir haben gewissermaßen, indem wir unser eigenes Seelenleben in dieser Weise auseinanderlegen, an einem Zipfel die Hierarchien erwischt; wir haben sie da drinnen wirklich erwischt. Da zeigen sie sich in einer ganz sonderbaren Weise in dem inneren Seelenleben. Und sie zeigen sich so, daß ihr Wirken völlig unräumlich ist. Und wenn wir gar nichts anderes bekommen hätten, so haben wir mindestens das eine Wichtige gewonnen mit dem, was wir gesagt haben: Wir haben dadurch gewissermaßen die nächstliegenden Vorstellungen gewonnen über eine wichtige Eigenschaft dieser vier Hierarchien — der Geister des Willens, der Weisheit, der Bewegung und der Form —, die Eigenschaft nämlich, daß sie unräumlich sind. Daß also «Form» zunächst gemeint ist als die unräumliche, seelisch-geistig wirkende Formation, das ist sehr wichtig. Also, wenn wir von den Formen sprechen, welche die Geister der Form schaffen, so sind das nicht äußerlich räumliche Formen, sondern das sind diese inneren, uns eigentlich nur innerlich zum Bewußtsein kommenden Formationen, die wir im Verlauf unseres Seelenlebens fassen können. Da verläuft aber alles bloß in der Zeit. Ohne Zeit können Sie sich das überhaupt nicht vorstellen, sondern Sie müssen, wenn Sie von der Veranschaulichung absehen, die nichts bedeutet für die Sache selber, es sich, insofern Sie im Seelenleben bleiben, unräumlich vorstellen.
Wenn die Geister des Willens zunächst auf dem alten Saturn, die Geister der Weisheit auf der alten Sonne, die Geister der Bewegung auf dem alten Mond und die Geister der Form auf der Erde gewirkt haben, so würden wir, wenn wir nur die rein innere Art der Geister der Form ins Auge fassen, sagen: Die Geister der Form haben auf der Erde den Menschen so geschaffen, daß er noch eine unsichtbare Form hat. Das stimmt in schöner Weise mit dem überein, was sich uns auch gestern ergeben hat. Unsichtbare, nicht räumliche Formen haben zunächst die Geister der Form dem Menschen beim Beginne seines Erdenwerdens gegeben. Nun müssen wir zunächst ins Auge fassen, daß auch alle äußeren Gegenstände, die uns entgegentreten, alles, was wir in der äußeren Welt durch unsere Sinne gewahr werden, auch nichts anderes ist als eben ein äußerer Ausdruck eines inneren Geistigen. Und hinter einer jeden äußeren räumlich materiellen Dinglichkeit haben wir etwas ganz Ähnliches zu suchen, wie es in unserer Seele selber lebt. Nur tritt uns das natürlich nicht für die äußeren Sinne entgegen, sondern es ist hinter dem, was die äußeren Sinne darbieten.
Wie könnte nun ein Wirken über die Geister der Form hinaus, über das, was diese schaffen als noch nicht räumliche Form, vorgestellt werden? Also, wohlgemerkt, unsere Frage ist jetzt: Wenn nun dieses Wirken weitergeht von Wille, Weisheit, Bewegung, Form, noch weiter über die Form hinaus, was geschieht denn dann ? So ist die Frage gestellt. Sehen Sie, wenn nämlich ein Prozeß im Weltenall fortgeschritten ist bis zur Form, die noch ganz im Geistig-Seelischen ist, die noch keine Raumesform ist, wenn der Prozeß fortgeschritten ist bis zu dieser übersinnlichen Form, dann ist der nächste Schritt nur noch möglich dadurch, daß die Form als solche zerbricht. Und das ist nämlich das, was sich dem okkulten Anblick darbietet: Wenn gewisse Formen, die unter dem Einfluß der Geister der Form geschaffen sind, sich bis zu einem gewissen Zustand entwickelt haben, dann zerbrechen die Formen. Und wenn Sie nun ins Auge fassen zerbrochene Formen, etwas, was also dadurch entsteht, daß Formen, die noch übersinnlich sind, zerbrechen, dann haben Sie den Übergang von dem Übersinnlichen in das Sinnliche des Raumes. Und das, was zerbrochene Form ist, das ist Materie. Materie, wo sie im Weltenall auftritt, ist für den Okkultisten nichts anderes als zerbrochene, zerschellte, zerborstene Form. Wenn Sie sich vorstellen könnten, diese Kreide wäre als solche unsichtbar und sie hätte diese eigentümliche parallelepipedische Form, und als solche wäre sie unsichtbar, und jetzt nehmen Sie einen Hammer und schlagen rasch das Stück Kreide an, daß es zerstiebt, daß es in lauter kleine Stücke zerbirst, dann haben Sie die Form zerbrochen. Nehmen Sie an, in diesem Augenblicke, in dem Sie die Form zerbrechen, würde das Unsichtbare sichtbar werden, dann haben Sie ein Bild für die Entstehung der Materie. Materie ist solcher Geist, der sich entwickelt hat bis zur Form und dann zerborsten, zerbrochen, in sich zusammengefallen ist.
Materie ist ein Trümmerhaufen des Geistes. Es ist außerordentlich wichtig, daß man gerade diese Definition ins Auge faßt, daß Materie ein Trümmerhaufen des Geistes ist. Materie ist also in Wirklichkeit Geist, aber zerbrochener Geist.

Wenn Sie jetzt weiter nachdenken, so werden Sie sich sagen: Ja, aber es treten uns doch räumliche Formen entgegen wie die schönen Kristallformen; an den Kristallen treten uns doch räumlich sehr schöne Formen entgegen — und du sagst, alles das, was stofflich ist, sei ein Trümmerhaufen des Geistes, sei zerborstener Geist! — Denken Sie sich zunächst einmal, damit Sie eine gewisse Vorstellung haben, einen herabfallenden Wasserstrahl (a). Nehmen Sie aber an, er wäre unsichtbar, Sie würden ihn nicht sehen. Und Sie geben ihm hier. (b) eine Widerlage. Dadurch, daß dieser Wasserstrahl hier (b) auffällt, wird er in dieser Weise in Tropfen zerbersten (c). Nun nehmen Sie an, der Wasserstrahl, der herunterfällt, wäre unsichtbar, das aber, was zerborsten ist, würde sichtbar.Dann hätten Sie hier einen zertrümmerten Wasserstrahl, hätten wiederum ein Bild der Materie. Aber jetzt müßten Sie sich wegdenken die Widerlage da unten, denn so etwas gibt es nicht, das würde schon voraussetzen, daß Materie da wäre. Sie müssen sich vorstellen: Ohne daß eine solche Widerlage da ist, ist die Materie, indem sie sich geistig zur Form gliedert, übersinnlich, ist die Materie in Bewegung, denn die Bewegung geht der Form voraus. Es gibt nirgends etwas anderes als das, was durchdrungen ist von den Taten der Geister der Bewegung. An einem bestimmten Punkt kommt die Bewegung bei der Form an, erlahmt in sich selber und zerbirst in sich selber. Die Hauptsache ist, daß wir es so auffassen, daß das, was zunächst geistig-seelisch ist, hinstrahlt, aber nur eine gewisse Schwungkraft hat, an das Ende der Schwungkraft kommt und nun in sich selber zurückprallt und dabei zerbirst. So daß, wenn wir irgendwo Materie auftreten sehen, wir sagen können: Dieser Materie liegt zugrunde ein Übersinnliches, das an die Grenze seines Wirkens gekommen ist und an dieser Grenze zerbirst. Aber bevor es zerbirst, da hat es innerlich geistig noch die Formen. Nun wirkt in den einzelnen auseinanderfallenden Trümmern, wenn es zerborsten ist, nach das, was als geistige Form vorhanden war. Wo das stark nachwirkt, da setzen sich nach dem Zerbersten noch die Linien der geistigen Formen fort, und da drückt sich, nachdem das Stück zerborsten auseinanderprallt, in den Linien, die sie dann beschreiben, noch eine Nachwirkung der geistigen Linien aus. Dadurch entstehen Kristalle. Kristalle sind Nachbildungen geistiger Formen, die gleichsam noch durch die eigene Schwungkraft die ursprüngliche Richtung im entgegengesetzten Sinn beibehalten.
Das, was ich Ihnen hier aufgezeichnet habe, das ist fast genau das, was sich der okkulten Beobachtung für den Wasserstoff ergibt. Der Wasserstoff ergibt sich der okkulten Beobachtung wie ein aus der Unendlichkeit heranbrausender Strahl, der in sich selbst erlahmt und auseinandersprüht — nur so, daß wir ihn etwa so zeichnen müssen, wie wenn sich die Linien hier so überschießen würden und ihre Form so beibehalten würden. So daß etwa ein Wasserstoffteil so aussieht, daß wir etwas wie einen unsichtbaren Strahl haben, der wie aus unendlichen Raumesweiten herkommt und der am Ende zerbricht wie ein Strahl, der absprüht. Kurz, überall ist Materie das, was man nennen kann: zerbrochene Geistigkeit. Materie ist schon eben nichts anderes als Geist, aber Geist im zerbrochenen Zustand.

Und nun muß ich noch einen schwierigen Gedanken vor Ihre Seele hinsetzen, der anknüpft an das, was ich im Beginne gesagt habe. Ich habe gesagt, daß wir im inneren Geistig-Seelischen selber Außeres und Inneres unterscheiden. Nun setzen sich alle Raumesdimensionen in Wahrheit zusammen aus diesen Gegensätzen, so daß Sie überall, wo Sie zunächst eine Raumdimension haben, diese Raumdimension auffassen können als irgendwo ausgehend von einem Punkt; das ist das Innere, und alles übrige ist Äußeres. Für die Fläche ist die Gerade ein Inneres, alles übrige ein Äußeres und so weiter. So ist der Raum nichts anderes als das, was selbst mit entsteht, indem der Geist zerbersten muß und dadurch in das materielle Sein übergeht.
Nun ist es außerordentlich wichtig, folgendes ins Auge zu fassen. Denken Sie einmal, daß dieses Zerbersten des Geistes in die Materie hinein so geschieht, daß er zunächst zerbirst, zerschellt, ohne irgendwelche Materie schon vorzufinden, von sich aus zerbirst, zerschellt, also keinen irgendwie äußeren Widerstand vorfindet. Nehmen wir also an, dieses Zerbersten geschieht sozusagen ins Leere hinein. Wenn der Geist ins Leere hinein zerbricht, dann entsteht nämlich mineralische Materie. Da muß also der Geist zunächst wirklich aus dem Geiste heraus sich in sich selbst zerbrechen, und es entsteht dann mineralische Materie. Nehmen Sie aber einmal an, es sei das nicht etwas, was gleichsam im Weltall jungfräulich vor sich geht, sondern es sei die Sache so, daß aus dem Geiste heraus dasjenige, was da zerbricht, zerbirst, schon eine vorbereitete Welt findet, also sich hineinentwikkelt jetzt nicht ins Leere, sondern, sagen wir, in schon vorhandene Ätherleiblichkeit. Wenn es ins Leere sich hineinentwickelt, entsteht mineralische Materie. Wir nehmen aber an, es entwickelt sich in vorhandene Ätherleiblichkeit hinein. Solche zerberstende Geistigkeit, sie plustert also in einen Ätherleib hinein; diese zerberstende Materie und dieser Ätherleib seien als solche schon vorhanden. Also nicht ins Jungfräuliche der Welt hinein, sondern in den Ätherleib hinein zerbirst Geistigkeit in Materie. Dann entsteht nicht mineralische Materie, sondern pflanzliche Materie. Wenn also Geist in Äthersubstanz hinein zerbirst, dann entsteht Pflanzenmaterie.
Aber nun haben wir gestern eine eigentümliche Äthersubstanz angetroffen. Erinnern Sie sich wohl, was auf der Tafel gestanden hat: wir haben einen Ätherleib angetroffen, der einen Überschuß, ein Übergewicht hatte über astralische Substanz. Und wir haben gestern gesagt, daß das von den luziferischen Einflüssen kommt, die auf den Menschen bewirkt worden sind. Nun, wir haben nicht nur getroffen Äthersubstanz, die ein Übergewicht hat über das Astralische, sondern haben auch gefunden physische Leiblichkeit, die ein Übergewicht hat über Äthersubstanz, über den Ätherleib. Das war sogar das erste, was wir gefunden haben, nicht wahr? Fassen Sie jetzt dieses Eigentümliche auf, das also eigentlich nur durch den luziferischen Einfluß entstanden ist: dieses eigentümliche Zusammenwirken in dieser schlecht kombinierten menschlichen Organisation! Da, wo der physische Leib mit dem Ätherleib zusammentrifft und der Ätherleib durch das Übergewicht des physischen Leibes überall beirrt ist, da ist es nicht so, wie wenn der Geist einfach in Äthersubstanz hineinsprüht und zerbirst, sondern da sprüht er in eine solche Leiblichkeit hinein, die zwar Ätherleiblichkeit ist, aber über die das Physische das Übergewicht hat. Wenn nun Geist in eine solch vorbereitete Substanz hineinsprüht und zerbirst, dann entsteht Nervensubstanz, Nervenmaterie. So daß wir also haben Geist hineinsprühend in Ätherleiblichkeit, die von physischer Leiblichkeit überwogen wird: dann entsteht Nervenmaterie.
Hier haben Sie drei Stufen von Stofflichkeit: zuerst die gewöhnliche Stofflichkeit, die Sie draußen in der Sinneswelt antreffen, dann die Stofflichkeit, die Sie in den Pflanzenkörpern finden, und dann die Stofflichkeit, die Sie finden im menschlichen und im tierischen Leib dadurch, daß da Unregelmäßigkeiten zustande gekommen sind. Denken Sie, was wir nun alles tun müßten, wenn wir die verschiedenen Bedingungen für die mannigfaltigen Stoffe in der Welt aufzählen wollten! So mancherlei haben wir ja gestern durch den luziferischen Einfluß entstehen sehen als Unregelmäßigkeiten, haben dann gesehen, wie wiederum die Ätherleiblichkeit überwiegen kann die Astralleiblichkeit. Wenn in eine solche Astralleiblichkeit, die überwogen ist von Ätherleiblichkeit, Geist hineinsprüht in gewisser Weise, dann entsteht Muskelmaterie. Deshalb, sehen Sie, haben Nervenmaterie und Muskelmaterie ein so sonderbares Aussehen, das sich mit allem andern, was draußen ist, nicht vergleichen läßt, weil sie auf so komplizierte Weise entstehen. Es ist so vorzustellen, daß Sie die Unterschiede ins Auge fassen müssen, wie wenn Sie irgendein flüssiges Metall aussprengen, zunächst in die freie Luft und dann ins Wasser und dann vielleicht in feste Materie hineinspritzen lassen: auf so komplizierte Weise kommen die verschieden gearteten Materien in der Welt zustande. Das Hauptsächlichste, das ich heute damit wollte, war, Ihnen zu zeigen, in welche Tiefen des Seins man hinuntersteigen muß, wenn man diese Dinge wirklich ergründen will. Wenn Sie nämlich Geist nun einsprühen lassen in das, was noch weiter materiell folgt, in das, wo das Ich hineinwirkt mit Überschuß in den Astralleib, wenn also Geist hineinsprüht und zerstiebt in das, was ihm da entgegentritt in jener Unregelmäßigkeit der Leiblichkeit, die zustande gekommen ist dadurch, daß das Ich in seiner Ichlichkeit den Astralleib überwiegt, da entsteht — aber erst auf vielen Umwegen — Knochenmaterie. Es hängt also im wesentlichen, wie Sie sehen, davon ab, wie Materie aufsprüht, zusammenschießt, wenn sie also aus dem Geiste entsteht. Halten Sie dies nun fest, was ich Ihnen gesagt habe, wenn Sie es auch im einzelnen nicht mit Ihren Gedanken verfolgen können. Den Sinn des Ganzen werden Sie erfaßt haben, der darin liegt, daß man Materie überall als zersprühenden, zerberstenden Geist anzusehen hat, daß aber schon etwas entgegenkommen kann dem zerberstenden Geist. Und je nachdem dieses oder jenes ihm entgegenkommt, wird er gleichsam zersprüht in anderes hinein und es entstehen die verschieden konfigurierten Materien: Nerven-, Muskel-, Pflanzenmaterie und so weiter.
Jetzt wird Ihnen aber eine Frage auf der Seele liegen; das ist die Frage: Ja, was wäre denn nun geworden mit dem Menschen, wenn nicht der luziferische Einfluß gekommen wäre in dieser Beziehung? Wir haben schon gestern mannigfaltig aufgezählt, was geworden wäre mit dem Menschen. Aber was wäre es in dieser Beziehung geworden? Ja, sehen Sie, solche Nerven, wie sie der Mensch heute hat, hätte er nicht bekommen können. Denn diese Nerven in ihrer Materie entstehen nur dadurch, daß dieser unordentliche Zusammenhang da ist. Ebenso hätte er nicht Knochen, nicht Muskeln haben können, wenn der luziferische Einfluß nicht gekommen wäre. Kurz, wir haben die verschiedenen Materien dadurch entstehen sehen, daß sich Formen geistig hineinergießen in etwas, was nur durch den luziferischen Einfluß da ist. Es hätten alle diese Materien, Muskel-, Nervenmaterien usw. nicht entstehen können ohne den luziferischen Einfluß. In noch intensiverem Sinne als gestern müssen wir sagen: Was ist denn der ganze Mensch als materieller Mensch? So, wie er äußerlich uns entgegentritt, ist er lediglich ein Ergebnis des luziferischen Einflusses. Denn er hätte keine Nerven, keine Muskeln, keine Knochen im heutigen Sinn, wenn der luziferische Einfluß nicht dagewesen wäre. Der Materialismus beschreibt nichts, als was Luzifer aus dem Menschen gemacht hat, so daß der Materialismus eben im eminentesten Sinne die Schülerschaft des Luzifer ist und alles übrige ablehnt.
Wie wäre denn also dieser Mensch, wenn er paradiesisch geblieben wäre? Nun, da will ich Ihnen heute zunächst einmal, damit wir morgen auf diese Dinge mit leichteren Vorstellungen aufbauen können, eine flüchtige Skizze von dem geben, was der Mensch geworden wäre, wenn der luziferische Einfluß nicht gekommen wäre. Wäre nämlich dieser Einfluß nicht gekommen, dann würde ja zunächst bei der menschlichen Evolution auf der Erde das dagewesen sein, was aus dem Einfluß der Geister der Form gekommen ist. Denn die Geister der Form waren die letzten Geister der höheren Hierarchien, die in den Menschen hereingewirkt haben. Diese Geister der Form haben nur eine rein übersinnliche Form geschaffen, nichts Räumliches zunächst. Das, was da geworden wäre — lassen Sie mich es heute nur kursorisch anführen —, das könnte nämlich kein äußeres Auge sehen, könnten keine äußeren Sinne wahrnehmen, denn rein seelische Formen können nicht von äußeren Sinnen wahrgenommen werden. Was da geworden wäre, fiele zusammen mit dem, was Ihnen beschrieben ist in «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» mit dem, was gegeben ist mit der imaginativen Erkenntnis. Imagination wäre das, was die Geister der Form zunächst geschaffen hätten. Also nichts Sinnliches, sondern übersinnliche Imagination. Nehmen wir einmal das, was da ungefähr geworden wäre, ganz schematisch (siehe Zeichnung 1, Seite 80), so hätten wir ein Imaginationsbild dessen, was die Geister der Form als Imagination des Menschen geschaffen haben, und das wäre durchsetzt von dem, was dem Menschen geblieben ist aus den Schöpfungen der früheren Hierarchien. So daß dieses durchsetzt wäre von dem, was dem Menschen geblieben wäre durch die Geister der Bewegung, von innerer Bewegung (Zeichnung 2, schematisch gezeichnet), und es würde uns entgegentreten als dasjenige, was wir beschrieben haben in «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten ?» als durch inspirierte Erkenntnis gegeben, denn diese Bewegungen würden nur als Inspiration erkenntlich sein. Das heißt: der ganze Mensch würde aus Imagination bestehen, und dann würde sich das andere ergeben, was Bewegung ist, die Inspiration. Und. das, was die Geister der Weisheit geben, das würde Intuition sein. Das würden also wesenhafte innere Inhalte sein, mit denen das alles in irgendeiner Weise noch ausgefüllt wäre. Wir müßten hier hinein (Zeichnung 3) Intuition, das heißt unmittelbare Wesenheiten setzen. Und das Ganze würden wir dann als hervorgehend aus dem Kosmos wie mit einem Aura-Ei umhüllt finden, das nun das Ergebnis wäre der Geister des Willens (Zeichnung 4). Das wäre die übersinnliche Menschennatur, die bestehen würde aus Inhalten, die nur einer rein übersinnlichen Erkenntnis zugänglich sein würden. So phantastisch das aussieht, es ist der wirkliche Mensch, wenn wir so sagen dürfen, symbolisch: der paradiesische Mensch, der nicht besteht aus denjenigen Materie-Inhalten, aus denen er heute besteht, sondern der durchaus ein übersinnliches Wesen hat.

Und was ist nun geworden durch den luziferischen Einfluß? Nun, sehen Sie, durch den luziferischen Einfluß sind die Imaginationen gleichsam ausgespritzt worden mit zerberstendem Geist, das heißt mit Materie, und das, was da geworden ist, steht heute da als menschliches Knochensystem. Das Knochensystem ist der imaginierte Mensch, ausgefüllt mit Materie. Aber zum eigentlichen höheren Menschen gehört die Materie nicht, sondern die ist hineingeschossen in das, was sonst nur imaginativ sein würde, dadurch, daß der luziferische Einfluß gekommen ist. Während man sonst also bequem durch einen Menschen hindurchgehen könnte — wenn das nicht ein Unsinn wäre —, sind diese Imaginationen erstens zusammengezogen worden und dann extra noch ausgefüllt worden mit Knochenmaterie. Nun stößt man sich an den Knochen, wenn man durch den Menschen hindurchgehen würde. Er ist erst undurchdringlich geworden. — Das, was von den Geistern der Bewegung gekommen ist, das ist ausgefüllt mit Muskelmaterie, und das, was als Intuition wahrzunehmen wäre, das ist ausgefüllt mit Nervenmaterie. — Und das, was über dieses hinausgeht, das ist erst das Übersinnliche, wo nun in Betracht kommt des Menschen Ätherleib, der also schon übersinnlich ist, der heute nur das feinste Materielle ist, das gerade wie die feinsten Aussprühungen des Ätherischen erscheint, was noch der Materie, die feiner ist als Nervenmaterie, zugrunde liegt und eigentlich gar nicht in Betracht gezogen wird.
So, sehen Sie, ist der Mensch eigentlich ein höchst vergröbertes Wesen. Denn würde er geworden sein das, was er nach den ursprünglichen Absichten und Ansichten der Götter hätte werden sollen, so hätte er keine Knochen, sondern aus übersinnlichen, imaginierten Knochen würde seine Form bestehen; er hätte keine Muskeln als Bewegungsapparate, sondern er hätte übersinnliche Substanz, die sich in ihm bewegte, während jetzt das, was sich da bewegt, überall ausgespickt worden ist mit Muskelsubstanz. Was die Geister der Bewegung als übersinnliche Bewegung gegeben haben, ist zur physischen Bewegung in den Muskeln geworden, und was die Geister der Weisheit als Intuition gegeben haben, ist beim sinnlichen Menschen das geworden, was als Nervenmaterie hineingespickt ist in die Intuition. Wenn Sie also in den Anatomiebüchern aufgezeichnet finden das Knochensystem, so können Sie denken: Das sollte ursprünglich eine reine Imagination sein und ist durch den luziferischen und ahrimanischen Einfluß so vergröbert worden, daß sie einem heute in den dichten, dicken, zerbrechlichen, harten Knochen entgegentritt; so verfestigt sind da die Imaginationen. Und nun sagen Sie noch, daß der Mensch in der physischen Welt nicht schon einen Abglanz der imaginativen Welt finden kann! Wer da weiß, daß dieser Knochenmensch ein Abbild ist eines Imaginativen, der findet, wenn er einen Knochenmenschen anschaut, durchaus ein Abbild der imaginativen Welt. Und wenn Sie abgebildet sehen den Muskelmenschen, so sollen Sie eigentlich sich sagen: Das ist ein ganz unnatürliches Gebilde, das ist eigentlich innerlich ganz verlogen, denn erstens sehe ich ihn ausgebildet, ich sollte ihn aber geistig hören. In Wahrheit handelt es sich nämlich darum, daß übersinnliche rhythmische Bewegung ausgespickt ist mit Muskelmaterie, die weggehört; was übrigbleibt, sollte nicht gesehen werden, sondern wie die schwingenden Bewegungen der Musik gehört werden. Inspirationen sollten Sie eigentlich hören. Und das, was Sie als Muskelmensch abgebildet sehen, sind die durch den Stoff fixierten Inspirationen des Menschen. Und erst der Nervenmensch: den sollten Sie weder sehen noch hören, sondern nur ganz geistig wahrnehmen. Und es ist für eine kosmische Weltbetrachtung geradezu vollständig deplaziert, daß, was man in reinster Geistigkeit nur erfassen sollte, eine in der Wirklichkeit mit physischer Materie ausgespritzte geistige Hülle ist, daß man das vor sich sichtbar sieht, was eigentlich nur als Intuition wahrgenommen werden sollte.
Dieser Auszug aus dem Paradies besteht durchaus darin, daß der Mensch ursprünglich in der geistigen Welt, das heißt im Paradies war und da bestanden hat aus Imagination, Inspiration und Intuition, das heißt in einem ganz und gar überirdischen Dasein war. Und dann wurde er so behandelt durch das, was er in sich selber angestiftet hat durch den luziferischen Einfluß, daß er gleichsam ausgespritzt worden ist mit dem, was gekommen ist durch zerberstenden Geist, durch Materie. Die ist also etwas, womit wir im Grunde ausgefüllt sind, was nicht zu uns gehört. Wir tragen sie in uns, diese Materie, und weil wir sie in uns tragen, müssen wir physisch sterben. Das ist tatsächlich der Grund des physischen Todes, und von mancherlei anderem noch. Denn indem der Mensch sozusagen seinen geistigen Zustand verlassen hat, lebt er hier in dem physischen Dasein nur so lange, bis die Materie überwindet das, was sie zusammenhält. Denn sie ist eigentlich so, daß sie fortdauernd zerbersten will, und die Materie in den Knochen wird nur von der Kraft der Imagination zusammengehalten. Wenn sie über die Kraft der Knochen Oberhand bekommt, dann werden die Knochen lebensunfähig. Ebenso ist es bei den Muskeln und Nerven. Sobald die Materie in den Knochen, Muskeln und Nerven die Oberhand bekommt über die Imagination, Inspiration und Intuition und zerbersten kann, muß der Mensch seinen physischen Leib ablegen. Da haben Sie den Zusammenhang zwischen dem physischen Tod und dem luziferischen Einfluß, und wir werden morgen zu verfolgen haben, wie auch das Böse und anderes, Krankheiten und so weiter, in die Welt gekommen sind.
Fourth Lecture
What we commonly call matter can actually only be grasped by human beings through relatively difficult concepts. And if we want to shed light on the nature of the material, the physical, in an occult sense, we must first ask ourselves: What is the most striking characteristic of what we commonly call matter? Now, if one approaches the question without prejudice, one must conclude that the most striking feature of all material things is their filling of space, their extension in space. For no one would think of saying that anything that arises in their soul — say, a feeling, a thought, or even an impulse of the will — occupies space. Everyone will immediately see that it would be nonsense to claim that any thought—let us say, for the sake of argument, the thought of a hero—is five square meters larger than the thought of an ordinary person, won't they? If one tries to imagine this, one immediately realizes that one cannot apply the concepts of filling space or being extended to what our mental states and processes actually are.
Now, one could say that there is another characteristic of matter: that matter must have weight. But this property of weight is not so simple, as we shall see in the course of these lectures. For when we simply observe the world, we cannot perceive anything of its weight in our immediate observation and perception, but we can perceive its filling of space, its extension, its expansiveness.
Now we also know that this extension is usually counted according to the three dimensions that we use to describe space: height, width, and depth or length, whatever you want to call it. It is, after all, a general, one might say trivial, truth that things in space are extended in three dimensions. So we would have to recognize extension in three dimensions as the most salient characteristic of matter, so to speak. Now, when we consider what has been said before—namely, that we cannot speak of filling space in relation to what lies in the soul—we must say that there is something else in relation to the filling of space than what fills space, than matter or substance. For it is also part of the observations that can already be made on the physical plane that there are no extended processes or states, whatever you want to call them, as soul experiences.
If you now look at soul experiences in the same unprejudiced way as you look at material experiences in space, you will very soon discover another peculiarity of soul experiences, without which soul experiences as such cannot exist. This is — we cannot help but admit it without prejudice — that soul experiences take place in time. Even if we cannot say that a feeling or an impulse of the will is five meters long or five square meters , we must always admit that what we feel and think, insofar as these things are soul experiences, takes place in time, and that we not only need a certain amount of time to experience these things, but also that one thing happens earlier and another later; in short, that what we experience in the soul is subject to time.
Now the point is that in our reality, in everything that surrounds us and in what we ourselves are, space and time are indeed mixed together. In the outer world in particular, things are such that they are extended in space, but they also occur one after the other in time, each claiming a certain amount of time for itself. Even before we go into occult truths, this raises the question: What is the relationship between space and time? I would say that, within a series of anthroposophical lectures, we are touching in a very innocent way on a question that has always been a great philosophical question throughout the world, one over which, if we may speak figuratively, countless people have racked their brains: the relationship between time and space. Now, it may not be easy for you to follow the thoughts that are meant here in relation to this relationship between time and space today, when we are approaching this question in a highly innocent way, as I said, because most of the audience has no special philosophical training. But if you take the trouble to follow such thoughts, you will see how infinitely fruitful they are and how you can develop them further, especially if you work on them in meditation.
It is good to start with the time you experience in your own soul. But ask yourself how you experience time within yourself. I will now speak more clearly by asking you not to consider the time you read on the clock; for then you are naturally only comparing your inner life with external events. So disregard the reading of the clock or other external events. Try to ask yourself how the question can be posed to your own soul: In what way does the relationship to time express itself in your own soul? No matter how deeply you think about it and how thoroughly you consider the question, you will not be able to think of anything else as decisive for time than the fact that you can now grasp a thought that you allow yourself to be aroused by an external perception. You look at or hear something, and then a thought or an idea arises in your soul. And if you ask yourself more precisely what this relationship between yourself and this idea, these thoughts, actually is, you must say to yourself: while you have the thought, you are actually the thought itself. Just try to think about this thoroughly, and you will have to say to yourself: while the thought occupies you, you are the thought in your innermost being. It would be a prejudice to think that you also have the idea of “I am” or something similar. The “I am” is not there while you are absorbed in the thought. You are the thought itself. You have to apply a certain practice if you want to be something else besides the thought you have.
At first, people are absorbed in the thoughts or feelings that are immediately available to them. But let us assume that this piece of chalk arouses such a thought in you. If you disregard everything else and are completely absorbed in the idea of chalk that is aroused by your perception, then your inner self is one with the idea of chalk. But if you have now grasped this idea and it occurs to you that you also saw chalk yesterday, you compare what is immediately given to you as the idea of chalk with what you experienced yesterday as chalk. And if you take the thought that you identify yourself directly with today's chalk, you will also realize that you cannot identify yourself with yesterday's chalk in the same way that you identify yourself with today's chalk. Yesterday's chalk must have remained a memory for you. So if you have truly become one with the idea of chalk as it is now, then yesterday's chalk has become something external to you in your own inner being, that is, today's chalk is your actual inner being today. Your memory is something you look back on, but it is external to your present conception. And so it is with everything you have experienced in your soul, with the exception of the present moment. The present moment is your present inner life. Everything you have experienced, you have cast away; it is already outside your own inner life. And you can imagine—if you want to have an image—that the present moment with the ideas you have is the snake, and what you have cast away is the snake's shed skin. Just as if the snake had shed one skin, then another, and then a third, and left them behind, so you could have all the ideas you have cast away as something external to your respective present inner self. That is to say, as far as you can remember, you have actually, so to speak, continually made an inner life into an outer life, because you make the idea of chalk that you have now into an outer life in the next moment by passing on to another idea. That is to say, you are working on a continuous externalization. You create your inner life behind you by immediately turning this inner life into an outer life, like a skin. This is what constitutes the life of the soul: that the inner becomes an outer in a continuous process, so that we can distinguish within our own inner being, in this inner mental process, between the actual inner and the outer within the inner. We have remained within ourselves, but within ourselves we have two parts to distinguish: the part of our own inner self and the part of our inner self that has become external.
Now you see, this process that we have just seen taking place, in which the inner has become an outer, actually brings about the content of our soul life. For if you think about it again, you will find that you can call your soul everything that you have experienced since the moment you can remember in your early childhood. A person who forgot everything they had experienced would actually have lost their ego. So in this ability to create memories behind us and yet retain them like skins that are continually shed, there lies the reality of our soul life.
Now you can imagine this reality of soul life taking shape in the most varied ways. I ask you to pay attention to the fact that at every moment, the life of the soul is actually structured differently. Suppose you are walking outside on a starry, beautiful night, or you are listening to a Beethoven symphony. At that moment, you have identified a wide area of your soul life with your inner being. Suppose you step out of this starry night into a dark, poor room; it is as if this soul life had suddenly shrunk; there are only a few ideas left. Or when the symphony falls silent, your auditory perceptions shrink, and when you sleep, your soul life shrinks completely until it expands again when you awaken. You therefore have a continuous shaping of your soul life. And if we now—this is only a symbol, because we have to draw it spatially and yet mean time, which is not spatial—if we want to draw it, we could draw it in the most varied ways. Here in drawing (a) it would be shrunk, here (b) it expands. We would have to think of it in the most varied ways, whereby this here (c) is always the content of the soul life. Now, you see, from the symbol you can already recognize — and this is meant to be nothing other than a visible representation of what is invisible — the swelling and shrinking of the soul life. A soul life that listens to a symphony is richer than one that hears only a single beat. One can therefore say that this soul life puffs up and contracts, whereby one does not need to introduce any spatial ideas. During this puffing up and contracting, there is undoubtedly an inner spiritual movement. Movement! Soul life is movement.

Now you just have to think of movement not as movement in space, but as what we have described. And this puffing up and contracting gives rise to forms, so that you have movement and the outward expression of movement in certain formations, in certain forms. But all this without spatial forms! The forms referred to here are not spatial forms, but the forms of the expanding and contracting soul life. And what lives there inside in this expansion and contraction, what actually lives there inside? Well, you will come close to what one might call reality if you think a little about what must live there: there live your feelings, thoughts, impulses of the will, insofar as all these are spiritual. This is, as it were, the water that floats there, moves in forms, but everything is spiritual. And now you only need one more idea to penetrate the whole thing. We said that thoughts live there, ideas, feelings, impulses of the will. But the impulses of the will are, in a certain sense, something that is more fundamentally necessary than thoughts themselves; for if you consider that this soul life can sometimes be brought into faster, sometimes into slower motion, you feel within yourself that it is actually the will itself that sets it in motion. When you spur the will on, you can bring thoughts and feelings into a faster flow; when the will is sluggish, everything proceeds more slowly. You need the will to expand this soul life. So that we have there, in order: the will; then everything that lives in feelings, in ideas, and what within our soul life — our soul life, I say — is that which we can grasp as the expression of wisdom; then we have movement, the swelling and contracting; and then we have formation, the form that appears as the expression of movement. You can distinguish precisely within your soul life between will, wisdom, movement, and form. This weaves and lives there within the soul life.
It is a pity that we cannot extend the cycle to a month, then we could speak more precisely. Then you would see that it can be precisely explained that what has its roots, as it were, in the will, what then contains wisdom and movement and form, runs through your own soul life. Now you will see in a strange way that the order in which the life of the soul is written down here corresponds in a peculiar way to the names we could give to the successive hierarchies, from the spirits of will, wisdom, and movement to the spirits of form. And by laying out our own soul life in this way, we have, as it were, caught hold of one corner of the hierarchies; we have really caught hold of them there. There they reveal themselves in a very peculiar way in the inner soul life. And they reveal themselves in such a way that their activity is completely non-spatial. And even if we had gained nothing else, we would at least have gained one important thing from what we have said: we have thereby gained, in a sense, the most immediate ideas about an important characteristic of these four hierarchies — the spirits of will, wisdom, movement, and form — namely, the characteristic that they are non-spatial. So it is very important that “form” is initially meant as the non-spatial, soul-spiritual formation. Therefore, when we speak of the forms created by the spirits of form, these are not external spatial forms, but rather these inner formations that we can only perceive internally in the course of our soul life. But everything takes place solely in time. Without time, you cannot imagine this at all. If you disregard the illustration, which has no meaning for the matter itself, you must imagine it as non-spatial, insofar as you remain within the soul life.
If the spirits of will first worked on the old Saturn, the spirits of wisdom on the old Sun, the spirits of movement on the old Moon, and the spirits of form on the Earth, then, if we consider only the purely inner nature of the spirits of form, we would say: The spirits of form created human beings on Earth in such a way that they still have an invisible form. This corresponds beautifully with what we learned yesterday. Invisible, non-spatial forms were first given to human beings by the spirits of form at the beginning of their earthly existence. Now we must first consider that all external objects that we encounter, everything that we perceive in the external world through our senses, is nothing other than an external expression of an inner spiritual reality. And behind every external, spatial, material thing, we must seek something very similar to what lives in our own soul. Of course, this does not appear to our external senses, but lies behind what the external senses present to us.
How, then, can we imagine an activity beyond the spirits of form, beyond what they create as not yet spatial form? So, mind you, our question now is: If this activity continues beyond will, wisdom, movement, form, even beyond form, what happens then? That is the question. You see, when a process in the universe has progressed to a form that is still entirely spiritual and soul-like, that is not yet a spatial form, when the process has progressed to this supersensible form, then the next step is only possible through the destruction of the form as such. And that is what presents itself to occult vision: When certain forms, created under the influence of the spirits of form, have developed to a certain state, then the forms break apart. And when you now contemplate broken forms, something that arises from the breaking of forms that are still supersensible, then you have the transition from the supersensible to the sensible in space. And what is broken form is matter. Matter, where it appears in the universe, is nothing other than broken, shattered, burst form for the occultist. If you could imagine that this chalk were invisible as such and had this peculiar parallelepiped shape, and as such were invisible, and now you take a hammer and quickly strike the piece of chalk so that it shatters, so that it bursts into lots of little pieces, then you have broken the form. Suppose that at the moment you break the shape, the invisible becomes visible, then you have a picture of the origin of matter. Matter is such spirit that has developed into form and then burst, broken, collapsed into itself.
Matter is a heap of debris of the spirit. It is extremely important to keep this definition in mind, that matter is a heap of debris of the spirit. Matter is therefore in reality spirit, but broken spirit.

If you think about it further, you will say to yourself: Yes, but we do encounter spatial forms such as beautiful crystal shapes; crystals present us with very beautiful spatial forms — and you say that everything that is material is a heap of debris of the spirit, is shattered spirit! — First, to give you a certain idea, imagine a falling stream of water (a). But suppose it were invisible, you couldn't see it. And you give it a counterforce here (b). As this stream of water strikes here (b), it bursts into drops (c). Now suppose that the stream of water falling down is invisible, but that what is shattered is visible. Then you would have a shattered stream of water here, and again you would have an image of matter. But now you would have to think away the counterforce down there, because there is no such thing; that would presuppose that matter was there. You must imagine: without such a counterforce, matter, in organizing itself spiritually into form, is supersensible; matter is in motion, for motion precedes form. There is nothing anywhere other than that which is permeated by the deeds of the spirits of motion. At a certain point, movement arrives at form, slows down within itself, and bursts apart. The main thing is that we understand that what is initially spiritual-soul-like radiates out, but has only a certain momentum, reaches the end of its momentum, and then rebounds within itself and bursts apart. So that when we see matter appearing somewhere, we can say: underlying this matter is something supersensible that has reached the limit of its activity and bursts at this limit. But before it bursts, it still has the forms within itself spiritually. Now, when it has burst, what was present as a spiritual form continues to work in the individual fragments that are falling apart. Where this has a strong after-effect, the lines of the spiritual forms continue after the bursting, and after the piece has burst apart, an after-effect of the spiritual lines is still expressed in the lines they then describe. This gives rise to crystals. Crystals are replicas of spiritual forms which, as it were, still maintain their original direction in the opposite sense through their own momentum.
What I have recorded here is almost exactly what occult observation reveals about hydrogen. Hydrogen appears in occult observation like a ray rushing in from infinity, which slows down within itself and sprays out — only in such a way that we have to draw it as if the lines here were to cross each other and retain their shape. So that a piece of hydrogen looks like we have something like an invisible ray coming from infinite space and breaking at the end like a ray spraying out. In short, everywhere matter is what you might call broken spirituality. Matter is nothing other than spirit, but spirit in a broken state.

And now I must present you with a difficult thought that ties in with what I said at the beginning. I said that we distinguish between the external and the internal in our inner spiritual soul. Now, in truth, all spatial dimensions are composed of these opposites, so that wherever you first have a spatial dimension, you can conceive of this spatial dimension as originating somewhere from a point; that is the interior, and everything else is exterior. For a surface, the straight line is the inner part, everything else is the outer part, and so on. Thus, space is nothing other than what comes into being when the spirit must burst and thereby pass into material existence.
Now it is extremely important to consider the following. Think for a moment that this bursting of the spirit into matter happens in such a way that it first bursts, shatters, without already finding any matter, bursts and shatters of its own accord, thus encountering no external resistance whatsoever. Let us assume, then, that this bursting occurs, so to speak, into emptiness. When the spirit bursts into emptiness, mineral matter arises. The spirit must therefore first burst out of itself into itself, and mineral matter then arises. But suppose that this is not something that happens in the universe as if from nothing, but that what breaks apart and shatters out of the spirit already finds a prepared world, so that it does not develop into nothingness, but rather into, let us say, an already existing etheric body. When it develops into emptiness, mineral matter arises. But let us assume that it develops into existing etheric substance. Such bursting spirituality thus puffs itself into an etheric body; this bursting matter and this etheric body already exist as such. So it is not into the virginity of the world that spirituality bursts into matter, but into the etheric body. Then it is not mineral matter that arises, but plant matter. So when spirit bursts into etheric substance, plant matter arises.
But yesterday we encountered a peculiar etheric substance. Remember what was written on the board: we encountered an etheric body that had an excess, a preponderance, of astral substance. And yesterday we said that this comes from the Luciferic influences that have been exerted on human beings. Now, we have not only encountered etheric substance that has a preponderance over the astral, but we have also found physical corporeality that has a preponderance over etheric substance, over the etheric body. That was actually the first thing we found, wasn't it? Now grasp this peculiarity, which has actually only come about through the Luciferic influence: this peculiar interaction in this poorly combined human organization! Where the physical body meets the etheric body and the etheric body is confused everywhere by the predominance of the physical body, it is not as if the spirit simply sprays into the etheric substance and bursts, but rather it sprays into a physicality that is indeed etheric, but over which the physical has the upper hand. When spirit now sprays into such a prepared substance and bursts, then nerve substance, nerve matter, arises. So we have spirit spraying into etheric physicality, which is outweighed by physical physicality: then nerve matter arises.
Here you have three stages of materiality: first, the ordinary materiality that you encounter outside in the sensory world; then the materiality that you find in plant bodies; and then the materiality that you find in the human and animal bodies through the emergence of irregularities. Think what we would have to do if we wanted to list all the different conditions for the manifold substances in the world! We saw yesterday how many things arise as irregularities through the influence of Lucifer, and then we saw how the etheric body can in turn predominate over the astral body. When spirit enters in a certain way into such an astral body that is dominated by etheric body, then muscle matter arises. That is why, you see, nerve matter and muscle matter have such a strange appearance that cannot be compared with anything else outside, because they arise in such a complicated way. You have to imagine the differences as if you were spraying some liquid metal, first into the open air, then into water, and then perhaps into solid matter: the different types of matter in the world come into being in such a complicated way. The main thing I wanted to show you today was how deep into being you have to descend if you really want to fathom these things. For when you allow spirit to spray into what follows materially, into that where the ego works with excess into the astral body, when spirit sprays in and disperses into what meets it there in the irregularity of physicality that has come about through the ego in its ego-ness predominating over the astral body, then bone matter arises — but only after many detours. So, as you see, it depends essentially on how matter sprays out, shoots together, when it arises from the spirit. Now keep this in mind, what I have told you, even if you cannot follow it in detail with your thoughts. You will have grasped the meaning of the whole, which lies in the fact that matter must be regarded everywhere as spraying, bursting spirit, but that something can already come to meet the bursting spirit. And depending on whether this or that comes to meet it, it is, as it were, sprayed into something else, and the variously configured matters arise: nerve matter, muscle matter, plant matter, and so on.
Now, however, a question will be on your mind, namely: What would have become of the human being if the Luciferic influence had not come into this relationship? We have already enumerated in many ways yesterday what would have become of the human being. But what would have become of him in this relationship? Well, you see, he could not have acquired such nerves as the human being has today. For these nerves in their material form arise only through the existence of this disorderly connection. Likewise, he could not have had bones or muscles if the Luciferic influence had not come. In short, we have seen the various materials arise through forms pouring spiritually into something that exists only through the Luciferic influence. All these substances, muscle and nerve matter, etc., could not have come into being without the Luciferic influence. In an even more intense sense than yesterday, we must say: What is the whole human being as a material human being? As he appears to us outwardly, he is merely a result of the Luciferic influence. For he would have no nerves, no muscles, no bones in the present sense if the Luciferic influence had not been there. Materialism describes nothing other than what Lucifer has made of man, so that materialism is, in the most eminent sense, the discipleship of Lucifer and rejects everything else.
What would this human being be like if he had remained in paradise? Well, today I would like to give you a brief sketch of what human beings would have become if the Luciferic influence had not come, so that tomorrow we can build on these things with easier ideas. For if this influence had not come, then what would have been present in human evolution on earth would have been what came from the influence of the spirits of form. For the spirits of form were the last spirits of the higher hierarchies that worked in human beings. These spirits of form created only a purely supersensible form, nothing spatial at first. What would have come into being — let me just mention it briefly today — could not be seen by the outer eye, could not be perceived by the outer senses, because purely soul forms cannot be perceived by the outer senses. What would have come into being would coincide with what is described in How to Know Higher Worlds, with what is given through imaginative knowledge. Imagination would be what the spirits of form would have created at first. So nothing sensual, but rather supersensible imagination. If we take what would have become, schematically speaking (see drawing 1, page 80), we would have an imaginative picture of what the spirits of form created as the imagination of human beings, and this would be permeated by what remained to human beings from the creations of the earlier hierarchies. So that this would be interspersed with what remained to human beings through the spirits of movement, of inner movement (drawing 2, schematically drawn), and it would appear to us as what we described in “How to Know Higher Worlds” as given through inspired knowledge, for these movements would only be recognizable as inspiration. That means: the whole human being would consist of imagination, and then the other thing would arise, which is movement, inspiration. And what the spirits of wisdom give would be intuition. These would therefore be essential inner contents with which everything would still be filled in some way. We would have to place intuition, that is, immediate entities, here (drawing 3). And we would then find the whole thing emerging from the cosmos as if enveloped in an aura egg, which would now be the result of the spirits of the will (drawing 4). That would be the supersensible human nature, which would consist of contents that would only be accessible to purely supersensible knowledge. As fantastic as this may seem, it is the real human being, if we may say so symbolically: the paradisiacal human being, who does not consist of the material contents of which he consists today, but who has a thoroughly supersensible being.

And what has become of this through the influence of Lucifer? Well, you see, through the influence of Lucifer, the imaginations have been sprayed out, as it were, with a bursting spirit, that is, with matter, and what has become of this stands today as the human skeletal system. The skeletal system is the imagined human being, filled with matter. But matter does not belong to the actual higher human being; rather, it has been shot into what would otherwise be only imaginative, through the coming of the Luciferic influence. Whereas one could otherwise comfortably pass through a human being — if that were not nonsense — these imaginations have first been drawn together and then filled with bone matter. Now, if one were to pass through a human being, one would bump into the bones. They have first become impenetrable. That which has come from the spirits of movement is filled with muscle matter, and that which could be perceived as intuition is filled with nerve matter. — And that which goes beyond this is the supersensible, where the human etheric body comes into consideration, which is already supersensible, which today is only the finest material, which appears just like the finest spray of the etheric, which still underlies matter that is finer than nerve matter and is not actually taken into consideration at all.
So you see, human beings are actually highly coarse beings. For if he had become what he was supposed to become according to the original intentions and views of the gods, he would have no bones, but his form would consist of supersensible, imagined bones; he would have no muscles as organs of movement, but he would have a supersensible substance moving within him, whereas now what moves there has been picked out everywhere with muscle substance. What the spirits of movement gave as supersensible movement has become physical movement in the muscles, and what the spirits of wisdom gave as intuition has become, in the sensory human being, what is embedded in intuition as nerve matter. So when you find the skeletal system recorded in anatomy books, you can think: This was originally supposed to be pure imagination, but it has been so coarsened by the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman that it now confronts us in the form of dense, thick, fragile, hard bones; so solidified are the imaginations. And now you say that human beings cannot find a reflection of the imaginative world in the physical world! Anyone who knows that this bone man is a reflection of something imaginative will find, when looking at a bone man, a reflection of the imaginative world. And when you see a picture of the muscle man, you should actually say to yourself: This is a completely unnatural structure, it is actually completely false internally, because first of all I see it formed, but I should hear it spiritually. In truth, what is happening is that supersensible rhythmic movement is picked out with muscle matter that does not belong there; what remains should not be seen, but heard like the vibrating movements of music. You should actually hear inspirations. And what you see depicted as the muscular man are the inspirations of the human being fixed by matter. And then there is the nervous person: you should neither see nor hear them, but only perceive them entirely spiritually. And it is completely out of place in a cosmic view of the world that what should only be grasped in the purest spirituality is in reality a spiritual shell sprayed with physical matter, that one sees before one's eyes what should actually only be perceived as intuition.
This expulsion from paradise consists entirely in the fact that human beings were originally in the spiritual world, that is, in paradise, and existed there as imagination, inspiration, and intuition, that is, in a completely supernatural existence. And then he was treated in such a way by what he had instigated in himself through the influence of Lucifer that he was, as it were, ejected with what came through the shattering of the spirit, through matter. This is therefore something with which we are basically filled, something that does not belong to us. We carry this matter within us, and because we carry it within us, we must die physically. That is actually the reason for physical death, and for many other things besides. For when human beings have, so to speak, left their spiritual state, they live here in physical existence only until matter overcomes what holds it together. For matter is actually such that it constantly wants to burst apart, and the matter in the bones is held together only by the power of the imagination. When it gains the upper hand over the power of the bones, the bones become incapable of life. The same is true of the muscles and nerves. As soon as the matter in the bones, muscles, and nerves gains the upper hand over imagination, inspiration, and intuition and can burst apart, the human being must shed his physical body. There you have the connection between physical death and the Luciferic influence, and tomorrow we will have to trace how evil and other things, such as diseases and so on, came into the world.