The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Alongside the content of these lectures I am concerned to show that truth, in the spiritual sense, is a living reality. It is especially essential in our time that a feeling should develop for the fact that truth is something living. What has life is different from one time to another; at one stage it may be formless, at another it may have a definite structure. A young child is very different from an old person. What is alive is continually changing. The human being who is perhaps to unfold his activity sometime in the future cannot be spoken of now as someone existing, as far as the physical plane is concerned. These things are so obvious as to be trivial. However, they cease to be trivial when one has learned to cherish the feeling that truth is a living entity.

I spoke to you last time about a contemporary statesman, Lloyd George.¹ If someone in England in 1890, when Lloyd George was 27 years old, would have spoken about the whole significance of that age in our epoch, as we did last time, it would, in the spiritual-scientific sense, have been wrong. He could have spoken about it in relation to Lloyd George, though of course without the biographical details which had hardly begun to happen. But to do so would have been wrong.

People have the notion that truth can always be expressed at any time in the same way, but that is not the case, especially when one is dealing with certain higher truths. It is only now that the time is right for speaking about the relation that exists between the individual human being's age and the age of mankind as a whole. This kind of truth is also an active force. To speak about Lloyd George in 1890 when he was aged 27, giving an outline of his life—which could have been done within certain limits—would have been irresponsible. It could be compared with planting something in the wrong season. It is important not only that such truths do not reach the human soul as abstractions, but even more that they come at a time when they can be effective. This holds good not only in regard to historical facts, facts related to world evolution in the widest sense, but to truth in general in its effect upon the human soul. I gave some indication of this last time, but attention must continually be drawn to it because we are at present at a stage of transition in the conception of truth. Science of the spirit should create a certain condition of the comprehension of truth. The relationship which man has to truth must alter, must go through a certain development.

In the last lecture I drew attention to the fact that nowadays the human soul easily feels dissatisfied. Let us look at some of the reasons for this dissatisfaction of modern man. We know that the human soul needs concepts and ideas in life which can throw light on certain basic questions, such as the immortality of the soul, the meaning of world evolution, and so on. The human soul needs ideas with which it can live. If it cannot develop such ideas, or only unsatisfactory ones, then it remains dissatisfied and becomes ill in a certain sense. Many human souls today are in fact in a condition of sickness to a far greater extent than is admitted. The near future will see many more such souls than it is at present possible to imagine, unless people turn to the kind of knowledge that can fill the soul with spiritual content.

Nature itself does in many ways present an image of the loftiest and most secret spiritual reality; it is a question of understanding the image rightly and not interpreting it materialistically. The difficulty arises because people want ready-made formulas, sets of concepts with which they can live and be satisfied once and for all. When such are not discovered they may seek advice. However, it is clear that what is expected is a short description of some kind, a book perhaps, that in a short time can be assimilated and that gives the person something that satisfies him for the rest of his life. If one is able to experience even to some degree truth as a living reality, then such a demand is felt to be the equivalent of demanding a food that will sustain the bodily organism for the rest of life. He wants an advice that he can “eat” so that spiritually he never needs to eat again. That is an impossibility in either realm.

Spiritual science cannot hand people something which, once assimilated, is enough for the rest of life. I have often pointed out that there exists no short summary of a world view which can be kept at hand in one's pocket. In place of ready formulas, science of the spirit provides something with which the human soul must repeatedly unite itself, which must be repeatedly inwardly assimilated and digested. External truths such as those provided by natural science we can, if we have a good memory, take in and then possess them once and for all. That is not possible with spiritual-scientific truths, the reason being that the truths of natural science are lifeless concepts. The laws of nature are dead once they have been formulated into concepts, whereas spiritual-scientific truths are living concepts; if we condemn them to lifelessness because we accept them as if they were external truths, then they provide no nourishment; then they are stones the soul cannot digest.

In view of what the science of the spirit is today and what it really ought to be, it is worth remarking that in the cultural life of the 19th century there were trends struggling towards it. But much has happened in the last decade to cause what was then achieved to be swept away and forgotten. Today I would like, by way of introduction, to point to something that was much misunderstood in the second half of the 19th century. It was usually referred to as “Eduard von Hartmann's kind of pessimism.”² However, the fact is that his pessimism is not meant the way it was usually interpreted. People set out from the fixed notion that pessimism means a view that considers the world to be less than perfect, having many unsatisfactory aspects, being in fact quite bad. That view can never do justice to Hartmann's pessimism, but it was usually assessed in the light of this general view. Today it is still difficult to clarify this issue which deals with something basic and deeply rooted in the human soul.

Today every child is taught at school about the impenetrability of bodies. When the teacher asks, “What is impenetrability?” the children have learned to answer, “Impenetrability is the property by virtue of which two bodies cannot occupy a place at the same time,” which is true of physical bodies, but today no one imagines that it is a sentence which one day will have to be unlearned or rather be interpreted differently. Here I shall only indicate what the issue is about. The day will come when the sentence will no longer run, Impenetrability is the property by virtue of which two bodies cannot occupy the same place at the same time; rather, it will be said, Entities whose property is such that when they occupy a space from which other entities of the same kind are excluded are physical bodies. Thus the basic definition will be different. The day will come when the approach will no longer be dogmatic, but based on reality. Much is said nowadays about old dogmas being superseded. The future will prove that there never was an age more steeped in dogmas than our own. Our sciences are stuffed with dogmatism, even more so are public opinions, not to mention political views.

If we take a positive view of pessimism—for the moment that of Eduard von Hartmann—we shall discover what follows. He says, Many people strive for happiness; they want instant inner contentment which they call happiness. But that can never be the foundation, in a higher sense, for an existence worthy of man. Striving merely for one's personal satisfaction can only lead to isolation; it is bound to lead to a greater or lesser degree of egoism. Man's task cannot consist in striving merely for his own satisfaction; rather, must it be to place his living being into one process of the world, to work with and for the development of the world. However, complete satisfaction with external life or harmony within himself would prevent him from fulfilling that task. Only when we are not satisfied with conditions do we strive to further the upbuilding processes in the world. Thus Eduard von Hartmann's pessimism is in the realm of feeling. It is his view that without this pessimism which makes us dissatisfied, we would lack the incentive to cooperate in the work of furthering evolution. Thus Eduard von Hartmann, expressing himself philosophically, states that he stands for both empirical and teleological evolutionism. It is clear that we are here dealing with a pessimism that is very different from the usual dogmatic view of pessimism. With his concept of pessimism, which I won't pursue further at this time, Eduard von Hartmann is in a certain sense on the path that spiritual science must follow.

This spiritual science, however, shows us much more; it shows us what a fully satisfying mental image would really be for our soul life. It would be for our soul life exactly what external food would be for us if we ate it but then had no way to digest it, and instead carried it around with us undigested. It could not really be called nourishment. It is actually so that someone who takes a book of Trine or Johannes Muller and wanted to be satisfied with it, would be attempting the same as someone who wanted to eat food which could then only be carried around undigested in the body.³

If it were not simply carried, it would be digested, but then it disappears; it loses its essential identity. This never happens with a fully satisfying mental image. A fully satisfying mental image remains with us forever, if I may express it so, lying in the stomach of our soul. And the more we believe we receive at a given moment from such a mental image, the more we hope to voluptuously satisfy our soul with it, the more we will see that once we have lived with it awhile it cannot satisfy us anymore. Instead it develops in us so that it bores us, becomes annoying to us, and the like.

These things have another side which is connected with what some people regard as contradictions in spiritual science; namely, the fact that new viewpoints are continually sought from which to develop our concepts. We could, as it were, speak forever from different points of view. These do not contradict one another; rather, they prove that spiritual truths have a capacity for continuous transformation, which is an indication of their living quality. Science of the spirit cannot be molded in rigid concepts. Single facts can certainly be presented in a straightforward manner, but the content of what is to satisfy us as a world view must be presented in thoughts that are full of life and can be understood from ever new aspects. Whoever takes in the thoughts of some aspect of spiritual science and lets them dwell in his soul will find that they speak to him. If at another time the same thoughts pass through his soul, they will speak to him again but quite differently. When he is happy, they will speak differently from when he is sad and troubled, but insofar as he receives them in their living quality they will always speak to him.

Spiritual-scientific concepts do not just provide an image of something; they establish a living connection between the human soul and the whole endless spiritual aspect of the world. Because the spiritual aspect is endless it can never be exhausted. Science for spirit will in every single case bring about a connection between the soul and the spiritual world, provided we retain an open receptivity for what comes to meet us from the world. We must above all become accustomed to the fact that certain concepts which today seem basic and beyond dispute may in the future have no relevance at all. Take the example of the countless philosophies; a problem that emerges in them all concerns “being” or “existence.” Existence as such is always debated and already the form in which the problem is presented creates great difficulty for the mobile human soul to deal with. Especially through these lectures it is my hope to kindle in you a feeling for the fact that whatever we look upon as “existing,” whatever entity we ascribe the state of “being” to, is directly related to the process of coming into being. The truth is that neither what Parmenides said about immutable existence nor what Heraclitus said about the coming into being is correct.⁴ In the world things exist and things become, but only what is in the process of becoming is alive; what is already in existence is always dead. What is in existence is the corpse of what was becoming. You will find more about this in my Occult Science.⁵ In nature all around us we find “existence,” and spiritual science confirms that this existence has arisen because once it was in a process of becoming. The “becoming” left behind its corpse. What is in the state of existence is dead; what is becoming is alive.

This has special significance for man's inner life. We do not attain a satisfying view of things through concepts that are finished and complete, because they belong to what exists, not to what is becoming. A satisfying view can only be derived from what is in the process of becoming; it must act on the soul so that as we absorb it, it becomes unconscious, but in uniting with the soul stirs in us again questions concerning the becoming. This is also an aspect of the science of the spirit which causes difficulty for many because they prefer what is finished and complete. While the science of the spirit points to what will truly nourish the human soul, the inclination is towards the very opposite.

What people want today is to attain as quickly as possible a complete and finished view of the world. Much of what comes to expression as inner disturbances and dissatisfaction will be alleviated only when, instead of demanding finished truths, our interest awakens for participation in the coming-into-being of truth. Certainly truths must be clearly defined, but what is expressed in finished concepts always refers to something that belongs to the past. However, the truths deposited, as it were, by the past we can absorb; by so doing they live in us, and we can in this way participate in truth.

All this is going through a process of transformation in our time, which shows itself in the extreme polarity between Western and Eastern Europe. We in Central Europe are placed in the middle of this polarity. The Western pole has already reached hypertrophy, over-ripeness. The Eastern pole is only just coming into being; it has hardly reached the embryonic stage. It is very important that we be clear about the fact that what shows itself as strange and chaotic conditions in Eastern Europe is very little understood in Central Europe and not at all in Western Europe. How many discussions are not going on about the nature of the Russian people, about what is happening in Eastern Europe! Recently I read about an opinion, put forward by a gentleman who no doubt thinks himself very clever, that the Russian people are going through a stage resembling the one Central and Western Europe went through in the Middle Ages. At that time there was, he said, in Central and Western Europe more faith, more of a kind of dreamy, mystical attitude, just as there is now in Eastern Europe. Thus Eastern Europe must be passing through its Middle Ages whereas in the rest of Europe reason and intellect, and with it the natural sciences have meanwhile progressed. The Eastern Europeans will have to catch up with all of this development.

None of this has any bearing on reality. The truth is rather that the Russian is by nature mystically inclined, but this mystical inclination is at the same time intellectual. What meets us here is intellectual mysticism, or mystical intellectualism; that is, an intellect that expresses itself mystically. And that is something which never existed in the rest of Europe. It is something quite new, new in the same sense as a child is new when compared to an old man, perhaps his grandfather, whom he will come to resemble. It is so important that modern man wakes up and recognizes these things instead of passing them by in a state of sleep. To understand the polarity of Western and Eastern Europe is in particular for Central Europe a pressing necessity. Unless attempts are made to understand it, the chaos that exists at present will not be overcome.

It is rather difficult to become altogether clear about the contrast between Eastern and Western Europe, basically because what comes to the fore in the West is in a sense too mature, whereas what appears in the East has, as I said, hardly reached the embryonic stage. Yet we must try to understand. We have in Western and also in Central Europe what might be called a specific kind of superstition which does not exist in Eastern Europe, or when it appears there, it is an adoption from the West. This superstition, so prevalent in Western and Central Europe is, to put it bluntly, concerned with the printed word, with everything to be found in books. This may sound somewhat grotesque but it does illustrate what encompasses a whole complex of cultural attitudes. In the West we cling to what can be pinned down and put into print. We place the greatest store on what we can objectify by detaching it from the human being. To do so is regarded so highly that our libraries grow into gigantic monstrosities, immensely appreciated more particularly by those working on some branch of science. However, there is another reason why libraries are so appreciated: they keep in storage thoughts which have become divorced from their human source. A sum of such thoughts we call liberalism; when a group of people profess them it is called a liberal party. A liberal party is what results when, over a number of human beings a liberal theory is spread, like a spider's web, i.e., what can be preserved in books. The same applies to many other things. The superstitious belief in theories leads to the attitude that, for things to be dealt with efficiently they must first be pinned down in this way.

In the West there has emerged in quick succession a whole number of theories such as liberalism, conservatism and others, and also wider, more universal theories, preserved in books, such as Proudhon's and Bellamy's utopias.⁶ These things become more numerous the further West we go. Central Europe has produced comparatively few such utopias, strictly speaking, none. Some may have appeared in Central Europe because these things get transferred, but they are all products of the Anglo-Saxon and Latin races. A feature of Western superstition—adopted to some extent in Central Europe—is that what originates in man, i.e., his thoughts, must first be externalized, must be detached from him, before being of use. This procedure has led to evil practices in certain movements usually of a mystical nature. Such practices are facilitated by the fact that great value is placed on producing something, not directly from contemporary life, but from what can be derived from ancient writings and old traditions, in short, from what has become divorced from man. Many people are not interested when told about the spiritual worlds related to today. But if told that what they are hearing stems from ancient Rosicrucian wisdom they are pleased, and even more pleased if told about ancient temples, or better Oriental mystic temples, and it is emphasized how old everything is, how long it has all been deposited, how truly fixed it has become.

This tendency continues to develop to extremes in the Western world. It is a tendency that is intimately connected with a certain despotic power that is being wielded over human beings by the spirituality that has become detached from them. The spiritual element that has become independent exerts its power, in the last resort, over man's elemental forces. The human being himself is then excluded; in one way or another, what he has separated off takes control. Furthermore what has in this way been thrust into the world seeks materialization; it does not just seek to be understood in a materialistic sense, but actually to materialize. The Western world has already gone a long way in this respect. The phenomena are there, but no attempts are made to understand the inner laws that govern them; however, they exist and the day is not far off when man will regret that he did not seek knowledge of them.

A former commoner known today as Lord Northcliffe is a British newspaper magnate, and he is on his way to becoming one in America.⁷ He started by pondering the question of whether it would be possible to make society—that is, the ideas and views people generally share—independent of human beings as such. In other words, he wondered how one could get what has detached itself from man to gain dominance over him. He began by formulating a theory saying: Every province has its own newspaper; it carries articles written by local individuals; consequently the papers differ from one province to another. How splendid if one could gradually pour into all the provincial presses a uniform model newspaper. One could establish a central office which collected all the best articles on chemistry, written by famous chemists, all the best written on physics by eminent physicists, all the best on biology by famous biologists, and so on. This material could be distributed to the various local papers which would then all carry the same articles. Even where of necessity something had to be different, it could be arranged from the central office. Of course, due to different languages, absolutely everything could not be the same, but everything could be centralized.

You will find that this man has come a long way towards his aim. He is today the unseen power over a great part of the British, French and American press. Certain newspapers in Britain, France and America carry nothing that has not been issued from the same central office. Those newspapers which are still independent have to fight for survival, faced with competition from all that flows through his channels. His real aim is to get rid of everything that is not issued from one and the same source. In view of Western man's blind belief in what has become detached from him and which now comes to meet him in this way, you will realize what possibilities this opens up for exerting tyrannical power over individual human beings.

People in Eastern Europe have a natural inclination to restore to the individual his full human dignity and independence. Their inclination is towards overcoming what has become entombed in the printed word and replacing it by man himself. What is striven for in the East as an ideal is to read less, to be less influenced by what has become inert and fixed and rather to let influence come from what is directly connected with individual human beings. Man is once more to listen to his fellow man and to know that it makes a difference whether speech comes directly from the human being or whether it has become detached from him and made a detour via printers' ink or the like.

Meanwhile in the West a dreadful use is made in many spheres of what has become detached from man, especially in the realm of art where it has led to methods of reproduction that are most efficient in extinguishing the sense for the artistic. The ability to recognize the unique aspect in a work of art has to a great extent been lost. This applies especially to objects in everyday use. When objections are made to this modern malady, they are not met with much understanding. You may have noticed that some of the ladies present are wearing rings or other ornaments, every item different, because value is placed on individual design, and on the fact that a connection exists in the ideal sphere between the object and the person who made it. At a time when everything is mass produced, that is, has become detached from man, has been objectified, there is not much understanding for such things. The intention behind much that is developed in our time really springs from this tendency, although it may be thought that things are done from preference. On the other hand, what is preparing in the East is based on what is individual, on enhancing man's intrinsic value, though as yet this tendency is only in the earliest embryonic beginnings.

Marxism (I could just as well choose a number of other examples) originated in the West. But what is Marxism? It is a theory which presents in conceptual form a social structure within which all human beings are supposed to live together in harmony. To the spiritual outlook gradually preparing in the East it will seem an absurdity that a theory of this kind, supposed to have universal validity, could ever have been spun out. It will be recognized that it is impossible to decide in an arbitrary manner how people are to live. That is something which each individual must determine for himself, just as people's lives within a community must be worked out between the people themselves. What is preparing in the East is creative individualism—I hesitate to use yet another stereotyped phrase, but no other possibility exists than to make use of certain concepts.

It is so very important that these things are understood. They indicate the forces which at present are shaping the world, and we are placed in their midst. Unless these things are taken into account sufficiently, it is not possible to arrive at an adequate view of world events. For example, without such insight it is not possible to recognize what is behind the fact that Lord Northcliffe bought up not only British, American and French newspapers, but a Russian one as well. A newspaper called Nowoje Wremja is completely under his control. This enables him to throw a net across to the East, instigated no doubt by human beings who have a certain insight into what will result from gathering into the same net what constitutes the past and what constitutes the future. Something of far deeper significance than is imagined lies behind this East-West union into which we in Central Europe are wedged. These things are worked at far more thoroughly and systematically than people are aware of. Similar things are taking place in other spheres. The idea of implanting the dying forces of the West into the germinating forces of the East is dreadful. Some are aware of what is taking place, but who today can rightly judge the meaning of the fact that at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries there suddenly appeared in the British press a whole series of fictitious names, names such as Ignotus, Argus, Spectator and so on? Who recognizes from a comprehensive viewpoint that an issue of Nowoje Wremja purchased in Russia is written in London by representatives under various pseudonyms, thus ensuring a complete interchange between what is overripe in the West and what is still embryonic and germinating in the East? These are things that go on behind the scenes of our everyday lives, things that have a direct connection with laws governing the evolution of mankind and the earth.

At the beginning of the 20th century the spirit of Eastern Europe was joined to the spirit of Western Europe. Systematic work was done to create a general public opinion. Work on this started in the editor's office and spread to parliament before entering more subterranean channels. Anyone who believes I am imagining things in maintaining this should read and really take in the content of letters published at the beginning of the 20th century by Mrs. Novikoff, the wife of the Russian envoy in Vienna.⁸ These letters were written by Mrs. Novikoff to Mrs. Campbell-Bannerman, with whom she became acquainted in England. In reading these letters you will find that I am not imagining things and you will find much that explains what seems inexplicable, especially to people in Central Europe.

If we are really to understand the significance of the deep changes occurring in our time, we need concepts that are different from those carried over from the past. We must recognize that we have an inherent inclination and ability to formulate such concepts. We must not sleep through the significant events that are taking place. We could cite hundreds upon hundreds of such events. Take for example what took place at Oxford in the summer of 1911. There was a large gathering at which were present, in their official attire, a splendid procession of all the dignitaries and professors of the University of Oxford. They had gathered because Lord Haldane was to deliver a speech.⁹ You must bear in mind that this is the Secretary of State for War giving a speech. And his subject? He discussed in strictly scientific terms how greatly the German spirit had contributed to the furtherance of mankind's evolution. He stressed that it had demonstrated that civilization is furthered not through brute force but rather through moral and ethical influences. The whole speech was a eulogy in praise of the intrinsic value of German culture.

Once war had broken out, Lord Haldane fully agreed with and even emphasized the view that the German spirit came to expression mainly in militarism that created hell for the rest of the world. Yet that same Lord Haldane had in his youth, while in Göttingen, sat in reverence at the feet of the philosopher Lotze who had written some fine books on Education and the State and one entitled A Path to Truth.¹⁰ That same Lord Haldane had in beautiful words spoken about the difference between Hegel and Goethe. He pointed out that while Hegel said that we would be able to hear nature express the highest secrets if we only had the sense, Goethe made a still loftier saying the foundation for his whole world view, namely, that if nature could actually express everything man needs to hear, then she would have had the ability to speak. A deep meaning is contained in these words. They imply nothing less than that Goethe professed true spiritualism, for if nature contained all there is in the world, then she would reveal it to us; the fact that she does not proves that there is more; there is something beyond nature, namely the spirit. All this Haldane had been able to express because of his experience of German cultural life. Yet like hundreds of other instances, we see him suddenly change.

These phenomena are not of a kind that can be brushed aside with trivial remarks like: Once peace has been signed all these things will even out.—Many people do believe that, but what is needed is a fundamentally different approach. The basis for this approach we do not even have to acquire; in a sense, we possess it already, and if we have the will, we can act accordingly. We in Central Europe have by nature the ability, if we would only exert it, to look with understanding towards both the East and the West. What we must do is overcome the habit of approaching things especially spiritual science theoretically. We must enter into it with all our heart, with all the inner forces at our disposal.

Allow me for a moment to turn to something of a personal nature; after all, we know one another and these things concern us all. As you know, I have written about Nietzsche, and from my book you will have seen that I value and admire him greatly.¹¹ Lately, when lecturing in various places, I have expressed my respect and admiration for the Swabian aesthetician Friedrich Theodor Vischer.¹² I also mentioned the fact that he was among the; first to whom I turned after I had for thirty years been concerned with laying the foundation for what I now call the science of the spirit. He was the first to approach me in saying: Your conception of time is a most fruitful foundation on which to build up a science of the spirit.” As I said, I respect Nietzsche, and I tried to do him justice in my book, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom. I also respect Vischer. But how do the two regard each other? You will find that Nietzsche wrote an interesting passage on Vischer. He also coined the much used expression “bourgeois philistine” which is what he called David Friedrich Strauss, the author of Life of Jesus and The Old and the New Faith.¹³ Vischer was a great admirer of David Friedrich Strauss, a remark I add merely by way of explanation. Concerning Vischer, Nietzsche had the following to say:

... Lately the assessment of an idiot concerning historical facts has been circulating in German newspapers to the joy of the pale aesthetic Swabian Vischer. This assessment, to which every German will agree, is the so-called “truth,” that “Renaissance and Reformation—aesthetic rebirth and moral rebirth—must be taken together to form a whole.” Such a sentence tests my patience too far. I feel it to be my personal duty, once and for all, to tell the Germans what they all have on their conscience: four centuries of crimes against culture; that is what they have on their conscience.¹⁴

Thus it is possible to have respect for both personalities and their philosophical approaches; but one calls the other an idiot. That does not in the least alter my regard and respect for them both. I do not feel obliged to swear by the one or the other when I acknowledge what they have to say. Nor do I feel obliged to make whatever view each has of the other my own. I accept that that is his view, just as I accept that the gentleman sitting across the room will have a different view of the pile of books in front of me than I have. Judging things from one aspect only is a common tendency, which some develop to a remarkable degree. That is something that has to be reckoned with. There is the example of what Hölderlin puts into the mouth of Hyperion in his “Hyperion in Greece”; it is so interesting because, as those will be aware of who know Hölderlin, he identifies with Hyperion. The views expressed by Hyperion are his own. The Germans he describes as follows:

They always were barbarians right from ancient times, and became more so through diligence, learning, and even religion. Completely devoid of pious feelings, lacking every grace, subject to every excess and shabbiness insulting to a fine soul, dull and without harmony like the fragments of a discarded vase—these, my Bellarmin, were my comforters.—These are hard words and yet I say them because they are true: I cannot think of any people more torn apart than the Germans. You will find artisans, thinkers, priests, masters and servants, young folk and mature ones; all these you will find, but no human beings ...¹⁵

One can imagine authors of the entente wanting to copy such a passage. But there is another important aspect: the same Hölderlin who had these convictions also called Germany “the heart of Europe.” In other words, he was capable of having both views. We must be able ever more to recognize that not only is it possible, but it is also a deeply rooted disposition in man. If one clings to the abstract opinion that it is contradictory to hold different views about the same thing, one is clinging to one-sidedness. The views and outlooks that led to the greatness of Western Europe are no longer capable of understanding what is beginning to evolve in Eastern Europe. The day will come when to the people of Eastern Europe it will seem incomprehensible that one should not be able to have two completely opposite views of something. Many-sidedness is what' is developing in the East, and it will seem obvious that to understand things one must view and describe them from all sides.

All this is connected with what I began with today, the necessity to attain a new relationship to truth. An essential aspect of this is the recognition that our life of thinking, that is, our life in mental pictures and concepts, is already a life in the spirit. In order to recognize that thinking is a spiritual activity it is necessary to overcome the materialistic and quite unscientific attitude which says, When I think, I use my brain, so thinking must issue from the brain.—That is just about as clever as someone saying, Along this road there are footprints; where can they have come from? There must be forces beneath the ground that have caused them. I must study these footprints so that I can build up a theory as to the nature of the forces that push and pull from beneath the ground and form the footprints in the soft soil. That is comparable to seeking in the formations and processes of the brain the forces that create thinking. Just as the footprints, though found in the soil, originated from people walking over it, so are the formations of the brain—just as biology and physiology describe them—the imprint of thinking which is spiritual.

Naturally the brain must be there, just as the ground must be there if people are to walk over it. Like the ground, the brain offers resistance as long as we live between birth and death. What lives in us as spirit must be reflected from something during our existence between birth and death. The reflecting apparatus is the brain. But this reflecting is an active process, as if in a mirror in which light was not thrown back from a smooth surface, but one which contoured itself so that one could recognize from the resulting shape what had been reflected. One must understand that thinking as such is spiritual, that we already stand within the spiritual world when we think. We become fully conscious of this only when thinking frees itself, when thinking, as it were, is able to catch hold of itself. Such a refined thinking can follow a course that enables it to take hold of the more hidden connections between events in life. It is able to seek out the more delicate links beneath the surface. I spoke of these things in the two previous lectures.

What thinking is in its spiritual nature one becomes aware of only when it has freed itself from matter. Only then does one attain to a thinking that is truly creative. The natural world can be grasped by a thinking that passively assimilates what the natural phenomena of themselves reveal. If one is to find ideas that can be effective in society, ideas that are, so to speak, to govern people's affairs, they must arise out of a thinking that has become independent. We lack to a high degree the ability to rise above dependence on external phenomena, to rise to a thinking that formulates thoughts independently, within its own essence. That is why our political life is so sterile, so unfruitful; only thinking that has freed itself from matter can deal effectively with social problems. If one wishes, it could be called the next necessary step to be taken in mysticism. But what is meant is not a vague mystical something so often pursued nowadays. What matters is not the awareness of oneself within a divine essence or some such lovely phrase. The God within is an experience common to all creatures. To be in connection with the unity of the world, with the divine element within, one need only to utter words like mysticism or theosophy. A June bug has that kind of connection too, though in its own special way. What matters is that we begin to experience thinking as something active and alive, expressing itself in concrete concepts. Such concepts are able to take hold of and deal effectively with social problems.

At the beginning of today's considerations I spoke about the importance for man not only to regard his relation to truth in the light of the science of the spirit, but also to recognize that the relation itself must become different. It must become an active union with reality; this will have immense significance, not only for the understanding of world events, of history and social problems now and in the future, but also for the individual. What needs to be done now, is to continue certain important spiritual streams and endeavors which have been forgotten. There were good reasons—we still have to speak of them—that in the second half of the 19th century much was forgotten or abandoned. When a new edition of my book The Riddles of Man is published, I shall indicate many phenomena which belong to these forgotten aspects of spiritual life.¹⁶ Many endeavors, now forgotten, existed in the first half of the 19th century to which spiritual science has a direct link. Had they endured—which is of course purely hypothetical, for things could only develop the way they did—but if they had, man would not have been so helpless in face of the present tragic events.

I have mentioned before the remarkable fact that, for egoistical purposes, the strength of the various nations in Europe was carefully monitored in the West, especially in Britain. It was through this that the storm clouds gathered from whose effects we are still suffering. In past lectures I have explained many things which brought about the present catastrophe. You will realize from much of what I have said lately that it is by no means enough to reckon only with the events usually talked about. It is necessary to dig much deeper and to take account of the much greater significance of what happens beneath the surface of external events. It is this which pours over mankind like some dreadful deluge. Many of these things can as yet not be called by their true name, because human beings are not ready to accept them. But if evolution is to be understood, if light is to be thrown on the hidden secrets directly connected with present events, then they must be touched upon. Understanding of these things is possible only if the science of the spirit is taken ever more seriously.

The aim of the science of the spirit is to unite with all that is best in the forces and impulses of the Occident; above all it wants to further evolution. It can achieve its aims only if it ceases to be confused with all the foolish nonsense that appears nowadays in the guise of some spiritual or mystic impulse. Things have come to such straits that in future the difference must be made abundantly clear between everything spiritual science stands for, everything our anthroposophically-orientated spiritual science aims to be, and all the many movements that wish to identify with it.

In conclusion I ask you to look for a moment at the Orient; certainly it did have in the past a high degree of insight into repeated earth lives. This insight was attained through a special training of man's own being. From a certain point of view it must be said that no description of the individual soul's connection with the cosmos surpasses that of the Bhagavad Gita. But we, in our time have different tasks. In his Education of Mankind, Lessing inaugurated one of these tasks.¹⁷ There the concept of repeated earth lives reappears in the Occident. But how did the idea come to Lessing? He knew of course that it had been a teaching among primitive peoples. But the idea came to him while contemplating the consecutive epochs in mankind's evolution, and noticing how one epoch develops out of the preceding one. He considered that the reason no break in evolution occurred between the epochs could only be because human souls themselves carried the forces and capabilities they had attained over from epoch A to epoch B, to epoch C, etc. Just think, if our souls were present back in darkest antiquity and continued to incarnate again and again, that would mean that we ourselves have carried over from antiquity right up into our time what runs like a thread through the whole of history and evolution. Then human beings themselves would have created the various epochs. History gains sense and meaning when it is recognized that the human souls themselves carry over impulses from one epoch to the next. Through such a comprehensive historical survey the idea of repeated earth lives came to Lessing, not as in the Orient from the individual human soul.

Historical thinking and history, history in its highest sense, that is the task of the Occident. However, this requires that we recognize it in every moment. History confronts us when individual facts unite in the understanding of the different ages of man. We have history when a child stands before an aged person. Here we grasp the historical sense by recognizing that the old person was once a young adult and before that a child. What is consecutive in history can also appear side by side in space. Eastern, Western and Central Europe, though next to one another in space, can be understood only when also seen in a historical sense as following one another. This, of course, must be done in the right way.

These tasks stand before each one of us. When we widen our horizon to encompass such matters we shall in our living relationship with what is around us attain that gratification for which our soul longs.

• 1 . David Lloyd George, see note 3 and note 9 to Lecture VII.
• 2 . Eduard von Hartmann, 1842–1906, German philosopher. Philosophie des Unbewußten, 12th edition, Leipzig, 1923.
• 3 . Ralph Waldo Trine, see note 1 to Lecture VI. Johannes Muller, 1864–1919, Protestant theologian.
• 4 . Parmenides, approx. 450 B.C., Greek philosopher. Heraclitus, 540–470 B.C., Greek philosopher.
• 5 . Occult Science, see note 7 to Lecture IV.
• 6 . Pierre Joseph Proudhon, 1809–1865, French socialist and anarchist. Edward Bellamy, 1850–1898, U.S. author.
• 7 . Viscount Alfred Charles William Northcliffe (actually Harmsworth), 1865–1922, English newspaper publisher.
• 8 . Olga Novikoff: The M.P. for Russia, Reminiscenses and Correspondence of Mme. Olga Novikoff, edited by W.T. Stead, Vol. I 1841–78, Vol. II 1878–1908, London, 1909, Andrew Melrose.
• 9 . Viscount Richard Burdon Haldane, 1856–1928, English statesman, Education and Empire, 1902; The Pathway to Reality, 1903–04.
• 10. Rudolf Hermann Lotze, 1817–1881, physician and philosopher. Metaphysics, Vol. 1, 1841–79, Vol. 2, Leipzig, 1879.
• 11. Rudolf Steiner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom (Rudolf Steiner Publications, Blauvelt, NY, 1985).
• 12. Friedrich Theodor Vischer, 1807–1887, German poet and philosopher.
• 13. David Friedrich Straul3, 1808–1874, German theologian.
• 14. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844–1900, Ecce Homo, “The Case of Wagner: A Musician Problem,” in several editions in English.
• 15. Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin, 1770–1843, Hyperion, oder der Eremit in Griechenland, 2 parts, Stuttgart, 1797–99, in Sämtliche Werke, Insel Verlag, Leipzig o.J., p. 580.
• 16. Rudolf Steiner, Vom Menschenrätsel, see note 4 to Lecture VI.
• 17.

It is a very complicated matter, as you may well imagine, when the Spirits of the different Hierarchies have to coordinate their forces in such a way that the mission of the Earth can be fulfilled and ultimately a state of balance or equilibrium be achieved. You will understand therefore that statements such as those made in our last lecture are valid only in so far as they refer to a definite period in evolution and that the whole picture changes immediately one depicts evolution at another period. Hence in order to arrive at a fuller understanding of these complex problems a particular course of lectures cannot be isolated from the rest.

I shall here draw attention to one point only and what I am about to say is to be taken as footnote or addendum to the lectures on the Spiritual Hierarchies.¹ In creating the harmony or equilibrium of our Earth the whole cooperation of the Hierarchies is involved and we must envisage the Spirits of Will, the Cherubim and Seraphim, which we described yesterday as the highest Hierarchy, as raying outward from the Earth. We must envisage these Beings as originally working inward from the Universe towards the centre of the Earth. Man does not become aware of these forces in the former aspect but only in the latter aspect when they are reflected from the Earth's centre.

You will only be able, therefore, to form a complete picture of the very intimate processes which here take place if you compare what was said in my last lecture with the more detailed information about the Hierarchies in the lecture-course given at Dusseldorf, in which a comprehensive picture was given of the cosmic activity of the three Hierarchies. These things are by no means so simple, and in order to make the mission of the Earth comprehensible we must approach this problem in such a way that we are prepared to accept that the Spirits of these Hierarchies are reflected in the elements of Earth existence. If you bear this in mind then you will also sense the infinite wisdom inherent in a universe of relationships. To a certain extent you will also feel that the field of knowledge must be continually enlarged, that it is unlimited, since things are so complicated that when we imagine we have grasped one point of view we immediately reject it in favour of another which throws light on the problem from a different angle. We can only advance step by step in our knowledge: Nevertheless from the indications given in the last lecture) especially at the close of that lecture, you will have a clearer understanding of the cooperation between the normal and abnormal Spirits of Form, a cooperation which ensures that the population of the Earth should not be limited to a single homogeneous species spread over the whole Earth, but that a diversity of individual races should be possible. In order to achieve that corporate humanity, which is only possible to man in the course of Earth-evolution, it would have been necessary for the normal Spirits of Form to act independently. These are the same spiritual Beings who in Genesis are called the Elohim. In the whole Universe which surrounds the Earth and together with the Earth forms a single whole, we can distinguish seven of these normal Spirits of Form. There are therefore seven Spirits of Form or seven Elohim. If we wish to form a conception of these seven Elohim with their various missions and their task of establishing Harmony or Love as the ultimate mission of the Earth, we must clearly understand that these seven Spirits of Form cooperate in such a way that what we described in Lecture Four as “man in the second third of his life” would become a reality. Thus, if all these seven Spirits of Form could work in accordance with their declared intention, then collectively they would fashion the real Ego-being. But as other spiritual Beings cooperate with them and diversify this uniform humanity, it was found necessary to make special preparations in the Cosmos. If today you wish to find in the Cosmos the sphere of activity of the normal Spirits of Form—those Beings who, as I described yesterday, shine down upon us in the light from our present Cosmos—then you must seek for them in the Sun. You must always look towards the Sun sphere for that cosmic “Lodge”, that community in the Universe, where these Spirits of Form plan to establish the earthly harmony and to fulfil the mission of Earth-evolution. Lest the activity of the abnormal Spirits of Form should provoke too great a disharmony amongst mankind, one of the Spirits had to detach Himself from the community. In reality, therefore, only six Spirits of Form or Elohim work from the Sun; one of these Spirits had to detach Himself lest the simultaneous activity of the abnormal Spirits of Form, who are really Spirits of Movement should disturb the balance or harmony. It was the Spirit who in the Bible, in Genesis, is called Jahve or Jehovah. If you wish to follow His activity in the Universe you must look for it, not in the Sun sphere, but in the Moon sphere at a particular epoch. I have touched upon this in my Occult Science—an Outline from another angle, where I have shown that the Spirits of Form withdraw with the separation of the Sun, but in the special disposition following upon the separation of the Moon, the preliminary conditions were first established for the further evolution of man. For if the Moon had remained united with the Earth the evolution of man could not have taken place. This further evolution of man has only been made possible because one of the Elohim, Jahve, accompanied the separation of the Moon—while the other six Spirits remained in the Sun—and because Jahve cooperated with His six colleagues to counteract the forces of the backward Spirits of Movement.

Now the separation of the Sun was a necessity for the following reasons: after certain older Spirits of Movement who possessed more potent forces than the Spirits of Form—for they stand higher in the rank of the Hierarchies—had decided to remain behind, the normal Spirits of Form were obliged to modify their activity by detaching one of their members, otherwise they would not have been able to establish the balance or harmony necessary for further evolution.

If we wish to have a clear idea of the activities of these normal Spirits of Form it is best to think of them as streaming down to us in the sunlight. If, however, we wish to understand how the abnormal Spirits of Form cooperate with the normal Spirits of Form who are centred in the Sun (for Jahve withdrew towards the Moon sphere solely for the purpose of establishing the equilibrium), then we must imagine that a certain Sun-force, which streams towards us in the normal Spirits of Form is modified by the force that rays down to us from the abnormal Spirits of Form who are really Spirits of Movement. These have their centre in the other five planets, in Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury, speaking in terms of the seven heavenly bodies of ancient astronomy.

When you look out into the Cosmos you have now a picture of the distribution of the normal and abnormal Spirits of Form. Six of the normal Spirits of Form are centred in the Sun and one of them, Jahve or Jehovah, from the sphere of the Moon acts as a counterpoise by virtue of this function as Regent and Guide of that sphere. The activities of these Spirits of Form are influenced by the activities proceeding from Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury. The forces of the abnormal Spirits stream down upon the Earth are arrested by the Earth and ray outward again from the Earth-centre as was described at the close of the last lecture.

Thus if the Elohim or normal Spirits of Form, operating from the Sun, are active in a particular region of the Earth's surface, then only the normal ‘I’, that which determines man's normal being, his general make-up, would come into existence in that particular region. Now the forces of Mercury, for example, mingle with these forces of the normal Spirits of Form which, but for the state of equilibrium, would “dance” upon the surface of the Earth. Hence in that which here manifests in the potent forces of the Spirits of Form, there dance and vibrate not only the normal forces but also that which intermingles with the normal forces of the Elohim or Spirits of Form, namely that which emanates from the abnormal Spirits of Form who are centred in the several planets. Thus we see that through these abnormal Spirits of Form there are five potential centres of influence where these reflected planetary forces are concentrated and produce in effect what we know as the five Root Races of the Earth.

Let us now look more closely into the centre which, in Lecture Four, we situated in the interior of Africa. If we state that the Negro race was born of the cooperation between the normal Spirits of Form and the abnormal Spirits of Form centred in Mercury) then from an occult standpoint we are perfectly correct in describing the Negro race as the “Mercury race”.

Let us now continue along the line joining the centres or focal points from which the individual races spread outward. We then come to Asia, which is the seat of the “Venus race” or the Malayan race. We then move northward across the wide expanse of Asia and we find the Mongolian race, which is formed by the Mars forces. Then we cross over into Europe and find the Europeans who in their original racial character are “Jupiter men”. If we cross the ocean to America which is the centre where civilizations or races die, we find there dark “Saturn's race”, the original Red Indian race. The American Indian race is the “Saturn race”. Thus if you look into the matter more closely from an occult standpoint you will become aware of the five centres where the planetary forces are concentrated and are manifested in the external world.

With a progressively more definite and concrete conception of this racial distribution you will develop an inner understanding of the racial characteristics peculiar to the peoples spread over the Earth, an understanding of this unique cooperation of the normal and abnormal Spirits of Form. We have thus sketched the picture, as we are able to capture it at a definite moment in time. But what I have said about the different centres on the Earth is again only valid for a specific epoch of evolution. It is valid for the epoch when, at a definite moment of time in the old Atlantean evolution, the peoples began to migrate from a centre in Atlantis and sought the particular centre where they could receive the: training appropriate to their race. Hence in my book Occult Science, I pointed out that in old Atlantis specific Mystery Centres called the Atlantean Oracles were responsible for directing this distribution of peoples over the Earth, so that in effect that state of balance or equilibrium could be achieved which led to the proper distribution of the races. In one such Mystery Oracle the truths of which we are now speaking were always investigated and originally man took his direction entirely from them. In this manner the events on Earth were determined in accordance with these spiritual centres.

The wave of peoples who swept across Africa and crystallized into the Ethiopian race is an expression of an impulse from the Mercury Oracle in which one could clearly observe the cooperation of the normal Spirits of Form (the six Elohim and Jahve or Jehovah) and also the participation of the abnormal Spirits of Form working from the Mercury Centre. The Centre of equilibrium on Earth was selected in accordance with the right astrological conjunction of planetary forces at the various centres and the point of radiation for the race in question was determined thereby.

The formation of the other races was determined in a similar way. In accordance with these determining factors the grand design is drawn up, charting the cosmic influences in relation to peoples, families, etc. It is an image of cosmic activity and reflects the planetary forces which stream down into the Earth, ray outwards from the Earth and determine man's destiny.

Now how do we look upon a member of the Ethiopian race, of the Mercury race? We see him as one who was originally chosen, who was predestined by the Elohim to express the quintessence of the all-human. But from the Mercury Centre the potent influences of the abnormal Spirits of Form intervened and modified the form of man to such an extent that the Ethiopian race arose. And such was the case with each individual race. The migrations of the peoples were specifically directed from the original centre; this is indicated by the line linking the focal points or centres in my diagram a few days ago. You must therefore imagine the Spirits of Form radiating from a centre, which, we must assume, existed at a definite moment of time in old Atlantis. These Spirits of Form rayed down into the Atlantean continent and fashioned it in such a way that the human souls were brought under the dominion of the corresponding abnormal Spirits of Form.

In this way the broad foundations of the races were laid, and when man looks up into the infinite expanse of the Macrocosm he must seek there the forces out of which he was built up. He is fashioned by their spiritual rays reflected from the Earth-centre. And when he looks up to the normal Spirits of Form, the Elohim, he is looking up to that which actually makes him into man. When he looks up to the forces concentrated in the individual planetary Spirits (with the exception of the Sun and Moon) he perceives the forces which determine his membership of a particular race.

Now how do these Race Spirits work in and upon man? They work in a very unique way; they permeate his vital energies, they penetrate even down into his physical body. Now you know that the four fundamental members of man find their impress and are reflected in corresponding parts of the physical body: the ‘I’ finds its impress in the blood, the astral body in the nervous system, the etheric or life-body in the glandular system. Only the physical body is self-sufficient; it is a reflection of its own inner being which for the man of the present is subject to its own fixed laws.

Now those spiritual Beings who are stirring in man and determine his racial character cannot at first work directly into his higher vehicles. They are active first of all in these reflections of the higher vehicles in the physical body. They cannot as yet enter directly into the physical body, but they are active in the three other members, in the blood which is the reflection of the ‘I’; in the nervous system, the reflection of the astral body; and in the glandular system which is the reflection of the etheric body. The Race Spirits, the abnormal Spirits of Form, are active in these three systems, which are part of man's organic system, but are reflections of the higher vehicles.

Thus the physical body of man is determined from within. These various spiritual Beings invade those members of the physical body, which are the preliminary drafts, the suggestions of the higher vehicles. Now where, for instance, does Mercury make his influence felt? Under Mercury, I include all the abnormal Spirits of Form to be found in Mercury. He makes his influence felt by cooperating with others, especially in the glandular system. He is active in the glandular (or lymphatic) system where are manifested the forces born of that preponderance of the Mercury forces which are present in the Ethiopian race. Everything which gives the Ethiopian race its distinctive character stems from the ferment of the Mercury forces in the glandular system of this people. What transforms the undifferentiated universal human from into the distinctive Ethiopian type with his black pigmentation and woolly or frizzy hair is the consequence of their activity.

If you now move over to Asia you will find there likewise the planetary forces of Venus, an abnormal development of the Spirits of Form. By transferring their point of attack principally to what we call the impress of the astral body, these Venus forces work in the nervous system. They work upon the nervous system however in a peculiar way, not directly as Venus spirits. For the nervous system can be worked upon indirectly in two ways. One way is through the respiration. By working especially upon the respiration, these activities of the Venus Spirits are localized in the respiratory and nervous system and give it a definite form. In this indirect way the abnormal Spirits of Form whom we may call Venus Beings work through the respiratory and nervous system in the Malayan race, in the yellowish-brown races found in Southern Asia and in the direction of the Malay Archipelago. Just as the glandular type is found distributed over Ethiopia, so in these regions is found the type of man in whom the abnormal Spirits of Form work upon the nervous system indirectly through the respiratory system. In the nervous system is prepared that which, with special modifications, produces the more or less yellow skinned racial types. The transformation wrought in these races manifests itself more in that part of the nervous system covered by the term ‘solar plexus’—not in the higher or central nervous system therefore, but in that mysterious part of the nervous system which runs in two cords parallel with the spinal medulla and branches out in various directions to form a network. This part of the nervous system therefore which from our point of view is not yet associated with higher mental activity, is worked upon indirectly through the respiratory system. The unconscious organism is deeply stirred by these Venus forces which work in these racial types.

Let us now move northward to the wide Mongolian plains where are largely concentrated those Spirits of Form who work indirectly through the forces of the blood. In this geographical area is prepared in the forces of the blood that which brings about a modification of the human species and determines the basic character of the race. There is however a very peculiar feature attaching to the Mongolian race; the Mars Spirits enter into the blood. But they work in the blood in a specific manner. They are able to counteract the influence of the six Elohim who are centred in the Sun. In the Mongolian race, therefore, they work in opposition to these six Elohim. At the same time they actively oppose the influence of Jahve or Jehovah who has withdrawn His field of action from that of the six Elohim. But apart from this interaction of the Mars Spirits with the six Elohim and Jahve which produces the Mongolian race there is another factor of paramount importance which must be taken into consideration. Just as in the one case, the Mars Spirits in opposition to the six Elohim from the Sun and Jahve from the Moon create the Mongolian race, so in another case, we must assume that the Jahve forces from the Moon sphere meet and cooperate with the Mars Spirits and thus a special kind of modification arises, namely, the Semitic race. Here is the occult explanation for the origin of the Semites. The Semitic people are an example of a modification of collective humanity. Jahve or Jehovah shuts Himself off from the other Elohim and invests this people with a special character by cooperating with the Mars Spirits, in order to bring about a special modification of his people. You will now understand the peculiar character of the Semitic people and its mission. In a profound occult sense the Biblical writer was able to claim that Jahve or Jehovah had made this people his own. If you add to this the fact that Jahve cooperated with the Mars Spirits who worked principally in the blood, you will understand why racial continuity through the blood-stream was of particular importance to the Semitic-Hebrew people and why Jahve describes Himself as the God who is present in the blood of the generations, in the blood of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When he declared himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He proclaimed that He was present in the blood stream of the Patriarchs. Whatsoever works in the blood, whatsoever must be determined through the blood—the cooperation with the Mars Spirits—that is one of the mysteries, which give us a deep insight into the wise guidance of all mankind.

The blood of mankind is thus subject to a twofold influence; two races emerge, the Mongolian race and the Semitic race. This points to the existence of an important polarity in mankind and we must emphasize the immense importance of this polarity if we wish to plumb the depths of the Folk Souls.

We must now turn our attention to the Western centre and trace the way in which dynamic forces of the Spirits and Beings who are centred in Jupiter operate in man. These elect to work directly upon the nervous system via the outer life of the senses. This is the one way. In the other, the planetary forces work into the sympathetic nervous system, entering indirectly into the solar plexus through the respiratory system. Now the Jupiter forces work indirectly through the sense-impressions and from there radiate to those parts of the central nervous system which are situated in the brain and spinal cord. Here is the seat of those forces which determine the particular racial character of those races belonging to the Jupiter humanity. This applies more or less to the Aryans, to the peoples of Asia Minor and Europe whom we regard as members of the Caucasian race. In these peoples the modification of the generic character which stems from the abnormal Spirits of Form is accounted for by the influence upon the senses of the abnormal Spirits whom we may describe as Jupiter Spirits. The Caucasians therefore are determined through the senses.

Now you will also understand why a people like the Greeks who were consciously under the special influence of Jupiter or Zeus and who felt themselves to be a focal point for the Zeus influence, were predominantly determined by what flows into the nervous system via the senses. The Greeks, of course, were also influenced by the forces of the Elohim, which stream in from the Sun. But the Greeks dedicated everything that acts upon the senses to the service of Jupiter or Zeus and so achieved greatness. To them all external forms, all forms of external life were imbued with deeper meaning. They perceived the spiritual in the physical and hence became the chief exponents of sculpture and architectonic forms. We have here indicated the very special mission of the Greek people who are so preeminently the people of Jupiter or Zeus. Even at the time when) especially under the influence of the new planetary constellation, the cooperation of the Jupiter or Zeus forces with the universal Elohim forces took place, they felt themselves to be the people of Zeus.

All the peoples of South-West Asia, and especially the European peoples are, on the whole, modifications of this Jupiter influence and you can well imagine that as man has many senses, many modifications are possible and that in the formation of the individual peoples within this root race, peoples who were formed by the influence of the senses upon the nervous system, one or other of the senses may predominate. Consequently the various peoples may assume the most diverse forms. According as the eye or the ear or one of the other senses predominates, so will the different peoples respond in this or that way to the particular national tendency within the racial character. In consequence of this they are faced with quite specific tasks. The particular task of the Caucasian race is to find the way to the spirit through the senses, for this race is orientated chiefly towards the sense-world.

Here is disclosed something that introduces us to the deeper secrets of occultism; it shows how, in those peoples who are subject to the Venus forces, the initial steps in development, even in occult development, must be concentrated on the respiratory system. Amongst the peoples living more in the Western Hemisphere, on the other hand, the initial steps must start from an enrichment and a spiritualisation of the life of the senses. This is experienced by those peoples inhabiting countries more towards the West in their stages of higher cognition, in Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition, in so far as the Jupiter Spirit originally modified the character.

Hence these two geographical centres were always present in human evolution; the one presided over by the Spirits of Venus, the other by those of Jupiter. The Jupiter Spirits in particular were perceived in those Mysteries in which—as those of you will know who attended my lecture-course in Munich last year²—the three Individualities ultimately came together, the three spiritual Beings, Buddha, Zarathustra or Zarathas in his later incarnation, and that great leader of humanity, Skythianos. This is the “Council” or spiritual conference which, under the guidance of One still greater, set itself the task of investigating the mysterious forces which must be developed for the evolution of humanity, forces which originated from that centre initially connected with the Jupiter forces and which was pre-ordained in the chart of the cultural centres already mentioned.

Finally, the abnormal Spirits of Form who have their centre in Saturn work indirectly via all the other systems into the glandular system. In the Saturn race, therefore, in everything to which we must ascribe the Saturn character, we must expect to find the combination of the forces leading to the twilight of mankind, forces which set the seal upon its development and sow the seeds of its ultimate decline. This action and its effect upon the glandular system can be seen in the American Indian race and was the cause of its ultimate extinction. The Saturn influence finally works via all the other systems into the glandular system which secretes the hardest parts of man. This slow decline is characterized by a kind of ossification which is clearly reflected in the external form. If you look at the pictures of the old American Indians the process of ossification described above is evident in the decline of this race. In a race such as this everything pertaining to the forces of the Saturn evolution has become realized in a special manner; then Saturn withdrew into itself, abandoned man to his bony system and thus hastened his decline. One feels something of this truly occult activity if one observes how, in the nineteenth century, a representative of these old American Indians still preserves a memory of that great Atlantean civilization which could not adapt itself to later evolution. There exists a description of a beautiful scene in which a chieftain of this moribund Red Indian race confronts a European colonist. Imagine the conflicting emotions when two such men confront each other, the one representing those who came from Europe, and the other those who, in the earliest ages, at the time of the separation of the races, moved Westward. The Red Indian brought over to the West all that was great in the Atlantean culture. What the Red Indian valued most highly was that he was still able dimly to sense something of the former greatness and majesty of a period which existed in the old Atlantean epoch when the separation of the races had hardly begun, when man could look up to the Sun and perceive the Spirits of Form through a sea of mist. Through an ocean of mist the Atlantean was clairvoyantly aware of the seven Spirits of Form acting in concert. And this cooperative activity was called by the Atlanteans the Great Spirit who revealed himself to man in ancient Atlantis. The Atlantean had not assimilated all that the Venus, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter Spirits brought about in the East, to whom we owe all the civilizations which reached their zenith in Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century. The descendant of the brown race did not participate in this development. He held firm to the Great Spirit of the primeval past. He became aware of achievements of the Europeans (who, in a remote past, had also known the Great Spirit) when a piece of paper was laid before him on which were many little symbols, letters, of which he understood nothing. All that was alien to him, for in his soul still dwelt the Great Spirit. The speech he made has been preserved to us and it is noteworthy because it provides evidence of what we have already indicated. It runs somewhat as follows: “Here in the soil, trampled beneath the feet of the conquerors the bones of my brothers lie buried. Why are the feet of our conquerors allowed to desecrate the graves of my brothers? Because they are in possession of that which makes the White Man great. But there is something else which makes the Brown Man great; it is the Great Spirit who speaks to him in the soughing of the wind, in the murmuring of the forest, in the surging of the waves, in the purling of the brook, in thunder and in lightning! That is the Spirit who to us speaks truth. Yes, from the lips of the Great Spirit comes truth. But your spirits here on paper and who express what to you is great, they do not speak the truth.” Thus spoke the Indian chieftain from his point of view. “Redskin is servant of the Great Spirit; Paleface is servant of the spirits who, in black shapes resembling pygmy beings”—he was referring to the letters—“dance on the paper; they do not speak the truth”. This dialogue of historic importance was exchanged between the conqueror and the last of the great chieftains of the Red Indians. Here we have an example of the Saturn forces and their activity and of what follows from the cooperation between Saturn and other Spirits at such a moment as this when two contrasting civilizations meet.

Thus we have seen how here on Earth the birth of universal humanity was prepared by the Elohim or the normal Spirits of Form, how then the five principal races of human evolution detach themselves from the collective body of mankind, from the teaming mass of humanity, and how these five races are related to the guiding Spirits in the Hierarchy of the abnormal Spirits of Form, races whom we must name after the five planets, whereas the normal Spirits of Form are centred in the Sun and in the Moon. From here we shall pass on to something which will be easier to understand, because we shall be able to relate it to something familiar to us, namely, to tribes and peoples.

• 1. This lecture-course was given in Dusseldorf, in April 1909, and was entitled: Spiritual Hierarchies and their Reflection in the physical World. Zodiac, Planets, Cosmos.
• 2. The East in the Light of the West. The Children of Lucifer and the Brothers of Christ. Nine lectures given in Munich, 23rd – 29th August, 1909.

It is natural and obvious that in these lectures we should seek the method by which the study of medicine can be fertilised and quickened, and that we do not lose ourselves here in atomised details which can have a merely relative importance. The methodical study of relationships between external nature and man may well tend to equip every human individual with the means to observe nature independently. So we will cite some concrete examples which may indicate a pathway in a certain sense, to a particular realm.

Of course the spiritual-scientific investigation proper in yielding regulative principles, can find out many things which can be verified in the sense pointed out yesterday in Dr. S.'s address. On the other hand, if one applies these principles methodically they prove to be elucidating for many experiences. I should like to put a few illustrative instances before you which can be of great significance. Let us keep to the vegetable world for the moment; and consider the general effect of aniseed (Anisum Vulgare) on the human organism. We shall find its characteristic effects to be the increase and excitation of the secretory functions, primarily in the secretion and excretion of urine, of milk and also of sweat. How is this effect produced? We shall find with this particular plant, that this effect is linked with the minutely distributed portions of iron or iron salts, which aniseed contains. So we can observe, for ourselves, that the curative efficacy of aniseed depends on the fact that it takes away from the blood the forces working normally by means of the iron, and pushes them for a while to the region below the sphere of the blood.

The study of certain plants which act preferably upon the middle (rhythmic) system (i.e., between outside and inside, or between the surface of the body and the heart) shows us especially clearly how their effects extend to different regions; and this provides us with guiding threads to find out in a rational way the curative remedies. Study, for instance, a plant which is in this respect an instructor in the realm of nature; Cichorium intybus, the chicory. From this plant we may learn a variety of facts about our human bodies, if we only take the trouble to do so. We find that Cichorium intybus is not only an antidote to digestive weakness but also to weakness in the organs immediately exposed to the external world. Its second beneficial peculiarity is a direct influence on the blood itself, it prevents the blood from being slack in essential processes and prevents it from admitting disturbances in the composition of the blood fluid itself. Finally, and very valuably, the curative effects of Cichorium intybus reach to our periphery and under certain conditions may affect the organs of the head but especially of the throat and chest, and the lungs. This wide range of strong action on every part of the human being makes Cichorium intybus such an interesting subject for inquiry. One finds its effects extending fan-like in so many directions. We may ask, for instance: what is the origin of the counteraction to weak digestion? We shall find that this effect is due to the bitter substance extracted from the plant, which so strongly affects our sense of taste. This bitter extract, which still preserves its nature as a plant substance, has affinity to those substances in man which are not yet properly worked up and are still resembling their original external appearance.

We must remember that the substances we take in, are at first comparatively slightly modified in their passage as far down as the stomach. They are then further altered by the intestines, pass into the blood and have their farthest stage of transformation in the human periphery, the skin, as well as in the bone, nerve and muscular systems. All extractive substances are strongly akin to the external raw materials, before they have been transformed.

Cichorium intybus contains also alkaline salts, e.g., Potassium. It is here that we must see the source of its effects on the blood. Thus we can watch in this plant how the working forces diverge. The forces situated in the extractive substances are drawn into the organs of digestion by natural affinity. The forces inherent in the alkaline salts, are drawn by natural affinity into the organs related to the blood or the blood itself. Cichorium intybus also contains silicic acid (silicon) to a considerable degree. This substance operates through the bloodstream and beyond it, into the peripheral organs until it reaches the bony structure via the nervous system and the muscle system. So Cichorium intybus really says to us “here am I and I let myself be divided into three, so that I have effect on all three divisions of the human organism.” Such are the experiments of Nature itself, and they are always much more valuable and significant than those made by man; for Nature is far richer in its purposes than we can be, as we put our questions to it in experimental form.

Another plant full of interest in this direction is Equisetum arvense (the Horsetail). Here, too, we find strong effects as antidote against weak digestion and also strong effects on the periphery of the human frame. If we ask to what are these peripheral effects due, we again find they are due to the silicon content of the plant. And these two examples can be multiplied many times over, by any thorough study of medicine and of botany. Such comparative study will prove always and everywhere, that all substances which keep close to the plant nature, as extracts, are related to the digestive tract; and that the substances which tend to the mineral kingdom, i.e., silicic acid, work automatically and irresistibly outwards, from the centre of the human being to its periphery, and have their curative effect on that periphery.

Another superbly efficacious plant, simple and humble but infinitely instructive, is Fragaria vesca, the little wild strawberry of the woods. Its medicinal properties have only been obscured because it is eaten; and in this case the organisation of the eater masks as it were the plant's effects. But it would be well to test the plant on persons who are still sensitive, susceptible, and do not often eat strawberries. In such persons, the amazing value of the wild strawberry would reveal itself at once. It is on the one hand especially potent in normalising the formation of the blood. It may even be prescribed with benefit in cases of diarrhœa for this reason; the forces in the lower organic sphere which are deflected from their normal course can be, as it were, restored to their proper path, viz., into the blood system itself. Here, then, is, on the one hand, a force which is essentially active in blood formation. On the other hand, the wild strawberry also contains silicic acid, which promotes stimulation of all the periphery. The wood-strawberry is indeed a splendid multum in parvo. It tends, through its siliceous content, to stimulate the action of the periphery in our organism. Then, as this peripheral stimulation means a certain risk, if too much silicic acid is conducted to the periphery that there is not a simultaneous current of nutritive substances in the same direction, and that the bloodstream is not simultaneously sufficiently enriched to nourish these areas stimulated by the silicates—the wild strawberry itself prepares the blood which has to be transmitted. It expresses and manifests in a remarkable form, just what should be done, in order to balance and help the processes activated by siliceous compounds in the periphery of our human organism. Thus nature gives us, in single examples such as this—which could be considerably multiplied—remarkable glimpses of possibilities which may become practice, if we have the intuition to seek Nature aright.

From the same point of view, I will call your attention to another example. Study the rather extensive field of action of such plants as—for instance, Lavandula (Lavender). On the one hand, the constituents of lavender are powerful remedies for what I may term “negative conditions of the soul,” appearing as fainting fits, neurasthenia, paralysation etc. Thus, lavender operates towards the human surface and extremities, expelling the astral body which has overpowered the physical.

In considering the application of herbal remedies—and in fact all substances—which have proved of benefit in cases of what we may term negative soul states, we should do well to inquire whether opposite negative conditions exist, such, for example, as amenorrhoea in women. It will invariably be found that the same substance is effective in both directions. A plant of this description is Melissa the balm-mint, which is a remedy against vertigo and fainting fits, and at the same time a powerful ecbolic.

These examples have been cited in order to show the possibility of following the process occurring in the plant through its resemblance to the internal process in man. We must, however, keep in mind this reservation: the plant is really akin to a part only of the nature of man. I should like to ask all those who restrict themselves (with a certain degree of fanaticism) to plant remedies alone, to bear this in mind. Man is so constituted as to comprise and contain all the kingdoms of nature in himself; in addition to the human kingdom, there has been a kinship during the periods of man's formation, in his evolutionary stages, with all the other kingdoms of nature. Indeed in the course of evolution, we have, so to speak, put these nature kingdoms outside, and are able to reabsorb what is needful for us once more. Yes—it is really a process of reabsorption—of return. And this fact of reabsorption and return is very significant.

The elements most recently detached in the course of evolution, must be the soonest reabsorbed in any curative process. We will, for the moment, leave the animal world for later consideration. It is clear that in the course of evolution we have detached the mineral kingdom proper at a later date than the vegetable and therefore it is obvious that seeking the relationships to the plants alone is simply one-sided. Nevertheless the vegetable kingdom retains for us its instructive significance, and not least because if plants heal us, they do so, not only through their essential nature as plants, but also through those ingredients in their composition which appertain to the mineral kingdom. At the same time, we must bear in mind that the plant modifies and transforms a portion of its mineral elements and that the portion thus modified is not curative in such a high degree as the unmodified mineral residue. Thus the Silicic acid (silicon) which has been “overcome” and absorbed into the plant's processes, is not so powerful a remedy as silicon in its mineral form, for in this case the human organism is much more stimulated and requires greater effort in assimilating and taking it into the human unity, than in the assimilation of silicon in its modified vegetable form.

It must always be emphasised that man must evolve greater forces to cope with the greater forces he encounters. And the forces inherent in mineral substances, which are to be assimilated and overcome, are incontestably greater than those in vegetable matter. (May I interpolate here the emphatic statement that I am not making propaganda for anything whatsoever, I am only stating facts.) The difference between animal and vegetable diets is based on the principle just stated. If we live on exclusively vegetable food, our own human being has to take over all that portion of the process which the animal performs for us, after it has eaten and assimilated plants, and brought the substance a stage further. We may put it thus: the process brought to a certain stage by the plant itself, is then carried further by the animal. The formative process of the animal organism stops at this point, (see Diagram 18, red) whereas in the plant it stops here (Diagram 18, white).

The meat-eater dispenses with the particular digestive process performed within the animal; he leaves it to the animal to do it for him. Therefore the meat-eater does not develop those particular energies that must be and are developed by vegetable substance, which he must lead himself to the necessary point. So the organism has to mobilise quite other forces in order to deal with plant food than is the case with meat food. These forces, these potential forces for overcoming, whether used or not, are there: they exist within us and if not used they recoil, as it were, into the organism, and are active—with the general effect of causing great exhaustion and irritation to the individual. Thus it becomes necessary to emphasise strongly that there is considerable relief from fatigue, if a vegetarian diet is adopted. Man becomes more able to work because he gets used to drawing on inherent sources of energy which he fails to do but makes sources of disturbance by a meat diet. As already made plain, I am not “agitating” for anything. I know that even homeopathic physicians have repeatedly assured me that persons induced to abandon meat food are thereby exposed to consumption. Yes, that may be possible. Nevertheless the stark facts just stated, remain unaffected it is so, beyond all dispute. I will, however, quite freely admit that there are human organisms among us today that cannot tolerate purely vegetable food, that require meat in their diet. This depends on the individual case.

When we admit the need for creating a relation to the mineral realm and the mineral forces in the curative process, we are led to consider a further therapeutic requirement. We are led to consider a subject which has been much discussed, but which in my opinion can only be solved—or even really understood—if approached from the viewpoint of spiritual science.

In order to grasp the nature of the curative process it is most important, as it seems to me, to deal with the question of the comparative value of prepared, i.e., cooked food and food in its raw state. Again I must ask you—and on this theme most especially—not to take me for an agitator, either for or against either method! But we must examine, in a perfectly unbiased manner, the actual facts of the case. If people eat cooked and prepared food, and assimilate the forces left within it, they are externally performing an office which must be performed by the organism itself in the case of raw food. Man throws upon the process of cooking, in all its forms, something which his organism should do. Moreover man is so constructed, that in our periphery we are interrelated with the whole of outer nature, but in our “centre”—to which our digestion essentially belongs—we separate ourselves from nature and cut ourselves off as individuals. Let us try to represent this difference, in the form of a rough sketch. (See Diagram 19). Through our periphery (green in Diagram), we are closely interwoven with the cosmos, and we individualise ourselves in the digestive process up to the formation of the blood (red in Diagram); so that this digestive tract is the scene of several processes independent of the external processes of nature, in which man maintains his individual entity as distinct from the external processes—at least more so than in the polaric region where man is wholly inserted into the external processes. Perhaps I may make this more comprehensible if I add the following: I have already described how man is included in the whole cosmos through the operation of the formative forces of lead, tin and iron within the regions here colored green. In the regions marked red, the formative forces of copper, quicksilver and silver are active. The equipoise is held by gold, those forces mainly localised in the heart. To refer to man in this way means to look on him somewhat as a finger which is an organ of the whole cosmos. It implies an interaction and integration with the whole cosmos. But in the tract marked here (see Diagram 19) lies the contradiction contained in the fact that man, in digestion and in the allied functions, separates himself from the general world process—and the same is true for the complementary process of thinking and vision, where he once more individualises himself. This is why man tends to display, as it were, obstinate individual requirements in all things appertaining to digestion; and this instinctive self-assertion shows itself in the habit of cooking [i.e., changing] the raw materials of our food. This instinct demands that what is estranged from nature shall be used for human consumption. For were it consumed in the raw state, the average human being would be too feeble to work it up. To use an apparent paradox to eat would be a perpetual process of remedial treatment, if we did not cook our foodstuffs. And so to eat raw foodstuffs is far more of a remedial process than to eat cooked foodstuffs—the latter being much more merely nutritive. In my opinion there is extraordinary significance in the fact that the consumption of raw food is much more a remedial process than the consumption of food that has been cooked. Raw food diet is much more in the nature of specific curative treatment, than cooked food. I may add moreover that all cooked food is somewhat held up in its efficacy and remains within the region marked red in the diagram (see Diagram 19); whereas the substance introduced into the body, in its natural uncooked state, such as fruit, acts beyond the alimentary tract, and comes to manifest itself on the periphery, e.g., causing the blood to bear its nutritive power into the peripheral region.

You may confirm these statements in the following manner, and indeed such tests ought to be made. Suppose you are attempting curative treatment with siliceous substances; then put your patient for a while on a diet of raw food and you will see how materially the effect of the silicon is increased, because you are contributing further forces to its peripheral operation; you support its formative activity, its tendency to harmonise deformations. Of course I do not allude to gross malformations showing in anatomical deformities, but I mean deformations which remain in the physiological realm. To clear up these is the trend of the silicon, and here you support the trend by the administration of suitable nourishment, while the cure is proceeding. These combinations are what I wish to emphasise in our study of methods, for their operation is so extremely significant and because—as I believe—till now, so little studied and understood. They are studied to some extent it is true, but empirically, without any search for a “ratio”; and therefore we can find so little occasion for satisfaction in considering the work already available in this field.

In all these respects, individuality has to be taken into account. That is why I have already taken the opportunity to point out that it is hardly possible to make any assertion, in this field, which is not on the other hand incorrect in some way. But we must take the things referred to as our guiding lines, although in a particular instance we must be able to say; in this case I cannot prescribe raw diet, for it would produce this or that, in that particular individual constitution. Here it is advisable—there again it would do harm. The main lines of cause and effect, however, are as we have here described them. Only through such interactions, is it possible to see deeply into the human constitution as a whole. We must particularly distinguish between the periphery, where man is more embedded into the whole cosmos and can only be affected by the introduction of minerals—which are so remote from man—and, on the other hand, the regions I have designated red. These red regions may be influenced and cured by vegetable remedies, as well as by administering substances which are efficacious because of their inherent saline quality: that is, all the carbonates; whilst all alkaline compounds are as it were the median point and balance between the two. (See Diagram 19, yellow). Thus we have in a sequence: carbonates, alkalis, and silicates, or siliceous acid itself.

These, then, are the factors indicating mankind's relationship to nature around us. We visualise man, split into two parts, as it were, and we find a middle region in him, which causes the swing of the pendulum between these extremes. And we must acknowledge that this discrimination between the peripheral man and the more central individualised man, leads us into the depths of nature. Man is akin to all extra-terrestrial things through his periphery, as is shown by the efficacy of the mineral substances, which are in turn under the dominion of the planets and stellar constellations. Centrally, as an individual he is related to all earthly things. Through this earthly affinity, most fully expressed in the digestive system, man is also this concrete human individual that has the power to think and is able to evolve as a man.

We may consider the dualism in man as a dualism of the extra-terrestrial, the cosmic elements in him, and those which pertain to earth. There is a distinct cleavage in the human organism between the cosmic and telluric and I have already drawn your attention to how the peripheral, the extra-terrestrial region is mirrored, as it were, in man, in his possessing a spiritual organisation, and at the same time, the polar opposite, a digestive organisation. All that has to do with the elimination of the digestive products and all that has to do with elimination in the brain, and provides the foundation for mental activity—all these things alike refer to the peripheral, the celestial man. However strange and contradictory it may seem—this is the case. On the other hand, all the processes in man, whether fluid or more gaseous in their nature, which are connected with the formation of either urine or sweat—are indications of the terrestrial man as a being which individualises itself. These two polarities of human nature, which strive asunder, must strike us as very significant.

So far as I know this particular human duality has not been alluded to or treated, in modern times, in any therapeutically valuable manner. For, as you perceive, all the subjects of our inquiry are intended to bring therapeutics and pathology together; therapeutics and pathology ought not to be two separated domains. For that reason the themes of these discussions have a therapeutic orientation; what is pathologically apprehended makes us think in therapeutical terms. That is the reason for the method of my putting forward things here, and of course objections may easily be made, by those who disregard this therapeutic orientation.

For example, anyone who studies the external origin of syphilis must certainly get clear how far there must be infection (approximately at least) in order to develop syphilis proper. Merely to state this abstractly leads us to an emancipation of pathology. Please forgive a somewhat crude comparison—the actual infection or contagion in syphilis is of no more significance than the fact that in order to raise a bump on the head, it is necessary to receive a blow from a stone or some other hard object. Of course, there will be no bump, if there is no blow, nor injury from a falling tile etc.; but this particular statement remains unfruitful regarding treatment. For—to continue our comparison—the circumstances of an injury from stone throwing or so forth, may be of great social importance, but these circumstances mean nothing at all in the examination of the organism with a view to its cure. We must examine the human organism in such a way as to find within it the factors that play a part in therapeutics. In the treatment of syphilis, the factors above mentioned play prominent roles, and throw light on the curative process. What is put before you here and now, is so put before you, not so much for the sake of pathology as for the foundation of the bridge between disease and cure.

I assert this, in order to characterise and define our work here, its spirit and attitude; this latter will become more evident with every day that passes. In our age there is a tendency to treat pathology more and more as an isolated subject, and without reference to therapeutics. Therefore thought is deflected from things fruitful and—if followed up in the right way—of great significance in the search for all curative procedures. Think, e.g., of our question: what is the true meaning of this duality in the human organism, between the cosmic-peripheral—so to speak—and the terrestrial or telluric-central man? Both these aspects of man are complexes of forces, manifesting in different ways. All peripheral working manifests as formative powers. And I would even say that the last formative “deed” of this peripheral principle manifests as the ultimate periphery of the human frame and completes our human semblance. Examine, for instance, the relation of human hair to silicic acid; notice how in the peripheral region of man the human formative forces co-operate with the formative forces of silicon. You may actually measure the impact of alien influences which man permits or resists, from the dominance or the reverse—which is allotted to silicic acid in the head formation! Of course we must take the rest of the individual's stature into consideration as well; but if we merely go along the street nowadays, and can “see together” the bald heads, one finds out how far a man is tending to admit or to reject the impact of the siliceous formative process upon himself. This is a result of immediate observation which can be attained, without actual clairvoyance, but by careful investigation of nature's own ways. The forces in question—they are not at work inside the cells but control the total shaping of man—find their last expression in man's structure which of course includes the configuration of the skin together with its greater or small amount of hair growth and so forth. On the other hand, the more centralised region, which is more associated with carbon and carbon dioxide—bears in itself the dispersive forces, those which dissolve and even destroy the shape. We exist as men by virtue of our tendency perpetually to de-form the shape, which in turn is deprived perpetually of its deformations through forces proceeding from the cosmos. This is a duality inherent in man: moulding and deforming. This duality is a continuous organic process. Now, visualise on the one hand, the cosmic peripheral formative forces (See Diagram 20, arrow pointing downwards) which operate on man from outside. In the human heart these forces encounter the telluric forces; and we have already dealt with the equilibrium brought about through the heart. And assume that the peripheral forces acting upon man which reach their tidal mark, so to speak, in the heart, are held back before being dammed up in the heart. (See Diagram 20, arrow pointing to the left).

They diverge and form a diverticulum before reaching the great dam of the heart itself. And in so doing they form something within our organism, that testifies, though imperfectly, to the operation of the cosmic formative through the digestive organs and their allies towards the heart, also form a diverticulum before they reach the heart (See Diagram 20, right hand side). Then taking these two diverticulums, we should have here a concentration of all that is both spiritually and physically formative in man, and at the same time associated with all the secretory activities in the head and the intestines; a reservoir of forces that do not come to meet the action of the heart, but creates beforehand a kind of accessory heart that functions alongside the heart. Here, on the other hand, we have a kind of accessory digestive action, formed by a divergence of the forces originating in the earth and its substances and acting in man, deforming and dissolving his shape. Then duality in man would be organically established and expressed; this is how here the female sexual organs, the female sexual principle arises, and there the male principle. (See Diagram 20). Indeed, this gives a possibility to study the female sexual organisation in the light of its dependence on the cosmic peripheral formative forces. And there is the possibility to study the male sexual organisation, even its specific forms, if we regard it as dependent on the telluric forces of shape-dissolution.

This is the approach for really scientific comprehension of our human constitution down to these regions. Here is also the way of discovery of vegetable remedies, e.g., rich in formative power, which may be found efficacious in restoring paralysed and defective formative forces in the uterus. If you study the formative forces in this way you will find also the formative forces in plants and minerals This will be considered more particularly, but for the present I must outline the relationship on a large scale. If in the future these things will be clearly seen, then we shall really begin to have a science of Embryology. Today we have no such science, for there is no realisation of the strong impact of the cosmic realm at the beginning of embryological development. The cosmic forces are as fertilising in their operations as the male seed itself. The first stages of human embryological evolution must be studied wholly as part of the relation of man to the cosmos. What was, so to speak, injected with the male seed emerges as time goes on, for the formative forces which the cosmos tends to project into the female organism are so deformed by the operation of the male element, that the cosmic tendency towards a total shape is differentiated in the direction towards separate organs. The role of the female organisation goes to the totality of man's structure; the role of the male organisation, through the operation of the male seed, is specialisation, differentiation, i.e., the moulding of the several organs, and thus the deformation of the original uniform whole. We might say: through the feminine forces, the human organisation tends to the spherical or globular form; through the masculine, the human organism tends to specialise this globe, and divide it into heart, kidneys, stomach and so forth. In the male and female element we have before us the polarities of the earth and of the cosmos. And this is again a subject which leads its students to deep reverence for the primary wisdom, and to listen with very different feelings to the legends of Gaea fertilised by Uranus, of Rhea fertilised by Kronos, and so forth. There is something here quite different from vaguely mystical feelings, in the veneration with which we receive these ancient intuitions, in all their significance. At first one is amazed at such a comment as the following, which comes from scientists upon whom these truths dawn: “The old mythologies have more physiology in them than modern science has.” I can understand the shock and surprise; but the remark has its deep core of truth.

The further we advance, the more insistently we realise the inadequacy of contemporary methods—that ignore all the interrelations we mentioned—as guides to the understanding of the human organisation.

I will take this opportunity of repeating what has already been stated: namely that the contents of these lectures have not been derived from any study of ancient lore. What is here stated, is gained from the facts themselves: occasionally I have alluded to the coincidence with the primary wisdom; but my statements are never gained from it. If you study the processes in question with care, you will be led to those conceptions which remind us of some elements of ancient wisdom. I should never myself consider it admissible to investigate any subject by studying the works of Paracelsus. But I am often strongly inclined to “look up” in his books how a discovery which I have made may sound in his language. This is the sense in which I should like you to receive what I attempt to give. But it is a fact that as soon as we look deeper into human nature from the standpoint of spiritual science, we come to a great reverence for primary wisdom. But that is a question which naturally must be considered in other fields of knowledge than the medical.

Instruction lesson in Cologne, May 12, 1913

Those who were present at the ceremony of the coffin when they were initiated into the third degree cannot absorb its meaning within themselves if they imagine the temple in which we find ourselves as if it were an ordinary temple on earth and the symbols as if they were made of earthly objects. We should form a mental image of the temple as being, as it were, separate from the earth, just as a vacuum is created in a glass container when we pump all the air out of the container from below with an air pump; there is air all around, but all the air has been sucked out of the glass container. Or we can also say that it is as if a piece were taken out of the earth and this were completely isolated from the rest of the earth - meant symbolically, of course. So too the east, west and south in our temple are meant spiritually. Everything that belongs to our temple is supernatural, and the activities in it must be regarded as supersensible.

What is the meaning of the death we undergo during the recording? When the Elohim decided to create man at the beginning of the evolution of the Earth, it was their intention to make man entirely in their own image, so that each member of the human nature would correspond to one of the Elohim. They wanted to see their own reflection in humanity. This did not happen on Earth as we know it, however, but in a sphere that we would now have to draw around the Earth, like the ring of Saturn around Saturn. From outer space, the Elohim acted on this sphere and mirrored themselves in the humanity they had created. And the humans, in turn, looked down to a point in the center of the sphere and saw themselves mirrored there. That's you - they could say to themselves. If Lucifer had not appeared, it would have remained so forever. Human beings would have experienced eternal youth, and the consciousness they would have had of themselves would have been the consciousness of what they saw of themselves on earth as the “You are.”

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But when Lucifer emerged with his activity, he also wanted to be reflected in humanity, and he did so by entering into the innermost being of man and radiating himself from there. Instead of the beautiful and sublime in which man had hitherto seen himself, now emerged the ugly and the shapeless. Like the snake coiled around the tree in the story of paradise, so was the reflection of Lucifer. To prevent man from seeing himself in the ugliness of Lucifer, the Elohim compressed the sphere and threw the humans onto the earth.

The human being would have remained an infant forever, for the constructive powers of the Elohim are still active in the infant. Man would have taken in nourishment by absorbing the substance of plants and animals, which were very different then than they are now. Man would never have progressed beyond the consciousness of an infant.

To enable human self-awareness, the Elohim have placed death in all earthly processes. Everything on earth has thus been subjected to death, and now these forces work in such a way that through the destruction they carry within them, they also give the strength to overcome that destruction and thus to attain a higher state. Our concept of death, like almost everything on the physical plane, is the opposite of the true concept. Only through death is it possible for us to return to the relationship we once had with the gods and the spiritual world. Something in us must die before we can find the right connection again. And the symbol of the coffin can only be understood if we grasp it in this sense.

Through our thinking, we continually kill certain parts of our brain. Thus, everything a person does after infancy involves a killing. The symbol of the coffin means that we should be mindful that all life is connected with death. Even our food is not a process of building up our body, but a process of destruction, because none of the nutrients are absorbed into the body, but they only have a healing effect when the forces of death act on them and destroy the food we eat. If this does not happen, then our organism suffers; in this way, the whole purpose of nutrition is contrary to what science thinks about it. It serves to stimulate those forces that destroy the nutrients and thus build up the human being. It is the same with healing herbs: only when they are able to invoke the destructive powers of death, when these can thus destroy the remedy, can it work as a remedy. And it is precisely because of this that chemical, metallic remedies work so powerfully, because they bring about the process of destruction most quickly and most easily.

And how would it have been with the Mystery of Golgotha if man had not descended to earth and had not had to learn death there? The mystery would have taken place all the same, and that on earth, and man would have watched from his sphere, and that which would have come to destruction there, that would have given man the consciousness of himself. He would no longer have said: You are, but: I am, and so man would have come to his self-consciousness in a supersensible way. Through the effect of Lucifer, the descent of the Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha were delayed by a whole period of development (from the fourth to the fifth age), and it will therefore take us just as long before we have gained the right understanding for it (namely in the middle of the sixth age).

We know that a new possibility has opened up for people for about three decades with the appearance of Michael. Before that, from the 15th century onwards, the archangel Gabriel was at work, and he worked on our brains in such a way that we were enabled to form mental images about nature, which we could transform into science. Our minds were guided to form mental images of nature, and based on these, we constructed laws that we believed to be the true laws. Gabriel is the archangel who acts on the reproductive powers and on the infant. His influence in the 15th and 16th centuries consisted in the fact that part of these powers seized the brain and built an organ in it through which the laws of nature could be absorbed by humans - not formed from within, as one believes, but absorbed from without. Just as the infant cries, so man has cried the laws of nature out into the world, with just as little awareness of their actual inner nature as the infant is aware when it cries.

Now Gabriel has been replaced by Michael, and his task is to give us mental images of the supersensible that carry within them the true and the eternal. And theosophy is the tool that helps us to transform our thinking so that we can find these mental images within us and use them to rise above the earth again. Michael's powers are connected to the powers of the sun; they transform the organ in the brain so that flashes of light can arise in a person, showing him the deeper meaning behind natural laws. This experience can come to a person at any time. The age in which we live is an age of waiting. We should adopt the attitude that we can wait for the higher mental images to come to us, which will bring us the knowledge of the eternal.

From the lecture in Stuttgart, June 14, 1921

You see, in his temporal life between birth and death, the human being is constituted in such a way that he has within him the forces that continually kill him. These are the forces that solidify him, that are effective in the development of the bone system, and that in their morbid development lead to sclerosis, gout, diabetes, and so on. Man has these forces within him, I would say, as the forces of solidification. That is one thing; the other system of forces that man has within him is that which continually rejuvenates him. It is the system of forces that is particularly expressed when one falls prey to pleurisy, to feverish illness, to everything that burns man. In the anthroposophical worldview, I have called the solidifying forces Ahrimanic forces, and the forces that lead to fever, which are therefore warming forces, Luciferic forces. Both forces must be kept in perpetual equilibrium in the human being. If they are not kept in balance, they will lead the person to some kind of destructive extreme, physically, mentally and spiritually. If the feverish forces are not kept in constant physiological balance by the solidifying (salting) forces, the person will inevitably develop a sclerosis or fever. If a person only develops the powers of understanding, if he tends towards intellectualism, he falls prey to the Ahrimanic; if he only develops the fiery elements, the passionate, the emotional, then he falls prey to the Luciferic. And so the human being is always caught between two polarities and must maintain his balance.

But think how difficult it is to maintain this balance. The pendulum that should be in balance always tends to swing in one direction or the other. There are these three tendencies in man: the tendency towards balance, the tendency towards warmth and the tendency towards solidification. He must maintain himself upright; so that one can symbolically see man as a being who is constantly seeking to maintain himself upright against the three forces that are constantly endangering his life.

This is represented by the third degree of Freemasonry, in which man is represented as being threatened by three unruly powers which approach him, which threaten his life; and in the contemplation of this threefold danger, in which man stands - which is symbolically represented in such a way that the Mason to be initiated into the third degree (it is done in various ways, the simplest form is as follows: a man is paraded in a coffin, three assassins creep up who want to kill him) is taught an awareness that man is in danger of death at every moment and must rise up - in this investiture, in a real cultic act, in a real ceremony, man experiences symbolically something important that is connected with life. And so it really is that one must try to get to know life, then the symbols arise out of life. Freemasonry actually has its dark sides in the fact that these symbols are used, cultic acts are performed - in the Blue Masonry in the first three degrees, in the high-grade Masonry there are many other things - and that this ceremonial is drawn from ancient traditions but is no longer understood. There is no longer any connection with the origins, which I wanted to explain to you in a brief sketch. People only look at the ceremony and that is what is dangerous: they get stuck on the ceremony, they are not guided into the ceremony in order to arrive at the spiritual through the ceremony.

[ 1 ] The Cosmos reveals itself to man, first of all, from the aspect of the Earth and from the aspect of what is outside the Earth, viz. the world of the stars.

[ 2 ] Man feels himself related to the Earth and its forces. Life gives him very clear instruction regarding this relationship.

[ 3 ] In the present age he does not feel himself related in the same way to the stars that are around him. But this lasts only so long as he is not conscious of his etheric body. To grasp the etheric body in Imaginations means to develop a feeling that we belong to the world of the stars, just as we have this feeling regarding the Earth through the consciousness of the physical body.

[ 4 ] The forces which place the etheric body in the world come from the Cosmos around the Earth; those for the physical body radiate from the centre of the Earth.

[ 5 ] But together with the etheric forces which stream to the Earth from the sphere of the Cosmos there come also the World-impulses which work in the astral body of man.

[ 6 ] The ether is like an ocean in which the astral forces swim from all directions of the Cosmos and approach the Earth.

[ 7 ] But in the present cosmic age only the mineral and plant kingdoms come into a direct relation to the astral, which streams down to the Earth on the waves of the ether; not the animal kingdom and not the human kingdom.

[ 8 ] Spiritual vision shows that in the animal embryo there lives, not the astral that is now streaming to the Earth, but that which streamed in during the Old Moon period.

[ 9 ] In the case of the plant kingdom we see how its manifold and wonderful forms are developed through the astral loosening itself from the ether and working over to the world of plants.

[ 10 ] In the animal kingdom we see how, from out of the Spiritual, the astral which was active in very ancient times—during the Moon evolution—has been preserved, and works as something stored up and preserved, remaining on at the present time in the spirit-world, and not coming forth into the etheric world.

[ 11 ] The activity of this astral is, moreover, mediated by the Moon-forces, which have likewise remained in the same condition, from the previous stage of the Earth.

[ 12 ] In the animal kingdom we have, therefore, the result of impulses which manifested themselves externally in Nature in a previous stage of Earth-existence, whereas in the present cosmic age they have withdrawn into the Spirit-world which actively penetrates the Earth.

[ 13 ] Now it is manifest to spiritual vision that within the animal kingdom only the astral forces which have been preserved in the present Earth from the former period are important for the permeation of the physical and etheric bodies with the astral body. But when the animal is once in possession of its astral body, the Sun-impulses appear actively in this astral body. The Sun-forces cannot give the animal anything astral; but when this is once in the animal, they must set to work and foster growth, nutrition, etc.

[ 14 ] It is different for the human kingdom. This, too, receives its astrality to begin with from the Moon-forces that have been preserved. But the Sun-forces contain astral impulses which while they remain inactive for the animal kingdom, in the human astral continue to act in the same way in which Moon-forces worked when man was first permeated with astrality.

[ 15 ] In the animal astral body we see the world of the Moon; in the human, the harmonious accord of the worlds of the Sun and Moon.

[ 16 ] The fact that man is able to receive, for the development of self-consciousness, the Spiritual which rays forth in what belongs to the Earth, depends upon this which belongs to the Sun in the human astral body. The astral streams in from the sphere of the Universe. It acts either as astrality which pours in at the present time or as astrality which streamed in, in ancient times and has been preserved. But everything that is connected with the shaping of the Ego as the vehicle of self-consciousness must radiate from the centre of a star. The astral works from the circumference; that which belongs to the Ego works from a centre. From its centre the Earth as a star gives the impulse to the human Ego. Every star radiates from its centre forces which mould or shape the Ego of some being.

[ 17 ] This shows the polarity existing between the centre of a star and the sphere of the Cosmos.

[ 18 ] From the above it may also be seen how the animal kingdom still stands there today as the result of former evolutionary forces of the Earth's being, how it uses up the astral forces which have been preserved, and how it must disappear when these have been consumed. Man, however, acquires new astral forces from that which belongs to the Sun. These enable him to carry on his evolution into the future.

[ 19 ] From all this it may be seen that the nature of man cannot be understood unless we are just as conscious of his connection with the stars as of his connection with the Earth.

[ 20 ] And that which man receives from the Earth for the unfolding of his self-consciousness depends also upon the Spirit world active within all that belongs to the Earth. The circumstance that the Sun gives to man what he needs for his astral depends upon the activities which took place during the Old Sun period. At that time the Earth received the capacity to unfold the Ego-impulses of humanity. It is the Spiritual from that period which the Earth has preserved for itself from the Sun nature; and it is preserved from dying out through the present activity of the Sun.

[ 21 ] The Earth was itself Sun at one time. Then it was spiritualised. In the present cosmic age, what belongs to the Sun works from outside. This continually rejuvenates the Spiritual which originated in ancient times and is now growing old. At the same time this which belongs to the Sun and acts in the present, preserves that which belongs to a former period from falling into what is Luciferic. For that which continues to work, without being received into the forces of the present, succumbs to Luciferic influences.

[ 23 ] We may say that man's feeling of belonging to the Cosmos beyond the Earth is in this cosmic epoch so dim that he does not notice it within his consciousness. And it is not only dim, it is drowned by his feeling of belonging to the Earth. As man is obliged to find his self-consciousness in the elements of the Earth, he so grows together with them during the early part of the age of the Spiritual Soul, that they act upon him much more strongly than is compatible with the true course of his soul-life. Man is to a certain extent stupefied by the impressions of the world of the senses, and during this condition, thought which is free and has life in itself cannot rise within man.

[ 24 ] The whole of the period since the middle of the nineteenth century has been a period of stupefaction through the impressions received by the senses. It is the great illusion of this age that the over-powerful life of the senses has been considered to be the right one—that life of the senses whose aim was to obliterate completely the life in the Cosmos beyond the Earth.

[ 25 ] In this stupefaction the Ahrimanic Powers were able to unfold their being. Lucifer was repulsed by the Sun-forces more than Ahriman, who was able to evoke, especially in scientific people, the dangerous feeling that ideas are applicable only to the impressions of the senses. Thus it is exactly in these circles that one can find so little understanding for Anthroposophy. They stand face to face with the results of spiritual knowledge and try to understand them with their ideas. But these ideas do not grasp the Spiritual because the experience of the ideas is drowned by the Ahrimanic knowledge of the senses. And so they begin to fear that if they have anything to do with the results of spiritual investigation, they may fall into a blind belief in authority.

[ 26 ] In the second half of the nineteenth century the Cosmos beyond the Earth became darker and darker for human consciousness.

[ 27 ] When man becomes able to experience ideas within himself once more, then, even when he does not support his ideas on the world of the senses, light will again meet his gaze from the Cosmos beyond the Earth. But this signifies that he will become acquainted with Michael in his own kingdom.

[ 28 ] When once the Festival of Michael in autumn becomes true and inward, then this thought will arise in all sincerity in the mind of him who celebrates the festival, and it will live in his consciousness: Filled with ideas, the soul experiences Spirit Light, when sense-appearance only echoes in man like a memory.

[ 29 ] If man is able to feel this he will also be able, after his festive mood, to plunge again in the right way into the world of the senses. And Ahriman will not be able to injure him.

(March, 1925)

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society (in connection with the foregoing study: Man in his macrocosmic Nature)

[ 30 ] 168. In the beginning of the age of the Spiritual Soul, man's sense of community with the Cosmos beyond the Earth grew dim. On the other hand—and this was so especially in men of science—his sense of belonging to the earthly realm grew so intense in the experience of sense-impressions, as to amount to a stupefaction.

[ 31 ] 169. While he is thus stupefied, the Ahrimanic powers work upon man most dangerously. For he lives in the illusion that the over-intense, stupefying experience of sense-impressions is the right thing and represents the true progress in evolution.

[ 32 ] 170. Man must find the strength to fill his world of Ideas with light and to experience it so, even when unsupported by the stupefying world of sense. In this experience of the world of Ideas—independent and in their independence filled with light—his sense of community with the Cosmos beyond the Earth will re-awaken. Hence will arise the true foundation for festivals of Michael.

To round out the contents of this volume, reference may be made to some further important references Rudolf Steiner made to the cosmic alphabet with the help of which it is possible to read the cosmos, the great book of nature.

In a lecture given in Dornach on 1 August 1924^a he looked back on how for him there had been a kind of shibboleth (test word, motto) for the anthroposophical movement from its beginning to enable people to read the great ‘book of nature’ again in the spirit, to find the spiritual background to the world of nature again. For this, he said, was one of the most important impulses for the new Michael age which had started in 1879. He showed how one can read the book of nature by comparing it with printed books. These involve a specific number of letters, and so does the writing in the book of nature, except that there the letters are categories, archetypes, cosmic thoughts. These make up the alphabet of cosmic alphabet. Just as someone who sees only the individual letters—a, b, c, etc.—and does not know how to combine them properly, is unable to appreciate the greatness of Goethe’s Faust, for instance, so, Steiner said, all that is active and moving in the cosmos, and the way the human being is connected with this, can only be read by someone who knows how to combine the letters of the cosmic alphabet.

In the same sense, he once said with reference to Occult Science: ‘What does it actually say in this Occult Science? [...] Thoughts are written in it, but these are not ordinary thoughts. They are the thoughts which do creative work in the world out there. [...] I may call the powers I have described in it the world-creative powers or cosmic thoughts.’ (Dornach, 24 March 1922, [in German] in GA 211.)

We can understand that the letters of the cosmic alphabet cannot be found with logical or philosophical conclusions but are gained from vision in the spirit. In the course of human evolution, people have again and again sought to read the great book of nature. This is why there are different alphabets, or rather different names given to individual letters in the cosmic alphabet. Rudolf Steiner emphatically referred to Aristotle’s ten categories and the ten sephiroth of the Jewish cabbala as such alphabets. (Dornach, 10 May 1924).^b The same applies to the book of ten pages to which the French philosopher Saint-Martin referred as late as the 18th century.

The Rosicrucians also know of a ten-letter cosmic alphabet. (See German text on the ten metamorphoses of the Sun Logos according to the Rosicrucian chronicle in GA 88; also the discussion of the Rosicrucian words ‘One who is able to understand well the work of numbers, will see how his world is made ...’, [in German] in esoterische Stunden, Berlin, 12 February 1908, GA 266/1.) In his report on the theosophical congress in Munich in 1907 Rudolf Steiner referred, clearly not without purpose, to the fact that the letters E. D. N.—1. C. M.—P. S. S. R. in the programme were ‘the ten initial letters of the words expressing the goal of true Rosicrucianism: ex deo nascimur, in Christo morimur, per spirituatn sanctum reviviscimus.'

A number of statements Rudolf Steiner made show that the results of his spiritual scientific investigations were also due to the ability to read the cosmic alphabet. He said this most clearly in a lecture given in Dornach on 22 April 1924 (in GA 233a).^c Considering Aristotle’s categories, he said: ‘Basically everything anthroposophy has given us and will ever be able to give, is experienced the way anything read in Faust is experienced from the letters [in the book]. For all the secrets of the physical and the spiritual world are contained in these simple ideas which make up the cosmic alphabet. [...] So you see how in ten concepts, the inner power of light and influence needs to be unveiled again, one had what for millennia had been a tremendous, instinctive revelation of wisdom.’

20 years earlier, in the lecture on the Cabbala (Berlin, 18 March 1904, in this volume) he was quite specific about this: ‘You will find it said in my Theosophy that the occult teaching [in the Cabbala] agrees with the things taught in theosophy.’

He put it even more definitely in a lecture given in Dornach on 19 September 1922 ([in German] in GA 344): ‘If we consider the whole human being as I have presented the subject in my Theosophy, in his nine parts, we find that from above down they are spirit human being, life spirit, Spirit Self, spiritual soul, rational soul, sentient soul, sentient body, ether body and physical body. These are nine. They would not connect with earthly life in the right way if there were not also a synthesis, which is the tenth. This gives us ten, and these also appear in the sephiroth of pre-Christian times, though in a form that was right for that time, when I-awareness did not yet wholly exist.’ See also the two undated sketches by Rudolf Steiner (archive Nos. 685 and 712) which follow below.

As the nine becomes the seven which determines all evolution, and as ultimately everything goes back to the three, which in turn must be seen as the two and the one—since everything can only manifest in polarities, with the one as the oneness behind them—all this can be seen from the notes made for J. Peelen and E. Schuré (in this volume).

A look at his cosmological investigations connected with the secret of numbers permitted the following to be said in a lecture given in Stuttgart on 29 August 1906:^d ‘There are thus seven planets with seven times seven states each, which is written as \(777\) in occult writing. In occult writing, the seven in the unit position indicates the globes, the \(7\) in the tens the rounds, and the one in the hundreds the planets. These numbers have to be multiplied with one another. Our planetary system thus has to go through \(7 \times 7 \times 7 = 343\) transformations.’ He then referred to a ‘strange passage’ in Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine, the content of which Steiner said was largely inspired by one of the most sublime spiritual figures: ‘But the great initiates always expressed themselves with great caution; they only gave pointers. Above all they always let people do some work for themselves. The passage is therefore full of riddles. H. P. B knew this. The teacher did not speak of consecutive incarnations, he merely said: Learn to solve the riddle of \(777\) incarnations. He wanted that one should learn that these are \(343\) [states of transformation]. The task is given in The Secret Doctrine, not the solution. This has only been found quite recently.’

The solution was evidently found by Rudolf Steiner himself. It may be found in the fragment written in 1903/04, where he used completely original German terms for the 7 metamorphoses gone through in states of conscious awareness, life and form. In the lectures on planetary evolution (in this volume), he also pointed out that the sum of the digits in these 343 states in the whole of evolution is 10. What does the number 10 signify?

Ten was the number given as the basis of cosmic order even in the occult knowledge of antiquity. The Pythagoreans considered it to be the all-encompassing, all-limiting mother, for it is the sum of the first four numbers: \(1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10\). And the four is the sign of the cosmos or of creation, since Earth is in its fourth embodiment—everything we find on our Earth, including the fourth principle in the human being, depends on the fact that this creation is in the fourth state of its planetary evolution (Stuttgart, 15 September 1907, in GA 101).^e As the sum of the four is ten, we speak of ten creative or cosmic thoughts.^*

It is evident from the material presented in this volume that Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual scientific alphabet is differentiated into three and seven letters, the three main letters conscious awareness - life - form, in theosophical terms first, second and third Logos, in Christian terms Father, Son and Spirit, and their possible relationships, of which there are only seven. In the 12^th lecture on planetary evolution in this volume, Rudolf Steiner added the terms used in the sankhya philosophy founded by the Indian sage Kapil: sattwa, rajas, tamas, the three gunas, also with seven possible ways of combining them. These are the foundation of the sankhya system (shankya = number). Here it is enlightening to read what Rudolf Steiner said in the lectures he gave at the end of 1912, when the Anthroposophical Society was founded (GA 142).^f

In 1924, the last year of his lecturing work, Rudolf Steiner had been asked by the Christian Community priests to talk to them about Revelation. Once more the fundamental significance of the principle of number in occult investigation emerged on a grand scale. This completed a great sequence which had begun with Christianity as Mystical Fact in 1902.^g In the chapter on Revelation, he showed the route, as it were, which he had to follow to reveal ‘the cosmic thoughts which are the basis of all things, the ‘fundamental ideas of creation’. Immediately after this—in 1903—he began to work on the unveiling of those cosmic thoughts in writing Theosophy, and the spiritual scientific cosmology which remained a fragment, progressively developing the theme more and more strongly.

H. W.

• a. Steiner R. Karmic Relationships vol. 3. Tr. G. Adams. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1977.
• b. Steiner R. From Beetroot to Buddhism. Answers to Questions GA 353. Tr. A. R. Meuss. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1999.
• c. Steiner R. The Easter Festival. Tr. G. Adams. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1968.
• d. In At the Gates of Spiritual Science GA 95. Tr. E. H. Goddard, C. Davy. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1976.
• e. Steiner R. Occult Signs and Symbols from GA 101. Tr. S. Kurland. New York: Anthroposophic Press 1972.
• *. Why it is ten and not twelve, seeing that the number of the macrocosm is really twelve, may be seen from the lecture on the Cabbala. It ‘distinguishes twelve principles in the world, the first and last of which remain secret because they cannot be put into words at all. Only the other ten are put in words.’
• f. Steiner R. The Bhagavad Gita and the Epistles of Paul GA 142. Tr. L. D. Monges, D. M. Bugbey. New York: Anthroposophic Press 1971.
• g. Steiner R. Christianity as Mystical Fact GA 8. Tr. A. Welbum. Hudson: Anthroposophic Press 1997.

[ 1 ] The Cosmos reveals itself to Man in the first instance from two sides—the Earth, and outside the Earth the Universe of Stars.

[ 2 ] To Earth and her forces Man feels himself related. Life teaches him this relationship with great distinctness.

[ 3 ] Not in the same way does he feel himself, in the present age, related to the Star-World about him. This however only lasts so long as he remains unconscious of his ether-body. To lay hold of the ether-body in Imaginations, is to acquire the same feeling of kinship with the starry Universe as one has through the consciousness of the physical body with the Earth.

[ 4 ] The forces which put the ether-body into the world come from the circumference of the Cosmos, just as the forces of the physical body radiate from the central point of the Earth.

[ 5 ] But along with the ether-forces that rain down upon the Earth from the circumference of the Cosmos there come also those cosmic impulses which work in the astral body of Man.

[ 6 ] The ether is like an ocean, on whose waves from all sides out of farthest worlds the astral forces come sailing to the Earth.

[ 7 ] In the present cosmic age however, it is only the mineral and the vegetable kingdoms that can come into direct relation with this astral life streaming in on to the Earth upon the waves of the ether; not the animal kingdom, nor the human kingdom.

[ 8 ] With the animal kingdom, spiritual observation shows that what is at work in the embryo is not the astral life at the present day flowing to the Earth, but that which flowed into it long ago, in the old Moon-Age.

[ 9 ] With the vegetable kingdom, one can see how its manifold, marvelous forms are being shaped by the astral influences, as they separate themselves out of the ether and hover over the plant-world.

[ 10 ] With the animal world, one can see how, from out of the spirit-sphere, astral forces of old times, that were active long ago—during the old Moon-Age of evolution—have been preserved and are now at work. They work as old, preserved forces, which remain at the present day altogether in the spirit-world, and do not come out into the ether-world.

[ 11 ] This form of astral influence is, moreover, transmitted by the present Moon-forces, which have themselves remained over from the previous stage of the Earth.

[ 12 ] We have then, in the animal kingdom, the result of impulses which in the previous evolutionary stage of the Earth manifested themselves externally as elements of Nature, whereas in the present cosmic age they have withdrawn into the spirit-world which flows with active force through the Earth.

[ 13 ] Now it is seen by spiritual observation that for the permeation of the physical and ether-bodies with the astral body in the animal kingdom, the forces that are of importance are solely these astral forces which have been preserved from an earlier time in the present life of Earth; but that, once the animal has his astral body, then the Sun-impulses begin to be active in it. The Sun-forces can give the animal nothing for his astral life; nevertheless, when once this is in the animal, they are required to provide for growth, nutrition, etc.

[ 14 ] With the kingdom of Man it is otherwise. This too receives its astral element in the first place from the old, preserved Moon-forces. But the Sun-forces have in them astral impulses which remain ineffective for the animal kingdom, but which in the human astral continue to act in the same manner as the Moon-forces acted when Man was first permeated with astrality.

[ 15 ] In the astral body of the animal can be seen the Moon-world. In the astral body of the human being can be seen the harmonious accord of the Sun-and Moon-worlds.

[ 16 ] It is this Sun-like power in the human astral body which makes it possible for Man to take up into himself the outward-radiating spiritual force that is in the Earth and use it for the development of his self-consciousness. Whatever is astral, flows from the circumference of the Universe. It acts either as a stream flowing in at the present time, or as one that flowed in in olden times and has been preserved. On the other hand, everything which has to do with giving shape to the I, as bearer of individual self-consciousness, must radiate from a Star-center. The Astral works from the circumference; everything of the I-kind from a central point. The Earth, as a Star, from its center gives the impulse for the human I. Every star from its center radiates forces by which the I of some being or other is shaped.

[ 17 ] This shows the polarity between Star-Center and Cosmic Circumference.

[ 18 ] The description shows at the same time that the animal kingdom lives on to-day as a product of earlier forces, which once had to do with the evolution of the Earth. It exists by drawing on the preserved store of old astral forces and must disappear on the preserved store of old astral forces and must disappear when these are exhausted. In Man, on the contrary, new astral forces come in, that are drawn from the Sun-Power. These make it possible for him to carry on his evolution into the future.

[ 19 ] It is not possible—as all this shows—to understand Man in his own special form of being, unless one recognizes his connection with the whole Star-life as clearly as his connection with the Earth.

[ 20 ] Even what Man receives from the Earth for the development of his Self-consciousness, proceeds from the action of the spirit-world within the earthly sphere. That the Sun-Power can give Man what he needs for his astral life, is the result of influences that were active during the old Sun-Age. It was then that the Earth received the capacity to develop the I-impulses of mankind. It is the spiritual part which the Earth has preserved within her from the old Sun-life, and which is kept from dying out by the sun influences of the present day.

[ 21 ] The Earth herself was once Sun. Then she passed over into a spiritual form. In the present cosmic age, what is ‘Sun’ works from without. This Sun-influence from without is a spring of ever-renewing youth to those spirit-forces from an earlier age which are wearing old. At the same time, as an active force of the Present, this Sun-influence keeps what is of the Past from falling into Lucifer's domain. For whatever continues to work on as an influence from the Past, without being taken up into the forces of the Present, falls a prey to Lucifer.

[ 22 ] Man's feeling of his own intimate connection with the extra-terrestrial Cosmos may be said, in this cosmic age, to be so dulled, that he is not aware of it in his consciousness. It is not only dulled, it is ‘deafened’ by the feeling of his intimate connection with the sphere of Earth. Because Man's consciousness of his individual Self must be learnt in the sphere of Earth, he begins the age of the Spiritual Soul by growing so closely involved with this earthly sphere, that it exerts a much stronger influence over him than is compatible with the course which his soul-life should rightly take. Man is, as it were, deafened, dazed by the impressions of the sense-world. Overpowered by their clamour, he fails to call up the free, active Thinking, that has life in itself.

[ 23 ] The whole time, from the middle of the nineteenth century on, was a period of being dazed and deafened by the loudness of the sense-impressions. It has been the Great Illusion of this period, that in it people took this over-powerful life of the senses to be the right one—a life of sense which was doing its best to blot out all life in the non-earthly, extra-terrestrial Cosmos.

[ 24 ] Into this dazed condition the Ahrimanic powers could come in and work their will. Lucifer was more held in check by the Sun-forces than Ahriman. Ahriman was in a position to arouse—notably amongst the men of science—the dangerous notion that Ideas are only applicable to the impressions of the senses. Accordingly it is just in these circles that Anthroposophy meets with but little understanding. Faced with the results of Spiritual Science, they try to understand them with their ideas. But these ideas cannot comprehend the Spiritual, because their inherent, living knowledge is deafened and over-powered by the ahrimanized science of the senses. And so people take alarm, and think they would be committing themselves to a blind belief in authority if they were to enter seriously upon the results obtained by the spiritual seer.

[ 25 ] Darker and darker grew the extra-terrestrial Cosmos for human consciousness in the second half of the nineteenth century.

[ 26 ] When Man again grows able to realize the life of Ideas within him, even when not supporting himself and them upon the world of Sense, then, to the eyes of the enquirer an answering light will stream again from the Cosmos beyond the realm of Earth. And this is to make acquaintance with Michael and his kingdom.

[ 27 ] When a time comes, when the Festival of Michael in the autumn fall will be kept in truth and inwardness—then, in the feelings of those that keep the festival there will arise with innermost sincerity, as ‘leit-motif,’ this strain and live in men's consciousness: In the fullness of Ideas the soul experiences spirit-light, even when the outward show of the senses linger but as memory in the mind of man.

[ 28 ] When, with some such tone of mind as this, Man can celebrate the Michael Festival, after it he will be able worthily to enter again into the world of the senses. And Ahriman will be unable to harm him.

Leading Thoughts

[ 29 ] With the beginning of the Age of Consciousness, dullness came over Man's feeling of his connection with the extra-terrestrial Cosmos. On the other hand, his feeling of connection with the Earth, through his life in sense-impressions, grew so strong—more especially with the men of science—as to amount to a dazed and benumbed condition.

[ 30 ] In this condition the working of the Ahrimanic Powers is peculiarly dangerous; for Man lives under the illusion that this overpowering life in sense-impressions is the right thing and a real step forward in evolution.

[ 31 ] Man must find the power to shed light through his world of Ideas and to live in these Ideas as in a world of light, even when unsupported by the clamorous world of the senses. In this living inner realization of the self-dependent—and, in their self-dependence, luminous—world of Ideas, will awake the feeling of Man's connection with the non-earthly, outer Cosmos. A foundation will thus be laid for Festivals of Michael.

We often talk about principles as if they were of the same kind and only differed in degree. Yet if we want to understand how things are connected, we need to get to know the principles themselves in their nature.

We need to distinguish three things in the world; three kinds of effects. Only things that take effect can be considered by a perceptive entity, and we therefore focus our attention on the effects. There are therefore three ways in which something may take effect—first, actually in the spirit; secondly in the soul, thirdly at the physical level. Effects in the spirit, anything that can in some way take effect in spirit, is called budhi; anything that can take effect at soul level is called kama; everything that can have a physical effect is called prana. Budhi, kama and prana are the three ways of taking effect. They are of the same kind but at different levels.

Now we have to realize that effects would always be fluid, indefinite, if they did not define themselves. If kama is to happen in a particular way, for instance, it must set itself limits. Budhi, kama and prana must therefore set themselves limits if they are to be defined influences or effects. In the theosophical literature these boundaries are called ‘sharira’, meaning ‘vessel, shell, sheath’. If budhi sets itself a boundary, this is called ‘karana sharira’; if kama does, it is ‘linga sharira’, and with prana it is ‘sthula sharira’. These sharira are thus the limits, the outer forms, which the three kinds of effects set for themselves. Now the following may happen (Fig. 10, starting from below).

First of all we have prana in action; then prana sets itself a limit on the outside—sthula sharira. Prana thus sets itself a boundary in one direction but remains billowing and open in the other. Prana is now joined by kama, setting itself a boundary here—linga sharira. Then prana is no longer billowing and open on this side either, for kama with its boundary has pushed its way in. Kama in turn remains open on the other side. Then budhi comes and limits itself off from kama, and you get karana sharira. The three principles thus have intermediate layers. If this is a spirit, a self-awareness must also live in these three principles and their interfaces—this is known as ‘atman’.

The human being consists of the three principles, the interfaces and self-awareness or atman. Each may have its own subdivisions. If we take it like this, we have the composition of the human being as such.

Here, in the human being (Fig. 10), the physical body is the outer shell, and atman rests inside. The arrangement can of course also be very different. [For the planetary spirit,] the situation is, for example, that prana shows itself initially as active, setting itself a limit, in an inward direction. (Fig. 11)

Prana is then limited on the inside by sthula sharira, kama by linga sharira, and budhi by karana sharira. We would thus have an entity where atman was on the outside, then budhi, then kama and last of all prana. Atman would then appear as wholly expanded in the periphery [an orb] and sthula sharira would be a point at the centre. (Fig. 12)

Such a spirit would be a dhyan chohan, a planetary spirit that must present in a way which is the reverse of the human way. In the human being, sthula sharira is on the outside, in dhyan chohans atman; then comes budhi, and so on.

We can get a clear idea of this if we take the following example. If we close our eyes, it is dark for the time being; once we open them again, we see the light. We only see the light, however, because we have an inner feeling for it and are therefore able to receive it. It must first be there, however, if we are to receive it. And just as we have to be there to sense the light, so there must be an entity out there which reveals light. We are light receivers; out there must be light givers, light revealers. And just as we are only able to sense light because we have kama, the astral body, in us, so a planetary spirit must have a kama that lets light shine out. Kama is thus active towards the centre here, and in the radius of the circle there. (Fig. 13)

The circle which is convex towards the top is for us, for our sentience, for the one which receives, the principle moving towards the giver. The circle which is convex towards the bottom is the kama of the dhyanic spirit. The kama of revelation thus acts downwards—karana sharira. Whereas the human being has a kama that seeks to move towards the centre, so the planetary spirit has a kama that seeks to move outwards, to the periphery, revealing light, whilst the kama of the human being receives light. Two kinds of spirits, natures that complement one another, always go together. A spirit must have the desire—receiving; another must be able to give—giving. Human desirous kama presupposes that there is a giving kama, the kama of love.

Human budhi mediates insight. Such insight as we gain into things comes through our budhi. The planetary spirit must thus be a giver of thoughts, and human budhi a receiver. The planetary spirit thus acts in entirely the opposite way, complementing the human spirit.

Every single thing in the world exists only in the context of the whole; it is part of the whole. As a part it belongs to the whole planetary Earth spirit. Thus this table here consists of matter, which makes it an object we encounter in space; secondly it has energy, for it offers resistance, otherwise it would not exist for us; thirdly this energy does not come to expression at random but according to specific laws (natural laws).

What is energy? What is it that makes life possible in us? It is an energy which takes things in, maintaining life. Human vital energy serves to hold together the matter which is in the human being. Because of this, the matter and its energy in the human being is directed inwards, building the human being up from inside. Without this, we could not be perceived as living human beings. The table on the other hand has matter which is directed outwards, and this functions according to law. Matter as such cannot be perceived, only its properties and qualities such as colours, sounds, and so on. Matter itself is completely beyond sensory perception. A prana in matter withdraws completely from sensory perception but gives itself in order to reveal itself. We also have insight into the law which lies in matter, and the thought which comes to expression in it.

Budhi comes to outer expression in the natural world. Every body which gives outward expression to the planetary spirit is continually radiating outwards; its budhi is thus directed outwards. It becomes light which the senses perceive. Budhi lies in the properties and qualities of things, in the aspect which is on the outside. The law must reveal itself through karana sharira. Manas revealed is law. In being luminous, a body sends us budhi. The thought, expressing spirit, through which it sends us budhi, is karana sharira. The planetary spirit keeps kama to itself, withdrawing it from sensory perception. Its matter ... [Marie Steiner-von Sivers’ notes indicate a gap here.] On the other hand it reveals the cosmic thoughts which human beings must fathom deep down inside. The principle which the planetary spirit revealed wholly on the surface is its budhi. In the Bible, it says that the planetary spirit first of all revealed itself as light. The spirit thus reveals budhi qualities (light) at the first level. Budhi qualities (light) are revealed by the spirit at the first level. These ancient sacred teachings of the polarity between human being and planetary spirit are brought out most beautifully in esoteric Christian teaching. In cabbalistic terms the budhi qualities which come to revelation are called ‘powers’. It is thus the powers of light and darkness which revealed themselves first. Once again we can take Genesis literally.

The spirit thus reveals budhi qualities on the first level. On the second it reveals its karana sharira; it orders things according to laws. Something which is convex in the macrocosm is thus concave in the microcosm. Something which the human being perceives last, comes first in the macrocosm; the microcosm finally comes to perceive and understand the sentient experience in the macrocosm.

The question arises if there is a transitional stage between the two—between human being and planetary spirit. Think of an entity with one conscious awareness. That is the human being. He has different parts, but these share a common awareness. (Struggle between patricians and plebeians.)⁷⁷ We might show it more or less like this (Fig. 14).

Individual parts all radiate towards the common awareness. If we take the latter to be energy, and the parts, too, we can say that the common awareness is predominant, influencing all the others. Now think of numerous entities functioning in this way (Fig. 15)

Each has its own existence. Through [the common ideal] it can connect its own with those of others. The different conscious minds create a common focus; they seek to gain a specific common ideal. This then lives in the different conscious minds as a common spiritual ideal. If they reach the point where their spiritual ideal is of greater value to them than they themselves, they will be drawn to it just as before they drew the parts of their conscious awareness to themselves. Where before they had been the focus or centre for those different spheres, the common ideal will then be the central focus for the large sphere. Individual entities then become parts of a common entity, giving up their separate existences and living in the common ideal. They cease to be centre and give themselves a common centre. A brotherhood lodge then develops from individual people. If the common ideal is so powerful that it draws all the individual conscious minds to it, these people make up a body that has a soul of a higher kind. A brotherhood lodge then develops with a perfectly communal spirit. This is a new entity. The soul could never have come down into the human being if he had not become a house for it with different parts. It is never possible for a higher principle to come down unless individual minds become vital parts, the form for a higher kind of house, so that the common awareness may come to expression in it.

This gives us the transition. Another centre is created. Human development is an inversion, the reversal of all principles. As human beings express themselves in seven ways, we get not one but seven centres. These will be the seven elohim, the pitris for the next planet.

Man thus progresses from a spirit which takes in the surrounding world to a spirit which reveals itself. The two completely opposite natures—human being and elohim or dhyan—are merely forms of one essential nature. At a future time, the human being will no longer be as he is now; he will be a dhyan chohanic spirit. In esoteric terms this is called the ‘secret of man becoming god’.

When individual conscious minds all turn to one centre, with everything outside becoming atman, there will be just a single core of sthula sharira inside, which is unity at its highest level.

Such oneness cannot be achieved on Earth; it needed seven sublime spirits to create it. This, then, is the Logos, with atman in the periphery. In the cabbala, the ‘realm’, union, crowns all. This is also the principle on which the Church is founded, with all human beings having part in one conscious awareness. The law of form is birth and death. The law of life is rebirth. The law of the spirit is karma. Life goes through birth and death, appearing in new forms all the time. Form is transient by nature, life repeats itself, the spirit does not perish, it is eternal.

• 77. Plebeians could not be priests or hold political office. From the 4th century BC onwards, the privileges of patricians grew less and less, and in 287 the plebeians were given equal rights politically.

Human beings are dwellers in two worlds. Our uniqueness amongst the creatures of the earth lies in this role that we have as half beast and half angel. A dynamic tension exists because of the contrary demands which living in each of these realms places on us. We experience this on a daily basis, an internal tug-of-war, pulling first in one direction, then to the opposite pole. Whenever we are called upon to make a choice, a decision, the earthly and the heavenly draw us one way or the other and often both at once!

A long held view has been that, of course, one should always give way to the heavenly or spiritual; the alternative is to succumb to the earthly, the fallen, to evil. The struggle has been portrayed as white versus black, as good versus evil. The enduring legacy of this attitude has been to deem the earthly, the bodily nature of the human being as soiled, unclean, corrupt, shameful. With this view the spiritual aspirant of the past had no choice but to reject the body, the earth. In India incarnating into a physical body has long been considered a curse, the entering into the “veil of tears” which constitutes life.

The physical body was especially singled out for punishment, to be starved and tortured, purged and scourged. St. Francis derided his body as his “donkey,” but reluctantly acknowledged that he must give it some care if it was to continue carrying him about. The medieval Cathars saw the human body as a pit into which the devil had lured the souls of weakened angels. Procreation was thus looked upon with horror as an act of unwitting cruelty—each new birth dragged a heavenly soul into the fallen world of matter, bringing another diabolically corrupt angel into the flesh. Even to study the physical body too closely was suspect, hence Leonardo's need for secrecy in dissection of corpses. The accumulation of an inordinate amount of the material realm in the form of wealth has also been rather suspect.

Such views have persisted on varying levels into modern times, and not just amongst the puritanical or the late Victorian. Sigmund Freud had difficulty, as a scientist, in acknowledging an angelic side in his patients. He reframed the conflict as one involving human bodily nature and the probably superstitious religious and moral beliefs they maintain. This wrestling match between the instinctual id and the moralistic superego was refereed by the central ego.

Later psychologists have continued to use this framework of two opposing forces moderated by the central force of an ego (though they all interpret the ego somewhat differently). Gestalt psychologists very pragmatically focus on how an individual becomes caught in this struggle between the two poles, without worrying about the relative merits of either pole—what is important is to get the individual “unstuck,” to empower the central ego to again be able to choose, to act more decisively through becoming conscious of its dilemma. The Italian psychiatrist, Robert Assagioli, wrote of the pull between the lower and higher unconscious, once again recognizing an earth/heaven dichotomy. He developed a therapy that sought a “psychosynthesis” of the two opposing forces, paving the way for the discovery of one's unifying center. Similarly, Carl Jung described the marriage of Eros and Logos within the soul, with the sometimes alchemical participation of the ego.

Some of these more spiritually inclined psychologists share with Rudolf Steiner the recognition that it is a synthesis of the two poles and not the choosing of one over the other that frees us for self-development. Humanity has both an earthly and a heavenly mission, tasks in the outer world as well as the inner, necessitating an acceptance, an embracing of both our natures.

In examining this predicament of living in two worlds, Rudolf Steiner, by virtue of his capacity for spiritual research, went much further than previous researchers. Steiner was able not merely to speak of opposing psychological forces, but to relate these specifically to the influence of mighty spiritual beings, Lucifer and Ahriman. The influence of these beings is not to be thought of as limited to the realm of the soul but rather taken in the widest context as encompassing human evolution, history, and almost every aspect of our existence.

The name Lucifer comes from the Latin meaning “bearer of the Light.” One's childhood picture of Lucifer as a slithering manifestation of evil is difficult to reconcile with the beauty of this name. Lucifer, however, represents a force that paradoxically can combine beauty and if you will, beauty gone too far, to the extreme of decadence, hence to evil.

In the Greek legend, Icarus and his father Daedalus escape from the tower of their island prison with wings fashioned of wax. Despite his father's warning, Icarus becomes enamored of his newfound power and of the beauty of the Sun; he flies up to the light (and heat), his wings melt, and he falls to his death. The wiser and more restrained Daedalus keeps his flight balanced between heaven and earth, thus succeeding in his escape from bondage. The Greeks were very aware of the temptation of Lucifer—in most of their tales of tragedy, “hubris” or overweening pride was the source of a hero's downfall.

In Rudolf Steiner's sculpture, the Representative of Humanity, Lucifer is portrayed as an exceedingly handsome and powerful winged form. Despite his having fallen from Heaven, he was nevertheless, an angel, a leader of angels. As the Light Bearer he has particular gifts for humankind, especially that of wisdom, the gift he first offered to Adam and Eve. By their eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Lucifer promised that they would “be as gods.” Like Icarus, they were not yet prepared for such a gift and ignoring warnings to the contrary, they accepted it and fell from Paradise. In this example it should be noted that the gift in and of itself is not evil. As in our earlier psychological examples, neither the heavenly nor the earthly is of itself to be seen as either absolutely desirable or absolutely forbidden. The beings of the polarities actually have something of value to offer to humanity. This is very different from the traditional view of the Devil's offerings! However, an individual must be inwardly prepared for the reception of these gifts if they are to be of any value. The hallucinogenic drug user is open to receiving Luciferic light and often feels quite wise when in the midst of the drug experience. Without the meditative discipline of the serious student of the spirit, however, the contact with those realms is rarely beneficial and, in fact, is often quite harmful.

In this century, society has especially interested itself in the material. Partially in response to the excessive rejection of the earth and the body, and of the authoritarianism which maintained this position, we have now fully entered the realm of matter, with head, heart, and soul. Whereas in former times humankind was more dreamy in its consciousness and thus more prone to the Luciferic realm of fantasy, illusion, and superstitious thinking, modern consciousness tends to the concrete, to materialism. The belief only in what can be ascertained by the physical senses (and the instruments which extend those senses) binds us to the earth and to the influence of the being named Ahriman.

Aingra Mainu, or Ahriman, was first spoken of in the Zoroastrianism of ancient Persia. He was the evil god, the lord of lies who tempted men and women to believe that they were solely earthly beings. At a time in history when the clairvoyance which had once been common was becoming rare, the ethical teachings of Zarathustra sought to remind the people of their divine origin and to teach through the revelation he had received of the Lord of the Sun, Ahura Mazda.

The influence of Ahriman has grown through the centuries, quietly gaining respectability in the age of the Renaissance and flourishing in our own century as the predominant worldview. Only in the last years has there been any serious questioning of the notion that the only reality is the physical one. For the most part the realm of soul and spirit has been dismissed. The prevailing scientific view has been that only what can be weighed, measured, or quantified should merit serious attention. Ahriman has welcomed statistics as his handmaid.

At the beginning of the century, the Russian philosopher, Vladimir Soloviev, warned of this danger in his “A Short Narrative about Anti-Christ.” In this fictional essay Soloviev described the appearance of a great individual who taught world peace and became first the World Leader, and later the reuniter of the world's religions. He is a vegetarian and anti-vivisectionist and brings great material prosperity and physical comfort to all who acknowledge his authority, all of this without effort on the people's part. The world becomes peaceful, even docile, for the minor sacrifice of individuality and freedom.

The influence of Ahriman is seen in the generous gifts that he has bestowed on humankind in the past centuries and for which we must feel very grateful. All of the technological marvels which science has made possible have given many of us relative freedom from all manner of drudgery while maintaining a high standard of living, freeing us to pursue other interests, giving us more time ... or do we have more time? The great difficulty with our acceptance of Ahriman's bounty has been our relative blindness and lack of foresight as we have lost ourselves in its enjoyment. The birth of the ecology movement and discussion of the reductionist nature of science has wakened some consciousness of the danger into which we have strayed. Some awareness has arisen as to what we are sacrificing in the Faustian bargain which society has struck, a sacrifice which involves our very humanity.

Through Darwin's theory of evolution as well as through Freud's positing of the sexual as the primary motive of humankind, the idea that we are no more than “naked apes” has become quite accepted. To this instinctual or animalistic picture of the human, science has added the model of the human being as machine, with the brain as computer. With such a confining definition of humanity, is it any wonder that we have increasingly come to act and to see ourselves as just machines, or just animals?

The challenge for the individual is often not how to face either Ahriman or Lucifer, but how not to be torn asunder in the encounter with both forces. In T.S. Eliot's play, Murder in the Cathedral, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a Becket, is conducted to an examination of himself and his past by a succession of four Tempters. The first three attempt to win him with the Ahrimanic enticements of pleasures of the senses, good fellowship, and temporal power for himself and for his Church. Becket turns away from these three only to be approached by a fourth Tempter, clad like himself as a priest and tonsured. The Luciferic temptation now offered is the most dangerous and difficult for Becket, the whisper of spiritual pride—to die in order to attain immortality on earth, to envisage the saint's tomb being visited by pilgrims for centuries, to stand high within the ranks in heaven. Only with difficulty does Becket turn away from these “higher vices.”

In Rudolf Steiner's sculpture, a strong figure stands with one clenched hand upraised to the beautiful Lucifer, the other hand stretched downward to the twisted and sclerotic Ahriman. The Representative of Humanity stands heroically, holding at bay and in balance the two opposing forces, centered within the “Third Force,” that force which we recognize in ourselves in the word ‘I’.

In this series of lectures, Rudolf Steiner strives to deepen our understanding of the two opposing forces, to alert us especially to the dangers of Ahriman, whose wiles have lulled us into a soporific state. The intent, however, is not to drive us to obsession over Luciferic or Ahrimanic demons, but rather to remind us, to reawaken us to our true center. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical means, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep.” We recognize that dawn in the figure of the risen Christ who stands for all of us as the “Representative of Humanity” in the modern struggle for the kernel of our being.

Thomas Poplawski

Today I want to discuss some elementary aspects of the idea of multidimensional space [among other things, in connection with the] spirited Hinton.

You will recall how we arrived at the concept of multi-dimensional space, having considered the zeroth dimension [last time]. I would like to briefly repeat the ideas of how we can move from two- to three-dimensional space.

What do we mean by a symmetrical behavior? How do I align a red and a blue [flat figure, which are mirror images of each other]?

With two halves of a circle, I can do this relatively easily by sliding the red [half] circle into the blue one (Figure 10).

This is not so easy in the following [mirror]symmetrical figure (Figure 11). I cannot make the red and blue parts coincide [in the plane], no matter how I try to slide the red into the blue.

But there is a way [to achieve this anyway]: if you step out of the board, that is, out of the second dimension [and use the third dimension, in other words, if you] place the blue figure on the red one [by rotating it through the space around the mirror axis].

The same applies to a pair of gloves: I cannot match one with the other without stepping out of [three-dimensional] space. You have to go through the fourth dimension.

Last time I said that in order to develop an understanding of the fourth dimension, you have to make [the relationships in] space fluid, thereby creating conditions similar to those you have when moving from the second to the third dimension. In the last lesson, we created spatial structures out of paper strips that intertwined. Such interweaving causes certain complications. This is not a game, but such inter-weavings occur in nature all the time. Anyone who reflects on natural processes knows that such inter-weavings really do occur in nature. Material bodies move in such intertwined spatial structures. These movements are endowed with forces, so that the forces also intertwine. Take the movement of the earth around the sun and then the movement of the moon around the earth. The moon moves in an orbit that is itself wound around the earth's orbit around the sun. It thus describes a spiral around a circular line. Because of the movement of the sun, the moon describes another spiral around this. The result is very complicated lines of force that extend through the whole space.

The heavenly bodies behave in relation to each other like the intertwined strips of paper [by Simony, which we looked at last time]. We have to keep in mind that we are dealing with complicated spatial concepts that we can only understand if we do not let them become rigid. If we want to grasp space [in its essence], [we must first conceive it as rigid, but then] make it completely fluid again. [You have to go as far as zero]; the [living] point can be found in it.

Let us once again visualize the structure of the dimensions]. The point is zero-dimensional, the line is one-dimensional, the surface is two-dimensional and the body is three-dimensional. The cube has the three dimensions: height, width and depth. How do the spatial structures [of different dimensions] relate to each other? Imagine that you are a straight line, that you have only one dimension, that you can only move along a straight line. If such beings existed, what would their concept of space be like? Such beings would not perceive one-dimensionality in themselves, but would only be able to imagine points wherever they went. Because in a straight line, if we want to draw something in it, there are only points. A two-dimensional being would only encounter lines, so it would only perceive one-dimensional beings. [A three-dimensional being like] the cube would perceive two-dimensional beings, but could not perceive its [own] three dimensions.

Now, humans can perceive their three dimensions. If we reason correctly, we must say to ourselves: Just as a one-dimensional being can only perceive points, a two-dimensional being only straight lines, and a three-dimensional being only surfaces, so a being that perceives three dimensions must itself be a four-dimensional being. The fact that humans can define external beings in terms of three dimensions, can [deal with] spaces of three dimensions, means that they must be four-dimensional. And just as a cube can perceive only two dimensions and not its third, so it is clear that man cannot perceive the fourth dimension in which he lives. Thus we have shown [that man must be a four-dimensional being]. We swim in the sea [of the fourth dimension, like ice in water].

Let us return once more to the consideration of mirror images (Figure 11). This vertical line represents the cross-section of a mirror. The mirror reflects an image [of the figure on the left]. The process of reflection points beyond the two dimensions into the third dimension. [To understand the direct and continuous connection between the mirror image and the original, we have to add a third dimension to the two.

[Now let us consider the relationship between external space and internal representation.] The cube here apart from me [appears as] an idea in me (Figure 12). The idea [of the cube] is related to the cube like a' mirror image to the original. Our sensory apparatus [creates an imagined image of the cube. If you want to align this with the original cube, you have to go through the fourth dimension. Just as the third dimension has to be transitioned to (during the continuous execution of the two-dimensional) mirroring process, our sensory apparatus has to be four-dimensional if it is to be able to establish a [direct] connection [between the imagined image and the external object].

If you only imagined [two-dimensionally], you would [only] have a dream image in front of you, but you would have no idea that there is an object outside. Our imagination is a direct inversion of our ability to imagine [external objects by means of] four-dimensional space.

The human being in the astral state [during earlier stages of human evolution] was only a dreamer, he had only such ascending dream images.” He then passed from the astral realm to physical space. Thus we have mathematically defined the transition from the astral to the [physical-] material being. Before this transition occurred, the astral human being was a three-dimensional being and therefore could not extend his [two-dimensional] ideas to the objective [three-dimensional physical-material] world. But when he [himself] became physical-material, he still acquired the fourth dimension [and could therefore also experience three-dimensionally].

Due to the peculiar design of our sensory apparatus, we are able to align our perceptions with external objects. By relating our perceptions to external things, we pass through four-dimensional space, imposing the perception on the external object.

How would things appear if we could see from the other side, if we could enter into things and see them from there? To do that, we would have to pass through the fourth dimension.

The astral world itself is not a world of four dimensions. But the astral world together with its reflection in the physical world is four-dimensional. Anyone who is able to see the astral world and the physical world at the same time lives in four-dimensional space. The relationship of our physical world to the astral world is a four-dimensional one.

One must learn to understand the difference between a point and a sphere. In reality, this point would not be passive, but a point radiating light in all directions (Figure 13).

What would be the opposite of such a point? Just as there is an opposite to a line that goes from left to right, namely a line that goes from right to left, there is also an opposite to the point. We imagine an enormous sphere, in reality of infinite size, that radiates darkness from all sides, but now inwards (Figure 14). This sphere is the opposite of the point.

These are two real opposites: the point radiating light and infinite space, which is not a neutral dark entity, but one that floods space with darkness from all sides. [As a contrast, this results in] a source of darkness and a source of light. We know that a straight line that extends to infinity returns to the same point from the other side. Likewise, it is with a point that radiates light in all directions. This light comes back [from infinity] as its opposite, as darkness.

Now let us consider the opposite case. Take the point as the source of darkness. The opposite is a space that radiates light from all sides.

As was recently demonstrated [in the previous lecture], the point behaves in this way; it does not disappear [into infinity, it returns from the other side] (Figure 15).

[Similarly, when a point expands or radiates out, it does not lose itself in infinity; it returns from infinity as a sphere.] The sphere, the spherical, is the opposite of the point. Space lives in the point. The point is the opposite of space.

What is the opposite of a cube? Nothing other than the whole of infinite space, except for the piece that is cut out here [by the cube]. So we have to imagine the [total] cube as infinite space plus its opposite. We cannot do without polarities if we want to imagine the world as powerfully dynamic. [Only in this way] do we have things in their life.

If the occultist were to imagine the cube as red, the space around it would be green, because red is the complementary color of green. The occultist not only has simple ideas for himself, he has vivid ideas, not abstract, dead ideas. The occultist must enter into things from within himself. Our ideas are dead, while the things in the world are alive. We do not live with our abstract ideas in the things themselves. So we have to imagine the infinite space in the corresponding complementary color to the radiating star. By doing such exercises, you can train your thinking and gain confidence in how to imagine dimensions.

You know that the square is a two-dimensional spatial quantity. A square composed of four red- and blue-shaded sub-squares is a surface that radiates differently in different directions (Figure 16). The ability to radiate differently in different directions is a three-dimensional ability. So here we have the three dimensions of length, width and radiance.

What we did here with the surface, we also think of as being done for the cube. Just as the square above was made up of four sub-squares, we can imagine the cube as being made up of eight sub-cubes (Figure 17). This initially gives us the three dimensions of height, width and depth. Within each sub-cube, we can then distinguish a specific light-emitting capacity, which results in a further dimension in addition to height, width and depth: the radiation capacity.

You can imagine a square made up of four sub-squares, a cube made up of eight different sub-cubes. And now imagine a body that is not a cube, but has a fourth dimension. We have created the possibility of understanding this through radiative capacity. If each [of the eight partial cubes] has a different radiating power, then if I have only the one cube that radiates only in one direction, if I want to obtain the cube that radiates in all directions, I have to add another one on the left, doubling it with an opposite one, I have to put it together out of 16 cubes.

Next lesson we will have the opportunity to consider how we can think of a multidimensional space.