The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In the Waldorf School we get children coming in at widely different ages. Besides this, we cannot immediately have—it is a pity—a university as well. So we bring our Waldorf pupils up to the required standards of other schools. And yet in spite of restrictions we can perform our task at the Waldorf School when we work according to those principles which the present evolution of man demands. We shall be able to do this if we apply a golden rule particularly to the older children whom we shall soon have to send on to the other institutions of life: this rule is, teach economically.

We shall teach economically if, above all, particularly with those children of thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years, we carefully exclude everything which is really only a burden to the development of the human soul and cannot bear fruit for life. We shall have to make room in our time-table, for instance, for Latin; perhaps, too, if it proves necessary, Greek. From the first we shall have to come to a clear understanding about language teaching, for this is of real importance for our method. Take for a moment this position: you get pupils who have learnt French or Latin up to a certain stage. The teaching they have received has naturally been given on certain lines. Now you will have to use the first lesson, perhaps even the first week, for finding out what your children can already do. You will have to repeat what they have already done. But you will have to do this economically, so that your boys and girls, each according to his or her capacity, receive some benefit from this repetition.

You will achieve a great deal by simply remembering that for all so-called foreign language teaching the greatest waste of time lies in translation from the foreign language and translation into it from the native language. A colossal amount of time is wasted with secondary school children, for instance, in translating so much from Latin into German (in this case the native tongue) and German back again into Latin. Much more reading should be done, and there should be far more expressing of the children's thoughts in the foreign language than translation and retranslation. How, on these lines, will you set about teaching your pupils a foreign language—French, for example?

First of all, let us take the oldest children who are to be considered, from thirteen to fourteen years old. You will have to select carefully what you intend to read in the language in question with your children. You will select reading passages, and begin by calling on the children to read these passages aloud to you. You will save the time and energy of the children if you do not at first have the passages translated into their native language, but if you pay attention for the moment to pleasant reading by the child and to achieve, where possible, by reading aloud, a pleasant delivery of the French or Latin reading passage, with accurate pronunciation, etc. Then it is a good plan with children for whom you wish to combine revision of former work and your later teaching, to avoid translation, and to have free oral reproduction of the contents of the reading passages. Simply let the child tell in his own words the story of the passage; pay careful attention to any omission in the retelling, and try from this to find out whether there was something which he did not understand. It is more convenient for you, of course, if you simply let the child translate; then you see where he stops, and cannot go on; it is less convenient for you, not only to see where he cannot go on, but where he leaves something out; in this way you find out where he did not understand something, where he has not reproduced a phrase in his own words. There will be children there, of course, who can reproduce the passage very well; that does no harm. But first go through it with the children.

Then we proceed to do the opposite. Let us discuss in our own language some subject or other, anything which the child can think over and feel with us. And then let him try, in terms of his mastery of the language at this stage, freely to recount in the foreign language what we have discussed. In this way we shall find out how far the child who has come to us from some other class has mastered the foreign language.

You cannot study a foreign language in school without really practising grammar—ordinary grammar as well as syntax. It is especially necessary that children after the age of twelve are made fully conscious of the value of grammar. But here, too, you can proceed with extreme economy. And if, in the Allgemeine Menschenkunde (Lecture 9) I told you that you form conclusions in everyday life and then pass on to “judgement” and “concept,” you cannot of course give the child this logical teaching, but it will underlie your teaching of grammar. You will be wise to talk over the things of the world with the child in such a way as to evolve grammar as though of itself from the very use of the foreign language. The only question is the right approach to this process. Start by forming with the child something which is a complete sentence and is no more than a sentence. Draw his attention to what is going on outside. You can quite well combine your teaching of the foreign language with the child's statement; for instance, in Latin and French as well as in his own language “It is raining.” Start by eliciting from the child the statement “it is raining” and then draw his attention (you are here, of course, always concerned with older children) to the fact that when he says “it is raining” he is simply stating a mere activity. Then go from this sentence to another by saying: “Now just think for a moment of what happens, not in the whole of space where it is raining, but think of the meadow-grass in spring.” Get the child to say of the meadow-grass (“es grünt,” it greeneth) that it is growing green. And only then go on to let the child change the sentence “it greeneth” into the sentence “the grass is growing green.” Lead him on to transform this sentence “the grass is growing green” into the idea, into the concept “the green grass.”

If you excite these thoughts, as suggested, one after the other in the language lesson, you do not begin by teaching the child pedantic syntax and logic, but you direct the entire disposition of his soul into a channel by which you convey to him economically what his soul should possess. You introduce the child to impersonal sentences. They contain more activity without subject or predicate, they are shortened conclusions. Then you touch on something for which it is possible to find a subject: “The meadow greeneth,—the meadow which is green.” Then you go on to form a sentence expressing opinion. You will find it difficult to form a sentence similar to “the meadow greeneth” in regard to “it rains,” for you cannot get the subject. It is impossible to find one. This practice with the children really takes you into provinces of language about which philosophers have written an enormous amount. The Slav scholar, MiklosiÄ, for example, was the first to write about subject-less and impersonal sentences. Then Franz Brentano occupied himself with them; then Marti in Prague. They hunted up all the rules concerning subject-less or impersonal sentences like “it is raining,” “it is snowing,” “it is lightning,” “it is thundering,” etc., for their logic could give no clue for their origin.

Subject-less sentences, as a matter of fact, arise from our profoundly intimate relation with the world in some respects, from our place as microcosms in the macrocosm, and the still unsevered state of our own activity from the world's activity. When it is raining, for instance, we, too—especially if we have no umbrella—are very intimately bound up with the world; we cannot isolate ourselves properly from it; we get just as wet as the stones and houses round about us. For this reason we isolate ourselves only slightly from the world, we cannot find a subject, we describe the activity alone. Where we can detach ourselves more from the world, where we can more easily escape from it, as from the meadow grass, we make a subject: “The meadow grows green.”

From this you see that you can always bear in mind—in your very manner of talking to the children—man's reciprocal relation to his surroundings. And in introducing the child to these things—especially in the lessons devoted to foreign languages—where grammar is bound up with the practical logic of life, try to discover how much grammar and syntax he knows. But please steer clear, in teaching a foreign language, of first taking a reading passage through, and then of pulling the language about. Try to evolve the grammatical side as independently as possible. There was a time when the foreign language textbooks contained crazy sentences simply for the purpose of illustrating the right application of grammatical rules. Gradually this came to be thought foolish, and sentences taken more from life were introduced into the books which were to teach the foreign language. But here, too, the golden mean is better than extremes. You will not be able to teach pronunciation well if you confine your sentences to life, unless you intend also to use sentences such as we took yesterday for practice, like this one:

Lalle Lieder lieblich
Lipplicher Laffe,
Lappiger, lumpiger,
Laichiger Lurch,

which is based merely on the element of language itself and not on the thought content. Try, therefore, to study grammar and syntax with the children by forming sentences expressly intended to illustrate this or that rule. Only you must so arrange your teaching that these sentences in one or another foreign language, illustrating grammatical rules, are neither written down nor copied into the notebook, but so that they are practised; in this way they come into being, but are not preserved. Such a procedure is an extraordinary factor towards economy, particularly in foreign language teaching, for it instils rules into the children through their feelings without any need for the examples to be retained. If you let the children write down the examples, too vivid an impression is left with them of the outward form of the examples. In grammatical teaching the examples must be dropped and in no circumstance be carefully entered into notebooks, but the rules must remain. For this reason you do well in the living language, in conversation, to take reading passages as I have already described, and again to practise the turning of the children's own thoughts into the foreign language, in which process their thoughts are borrowed to a greater extent from everyday life. But in teaching grammar, use sentences which you actually know in advance that the child will forget, and he will therefore refrain from a mere bolstering up of the memory by writing them down. For all the work which you do when you teach the child grammar or syntax from sentences is expressed in living conclusions, and these must not lapse into the dreaminess of habit, but must always be a part of fully conscious life.

Naturally, this introduces into teaching an element which makes it slightly strenuous. You will not come to grief, because the teaching, particularly of the pupils whom you take on in the higher classes, is bound to create for you a certain exertion. You will have to proceed very economically. But the “economy” really is only a benefit to the pupil. It will take you yourself a great deal of time to discover the most economical form of teaching. Prefer to teach grammar and syntax, therefore, in the form of conversation. In doing this it is not a good plan to give the children actual books on grammar and syntax—as such books are at present—for these, it is true, include examples, but examples should only be “discussed.” As a permanent object for the child's learning in grammar and syntax there should be only rules. Consequently, it will be very economical indeed, and will do the child an incalculable amount of good, if one day you derive with the child, from some example which you have invented, a rule necessary for the mastery of the language, and then the day after, or the day after that, return in the same foreign language lesson to the rule, and let the child find an illustration for it in his own “top storey.” Only do not at any price underestimate the value for educational method of these things. In teaching, in fact, a tremendous amount depends on finer elements. It makes a gigantic difference whether you simply ask the child for a grammatical rule and make him echo, from his book, an example taken down at your dictation, or whether, on the other hand, you give him an example especially selected to be forgotten, and encourage him to invent an example himself. The work which the child does when he finds his own example is particularly educative. And you will see, even if you have the naughtiest, most inattentive children, that if you get them to find grammatical examples—and you can do this very well simply by taking an active part in the lesson yourself—the children take pleasure in these examples and particularly in the work of discovering them for themselves. And when, after the long summer holidays, you get the children back in school, after they have played and romped about for weeks in the open air, you must realize that they feel little inclination, after weeks of this life, to exchange playing and romping for quiet sitting in class and quiet listening to things which are to remain in their memory. But even if you find this disturbing the first week, perhaps even the second, if you conduct your foreign language teaching so that the child is allowed to take part in it with his soul by discovering examples, after three or four weeks you will have a class of children who take just as much delight in inventing these examples as they previously did in romping about. But you must take care, too, to think out examples of this kind, and must not omit to give the child this impression so that he is conscious of it. It is a very good thing for the child, when he joins in this work, and is always wanting to do it himself, that while one child is producing an example the other will call out; “I have one, too,” and then they all want their turn to give an example—it is a very good thing to say at the end of the lesson: “I am very glad, but most of all because you like doing this now as much as you used to like romping out of doors.” Such a remark lingers in the children's inner ear. It haunts them all the way home, and when they get home they tell their parents about it at table. But you must really say things which the children like telling their parents at table. And if you succeed in interesting the child so much that he asks his father or mother at table: “Can you find an example of this rule, too?” you have, in actual fact, won the day. These things can be done, but you yourself must take part in the lesson with your whole soul.

Only reflect on the difference, whether you discuss with the child in a spirited way the transition from “it is raining,” “it grows green” to “the meadow is growing green,” or if you evolve grammar and syntax, as is most usually done, by expounding: This is an adjective; this is a verb; and if a verb stands alone there is no sentence. Do not merely string things together as is frequently done in grammar books, but develop them in a living lesson. And compare this way of studying grammar, as it should be done in living teaching, with the other frequent procedure: the Latin or French teacher comes into the class; now the children must get out the books or exercise-books for Latin or French; then they must have done their “prep.”; now they must translate; now they are to read. By this time everything is beginning to hurt, because they feel how hard the benches are. For, as a matter of fact, there would have been no need to pay so much attention to benches and desks if children had been properly educated and taught. It is only a proof that education and teaching have not been sensible if people have had to bestow such care on the making of the benches and desks, for if children are really interested in the lesson such life enters the class that when they are supposed to be sitting they are really not quite sitting. And let us take a delight in the fact that they are not sitting properly; it is only if you are lazy yourself that you want a class to sit as rigid as possible, and go home at the end of the afternoon completely tired out. The point here again is to keep in view the principle of economy, and this point of view will be particularly useful to you in teaching a foreign language.

We must obviously see to it that the grammar and syntax teaching are fairly complete. For this reason we shall find out from the pupils, who come to us from other classes, where there are gaps in their knowledge. We shall then have to start by filling these gaps, particularly in the grammar and syntax lessons, so that after a few weeks we have a class with the old gaps filled up and ready to go on with new work. But if we teach as I have described—we can do this if we have our heart in the lesson—if the lesson interests us ourselves, we are preparing the children eventually and in the right way to pass the usual college entrance examinations. And we teach the children many a thing which the ordinary schools do not give them, but which makes the children vigorous and alive and is of permanent value in their lives. It would be a particularly good plan if it could be arranged for the different languages to be taught simultaneously. A tremendous amount of time is lost when the children of thirteen to fifteen are taught Latin by one teacher, French by another, and German by a third. Very much, on the other hand, is gained when a single thought worked out by a teacher with a pupil in one language is allowed to be worked out by another pupil, too, in another language, and by a third pupil in the third language. One language would then bear out the other very effectively. Naturally, such methods can only be followed in so far as the means—in this case the teachers—are available. But what is available should be taken full advantage of. The help that one language can be to another should be taken into account. This facilitates in grammar and formation of sentences the constant reference from one language to another, and this involves something of tremendous importance for the child.

A pupil learns a thing far better if, in his soul, he can apply it in different directions. You will be able to say to him: “Look, there you have made an English [The word German in the original is changed to the word English when it refers, as it does here, to the mother tongue.] sentence and a Latin sentence; in the English sentence, if the first person is referred to, we can hardly ever miss out the ‘I;’ in a Latin sentence the ‘I’ is there already inside the verb.” You do not need to go a step further; in fact it is not at all wise to go further, but it is a good thing just to touch on this difference, so that the pupil comes to have a certain feeling for it; then from this feeling there emanates a living aptitude to understand other things in grammar, and I beg you to absorb this fact and to think it over very deeply, namely, that it is possible, in a stimulating, living lesson, to develop during the lesson the faculty necessary for teaching. The fact is, if you have only touched, for instance, on a thing, and have not enlarged on it pedantically, if you have said to the child: “The Latin language has not yet developed the ‘I,’ it still has it in the verb; but our languages have developed it,” there is momentarily awakened in him a faculty which is otherwise absent. This is stimulated into life at this moment and not before, and you can more easily study grammatical rules with the children after such insight is awakened than if you had to evoke them from the ordinary condition of the child's soul. You will have to think out how you can create the aptitudes you want for a certain lesson. The children do not need to have all the capacities which you intend to use, but you must have the skill to call them up in such a manner that they disappear when the child no longer needs them.

This process can be exceptionally important in language teaching if this is allowed to consist of correct reading, accurate pronunciation—without giving many rules—first reading yourself and letting them repeat it; then have the reading-passage retold and thoughts about it formed and expressed in the different languages—and, quite independently of this, study grammar and syntax with rules to be remembered and examples to be forgotten. There you have a framework for language teaching.

[ 1 ] With the "intentional relation" characterized in chapter 3, a soul element enters into Brentano's psychology but only as a fact of ordinary consciousness, without this fact being further explained and incorporated into our experience of the soul. I would like to be allowed here to sketch out some things about this fact that are based for me upon views that I have worked out in many different directions. To be sure, these views still need to be brought into more detailed form and to be fully substantiated. My situation until now, however, has only made it possible for me to present certain salient points in lectures. What I can bring here are only some findings sketched out in brief. And I beg the reader to take them as such for now. These are not “sudden fancies”; We are dealing here with something that I have worked for years to substantiate, employing the scientific means of our day.

[ 2 ] In that soul experience which Franz Brentano calls “judging,” an acceptance or rejection of our mental pictures comes to meet this mere mental picturing (that consists in an inner shaping of pictures). The question arises for the soul researcher: What is it in our soul experience by which there does not merely arise the mental picture "green tree," but also the judgment "this is a green tree"? The something that accomplishes this cannot lie within the narrower circle of our life in mental pictures circumscribed by our ordinary consciousness. The fact that we cannot find it here has led to the epistemological thought that I describe in the second volume of my Riddles of Philosophy in the chapter “The World as Illusion.” At issue here is an experience lying outside this circle. The point is to discover the “where" in the realm of our soul experiences.

When a person is confronting a sense-perceptible object and unfolding his activity of perception, this something cannot be found anywhere in all that he receives in the process of perception in such a way that this receiving is grasped through the physiological and psychological pictures that relate to the outer object on the one hand, and to the pertinent sense organ on the other. When someone has the visual perception “green tree,” the fact of the judgment “this is a green tree” cannot be found in any directly evident physiological or psychological relation between “tree” and “eye.” What is experienced in the soul as the inner fact of judging is actually an additional relation between the “person” and the “tree” different from the relation between “tree” and “eye.” Nevertheless, only the latter relation is experienced in all its sharpness in ordinary consciousness. The other relation remains in a dim state of subconsciousness and only comes to light in its result as the recognition of the “green tree” as something that exists. With every perception that comes to a head as a judgment one is dealing with a twofold relation of man to objectivity.

One gains insight into this twofold relation only if one can replace today's fragmentary science of the senses with a complete one. Anyone who takes into consideration everything that pertains to a characterization of a human sense organ will find that one must call other things “senses” besides what is usually designated as such. What makes the “eye” a “sense organ,” for example, is also present when one experiences the fact that someone else's ‘I’ is observed or that someone else's thought is recognized as such. With respect to such facts one usually errs in not making a thoroughly justified and necessary distinction. One believes, for example, that when hearing the words of another person, it suffices to speak of a “sense” only insofar as “hearing” comes into question and that everything else is to be ascribed to a non-sensory, inner activity. But that is not the actual state of affairs. In hearing human words and understanding them as thoughts, a threefold activity comes into consideration. And each component of this threefold activity must be studied in its own right, if a valid scientific view is to arise. Hearing is one of these activities. But hearing as such is just as little a perception of words as touching is a seeing. And if, in accordance with the facts, one distinguishes between the sense of touch and the sense of sight, one must also make distinctions between hearing, perceiving words, and then apprehending the thought. It leads to a faulty psychology and to a faulty epistemology if one does not make a sharp distinction between our apprehension of a thought and our thought activity, and if one does not recognize the sensory nature of the former. One makes this mistake only because the organ by which we perceive a word and that by which we apprehend a thought are not as outwardly perceptible as the ear is for hearing. In reality sense organs are present for these two activities of perception just as the ear is present for hearing. If one follows through on what physiology and psychology can find in this regard if they investigate fully, one arrives at the following view of the human sense organization. One must distinguish: the sense for the T of another person; the sense for apprehending thoughts; the sense for perceiving words; the sense of hearing; the sense of warmth; the sense of sight; the sense of taste; the sense of smell; the sense of balance (the perceptive experience of finding oneself in a certain state of equilibrium with respect to the outer world); the sense of movement (the perceptive experience of the resting state or movement of one's own limbs on the one hand, and the state of rest or movement with respect to the outer world; the sense of life (the experience of the state of one's own organism; the feeling of how one is); the sense of touch. All these senses bear the traits which lead us, in truth, to call eyes and ears “senses.”

Anyone who does not acknowledge the validity of these distinctions falls into disorder in his knowledge of reality. With his mental pictures, he succumbs to the fate of their not allowing him to experience anything truly real. For someone, for example, who calls the eye a sense but assumes no sense organ for the perception of words, even the picture he forms of the eye will remain an unreal configuration.

I believe that Fritz Mauthner, in his critique of language, speaks in his clever way of a “sense for chance” only because he is looking at a fragmentary science of the human senses. If this were not the case, he would notice how a sense organ places itself into reality.

Now, when a person confronts a sense-perceptible object, the situation is such that he never receives an impression through only one sense, but always through at least one other sense as well from the series listed above. The relation to one sense enters ordinary consciousness with particular distinctness; the relation to the other sense remains dimmer. A distinction exists between the senses, however: a number of the senses allow our relation to the outer world to be experienced more as an outer one; the other senses allow us to experience the outer world more as something closely connected to our own existence. The senses that find themselves in close connection to our own existence are, for example, our sense of balance, our sense of movement, our sense of life, and even our sense of touch. In the perceptions of these senses with respect to the outer world, our own existence is dimly felt along with them. Yes, one could say that a dullness of our conscious perceiving occurs just because the relation out into the world is drowned out by the experiencing of our own being. If there occurs the seeing of an object, for example, and at the same time our sense of balance is communicating an impression, what is seen will be sharply perceived. What is seen leads to a mental picture of the object. As a perception, our experience through the sense of balance remains dull; nevertheless it manifests in the judgment that “what I see exists” or “that is what I see.”

In reality, things do not stand beside each other in abstract differentiation; they pass over into one another with their characteristics. Thus it comes about that, in the full complement of our senses, there are some that transmit less a relation to the outer world and more an experience of one's own being. These latter senses dip down more into our inner soul life than do, say, the eye or ear; therefore the results of what they transmit as perceptions appear as inner soul experiences. However, even with them, one should distinguish the actual soul element from the perceptual element just as, when seeing something, for example, one distinguishes the outer fact from the inner soul experiences one has in connection with it.

Anyone who takes the anthroposophical point of view must not shrink from such subtle distinctions in mental pictures like those made here. He must be able to distinguish between perceiving the word and hearing, on the one hand, and between perceiving the word and understanding it through his own thoughts, on the other, just as ordinary consciousness distinguishes between a tree and a rock. If one would take this more into account, one would recognize that anthroposophy does not just have the one aspect— usually called the mystical side—but also the other, by which anthroposophy leads to a research no less scientific than that of natural science; it leads in fact to a more scientific approach which requires a more subtle and more methodological elaboration of our life in mental pictures than even ordinary philosophy does. I believe that in his philosophical research Wilhelm Dilthey was on his way to the science of the senses that I have sketched out here, but that he could not attain his goal because he did not push through to a complete elaboration of the pertinent mental pictures. (Please see what I said about this in my Riddles of Philosophy).

[ 1 ] In Brentano’s psychology, the “intentional relation” is treated simply as a fact of ordinary consciousness. It is a psychic fact; but no attempt is made to clarify further by showing how that fact is articulated into the whole psychic experience. Perhaps I may be permitted, in bare outline, to advance a corollary to it on the basis of my own systematic and extensive observations. These latter really call for presentation in much greater detail and with all the supporting evidence. But up to now circumstances have made it impossible for me to go beyond introducing them cursorily into oral lectures; and what I can add here is still only a brief outline statement of the results. I invite the reader to entertain them provisionally on that footing. At the same time they are not put forward merely as hazarded “insights”, but rather as something I have striven year in and year out to establish with the means that modern science makes available.

[ 2 ] In the particular psychic experience which Brentano denotes by the term judgment¹ there is added to the mere representation (which consists in the formation of an inner image) an acknowledgment or repudiation of the image. The question that arises for the psychologist is: What exactly is it, within the psyche’s experience, where through is brought about not merely the presented image “green tree”, but also the judgment “there is a green tree”? This somewhat cannot be located within the rather circumscribed area of representational activity that is assigned to ordinary consciousness. (In the second volume of my Riddles of Philosophy (Die Rätsel der Philosophie), in the section entitled “The World as Illusion”, I gave some account of the various epistemological ideas to which this difficulty has given rise.) We have to do with an experience that lies outside that area. The problem is to find its “where”. Where, when the human being confronts a sense-object in the act of perception, is this “somewhat” to be looked for? Not in anything he so receives in the process of perception, that the receiving can be understood through any physiological or psychological ideas that posit outer object on one side and immediate sensation on the other. When someone has the visual perception “green tree”, the fact of the judgment “there is a green tree” is not to be found in that relation between “tree” and “eye” which is viable to either physiological or psychological explication. The experience had by the psyche, which amounts to this inner fact of judgment, is an additional relation between “man” and “tree” strictly other than the bare relation between “tree” and “eye”. Yet it is only this latter relation that is fully and sharply experienced in ordinary-level consciousness. The former relation remains a dull, subconscious one, which only comes to light in its product—namely the acknowledgment of the “green tree” as an existent. In every perception that reaches the point of a “judgment” we have a double relation to objectivity.

It is only possible to gain insight into this double relation, if the prevailing fragmentary doctrine of the senses is replaced by an exhaustive one. If we take into account the whole of what is relevant in assigning the characteristics of a human sense, we shall find we must allow the name “senses” to more than is usually so labeled. That which constitutes the “eye”, for example, a “sense” is also present when we experience the fact: another “I” is being observed, or: the thought of another human being is being recognised as such. The mistake usually made, in the face of such facts as these, is failure to maintain a certain very valid and necessary distinction. As an instance of this, people imagine that, when they hear somebody else’s words, “sense” only comes in to the extent that “hearing” as such is involved, and that all the rest is assignable to an inner, non-sensory activity. But that is not the case. In the hearing of human words and in the understanding of them as thoughts a threefold activity is involved, and each component of this threefold activity requires separate consideration, if we mean to conceptualise in a scientifically valid way. One of these activities is “hearing”. But “hearing” per se is no more a “becoming aware of words” than “touching” is a “seeing”. And just as it is proper to distinguish the sense of “touch” from that of “sight”, so is it to distinguish the sense of “hearing” from that of “being aware of words”, and again from that of “comprehending thoughts”. A starveling psychology and a starveling epistemology both follow as consequences from the failure to sharply distinguish the “comprehending of thoughts” from the activity of thinking, and to recognise the “sense” character of the former process. The only reason for our common failure to distinguish is, that the organ of “being aware of words” and that of “comprehending thoughts” are neither of them outwardly perceptible like the ear, which is the organ of “hearing”. Actually there are “organs” for both these perceptual activities, just as, for “hearing”, there is the ear.

If, scrutinising them without omissions, one carries the findings of physiology and psychology through to their logical conclusion, one will arrive at the following view of human sensory organisation. We have to distinguish: The sense for perceiving the “I” of the other human being; the sense for comprehending thoughts; the sense for being aware of words; the sense of hearing; the sense of warmth; the sense of sight, the sense of taste; the sense of balance (the perceptual experience, that is, of oneself as being in a certain equilibrium with the outer world); the sense of movement (the perceptual experiencing of the stillness or the motion of one’s own limbs or, alternatively, of one’s own stillness or motion by contrast with the outer world); the sense of life (experience of being situated within an organism—feeling of subjective self-awareness); and the sense of touch. All these senses bear the distinguishing marks by virtue whereof we properly call “eye” and “ear” by the name of “senses”.

To ignore the validity of such distinctions is to import disorder into the whole relation between our knowledge and reality. It is to suffer the ignominious burden of ideas that cut us off from experiencing the actual. For instance, if a man calls the “eye” a “sense” and refuses to accept any “sense” for “being aware of words”, then the idea which that man forms of the “eye” remains an unreal fancy.

I am persuaded that Fritz Mauthner in his brilliant way speaks, in his linguistic works, of a “happening-sense” (Zufallssinnen) only because he has in view a too fragmentary doctrine of the senses. If it were not for that, he would detect how a “sense” inserts itself into “reality”. In practice, when a human being confronts a sensory object, it is never through one sense that he acquires an impression, but always, in addition, through at least one other of those just enumerated. The relation to one particular sense enters ordinary-level consciousness with especial sharpness; while the other remains more obtuse. But the senses also differ from one another in a further respect: some of them afford a relation to the outer world that is experienced more as external nexus; the others more one that is bound up very intimately with our own being. Senses that are most intimately bound up with our own being are (for example) the sense of equilibrium, the sense of motion, the sense of life and also of course the sense of touch. When there is perception by these senses of the outer world, it is always obscurely accompanied by experience of the percipient’s own being. You can even say that in their case a certain obtuseness of conscious percipience obtains, precisely because the element in it of external relationship is shouted down by the experience of our own being. For instance: a physical object is seen, and at the same time the sense of equilibrium furnishes an impression. What is seen is sharply perceived. This “seen” leads to representation of a physical object. The experience through the sense of equilibrium remains, qua perception, dull and obtuse; but it comes to life in the judgment: “That which is seen exists” or “There is a thing seen”. Natures are not, in reality, juxtaposed to one another in abstract mutual exclusion; they, together with their distinguishing marks, overlap and interpenetrate. Hence, in the whole gamut of the “senses” there are some that mediate relation to the outer world rather less and the experience of one’s own being rather more. These latter are sunken further into the inner life of the psyche than, for example, eye and ear; and, for that reason, their perceptual function manifests as inner psychic experience. But one must still distinguish, even in their case, the properly psychic from the perceptual element, just as in the case of, say, seeing one distinguishes the outer event or object from the inner psychic experience evoked with it.

For those who adopt the anthroposophical standpoint, there can be no shirking of refined notional distinctions of this kind. They must be capable of distinguishing “awareness of words” from hearing, in one direction; and of distinguishing, in the other, this “awareness of words” from the “understanding of words” brought about by one’s own intellection; just as ordinary consciousness distinguishes between a tree and a lump of rock. If this were less frequently ignored, it would be recognised that anthroposophy has two aspects; not only the one that people usually dub “mystical”, but also the other one, the one that conduces to investigations not less scientific than those of natural science, but in fact more scientific, since they necessitate a more refined and methodical habit of conceptualisation than even ordinary philosophy does. I suspect that Wilhelm Dilthey² was tending, in his philosophical enquiries, towards the doctrine I have outlined here concerning the senses; but that he was unable to achieve his purpose because he never reached the point of sufficiently elaborating the requisite ideas.

• 1. See Introduction, p. 17.
• 2. Compare the author’s Die Rätsel der Philosophie, 8th Edition

Last time we said that everything in the outer world is maya and that practically everything must be thought of in reverse. We emphasized that an esoteric must learn to always look at everything around him in the way mentioned. If he sees a flower, he should think of it upside down; if he hears a sound coming from the right, he should consider that the sound is really coming from the left. He can go even further and consider the same thing in other cases. Where it's dark, he should tell himself that it's really bright, and where it's light, it's really dark. If we anchor this feeling of the inversion of outer maya in us, if all of our thinking is guided by this, then we'll experience great transformations in us that lead us to the truth. But if we want to make all of this clear to ourselves through mere reflection, we're led into great dangers. An esoteric knows that all symbols and esoteric teachings can be a little dangerous if they're wrongly understood and applied, but we esoterics aren't little children. One who has tried to apply what was said here the last time will have gotten the feeling as if the ground were being pulled out from under his feet. And when one tries to understand these things intellectually, it's as if two mirrors were set up facing each other, so that a reflection repeating itself endlessly arises. Then the danger is that the intellect would dance along with this endless repetition as if in a whirling dance. The healthy human intellect then says to itself: My understanding stands still on me here. Only an unhealthy soul lie lets itself be pulled into the whirling dance.

But we can also go further with the inversion and include human beings. Let's imagine a human face that has lighter or darker colors, with lighter or darker hair, and now let's imagine a bright face as dark, dark hair as light, and so on. Also we should imagine hollows where the face protrudes and bulges where it recedes. The skin's color also changes; think dark green where it's rosy and light green where it's dark red. If we could feel this, we'd be able to know the inner nature of this man. For instance, a light green color would show us that we have to do with someone who stands strongly in the life that works in the three lower kingdoms of nature. When the color appears to be dark green, he would be more inclined toward spiritual things. And where one sees blue, the highest spiritual qualities would become manifest in this human being. But if we would first imagine the color and then transfer it in thought to the face that's before us, we'd go far astray.

Another thing that we must imagine is that something that looks ugly is really beautiful. That's why in old paintings Christ on the cross wasn't made beautiful but often ugly and distorted.

An esoteric who's always talking about his difficulties and physical pains, who makes a daily account of all the great and small pains that he must endure is a weak esoteric. One who wants to get ahead must develop the strength in himself to not want to be constantly cured of all his ailments through medicines and baths; he must realize that all of this belongs to esoteric training, in which man's whole being undergoes a change. If someone goes over a meadow and sees an autumn crocus it would be an example of a rather sick soul life if he thinks that it wants to devour him. But in an esoteric who isn't sick, it can happen that he has the feeling that he's being grabbed from behind by higher beings and being sucked up, as it were. One sometimes finds a man who's afraid of an upper story window because he gets a desire to jump out of it. Or there's the fear of open places, where a man doesn't dare to go through one. This feeling stops if there's someone with him. Official medicine gives causes for these phenomena, but the real reason is that such a person lacks justified solitude. All men need to be alone to a certain extent, and this is not just egoism. Someone who always wants to help others will at some point feel that he can't help anymore if he doesn't get the forces for this out of solitude. One who always wants to talk will someday sense that his words are empty if he doesn't let spiritual forces come to him in solitude. We must be alone for prayer and meditation; communal prayer can only bring men to a certain groupsouledness. One who thinks that it's egotistical to go into solitude simply feels the need to be with other people, not to help them. A supposedly selfless wish to help can really come from egoism, where one simply seeks sociability. For instance, the magnetic healing that's used to lessen others' pain could just come from the need to have a pleasant feeling from stoking someone's body. Although love and egoism are opposite poles, it's nevertheless true that in certain boundary cases they come very close to each other and it's difficult to tell them apart.

We're given strength through out ego-consciousness so that we're not sucked up by higher beings entirely, so that we don't become puppets, but higher development gets us to make ourselves independent in our feelings, otherwise we would lose our self-consciousness completely. We're supposed to consciously develop ourselves up to the higher hierarchies.

One who through his study of theosophy has grasped the great truths about world and man in such a way that they ensoul him and go warmly through him will learn to feel himself in the midst of spiritual beings in such a way that he's in no danger of losing his independent existence. In everything that may happen to us we learn to say from within: That comes from God. In suffering, we learn to say: God is sending us this suffering as a loving reminder of our past mistakes. And we'll happily say: That's a blessing that God is sending us—and it makes us thankful and not conceited. We then learn to see the working of divine powers in all events, and we'll gradually feel that we have the right relation to the cosmos.

In my last lectures I have been dealing with the nature of man's being in a way which I think our visitors who are giving us the pleasure of attending the Teachers' Course here will have had no difficulty in following. To link up with my last lecture I will briefly recapitulate the main points.

In speaking about man's external observations and sense-perceptions and about the way in which the intellect, possibly assisted by experiments, is able to arrange and co-ordinate them, I pointed out that in all these functions it is, to begin with, only man's physical body that is in active manifestation

This physical body is permeated by what may be called the etheric body or the body of formative forces a finer organisation of the human being, a Second Man within man, so to speak. How can one have actual perception of this Second Man? It must again and again be emphasised that it is by no means so very difficult to gain a true perception of this Second Man, a perception as clear and authentic as anything perceived by the senses or conceived by the reasoning intellect. One thing however, is necessary, because in our own time man does not live with such intensity in the element of thought itself as he did in earlier epochs of evolution, but adopts a more passive attitude to thought and is content to let impressions simply come to him from the world of the senses. For this reason it is necessary to strengthen thinking by means of exercises. Of course man has thoughts today, but he can hardly have real insight into the nature and activity of thinking because by force of habit he allows the external sense-impressions to stream into his thoughts the moment he wakes from sleep, because he sets store only by these external sense-impressions. True, this fills his thoughts with a content derived from external sense-perceptions but he does not actually feel or experience his own activity of thinking. Modern man can achieve this, however, with the help of such exercises as I have indicated, for instance, in my book, “Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment.”

Such exercises require man as it were to throw himself with the whole of his being into the activity of thinking, to give himself up to this thinking with all inner intensity and, with complete indifference to what the outer senses present to him, to live consciously and exclusively in this activity of thinking.

It can be of great assistance in these meditative exercises if one has had some practice in mathematics, especially in geometry. As regards the activity of thinking that has to be applied in geometry, one need only take a resolute plunge, as it were, into one's own inmost being, to experience the nature of this thinking in its independence, in its plasticity, in its inner weaving life, and one has an experience of the activity of thinking when drawing, say, a triangle.

Of course you can draw a triangle on the blackboard. But is that a triangle, in reality? What you have on the blackboard is not a triangle but a vast number of tiny particles of chalk which stick to the board and could actually be counted if one had a sufficiently powerful microscope. That is no triangle! To think that the triangle is there on the blackboard is nonsense. You can have the triangle only in your mind, in the thought you form with the aid of these bits of chalk on the blackboard. But without the use of chalk and blackboard, when simply sitting or standing quietly without even moving a finger, when you have merely the idea, the thought of the triangle fixed in your mind, then you can picture to yourself—but always only in your thoughts—how you begin to draw a line here, then a second, then a third. Then you can live in this inner activity without doing anything externally. You can do more and more exercises of this kind, especially more complicated ones. For instance (it is being drawn on the blackboard): you have here a patch of red chalk and here one of green chalk. I draw it once again, and now you can, for instance, do the following.—What you have pictured before you in these two figures you are to do inwardly; now, as previously you drew the triangle in your mind, quickly imagine this: the red stretches over into the green as far as this, and the green pushes through beneath the red, so that this figure grows out of that, and that out of this, entirely in thought. There you have the red in the centre, the green around it. Now picture the red expanding, the green contracting, and then you get a green circle in the centre and surrounding it the red wheel; then reversed: the red moves inwards, the green expands, and you keep changing from one to the other in rhythmic sequence, an inner circle, an outer wheel: red, green; green, red; red, green; green, red ... You picture this to yourself without it being necessary to do anything outwardly. And you will gradually become aware that to think means doing something inwardly, just as one uses one's hands or arms outwardly. When you use your arm, you are aware of it. So now you must learn to be aware of the forces of thought. When aware of exercising your arms you experience your physical body. When you begin to exercise your thoughts in this way, you experience the Second Man within you, your etheric body, your body of formative forces. As soon as you have reached the point where you need only give yourself a mental push in order to transfer your awareness of arm-and-leg movements to an awareness of your inner forces of thought, you experience this Second Man within you, your etheric body, your body of formative forces. But you experience this Second Man as being woven entirely of thoughts. And at that moment the whole of your earthly life spreads out before you as if present. In a single panoramic survey, you behold your earthly life right back to your earliest childhood.

What is here experienced as the Second Man is not a space-body, but a time-body. And, as I have already said in the course of these lectures, when drawing a sketch of the physical body, one can insert into it a sketch of this time-body. But this represents only a momentary phase, as if you were catching a glimpse of a flash of lightning. This body of formative forces does not live in space except for one fleeting moment. The next moment it has already changed. It is always in a state of flux, ever-changing. And this changing is experienced as the life-tableau.

But simultaneously with this experience one feels oneself part of the whole universe, one no longer feels enclosed within one's skin, but one feels that one is actually in this condition of flux within the universe. One is really only a ripple in the etheric cosmos.—And one experiences other aspects of this Second Man.

One perceives that this Second Man is perpetually trying to dissolve the physical substance of the body into nothingness. In another connection I said to some of you the other day: physical matter, physical substance presses; the etheric forces suck, draw out of space the content which fills it, suck up everything. And throughout our earthly life we live in this interplay of forces. For our nourishment we take physical matter into ourselves. Through the process of nourishment this physical matter streams into our body, setting in action all kinds of processes in accordance with its own nature. When we eat pickled cabbage it enters our system, where its action is conditioned by its own chemical and physical properties. When we drink milk, its action proceeds according to the nature of milk. But very soon a stop is put to this action of milk and cabbage. The etheric body begins to assail the milk-and-cabbage-properties in order to effect their extinction. So that within our system a perpetual battle is in progress between the action of the cabbage-and-milk-properties on the one hand, and, on the other, the counter-action which aims at their extinction. This battle takes place and its effect becomes manifest in what man excretes and in that which, as formative forces, as man's super-sensible organisation, moves in the direction of the head. In exact proportion to the amount of matter we excrete through the various secretory organs, an equal amount changes, in the other direction, into negative matter, into negative substance which lives as the principle of suction in our nervous system, especially in our brain.

Nobody can understand the human being by looking at the physical body only, for then we see, merely from the periphery, no more than part of the processes operating within the human organism. A certain amount of knowledge is gained about the processes working within the alimentary track and about what is excreted through sweating and so on. But for all excretion, that is to say, all that is passing into the grossly material condition, there is the other pole, representing what is drawn into the nervous system as the etheric element. For everything we excrete as material substance, an etheric equivalent flows into us. This etheric element whirls and surges and weaves in our etheric body or body of formative forces which permeates us in the way I have described.

And one also learns to know oneself as this Second Man by observing how the power of memory, the ability to remember, can change. In ordinary life we become aware of external impressions. These continue inwards, entering our thoughts, our mental pictures, and then come to a standstill. We can call them forth again, but the inner force by means of which we recall them does not extend beyond the nerve-endings.

Take for example, the eye. What happens when we perceive something outside is that we push through the optic nerve-endings which are spread out in the eye right into the blood-circulation of the eye. That is how perception is brought about. When we only remember, however, we penetrate no further than where the optic nerve comes to an end in the eye. With our etheric body or body of formative forces we do not reach through the nerve-endings into the blood stream.

When we now intensify thinking, it is not as if we merely experience the san з rebound as in the ordinary functioning of memory, when external perceptions are transformed into mental pictures which are then held and thrust back. If, as it were in reverse, we also perceive what is etheric in the world, we thrust just as far into our organism with this etheric thought-content of the world as with our ordinary memory-pictures which, however, are only reminiscences of life. And then we develop a consciousness of the etheric working in the cosmos; we live within the etheric formative forces of the world.

How a man experiences himself when living consciously within the weaving of the etheric cosmic forces can be sketched in this way. (The drawing cannot here be reproduced.) Here we have the play of the etheric forces in their manifold manifestation. This must be taken configuratively. Everything lives and weaves within it. And then man experiences himself in this etheric weaving. It makes a strange picture, but that is how it is and how it must be imagined. The feet and legs are hardly noticeable. One has the feeling that at one point, as it were, one is growing out of this play of the etheric forces. One experiences their action as far as one's nerve-endings. It runs through the back and on to the nerve-endings in the front of the body, and that is the extreme limit to which the etheric world extends in us. That is man's position in the present etheric cosmos. The way in which one experiences the etheric world when finding oneself edged, as it were, into some extreme corner of the etheric cosmos is that it reaches only with its fringe into one's organism, where the etheric action then comes to a halt. In short, that is the way in which one learns to live in the etheric world.

And indeed this would by no means be so difficult an achievement, if only nowadays people would take the trouble to practise such mental activity as I have described. The easiest way to become an adept in this way of thinking is to absorb in the right manner and really live through what is contained in my “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity.”

There is, for instance, the section which deals with this awareness of the activity of thinking in relation to the ethical and moral principle in the world. What I have described there is the same from the qualitative aspect. And when one studies the “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity” in the right way, one begins to understand what the nature of this life in the Etheric, what this experience of the formative forces, really is.

The Inner Aspect of the Activity of Speaking

Our next experience after that of the activity of thinking, can be awareness of the activity of speaking. And a beginning can well be made with the activity of speech in ordinary, everyday life. Only it is necessary to become as well trained in governing speech as in governing thought. Control of the latter must be achieved to the extent that the senses are silent, that one lives only in active thinking, that sense-impressions are eliminated. As regards speech, it is necessary to reach the point of having a great deal to say—for one must have a command of words and not be inarticulate—but at the same time to be able at will to check the impulse for a time and to practise absolute silence.

I know that in the case of some people this is asking a great deal; but in order to gain knowledge of the Third Man, this is absolutely necessary. One must have a clear idea of what it means to be eager to deliver a carefully-prepared speech, to have the words on the tip of the tongue, and yet to keep silent. That is how one learns to practise active silence. To practise passive silence—as one might in an empty room (not an airless room, of course, but with no other people present), when there is nobody to speak to—to remain passively silent is useless? one must learn to be actively silent.

Now you can say: A dull fellow indeed, going about practising silence in people's company, walking up to them and, instead of talking to them, just looking at them and remaining wrapped in silence. Well, I admit, my dear friends, that socially this would certainly be anything but pleasant; it could, however, actually prove exceedingly fruitful for spiritual advancement, and beneficial results could ensue if, for instance, one attended a party at which people, including oneself, were by no means silent as a rule, and if one now began to practise silence. One says nothing although one knows a great deal and, in giving freely of one's store of knowledge, has formerly always been a great talker. I say that one could do this, but one need not do it outwardly and, although it could be fruitful, it would not be so very helpful when aiming high; the idea is that the entire exercise, as I have described it, is carried out inwardly, that one is fully prepared to speak but has the ability to suppress the impulse inwardly.

You will understand better what I mean when I tell you, for instance, that in ordinary, everyday life one does not think in the true sense of the word. One does think in the field of mathematics if, for instance, one makes a mental picture of a triangle in the way I have described. One does some real thinking particularly when the mind is occupied with unusual things of a kind for which the language has no words. But when completely absorbed in the things which nowadays make up the content of current popular interest, one does not really do any actual thinking, for in this mental process the organs of speech constantly co-vibrate, albeit so quietly that one does not hear it. The mental activity of modern man, who so dislikes thinking about anything that is not to be found in the external world of the senses, is not real thinking. The mind is merely weaving in shadow-pictures of words..

You can test it yourself and you will find this weaving of the soul in the shadow-pictures of words to be a fact. When one can really bring the larynx inwardly into a state of complete rest while still maintaining that inner activity of the soul which normally animates the movements of the larynx, so that the escape from the spoken word remains an entirely inward exercise—if, in other words, one does with the activity of speech what one has previously done with the activity of thinking that is a transformed faculty of memory (where one pushes only as far as the nerve-endings, while now one exercises the activity of speech only as far as the larynx, just to the point where the latter is about to break into speech)—then gradually there will develop what in recent lectures I have called “the deep silence of the human soul,” because checking and preventing speech inwardly means developing the deep silence of the soul.

To get an idea of what this deep silence in the soul means, imagine yourself in a town, not Basle, perhaps, but in London or in a city even noisier still. You are right within this noise and turmoil. Now you leave the town and the noise gradually fades as you get further away. Presently you find yourself in the stillness and solitude of a wood. You say: All is quiet within and without. There comes a point when the stillness reaches the degree ‘nought.’ First the noise, then it grows quieter, then absolute stillness at point ‘nought.’

But now this can go further. And indeed this process of not only experiencing the quietness of a silent outer world and the soul at rest, but of passing into the deep silence, can be the direct result of abstaining from the use of words while maintaining that full inner activity which normally is bent on becoming vocal. One merely refrains from making use of the physical body. (I have described the various meditative exercises in my book “Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment.”) Then one realises that there is something beyond the point ‘nought’ of stillness. In public lectures I have made use of a commonplace comparison. I said: Supposing someone with a certain amount of capital spends some of it and reduces his means; then continues to spend until finally there is nothing left; he has reached point ‘nought.’ But he goes on spending and runs into debt. Now he has less than nought; and so it goes on. Here the mathematicians have introduced the negative numbers: -6, -4, -2, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, etc. In a similar way you can also imagine how in the realm of sound the stillness at point ‘nought’ passes over into the negative, into a state that is stiller than stillness, quieter than quietness. You can establish the same conditions in the depths of your soul.

But then, when the outer world is now not only silent but has passed beyond mere silence, when the soul's reaction extends beyond the stillness at point ‘nought’ into the negative sphere of all external sound, then the spirit begins to speak out of the depths of the soul's stillness and we become aware of our Third Man, the astral man, as we say. Expressions do not matter, they are terminology; another name could serve as well.

Of this Third, astral Man, we become aware when we reach the deep silence of the soul, and from out of this profound silence the Spiritual sounds forth, a sounding which is the opposite of physical sound.

This astral body, as you will see, takes us in every respect further than the etheric body alone could have done. To make this clear, let me deal with it from a cosmic point of view.

What is the modern physicist or astronomer, in fact the modern scientist, trying to do? He studies the laws of nature. Through observation or experiment he establishes them. These laws of nature constitute his science. They present him with what is inherent in things. With that he ought to rest content. But instead, he begins to be proud of his laws of nature, he begins to be arrogant. And he now asserts what he cannot by any means substantiate, that these laws apply to the whole of the universe. He says: Discoveries I make in my laboratory on the earth would, if tested under similar conditions, prove equally valid on the most distant stars of the universe, stars from which the light takes so many light-years to reach the earth—people pretend that these things make sense—so that, given similar conditions the same laws of nature must prevail there, because their validity is absolute.

Yes, but it is not like that. At its source the light shines brightly into its immediate surroundings; further away from the source its strength decreases and the further we go the weaker it becomes, it grows faint. The power of light diminishes at a ratio equal to the square of the distance. So it is with light. And curiously enough, so it is also on earth with the laws of nature.

The validity of what you establish on the earth as laws of nature becomes less and less the further you get away from the earth. To be sure it seems dreadful to say such a thing, and in the eyes of a staunch student of natural science anyone with such ideas must necessarily appear as the perfect idiot. That one can well understand, because when this happens, and one looks at it from the modern scientist's point of view, one can very easily put oneself in his place. Only the reverse does not happen: the modern scientist cannot put himself in the place of the spiritual investigator. The latter knows perfectly well how the student of natural science arrives at his facts. Such understanding is lacking when the case is reversed. Therefore most criticisms levelled at spiritual science from that quarter are, from their point of view, quite justified. But they merely show that the student of natural science cannot honestly find any real meaning in what the spiritual investigator has to say. That one must grant him, because it is a fact. It is simply beyond him. He must himself become a spiritual investigator before one can enter into polemics with him. For that reason the futility of polemics with a man who, firmly entrenched in natural science, has no mind for the findings of spiritual science, is obvious.

Well, with what has been said about the light, the student of natural science will agree, as he has discovered it himself, but as far as the laws of nature are concerned, he will disagree. However, with regard to light, the spiritual investigator must make a reservation. Natural science says: As the light radiates, its strength diminishes with distance, until at last it fades to the extent that its strength is identical with the degree ‘nought.’ But such a statement is just as clever as if someone were to say: Here I have an elastic rubber ball; now I press it. Naturally the ball tends to bulge out on the other side. The elasticity pushes the surface this way and that way. Now someone says: That cannot be; if I press elastic substance the process must go on and on, only it becomes so weak at last that it is no longer perceptible.—It is, however, not like that: elasticity rebounds.

And this also applies to the light. The light does not radiate in a way that one could say: Far out there it is so weak that it will soon approach the point of darkness, yet it continues to spread further and further. That is not true. Its radiation extends only to a certain point, to the periphery of a given sphere; then it rebounds. And as it comes back it is visible only to the spiritual investigator, not to the natural scientist. Because when the radiation of light has exhausted its elasticity and rebounds, it returns as spirit, as the super-sensible. Then the natural scientist cannot perceive it. There is no light that shines and does not come to a certain boundary from which it is thrown back to return as spirit. What I am now telling you about the light applies equally to the laws of nature. The validity of these laws diminishes the further you get away into space. But this continues only as far as the outer shell of a given sphere; thus everything comes back. The laws of nature, however, then return as thoughts that are wisdom-inwoven. And that is the cosmic ether.

The cosmic ether does not radiate in an outward direction with regard to the earth, it radiates with a centripetal movement from all sides. But what lives in all these incoming forces that radiate to the earth are creative, wisdom-filled thoughts. The cosmic ether is at the same time a thought-world of formative forces. There is, however, a difference: When here on earth I form the kind of thoughts which lead to the laws of nature, such thoughts are, figuratively speaking, neatly aligned, so that one can say: there exists a certain constancy of matter, a constancy of energy. We have exponents of the law of light, and so on. The formulations of what lives in matter are made by means of thoughts.

But when the thoughts come back, when one experiences how they live in the cosmic ether, they are not thoughts born of logic, not thoughts with such sharply defined outlines; they are experienced as pictorial thoughts, pictures, Imaginations.

When such questions arise one meets with strange things in modern cultural life. To some of you present here I said a few days ago: During the last 40 to 50 years, theories without number or, if you like, hypotheses, have been advanced about the cosmic ether. Some have conceived it as a rigid body, some as a liquid body, others as cosmic gas, as something in a state of whirling motion or the like, and so on. But what is happening when such hypotheses are advanced? They are simply the logical outcome of a mental approach that clings to the kind of thinking that has become habitual in dealing with the visible beings and processes of nature. But what comes back to us from the cosmos has long since become incapable of being grasped within the framework of thoughts in which the laws of nature are formulated. What is coming back can be apprehended only when one begins to think in pictures, to think imaginatively.

One could say: the validity of all that is contained in and governs the formulation of the laws of nature diminishes at the ratio of the square of the distance measured up to the periphery of a given sphere. There the laws of nature have altogether ceased to exist as such. They have become fused, they blend, to return, now, as pictures; they come back in figurations, in images.

And now, when one has achieved the stage of vision I have described, one perceives the world etherically, that is to say, in the form of pictures, and one has to acknowledge that now, while living in the etheric realm one does not only see nothing of one's physical body, but also one's power of thought that is employed in the ordinary world has ebbed away.. Instead, it is as if the universe were radiating back pictures, Imaginations, from all directions. So that in order to understand the ether, one begins to change ordinary thinking into thinking that is plastic, pictorial. It follows then, as a matter of course, that the ether could never be understood by means of any of these misconceived hypotheses. For at the boundaries of etheric radiation, all those calculations and theories concerned with physical phenomena in nature have lost their meaning. At that point the outstreaming has ceased and we have incoming radiation which no longer responds to the range of thought that depends on the ordinary consciousness, but demands a fundamentally artistic approach, inspired by thoughts springing from the realm of art, from the realm of art in the earthly sense.

What I have to tell you now will sound paradoxical, but it is the simple truth for one who sees the world in its true light. Supposing I carve a figure in wood, mould it into the shape of a human being and really succeed in creating a good likeness of the outward appearance of a man. But there is one thing a sculptor cannot do, namely, to let the space be ‘sucked out.’ All I can do as a sculptor is to master the physical material. If I were also able to make the laws governing the cosmic ether operate within the space occupied by my wooden figure, that is to say. if that deep silence were to reign externally, if the negative stillness, not only the stillness at point ‘nought,’ were to take possession, leaving not only space but something space-less, then my wooden sculpture would not, it is true, become a human being, but something like a plant. The wooden figure remains a sculpture only, as it has only physical properties and is merely a replica of an external form, because space-suction, which should really be the supplementary element in the form, does not also come into operation. As it is, that cannot happen, otherwise my wooden sculpture would be a growing organism.

You must realise that with ordinary artistic thinking, with ordinary artistic feeling, you cannot reach the etheric world because, to do so, one has not only to project mental images into space, but one must really lay hold of space, so that the ether empties it. Then one experiences life, the living, in this sucked-out space, or rather in the process of this suction. Thus a very different kind of thinking is needed to reach these higher worlds.—And when one has also had the other experience I described as the deep silence of the soul, then something else happens. One experiences how, coming out of cosmic space, etheric forms approach one, and in these forms one feels the presence of sentient, spiritual being. Not only etheric formations but actual spiritual beings of the so-called higher Hierarchies approach one. One lives as spirit among spirits; one experiences a real spiritual world. It approaches with the inflow of this back-streaming radiation. Wherever the etheric forms approach us the spiritual world is revealed. The physical has departed and returns in etheric forms. But now, together with these returning etheric forms, spiritual beings can approach us. Only, if you were to ask yourselves: Where do they come from?—the ‘where’ has no longer any spatial meaning. Their relation to space is that, converging from the periphery of the universe, they are coming in from all sides of the universe, because they let themselves be borne in on the cosmic ether. The cosmic ether gives them a spatial ‘where,’ but this ‘where’ connotes a gravitating from without.

These two ‘substantialities’ which I discover in this way in the world, the one which, working in the formative forces, approaches me in etheric forms and suffuses me, and the other, which lives and has its being in the spiritual world—these two substantialities the human being acquires as he descends from his pre-earthly to his earthly life, filling his whole being with a content held together by a part of the infinite world of formative forces—infinite only in a relative sense, namely, only as far as the boundaries of the universe; and itself filled with the astral body, with what is borne in on the ether and has a ‘where’ only through the ether.

We bear within us the physical body consisting of physical ingredients of the earth; we bear within us the etheric body which we receive from out of cosmic space; and within the etheric body we bear the astral body which is spirit from cosmic spirit. We confine within the limits of our own being what appears without contour and without limit in the universe.

And when we now proceed to do still more advanced exercises in which we do not only reach the deep silence of the soul but, penetrating this deep silence, we awake in the activity of our own will, as we normally awake only in the activity of thinking and conceiving, then we experience our fourth member, our ‘I.’—About this experience of the ‘I’ it is my intention to speak to you tomorrow.

It is a one-sided view of the world to consider it, like Hegel, as permeated by what one might call cosmic thought. It is equally one-sided to consider, like Schopenhauer, that Nature has a basis of free-will. These two particular tendencies apply to western human nature, which leans more towards the side of thought. Hegel's philosophy has another form in the eastern view of the universe. In Schopenhauer's there is a tendency which really suits the oriental, and is shown by the fact that Schopenhauer has a particular preference for Buddhism, and the oriental view in general.

But really every such method of observation can be judged only if surveyed from the point of view which is given by Spiritual Science. From this point of view such a grouping together of the world under the heading either of thought of will appears to be something abstract, and, as we have often said, the more modern development of man still leans towards such abstractions. Spiritual Science must bring man back again to a concrete view of the world, in agreement with reality. And it is precisely to such a view that the inner reasons for the presence of these one-sided philosophies will appear. What such men as Hegel and Schopenhauer, who are after all great and important intelligences, see, is of course visible in the world; but it must be seen in the right way.

Now let us today, to begin with, understand clearly that we, as human beings, experience thought in ourselves. When a man speaks of his thought-experiences, it means that he has this thought-experience direct. He could naturally not have it unless the world were filled with thought. For how should a man, who perceives the world by his senses, be able to think, as a result of this sensory perception, unless the thought were already in the world?

But as we know from other studies, the organization of the human head is constructed in such a way as to be specially capable of taking in thought from the world. It is formed indeed from thought. It points at the same time to our previous existence on earth. We know that the head is really the result, the metamorphosed result of the previous life, while the organization of the human limbs points to a future life on earth. Roughly speaking, we have our head because our limbs have been metamorphosed from the previous life into the head. The limbs we now have, with everything belonging to them, will be metamorphosed into the head we shall carry in our next earth-life. At present, in our life between birth and death, thoughts function in our head. These thoughts, as we have also seen, are the reshaping of what functioned as will in our limbs in our previous existence. And again, what functions as will in our present limbs will be reshaped and changed into thoughts in our next life on earth.

The will thus appears as the seed, as it were, of thought. What is at first will becomes thought later on. If we look at ourselves as human beings with heads, we must look back to our past, for in this past we had the character of will. If we look into the future, we must take into account the character of will in our present limbs and must say: This is what in future will become our head: thinking man. But we continually carry both these in us. We are created out of the universe because thought from a previous age is organized in us in conjunction with will, which leads over into the future.

Now that which thus arranges the composition of man in this way becomes particularly observable if considered from the point of view of spiritual-scientific research.

The man who can develop himself so far as to have knowledge of Imagination, of Inspiration and of Intuition sees not merely the head of a human being, but he sees objectively the thinking man which his head makes him. He looks, as it were, in the direction of the thoughts. So that we may say with those abilities which man normally requires between birth and death, the head appears in the shape and form in which we see it. Through developed knowledge of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition the strength of thought, which is after all the basis of the head's organization, that which comes down from earlier incarnations, becomes visible—if we use the term metaphorically. How does it become visible? In such a way, dear friends, that we can only use the expression: it becomes as if it gave forth light.

Certainly, when people, who want to keep to the materialistic point of view, criticize these things, one sees at once how little the present generation is capable of understanding at all what they mean. I have in my Theosophy and in other writings, points out sufficiently clearly that it is not a question of thinking in terms of a new physical world, a new edition of it, as it were, if we contemplate thinking man in Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition; on the contrary, this experience is exactly the same as one has in regard to light in the physical external world. Put accurately it is like this: Man has a certain experience in connection with external light. He has the same experience, in imagination, in connection with the thought-element of the head. Thus the thought-element (See Diagram 1) viewed objectively, is seen as light, or better, experienced as light. Being thinking men, we live in light. We see the external light with physical senses; the light which becomes thought we do not see, because we live in it, because as thinking men, it is ourselves. You cannot see that which you yourselves are. If you emerge from this thought and enter upon Imagination and Inspiration, you put yourself opposite to it and can see the thought-element as light. So that in speaking of the whole world, we may say: We have the light in us; only it does not appear to us as light because we live within it, and because while we use the light, while we have it, it becomes thought within us. You control the light, as it were, you take up the light in yourself which otherwise appears outside you. You differentiate it in yourself. You work in it. This is precisely your thinking, it is a working in light. You are a light-being. You do not know it, because you live within the light. But your thinking which you unfold, is living in the light. And I you look at thought from the outside, you see, altogether, light.

Think now of the Universe (Circle.) You see it radiated with light—by day of course; but in reality you are looking at this Universe from the outside ... we now do the opposite. First we had the human head (Thought in the diagram), which contains thought in its development. Seen from outside, it has light. In the Universe we have light which is seen by the senses. If we come out of the Universe, and regard it from outside, what does it look like then? Like a web of thoughts. The Universe from within—light; from outside—thought. The head from within—thought, from outside—light.

This is a way of viewing the cosmos which can be extremely useful and suggestive to you, if you wish to make use of it, if you really penetrate into such things. Your thought and whole soul-life will become much more active than it otherwise is, if you learn to put this thought before you: if I were to come out of myself—as indeed a person who goes to sleep I continually do, and look back at my head, at myself therefore as a thinking man, I should see myself radiating forth light. If I were to leave the light-flooded world, and look at it from outside, I should see it as a picture of thought, as a thought-being. You observe, light and thought go together; they are identical, but seen from different sides.

Now the thought that is in us is really a survival from earlier times, the most mature thing in us, the result of former lives on earth; what formerly was will has become thought, and thought appears as light. As a consequence you will find: where light is, there is thought—but how? In thought or put differently, in light, a previous world continually dies.

That is one of the world-secrets. We look out into the Universe. It is full of light, in which thought lives. But in this thought-filled light there is a dying world. The world is continually dying in light.

When someone like Hegel regards the world, he really looks at the perpetually dying part of it. Those who have this particular tendency, become, for the most part, men of thought. And in dying the world becomes beautiful. The Greeks, who were really people of innate human nature, had their external pleasure when beauty shone in the dying world. For the world's beauty shines in the light in which it dies. The world does not become beautiful if it cannot die, for in dying the world becomes luminous. So that it is really beauty which is created from the radiance of the continuously dying world. Thus we regard the world quantitatively. The modern world began with Galileo and others to consider the world quantitatively, and our Scientists today are particularly proud when they can put natural phenomena into terms of lifeless mathematics. It is true Hegel used more pregnant concepts than the mathematical ones to understand the world; but what attracted him most was maturity and decay. Hegel's attitude to the world was like that of a man in front of a tree laden with blossom. At the moment when the fruit is about to develop, but is not yet there, when the blossom is at its fullest, there works in the tree that power of light, which is light-borne thought. That was Hegel's position. He looked at the blossom at its maximum, at that which becomes most completely concrete.

Schopenhauer was different. In order to test his influence, we must look at the other side of human things, at the beginnings. It is the will-element which we carry in our bodies. And we experience this—I have often pointed out—just as we experience the world in sleep. It is unconscious in us. Can we look at this will-element from outside, as we look at thought? Let us take the will developing in some human limb or other, and let us ask ourselves: if we were to look at this will from the other side, from the standpoint of Imagination, of Inspiration, and of Intuition, what then happens? What is the parallel here to seeing thought as light? What do we regard the will if we look at it with the trained power of sight, with clairvoyance? Yes: if we do this, we also get something which we can see from outside. If we look at thought with the power of clairvoyance, we perceive light. If we look at will with the power of clairvoyance, it becomes always thicker and thicker till it becomes matter. You have no other option, if you agree with Schoenhauer, but to believe that man is really a being of will. Had Schopenhauer been clairvoyant, this being of will would have confronted him as a matter-machine, for matter is the outer side of will. Within, matter is will, as light is thought. From outside, will is matter, as thought is outwardly light. For this reason I pointed out tin former addresses: If man dives down mystically into his will-nature, then those who only toy with Mysticism and really only strive after a sensuous experience of their Ego and of the worst egoism, believe they will find the spirit. But if they went far enough with this introspection, they would discover the true material nature of man's interior. For it is nothing less than a diving down into matter. If you dive down into the will-nature, you will find the true nature of matter. The scientific philosophers of today are only telling fairy-stories when they talk about matter consisting of molecules and atoms. You find the true nature of matter by diving down mystically into yourself. There you find the other side of will, and that is matter. And in this matter, that is in Will, is revealed finally the continually beginning, continually germinating world.

You look out onto the world. You are surrounded with light, and the light is the death-bed of a previous world. You tread on hard matter, the strength of the world bears you up. In light shines beauty in the form of thought, and in the gleam of beauty the previous world dies. The world discloses itself in it strength and might and power, but also in its darkness. The world of the future discloses itself in darkness, in the elements of material will.

If physicists were for once to talk sense, they would not produce speculations about atoms and molecules, but they would say: The visible world consists of the past, and carries in it not molecules and atoms, but the future. And you would be right in saying of the world that the past appears to us in the present, and the past wraps up everywhere the future, for the present is only the total effect of past and future. The future is what lies in the strength of matter. The past is what shines in the beauty of light, which includes, of course, sound and warmth.

And thus man can understand himself only if he takes himself as a seed of futurity, enclosed in the past, in the light-aura of thought. We might say that looked at spiritually man is the past in so far as he shines in his beauty-aura, but in this past-aura is incorporated a darkness mingling with the light, which rays forth out of the past, a darkness which carries over into the future. Light shines out of the past; darkness leads into the future. Light is nature in terms of thought, darkness is nature in terms of will. Hegel leaned toward the light that develops in the processes of growth and in the ripest blooms. Schopenhauer, as philosopher, is like a man standing in front of a tree, who has really no joy in the magnificence of its flower, but has an inner urge to wait till the seeds of the fruit bursts forth. That pleases him, that the power of growth is there, it stimulates him and makes his mouth water to think peaches are going to grow out of the peach-blossom. He turns from light-nature to light. What stirs him, viz., what develops from the light-nature of the bloom as the stuff that he can roll round with his tongue, or the future fruit, is as a matter of act the double nature of the world. To see the world properly you must see it in its double nature, for only then do you realize the concreteness of the world, whereas otherwise you see only its abstractness. When you go out and look at the trees in blossom, you are really living on the past. You look at nature in spring and you can say: What the gods have done to the world in past ages is revealed in the beauty of spring blossom. You look at the fruitful autumn world and say: There begins a new act of the gods, there falls something which however has the power of further development, of development into the future.

Thus it is a question not merely of making for oneself a picture of the world through speculation, but of taking in the world with the whole man. One can in actual fact comprehend the past in plum blossom, and eel the future in the plum. The taste of it on the tongue is closely connected with that out of which one rises again, like the Phoenix from his ashes—into the future. There you comprehend the world in feeling, and it was in this way that Goethe really pondered on everything he wanted to see and feel in the world. For instance he considered the green plant-world. He had not, of course, the advantages of modern Spiritual Science, but in considering the greenness of the plant-world, which had not quite reached the stage of bloom, he had after all the element that has come down from the past into the present; for in the plant the past appears already in the bloom; but what is not quite so much of the past is the leaf's greenness.

The greenness of Nature is that which, as it were, has not yet decayed, which is not so much in the grip of the past. It is this which unfolds itself as green. (See Diagram 2) But that which points to the future is what emerges from the darkness. There where the green is graded off to the bluish tone, there is that which proves itself to be of the future (blue.) On the other hand, there where we are directed to the past, where the ripening force is, which brings things to flower, there is warmth (red,) where light not only shines forth, but inwardly fills itself with force, where it becomes warmth. Now one ought really to draw the whole thing so that one says: You have the green, the plant-world (thus would Goethe feel, even if he has not transformed it into Spiritual or Occult Science;) bordering on it you have the darkness, where the green is darkened into blue. The part that increases its light and becomes filled with warmth, would close again towards the top. But you yourself—as man—are there, there you have within you what you have externally in the green plant-world; there you are, as human etheric body, and I have often said, peach-coloured. And that is the colour which appears here when the blue crosses over to the red. That is our own colour. So that, looking out on the coloured world, one can say: There one is oneself in the peach-colour, and has the green opposite; one has on the one hand the bluish, the dark, on the other side the light colour, the reddish-yellow. But because one is inside the peach-colour, because one lives in it, one can in ordinary life perceive it as little as one perceives thought as light. One does not perceive or observe one's own experience, and therefore one overlooks the peach-colour and sees only the red which one enlarges on the one side, and the blue which one enlarges towards the other side; and thus we see such a rainbow-spectrum. But this is only a deception. You would get the real spectrum if you bent this colour-strip into a circle. In actual fact one does bend it just because as human being one stands within the peach-colour, and so sees the coloured world only from blue to red and from red to blue through green. Were you to have this aspect, precisely then every rainbow would appear as a self-contained circle, as a circular section of a cylinder.

I mention this last only to call your attention to the fact that a philosophy of Nature such as Goethe's is at the same time a spiritual philosophy. In approaching Goethe, the researcher of Nature, we may say that he has as yet no Spiritual Science, but his view of Natural Science was such that it was quite on the lines of Spiritual Science. The essential thing for us today is that the world, including man, is an inter-penetration of thought-light, light-thought with will-matter, matter-will; and the concrete element in it is built up in the most various ways, or permeated with the content of thought-light, light-thought, matter-will and will-matter.

You must look at the Cosmos qualitatively in this way, not merely quantitatively, to get the truth of it. Then also there creeps into this Cosmos a continuous dying away, a dying of the past in light, and a opening up of the future in the darkness. The old Persians, when they felt the past decaying in light, with their instinctive clairvoyance, they called it Ahura Mazdao, and when they felt the future in the darkening will, they called it Ahriman.

And now you have these two world-entities, light and darkness—the living thought, the decaying past, in light, and the growing will, the coming future, in darkness. If we get so far that we regard thought no longer merely in its abstractness, but as light, that we regard the will no longer merely in its abstractness, but as darkness, in its material nature; if we get so far as to be able to regard the warmth-content, for example, of the light-spectrum, as being connected with the past, and the material side, the chemical side of the spectrum as being connected with the future, we pass over from the purely abstract to the concrete. We are no longer such dried-up, pedantic thinkers, merely working with the head; we know that what does work in our heads is really the light that surrounds us. And we are no longer such prejudiced people as to have only pleasure in light: we know also that in the light is death, a dying world. We can sense the world-tragedy in the light. We can also get from the abstract thought to the rhythm of the world. And in darkness we see the seeds of the future. We find indeed therein the impetus for such passionate natures as Schopenhauer. In short, we penetrate from the abstract into the concrete. World-pictures rise before us instead of mere thoughts or abstract will-impulses.

In the next lecture we shall seek—in what has developed concretely for us so remarkably,—thought into light and will into darkness—we shall seek the origin of good and evil. We shall penetrate from the world within into the Cosmos and there seek not only in an abstract or religious-abstract world the causes of good and evil, but we shall see how we break through to a knowledge of good and evil, after having made a beginning by realizing thought in its light, and having felt will in it darkness.

When the light rays of a candle are reflected back from an object, a dark shadow image is produced by the object on the surface. If one lets the Sun rays pass through the candle rays, the dark shadow turns blue, according to the law that the dark seen through light gives blue. Apparent colors come about according to the law that light and dark produce colors at their boundaries where they meet.

But the eye itself also produces colors where objectively there are none. One can make the experiment with a disk, whose different circles are colored for the most part black, so that black jags project into the half which remained white, whose semicircles are thereby of unequal length. If this disk is rotated very quickly, colors of various shades will appear. At great speed, the disk could produce all colors of the rainbow. The colors are perceived subjectively in the eye as color nuances by the fast collisions of light and dark. The eye holds color impressions for a while. It has just received white and does not react as fast to black as the turned wheel demands. It will soon see black through light in all nuances of blue, and soon through the black impression see white in all nuances of yellow. Thus the eye has color sensations that are not objectively present.

This is because what now appears to us legitimately as color was once really experienced countless periods of time ago. The colors we perceive in substances are only differentiations of matter; they are living karma, the result of work. Prana created them by taking from the rays of light all that it needed to process its substances; and those it could not use, it threw back, and these rays thrown back by the substance, which were not absorbed, became visible to us as the apparent color. For example, prana needed the heat, absorbed its red rays and its chemical rays for chemical purposes, and threw back the green ones as useless, and now we see the plant world as green. An object appears to us as white when it throws back all the rays, as black when it absorbs all the rays. That is why a white garment is perceived as cooler, and a black one as warmer.

When man lived only in the Kamic (astral) world countless ages ago, he could not yet consider things as separate from himself. He was in them; he connected himself with them. He felt the red directly; it flowed through him as warmth. And so, like a memory, the red color awakens the feeling of warmth; the blue and violet as a color antipode produces the feeling of cold. Involuntarily, now, when the eye perceives a color, it demands its contrasting color, its complementary color: red demands green, yellow demands indigo, and so on. These are the colors that dissolve into white, and only such colors are pleasing to the eye, all others are displeasing.

The aesthetic effect of colors is deeply rooted in human nature. What we perceive kamically as lawfully subjective is a memory of an objective law in external existence in which man participates, which he carries within himself from times when he himself was not yet a separate being, but one with the whole cosmos.

What appears to us now lawfully as color, was once really experienced innumerable ages ago. The colors we perceive in substances are only differentiations of matter; they are living kama, the result of work. Prana (life force) created them.

In this and the two following talks we want to occupy ourselves with what Goethe called his apocalypse, his secret revelation.

We have seen, among which lofty brotherhood Goethe counted himself. He was convinced that knowledge is not anything that is ascertained once from a human point of view but that the human cognitive faculty can develop and that this soul development is subjected to principles about which the human being needs to know nothing at first, just as little as the plant knows the principles according to which it develops. The general theosophical teachings of the developing cognitive faculty comply completely with the Goethean approach to life. In various ways Goethe expressed this view.

He now answered a question that he tried to answer in infinitely deep way that he approached when his friendship with Schiller became closer and closer. This friendship was hard to make because both personalities stood spiritually on quite different ground. Only in the middle of the nineties (of the 18th century) they met forever and complemented each other. At that time, Schiller invited Goethe to contribute to the Horen (Horae), a magazine in which the most beautiful products of German cultural life should be made accessible to the public. Goethe promised his cooperation, and his first contribution in this magazine was his apocalypse, his “secret revelation:” The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily (1794/95).

It concerns the great connection of body and spirit, of the earthly and the super-sensible he wanted to demonstrate, as well as the way which the human being must take using his developing cognitive faculties if he wants to ascend from the earthly to the spiritual.

It is a question that the human being must always put to himself. Schiller had demonstrated this problem spiritedly in his way in the Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man. This treatise, little known and studied, is a repository for somebody who approaches this riddle. Goethe was thereby inspired to comment the same question and he did it in the Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily which he annexed later to the Conversations of German Emigrants.

This fairy tale leads deeply into theosophy. Theosophy says also that the contents of knowledge of our soul are dependent any time on our cognitive faculty, and that we can develop this cognitive faculty higher and higher, so that we gradually do not have anything subjective as contents of cognition in our souls, but that we can experience objective world contents. The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily shows the development of the human soul to higher and higher insights, because all human soul forces can develop not only the human intellectual capacity. All soul forces, also feeling and willing, can penetrate into the objective world secrets. But you have to eliminate everything personal.

This fairy tale is so profound that it is worthwhile to consider it more intimately. It leads us into the depths of Goethe's world view. Goethe himself said of it to Riemer (1774–1841, Goethe's secretary) that the same applies to it as to St. John's Book of Revelation that only a few find the right thing in it. Goethe put his most profound ideas into it that he knew about the human destiny. He was always very reserved about it: he said if hundred human beings were found who understand it correctly; he would give an explanation of it. They were not found up to his death, and the explanation was not given. After Goethe's death, a big number of attempts to explain were made which were collected by Meyer-von Waldeck (1824–1899, German writer). They are partly valuable as building stones, however, cannot fathom the profound sense.

The question could appear: why did Goethe put his real life secret into such a fairy tale? He himself said that he could speak on such a question only pictorially. He did the same with it as all great teachers of humanity who did not want to teach in abstract words who treated the loftiest questions in pictures, symbolically.

Up to the foundation of the Theosophical Society it was only possible to give this highest truth pictorially. Thereby comes about what Schopenhauer so pleasantly called the “choir of the spirits,” if the spark is enkindled in the souls like by hieroglyphics. Where the world view became completely personal, completely intimate to Goethe, he could express himself only in this form. One finds two important clues in Goethe's conversations with Eckermann.

Later Goethe still expressed himself in two other fairy tales more intimately, in The New Melusine (1807) and then in The New Paris (1810). These three fairy tales are the most profound expression of Goethe's world view. In The New Paris he says in the end: “whether I can tell you what happens further, or whether it is expressly forbidden to me, I do not know.” This should be a hint to the sources of this fairy tale.

These fairy tales are revelations of Goethe's most intimate approach to life and world view. The fairy tale The New Paris points clearly to the sources from which it comes. It begins: all clothes drop from the boy's body, everything drops from the human being that he has acquired within the culture in which he lives. A man, young and nice, approaches the boy. This welcomes him joyfully. The man asks: do you know me? The boy answers: you are Mercury. This I am and I was sent by the gods with an important order to you!

Let us look at these three fairy tales as Goethe's most profound revelations. At first the Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. The fairy tale immediately begins mysteriously. Three fields are brought forward to us, a this-worldly one, a yonder one and in between them is a river. It shows the world of body, soul and spirit, and the path of the human being to the super-sensible world. The near side bank is the physical world, the yonder one, the country of the beautiful lily, is the spiritual world; in between is the river, the astral world, the world of desire.

Theosophy speaks of the soul life in the physical world, of this mortal world, then of the devachan which the soul experiences after death, but also if it got free of anything personal by means of an esoteric development already here in the physical world. Then it can ascend to the beyond, to the kingdom of the beautiful lily; then it finds the way to the yonder bank, where the human being constantly strives for, the way to the home of his soul and spirit. The river in between, the astral world, the current of desires and passions separating the human beings from the spiritual world must be overcome.

A bridge is now built across the river and the human being gets to the kingdom of the beautiful lily. This is the goal the human being strives for. Goethe was completely familiar with the significance of the lily in medieval mysticism. He was, so to speak, initiated in the secrets of the mystic world view and knew the alchemical efforts of the Middle Ages. After he had recognised the deepness of mysticism on one side, he also met the trivial reflection of it in the caricatures of literature.

In the first part of Faust, he still shows us humorously that the problem of the connection of the human being with the beautiful lily stood before his eyes. In the Easter walk you read before he makes the acquaintance with Mephistopheles of the efforts of the human being in a distorted alchemy.

My father was a worthy commoner,
who in good faith, but in his own eccentric way,
laboured at fanciful speculations...
...
...
there a mercurial suitor, the Red Lion,
would in a tepid bath be married to the Lily...

This is a technical term of alchemy: lily signifies Mercury. According to the theosophical world view Mercury is the symbol of the wisdom the human being strives for, and lily that condition of consciousness in which the human being exists if he has obtained the highest. The marriage of the male with the female in the human soul is shown here. “In a tepid bath” means in the alchemical sense “being released from the fire of desires.”

We speak of ahamkara in theosophy, the striving of the human self which wants to enclose the highest. This human principle striving at first in selfness is shown in alchemy as a lion which has been freed from selfness, from desires and passions, and is allowed to combine with the lily. Even if one did no longer know a lot of the true alchemy in mediaeval times, one had preserved the names. All higher truth stands in the etheric shine before us if we approach it, released from stormy desires, from the lion of desires which were cooled down in the tepid bath. Then the human mind can find the lily, the eternal-female, which attracts us; he can have the union with these truths of the spiritual worlds. This is a way which the souls have always gone in the fullest clearness. Mystic is somebody who strives for the clearness, the highness, and the purity of the views.

There must not be sympathy and antipathy of wisdom, but only an unselfish being merged in it. Because one does not feel any passion with the truths of mathematics, no quarrel is possible; if human sensations came into question, it would be also argued whether two times two are four. In the same etheric shine all higher truths stand before us if we express this attitude. It was this serenity in all that Pythagoras called catharsis, purification. Goethe described this whole way with its intimate secrets in his fairy tale because our colloquial language is not really suitable to show these matters. Not until we succeed in describing that in coloured pictures which lives in the soul of the mystic, we find the language to describe the highest form of the human consciousness, the lily.

One likes to represent mysticism as something unclear. But unclear is only somebody who does not find the way to the heights. The mystic strives for the most precious clearness of the concepts in pure etheric height, free of harsh immediate reality. We need to acquire the concepts only which lead us to this country of clearness. Goethe looked for this country of clearness, he strove for mathematical knowledge. In Goethe's estate I found a notebook fifteen years ago. This confirmed that Goethe concerned himself with mathematical studies even during later years, even up to the highest problems. Like a real gnostic he made his studies on nature and the human soul. Because of his intuitive spirit he could also behold the archetypal plant, for example.

But as he was hard understood concerning the archetypal plant and animal, he was still less understood concerning the soul-life. I remind of the conversation with Schiller in Jena in 1794. Goethe expressed himself to Schiller in such a way that he said that an approach of the world and its contents could be probably found which does not pick the things to pieces, as science does, but which shows the connecting band of all forms, which points to something higher, something uniform behind all sensuous phenomena. Goethe drew his archetypal plant, a formation which was similar, indeed, to a plant, but not to living ones which you can perceive with outer senses, and he said to Schiller: this is the essentiality of plants, the archetypal plant, this is the connecting band of the plants; but this archetypal plant lives in no single plant, but in all plant beings. It is the objective of all plants.

He answered to Schiller's objection that his archetypal plant were an idea: “If this is an idea, I see my ideas with eyes.” At that time, Goethe showed how he stands to the spirit; there is an intuitively beheld plant for him which lives in every plant being. Only an intuitive beholding can perceive the objective behind all sensory things, only thinking free of sensuousness can attain this. The will-o'-the-wisps of the fairy tale show us how thinking can develop to objectivity. Who cannot rise toward Goethe's view does not understand what he means; at that time even Schiller did not correctly understand what Goethe meant, but he did his best to penetrate into Goethe's world view. Then the letter of the 23rd August, 1794 came. This broke the ice between both spirits.

Goethe hid a lot of his higher spiritual beholding in this fairy tale. Let us now try to penetrate into the fairy tale.

You read: In the middle of the night, two will-o'-the-wisps wake up the old ferryman who sleeps on the other bank in the spiritual world, and want to be ferried over. Fro the kingdom of the lily he ferries them over the river whipped by the storm. They behave discourteously, dance in the small boat, so that the ferryman must say to them that the small boat topples over. Finally, after they had arrived at the bank with effort, they want to pay him with many gold pieces which they shook off from themselves. The ferryman rejects them and says sullenly: It's a good thing that you have not thrown them into the river which can stand no gold and would have wildly foamed and devoured you. Now I have to bury the gold. However, I myself can be paid only with fruits of the earth. He does not let them loose until they promise three cabbages, three artichokes and three onions. Then the ferryman hides the gold in the abysses of the earth where the green snake lives. This consumes the gold and becomes radiant from within. It can now walk in its own light and sees how everything round it is transfigured by this light. The will-o'-the-wisps meet it and say to it: you are our aunt of the horizontal line. The will-o'-the-wisps are its cousins who stem from the vertical line. These are ancient expressions, vertical and horizontal, which were always used in mysticism for certain soul states.

How do we come to the beautiful lily? - The will-o'-the-wisps ask. Oh, it lives on the other bank, the snake answers. Alas! We have nicely made our beds, from there we come! The snake informs them that the ferryman is allowed to ferry over everybody to this bank but not back to the other. Are there no other ways? Yes, at midday I myself form a bridge, the green snake says. But this is not convenient to the will-o'-the-wisps, and that is why the snake points to the shade of the giant who himself is powerless, but is capable to do everything with his shade. At sunrise and at sunset the shade lies down as a bridge across the river.

The snake tries, after the will-o'-the-wisps had gone away, to satisfy a curiosity which had tormented it for long. On its wanderings through the rocks it had discovered with its feeling smooth walls and manlike figures which it hopes to recognise now with its new light.
It creeps through the rock and finds a room in which the portraits of four kings are put up. The first of the kings is of gold, he is decorated with a wreath of oak leaves. He asks the snake where from it comes: from the abysses where the gold lives! What is more marvellous than gold? The king asks. The light, the snake answers. What is more refreshing than light? The conversation, the snake answers. Then it looks at the remaining kings, the second is of silver, decorated with a crown, the third is of ore, he is decorated with a laurel wreath, the fourth king is misshapen and composed of all these metals.

Now a bright light spreads; an old man with a lamp appears in the vault.

Why do you come, although we have light? The golden king asks. You know that I am not allowed to illuminate the dark. Does my empire end? The silver king asks. Late or never, the old man answers. The bronze king begins: when will I get up? Soon, the old man answers. With whom should I combine? The silver king asks. With your older brothers, the old man replies. What will become of the youngest? He will sit down.

During this conversation the snake looked around in the temple.

Meanwhile the golden king says to the old man: how many secrets do you know? The old man answers: three. Which is the most important? The silver king asks. The obvious one, the old man answers. Do you want to reveal it to us? The bronze king asks. As soon as I know the fourth one, the old man says. What do I care, the composed king murmurs to himself. I know the fourth, the snake says, approaches the old man and hisses something in his ear. The old man shouts with booming voice: the time has come! The temple resounds; the metal statues sound, and at this moment the old man disappears to the west and the snake to the east, and both roam the abysses of the rocks very quickly.

So far for the moment the contents of the fairy tale. Schiller writes to Cotta: “The public will still find out something, one reads the resolution in the fairy tale.” We are in a point where we want to begin with the resolution. Because we do not want to go too far afield, we have to get some ancient expressions of the secret doctrine clear in our mind to understand the pictures: flames signify something certain to the mystic. What did Goethe show in the flames, the will-o'-the-wisps symbolically? The flames which are the will-o'-the-wisps represent the fire of passions, of the sensuous desires, of the impulses and instincts. This is the fire which lives only in warm-blooded animals and in the human being.

Once there was a time when the human being did not yet have the same figure as today. This fire was not there before the Lemurian race; before it was incarnated in the human body, there were any desires and impulses in this race. The human being became a longing, wishing being by the penetration with the warm-bloodedness, kama manas. The fish and reptiles belong to the cold-blooded animals. That is why mysticism makes an even stronger distinction than the natural sciences between cold-blooded and warm-blooded beings.

At that time, in the middle of the Lemurian age, a moment happens at which the human being develops from lower to higher stages. This moment is called in the myths, in the Prometheus legend, the bringing down of the fire. About Prometheus it is told that he had brought it down from heaven, and he was forged to the rock the physical, mineral human body.

The sum of the desires, emotions, instincts, and passions is the fire which pushes the human beings to new actions. In theosophy this flame is called the emergence of the human self-consciousness, of the ability to say "I" to oneself. If the human being did not get round to becoming the flame, he could not have developed the self-consciousness and with it he would not be able to ascend to the knowledge of the divine. There is a lower self-consciousness, the self-consciousness, and a higher one. The lower nature of the desires and the higher one of the consciousness are linked in the human being. The physical human being originated by the penetration of his self with the blood, with the flame. The flames of the will-o'-the-wisps show the emergence of the self-consciousness within the impulses, desires and passions. This is kama manas as we say in theosophy. With it the human being lives in the physical world at first, on this side of the river.

But the home of the human being in which he stays before he is born is beyond the river, in the spiritual world. The ferryman ferries the human being from this spiritual world over the river of the astral world to the physical, this-worldly existence. However, the seeking soul strives incessantly again back to the land beyond the river; but the ferryman nature cannot bring them back. That means: if they found him also on this bank, he would not accept them, because he is allowed to ferry over everybody to this bank, but nobody to the yonder bank. The snake says this to the will-o'-the-wisps. Natural forces have brought in the human being by birth to the physical world. If the human being wants to be brought back to the higher worlds during life, he must do this himself. There is a road back. The self can collect knowledge. Gold is the occult symbol of knowledge. Gold and wisdom knowledge correspond to each other.

The lower humanity also has the gold of knowledge represented by the will-o'-the-wisps and becomes a will-o'-the-wisp if it does not find the right way. There is a lower wisdom which the human being acquires within the sensory world, while he observes the things and beings of this sensory world, makes ideas of them and combines them by his thinking. However, this is wisdom of mere reason. The will-o'-the-wisps want to pay the ferryman with this gold which they take up easily and cast off easily again. But the ferryman rejects it. Wisdom of reason does not satisfy nature, only that gift can have an effect on nature which is connected with the living forces of nature. Immature wisdom makes the river of the astral foam, it does not accept it. The ferryman demands fruits of the earth as a pay. The will-o'-the-wisps did never enjoy them. They did never strive for penetrating into the depths of nature, but they must still pay tribute to nature. They must promise to fulfil the demand of the ferryman soon. This demand comprises fruits of the earth: three cabbages, three artichokes and three big onions. What are these earth fruits? Goethe takes these fruits which have skins representing the human covers.
The human being has his three covers, his three bodies: the physical body, the etheric body and the astral body. Within these covers the core of the human being lives. In these bodies which surround it like sheaths the self has to gather the fruits of an incarnation after the other. Earth fruits must be gathered. These fruits do not consist of the knowledge of reason. The ferryman demands these three bodies as a contribution to nature. Goethe hid this teaching intimately in his fairy tale.

The gold comes to the snake. This is the gold of real wisdom. The snake was always the symbol of the self that does not keep to itself, but is able to take up the divine in selflessness, to sacrifice itself, gathers earth wisdom unselfishly, creeping in the “abysses of the earth.” It ascends to the divine not unfolding egoism and vanity, but trying to make itself similar to the divine. The snake in its unselfish striving takes up the gold of wisdom, it penetrates itself completely with the gold and thereby it becomes luminous from within. It becomes luminous as the self becomes if it has advanced to the stage of inspiration where the human being has become internally luminous and full of light and where light radiates toward light. The snake notices that it had become transparent and luminous. Before long one had asserted to it that this phenomenon is possible. It was green before, now it is luminous. The snake is green because it is in sympathy with the beings around, with the whole nature. Where this sympathy lives, the aura appears in bright green hues. Green is the colour in which the aura of the human being appears if mainly unselfish, devoted striving lives in the soul. Now when it itself has become luminous from within, the snake does see, before it felt only in its striving endeavours. All leaves seem to be of emerald, all flowers are glorified most marvellously. It sees all things in a new, glorified light. The things appear in such luminous emerald hues to us if the spirit flows from them toward us, if light radiates toward light.

Now after it has become luminous and has taken up the higher divine nature in itself, it also finds the way to the subterranean temple.

The sites, the mystery temples, in which in former times the truths were announced, were deeply hidden in the caves and abysses of the earth There light faces light.

Indeed, up to now the snake was compelled to creep without light through these abysses; but it could probably distinguish the objects by feeling. It perceived objects by feeling which revealed the forming hand of the human being, above all human figures. Now it is in the possession of light, and light faces it. It finds the temple and four kings therein, and the old man with the lamp approaches it. The man with the lamp signifies the ancient wisdom, the ancient wisdom of humanity which is only light and does not shadow which contains something that modern natural sciences cannot understand. Goethe says profoundly that the lamp of the human soul only shines if another light which the soul must produce is shown. It is the same view which he expresses in the saying which he placed in front of his theory of colours and about which he says that these are the words of an old mystic:

Unless the eyes were like the sun,
How could we see the light?
Unless God's own force lived in us,
How could delight us the divine?

Theory of Colours. Didactic Part

After the snake's eye has become sun-like because the light of the divine is enkindled in the snake, the light of the ancient wisdom of the world shines toward it.

The fire of passion has changed to the light. The fire which has changed in the earth to the light of wisdom is able to shine toward the bringer of wisdom, the “old man with the lamp.”

The snake looks at the four kings with amazement and reverence. Amazement and reverence are always the soul forces that bring the human beings forward and upwards. It beholds the golden king first, and he starts talking: where do you come from? From the abysses where the gold lives, the snake answers. What is more marvellous than gold? The king asks. The light, the snake answers. What is more refreshing than light? He asks. The conversation, the snake answers. In the conversation wisdom comes to the fore intimately for the human being, this is more refreshing than the great revelation. Does one not think of the Platonic dialogues in this discussion of the king with the snake? There were world secrets expressed with few words, few sentences. Goethe wants to explain: what is in the temple and happens there concerns the highest secrets of human development.

Which alchemy transforms the things that way? It is the initiation. Even the modern theory of evolution takes the perpetual transformation of the things as basis. The temple has to be subterranean at first, it is closed to the most human beings; but now the moment approaches when it is open to all human beings. It wants to send the gold of wisdom which has become light from human being to human being.

Who is the golden king, and who are the other three kings, the silver one, the bronze one and the mixed king? The golden king is manas, wisdom itself which could only develop higher in the mystery temple up to now. This is that soul-force which the human being can gain with purified thinking free of sensuousness. The silver king indicates an even higher element than wisdom: it is love, the creative word of the world buddhi, the god, being aglow with love. Its kingdom is called the kingdom of appearance; Christianity calls it glory (gloria in excelsis). It is pointed to a time which becomes later accessible only; then buddhi has the mastery over humanity. The bronze king whom the snake does not see at first and who is apparently little valuable is of huge seize. He looks rather like a rock than a human form. This is the king who expresses the willing-like soul-force which rests in the human being covertly.

He represents atma with which the striving human being is endowed last what he finds last.

Thus Goethe showed in a beautiful picture the endowment of the human being with the three highest virtues which are given to him one day. Without having attained this maturity, nobody was admitted to initiation in former times.

Then there is still the fourth king, of cumbersome figure; he consists of a mixture of gold, silver and bronze, but the metals seemed to have not correctly melted with the casting, nothing correlates with each other. This is the soul of the undeveloped human being who does not yet develop higher striving, in who thinking, feeling and willing are chaotically disorganised and which give “the picture a disagreeable appearance.” The fourth king shows the force of thinking which is still clouded with the sensory impressions, the fire of the soul which does not unfold love but lives in desires and impulses, the disordered will of the human being.

Remember the discussion of the kings with the man with the lamp. The golden king asks the old man: how many secrets do you know? Three, the old man replies. Which is the most important one? The silver king asked. The obvious one, the old man answers. Do you want to disclose it also to us? The bronze king asked. As soon as I know the fourth one, the old man said. I know the fourth one, the snake said, approached the old man and hissed something in his ear. The time has come! The old man shouted with penetrating voice.

There are three secrets the most important one is the obvious one. If this is disclosed, the fourth one can be known! This is the most important word of the whole fairy tale and at the same time the key of it as Goethe said in a discussion with Schiller. The old man knows three secrets; these are the secrets of the three realms of nature. The realms of nature have become steady in their development. However, the human being develops perpetually. He is able to do this, because the spirit, the self lives in him. The three secrets which the old man knows explain the principles of the mineral realm, the plant realm and the animal realm.

With its own forces the soul has to find the principle which must live in the human soul if it wants to obtain the maturity of initiation. The snake has found it. It hisses it in the ear of the old man. What did the snake say to the old man? That it wants to sacrifice itself! Sacrifice is the principle of the spiritual world. – Somebody can walk the path to the higher knowledge only who does not regard this knowledge as an end in itself, and seeks for it in the service of humanity. All true mystics know this soul path; they all have gone through this experience of sacrificing like the snake. As soon as the words sound in the temple: I want to sacrifice myself! The old man shouts: the time has come!

The words of the old man, the time has come, point to the distant future when the whole humanity has attained the maturity. Then the time has come that the temple rises up above the river, that the whole humanity takes part in wisdom, in the initiation which was otherwise given to few people only in the temples, in the abysses.

To somebody like me who concerned himself with this fairy tale for twenty years deeper and deeper profundities appear, time and again the lines point to an even more profound primary source. Here are treasures to be found; however, we have to find them. We must only take care not to permit ourselves something in view of Goethe that Goethe lets Mephisto characterise in his Faust in such a way:

To understand some living thing and to describe it,
the student starts by ridding it of its spirit;
he then holds all its parts within his hand
except, alas! for the spirit that bound them together!

(Faust's Study, verses 1936–1939)

Let us seek for this spiritual band in Goethe's creations.

Note:

The text of this and the following lectures are based on two incomplete transripts which were complemented with handwritten notes of two other participants.

Through that which I gave you in my last lecture it is now possible to speak more exactly of many of those events which occurred in the course of the evolution of the earth, and which have brought about its present form. You will remember I said that one who has attained to knowledge through inner vision comes into a certain relationship with the metals of the earth, with all that has its being in the earth, through the fact that the earth is permeated with veins of metal, that the earth in general carries within itself various kinds of metals. This relationship into which man can enter with the metals enables him to look back on that which has happened to the earth.

It is particularly interesting to look back to what happened on the earth in the times preceding the Atlantean evolution, that period which I have described in a somewhat external way, as the Lemurian epoch; to look back also to the period of time which immediately preceded this, when the Earth went through the Sun stage. During the Lemurian epoch the Earth went through the Moon stage. It is interesting to look back on all these events, for we thereby receive an impression of how wonderful is everything in the sphere of earthly existence.

Nowadays we are accustomed to regard the earth as complete in the form which it presents to us today. We live on the continents as human beings, and are surrounded by what the earth bears upon it in the way of plants, animals, birds of the air, and so on. We know that we ourselves live, in a certain sense, in a sort of air-ocean, the atmosphere which surrounds the earth, that out of this atmosphere we take oxygen into ourselves, that our relation to the nitrogen also plays a certain role. We picture to ourselves in general that this atmosphere, consisting in oxygen and nitrogen, surrounds us. Then we look upon the oceans, the seas—I need not go into every detail—and we form a picture of the planet which we inhabit in the universe.

The earth was not always as it is today; it has undergone tremendous changes. If we go back to the times I have just indicated, to the Lemurian age and a little further back we find quite a different condition of the earth from what we have today.

Let us begin with the atmosphere in which we now live, and which we regard as non-living, lifeless; even this atmosphere shows itself in those early ages as something quite different. If we go still further back we have to observe something else. Today, we have this firm solid earth-kernel and around it the atmosphere. A similar mental picture might also be made even for those very ancient times, but there could be no question of there being round the earth anything like the air we now breathe. In the air we breathe today oxygen and nitrogen play the chief part, carbon and hydrogen play a less important part, and sulphur and phosphorous a still less significant one.

As regards those very ancient times it is really not possible to speak of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, sulphur and so on, simply because what the chemist calls by these names today did not exist in this ancient period. If a chemist of today were to meet a spiritual being of that time and speak of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc., that being would reply “such things do not exist.” It is possible to speak today of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc., but in those ancient times there was absolutely no possibility of speaking of these things for they could only be present as such after the earth had reached a certain density and had acquired forces such as it has within it today. Oxygen, nitrogen, potassium, sodium and so on, all the lighter so-called metals simply did not exist in that ancient epoch. On the other hand there was at that time around the earth, in the place where today we have the atmosphere something which was of an exceedingly fine fluid nature, of a consistency halfway between our present air and water. It was of a fluid nature, but in its fluidity it was similar to albumen; so that in reality the earth at that time was entirely surrounded by an albuminous atmosphere. The albumen in eggs today is very much denser, but it may be compared with that of which we are now speaking.

From this environment of the earth when later the earth become denser, what we now call carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and so on were gradually differentiated. They were not there in such a way that we can say this ancient albuminous atmosphere was composed of these elements, for it did not have these several elements as ingredients. Today we generally think of things as being formed by combination, but that is nonsense. What we know as certain higher substances are not always composed of what appears when they are analysed, for these things cease to be present in the higher substance. Carbon is not present there as carbon, nor oxygen as oxygen, but there is a substance of a higher nature. As I have said, this substance according to its qualities may really be described as albumen in an excessively fluid condition. The whole of this substance surrounding the earth at that time was permeated from the universe with cosmic ether, which gave it life. So that we have to represent to ourselves the cosmic ether as projecting into this substance and giving it life.

This substance lived because the cosmic ether projected itself into it. Not only was it alive, it was also differentiated in a remarkable manner, e.g. in one part there appears a large structure in which man would be suffocated, in another part another large structure appears in which man could specially have regained new life and activity if he could have been there at that time as a human being, and so forth. Formations arose, producing effects which remind one of the chemical elements of today, but chemical elements in our modern sense did not exist. Then the whole was pervaded by reflections of light, gleams of light, rays of light, sparkles of light. And finally the whole was warmed through by the cosmic ether.

Such were the characteristics at that early period of the earth's atmosphere. The first thing to be fashioned from out of the cosmos is what I described in the last lecture as the very first primeval mountains. These were fashioned from out of the cosmos. Thus the quartz that is found out there in the primeval mountains in its beautiful form, in its relative transparency, was formed in the earth to a certain extent from out of the universe. That is why, today, if we transfer ourselves through Imaginative vision into these rocks of the primeval mountains into what are now the hardest formations of the earth they are to us as the eyes of the earth through which it gazes out into the universe. But also it was the universe which implanted these eyes in the earth. They are there now. The universe has placed them in the earth. The quartz, the silica and such like which then permeated the whole atmosphere and were gradually deposited as primeval mountains were not so hard as today. This only came afterwards, this hardened state through circumstances which developed later. All that was thus fashioned out of the cosmos in that far-off time was scarcely harder than wax.

If you go now into those mountainous regions and there see a quartz crystal, it is so hard that, as I have said before, if you were to knock your head against it your skull would crack but not the quartz. At that far-off time, however, because of the life which pervaded everything the quartz was actually as soft as wax. We may, therefore, say that these rocks of the primeval mountains came out of the cosmos as a kind of trickling wax.

All that thus slipped into the earth from out of the cosmos was transparent, and its relative hardness, its wax-like hardness can only be described by mentally employing the sense of touch. If we could have grasped it, it would have felt like wax.

It was in this way that these ancient mountains were deposited from out of the cosmos as a kind of wax-substance trickling in and then gradually hardening. Silica had a wax-like consistency at the time in which it was deposited out of the cosmos into the earth.

That which today is present more spiritually and which I described in the last lecture, viz. that by transposing oneself into this hard rock one has pictures of the cosmos—this phenomenon was at that time quite perceptible spiritually, and in such a way that when such silicates in the wax-like condition began to condense one could distinguish in them something like a kind of plant-form. Anyone who has looked round a little on nature knows quite well that something like distinctive marks of an ancient time are to be found. in the mineral world today. We find stones, we take them in our hands, we look attentively at them, and we find they have within them something like the outline of a plant-form. At that time it was quite a usual phenomenon which came into this albuminous atmosphere, pushed in as it were as outlines which could not only be seen but which were substantially photographed in this wax-like body.

Then the peculiar configuration came about that the fluid albumen which existed in the atmosphere filled in these outline forms and thereby they became somewhat harder, somewhat denser. Then they were no longer merely outline forms. The silicious part fell away from them and was dispersed in the rest of the atmosphere. In the earliest part of the Lemurian epoch we have those gigantic floating plant-formations reminding us somewhat of the forms of the algae of today, which are not rooted in the soil, for as yet there was no soil there. They floated in this fluid albumen with which they were permeated and out of which they formed their own substance. Not only did they float in this fluid albumen, they also shone forth I might say, they lit up and then faded away. They were capable of transformation to the extent that they could arise and disappear.

Place this picture clearly before your minds. It is a picture which is indeed very different from anything around us today. If we as modern men could transpose ourselves into that ancient epoch, if, let us say, we could set up a little sentry box somewhere and watch what happened around, if from it we could look out into that ancient world we should see all round us, over there a plant-form shoots up, a tremendous plant-form, like our present algae (sea-weed) or even like a palm. But it shoots up. It does not grow out of the earth in spring and die down in autumn; it shoots up, appearing in the spring-time (the spring-time was much shorter then) and reaches a tremendous size. Then it disappears again into the fluid albumen-like element. Such an observer would see green ever appearing and then fading away. He would not speak of plants covering the earth but of plants which like air-clouds appear from out of the cosmos, become dense and then dissolve away, something which grows green in this element of albumen. Then in the time which would somewhat correspond to our summertime today he would say: This is the time when the environment of our earth grows green. But he would have to look up to the green rather than look down on it.

In this way the idea comes to us how the flinty part of the earth atmosphere draws down into the earth, and how the plant-force which is really out there in the cosmos attracts it up to itself, how the plant-world comes down to the earth from out of the cosmos. In the period of which I am now speaking we have to say: This plant-world is something which arises and passes away in the atmosphere.

Something else must also be said. If today as human beings we transfer ourselves through this relationship with the metallic elements of the earth back into those ancient times we feel as if all this belonged to ourselves, as if we had something to do with that which at that time within the atmosphere grew green and then faded away. When today we recall our own childhood our memory extends over a relatively short span of time. Yet just as we can recall a pain which we experienced in childhood—and that is something which belongs to us—in the same way in this cosmic recollection aroused by the metallic element of the earth we experience this process of the becoming green and fading away as something which belongs to us. Man was already at that time connected with the earth, that earth which lived in this watery albuminous atmosphere. He was united with it as a human being but in such a way that as man he was still wholly spiritual. We express a reality when we say: Man must acquire the concept that these plants which we see there in the atmosphere at that time are something separated, something thrown off from that which is human. Man puts this out of his own being which itself is still united with the whole earth. And he has this conception, or should have it, of something else that he places outside of him, something quite different. The following also happened. Everything I have hitherto described was brought about through the silica substance in the atmosphere having been already deposited in the wax-like substance of which I have spoken. But apart from that, this albuminous atmosphere extends everywhere. Upon this atmosphere the cosmos works. Upon this atmosphere there work the countless manifold forces which stream down to the earth from the cosmos everywhere, those forces of which our modern science has no wish to know anything. Hence our modern science is indeed no true knowledge, for the most various phenomena which occur on the earth would indeed not occur if they were not brought about by cosmic impulses and cosmic forces.

Because the learned men of today do not speak of these cosmic forces they do not speak of what above all things is reality. They take nowhere into account that which is really living. Even in the smallest particle which we look at under the microscope there live not only earthly but cosmic forces, and if this is not taken into account there is no reality.

Thus were the cosmic forces active at that time upon this fluid albumen in the environment of the earth. These cosmic forces worked on many parts of this albumen in such a way that they congealed, so that one could see everywhere albumen congealed by the forces of the cosmos; this cosmically congealed albumen swam in the earth environment. These forms of cosmically congealed albumen were not merely imaginary masses of clouds, they were living things having definite forms. These were actually animals which consisted in this congealed albumen thickened to the density of jelly or even to that of our present-day gristle. Such jelly-like animals existed in this fluid albuminous atmosphere. They had a shape which we find today on a smaller scale in our reptiles, in lizards and creatures of that kind; they were not so dense as these are, but they had gelatinous bodies and the power of movement. At one moment they had long limbs, at another these limbs were drawn back into the body. In short, everything about these limbs is like a snail which can extend and withdraw its feelers.

While all this was being formed outside something else was being deposited in the earth from out of the cosmos, another substance in addition to the silica, and that is what you find today as the chalk or limestone of the earth. If you go into the primeval mountains, or merely into the Jura mountains, you find this limestone rock. This limestone rock certainly came to the earth later but it came in the same way as the silica out of the cosmos on to the earth. Thus we find chalk as the second substance in the earth.

This chalk continually oozes in and the essential thing is that it works in such a way that the kernel of the earth gradually becomes denser and denser. In certain localities the silica incorporates itself into the chalk. But the chalk retains the cosmic forces. Chalk indeed is something quite different from the coarse material which the chemists of today represent it to be. It contains formative forces, relatively active though unrecognized.

Now we come to a peculiar thing. If we consider a somewhat later time than that which I have described in connection with the phenomenon of the arising and passing away of the green, we find that in this albuminous atmosphere there is a continual rising and falling of chalky substance. Chalk-mist is formed and then chalk-rain. There was a period on the earth when the water which today rises in mist and falls as rain was of a chalk nature which rose and fell, ascending and descending. Now the peculiar thing comes about that this chalk is specially attracted by the gelatinous, the gristly forms; it permeates them, impregnates them with itself. And through the earth forces which are in it (I told you the earth-forces are in the chalk) through these forces the whole gelatinous mass is gradually dissolved, the mass which, as we have seen, formed itself there as coagulated albumen. The chalk abstracts the albumen and carries it down nearer to the earth, and from this gradually arise the animals which have bones containing lime. That is what develops in the later part of the Lemurian epoch.

We have, therefore, first of all to look upon the plants in their most ancient form as pure gifts from heaven. In the animals, in everything possessing an animal form we have to see something which the earth, after the heavens had given it chalk, took and made into an earthly form. These are the marvelous things which we discover in those ancient times. We feel so bound up with these things that we feel this whole process as an expansion of the human being into the cosmos.

Such things naturally sound paradoxical because they touch upon a reality of which the man of the present day usually has no idea; nevertheless they are absolutely true. Does it not correspond with reality today when someone says from what he remembers: “When I was a child of nine years old I had a friend whom I fought or hurt?” That recollection is something which arises from within. The speaker may feel pleasure in it or not. It may cause him pain, but it arises within him. Similarly there arises in man through the relationship with the metals an enhanced human consciousness which becomes an earth consciousness: Whilst thou hast formed on the earth thy whole being from out of the heavens, by the descent thou hast separated the plants from thee. They are cast off from thee. Thou hast also cast off the animal nature. In the form of coagulated jelly or gristle thou didst will first of all that the animal nature should become a separate product from thyself. But in this case thou hast had to see how earlier earth forces have taken this work from thee and have fashioned the animal forms into another shape, which is a result of earth creation. In this way, in, a cosmic memory, one can see this as one's own experience just as one can see the case I have just given you as an experience of a short earthly life. One feels oneself, as has been said, united as a human being with all these things.

But all this is indeed connected with many other processes. I can only sketch for you the chief events. Many other things happened. For example, while all that I have described was taking place the whole atmosphere was filled with sulphur in a finely divided state. This finely divided sulphur united itself with other substances, and from the union there arose what I may call the parents of everything which is found today in the ores as pyrites, galena, native sulphide of zinc, etc. In this way all these substances developed in an older form, soft, thick and wax-like. The body of the earth was permeated with these things.

When these ores, these metallic substances developed out of the general albuminous substance and formed the solid crust of the earth the metals had really not much else to do, unless man made some use of them, than to ponder over what had happened in the past. We find them still doing this, bringing graphically to the mind of one who has inner vision all that has happened to the earth. Now because he has, as his own, this cosmic or at least tellurian experience he says: Through having cast off from thyself all this, through having cast off the primeval plant-form, a form which has since developed into the later plant-forms, through having cast off that which still exists in a more complicated way as the animal creation as I have described it, thou hast separated from thyself that which formerly hindered thee from having as man a will of thine own.

All that I have described to you was necessary. Man had to cast off these things from himself, just as today he has to get rid of perspiration and other matter. Man had to cast off these things so that he might no longer be a being in whom merely the gods willed, but so that he could be a being with a will of his own, certainly not yet a free will, but his own. All this was necessary as preparation for the earthly nature of man.

Through much else that happened everything gradually became transformed. As the metals were now within the earth the whole atmosphere changed also. It became a different atmosphere, much less sulphurous. Oxygen gradually gained the upper hand over the sulphur, whereas in the ancient times sulphur was of very great significance for the atmosphere of the earth. The whole atmosphere of the earth became transformed.

In this transformed atmosphere man could again cast off from himself something else. What man now separated off appeared as the successors of the earlier plants and earlier animals.

Gradually the later plant-forms developed. These had a kind of root by which they held on to a still extremely soft earthy substance. And there arose reptiles, lizard-like animals, more complicated creatures, impressions of which present-day geology can still discover. Of the most ancient creatures of which I have spoken nothing can be found. Only in that later period, when man for the second time separated off from himself more complicated forms, only then were there such creatures as I have been describing to you. First of all cloud-like structures, continually arising and disappearing, growing green and then fading away; soft animal-like forms which were really animals, forms which gradually consolidated themselves, had a life of their own and then disappeared into the common earth-life. This was the case with all these beings. And out of all this arose something which condensed more into itself.

Among these animals was one which may be described as follows: it had a very large eye-like organ surrounded by a sort of aura. Near it was a kind of snout, which besides was elongated forward, then something like a lizard's body, but with powerful fins. Such a form as this arose, which now developed more firmness within itself. Animals arose possessed of what I may just as well call wings as fins, because these animals were not marine creatures, for there was no sea as yet, there was a soft earthy mass and the still soft element of the surroundings from which only the sulphur had been partly removed. In these surroundings such an animal flew or swam, it was an activity between flying and swimming.

Besides these there were other animals which did not have this kind of limbs. They had limbs which already were formed more out of the forces of the earth itself, and which remind us too of the limbs of the lower mammals of today.

Thus if starting from today we could wander back through time rather than through space into that period which unites the Lemurian epoch with that of Atlantis, a peculiar prospect would face us. We should see these gigantic flying lizards, with a sort of lantern on their heads which shines and also gives warmth. Down below is the soft morass-like earth which has something extremely familiar about it, because it offers to the visitors of today a kind of odour, something between a musty smell and the smell arising from green plants, something between the two. Something seductive on the one hand and extremely sympathetic on the other would be offered by the mud of the soft earth. In this morass too we find moving about as swamp-animals creatures which already have limbs more like those of our present lower animals, but spread out below them, something like the webbed feet of a duck but of course very much bigger. With these “shovels” they propel themselves in the swamp, and also rock about from side to side.

Man had to go through all this casting-off process so that he might be prepared for independent feeling during his earth existence.

Thus we have first a vegetable-animal creation consisting in products separated off from man, which prepares the possibility for the earthly human being to become a willing being. If all this had remained in man it would have taken possession of his will. His will would then have become entirely a physical function. Through having separated these things from himself the physical is put outside of him and the will assumes a psychic character.

In like manner, through this second creation feeling assumes a psychic character. Not until the middle of the Atlantean epoch do there develop out of these animals and plants the animals and plants that are similar to ours of today. The earth at that time had reached a stage similar in appearance to what it is now. The same chemical substances as are recognized by the chemists of today were also in existence. Gradually there developed what we know as carbon, oxygen, the alkaline heavy metals, and the like. These things were developed by that time.

Thereby man was able to make the third separation from himself, viz., that which he today forms in his surroundings as the plant-animal world. And inasmuch as he separated this off from himself and inasmuch as there arose around him the present-day creation he has become prepared for his life on earth as a thinking being.

Thus we must say that humanity was not then divided as it is today into single individuals. There was one common humanity, still of a psychic and spiritual nature, sinking itself in the ether. For this common humanity came down from the cosmos with the ether which streamed down to the earth from the cosmos.

Humanity then went through those events which you find described in my Outline of Occult Science. It came to the earth, went away to the other planets, and came back again in the Atlantean epoch. This went on continually alongside the other happenings, for whenever something was separated off humanity could not remain on the earth. It had to go away in order to strengthen the inner forces, which were now of a much finer, more psychic nature. Then humanity came down again. You may read about these events in more detail in my Outline of Occult Science. They are as follows: Man, humanity, really belonged to the cosmos, and prepared for himself his own earthly environment by sending into the domain of the earth those things which he separated from him, and which then became the other kingdoms of nature. They are now in the domain of the earth, where man is surrounded by them. And now we can say: By sending these castoff products into the domain of the earth man gradually developed within him that which furnished him as an earthly human being with willing, feeling and thinking.

For that which man is today as a thinking, feeling and willing being, which, during the period between birth and death rests upon a physical organic foundation, has only gradually developed, and it is connected with those beings who, for the sake of human evolution, have separated in the course of time from the human kingdom. Owing to this separation they have metamorphosed themselves to their present forms.

You see from what has now been said that we do not speak merely in a general abstract way about this relationship with that which is of a metallic nature in the earth. For when one is united with these metals, which conceal within them the memory of earthly events one can then really speak of what one remembers, one really finds what I have related today.

When we travel back into those earlier times we find everything more fleeting, more quickly vanishing. Just contemplate the grandiose, the majestic outlook which I have described to you. Those wax-like mobile silicate forms in which the outlined forms of the plant-world arise which suck themselves full of the soft albuminous substance, and thereby present in the earthly environment to which we look up something which grows green and fades away again. Think over these things and you yourselves will say: In contrast with plants growing on the earth today with firm roots and solid leaves; or, compared with present-day trees with their hard trunk, all that is a fleeting picture. Just think how fleeting those earlier forms were compared with the oak-tree of today! (The oak itself is not proud of its firmness, but those living round it generally are, for they confound their own frequent weakness with the firmness of the oak.) If you compare the hardness of the oak of today with the substance of those ancient plant-forms, how feeble is their rising, how feeble their fading away, like shadows rising in the atmosphere, condensing, then vanishing away! Or if you compare this with a coarser case, say, a hippopotamus or an elephant of today, or any living mammal in its stout skin—compare these with the creatures of that early time, when as coagulated albumen they came out from the common albuminous mass and were seized on by the chalk, and through that process in somewhat denser fashion developed indications of bones in the animal nature of the earth; how in this way they become somewhat denser and develop the first indications of a bony system. If you consider all this solidity of today compared with what the earth once was you will no longer be able to doubt that the further we go back the more fleeting and volatile are the conditions.

We then go further back to where there are only colour-formations surging up, weaving and living, which arise and pass away. If you then take the description of the Old Sun, of Old Saturn, the predecessors of the earth as you will find them given in my Outline of Occult Science you will say that all this is comprehensible when we know that we have to go back from the present time to an earlier condition. There this evanescent plant-formation absorbs the albumen and becomes something like a cloud-formation. At a still earlier period we find forms manifesting only in colour, such as I have described when speaking of the Sun existence or the Saturn existence.

Thus gradually, if we follow what is physical backwards through time we get away from the gross and elephantine, through the finer physical to the spiritual, and in this way, by paying attention to actual fact we get back to the spiritual origin of everything which belongs to the earth. The earth has its origin in the spiritual. That is the result of true vision, and I think it is a beautiful idea to be able to say: If you penetrate into the interior of the earth, and let the hard metals tell you what they remember they will relate the following: “We were once spread out in cosmic space in such a way that we were not physical substance at all, but in the spirit we were essence of colour, weaving in the cosmos, arising and vanishing.” The memory of the metals of the earth takes us back to that condition where the metals were cosmic colours, permeating one another, where the cosmos was in essential a kind of rainbow, a kind of spectrum, which then gradually differentiated itself and then became physical.

This is the point at which what I may call the merely theoretical impression communicated by the metallic element of the earth passed over into the moral impression. For each metal tells us at the same time: “I originate from the expanses of space and from earth-forms. I arise out of the heavenly kingdom. I am here drawn down and enchanted into the earth. But I await my redemption, for I shall once again fill the universe with my being.” When in this way we learn to understand the speech of the metals, then gold tells us of the Sun, lead tells us of Saturn, copper tells us of Venus. And then these metals say to us: “Once upon a time we extended far out, copper to Venus, lead to Saturn. Today we are enchanted here. But when the earth shall have so fulfilled her task that man shall have attained what only on the earth he can attain we shall extend out yonder again. We have been enchanted in this way so that man on the earth might become a free being. When freedom has been purchased for man, then our disenchantment too can begin.”

This disenchantment has already begun. We have only to understand it. We must understand how the earth, together with man, will develop further into the future.

At the close of yesterday's lecture I began to show you how you can obtain guidance for the configuration of a drama by studying the sound-feelings that belong to it. For the form of the drama is contained within the cycle of the sound-feelings; and when we inscribe these on to a circle, we discover within their sequence the configuration, on the one hand, of tragedy, and on the other hand, of comedy.

Now it is a fact that this sensitiveness to sound was present in man in the very early days when drama was first coming into being as an offspring of the plays in the Mysteries ; and that can help to assure us that we have here come upon a law, a law in the realm of art. Even Aristotle when he speaks of drama gives evidence of a knowledge that came from the ancient Mystery wisdom. You will not, it is true, find in his writings explicit reference to the connection with sound; the heart of the matter is nevertheless there.

Not all Aristotle's writings have, as we know, come down to us. We can, however, gather from what is known as his Poetics how he regarded tragedy.

In the description he gives of tragedy, Aristotle plainly refers us to the ancient Mysteries, for he speaks there of ‘catharsis’. Catharsis, the purification of the human soul, where the transition is made from the kind of feeling that is experienced in the physical to a feeling that belongs in the realm of soul and spirit, was a goal that was set before the Mystery pupils in the olden days. And now look how Aristotle, in characterising tragedy, sees in its gradual unfoldment a reflection of this process that took place in the Mysteries for the ensouling of man. Note that I say, a reflection; we must not of course confuse the two. Aristotle asks : What should tragedy do; what is its function? Tragedy, he declares, should awaken fear and compassion. In the ancient Mysteries they would have put it differently. They would have said: Tragedy has to pass from the u mood into the i mood—in order then to find its solution in the a or o mood. That is how you would have heard it expressed in very ancient times Aristotle then goes on to say that this fear and compassion are to be aroused in the spectator in order that he may thereby undergo purification. Catharsis, he tells us, will follow from the experience of these emotions.

In Greek times, when schooling and education were not yet oppressed with that stuffy atmosphere of pedantry which deters one nowadays from making any reference to education, it was possible to speak in this way of the meaning and intention of drama without being guilty of tedious moralising. It was possible to explain how the spectator, by repeatedly witnessing the drama, was meant to experience something like a faint reflection of the catharsis of the Mysteries. As he beheld the tragedy acted out before him, fear and compassion were to be artificially awakened in him, with the result that he would gradually be healed from giving himself up uncontrollably to these emotions in real life, healed from all that would undermine his self-possession—in a word, he would experience what was known as catharsis.

If we have to stage a drama and want to form it in right relation to the soul elements that go to the building of it, then we must find again the possibility to receive truths of this kind into the very life-stream of our blood. We must be able to sense the imponderable influences that play between stage and audience.

I reminded you just now that the writings of Aristotle have come down to us only imperfectly. If we had them entire, we should find in them also the other definition which would run somewhat as follows : Comedy is the representation on the stage of a complete and finished plot that is calculated to awaken in the spectator inquisitive interest and apprehensiveness, with the result that his interest in life grows and widens.

Not much is left today of what people were once able to receive through witnessing the performance of comedy. The interest of many people—I am not of course speaking now of people who have cultivated the finer aesthetic sensibilities—but the main interest of people at large is apt to be limited to the ‘him’ and the ‘her’. They are apprehensive as to whether ‘he’ and ‘she’ are going to get one another, and relieved and content when they do pair off after all. Even so, however, the comedy of today does still bear the semblance of what constitutes the essence of genuine comedy.

Now it is a matter of no little importance that we should be able to take what we have thus seen to be the essential elements of tragedy and comedy, and unite them with our experience of sound in the way that I explained yesterday, that we may then bring them into our speech and gesture. For the art of acting is a real experience, born out of the human soul that has been embodied in speech and gesture.

I have spoken of this in an article which will appear in the Mitteilungsblatt tomorrow, in continuation of what I wrote there the previous week about the present course of lectures.¹ The two articles taken together could indeed be regarded as a kind of ideal programme for those who are attending the course, particularly for those of you who, whether actors or no, take a real interest in dramatic art. As I have said there, the art of acting is an experience that arises from the soul's having embodied itself in speech and gesture. And it must again become that. But before it can do so, our eyes will have to be opened to perceive certain basic elements without the recognition of which we cannot hope to stage our plays aright. For on the stage there must be harmony throughout; nothing there but must be in tune.

Suppose a producer is considering how to build up a scene, giving it the décor that will make the right impression upon the eyes of the audience. If he is conscious at all of the need for style, that is to say, for art, and does not want mere naturalism—which is the reverse of art—he will have to do his utmost to bring style into his décor. But do we really understand what style in décor means?

Let us think first what it is we have to work with when we set out to make our décor, even if we are wanting to do it in a manner that inclines strongly in the direction of naturalism. We have to work almost entirely with the products of human civilisation—that is to say, with the sub-mineral world. (The crystal forms of the mineral world are more cosmic; they have far more affinity with the cosmos than have any of our aesthetically built houses!) We have to concern ourselves also with the mineral kingdom, and to some extent too with the plant kingdom. Pictures of lions and bears will very seldom be asked for, nor would they easily fit in with the action on the stage. If you were to paint in somewhere a dog sitting under a tree, that too would hardly appeal to one as a choice specimen of décor!

But now, is it possible to represent with style, with art, something that is of mineral nature? Can houses—can plants even—be shown with style? People try to do it; but their attempts only go to prove that it cannot be done. Imagine a stylised tree! The inner conditions that determine art make such a thing impossible. For we cannot, you know, do everything! We can do the things that are laid down in the inner laws of the universe—and only these.

It is different with the animal kingdom. There you can begin to sculpt and mould. A lion or a tiger you can mould artistically—a dog, a cow, or an ox. And going on then to man, you can develop your plastic art to the point of portraiture. But imagine you set out to sculpt a lily. The very idea is inartistic. You simply cannot mould plastically the forms of plants. Neither can the forms of the mineral kingdom be moulded and sculpted. Not until you reach the animal kingdom can you begin to represent in plastic art. Why is this so? How is it we cannot make a plastic representation of a flower, for example? The plastic arts are essentially the arts that idealise, that give style—using the word in its noblest sense. So much so that in the domains where style is possible, our works of art receive style in the degree to which we are able to mould them plastically.

We must not therefore imagine that if, for example, we have to paint a forest for the stage, we shall have to give it style. We must not think we have to paint there a haphazard collection of trees in some deliberate ‘style’. Our picture would only look odd. Stage décor is not landscape, it is not a ‘painting’ in the sense of a work of art. When we stand before a genuine painting, we are looking at something that is finished and complete. It must therefore show style; it must appeal to us as a finished work of art. But stage décor is not finished. It is only finished when it is illuminated by the stage-lighting. And not even then; it receives its final touch when we are looking at it together with what happens on the stage. Not until the play is being enacted is the stage décor complete. This means that it will have to depend for its style, not on form and line, but on colour and lighting. If you want to plan your scene so that the whole décor adds just what the actor needs, giving him the exactly right surrounding for his art, then you will have to centre your attention on the play of light and colour.

For what is it lives in colour? In colour, my dear friends, lives the whole human soul. When we have the power to behold with the eye of the spirit, we discover that the soul of man within lives in colours. Imagine you meet someone whose soul is at that moment bathed in joy, overflowing with mirth and happiness. It is not enough for him to laugh outwardly, he would like to laugh inside; he would like to laugh into the tips of his fingers, and is only sorry he has no tail and cannot show his delight by wagging it, as dogs do. (Oh yes, there are people who feel just like that!) What would you find if you could look right into that person's soul? You would see that that soul was living in red, in a red that positively shouts at you.

When we look at the colour red, we experience it from without. But if we were able to glide right into the jubilant red that we see in that painting there on the wall, and feel how the painter himself must have felt whilst he was painting it, then we would see, shining there in the red, the radiantly happy soul that I described just now. A soul that is imbued more with a feeling of contentment with what has taken place, will live in a more tranquil red. A soul that is deep sunk in thought lives in green, experiences green within. A soul that is rapt in prayer lives in violet, and a soul that is brimming over with love experiences a pure and quiet red. A soul that is eaten up with egotism experiences streaks and splashes of yellow-green. And so on, and so on. Every possible experience without has its corresponding experience within.

But now I want you to understand that when I say something like I said just now and that made you laugh so much, about the dog wagging its tail, I do not mean it as a joke. It only sounded like one. Look at a dog that is running up to its master and wagging its tail furiously! That dog is shooting out behind it all the time the most wonderful sheaves of colour—bright red sheaves, blazing red. That is how a dog laughs! A dog's laugh cannot come to expression in its physiognomy; if it ever does so, the effect is not exactly beautiful. But you can see the laughter in the aura that envelops the dog's tail like a cloud. I was, you see, giving you a perfectly accurate description of a fact; I was not speaking in fun.

When we know how the human soul lives in colour, we shall in time begin to be able, by catching them at a particular moment in the play, to perceive the individual persons on the stage in colour. Thus I could, for instance, say: When I look at Danton in the drama of which we were speaking yesterday, then Danton appears to me in a colour where orange plays into a reddish tint. And I would also dress him accordingly.

Or again, if I look at Hebert, I would have to present him in a greenish colour splashed with red, some kind of blending of green and red. Turning now to Chaumette, I would dress him in a colour that, but for a tinge of grey in it, would resemble the deep scarlet worn by Cardinals. As for Robespierre, when I look at him in the play, I see that I must let him appear in a kind of light green, supplementing it, however, with as much red as possible—giving him a red cravat and so forth. That then is how we shall deal with costume—an item in stage décor that should not be obtrusive.

An important point to have in mind in this connection is that in order to have this lively perception of the colours that radiate from the souls of the different characters, the characters must be right there in front of you on the stage. If a cloud comes between you and the sun, the sun cannot shine directly upon you. No more can the persons on the stage shine upon you so long as the curtain is down. When the curtain rises, then the moment has come for them to send forth their rays and communicate to you their colours and tones. You should then be seeing there before you on the stage the inner soul experiences of the various characters. Then too will the décor receive at last its style. For that must be our aim in all stage décor: a style that owes its being, not to form and line, but to colour. We shall do well to refrain from any attempt to give it style by way of form and line, and devote our whole attention to finding for it the fundamental colour-tone—one, namely, that will harmonise with the different light effects required in the course of the scene. If we succeed in this, we shall find that our play will awaken the desired response; it will get across to the audience.

We can approach the matter also from another side. Say we have there before us the stage, and we set out to plan the décor, suggesting as best we may, without any attempt at style, the surroundings the scene demands, by the use of certain fundamental colour-tones. In these last we shall not take into consideration the characters at all; our endeavours will be concentrated on finding the fundamental colour-tones that will harmonise with the general situation of the play as a whole. If a scene takes place in the evening, naturally we cannot have a décor that suggests early dawn; nor could we expect to call up the impression of midday on a background that was attuned to moonlight.

After having taken pains to discover in this way the décor that is right for your piece as regards its external situation, you will now have to turn your attention to all that has to come from the inner soul life of the characters, to what these have to contribute in the way of mood. And this is where the lighting comes in. For it is the stage-lighting, in its different shades of colour, that has to render the moods of your characters. Outer and inner will thus be working together on the stage. Your lighting will be planned to accord with the moods of the characters, and you will arrange all your outer décor to accord with the general situation.

All that we have been saying has reference of course to the modern stage in its usual form, and would not apply to anything in the way of an open-air theatre, for instance. As a matter of fact, there can be no inner truthfulness in attempts to return to more primitive times when theatres were out of doors. For, before we could stage our play, the older civilisations themselves would have to be resurrected to provide the necessary milieu, and we can't very well do that!

You must really consider what it involves if you set out to act without the appurtenances of the modern stage, and especially without the effects produced by stage-lighting. On an open-air stage you will certainly not want human countenances; you will be constrained to go back to the mask. The mask, and the mask alone, will unite happily with Nature's background. For the mask does not show man as he is, but makes him look rather like an elemental being; and elemental beings are at home in Nature. In order therefore to act in the open, we would have to return to times when man had as yet no desire to take his place on the stage as man.

While we are on the subject of stage décor, it is a real delight to carry one's mind back to Shakespeare's time. No refinements of stage-setting were possible then ! They would place a chair on the stage and write on it: Here is an alehouse !—and leave the rest to the imagination of the audience. But this imagination is simply not there in our modern audiences.

Something else too has been lost. In a time when people's imagination was equal to a staging of this simple kind, the speaking was entirely different from what it is today. It had a style that cannot be given to our speaking today; the languages no longer allow of it. Particularly striking in the English language is the rapidity with which it changed after Shakespeare's time, so that today it is quite impossible to act and speak in true Shakespearian style. Impossible, I mean, for a present-day actor. Could Shakespeare himself be recalled to life, then we would soon see how little his speaking conformed to our modern décor!

I assume, then, that we are dealing with the modern stage, and that we want to take it as it is and endow it with form. We might one day explore the question of how some kind of open-air theatre could be planned for, under the conditions and with the material that our times can provide; but no speculating in that direction can have for us at present any practical value.

When making plans for the stage, we must be quite clear in our minds about this working together of inner and outer. The inner mood of the characters manifests in the lighting; outer décor has to be formed in accordance with what is given by Nature, by the environment. And then we have to bring the two into harmony. And that we can achieve by choosing the right colour-tone for the décor.

Suppose I have an evening scene to prepare. I shall not without further deliberation simply plan to use a colour that belongs specifically to the dusk of evening In all other respects—the representation of trees, and so forth—naturalism may be allowed to hold the field. For the naturalistic painting on the sets is for the stage designer very much what apples and carrots are for the painter of still life—merely the materials from which he composes his picture; and we know very well that apples and carrots do not lend themselves to idealisation. And it is the same for the stage designer; he has no call to stylise the properties that he collects for his scene; indeed he must not try to do so, for he could only make the picture of the scene look artificial if he tried to give it style in form and line. The general fundamental colouring—that is what is important.

To return then to our evening scene. It may be within doors, in a room, or it may be öutside, perhaps in a garden. Whichever it is, the fundamental colouring will have to be chosen to blend with the various lighting effects that are needed to express the moods of the characters. We must find the shade that will blend with these to produce a harmonious whole.

It may be, I shall have many changing moods emanating from the souls of the characters; then each of these moods will need its particular lighting effect. But supposing I were to let a red light shine from the left-hand front corner of the stage (as seen from the auditorium) and this red were to fall on a light violet ground, I know very well that the result would be distinctly inharmonious. I shall have to take pains to avoid any such disharmony. For that is the key to the whole matter; in order to achieve style, we must endeavour to find for our décor the shade of colour which will harmonise with all the various colours that are called for by the moods of the persons on the stage.

Considerations of this kind are not at all easy to put before people of the present day. For there is no doubt about it, we are living in a time when art has completely vanished from the stage. This has been forcibly brought home to us in some actual instances that have come our way.

When we first set about staging our Mystery Plays, we were of course obliged to be guests in some theatre; thus we had occasion to inspect a whole variety of stages. As regards the more ordinary kind of stage the main point would naturally be whether it were large enough and not too large, for our purpose. The décor we would presumably have to undertake ourselves. But now, in the course of our enquiries, we came upon some most strange—and at that time entirely novel—stages, which could really read one a lesson on the hopeless poverty of dramatic art. We were shown, for example, a stage that made me think: In heaven's name, where are the actors going to be? The stage opened wide to right and left, but had no depth, scarcely any depth at all, front to back. Afterwards, I witnessed a performance on this stage. I had to ask myself: Has it really come to this, that people are confusing painting with drama? For it all looked exactly as if it were a painted picture where, however, the figures were somehow made to move about. It was called a ‘relief’ stage.

When a blending of the two arts turns more in the direction of painting, I like it very well. When I was young we had books where what you saw at first was a collection of figures painted on the page; but little dramas were mysteriously stowed away there, waiting for the tabs below to be pulled, when the figures above would begin to move. I had one of these books of my own, in which there was a picture of a very pretty spot in the environs of Vienna. The picture was of course a little stiff and formal. But if one has a child's imagination and is moreover constantly pulling the tabs and setting the picture in motion, why, then the result is really delightful. But when we see something similar on the stage (for we would certainly have taken that relief stage for a painted scene, only that we were puzzled to understand why the figures were moving), then all I can say is that such a spectacle rings the death-knell of dramatic art.

One item we saw on this stage was particularly wanting in good taste. Special attention had obviously been given on this occasion to the matter of perspective and the way the audience can be deceived with it and then taken by surprise. I found myself looking straight at a certain point in the backdrop. There was at that point something that completely baffles description. Impossible to imagine what it could be, there in the middle of the wall, with some sort of continuation downwards! It looked more like a coconut than anything else, but as though a coconut with its fibrous bark were somehow running wild. That was really the impression one had. Then the play began. After a while, this object at the back of the stage gave one a frightful shock. All at once, it began to turn—slowly; and behold, on the other side of it was a human face. Suddenly, from out of the coconut, an actress made her appearance. Yes, that is how it is today! All feeling for ‘form’ on the stage has disappeared, and we have instead these grotesque barbarisms.

Our only hope is to go right back to the foundations of the art of drama. And one of the things you will need to understand, if you want to be a really able actor, is the close relation of colour to human feeling. We have veritably to see in colour human feeling caught, and made visible. In the later lectures, I shall be suggesting certain themes for you to work with in inward meditation, but I would like now at this point to give you one that is more in the way of a picture—and a picture that you can easily find for yourselves.

I can really tell you of nothing that will help you so well to develop a sensitive feeling for stage décor as will the rainbow. Give yourselves up in reverent devotion to the rainbow, and it will develop in you a remarkably true eye for stage-setting, and moreover the inner ability to compose it.

The rainbow! ... I feel within me a mood of prayer: that is how the rainbow begins, in the intensest violet, that goes shimmering out and out into immeasurable distances. The violet goes over into blue—the restful, quiet mood of the soul. That again goes over into green. When we look up to the green arc of the rainbow, it is as though our soul were poured out over all the sprouting and blossoming of Nature's world. It is as though, in passing from violet and blue into green, we had come away from the Gods to whom we were praying, and now in the green were finding ourselves in a world that opens the door to wonder, opens the door to a sensitive sympathy and antipathy with all that is around us. If you have really drunk in the green of the rainbow, you are already on the way to understanding all the beings and things of the world. Then you pass on to yellow, and in yellow you feel firmly established in yourself, you feel you have the power to be man in the midst of Nature—that is, to be something more than the rest of Nature around you. And when you go over to orange, then you feel your own warmth, the warmth that you carry within you; and at the same time you are made sensible of many a shortcoming in your character, and of good points too. Going on then to red, where the other edge of the rainbow passes once again into the vast distances of Nature, your soul will overflow with joy and exultation, with ardent devotion, and with love to all mankind.

How true it is that men see but the body of the rainbow! The way they look at it is as though you might have an artificial figure of a man in front of you, made of papier-mâché, and were quite content with this completely soulless human form. Even so do men look up at the rainbow, with no eyes or feeling for anything more than that.

When pupils of a dramatic school go for excursions, they should take every opportunity that offers for entering into this living experience of the rainbow. (Naturally, one cannot arrange for such things, but the opportunity comes more often than people imagine.) For it is like this. One who is training for the stage has to come to grips with the earth. In running, leaping, wrestling, in discus-throwing and in spear-throwing—in the practice of these he enters right into the life of the earth. He must, however, also find his way, through the heavenly miracle of the rainbow, into a deep inner soul experience of colour. Then he will have found the world on two sides, making contact with these two revelations of it. And a revelation of the world—that is what drama has to be!

When the student is running, leaping, wrestling, he isn't just executing a movement that he can see; he is within the running and the leaping with his will. And now, when with the eye of the soul he beholds the colours of the rainbow, he is not looking at Nature merely in her outer aspect, he is face to face with the soul-and-spirit that is in Nature—which is what we must also succeed in bringing on to the stage, for without it our décor will never be truly artistic. Beholding thus the soul-and-spirit that works and weaves in Nature, the student will verily be on the way to becoming a contemplator of the universe, he will be learning frankly and naïvely to contemplate, in soul and spirit, the great wide universe. And that will mean, he will find his way back again to the little children's verse that one used to hear so often in earlier days:

‘Kind, es kommt der liebe Gott gezogen
Auf einem schönem Regenbogen.’²

This mood of sublime devotion—we need it in dramatic art! The very best result that can follow from a renewal of the art will reveal itself in the fundamental attitude of soul of all those who take part in the work of the stage.

With the decline of the art of acting has come also a decline in the art of writing for the stage. When one sees the whole mood and manner in which authors like Schönthal, Kadelburg and the rest, to say nothing of Oskar, set- about writing their plays, often two or three composing a play between them, showing thus only too clearly that for them the art of the stage has no connection at all with men's souls, how is it ever to be expected that dramatic art should flourish ! No wonder it degenerated into something very like routine. And then, after stage-routine had through the seventies pursued its ill-starred way, idealists began to come forward. They were, however, idealists who stood on their heads—instead of walking on their feet ! They said: What we show on the stage must be true! And so, into stage-routine and stage-mechanism they brought naturalism. Art they had not, style they had not, so they introduced naturalism; that was the best they could do.

It is important, however, that we should have a clear picture in our minds of how these developments came about; for then we can understand that the idealists, despite the fact that they stood on their heads, did really accomplish something with their naturalism. It was at the time a genuine reform. Better a Brahm than a Blumenthal (his name was really Oskar) or a Lindau. In comparison with what the stage had become in the seventies and in the beginning of the eighties, naturalism was, when all is said, a change for the better. But it was not to last; for it is not art.

Art is what the stage must now rediscover. The art of the stage has become no art—though continuing to be so sought after; for, in spite of all, does not everyone love still to see a play? What we must learn to do is to bring art into our thinking, so that when we give our attention to any aspect whatever of the work of the stage we do so from the standpoint of art.

• 1. See Anthroposophical Movement for 14th and 21st (also 28th) September,1924.
• 2. ‘The dear God comes to us, my child, Upon a lovely rainbow.’