tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1184605319691133512024-03-18T13:33:50.144-04:00Wellspring"Spirit Triumphant! Flame through the impotence of fettered, faltering souls! Burn up selfishness, kindle compassion, so that selflessness, the lifestream of humanity, may flow as the wellspring of spiritual rebirth!" — Rudolf SteinerLarry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.comBlogger13150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-29695726881027652024-03-18T13:32:00.000-04:002024-03-18T13:32:01.983-04:00The Great Initiates<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OTctoScCDVY/XdFsGPmdCrI/AAAAAAAAHUU/LC6iF7_uG1MeGNTGYxQ-zcpCfbpTJuzEQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="536" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OTctoScCDVY/XdFsGPmdCrI/AAAAAAAAHUU/LC6iF7_uG1MeGNTGYxQ-zcpCfbpTJuzEQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/image.png" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, March 16, 1905:</i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It may well be said that the anthroposophical conception of the world is distinguished from any other we may meet because it can satisfy to such a great extent the desire for knowledge. In the present time we so often hear that it is impossible to gain knowledge of certain things — that our capacity for knowledge has limits and cannot rise above a certain height. On becoming acquainted with modern philosophical research we constantly hear of such limits to knowledge, especially among those schools of philosophy which owe their origin to Kant. The understanding of anthroposophists and of those who practice mysticism is distinguished from all such doctrines through never setting limits to man's capacity for knowledge, but rather looking upon it as capable of being both widened and uplifted. Is it not, to a certain extent, the greatest arrogance for anyone to regard his own capacity for knowledge, from the point at which it stands, as something decisive, and then to say that with our capacities we cannot go beyond definite limits of knowledge? The anthroposophist says: “I stand today at a certain point in human knowledge, from which I am able to know certain things and not others. But it is possible to cultivate the human capacity for knowledge, to heighten it.” What is called a school of initiation has as its essential aim to raise to a higher stage this human capacity for knowledge. So it is quite correct if one from a lower stage of knowledge says that there are limits to his knowledge and that certain things cannot be known. One can, however, raise oneself above this stage of knowledge and press on to a higher stage, so that it becomes possible to know what at a lower stage was impossible. This is the essence of initiation, and this deepening or heightening of knowledge is the task of the initiation schools. This means raising man to a stage of knowledge to which nature has not brought him, but which he must acquire for himself through long years of patient exercise.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In all ages there have been these initiation schools. Among all peoples, those having a higher kind of knowledge have arisen from these initiation schools. And the essential nature of such schools — and of the great Initiates themselves, who have soared above the lower stages of the human capacity for knowledge and, through their inspirations, have been acquainted with the highest knowledge accessible to us in this world — finds expression in Initiates giving to the various peoples on earth their various religions and world-conceptions.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Today we wish with a few strokes to illuminate the essential being of these great Initiates. As in every science, in every spiritual process one must first learn the method through which one penetrates to knowledge. This is also the case in the initiation schools. And here too it is a matter of our being led through certain methods to the higher stages of knowledge, about which we have spoken precisely. I shall now briefly refer to the stages that here concern us. Certain stages of knowledge can only be attained in the intimate schools of initiation where there are teachers who have themselves in their own experience gone through each school, have devoted themselves to every exercise, and have really pondered every single step, every single stage. And one must entrust oneself only to such teachers in the initiation schools.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In these schools there is, it is true, no hint of authority, nothing that smacks of dogmatism; the governing principle is entirely that of counsel, the imparting of advice. Whoever has gone through a certain stage of learning, and has himself acquired experiences of the higher, super-sensible life, knows the inner way that leads to this higher knowledge. And it is only one such as this who is qualified to say what one must do. What is necessary is simply that there be trust between pupil and teacher in this sphere. Whoever lacks this trust can learn nothing; but whoever has it will very soon perceive that nothing is recommended by any occult, mystic, or mystery teacher other than what the teacher has himself gone through. What concerns us here is that, of the whole being of man as he stands before us today, it is essentially only the outward visible part already within human nature that is today complete. This must be made clear to anyone aspiring to become a student of the mysteries — that man as he stands before us today is by no means a completed being, but is in the process of developing so that in the future he will reach many higher stages.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">That which today has attained to an image of God, that which has arrived at the highest stage in man, is the human physical body, that which we can see with our eyes and perceive in any way with our senses. That is not, however, the only thing that man has. He has still higher members of his nature. To begin with, he further possesses a member that we call his etheric body. This etheric body can be seen by anyone who has cultivated his soul organs. Through this etheric body man is not simply a creation in which work chemical and physical forces, but a living creation, a creation that lives and is endowed with capacities for growth, life, and propagation. One can see this etheric body, which represents a kind of archetype of man, if, with the methods of the art of clairvoyance — which will be characterized still further — one suggests away the ordinary physical body. You know how, by the ordinary methods of hypnotism and suggestion, the point can be reached when, if you say to anyone that there is no lamp here, he actually sees no lamp. So you can also, if you develop in yourself sufficiently strong willpower — a willpower that shuts out, entirely shuts out, all observation of the physical body — so you can, in spite of seeing into space, completely suggest away physical space. Then you see space not empty but filled by a kind of archetype. This archetype has practically the same form as the physical body. It is, however, not of the same nature through and through, but is fully organized. It is not only interlaced with fine veins and streams but it also has organs. This creation, this etheric body, produces man's essential life. Its color can only be compared with the color of the young peach blossom. It is no color that is contained in the sun spectrum; but it is something between a violet and a reddish tinge. This is then the second body.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The third body is the aura, which I have often described — that cloudlike formation of which I spoke last time when describing man's origin, in which man is as if in an egg-shaped cloud. In this is expressed all that lives in man as lust, passion, and feeling. Joyful self-sacrificing feelings express themselves in this aura in luminous streams of color. Feelings of hate, physical feelings, express themselves in dark color tones. Sharp, logical thoughts express themselves in sharply outlined forms. Illogical, confused thoughts come to expression in figures with blurred outline. Thus, we have in this aura an image of what is living in man's soul as feeling, passion, and impulse.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">As man has now been described, so he was set down on the earth — from the hand of nature, so to speak — at the point of time that lies approximately at the beginning of the Atlantean race. Last time I described what is to be understood by “the Atlantean race.” At the moment when the fertilization by the eternal spirit had already taken place, man confronts us with the three members — body, soul, and spirit. Today this threefold nature of man has taken a somewhat different form, as since that time, since nature has released him, since he has become a being with self-consciousness, man has worked on his own being. This work on himself means the refining of his aura; it also means sending light into the aura out of this self-consciousness. A man who stands at a very low stage of development and has never worked on himself — let us say a savage — has the aura which nature has provided him. But all those within our civilization, our cultural world, have auras on which they themselves have helped to work, for in so far as man is a self-conscious being he works upon himself and this work comes into expression first through changing his aura. All that man has learned through nature, all that he has absorbed since he was able to speak and think self-consciously, is a recent acquisition in his aura brought about by his own activity.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If you put yourself back into the Lemurian age, in which man had already had warm blood flowing in his veins for some time, and in which, in the middle of this Lemurian age, his fertilization with the spirit had taken place, man then was not yet a being capable of clear thinking. All this occurred at the beginning of evolution when the spirit had just taken possession of the corporeality. At that time the aura was still completely a consequence of forces of nature. One could then perceive — as one still can with men at a very low stage of development — how at a certain place in the interior of the head (that is to say, a place that we have to seek in the interior of the head) there exists a smaller aura of a bluish color. This smaller aura is the outer auric expression of the self-consciousness. And the more a man has developed this self-consciousness through his thought and through his work, the more this smaller aura spreads itself over the other, so that often in a short time both become totally different. A man who lives in outer culture, a refined man of culture, works on his aura in the particular way that this culture impels him. Our ordinary knowledge, which they offer in our schools, our experiences that life brings us, are absorbed by us and they are perpetually transforming our aura. But this transformation must be continuous if a man wishes to enter into practical mysticism. Then he must make a special effort to work upon himself. For then he must not incorporate into his aura only what culture offers him, but must exercise an influence upon it in a definite, orderly manner. And this happens through so-called meditation. This meditation, this inner immersion, is the first stage which a student of initiation must undergo.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now in what does this meditation take an interest? Just try to bring to mind and reflect upon the thoughts that you shelter from morning to night, and upon how these thoughts are influenced by the time and the place in which you live. See whether you can hinder your thoughts, and ask yourself whether you would have them if you did not happen by chance to be living in Berlin at the beginning of the twentieth century. At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, men did not think in the same way as men do today. If you consider how the world has changed in the course of the last century, and what kind of changes time has brought about, you will see that what passes through your soul from morning to night is dependent upon time and space. It is different when we give ourselves up to thoughts that have an eternal worth. Actually it is only certain abstract, scientific thoughts to which men have given themselves up, the highest thoughts of mathematics and geometry, that have an eternal worth. Twice two is four holds good at all times and in all places. It is the same with the geometrical truths that we accept. But leaving aside a certain fundamental stock of such truths, we may say that the average man has very few thoughts that are not dependent on time and space. What is thus dependent unites us with the world, and only exerts a trifling influence upon that essence which is in itself enduring.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Meditation means nothing other than surrendering oneself to thoughts which have eternal worth, in order to raise oneself up in a conscious way to what lies above both space and time. Such thoughts are contained in the great religious writings: the Vedanta, the Bhagavad Gita, the Gospel of John from the thirteenth chapter to the end, and the “Imitation of Christ,” by Thomas a Kempis. He who sinks himself with patience and perseverance so that he lives in such writings; he who deepens himself anew every day — perhaps working for weeks on one single sentence, thinking it through, feeling it through — will gain unlimited benefit. Just as each day one learns more nearly to know and love a child with all its individual characteristics, so one can daily draw into one's soul an eternal truth of the kind that flows from the great Initiates, or from inspired men. This has the effect of filling us with new life. Very significant also are the sayings in the “Light on the Path” that have been written down by Mabel Collins, under the instruction of higher powers. Actually in the first four sentences there is something that, when applied with patience in the appropriate way, is capable of so seizing upon man's aura that this aura is completely shot through with new light. One can see this light in the human aura shining and glistening. Bluish shades arise in the place of the reddish or of the reddish brown shimmering shades of color, and, in the place of yellow, clear reddish ones arise, and so on. The whole coloring of the aura transforms itself under the influence of such eternal thoughts. The student cannot yet perceive this in the beginning, but he gradually begins to notice the deep influence that emanates from the greatly transformed aura.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If a man, in addition to these meditations, consciously and in a most scrupulous way practices certain virtues, certain achievements of the soul, then, within this aura, his sense-organs of the soul develop. We must have these if we want to see into the soul-world, just as we must have physical sense-organs to be able to see into the material world. As the outer senses were planted into the body by nature, so must man, in a regular way, implant the higher sense-organs of the soul into his aura. Meditation leads man to become ripe from within outwards, forming, developing, and interweaving the available capacities of the soul's senses.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But if we wish to cultivate these sense organs we must turn our attention to quite definite accomplishments of the soul. You see, man has a series of such organs in his organization. We call these sense organs the so-called Lotus flowers because the astral image, which man begins to evolve in his aura when he is developing himself in the way described, takes on a form that may be compared with that of a Lotus flower. It goes without saying that this is only a comparison, just as one can speak of the wings of the lung, which also bear only a resemblance to wings. The two-petalled Lotus flower is found in the middle of the head above the root of the nose, between the eyes. Near the larynx is the sixteen-petalled Lotus flower, while in the region of the heart there is the twelve-petalled one, and in the region of the pit of the stomach the one with ten petals. Still farther down are found the six-petalled and four-petalled Lotus flowers. To day I want to talk only about the Lotus flowers that have sixteen petals and twelve petals.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In Buddha's teachings you are given an account of the so-called eightfold path. Now ask yourselves once why Buddha offered precisely this eightfold path as particularly important in the attainment of the higher stages of man's development. This eightfold path is: right resolve, right thinking, right speech, right action, right living, right striving, right memory, right self-immersion, or meditation. A great Initiate such as Buddha does not speak out of a vaguely felt ideal, but out of knowledge of human nature. He knows what influence the practice of such exercises of the soul will have on the future development of the body. If we look at the sixteen-petalled Lotus flower in the average man of today we actually see very little. If I can so express it, it is in the process of flaring up again. In the far-distant past this Lotus flower was once present; it has gone backward in its development. Today it is appearing again, partly through man's cultural activity. In the future, however, this sixteen-petalled Lotus flower will come again to full development. It will glisten vividly with its sixteen spokes or petals, each petal appearing in a different shade of color; and finally, it will move from left to right. What everyone in the future will possess and experience is today being cultivated by those who seek in a conscious way their development in the school of initiation, in order to become leaders of mankind. Now eight of these sixteen petals have already been formed in the far-distant past; today eight have still to be developed, if the mystery pupil wishes to have the use of these sense-organs. These will be developed if man treads the eightfold path in a conscious way, observantly and clearly, if he consciously practices these eight soul activities given by Buddha, and if he arranges his whole life of soul so that he takes himself in hand, practicing these eight virtues as vigorously as he can only do when sustained by his meditation work, thus bringing the sixteen-petalled Lotus flower not only into bloom but also into movement, into actual perception.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I will now speak of the twelve-petalled Lotus flower in the region of the heart. Six petals of this flower were already developed in the far-distant past, and six must be developed by all men in the future, by present-day Initiates and their pupils. In all anthroposophical handbooks you can find reference to certain virtues in the forefront of those that should be acquired by anyone aspiring to the stage of Chela, or pupil. These six virtues which you find mentioned in every anthroposophical handbook concerned with man's development are: control of thought, control of action, tolerance, steadfastness, impartiality, and equilibrium, or what Angelus Silesius calls composure. These six virtues, which one must practice consciously and attentively in conjunction with meditation, bring to unfolding the six further petals of the twelve-petalled Lotus flower. And these are not gathered blindly in the anthroposophical textbooks, nor are they stamped by haphazard or individual inner feeling, but they are spoken out of the great Initiates' deepest knowledge. Initiates know that whoever really wishes to evolve to the higher super-sensible stages of development must bring about the unfolding of the twelve-petalled Lotus flower. And to this end he must today develop, through these six virtues, the six petals that were undeveloped in the past. Thus you see how the great Initiates essentially gave their directions for life out of their own deeper knowledge of the human being. I could extend these remarks to still other organs of knowledge and observation, but I only wish to give you a brief sketch of the process of initiation, and for that these indications should suffice.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When the pupil has progressed so far that he begins to form the astral sense-organs, when he has progressed so far that he is capable of perceiving not only the physical impressions in his surroundings but also what belongs to the soul — in other words, to see what is in the aura of man himself as well as what is in the aura of animals and plants — he then begins a completely new stage of instruction. No one can see in his environment that which has to do with his soul before his Lotus flowers revolve, just as one without eyes can see no color and no light. But when the barrier is pierced, when the pupil has gone beyond the preliminary stages of knowledge so that he has insight into the soul-world, then true “pupil-ship” first begins for him. This leads through four stages of knowledge. Now what happens in this moment, when man has passed beyond the first steps and has become a Chela? We have seen how all that we have just described related to the astral body. This is organized throughout by the human body. Whoever has undergone such a development has a totally different aura. When man out of his self-consciousness has illuminated his astral body, when he himself has become the luminous organization of his astral body, then we say that this pupil has illuminated his astral body with Manas. Manas is nothing other than an astral body dominated by self-consciousness. Manas and astral body are one and the same, but at different stages of development.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">One must understand this if, in the practice of mysticism, one wishes to apply in a practical way what is given in anthroposophical handbooks as the seven principles. Everyone acquainted with the mystic path of development, everyone who knows something about initiation, will say that these have a theoretical value for study but for the practicing mystic they have value only if the relation existing between the lower and the higher principles is known. No practicing mystic recognizes more than four members: the physical body, in which work chemical and physical laws, the etheric body, the astral body, and finally the self- or Ego-consciousness, called at the present stage of development Kama-Manas, the self-conscious thinking principle. Manas is nothing other than that which has been worked into the body by the self-consciousness. The etheric body in its present form is deprived of any influence of the self-consciousness. We can indirectly influence our growth and nourishment, but not in the same way as we cause our wishes, our thoughts and ideas to proceed from self-consciousness. We cannot ourselves influence our nourishment, digestion, and growth. In men, these are without connection to the self-consciousness. The etheric body has to be brought under the influence of the astral body, the so-called aura. The self-consciousness of the astral body has to penetrate the etheric body — to be able to work out of itself upon the etheric body — as man, in the way already shown, works upon his astral body, his aura. Then, when man through meditation, through inner immersion, and through practicing activities of the soul, which I have described, has come so far that the astral body has organized itself, then the work extends to the etheric body, and the etheric body receives the inner word. Then man not only hears what lives in the world around him, but there resounds in him his etheric body, the inner meaning of things.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I have often said here before that the essentially spiritual in things is a resounding. I have drawn your attention to how the practicing mystic, when speaking in a correct sense, talks of a sound in the spiritual world in the same way as of a light in the astral world, or world of desire. Not for nothing does Goethe say, when guiding his Faust to heaven: “<span lang="de-DE">Die Sonne tönt nach alten Weise im Bruderspharen Wettgesang</span> ...” (“The sun resounds in ancient fashion, contending with his brother spheres”). Nor are the words of Ariel empty when Faust is being escorted by the spirits into the spiritual world: “<span lang="de-DE">Tönend wird für Geistesohren schon der neue Tag geboren</span>” (“Hear the new day being born, Spirit ears can hear its ringing”).</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This inner sounding which, of course, is not at all a sound perceptible to the outer physical ear, this inner word through which things can express their own nature, is an experience that man has when he becomes able to influence his etheric body from his astral body. Then he has become a Chela, a real student of the great Initiates. Then he can be led further upon this path. A man who has thus ascended this step is called a homeless man, because fundamentally he has found the connection with a new world, because it rings to him out of the spiritual world, and because he thereby no longer has his home, so to speak, in this physical world. One must not misunderstand this. The Chela who has reached this stage is just as good a citizen and family man, just as good a friend, as he was before he had reached the stage of Chela. He need not be torn away from anything. What he has experienced is an evolution of the soul, thus acquiring a new home in a world lying behind this physical one.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What then has happened? The spiritual world sounds within man, and through this sounding of the spiritual world man overcomes an illusion, the illusion which takes in all men before they begin this stage of development. This is the illusion of the personal self. Man believes himself to be a personality separate from the rest of the world. Mere reflection could teach him that even physically he himself is not an independent being. Bear in mind that if the temperature in this room were 200 degrees higher than it now is, none of us would be able to survive as we now survive. As soon as the outer situation changes, the conditions for our physical existence are no longer there. We are simply a continuation of the external world, and are as separate beings absolutely inconceivable. This is still more the case in the world of the soul and of the spirit. Thus we see that man conceived of as a self is only an illusion — that he is a member of the universal divine spirituality. Here man overcomes the personal self. Here arises what in the mystic chorus of <i>Faust</i> Goethe has expressed in the words: “<span lang="de-DE">Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis</span>.” (“All that is transitory is but a likeness.”) What we see is only a picture of an eternal being. We ourselves are only a picture of an eternal being. When we have surrendered our separate being — for we live a separate life through our etheric body — then we have overcome our outer, separate life, we have become part of universal life.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There arises in man something which we have called Buddhi. Buddhi is now practically reached as a stage in the development of the etheric body, that etheric body which no longer occasions a separate existence but enters into universal life. The man who has attained this has arrived at the second state of Chela-ship. Then all doubts and reservations fall away from his soul; he can no longer be superstitious any more than he can be a doubter. Then he has no more need to secure the truth in order to compare his ideas with the outer environment; then he lives in tone, in the word of things; then what it is sounds and resounds out of its being. And there is no more superstition, no more doubt. This is called the surrendering of the keys of knowledge to the Chela. When he has reached this stage, within it there sounds a word from the spiritual world. Then his own words no longer proclaim an echo of what is in this world, but his words are an echo of what stems from another world, which works into this world, but which cannot be perceived with our outer senses. These words are messengers of the Godhead.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When this stage is passed beyond, a new one comes. This is entered by man gaining influence over what is done directly by his physical body. Before this, his influence only extended to his etheric body, but now it extends to his physical body. His actions must set the physical body in motion. What man does is incorporated into what we call his karma. Man, however, does not work on this consciously; he does not know how each of his deeds causes a consequence. It is only now that he begins in a conscious way so to fulfill his actions in the physical world that he consciously works on his karma. Thus, through his physical actions, he wins influence over his karma. And now there is not only a sounding from the objects in his environment, but he has come far enough to be able to utter the name of all things. Man lives in our present stage of culture in such a way that he is only able to utter one single name. That is the name he gives himself: “I.” That is the only name man can really give to himself. (Whoever immerses himself in deeper knowledge can arrive at depths of which psychology does not dream.) It is the only instance in which you yourself can give the name in question. No one else can say “I” to you, only you yourself. To everyone else you must say “you,” and they in return must say the same. There is something in everyone to which only they themselves can apply the name “I.” On this account the Jewish mystery teachings speak also of an inexpressible name of God. That is something which is immediately a proclamation of God in man. It was forbidden to utter this name unworthily, sacrilegiously; hence the sacred awe, the significance and reality when the Jewish mystery teachers uttered this name. “I” is the one word that says something to you that can never approach you from the outer world. So now, as the average man alone names his “I,” so the Chela in the third stage gives to all things in the world names which he has received out of intuition. That means he has passed into the world “I.” He speaks out of the world “I” itself. He may call everything by its most profound name, whereas the man today standing at the average stage can only say “I” to himself. When the Chela has arrived at this stage, he is called a Swan. The Chela who has been able to raise himself to the point of naming all things is called Swan because he is the messenger of all things.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What lies beyond these three stages cannot be expressed in ordinary language. It demands knowledge of a special script only taught in mystery schools. The next stage is the stage of what is veiled. And beyond this lie the stages which belong to the great Initiates, those Initiates who at all times have given the great impulses to our culture. They were Chelas to begin with. To begin with they acquired the keys of knowledge. Next they were led further to the regions where were disclosed to them the universal and the names of things. Then they raised themselves to the stage of the universal, where they could have the deep experiences through which they were qualified to found the great religions of the world.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But it was not only the great religions that came forth from the great Initiates; it was every mighty impulse, all that is important in the world. Let us take just two examples that show the kind of influence that has been exercised on the world by the great Initiates who have gone through the schooling. Let us go back to everyday life at the time when the pupils of the initiation schools were guided under the leadership of Hermes. This guidance was in the end an ordinary, so-called esoteric, scientific instruction. I can sketch for you in only a few strokes what such instruction contained. It was shown how the Cosmic Spirit descended into the physical world, incarnated himself here, and how he began afresh a material existence, how he then reached the highest stage of man and celebrated his resurrection. Paracelsus in particular has expressed this very beautifully in the following words: “The individual beings we meet in the outer world are the single letters, and the word that is formed from them is MAN.” Outwardly we have all contributed human virtues or failings to this creation. Man, however, is the fusion of all this. It was taught as esoteric instruction in the Egyptian mystery schools, in all detail and with great richness of spirit, how there lives in man, as microcosm, the fusion of the rest of the macrocosm.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">After this instruction came the Hermetic instruction. What I have said one can grasp with the senses and the understanding. But what is offered in the Hermetic instruction can only be grasped if one has attained the first stage of Chela-ship. Then one can learn that special script which is neither arbitrary nor a matter of chance, but which gives us the great laws of the spiritual world. This script is not, like ours, an external picture arbitrarily fixed in single letters and parts; it is born out of the spiritual law of nature itself, because the man who becomes versed in this script is in possession of this natural law. All his conception of soul and astral space itself thus becomes regulated by law. What he conceives is conceived in the sense of the great signs of this script. He is capable of this when he has renounced his self. He unites himself with primal everlasting law. Now he has his Hermetic instruction behind him. Henceforward he himself can be admitted to the first stage of a still deeper initiation. Now, as the next stage, he should experience something in the astral world, the essential soul world, that has a significance reaching beyond the cosmic cycles. After he has acquired the capacity for the astral senses to be fully effective, so that they work right down into the etheric body, then for three days he is ushered into a deep mystery of the astral world. In that astral world he then experiences what last time I described to you as the primal origin of the Earth and man. He has before him and he experiences this descent of the spirit, this separation of Sun, Moon, and Earth, and the coming forth of man — this whole series of phenomena. And at the same time they form themselves into a picture before him. And then he emerges. After he has this great experience in the mystery school behind him, he goes among the people and relates what he has experienced in the soul and astral world. And what he relates runs approximately like this:</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">“There was once a divine couple who were united with the earth, Osiris and Isis. This divine pair were regents of everything that happens on earth. But Osiris was pursued by Typhon and cut into pieces, and Isis had to search for the corpse. She did not bring it home, but graves of Osiris were distributed among the various parts of the earth. So he was brought completely down into the earth and buried there. But a ray from the spiritual world fell upon Isis, fertilizing her through immaculate conception with the new Horns.”</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This picture is nothing other than a mighty representation of what we have come to know as the exit of Sun and Moon, as the separation of Sun and Moon and as the dawning of mankind. Isis is the image of the Moon; Horns stands for earthly mankind, the earth itself. Before man was endowed with warm blood, before he was clothed with his physical body, he felt in mighty pictures what proceeded in the soul world. In the beginning of the Lemurian, of the Atlantean and the Arian evolutions, man was always prepared by the great Initiates to receive the mighty truths contained in such pictures. For this reason, the truths were not simply represented but were given in the pictures of Osiris and Isis. All the great religions we meet in antiquity are from what the great Initiates experienced in astral space. And the great Initiates emerged from these experiences and spoke to each particular people in the way they could understand, that is to say in pictures of what the Initiates themselves had experienced in the mystery schools. This was so in ancient times. Only through being in such a school of initiation could one rise to higher astral experience.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">All this was changed with the coming of Christianity. It cut into evolution with great significance. And since the appearance of Christ it has been possible for man to be initiated as an initiate of nature, just as one speaks of a poet of nature. There have been Christian mystics who by grace have received initiation. The first who was called to carry Christianity into all the world under the influence of the words: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,” was Paul. The appearance on the road to Damascus was an initiation outside the mysteries. I cannot go into further detail here.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It was the great Initiates who gave the impulse to all great movements and founding's of culture. From medieval times there comes a beautiful myth that may be said to show us this in a time when one did not yet demand materialistic foundations. The myth arose in Bavaria and has, therefore, assumed the garb of Catholicism. What then happened we will make clear as follows. There arose at that time in Europe the so-called civic culture — modern citizenship. The onward development of man, the progress of each soul to a higher stage, was understood by the mystic as the advancing of the soul, of the womanly element in man. The mystic sees in the soul something womanly that was fertilized by the lower sense impressions of nature and by the eternal truths. In every historical process the mystic sees such a process of fertilization. For those who see more deeply into man's path of development, for those who see the spiritual forces behind physical appearances, the great and deep impulses for the progress of mankind are given by the great Initiates. Thus the man with a medieval world outlook ascribed to the great Initiates the raising up of the soul to higher stages during the new period of culture that was brought about by means of cities. This city-development was attained by souls making a sudden move forward in history. And it was an Initiate who brought about this move. All mighty impulses were ascribed to the great lodge of Initiates surrounding the Holy Grail. From there came the great Initiates who are not visible to ordinary men. And the Initiate who at that time provided the civic culture with its impulse was called, in the Middle Ages, Lohengrin. It is he who was the missionary of the Holy Grail, of the great lodge; and Elsa of Brabant stands for the soul of the city, the womanly element that was to be fructified through the great Initiate. The mediator is the swan. Lohengrin was brought by the swan into this physical world. The Initiate must not be asked his name. He belongs to a higher world. The Chela, the Swan, has been the mediator of this influence.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I have merely been able to indicate how this great event has again been symbolized for the people in a myth. It is in this way that the great Initiates have worked and have put into their teachings what they have to make known. And in this way worked all those who have founded man's early culture — Hermes in Egypt, Krishna in India, Zarathustra in Persia, Moses among the Jewish people. Orpheus continued the work — then Pythagoras, and finally the Initiate of all Initiates, Jesus, who bore within Him the Christ.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Here only the greatest of Initiates are mentioned. We have tried in these descriptions to characterize their connection with the world. What has been described here will still remain remote to many people's thoughts. But those who have become aware of something of the higher worlds in their own souls have always raised their eyes not only to the spiritual world but also to the leaders of mankind. It was only from this standpoint that they have been able to speak in as inspired a way as Goethe. But you find among others, too, something of the divine spark leading towards the point to which spiritual science should again bring us. You find it in the case of a German, a young, intelligent German poet and thinker, whose life has all the appearance of a blessed memory of some former existence as a great Initiate. Those who read Novalis will notice something of the breath that guides us into the higher world. There is something in him that also contains the magic word, though not expressed as explicitly as usual. Thus he has written the beautiful words about the relation of our planet to mankind that convey as much to the lowly and undeveloped as they do to the Initiate:</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">“Mankind is the sense of our earth-planet, mankind is the nerve that binds the earth-planet with the higher worlds; mankind is the eye through which this earth-planet lifts its gaze to the heavenly Kingdoms of the Cosmos.”</span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Source: <a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0053/19050316p01.html">https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0053/19050316p01.html</a></span>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-43299217626355116832024-03-18T13:22:00.003-04:002024-03-18T13:22:50.936-04:00Dreams and the Pineal Gland. Involution and Evolution.<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik18njFkWPx6C1tuAGzhrYBUM_UE-HhruI2lRr6g_6DAL08qX6dYGN4vE4oX4h344-Ke9upGcA0oFQzqWoyyBZQfm9ay_H-YA_MmAiwg1SEmNizfF0ZKXXAqQlNcT-dWpI3jK6DT5jlN1hYgWs1UuwYNQVIMreBHCxch0ho9ulRNo3Mz8vbx8Cyw8Efg7Z/s1426/7th%20seal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1426" data-original-width="1426" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik18njFkWPx6C1tuAGzhrYBUM_UE-HhruI2lRr6g_6DAL08qX6dYGN4vE4oX4h344-Ke9upGcA0oFQzqWoyyBZQfm9ay_H-YA_MmAiwg1SEmNizfF0ZKXXAqQlNcT-dWpI3jK6DT5jlN1hYgWs1UuwYNQVIMreBHCxch0ho9ulRNo3Mz8vbx8Cyw8Efg7Z/w640-h640/7th%20seal.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><em><div style="text-align: center;"><em>An Esoteric Cosmology</em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Lecture 4 of 18</em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><br /></em></div></em><em><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Notes of an audience member of a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Paris on May 28, 1906:</em></div></em></span><p></p><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">There is a phenomenon of physical life which has never been explained by exoteric thought — the chaotic life bound up with sleep and called the life of</span><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><i style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">dream</i><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">.</span></div></span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What is the dream? It is an activity which has survived from prehistoric times. To understand it by analogy, let us consider certain phenomena which do not any longer belong, properly speaking, to physical life — organs which have now become useless, rudimentary organisms of which the naturalist can make nothing. Such are the motor organs of the ear and eye which function no longer, the appendix, and — notably, the pineal gland in the brain, which has the form of a tiny pine cone. Naturalists explain it as a product of degeneration, as a parasitic growth in the brain. This is not correct. In the lasting creations of Nature, nothing is without its use. The pineal gland is the surviving remnant of an organ of great significance in primitive man, an organ of perception which served simultaneously as antenna, eye, and ear. This organ existed in man during his rudimentary period of development, in days when the semi-fluid, semi-vaporous Earth was still united with the Moon. Man moved through the semi-fluid, semi-gaseous element like a fish, guiding his way by means of this organ. His perceptions were of a visionary, allegoric nature. Currents of warmth evoked in him the impression of dazzling red and of powerful sound. Currents of cold evoked the impression of shades of green and blue, silvery, rippling sounds.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The rôle played by the pineal gland was thus of great significance. But with the mineralization of the Earth, other organs of sense made their appearance, and with us the pineal gland has no apparent purpose.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Let us now turn to the phenomenon of the dream.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The dream is a rudimentary function of our life — seemingly without use or purpose. In reality it represents an atrophied function — a function which in days of yore gave rise to a very different mode of perception.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Before the Earth became metallic, it was only perceptible in the astral sense. All perceptions are relative; they are merely symbolic. The central core of truth is ineffable and divine. This is wonderfully expressed in the words of <span style="color: black;">Goethe</span>: “All things transitory are but symbols.”</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Astral vision (which is still present in the dream) is allegoric and symbolic.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Examples of dreams provoked by physical and bodily causes:</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A student dreams that a companion gives him a blow, whereupon a duel is fought and he himself is wounded. He wakes up to find that the cause of the dream is a chair that has fallen over. Again, someone may dream of a trotting horse but the sound is really caused by the ticking of a watch.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The bodily nature of man lies at the root of certain dreams, but others are directly related to the astral and spiritual worlds. This latter class of dreams is the origin of myths.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the opinion of modern scholars, the myths are poetic interpretations of the phenomena of Nature. If, however, we study certain folk-legends, we shall find that they are more than this. Myths and legends are based upon astral visions which have been travestied, changed and added to by tradition.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Think of the Slavonic legend of the ‘Woman of Noonday.’ If peasants who are laboring at the harvest in the oppressive heat of summer lie down to rest on the ground at midday instead of going to their homes, the figure of a woman appears and places a number of enigmas before them. If the sleeper can solve these enigmas, he is saved; if not, the woman slays and cuts him in two with a scythe. The legend goes on to say that this phantom can be exorcised by reciting the verses of the Lord's Prayer in backward order. Occultism teaches us that the Woman of Noonday is an astral figure, an incubus who appears and oppresses man during his sleep. The reversed Lord's Prayer indicates that in the astral world everything is reflected as in a mirror (inversion). In <i>The Riddle of the Sphinx</i>, Ludwig Laistner says that the origin of the legend of the sphinx is to be found among all races. He also proves that all legends have been conceived in a condition of higher sleep where realities are perceived, and that the sphinx is in truth a daemonic figure.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A state of dream-consciousness, or perception of a real world in astral symbols — this, then, is the origin of all the myths. Myths describe the astral world seen in symbolic visions.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the course of history we find that the creation of myths ceases when the life of logic and intellectuality begins to develop.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A law known to occultism is that with every new stage of evolution, an element from the past makes its appearance. Ancient faculties, survivals from past epochs which have atrophied in the being of man, act as ferments for subsequent development; they are like the yeast which makes the dough rise. Man's present faculty of dreaming will beget a new kind of vision, a perception of the astral and spiritual world.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The man of today lives only in his senses and intellect, which elaborates what the senses tell him. The intellect of man of the future will awaken to the full light of consciousness and he will live consciously in the astral world.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The trance of the hypnotized subject and of the medium is an atavistic phenomenon, bound up with lowered consciousness. The initiated clairvoyant is not an unbalanced visionary; he possesses, in advance, the consciousness which will be possessed by all men in future ages; he has his feet on solid ground just as firmly as the most matter-of-fact human being; his reason is just as clear and certain — but he sees in two worlds.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is a law of evolution that certain organs atrophy, subsequently to take on new functions.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The pineal gland has a certain physiological relation with the lymphatic system. In olden times this gland was the organ of perception of the outer world and it is still to be seen near the top of the head of newly-born babes where the soft matter recalls the nature of man's body in olden times.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In our life of intellect, the dream plays a rôle similar to that of the pineal gland in the physiology of the human body.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Why is there a descending and an ascending process in evolution? What is the purpose of evil? These are weighty questions which have never been solved by science or religion. Yet the whole problem of education depends upon their solution.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We cannot speak of evil in the absolute sense. Evil, indeed, plays a part in the development of beings and the unfolding of freedom.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The materialist will not admit that the thoughts stimulated in us by Nature are, in fact, already contained in her being. He imagines that we infuse our thoughts into Nature.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Rosicrucians in the Middle Ages were wont to place a glass of water before the neophyte and say to him: ‘This water would not be in the glass if some being had not put it there.’ Thus it is in regard to the ideas we find expressed in Nature. They must have been implanted there by divine Intelligences, by servants of the Logos.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The thoughts we derive from the universe are actually there. All that we create is contained somewhere in the universe.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is a false idea on the part of certain mystics to disparage the value of the physical body. It has just as much value as the astral body; its mission is to become the temple of the soul.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Think of the marvelous structure of the femur, of the bone which bears the whole body. Its construction is such that the maximum amount of strength is produced with the minimum amount of substance. No engineer could create such a wonder-structure. In comparison with the physical body, the astral body — the seat of passions and desires — is rudimentary and crude.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The physical world is the expression of wisdom incarnate, divine wisdom.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Rosicrucians taught that the Earth, in primeval times, was an Earth of <i>wisdom</i>. Today we may call it an Earth of <i>love</i>. The mission of man is to accomplish for the imperfect part of his being what divine wisdom once accomplished for his physical body. He must ennoble his astral body and therewith the world around him.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">All that has entered into us <i>without</i> our conscious will under the influence of divine wisdom — that is Involution. All that we must bring out of ourselves <i>by dint of</i> conscious will — that is Evolution.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The pyramids will perish in the course of the centuries but the ideas which gave them birth will develop onwards. The cathedral of today will take another form. Raphael's pictures will fall into dust but the soul of Raphael and the ideas which his creations represent will be living powers forever. The Art of today will be the Nature of tomorrow and will blossom again in her. Thus does Involution become Evolution.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">Here we have the point of intersection between the divine and the human, the twofold power which brings God to man and raises man to God.</span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></span></div><div style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr5fiFbUdrt-PxZOoB7NaiSSvBtbquXu54n6zeJWyxtVCkvMmjw8cgfnmDLniYLj2ZBsjDOH0vUwiReg00EsQYoi3Bz7rysxpjbJK5117Tp7ryID2IiPVsho9vpofmMORiywrC2qkTqbFAHBQ9a4lEDi8PevM5zN1FyQd0lLegn9UaDIS8QHG5scuuAKfV/s360/57890_1281054886681_1839344728_557968_3749453_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="360" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr5fiFbUdrt-PxZOoB7NaiSSvBtbquXu54n6zeJWyxtVCkvMmjw8cgfnmDLniYLj2ZBsjDOH0vUwiReg00EsQYoi3Bz7rysxpjbJK5117Tp7ryID2IiPVsho9vpofmMORiywrC2qkTqbFAHBQ9a4lEDi8PevM5zN1FyQd0lLegn9UaDIS8QHG5scuuAKfV/w640-h440/57890_1281054886681_1839344728_557968_3749453_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">Source:</span><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0094/19060528p01.html" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0094/19060528p01.html</a></div></span></div></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-78787807600616346862024-03-18T03:21:00.002-04:002024-03-18T03:21:15.815-04:00The Redemption of Science. Lecture Series 3: Astronomy and its relation to the other sciences, most especially embryology. Lecture 7<p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background-color: #fffff8; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img height="640" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-17-07.gif" style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="462" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br />Adam Kadmon in the golden womb, Hiranyagarbha<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #000033; font-family: verdana; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div><br /></div><div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img alt="Figure 7 and Figure 8" height="433" src="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-01-05.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><div><span style="text-align: start;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">"'Fate' and 'soul' are two names for one concept." — <i>Novalis</i></span></b></span></div><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i></i></span></div></div><div><div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_pHc0NEKkpWeHk5bMdqW4mIVqx-fHvTRzYMzsiAXIHnUKqAYmXn83MMmaO98pObHnjBLNXg0orqTur6odi1gBsHG79nYSWme65BS6hz6CLcZ6GNAibdNZH0asyGu0qA0t6ujg_z7MBVnoi4TitJeHqKNEaZ5KK41VLxgL1rGwy8fqZ8g2-a8qe7dcbA/s599/360px-Grunewald_-_christ.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="360" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_pHc0NEKkpWeHk5bMdqW4mIVqx-fHvTRzYMzsiAXIHnUKqAYmXn83MMmaO98pObHnjBLNXg0orqTur6odi1gBsHG79nYSWme65BS6hz6CLcZ6GNAibdNZH0asyGu0qA0t6ujg_z7MBVnoi4TitJeHqKNEaZ5KK41VLxgL1rGwy8fqZ8g2-a8qe7dcbA/w385-h640/360px-Grunewald_-_christ.jpg" width="385" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">"Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.... The nature of man cannot be understood unless we are just as conscious of our connection with the stars as of our connection with the Earth." <i>— Rudolf Steiner</i></span></b></div></div></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div></div></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div></span></div></span></div></div></div></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><b>Rudolf Steiner, Stuttgart, January 7, 1921:</b></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">My dear friends!</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You will have seen how we are trying in these lectures to prepare the ground for an adequate World-picture. As I have pointed out again and again, the astronomical phenomena themselves impel us to advance from the merely quantitative to the qualitative aspect. Under the influence of Natural Science there is a tendency, in modern scholarship altogether, to neglect the qualitative side and to translate what is really qualitative into quantitative terms, or at least into rigid forms. For when we study things from a formal aspect we tend to pass quite involuntarily into rigid forms, even if we went to keep them mobile. But the question is, whether an adequate understanding of the phenomena of the Universe is possible at all in terms of rigid, formal concepts. We cannot build an astronomical World-picture until this question has been answered.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This proneness to the quantitative, abstracting from the qualitative aspect, has led to a downright mania for abstraction which is doing no little harm in scientific life, for it leads right away from reality. People will calculate for instance under what conditions, if two sound-waves are emitted one after the other, the sound omitted later will be heard before the other. All that is necessary is the trifling detail that we ourselves should be moving with a velocity greater than that of sound. But anyone who thinks in keeping with real life instead of letting his thoughts and concepts run away from the reality, will, when he finds them incompatible with the conditions of man's co-existence with his environment, stop forming concepts in this direction. He cannot but do so. There is no sense whatever in formulating concepts for situations in which one can never be.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">To be a spiritual scientist one must educate oneself to look at things in this way. The spiritual scientist will always want his concepts to be united with reality. He does not want to form concepts remote from reality, going off at a tangent, — or at least not for long. He brings them back to reality again and again. The harm that is done by the wrong kinds of hypothesis in modern time is due above all to the deficient feeling for the reality in which one lives. A conception of the world free of hypotheses, for which we strive and ought to strive, would be achieved far more quickly if we could only permeate ourselves with this sense of reality. And we should then be prepared, really to see what the phenomenal world presents. In point of fact this is not done today. If the phenomena were looked at without prejudice, quite another world-picture would arise than the world-pictures of contemporary science, from which far-fetched conclusions are deduced to no real purpose, piling one unreality upon another in merely hypothetical thought-structures.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Starting from this and from what was given yesterday, I must again introduce certain concepts which may not seem at first to be connected with our subject, though in the further course you will see that they too are necessary for the building of a true World-picture. I shall again refer to what was said yesterday in connection with the Ice-ages and with the evolution of the Earth altogether. To begin with however, we will take our start from another direction.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Our life of knowledge is made up of the sense-impressions we receive and of what comes into being when we assimilate the sense-impressions in our inner mental life. Rightly and naturally, we distinguish in our cognitional life the sense-perceptions as such and the inner life of ‘ideas’ — mental pictures. To approach the reality of this domain we must being by forming these two concepts: That of the sense-perception pure and simple, and of the sense-perception transformed and assimilated into a mental picture.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is important to see without prejudice, what is the real difference between our cognitional life insofar as this is permeated with actual sense-perceptions and insofar as it consists of mere mental picture. We need to see these things not merely side by side in an indifferent way; we need to recognize the subtle differences of quality and intensity with which they come into our inner life.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If we compare the realm of our sense-perceptions — the way in which we experience them — with our dream-life, we shall of course observe an essential qualitative difference between the two. But it is not the same as regards our inner life of ideas and mental pictures. I am referring now, not to their content but to their inner quality. Concerning this, the content — permeated as it is with reminiscences of sense-perceptions — easily deludes us. Leaving aside the actual content and looking only at its inner quality and character — the whole way we experience it, — there is no qualitative difference between our inner life in ideas and mental pictures and our life of dreams. Think of our waking life by day, or all that is present in the field of our consciousness in that we open our senses to the outer world and are thereby active in our inner life, forming mental pictures and ideas. In all this forming of mental pictures we have precisely the same kind of inner activity as in our dream-life; the only thing that is added to it is the content determined by sense-perception.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This also helps us realize that man's life of ideation — his forming of mental pictures — is a more inward process than sense-perception. Even the structure of our sense-organs — the way they are built into the body — shows it. The processes in which we live by virtue of these organs are not a little detached from the rest of the bodily organic life. As a pure matter of fact, it is far truer to describe the life of our senses as a gulf-like penetration of the outer world into our body (<a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210107p01.html#Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig. 1</a>) than as something primarily contained within the latter. Once more, it is truer to the facts to say that through the eye, for instance, we experience a gulf-like entry of the outer world. The relative detachment of the sense-organs enables us consciously to share in the domain of the outer world. Our most characteristic organs of sense are precisely the part of us which is least closely bound to the inner life and organization of the body. Our inner life of ideation on the other hand — our forming of mental pictures — is very closely bound to it. Ideation therefore is quite another element in our cognitional life than sense-perception as such. (Remember always that I am thinking of these processes such as they are at the <i>present</i>stage in human evolution.)</span></div><center><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="Fig1" name="Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699;"></a><img height="131" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-07-01.gif" width="175" /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Fig. 1</span></div></center><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now think again of what I spoke of yesterday — the evolution of the life of knowledge from one Ice-Age to another. Looking back in time, you will observe that the whole interplay of sense-perceptions with the inner life of ideation — the forming of mental pictures — has undergone a change since the last Ice-Age. If you perceive the very essence of that metamorphosis in the life of knowledge which I was describing yesterday, then you will realize that in the times immediately after the decline of the Ice-Age the human life of cognition took its start from quite another quality of experience than we have today. To describe it more definitely; whilst our cognitional life has become more permeated and determined by the senses and all that we receive from them, what we do not receive from the senses — what we received long, long ago through quite another way of living with the outer world — has faded out and vanished, ever more as time went on. This other quality — this other way of living with the world — belongs however to this day to our ideas and mental pictures. In quality they are like dreams. Fro in our dreams we have a feeling of being given up to, surrendered to the world around us. We have the same kind of experience in our mental pictures. While forming mental pictures we do not really differentiate between ourselves and the world that then surrounds us; we are quite given up to the latter. Only in the act of sense-perception do we separate ourselves from the surrounding world. Now this is just what happened to the whole character of man's cognitional life since the last Ice-Age. Self-consciousness was kindled. Again and again the feeling of the “I” lit up, and this became ever more so.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What do we come to therefore, as we go back in evolution beyond the last Ice-Age? (We are not making hypotheses; we are observing what really happened.) We come to a human life of soul, not only more dream-like than that of today, but akin to our present life of ideation rather than to our life in actual sense-perception. Now ideation — once again, the forming of mental pictures — is more closely bound to the bodily nature than is the life of the senses. Therefore what lives and works in this realm will find expression rather within the bodily nature than independently of the latter. Remembering what was said in the last few lectures, this will then lead you from the <i>daily</i> to the <i>yearly</i> influences of the surrounding world. The daily influences, as I showed, are those which tend to form our conscious picture of the world, whereas the yearly influences affect our bodily nature as such. Hence if we trace what has been going on in man's inner life, as we go back in time we are led from the conscious life of soul deeper and deeper into the bodily organic life.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In other works; before the last Ice-Age the course of the year and the seasons had a far greater influence on man than after. Man, once again, is the reagent whereby we can discern the cosmic influences which surround the Earth. Only when this is seen can we form true ideas of the relations — including even those of movement — between the Earth and the surrounding heavenly bodies. To penetrate the phenomena of movement in the Heavens, we have to take our start from man — man, the most sensitive of instruments, if I may call him so. And to this end we need to know man; we must be able to discern what belongs to the one realm, namely the influences of the day, and to the other, the influences of the year.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Those who have made a more intensive study of Anthroposophical Science may be reminded here of what I have often described from spiritual perception; the conditions of life in old Atlantis, that is before the last Ice-Age. For I was there describing from another aspect — namely from direct spiritual sight — the very same things which we are here approaching more by the light of reason, taking our start from the facts of the external world.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We are led back then to a kind of interplay between the Earth and its celestial environment which gave men an inner life of ideation — mental pictures — and which was afterwards transmuted in such a way as to give rise to the life of sense-perception in its present form. (The life of the senses as such is of course a much wider concept; we are here referring to the form it takes in present time.)</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But we must make a yet more subtle distinction. It is true that self-consciousness or Ego-consciousness, such as we have it in our ordinary life today, is only kindled in us in the moment of awakening. Self-consciousness trikes in upon us the moment we awaken. It is our relation to the outer world — that relation to it, into which we enter by the use of our senses — to which we owe our self-consciousness. But if we really analyze what it is that thus strikes in upon us, we shall perceive the following. If our inner life in mental pictures retained its dream-like quality and only the life of the senses were added to it, something would still be lacking. Our concepts would remain like the concepts of fantasy or fancy (I do not say identical with these, but like them). We should not get the sharply outlined concepts which we need for outer life. Simultaneously therefore with the life of the senses, something flows into us from the outer world which gives sharp outlines and contours to the mental pictures of our every-day cognitional life. This too is given to us by the outer world. Were it not for this, the mere interplay of sensory effects with the forming of ideas and mental pictures would bring about in us a life of fantasy or fancy and nothing more; we should never achieve the sharp precision of every-day waking life.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now let us look at the different phenomena quite simply in Goethe's way, or — as has since been said, rather more abstractly — in Kizchhoff's way. Before doing so I must however make another incidental remark, Scientists nowadays speak of a “physiology of the senses”, and even try to build on this foundation a “psychology of the senses”, of which there are different schools. But if you see things as they are, you will find little reality under these headings. In effect, our senses are so radically different from one-another that a “Physiology of the senses”, claiming to treat them all together, can at more be highly abstract. All that emerges, in the last resort, is a rather scanty and even then very questionable physiology and psychology of the sense of touch, which is transferred by analogy to the other senses. If you look for what is real, you will require a distinct physiology and a distinct psychology for every one of the senses.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Provided we remember this, we may proceed. With all the necessary qualifications, we can then say the following. Look at the human eye. (I cannot now repeat the elementary details which you can find in any scientific text-book.) Look at the human eye, one of the organs giving us impressions of the outer world, — sense-impressions and also what gives them form and contour. These impressions, received through the eye, are — once again — connected with all the mental pictures which we then make of them in our inner life.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Let us now make the clear distinction, so as to perceive what underlies the sharp outline and configuration which makes our mental images more than mere pictures of fancy, giving them clear and precise outline. We will distinguish this from the whole realm of imagery where this clarity and sharpness is not to be found, — where in effect we should be living in fantasies. Even through what we experience with the help of our sense-organs — and what our inner faculty of ideation makes of it — we should still be floating in a realm of fancies. It is through the <i>outer</i> world that all this imagery receives clear outline, finished contours. It is through something from the outer world, which in a certain way comes into a definite relation to our eye.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And now look around. Transfer, what we have thus recognized as regards the human eye, to the human being as a whole. Look for it, simply and empirically, in the human being as a whole. Where do we find — though in a metamorphosed form — what makes a similar impression? We find it in the process of <i>fertilization</i>. The relation of the human being as a whole — the female human body — to the environment is, in a metamorphosed form, the same as the relation of the eye to the environment. To one who is ready to enter into these things it will be fully clear. Only translated, one might say, into the material domain, the female life is the life of fantasy or fancy of the Universe, whereas the male is that which forms the contours and sharp outlines. It is the male which transforms the undetermined life of fancy into a life of determined form and outline. Seen in the way we have described in today's lecture, the process of <i>sight</i> is none other than a direct metamorphosis of that of fertilization; and vice-versa.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We cannot reach workable ideas about the Universe without entering into such things as these. I am only sorry that I can do no more than indicate them, but after all, these lectures are meant as a stimulus to further work. This I conceive to be the purpose of such lectures; as an outcome, every one of you should be able to go on working in one or other of the directions indicated. I only want to show the directions; they can be followed up in diverse ways. There are indeed countless possibilities in our time, to carry scientific methods of research into new directions. Only we need to lay more stress on the qualitative aspects, even in those domains where one has grown accustomed to a mere quantitative treatment.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What do we do, in quantitative treatment? Mathematics is the obvious example; ‘Phoronomy’ (Kinematics) is another. We ourselves first develop such a science, and we then look to find its truths in the external, empirical reality. But in approaching the empirical reality in its completeness we need more than this. We need a richer content to approach it with, than merely mathematical and phoronomical ideas. Approach the world with the premises of Phoronomy and Mathematics, and we shall naturally find starry worlds, or developmental mechanisms as the case may be, phoronomically and mathematically ordered. We shall find other contents in the world if once we take our start from other realms than the mathematical and phoronomical. Even in experimental research we shall do so.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The clear differentiation between the life of the senses and the organic life of the human being as a whole had not yet taken place in the time preceding the last Ice-Age. The human being still enjoyed a more synthetic, more ‘single’ organic life. Since the last Ice-Age man's organic life has undergone, as one might say, a very real ‘analysis’. This too is an indication that the relation of the Earth to the Sun was different before the last Ice-Age from what it afterwards became. This is the kind of premise from which we have to take our start, so as to reach genuine pictures and ideas about the Universe in its relation to the Earth and man.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Moreover our attention is here drawn to another question, my dear Friends. To what extent is ‘Euclidean space’ — the name, of course, does not matter — I mean the space which is characterized by three rigid directions at right angles to each other. This, surely, is a rough and ready definition of Euclidean space. I might also call it ‘Kantian space’, for Kant's arguments are based on this assumption. Now as regards this Euclidean — or, if you will, Kantian — space we have to put the question: Does it correspond to a reality, or is it only a thought-picture, an abstraction? After all, it might well be that there is really no such thing as this rigid space. Now you will have to admit; when we do analytical geometry we start with the assumption that the X-, Y- and Z-axes may be taken in this immobile way. We assume that this inner rigidity of the X, Y and Z has something to do with the real world. What if there were nothing after all, in the realms of reality, to justify our setting up the three coordinate axes of analytical geometry in this rigid way? Then too the whole of our Euclidean Mathematics would be at most a kind of approximation to the reality — an approximation which we ourselves develop in our inner life, — convenient framework with which to approach it in the first place. It would not hold out any promise, when applied to the real world, to give us real information.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The question now is, are there any indications pointing in this direction, — suggesting, in effect, that this rigidity of space can not, after all, be maintained? I know, what I am here approaching will cause great difficulty to many people of today, for the simple reason that they do not keep step with reality in their thinking. They think you can rely upon an endless chain of concepts, deducing one thing logically from another, drawing logical and mathematical conclusions without limit. In contrast to this tendency in science nowadays, we have to learn to think with the reality, — not to permit ourselves merely to entertain a thought-picture without at least looking to see whether or not it is in accord with reality. So in this instance, we should investigate. Perhaps after all, by looking into the world of concrete things, there is some way of reaching a more <i>qualitative</i> determination of space.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I am aware, my dear Friends, that the ideas I shall now set forth will meet with great resistance. Yet it is necessary to draw attention to such things. The theory of evolution has entered ever more into the different fields of science. They even began applying it to Astronomy. (This phase, perhaps, is over now, but it was so a little while ago.) They began to speak of a kind of natural selection. Then as the radical Darwinians would do for living organisms, so they began to attribute the genesis of heavenly bodies to a kind of natural selection, as though the eventual form of our solar system had arisen by selection from among all the bodies that had first been ejected. Even this theory was once put forward. There is this p to the whole Universe the leading ideas that have once been gaining some particular domain of science.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">So too it came about that man was simply placed at the latter end of the evolutionary series of the animal kingdom. Human morphology, physiology etc. were thus interpreted. But the question is whether this kind of investigation can do justice to man's organization in its totality. For, to begin with, it omits what is most striking and essential even from a purely empirical point of view. One saw the evolutionists of Haechel's school simply counting how many bones, muscles and so on man and the higher animals respectively possess. Counting in that way, one can hardly do otherwise than put man at the end of the animal kingdom. Yet it is quite another matter when you envisage what is evident for all eyes to see, namely that the spine of man is vertical while that of the animal is mainly horizontal. Approximate though this may be, it is definite and evident. The deviations in certain animals — looked into empirically — will prove to be of definite significance in each single case. Where the direction of the spine is turned towards the vertical, corresponding changes are called forth in the animal as a whole. But the essential thing is to observe this very characteristic difference between man and animal. The human spine follows the vertical direction of the radius of the Earth, whereas the animal spine is parallel to the Earth's surface. Here you have purely spatial phenomena with a quite evident inner differentiation, inasmuch as they apply to the whole figure and formation of the animal and man. Taking our start from the realities of the world, we cannot treat the horizontal in the same way as the vertical. Enter into the reality of space — see what is happening in space, such as it really is, — you cannot possibly regard the horizontal as though it were equivalent or interchangeable with the vertical dimension.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now there is a further consequence of this. Look at the animal form and at the form of man. We will take our start from the animal, and please fill in for yourselves on some convenient occasion what I shall now be indicating. I mean, observe and contemplate for yourselves the skeleton of an mammal. The usual reflections in this realm are not nearly concrete enough; they do not enter thoroughly enough into the details.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Consider then the skeleton of an animal. I will go no farther than the skeleton, but what I say of this is true in an even higher degree of the other parts and systems in the human and animal body. Look at the obvious differentiation, comparing the skull with the opposite end of the animal. If you do this with morphological insight, you will perceive characteristic harmonies or agreements, and also characteristic diversities. Here is a line of research which should be followed in far greater detail. Here is something to be seen and recognized, which will lead far more deeply into realty than scientists today are wont to go.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It lies in the very nature of these lectures that I can only hint at such things, leaving out many an intervening link. I must appeal to your own intuition, trusting you to think it out and fill in what is missing between one lecture and the next. You will then see how all these things are connected. If I did otherwise in these few lectures, we should not reach the desired end.</span></div><center><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="Fig2" name="Fig2" style="background: transparent; color: #336699;"></a><img height="114" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-07-02.gif" width="200" /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Fig. 2</span></div></center><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Diagrammatically now (<a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210107p01.html#Fig2" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig. 2</a>), let this be the animal form. If after going into an untold number of intervening links in the investigation, you put the question: ‘What is the characteristic difference of the front and the back, the head and the tail end due to?’, you will reach a very interesting conclusion. Namely you will connect the differentiation of the front end with the influences of the Sun. Here is the Earth (<a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210107p01.html#Fig3" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig. 3</a>). You have an animal on the side of the Earth exposed to the Sun. Now take the side of the Earth that is turned away from the Sun. In one way or another it will come about that the animal is on this other side. Here too the Sun's rays will be influencing the animal, but the earth is now between. In the one case the rays of the Sun are working on the animal directly; in the other case indirectly, inasmuch as the Earth is between and the Sun's rays first have to pass through the Earth (<a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210107p01.html#Fig3" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig. 3</a>).</span></div><center><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="Fig3" name="Fig3" style="background: transparent; color: #336699;"></a><img height="91" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-07-03.gif" width="200" /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Fig. 3</span></div></center><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Expose the animal form to the direct influence of the Sun and you get the head. Expose the animal to those rays of the Sun which have first gone through the Earth and you get the opposite pole to the head. Study the skull, so as to recognize in it the direct outcome of the influences of the Sun. Study the forms, the whole morphology of the opposite pole, so as to recognize the working of the Sun's rays before which the Earth is interposed — the indirect rays of the Sun. Thus the morphology of the animal itself draws our attention to a certain interrelation between Earth and Sun. For a true knowledge of the mutual relations of Earth and Sun we must create the requisite conditions, not by the mere visual appearance (even though the eye be armed with telescopes), but by perceiving also how the animal is formed — how the whole animal form comes into being.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now think again of how the human spine is displaced through right angle in relation to the animal. All the effects which we have been describing will undergo further modification where man is concerned. The influences of the Sun will therefore be different in man than in the animal. The way it works in man will be like a resultant (<a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210107p01.html#Fig4" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig. 4</a>). That is to say, if we symbolize the horizontal line — whether it represent the direct or the indirect influence of the Sun — by <i>this</i> length, we shall have to say; <i>here</i> is a vertical line; this also will be acting. And we shall only get what really works in man by forming the resultant of the two.</span></div><center><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="Fig4" name="Fig4" style="background: transparent; color: #336699;"></a><img height="82" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-07-04.gif" width="200" /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Fig. 4</span></div></center><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Suppose in other words that we are led to relate animal formation quite fundamentally to some form of cosmic movement — say, a rotation of the Sun about the Earth, or a rotation of the Earth about its own axis. If then this movement underlies animal formation, we shall be led inevitably to attribute to the Earth or to the Sun yet another movement, related to the forming of man himself, — a movement which, for its ultimate effect, unites to a resultant with the first. From what emerges in man and in the animal we must derive the basis for a true recognition of the mutual movements among the heavenly bodies.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The study of Astronomy will thus be lifted right out of its present limited domain, where one merely takes the outward visual appearance, even if calling in the aid of telescopes, mathematical calculations and mechanics. It will be lifted into what finds expression in this most sensitive of instruments, the living body. The forming forces working in the animal, and then again in man, are a clear indication of the real movements in celestial space.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This is indeed a kind of qualitative Mathematics. How, then, shall we metamorphose the idea when we pass on from the animal to the plant? We can no longer make use of either of the two directions we have hitherto been using. Admittedly, it might appear as though the vertical direction of the plant coincided with that of the human spine. From the aspect of Euclidean space it does, no doubt (Euclidean space, that is to say, not with respect to detailed configuration but simply with respect to its rigidity.) But it will not be the same in an inherently mobile space. I mean a space, the dimensions of which are so inherently mobile that in the relevant equations, for example, we cannot merely equate the x- and the y-dimensions: y = ƒ(x). (The equation might be written very differently from this. You will see what I intend more from the words I use than from the symbols; it is by no means easy to express in mathematical form.) In a co-ordinate system answering to what I now intend, it would no longer be permissible to measure the ordinates with the same inherent measures as the abscissae. We could not keep the measures rigid when passing from the one to the other. We should be led in this way from the rigid co-ordinate system of Euclidean space to a co-ordinate system that is inherently mobile.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And if we now once more ask the question: How are the vertical directions of plant growth and of human growth respectively related? — we shall be led to differentiate one vertical from another. The question is, then, how to find the way to a different idea of space from the rigid one of Euclid. For it may well be that the celestial phenomena can only be understood in terms of quite another kind of space — neither Euclidean, nor any abstractly conceived space of modern Mathematics, but a form of space derived from the reality itself. if this is so, then there is no alternative; it is in such a space and not in the rigid space of Euclid that we shall have to understand them.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Thus we are led into quite other realms, namely to the Ice-Age on the one hand and on the other to a much needed reform of the Euclidean idea of space. But this reform will be in a different spirit than in the work of Minkowski and others. Simply in contemplating the given facts and trying to build up a science free of hypotheses, we are confronted with the need for a thoroughgoing revision of the concept of space itself. Of these things we shall speak again tomorrow.</span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210105p01.html">https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210105p01.html</a></span></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-90407758826103814772024-03-17T12:22:00.000-04:002024-03-17T12:22:06.158-04:00God, Man, Nature. The Philosopher's Stone and Love; Lucifer<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaEAYEtoitynYxmSlYZj2cHhFmn3L0YLAGyTXiJBsYrwVwZC1IfYHo9bi6FGYv0BbBXQth0006VnMCpTlgZ61jmE9fGG5wiFhuYkHeQ10eeQNWgPUhvox1I6OzcuAoaJtz1EgSL2bwpbKQrdHHaGgE7LNK-nHGdpyCDsf54BSUTr78mCpMT-aIBeIVYmQH/s1426/7th%20seal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1426" data-original-width="1426" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaEAYEtoitynYxmSlYZj2cHhFmn3L0YLAGyTXiJBsYrwVwZC1IfYHo9bi6FGYv0BbBXQth0006VnMCpTlgZ61jmE9fGG5wiFhuYkHeQ10eeQNWgPUhvox1I6OzcuAoaJtz1EgSL2bwpbKQrdHHaGgE7LNK-nHGdpyCDsf54BSUTr78mCpMT-aIBeIVYmQH/w640-h640/7th%20seal.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><em><div style="text-align: center;"><em>An Esoteric Cosmology. Lecture 3 of 18</em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><br /></em></div></em><em><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Notes of an audience member of a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Paris on May 27, 1906:</em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><br /></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><br /></em></div></em></span><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">One of the fundamental tenets of occultism, founded on the law of analogies, is that Nature can reveal to us what is taking place within our own being.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A striking and typical example of this law, but one which is wholly ignored by orthodox science, is given in the Philosopher's Stone, known to the Rosicrucians. In a German magazine published at the end of the eighteenth century we find mention of this Philosopher's Stone. It is spoken of as something quite real and the writer says: “Everyone contacts it frequently although he knows it not.” This is literally true. In order to understand this mystery we must penetrate into the laboratory of Nature even more deeply than is the habit of modern science.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">All the world knows that man inhales oxygen and exhales carbonic acid. In Yoga this has both a physical and spiritual significance. Man cannot inhale carbonic acid for the purposes of nourishing his being. He would die, whereas the carbonic acid keeps the plants alive. The plants provide man with the oxygen which gives him life; they renew the air and make it fit to breathe. On the other side, man and the animals provide the plants with the carbonic acid by which they, in their turn, are nourished. What does the plant do with the carbonic acid it absorbs? It builds up its own body. We know that the corpse of the plant is coal. Coal is thus crystallized carbonic acid.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The red blood in man must be refreshed and renewed with oxygen, for the carbonic acid cannot be used for the purpose of building up the body. The exercises of Yoga are a training which enables man to make the red blood into a body-builder. In this sense the Yogi works at his body by means of his blood, just as the plant works with the carbonic acid.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Thus we see that the power of transmutation in Nature is represented in coal, which is a crystallized plant. The Philosopher's Stone, in its most general sense, signifies this power of transmutation.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The law of regression, as well as the law of ascension, is true for all beings. The minerals are plants which have degenerated; the plants are the remnants of animal life; animals and man (his physical body) have a common ancestor. Man has ascended, the animal has descended. The spiritual part of man proceeds from the Gods. In this sense, man is a God who has degenerated, and Lamartine's words are literally true: “Man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens.”</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There was an epoch when all life on the Earth was semi-plant and semi-animal. The Earth herself was, as it were, a great animal-being. Her whole surface was one mass of peat-like ‘turf’ with gigantic forest growing from it. This is the epoch when the Earth and the Moon were united in one body. The Moon represents the feminine element of the Earth.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There are beings whose progress is checked, who remain at a lower stage of evolution. The <i>mistletoe</i>, for instance, is a token of this ancient epoch. It is a survival of the parasitic plant-beings which once lived on the Earth as upon a plant. Hence its peculiar, occult properties, known to the Druids, who spoke of it as the most sacred of all plants. Mistletoe is a survival from the lunar epoch of the Earth. It is parasitic because it has not learned, like other plants, to live directly upon mineral substance.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Disease is something of an analogy. It is a regression, caused by the parasitic elements in the organism. The Druids and the Skalds knew of the relation between the mistletoe and man. There is an echo of this in the legend of Baldur. The God Baldur is put to death by the mistletoe because the mistletoe is a hostile element from the preceding epoch — an element no longer united with man. The other plants, having adapted themselves to the subsequent epoch, swore friendship to him.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When this plant-earth became mineral, it acquired, through the metals, a new property — that of reflecting the light.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A star is visible in the heavens only when it has become mineral. Thus there are many heavenly bodies imperceptible to the physical eye of man and visible only to clairvoyant vision.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Earth has been “mineralized;” so also has the physical body of man. But the characteristic feature of man is that a twofold movement takes places in him. As a physical being, man has descended; as a spiritual being he has ascended. St. Paul spoke of this truth when he declared that there is one law for the body and another for the Spirit. Thus man represents both an end and a beginning.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The vital point, the point of intersection and of change in the ascending life of man, lies at the time of the separation of the sexes. There was an age when the two sexes were united in the being of man. Even <span style="color: black;">Darwin</span> recognized this as a probability. As the result of the separation of the sexes, a new, all-embracing element came to birth: the element of love. The attraction of love is so powerful, so mysterious, that tropical butterflies of different sexes, brought to Europe and then released to the air, will fly back again and meet each other halfway.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is some analogy between the relations established by the world of man with the divine world and by the human kingdom with the animal kingdom. Oxygen and carbonic acid are in-breathed and out-breathed by man. The plant-kingdom breathes out oxygen; man breathes out <i>love</i> — since the separation of the sexes. The Gods are nourished by this effluence of love.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">How comes it that the animals and man out-breathe love?</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The occultist sees in the man of today a being in the full swing of evolution. Man is at the same time a fallen God and a God in the becoming.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The kingdom of the heavens is nourished by the effluence of human love. Ancient Greek mythology expresses this reality when it speaks of nectar and ambrosia. The Gods are so far above man that their natural tendency would be to subjugate him. But there is a halfway state of being between man and the Gods, just as the mistletoe is halfway between the plant and the animal. It is represented by Lucifer and the Luciferian element.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The interest of the Gods is the element of human love, by means of which their life is sustained.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When Lucifer, in the form of the serpent, induces man to seek for knowledge, Jehovah is wrath. Lucifer is here understood as the fallen God who instills into man the desire for personal knowledge. This sets him in opposition to the Divine Will which has created him in its image.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Rosicrucian science explains the rôle of Lucifer in the world. We shall return to this later on. Here we will merely recall the following saying of the Rosicrucian Order: “Know, O man, that through thy being flows a current which ascends and a current which descends.”</span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0094/19060527p01.html">http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0094/19060527p01.html</a></span></div></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-57870615900179082382024-03-17T06:46:00.000-04:002024-03-17T06:46:21.977-04:00O Spirit of God, I make my service unto you<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvOBanmV6zf92P6pKH7AATh2gUbGLZqgf3Vj0qxTVw6ogf6q2fvutv3KbthjrjKCqjsaLSe8eCIOdLzQZBdHhbUEraMlgG9e2XiSmYDTvEL2xNh-2hcpNyISk1Me-eDH1h6KQKZCIc8KfuMw2WJXbEX-bkjU-C2aK7tNVWu3px7IpZz1B_hh4SmSjgPDI-/s438/18622517_1384833214927004_4830341365883355709_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="438" height="481" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvOBanmV6zf92P6pKH7AATh2gUbGLZqgf3Vj0qxTVw6ogf6q2fvutv3KbthjrjKCqjsaLSe8eCIOdLzQZBdHhbUEraMlgG9e2XiSmYDTvEL2xNh-2hcpNyISk1Me-eDH1h6KQKZCIc8KfuMw2WJXbEX-bkjU-C2aK7tNVWu3px7IpZz1B_hh4SmSjgPDI-/w640-h481/18622517_1384833214927004_4830341365883355709_n.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><br /></span><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK1aCGuZcUt9uoMrTDTZVo3LxyCwnkKcJXyF8DJsufbcCgg51kWCD1uXbHYnwAktBWcD2Za677-mUsvf3knr7W74bBXnuWrPQKejyTPCejLi80B-DM1G-40Lvz_ygpalYVSuKNSKWX_duK-XTSFJidptvKKYk0dDj_vJxsRmDpNbfu7kjOG2w25iDBbtyl/s720/dcdcb8ccd5b8696fec1ccfe8d2560af6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="502" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK1aCGuZcUt9uoMrTDTZVo3LxyCwnkKcJXyF8DJsufbcCgg51kWCD1uXbHYnwAktBWcD2Za677-mUsvf3knr7W74bBXnuWrPQKejyTPCejLi80B-DM1G-40Lvz_ygpalYVSuKNSKWX_duK-XTSFJidptvKKYk0dDj_vJxsRmDpNbfu7kjOG2w25iDBbtyl/w446-h640/dcdcb8ccd5b8696fec1ccfe8d2560af6.jpg" width="446" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="post-header" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #999999; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-9034184622752341498" itemprop="description articleBody" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; orphans: 2; position: relative; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; width: 578px; word-spacing: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div></div><p></p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; position: relative; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>from "Sunday Service for Young Children" by Rudolf Steiner:</i></span></h3><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is no liturgical garb. In all services, the parents, their substitutes, and the teachers lead in the students and then take their places at the rear of the room. Just before the service and even before the students are admitted, the lead celebrant says:</span></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;">By your power, O Spirit of God,</b></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;">I will direct to you</b></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;">The souls entrusted to me.</b></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><br /></b></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;">Your light illumines the center of my thinking.</b></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;">Your warmth fills the center of my compassion.</b></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;">Your penetrating soul power irradiates my willing body.</b></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><br /></b></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;">I make my service unto you.</b></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: "Spiritual Science Is Practical"</span></p><p> <a href="https://888spiritualscience.blogspot.com/2017/05/sunday-service-for-young-children.html?fbclid=IwAR31Hk6FxK2Ju0ZW-HAFqYktCtDqzlZMI3eFaslIs_BvixVacqIZakEg-qI"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">5/23/2017</span></a></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-50743551519733404082024-03-17T05:47:00.002-04:002024-03-17T05:47:14.679-04:00Macrocosm and Microcosm. The Redemption of Science. Lecture Series 3: Astronomy. Lecture 6<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background-color: #fffff8; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img height="640" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-17-07.gif" style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="462" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br />Adam Kadmon in the golden womb, Hiranyagarbha<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #000033; font-family: verdana; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div><br /></div><div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img alt="Figure 7 and Figure 8" height="433" src="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-01-05.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><div><span style="text-align: start;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">"'Fate' and 'soul' are two names for one concept." — <i>Novalis</i></span></b></span></div><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i></i></span></div></div><div><div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_pHc0NEKkpWeHk5bMdqW4mIVqx-fHvTRzYMzsiAXIHnUKqAYmXn83MMmaO98pObHnjBLNXg0orqTur6odi1gBsHG79nYSWme65BS6hz6CLcZ6GNAibdNZH0asyGu0qA0t6ujg_z7MBVnoi4TitJeHqKNEaZ5KK41VLxgL1rGwy8fqZ8g2-a8qe7dcbA/s599/360px-Grunewald_-_christ.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="360" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_pHc0NEKkpWeHk5bMdqW4mIVqx-fHvTRzYMzsiAXIHnUKqAYmXn83MMmaO98pObHnjBLNXg0orqTur6odi1gBsHG79nYSWme65BS6hz6CLcZ6GNAibdNZH0asyGu0qA0t6ujg_z7MBVnoi4TitJeHqKNEaZ5KK41VLxgL1rGwy8fqZ8g2-a8qe7dcbA/w385-h640/360px-Grunewald_-_christ.jpg" width="385" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">"Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.... The nature of man cannot be understood unless we are just as conscious of our connection with the stars as of our connection with the Earth." <i>— Rudolf Steiner</i></span></b></div></div></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div></div></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div></span></div></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><b>Rudolf Steiner, Stuttgart, January 6, 1921:</b></i></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">My dear friends!</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You will have seen, from what has been said so far, that in the explanation of natural phenomena we need to find a path leading beyond the intellectually mathematical domain. That we do not dispute the justification of a mathematical approach is implicit in the whole spirit of these lectures. But we were able sharply to define the point beyond which it is impossible to go with mathematical thought-forms, in the celestial spaces on the one hand, and in the realm of embryology on the other. We must hew out a path to other methods of cognition. It is the purpose of these lectures to show the scientific need of other methods.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I shall try to show that what is looked for nowadays merely by gazing outward into celestial space — whether with the unaided eye or with the help of optical instruments — needs to be put on a far wider basis, so that not only a part but the whole of man becomes the ‘reagent’ for a deeper penetration of the Heavens. Today I shall try, if not to prove, at least to indicate the validity of such a widening of method, by approaching the problem from quite another side. It may seem paradoxical in relation to our present theme, but the reason will soon become plain.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In studying the evolution of mankind on Earth we must surely find something within human evolution itself to guide us to the essential source of the celestial phenomena. For otherwise we should be assuming that what goes on in the Universe beyond the Earth is without influence on man, — on human evolution. No-one will make such an assumption, although admittedly the influences may be over-estimated by some and under-estimated by others. It will therefore be plausible — at least from a methodic point of view — to put the question: ‘Can we find anything in the evolution of mankind itself to indicate ways of access to the secrets of celestial space?’ Asking this question, we will take our start, not from Spiritual Science, but from the facts which anyone can gather for himself by empirical, historical research.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Looking back in the evolution of mankind in the realm where human thoughts, the human faculties of knowledge find expression, where, so to speak, the relation of man to the world takes on the most highly sublimated forms — we are led back, to begin with (as you may gather from my ‘Riddles of Philosophy’), only a few centuries into the past. Indeed I have often pointed to a certain moment during the 15th century, one of the most essential in the more recent phase of human evolution. The indication is of course approximate. We have to think of the period about the middle of the Middle Ages. Needless to say, we are referring only to what was going on within civilized mankind.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is not generally seen clearly or sharply enough, how deep and incisive a change was then taking place in human thought and cognition. There has unfortunately for some time been a downright aversion — among philosophers especially — to a real study and appreciation of the epoch in European civilization which may be called the <i>Age of Scholasticism</i>. During that age, deeply significant questions came to the surface of man's life of knowledge. It one goes into them deeply enough, one feels that these questions did not merely spring from the realm of logical deduction — the form in which the Middle Ages used to clothe them — but from the very depths of man's being.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">One need only recall what then became a fundamental question in human knowledge — the question of Nominalism and Realism. Or again, what it betokened in the spiritual development of Europe that attempts were made to prove the existence of God. There was for instance the so-called ontological proof of the existence of God. From thought itself — from the pure concept — men wanted confirmation of God's existence. Think what it means in the whole evolution of human knowledge. Something was stirring in the inmost depths of human being; in the philosophical deductions of the time it only found fully conscious expression. Men were perplexed as to whether the concepts and ideas, which man forms and puts into words, in some way stand for a reality, or whether they are merely formal summarizations of the external sensory data. The Nominalists regarded the general concepts which man creates for himself as a mere formal summary, having no significance for the external reality but only helping man to find his way about — to orientate himself in an otherwise confusing outer world. The Realists (an expression used in a rather different sense than today) declared that something real is to be found in general or universal concepts, — that in these concepts man in his inner life takes hold of something <i>real</i>, — that they are no mere convenient generalizations or abstractions from the world.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Often in more public lectures I have related how my old friend Vinsenz Knauer — a latter-day scholastic, though he would not have claimed to be one — showed himself very clearly, in his interesting work “The Central Problems of Philosophy, from Thales to Robert Hamerling”, to be thoroughgoing Realist. The Nominalists, he said, assert that the concept ‘lamb’ is nothing but a convenient generalization arising in the human mind; so too the concept ‘wolf’. Matter is only put together in a different way in the lamb and in the world. We only summarize it in the convenient abstraction, ‘lamb’ or ‘wolf’ as the case may be. Well, he suggested, try for some time to keep a wolf away from all other food and give it only lambs to eat, after the necessary lapse of time the matter in the wolf will be nothing but lamb, and yet it will not have lost its wolfishness. Therefore the wolf-nature, expressed in the general concept ‘wolf’ must be something real.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now the fact that the so-called ‘ontological’ proof of God's existence could arise at all, bears witness to a deep and thorough going change then taking place in human nature. Quite a short time before, it simply would not have occurred to anyone within European culture to want to prove God's existence, for this was felt to be self-evident. Only when this feeling was no longer alive in men, did they begin to crave for proof. If you have living inner certainty about a thing, you do not want to prove it. But at that time something was slipping away from man, which until then had been alive in him quite as a matter of course, and the human spirit was thus led into quite other channels — quite other needs. I could adduce many another example, showing precisely at the highest levels of thought and knowledge (though you may take the word 'highest' with a grain of salt) what a deep stirring and rumbling was going on in human nature during that period of the Middle Ages.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now we can surely not deny that there must be some connection between what is going on in the life of mankind and the phenomena in the Heavens beyond the Earth. In the most general sense, we must assume that there is some connection; what it is in detail, we shall discover in due course. Hence we may ask — we want to proceed very carefully, so we need only <i>ask</i> — ‘How were these inner experiences which man on Earth was undergoing at that time, connected with the evolution of the Earth-plant altogether?’, — a question which may obviously lead us into realms beyond the earth. Was it perhaps a special moment in the evolution of the Earth a such? Is there anything that we can point to as a more definite criterion of what this moment was in human evolution?</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We can indeed point to something of significance in this connection. There was another time which made a deep incision in the name regions of the Earth where in the Middle Ages these events were taking place in the most highly sublimated realm of human life the spiritual life of thought. The medieval time, when this deep moving and stirring of humanity took place, lies in the very midst between two end-points, as it were, in the scale of time. For European regions these ‘end-points’ do not represent the kind of times in which intense activity of human life and culture would be possible at all. In effect, if from this medieval moment, which I will call A (<a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210106v01.html#Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig. 1</a>), we go backward and forward an equal length of time into a fairly distant past and future, we come to points of time representing a certain barrenness and death of civilization in the very regions where this deep stirring of human life was going on in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. About 10,000 years forward and 10,000 years back from this moment (A in <a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210106v01.html#Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Figure 1</a>) we reach the maximum development of the Ice Ages in these very regions Ice Ages certainly would not allow of any outstanding development in human life and culture.</span></div><center><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img height="112" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-06-01.gif" width="250" /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: left;">Fig. 1</div></span></center><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Surveying therefore the evolution of these European regions we find an Ice Age — a laying-waste of civilization — 10,000 years before the Christian era, and we should find the same again 10,000 years after this time. The deep stirring of human life, of which we have been speaking, happened midway between two such barren epochs.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">As I said just now, there is a certain reluctance to pay attention to this period in the development of philosophy — the 13th and 14th centuries; — it is not seen clearly and accurately for what it is. Yet if one has a feeling for the evolution of the life of knowledge in mankind, one is aware that to this day our philosophic history is influenced by the after-effects of what was stirring and rumbling in the life of mankind at that time. It showed itself in other domains of civilization too; it only came to expression most clearly and symptomatically in this phase of development of the life of thought and knowledge.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now as you know, this phase of development — appearing about the middle of the Middle Ages — was an incisive one in European civilization. I have often spoken of it in anthroposophical lectures. It was an incision. Something was changed in the whole trend of human evolution. It had been beginning long before — in the 8th century B.C. We may describe it as a most intense development of human <i>intellectuality</i>.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Since then, in the life and civilization of mankind, we have been looking especially at the development of Ego-consciousness. All aberrations and all wisdom gained in the general life of humanity since that medieval time are really due to this Ego-development to the ever-growing elaboration of the consciousness of “I” in man. The consciousness of the ancient Greeks and even of the Latins (both the ancient Latins and their descendants, the Latin peoples of today) did not lay so much stress on the Ego. Even in language for the most part, in grammar and syntax, they do not pronounce the “I” so outspokenly, but still include it in the verb. The “I” is not yet so blatantly set forth. Take Aristotle and Plato, and above all the greatest philosopher of antiquity, Heraclitus. Throughout their work the Ego is not yet so prominent. The way in which they take hold of the world-phenomena with the intellectual reasoning principle is as yet rather more selfless. (Please do not over stress this, but in a relative sense the word ‘selfless’ may be used.) There is not yet so sharp a dissociation of the self from the world-phenomena as there tends to be in the new age — the Age of Consciousness in which we are now living.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Going still farther back — beyond the 8th century BC — we come into the Egyptian and Chaldean Age as I have called it (you will find the details in my “Occult Science”). Once again, the condition of the human soul was different. During this age — which like the others, lasted for over 2,000 years — man was not yet relating external phenomena to one-another by intellectual reasoning at all. He apprehended the world — the Heavens too — rather in feeling and direct sensation. It is mistaken and fruitless to approach what is still extent of the Astronomy of Egypt and Chalden with present-day intellectual judgments — the kind of judgment which we ourselves have inherited from the Graeco-Latin Age. We must achieve a certain metamorphoses or soul so as to enter into the quite different soul-condition then prevailing, where man took hold of the world in simple feeling and sensation (where the concept was not yet separated from the sensation).</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Even in the realm of actual sensations or sense-impressions — as can be shown historically and philologically — they attached no great importance to the precise description of the blue and violet shades of color, whereas (they had a very keen sensation of the red and yellow regions of the spectrum. Indeed the sensation of the dark colors can be seen to have arisen simultaneously with the capacity for intellectual concepts.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Egypto-Chaldean Age — from 747 B.C. about 2160 years into the past, — takes us to the beginning of the third millennium BC. Still earlier, say in the fourth or fifth millennium BC, we come into an age when man's whole outlook and mode of perception were so different from ours today that it is hard for us, without recourse to spiritual-scientific methods, to transplant ourselves at all into the way in which the man of that time was the world around him. It was not only a feeling and sensing, — it was a living <i>with</i> the outer happenings, being right <i>in</i> them. Man felt himself a part and member of all Nature around him, much as my arm, if it were conscious, would feel itself a member of my body.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Here therefore was an altogether different trend and quality in man's relation to the world. And if we go still farther back, we find this union of man with the surround world even more enhanced. In those very early times, civilizations were only able to develop where special geographical conditions made it possible. I mean the time described in my “Occult Science” as the Ancient Indian civilization — much earlier than the culture of the Vedas, which was but a later echo of it. The Ancient Indian epoch comes very near to the time when glacial conditions prevailed in our regions of the Earth. A culture like the Ancient Indian could only develop when such climatic conditions, more or less, as we enjoy in the Temperate zone today, extended to what is now the Equator. You can deduce it simply from the relative advance or retreat of the ice; tropical conditions did not come about in India until a must later time, when in more northerly regions the ice had receded.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We see therefore how the inner evolution of mankind undergoes modifications hand in hand with changing terrestrial conditions — changing conditions, that is to say, on the Earth's surface. Only those who take a very short-term view of mankind's evolution upon Earth will imagine that the scientific ideas we entertain today have any absolute validity — that we have now at last got through to the scientific truth, so to speak. To anyone who looks more deeply into these regions of the Earth which are today enjoying certain forms of cultural and spiritual life will at some future time inevitably be laid waste again; they will be desolate once more. From the past length of time you may reckon out how long ahead it will be till a new glacial age overtakes our present civilization. Moreover assuming that we <i>can</i> find some connection between the celestial phenomena and these facts of earthly evolution — the successive Ice-ages and the mid-point between them — this will lead on to a further insight. That which take place on Earth in the most highly sublimated realms of cultural life — in the life of thought and knowledge — will be related now not only to these changing conditions on the Earth itself, but to conditions in the outer Cosmos. Purely empirical reflection shows that man is what he is by virtue of conditions on the planet Earth and in the Universe beyond.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Once more then taking the facts empirically as is usual in Science, only with a somewhat wider range, our vision is extended until we recognize such a relationship as we have just been describing. Now in a sense, even in present time we can perceive how the quality and trend of human spiritual life is brought about by the relation between the Earth and the celestial bodies. In an earlier lecture it was pointed out how different the spiritual configuration of mankind tends to be in Equatorial and in Polar regions. Investigating this more closely, the different relation of the Earth to the Sun proves to be the determining factor. It makes man in the Polar regions less free of his bodily nature. Man in the Polar regions is less able to lift himself out of the bodily organism, — to pain free use and manipulation of his life of soul (As to the different mutual relations of Earth and Sun, there will be more in it than that, as we shall find in due course; but to begin with we can take our start from the conventional notions.)</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We need only picture to ourselves how differently the men of Polar regions are taken hold of by something which in ourselves keeps more in the background. We of the Temperate zone have the quick alternation of day and night. Think how long this alternation becomes as you approach the Polar zone. It is as though the day were to lengthen out into a year. I told you of what works in the little child, deep in the bodily nature from year to year, from birth to the change of teeth, and of how the independent working of the life of soul, given up as it is to the quicker rhythm of the day, gradually frees and detaches itself from this more bodily working. This is not possible to the same extent in Polar regions. It is the yearly rhythm which will there tend to make itself felt. The emphasis is more on the bodily side. The human being will not wrest himself free to the same extent from what works within the body.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Think now of the scanty relics that have been preserved from the civilization of very early times, — that have survived the Ice Age. Then you will see that there were times in which a kind of ‘Polarization’ (giving the word its proper meaning in this context) extended right across the present Temperate zone, so that conditions were prevailing here not unlike those in the present Polar regions. You can use this comparison for what was working in the Ice Age; you can truly say: What is now pressed back towards the North Pole, extended then over a considerable part of the Earth. (Please keep this free of present-day explanations and ideas, for otherwise the pure phenomenon will be obscured. Take only the pure phenomenon as such.)</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Conditions on the Earth today are such that we have the three types; the human beings of the Tropical, the Temperate and the Polar zones respectively. Of course they influence each other, so that in outer reality the phenomenon does not appear quite so purely. Nevertheless, what you here have in a <i>spatial</i> form — you find it again <i>in time</i> as you go backward. Going back in time, we come to a ‘North Pole’, as it were, in time — in the history of civilization. Going forward, we come to a Pole again. Remembering that the Polar influence on man is connected with the mutual relations between Earth and Sun. We must conceive that the change which has taken place since the Ice Age — the de-polarization, so to speak — is connected with a changed relation between Earth and Sun. Something must have happened as regards the mutual relation between Earth and Sun. What was it then? The facts themselves suggest the question. What is the source of this in the celestial spaces?</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Consider it more nearly. Of course these things will be different in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, but the facts remain. We shall at most have to extend our picture, adapting it to the real facts. We can only take our start from the empirically given data. What is revealed then, if we approach the phenomena without preconceived ideas? The Earth and the events on Earth appear as an expression of cosmic happenings — cosmic happenings which manifest themselves in certain rhythms. Something that showed itself about the tenth millennium before the origin of Christianity, will show itself again about the eleventh millennium after. What is in between, will also in a sense be repeated. What we here have between the two Ice Ages, will undoubtedly have been there before — in former cycles. It is a rhythm; our attention is drawn to a rhythmic process.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And now look out into the celestial phenomena. To emphasize one fact especially, which I have often pointed to in my lectures, you have the following. (I will only characterize it roughly.) You know that the vernal point — where the Sun rises in spring-time gradually moves through the Ecliptic. Today the vernal point is in the constellation of Pisces; before, it was in Aries; still earlier in Tauraus, — that was the time of the cult of the Bull among the Egyptians and Chaldeans. Still earlier, it was in the constellation of Gemini, and then in Cancer; in Leo. This already brings us very nearly to the last Ice Age. Thinking it through to a conclusion, we know that the vernal point goes all the way round the Ecliptic, and that the time it takes is called the Platonic Year — the great Cosmic Year, lasting approximately 25,920 years.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A whole number of processes are comprised in these 25,920 years, involving among other things this rhythmic alternation on the Earth; Ice Age., intermediate period, Ice Age, intermediate period, and so on. At the time we spoke of, when there was that deep stirring of the spiritual life in mankind, the vernal point was entering the sign of Pisces. In the Graeco-Latin Age it had been in the sign of Aries, previous to that in Taurus, and so on. We get back to Leo or Virgo, more or less, during the time when glacial conditions prevailed over the greater part of Europe and in America too. Looking into the future, there will be another Ice Age in these regions when the vernal point reaches the sign of Scorpio. This rhythm is contained within what takes its course in 25,920 years. Although admittedly of vast extent, it is a true rhythm none the less.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now as I have often mentioned, this rhythm is reminiscent — purely numerically — of another rhythm. If it is simply a question of rhythms and the rhythms are expressible in numbers, if the numbers are the same the rhythms too are the same. You know that the number of breaths man takes — in breathing and out breathing — is approximately 18 to the minute. Reckon out the number of breaths in a 24-hour day and you get the same number as before — 25,920. Man therefore shows in his daily life the same periodicity, the same rhythm, as is revealed by the movement of the vernal point in the great Cosmic Year. Now it is in the day that man shows this rhythm. A day therefore, with respect to breathing, corresponds to the Platonic Year. The vernal point — connected as it is with the Sun — goes round apparently in 25,920 years. But there is also the apparent movement of the Sun through the 24 hour day, while man is taking 25,920 breaths. It is the same picture here as in the great Universe. If then there were a Being who breathed in and out once a year (a simple-minded hypothesis no doubt, but we will use it for comparison), — such a Being, if living long enough, would undergo in 25,920 years the same process as man does in a day. Man reproduces, as it were in miniature, what is manifested in the great cosmic process.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">These things make little impression on the people of today, for they are not accustomed to look at the qualitative aspect of the world. Quantitatively, the mere rhythm appears less important. Therefore the scientists are out to find other relations between numbers than these that find expression in pure rhythms. They pay less heed to the latter: But in the epochs when man experienced more nearly the relation between himself and the Universe — when he felt himself more immersed in the phenomena of the Cosmos — these things made a deep impression on him. As we go back in the history of mankind — beyond the second or third millennium BC — we find great attention paid to the Platonic Year. I mentioned yesterday not to explain it, but by way of illustration — the ancient Indian Yoga system. Man entered deeply into a living inner experience of the breathing process, trying to make it conscious. In doing so there dawned upon him this relation between the rhythm that goes on in man — breathed, as it were, <i>into</i> man in a concentrated and contracted form — and the phenomena of the great Universe. Therefore he spoke of his own in- and out-breathing and of the mighty in- and out-breathing of Brahma, a single breath spanning an entire year, for which 25, 920 years are a day — a day of the Great Spirit.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I do not wish to make an unkind remark, my dear friends, but we do here begin to get some notion of the great distance which men at one time felt between themselves and the Spirit of the Macrocosm whom they revered. Man felt himself about as far beneath the Spirit of the Macrocosm as a day is beneath 25,920 years. It was indeed a great Spirit — a very great Spirit — whom man conceived in this way and whose relation to himself he experienced with due modesty. It would not be uninteresting to compare how great is the distance often felt by modern man between himself and his God. Does he not often conceive the Deity as little more than a slightly idealized human being?</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This may not seem very relevant to our subject, but in fact it is. If we want to develop real means of knowledge in this sphere, we must find our way from what is merely calculable into quite other realms. Indeed our study of Kepler's Laws and all that followed from them showed how our very calculations, leading as they do to incommensurable numbers, impel us of their own accord into a realm beyond mere calculation.</span></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210106v01.html">https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210106v01.html</a></span></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-30426001742785573372024-03-16T17:19:00.003-04:002024-03-16T17:19:39.170-04:00The Mission of Manicheism<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLG0eGbD5XQGpQHMycSMtUGdDaG5C3tXurPhaKXBT3eIMElW8r6wWGfBGG_jUUvt_uAa18uoSImHLBX4UNZMKJtvwdSJ-1yMB9HmerwPm4wSfyP4WqOlQ57jhhYaRYqDNIArDXFJE7swYvuya4OqTScgHrQCvE3XR3rfE7azQIs81-Hjf8cC1_w7oYtMAE/s451/september%2019,%201924.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="450" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLG0eGbD5XQGpQHMycSMtUGdDaG5C3tXurPhaKXBT3eIMElW8r6wWGfBGG_jUUvt_uAa18uoSImHLBX4UNZMKJtvwdSJ-1yMB9HmerwPm4wSfyP4WqOlQ57jhhYaRYqDNIArDXFJE7swYvuya4OqTScgHrQCvE3XR3rfE7azQIs81-Hjf8cC1_w7oYtMAE/w399-h400/september%2019,%201924.jpg" width="399" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em>An Esoteric Cosmology</em></div></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><em>Lecture 2 of 18</em></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Notes of an audience member of a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Paris on May 26, 1906:</em></div></span><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">The purpose of this lecture is to expand and deepen what was said in <a href="https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-birth-of-intellect-and-mission-of.html">the preceding lecture</a>.</span></div></span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The difference between Occult Brotherhoods before and after Christianity is that <i>before</i> the advent of Christianity their chief mission was to guard the sacred tradition; <i>afterwards</i>, it was to form and mould the future. Occult science is not abstract and dead but active and living.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Christian occultism is derived from the Manicheans, whose founder, Manes, lived on the Earth three hundred years after Jesus the Christ. The essence of Manichean teaching relates to the doctrine of Good and Evil. In ordinary thought, the Good and the Evil are two irreducible qualities, one of which — the Good — must destroy the other — the Evil. To the Manicheans, however, Evil is an integral part of the cosmos, collaborating in its evolution, finally to be absorbed and transfigured by the Good. The great feature of Manicheism is that it studies the function of Evil and of suffering in the world.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">To understand the development of humanity, it must be viewed in its whole range. Only so can we see its high ideal. To believe that an ideal is not necessary for action is a great error. A man without ideals is a man without power. The function of an ideal in life is like that of steam in an engine. Steam comprises in a small area a vast expanse of ‘condensed space’ — hence its tremendous power of expansion. The magic power of thought is of the same nature. Let us then rise to the thought of the ideal of humanity as a whole, guided by the thread of its evolution through the epochs of time.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Systems like that of <span style="color: black;">Darwin</span> are also seeking for this guiding thread. The grandeur of Darwinian thought is not disputed, but it does not explain the integral evolution of man. It only sees the lower, inferior elements. So it is with all purely physical explanations which do not recognize the spiritual essence of man's being. Theories of evolution based entirely on physical facts attribute to man an animal origin because science has established that in fossilized man the brow is lacking. Occultism, knowing that physical man is but an expression of etheric man, sees something very different. At the present point of time, the etheric body of man has practically the same form as his physical body, although extending a little beyond it. But the farther back we go in history, the greater is the difference in size between the etheric head and the physical head. The etheric head is found to be much larger. Especially was this so in the period of earthly development which precedes our own. The men living at that time were Atlanteans. Geologians, indeed, are beginning to discover traces of ancient Atlantis, of the minerals and flora of this ancient continent now submerged under the ocean that bears its name. Traces of man himself have not yet been discovered, but that is only a matter of time. Occult prophecies have always preceded authentic history.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The frontal part of the human head began to develop in the European races which followed those of Atlantis. The focus-point of consciousness in the Atlanteans lay outside the brow, in the etheric head. Today it lies within the physical head, a little higher than the nose.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Nifelheim</i> or <i>Nebelheim</i> (the land of mists) in Germanic mythology is the country of the Atlanteans. In that age the Earth was hotter and still enveloped by vaporous clouds. The continent of Atlantis was destroyed by a series of deluges, as a consequence of which the terrestrial atmosphere cleared. — Then and only then came the blue sky, the storm, rain, the rainbow. That is why the Bible says that when Noah's Ark had come to rest, the rainbow, the “bow in the cloud,” was a new token of alliance between God and man.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The ‘I’ of the Aryan race could only be consciously realized when the etheric body was centralized in the physical brain. Not until then could man begin to say: ‘I.’ The Atlanteans spoke of themselves in the third person.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Darwinism has made many errors in regard to the differentiation expressed by the races actually existing on the Earth. The higher races have not descended from the lower races; on the contrary, the latter represent the degeneration of the higher races which have preceded them. Suppose there are two brothers — one of whom is handsome and intelligent, the other ugly and dull-witted. Both proceed from the same father. What should we think of a man who believed that the intelligent brother descends from the idiot? That is the kind of error made by Darwinism in regard to the races. Man and animal have a common origin; the animals represent a degeneration of the one common ancestor, whose higher development comes to expression in man.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This should not give rise to pride, for it is only thanks to the lower kingdoms that the higher races have been able to develop.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Christ washes the feet of the Apostles. That is a symbol of the humility of the initiate in face of his inferiors. The initiate owes his existence to those who are not initiated. Hence the deep humility of those who truly <i>know</i> in face of those who do not. The tragic aspect of cosmic evolution is that one class of beings must abase themselves in order that the other may rise. In this sense we can appreciate the beauty of Paracelsus' words: “I have observed all beings — stones, plants, animals — and they seem to me nothing but scattered letters, man being the word, living and whole.”</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The animals are crystallized passions.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the course of human and animal evolution the inferior descends from the superior.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The contradictions in man, the way in which the elements mingle in him, constitute his karma, his destiny.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Just as man has wrested himself from the animal, so will he wrest himself from evil. But never yet has he passed through a crisis as severe as that of the present age.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The evil and the good are still within man just as in days of yore the animals were within him.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The aim of Manicheism is to sublimate men to be redeemers.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Master must be the servant of all.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">True morality flows from an understanding of the mighty laws of the universe.</span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">Source:</span><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0094/19060526p01.html" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0094/19060526p01.html</a></div></span></div></div></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-727950253247357952024-03-16T10:40:00.003-04:002024-03-16T10:40:55.897-04:00General Demands Which Every Aspirant for Occult Development Must Put to Himself<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9dhdGKmYAtQUXdWEhGWtOzFZytIpeyH-URWNmdPay-Ga2-BjWyaeBwh1qGwjpOJgsE2jvnbxOoVwI3kjayxj5doQUwoC9cuMiHrf8H5kEoIEl4sQq3sAmEgEPq0DgJrYgS9swBkVH-yqAzds7at_xlckXRY8wYuVAPBgt5jMlV1oe6OQxYQdJrzUvRKdx/s876/424680285_7750257121668439_6631507822974046858_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="876" data-original-width="720" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9dhdGKmYAtQUXdWEhGWtOzFZytIpeyH-URWNmdPay-Ga2-BjWyaeBwh1qGwjpOJgsE2jvnbxOoVwI3kjayxj5doQUwoC9cuMiHrf8H5kEoIEl4sQq3sAmEgEPq0DgJrYgS9swBkVH-yqAzds7at_xlckXRY8wYuVAPBgt5jMlV1oe6OQxYQdJrzUvRKdx/w526-h640/424680285_7750257121668439_6631507822974046858_n.jpg" width="526" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: midnightblue; line-height: 29.4px; margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Esoteric Development<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><small style="box-sizing: border-box;">GA 245</small></span></h2><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: midnightblue; line-height: 25.2px; margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></h3><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In what follows, the conditions which must be the basis for occult development are presented. Let no one think that he can make progress by any measures applied to the outer or the inner life if he does not fulfill these conditions. All meditation, concentration, or other exercises are worthless, indeed in a certain respect actually harmful, if life is not regulated in accordance with these conditions. No forces can actually be given to a human being; it is only possible to bring to development the forces already within him. They do not develop by themselves because outer and inner hindrances obstruct them. The outer hindrances are lessened by the rules of life which follow; the inner hindrances by the special instructions concerning meditation, concentration, and so on.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The first condition is the cultivation of an absolutely clear thinking. For this purpose one must rid oneself of the will-o'-the-wisps of thought, even if only for a very short time during the day — about five minutes (the longer, the better). One must become master in one's world of thought. One is not master if outer circumstances, occupation, some tradition or other, social relationships, even membership in a particular race, or if the daily round of life, certain activities, and so forth, determine a thought and how one enlarges upon it. Therefore during this brief time, one must, entirely out of free will, empty the soul of the ordinary, everyday course of thoughts, and by one's own initiative place a thought at the center of the soul. One need not believe that this must be a particularly striking or interesting thought. Indeed it will be all the better for what has to be attained in an occult respect if one strives at first to choose the most uninteresting and insignificant thought. Thinking is then impelled to act out of its own energy, which is the essential thing here, whereas an interesting thought carries the thinking along with it. It is better if this exercise in thought control is undertaken with a pin rather than with Napoleon. The pupil says to himself: Now I start from this thought, and through my own inner initiative I associate with it everything that is pertinent to it. At the end of the period the thought should stand before the soul just as colorfully and vividly as at the beginning. This exercise is repeated day by day for at least a month; a new thought may be taken every day, but the same thought may also be adhered to for several days. At the end of such an exercise one endeavors to become fully conscious of that inner feeling of firmness and security which will soon be noticed by paying subtler attention to one's own soul; then one concludes the exercise by focusing the thinking upon the head and the middle of the spine (brain and spinal cord), as if one were pouring that feeling of security into this part of the body.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When this exercise has been practiced for about a month, a second requirement should be added. We try to think of some action which in the ordinary course of life we certainly would not be likely to perform. Then we make it a duty to perform this action every day. It will therefore be good to choose an action which can be performed every day and will occupy as long a period of time as possible. Again it is better to begin with some insignificant action which we have to force ourselves to perform; for example, to water at a definite time of day a flower we have bought. After a time a second, similar act should be added to the first; later, a third, and so on — as many as are compatible with the carrying out of all other duties. This exercise should also last for one month. But as far as possible during this second month, too, one should continue the first exercise, although it is a less paramount duty than in the first month. Nevertheless it must not be left unheeded, for otherwise it will quickly be noticed that the fruits of the first month are soon lost and the slovenliness of uncontrolled thinking begins again. Care must be taken that once these fruits have been won, they are never again lost. If, through the second exercise, this initiative of action has been achieved, then, with subtle attentiveness, we become conscious of the feeling of an inner impulse of activity within the soul; we pour this feeling into the body, letting it stream down from the head to a point just above the heart.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the third month, a new exercise should be moved to the center of life — the cultivation of a certain equanimity towards the fluctuations of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain; “heights of jubilation” and “depths of despair” should quite consciously be replaced by an equable mood. Care is taken that no pleasure shall carry us away, no sorrow plunge us into the depths, no experience lead to immoderate anger or vexation, no expectation give rise to anxiety or fear, no situation disconcert us, and so on. There need be no fear that such an exercise will make life arid and unproductive; rather one will quickly notice that the moods to which this exercise is applied are replaced by purer qualities of soul. Above all, if subtle attentiveness is maintained, one will discover one day an inner tranquility in the body; as in the two cases above, we pour this feeling into the body, letting it stream from the heart, towards the hands, the feet and, filially, the head. This naturally cannot be done after every single exercise, for here it is not a matter of a single exercise but of a sustained attentiveness to the inner life of the soul. Once every day, at least, one should call up this inner tranquility before the soul and then undertake the exercise of pouring it out from the heart. A connection with the exercises of the first and second months is maintained, as in the second month with the exercise of the first month.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the fourth month, as a new exercise, one should take up what is sometimes called a “positive attitude” to life. It consists in seeking always for the good, the praiseworthy, the beautiful, and so on, in all beings, all experiences, all things. This quality of soul is best characterized by a Persian legend concerning Christ Jesus. One day as He was walking with His disciples, they saw a dead dog lying by the roadside in a state of advanced decomposition. All the disciples turned away from the repulsive sight; Christ Jesus alone did not move but observed the animal thoughtfully and said: “What beautiful teeth the animal has!” Where the others had seen only the repulsive, the unpleasant, He looked for the beautiful. So must the esoteric pupil strive to seek for the positive in every phenomenon and in every being. He will soon notice that under the mask of something repulsive there is a hidden beauty, that even under the mask of a criminal there is a hidden good, that under the mask of a lunatic the divine soul is somehow concealed.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In a certain respect this exercise is connected with what is called “abstention from criticism.” This is not to be understood in the sense of calling black white and white black. There is, however, a difference between a judgment which, proceeding merely from one's own personality, is colored with one's own personal sympathy or antipathy, and an attitude which enters lovingly into the alien phenomenon or being, always asking: How has this other being come to be like this or to act like this? Such an attitude will by its very nature strive more to help what is imperfect than simply to find fault and to criticize.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The objection that the very circumstances of their lives oblige many people to find fault and condemn is not valid here. For in such cases the circumstances are such that the person in question cannot go through a genuine occult training. There are indeed many circumstances in life which make a productive occult schooling impossible. In such a case the person should not impatiently desire, in spite of everything, to make progress which can only be possible under certain conditions.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">He who consciously turns his mind, for one month, to the positive aspect of all his experiences will gradually notice a feeling creeping into him as if his skin were becoming porous on all sides, and as if his soul were opening wide to all kinds of secret and subtle processes in his environment, which hitherto entirely escaped his notice. What is important here is that every human being combat a prevalent lack of attentiveness to such subtle things. If one has once noticed that the feeling described expresses itself in the soul as a kind of bliss, one seeks in thought to guide this feeling to the heart and from there to let it stream into the eyes, and thence out into the space in front of and around oneself. One will notice that an intimate relationship to this space is thereby acquired. One grows out of and beyond oneself, as it were. One learns to regard a part of one's environment as something that belongs to oneself. A great deal of concentration is necessary for this exercise, and, above all, a recognition of the fact that all tumultuous feelings, all passions, all over-exuberant emotions have an absolute destructive effect upon the mood indicated. The exercises of the first months are also repeated, as was suggested for the earlier months.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the fifth month, one should seek to cultivate in oneself the feeling of confronting every new experience with complete impartiality. The esoteric pupil must break entirely with the attitude of men in which, in the face of something just heard or seen, they say: “I never heard that, or I never saw that before; I don't believe it — it's an illusion.” At every moment he must be ready to accept an absolutely new experience. What he has hitherto recognized as being in accordance with natural law, or what has appeared possible to him, must not be a shackle preventing acceptance of a new truth. Although radically expressed, it is absolutely correct that if anyone were to come to the esoteric pupil and say, “Since last night the steeple of such-and-such a church has been tilted right over,” the esotericist should leave a loophole open for possibly believing that his previous knowledge of natural law could somehow be widened by such an apparently unprecedented fact.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">He who turns his attention, in the fifth month, to developing this attitude of mind, will notice creeping into his soul a feeling as if something were becoming alive in the space referred to in connection with the exercise for the fourth month, as if something were stirring. This feeling is exceedingly delicate and subtle. One must try to be attentive to this delicate vibration in the environment and to let it stream, as it were, through all five senses, especially through the eyes, the ears, and through the skin, in so far as this last contains the sense of warmth. At this stage of esoteric development, one pays less attention to the impressions made by these stimuli on the other senses of taste, smell, and touch. At this stage it is still not possible to distinguish the numerous bad influences which intermingle with the good influences in this sphere; the pupil therefore leaves this for a later stage.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the sixth month, one should try to repeat again and again all five exercises, systematically and in a regular alternation. In this way a beautiful equilibrium of soul will gradually develop. One will notice especially that previous dissatisfactions with certain phenomena and beings in the world completely disappear. A mood reconciling all experiences takes possession of the soul, a mood that is by no means one of indifference but, on the contrary, enables one for the first time to work in the world for its genuine progress and improvement. One comes to a tranquil understanding of things which were formerly quite closed to the soul. The very gestures and bearing of a person change under the influence of such exercises, and if, one day, he can actually notice that his handwriting has taken on another character, then he may say to himself that he is just about to reach a first rung on the upward path to comprehension.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Once again, two things must be stressed: First, the six exercises described paralyze the harmful influence other occult exercises can have, so that only what is beneficial remains. Secondly, these exercises alone ensure that efforts in meditation and concentration will have a positive result. The esotericist must not rest content with fulfilling, however conscientiously, the demands of conventional morality, for that morality can be very egotistical, if a man says to himself: I will be good in order that I may be thought good. The esotericist does not do what is good because he wants to be thought good, but because little by little he recognizes that the good alone brings evolution forward, and that evil, stupidity, and ugliness place hindrances along its path.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/EsoDevel/EsoDev_chap5.html">GA 245</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-87963677453771137582024-03-16T05:25:00.000-04:002024-03-16T05:25:03.461-04:00The polarity between sense perception and reality. The Redemption of Astronomy: lecture 5<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> <span> </span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background-color: #fffff8; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img height="640" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-17-07.gif" style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="462" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br />Adam Kadmon in the golden womb, Hiranyagarbha<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /><br /><br /><img alt="Figure 7 and Figure 8" height="433" src="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-01-05.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><div><span style="text-align: start;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">"'Fate' and 'soul' are two names for one concept." — <i>Novalis</i></span></b></span></div><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #000033; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvIQCcK386KweCo06z9vMvn0mXKwnVS7FxsBRY8ZdP60nTN8qeLCScJtALEf945dmRNQKtm2KC_f6AgRSWJlt0CXmU4g5hMbuAzZFlUBHLREtlAgZ-_yw4sFf14CR7gRyS3Lkn7WOLj6L62CfyHZRRZ6MsETCX1UlC8ahvBZPtWizSAAXpYU6IYDi3YA/s1426/7th%20seal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1426" data-original-width="1426" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvIQCcK386KweCo06z9vMvn0mXKwnVS7FxsBRY8ZdP60nTN8qeLCScJtALEf945dmRNQKtm2KC_f6AgRSWJlt0CXmU4g5hMbuAzZFlUBHLREtlAgZ-_yw4sFf14CR7gRyS3Lkn7WOLj6L62CfyHZRRZ6MsETCX1UlC8ahvBZPtWizSAAXpYU6IYDi3YA/w640-h640/7th%20seal.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">"Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.... The nature of man cannot be understood unless we are just as conscious of our connection with the stars as of our connection with the Earth." <i>— Rudolf Steiner</i></span></b></div></div></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><b><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></b></div><div><h2 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #000066; line-height: 33.75px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img height="283" src="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-05-01.gif" width="400" /></span></h2><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></b></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Astronomy in Relation to the Other Scientific Disciplines. Lecture 5 of 18.</span></i></b></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Rudolf Steiner, Stuttgart, January 5, 1921:</span></i></b></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif">My Dear Friends,</span><br /><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">For the further progress of our studies I must today insert a kind of interlude, for we shall then understand more easily the real nature of our task. From a particular point of view we will reflect on the cognitional theory of Natural Science altogether. Let us link on to yesterday's lecture by calling to mind once more the provisional conclusions to which we came. The verification of them will emerge in the further course.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We have seen that in the study of celestial phenomena, in so far as these are expressed by our Astronomy in geometrical forms and arithmetical figures, we are led to incommensurable qualities. There is a moment in our process of cognition — in the attempt to understand the celestial phenomena — when we must come to a standstill, as it were, and can no longer declare the mathematical method to be competent. From a certain point onward, we simply cannot continue merely to draw geometrical lines, tracing the movements of the heavenly bodies. We can no longer employ mathematical analysis; we can only admit that analysis and geometry take us up to a certain point, whence we can go no further. At least provisionally, we come to the very significant conclusion that in reflecting on what we see, whether with the naked eye or with the aid of instruments, we can never fully compass it with geometrical figures or mathematical formulae. We do not contain the <i>whole </i>of the phenomena in algebra, analysis and geometry.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Think of the significance of this. If we are claiming to include the totality of the celestial phenomena, we must no longer imagine that we can do so by thinking of the Sun as moving in such a way that its movement can be represented by a definite geometry line, or that the Moon's movement can be so represented. Precisely our most ardent wish must be renounced when we confront the phenomena in their totality. This is the more significant, since nowadays, the moment someone says ‘The Copernican System works no more satisfactorily than the Ptolemaic’, someone else will answer, ‘Let us then design another system’. We shall see in the further course of these lectures what must be put in the place of mere geometrical designs in order to comprehend the phenomena in their totality.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I must put this negative aspect before you first, before we can enter into the positive, for it is most important that we clear our thought in this respect.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><span style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; line-height: 22.5px;">On the other hand, we saw yesterday that what confronts us in Embryology emerges as if from indefinite, chaotic regions, and from a certain point onward can be grasped in picture-form, or even geometrically. As I said yesterday, in studying the celestial phenomena, through the very process of cognition we come to a point where we must recognize that the world is different from what this process of cognition might at first have led us to believe. And in the embryonic phenomena we are led to see that there must be something which <i>precedes</i> the facts to which we still have access.</span></span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now among other things there recently appeared a certain divergence of outlook among embryologists. (I will only give a rough description.) On the one hand there were the strict followers of biogenetic law, which states, as you know, that the development of the individual embryo is a kind of shortened recapitulation of the development of the race. These people wished to trace the cause of the development of the embryo to the development of the race. On the other hand, others came forward who would not hear of the derivation of the individual from the racial development, but held to a more or less mechanical conception of embryonic development, saying that it was only necessary to take into account the forces directly present in what takes place in the embryo itself. For example, Oscar Hertwig left the strict biogenetic school of Haeckel and changed over to the more mechanical school. Now the mechanical needs to be grasped in a way that is at least similar to mathematics even though it be not pure mathematics. We therefore see, from the very history of Science, how from a certain stage onward (something as I said, must be presumed to have gone <i>before</i> this stage) embryological development is taken hold of by a mechanical, mathematical method of research. It is the history of these things to which I now wish to point.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">All this appears in the field which one might call the theory of knowledge. On the one hand we are driven to a boundary in the cognitional process, where we can get no further with our favorite modern method of approach. On the other hand, in studying the embryonic life our only possibility of grasping it with ordinary methods is to start from a certain point: what goes before this has to be taken for granted. We must admit that we find something in the realm of reality, the beginnings of which we must leave vague and unexplored; then from a certain point onward we can set to work, describing what we observe in terms of diagrams, formulas and relationships which are at least similar to those of mathematics and mechanics.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Bearing these things in mind, I deem it necessary in today's lecture to insert a kind of general reflection. As I have often pointed out, it is the ideal of modern scientific research to observe outer Nature as independently of man as possible, — to establish the phenomena in pure objectivity, as it were, excluding man altogether from the picture. We shall see that precisely through this method of excluding, it is impossible to transcend such barriers as we have now observed from two distinct sides.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This is connected with the fact that the principle of <i>metamorphosis</i>, which, as you know,was first conceived and presented in an elementary way by Goethe, has so far hardly been followed up at all. It has no doubt been used to some extent in morphology, yet even here, as we saw yesterday, one essential principle is lacking. Morphology today cannot yet recognize the form and construction of a tubular or long bone, for example, in its relation to that of a skull-bone. To do this, we should have to reach a way of thinking whereby we should first study what is within, say, the inner surface of a tubular bone and then relate this to the outer surface of a skull-bone. This means a kind of inversion, as when a glove is turned inside-out; but at the same time there is an alteration of the form, an alteration of the surface-tensions through the reversing or turning of inside outward. Only if we follow the metamorphosis of forms in this way, though it may seem complicated, shall we reach true conclusions.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But when we leave the morphological and enter more into the functional domain, there are but the barest indications, in the existing ways of thought, towards a true pursuit of the idea of metamorphosis in this domain. Yet this is what is needed. A beginning was made in my book “Riddles of the Soul”, wherein I indicated, at least sketchily, the threefoldness of the being of man, recognized as a sum-total of interrelated functions. At least in outline, I explained how we must first distinguish those functions and processes in man which may be regarded as belonging to the nerves and senses; how we then have to recognize, as relatively independent processes, all that is rhythmical in the human organism; and how again we must recognize the metabolic processes as distinct. I pointed out that in these three forms of processes all that is functional in man is included. Anything else which appears functional in the human organism is derivable from these three.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is essential to see that all phenomena in the organic realm, although appearing outwardly side by side, are related to one another through the principle of metamorphosis. People today are disinclined to look at things macroscopically. We must find our way back to the macroscopic aspect. Otherwise, through the very lack of synthetic understanding of what is living, problems will arise which are not inherently insoluble, but are made so by our methodical prejudices and limitations.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You see, in learning to understand man in this threefold aspect we must observe that he is connected with the outer world in a threefold way. His life of nerves and senses is one way in which man is related to the outer world; through all rhythmic processes he is related to it in another way. It lies in the very nature of the rhythmical processes that they cannot be considered as isolated within man, apart from the rest of the world, for they depend upon the breathing, — a process of perpetual interchange between the human body and the outer world. Again, in the metabolism there is a very obvious process of interchange between man and the outer world. Also the nerves-and-senses process may be regarded as a continuation of the outer world into the inner man. This becomes easier to understand if the distinction is made between the actual perceptions, given to us through the senses, and the accompanying process of cognition — the forming of ideas and mental pictures. It is unnecessary here now to go into these things more deeply, for it is evident enough. In relation between man and the outer world during sense-perception the emphasis is more on the outer world, while the forming of ideas and mental pictures takes us more into the inner man. (I am referring to the bodily processes, not to the life of soul.)</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Again, leaving aside for the moment the rhythmic system — breathing and blood-circulation — the metabolic system brings us to something else, which is in definite contrast to this inward-leading process from sense perception to ideation. A thorough study of the metabolic system establishes a connection between the inner metabolic processes and the functions of the human limbs. The limb-functions are connected with the metabolism.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If people would proceed more rationally than they are wont to, they would discover the essential connection between the metabolism, situated as it is more deeply within the body, and the processes by means of which we move our limbs. These too are metabolic. The actual organic functions which underlie the movements of the limbs are processes of metabolism. Consumption of material substances is what we find if we examine the organic functions here.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But we must not stop short at the metabolic process as such. There is a way in which this process leads as much from man towards the outer world, as sense-perception leads from the outer world towards the interior of the human body. (Such methods of research, which are really fundamental, need to be undertaken, otherwise no progress will be made in certain essential directions.)</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What is it that is directed outward from the metabolism even as something is directed inward from sense-perception to the creating ideas and mental pictures? It is the process of <i>fertilization</i>. Fertilization points in the opposite direction, — from the bodily organism outward. Representing it diagrammatically (<a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0323/19210105p01.html#Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig.1</a>): In sense-perception the direction is from without inward; this incoming process of sense-perception is then ‘fertilized’ by the organism and we get the forming of ideas. (Please do not take offense at the expression ‘fertilized’; we shall soon replace what may look like a symbolical way of speaking by the reality it indicates.) In the metabolic process the direction is from within outward, and we get actual fertilization. In what is manifested therefore at the two poles of threefold human nature we are led in two opposite directions.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the middle is all that belongs to the rhythmic system. Now we may ask, what in the rhythmic system is directed outward and what inward? Here it is not possible to find such precise distinctions as between the inner metabolism and fertilization, or between perception and ideation. The processes in the rhythmic system rather merge into one another. In the in-breathing and out-breathing the process is more of a unity. It cannot be distinguished quite so sharply, yet it is still possible to say (<a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0323/19210105p01.html#Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig.1</a>): As sense perception comes from outside and fertilization goes outward, so too in inspiration and expiration there is a going inward and outward. Breathing is intermediate.</span></div><center style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033;"><h2 style="background: transparent; color: #000066; line-height: 33.75px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="Fig1" name="Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699;"></a><img height="213" src="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-05-01.gif" width="300" /></span></h2><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Fig. 1</span></div></center><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Here is a true example of metamorphosis: a single entity, underlying threefold human nature, organized now in one way, now in another.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the upward direction this can be followed to some extent physiologically. (Some of you already know what I shall now refer to.) Observe the breathing process. The intake of air influences the organism in a certain way; namely, in in-breathing, the cerebro-spinal fluid, in which the spinal cord and brain are steeped, is pressed upward. You must remember that the brain is in fact floating in cerebral fluid, and is thus buoyed up. We should not be able to live at all without this element of buoyancy. We will not go into that now, however, but only draw attention to the fact that here is an upward movement of the cerebral fluid in in-breathing and a downward movement in out-breathing. So that the breathing process actually plays into the skull, into the head. In this process we have a real interplay and co-operation of the nerves-and-senses system with the rhythmic system.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You see how the organs work, to bring about what we may call <i>metamorphosis of functions</i>. Then we can say, however hypothetical or only as a postulate: perhaps something similar will be found as regards metabolism and fertilization. But in this realm of the body we shall less easily reach a conclusion. This is indeed characteristic of the human organism; it is comparatively easy to understand the interpenetrating relation between the rhythmic system and the nerves-and-senses system in process accessible to thought, but we cannot so easily find an evident relation between the rhythmic system and the processes of metabolism and fertilization.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Call to your aid the physiological knowledge at your disposal, and the more exactly you go into the matter the better you will perceive this. Moreover it is quite obvious why it is so. Consider the regular alternation of sleeping and waking. Through sense-perception you are open to the outer world, continuously exposed to the outer world. Then you set to work with your thinking and ideation and bring a certain order and orientation into what you see around you in your waking life. It becomes ordered through an activity which works from within outward; the orientation comes from within. Actually we can say: We confront an external world which is already ordered according to its own laws, and we ourselves bring another order into it out of our own inner being. We think about the outer world, we put together the facts and phenomena according to our own liking — unhappily, often a very bad liking! From our inner being, something is introduced into the outer world which by no means necessarily corresponds to this outer world. If this were not so, we should never fall a victim to error. Out of our own inner being comes an arbitrary remolding of the world around us.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif">But now, looking at the other pole of human nature, you will agree that the disordering comes from without, both in metabolism and fertilization. For it is left very largely to our own arbitrary choice and free will, how we sustain our metabolism by taking food, and even more so, how we behave as regards fertilization. But here the arbitrary element has much to do with the outer world, which in the first place is foreign to us. We do at least feel at home in the arbitrary element we introduce, out of our own inner being, into the process of perception. But we do not feel familiar with all that we bring<i>into</i> ourselves from the outer world. We have, for instance but a very slight idea — at least, most people have very little idea </span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px;">—</span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px;"> </span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;">of what actually happens in our relationship with the world when we eat or drink. And as to what happens in the intervals of time between our meals, — to this we pay very little attention, and even if we did it would not help much. Here we come into an indefinite, impalpable region, I would say. Thus at the one place of man's being we have the</span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><i style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;">ordered Cosmos</i><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;">which extends its gulfs, as it were, in our sense organs (</span><a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0323/19210105p01.html#Fig2" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22.5px; text-decoration-line: none; text-indent: 0.25in;">Fig.2</a><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;">). (The world ‘ordered’ must not be misunderstood, it is only used to characterize the facts; we will not lose ourselves in philosophical arguments as to whether the Cosmos is really ordered or not, we want only to characterize the given facts.) The pole is in contrast to the other, which, we are bound to admit, is an </span><i style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;">un-ordered Cosmos</i><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;">, considering all that comes into us from without, all that we stuff into ourselves, or again, how the process of fertilization is entered into in quite irregular intervals of time and so on. Contemplating this invasion of the metabolism by the outer world, we must admit that we are here confronted by an unordered Cosmos — unordered at least to begin with, so far as we are concerned.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And now we may put the question — from the more general aspects of the theory of human knowledge: How and to what extent are we really connected with the starry Heavens? In the first place, we <i>see</i> them. But you will have a vivid feeling by this time of the uncertainties which assail us when we being to think about the starry Heavens. Not only have the men of different ages felt convinced of the truth of the most diverse astronomical world-systems. As we saw yesterday, we have to face the fact that we cannot contain the totality of the starry Heavens in the mathematical and mechanical forms of thought in which we feel most secure.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="Fig2" name="Fig2" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; font-weight: bold;"></a><img height="192" src="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-05-02.gif" width="175" /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Fig. 2</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Not only must we admit that we cannot trust to mere sensory appearances as regards the Heavens, but we must recognize that when we take our start from what we see and then work upon it with the life of thought, which, as we saw, belongs more to the inner man, we cannot ever really get at this world of stars. It is the truth, it is no mere comparison, to say: The starry Heavens only present themselves to us in their totality — a relative totality, of course — through sense perception. Taking our start from sense-perception, when we as man try to go farther inward, to understand the starry Heavens, we feel somewhat foreign to them. We get a strong feeling of our inadequacy. And yet we feel that something intelligible must be there in the phenomena which we behold.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Outside us, then, is the ordered Cosmos; it only presents itself to our senses. It most certainly does not at once reveal itself to our intellectual understanding. We have this ordered Cosmos on the one hand; with it, we cannot enter <i>into</i> man. We try to lead on from outer sense-perception of the Cosmos towards the inner man — the life of thought and ideation — and find we cannot enter. We must admit: Astronomy will not quite go into our head. This is not said in the least metaphorically. It is a demonstrable fact in the theory of knowledge. Astronomy will not go into the human head; it simply will not fit there.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What do we see now at the other pole — that of the unordered Cosmos? Let us but look at the facts; we do not want to set up theories or hypotheses, but only to see the facts clearly.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Look for what is in contrast, in the outer Universe to the astronomical domain, and in man to the processes of perception and ideation (the continuation of the ‘ordered Cosmos’ into man). In man you come into the realm of metabolism and fertilization — and in Astronomy (<a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0323/19210105p01.html#Fig2" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig.2</a>), when you look downward in an analogous way, into what realm are you led? You are led into <i>Meteorology</i> — all the phenomena of the outer world once more, relating to Meteorology. For if you try to understand meteorological phenomena in terms of ‘natural law’, the amount of law you can bring in is to the ordered Cosmos of Astronomy in just the same proportion as is the temperamental region of metabolism and fertilization in man to the realm of sense perception, into which the whole starry Heaven sheds its light, — which only begins to get into disorder in our own inner life, namely in our forming of ideas.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If therefore we regard man not as an isolated being, but in connection with the whole of Nature, then we can place him into the picture in the following way. Through his head he takes part in the astronomical domain, through his metabolism in the meteorological domain. Man is thus interwoven with the Cosmos on either hand.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif">Let us here add another thought. Yesterday we spoke of those processes which may be looked upon as an inner organic imagining of Moon-events, namely the processes in the female organism. In the female organism there is something like an alternation of phases, a succession of events, taking their course in 28 days. Although, as things are now, these events are not at all dependent on any actual Moon-events, yet they are somehow an inner reflection of the moon. I also drew your attention to the following psycho-physiological fact. If we really analyze human memory and take into account the underlying inner organic process, we cannot but compare it with this functioning of the female body. Only that in the latter the bodily nature is taken hold of more intensely than it is when holding fast in memory some outer experience which it has undergone. What comes to expression in these 28 days as a result of </span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px;">our</span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px;"> </span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;">erstwhile impressions is no longer contained within the individual life between birth and death, whereas the experiencing of outer events and the memory of them comes into a shorter period and takes its course between birth and death, within the single life of the individual. Considered in their psychological-physiological aspect, the two processes are however essentially the same — a functional reexperiencing of an external process or event. (In my ‘Occult Science’ I clearly hinted at this kind of experience in relation to the outer world.)</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now, study the functions of the ovum before fertilization and you will find that they are entirely involved in this 28-day inner rhythm; they belong to this process. But as soon as fertilization takes place, the processes in the ovum immediately fall out of this inner rhythmic life of the human being. A mutual relation with the outer world is at once established. Observing the process of fertilization, we are led to see that what is happening in the ovum from then onward no longer has to do with mere inner processes in the human body. Fertilization tears the ovum out of the purely inner organic process and leads it over into the realm of those processes which belong in common to the inner being of man and to the Cosmos, — a realm in which there are no barriers between what takes place within man and in the Cosmos. Therefore, what occurs after fertilization, — all that happens in the forming of the embryo, — must be studied in connection with external cosmic events, and not merely in terms of developmental mechanisms within the ovum itself in its successive stages.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Think what this means. All that goes on in the ovum before fertilization is, so to speak, within the domain of the human being's own inner organic process. But in what happens after fertilization and is brought about thereby — the human being opens himself to the Cosmos. Cosmic influences here prevail.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Thus on the one hand we have the Cosmos working in upon us up to the point where the life of ideas begins. We have, in sense-perception, a mutual relation between man and the Cosmos. We investigate this relation, for example, by means of the laws of perception: the physiology of the senses and so on. The way in which we see an object must be investigated through such laws. Suppose we watch a railway-train traveling past us. We see the whole movement lengthwise. If, however, we are at a point directly in front of the train far enough away — however fast the train is going, we see it as if it were stationary. Pictorially, therefore, what takes place in us depends on the relation of the cosmos to us. We are in the midst of pictures and we ourselves belong to the picture. However, we become entangled in something chaotic, — for ultimately, our world systems <i>are</i> chaotic, — if we try to draw conclusions as to the real events from what we see externally.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">On the other hand, in regard to fertilization, man is involved not in pictorial but in <i>real</i> cosmic processes.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Thus at the one pole man is immersed in the Cosmos in a <i>pictorial </i>way, and at the other in a <i>real</i> way. The very thing that eludes him when he looks out into the Cosmos, works in upon him when he undergoes the process of fertilization. Here therefore something, in itself a whole, is drawn apart into two members. In the one case a mere picture is before us and we cannot strike through to the reality. In the other the reality confronts us; through it a new man comes into being. But it does not become a clear picture; it remains for us as devoid of law as do the manifestations of the weather, or meteorological conditions generally. Here we are face to face with a duality — here are two poles. From either side we receive half. It is as though we received the picture from the one side and the reality which underlies it from the other.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You see, the way man confronts the world is not as simple as one might assume in saying: The sensory picture of the world is given; now let us devise the reality by philosophical methods. This problem of finding the underlying reality in sense-perception is, of course, fundamental in the philosophic theory of cognition. But man is curiously balanced between the picture and reality in quite other ways than by mere philosophic speculation.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif">Now in the course of world-evolution, men have already tried to approach this secret through an experience of the intermediary realm: in-breathing and out-breathing. The ancient Indian wisdom </span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px;">—</span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px;"> </span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;">which, as I often say, it would be wrong for us to imitate today — proceeded more or less instinctively from the following hypotheses. Sense-perceptions are of no use in the striving for reality; nor are the sexual processes or those of fertilization, for they give no clear picture. Therefore, let us keep to the middle region, which is metamorphosed at one time towards picture-forming and at another time towards reality. We must keep to the middle region, for through it the approach to reality, and yet at one and the same time to the picture, must in some way be possible. This is why the special breathing exercises of the Yoga system were perfected by the wisdom of Ancient India. Men sought to reach reality by experiencing the breathing process consciously, thus grasping at the same time both picture and reality. And if one asks why this should be, the answer is given: Breathing unites picture and reality. (The answer may be more or less instinctive, though not entirely so, as you can see if you will study, in the Indian philosophy itself, how this strange system of breathing-exercises arose.) Breathing unites picture and reality. The picture is experienced in its relation to the reality, if once the breathing process is lifted out of the unconscious into consciousness. We shall never understand what thus appeared in the historic evolution of mankind unless we regard it from the point of view of the inner physiology of man. Looking at it in this light, you can say: There was a time when men sought to comprehend reality by turning to man himself. For pictures of the world, we have the senses; for the reality, something quite different. Therefore men turned to that part of the world human being which is neither shut off in finished pictures, nor on the other hand in the mere experiencing of reality; they turned to what is not yet differentiated or divided: to the breathing process. And in so doing, they brought man into the Cosmos. They did not contemplate a world separate from man like the world of our Natural Science; they beheld a world for which man, as rhythmic man, became a real organ of perception. This world, they said, can be grasped neither by the nerves-and-senses man, nor by the metabolic man. In his life of nerves and senses, man becomes conscious in such a way that what presented itself to nerves and senses is thinned out to a mere picture; in the metabolism, reality meets him in such a way as not to be raised into consciousness at all. The interweaving of the real but unconscious experience with what is thinned out to a picture was sought by the wise men of ancient India in the regulated breathing process. Nor shall we ever understand the ancient cosmic systems, previous to the Ptolemaic, till we are able to divine how the Universe appears to man when in this way a synthesis, however undifferentiated, is achieved between the process of cognition on the one hand, and on the other the intense realty of the reproduction-process.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif">Consider now from this point of view the teachings about the creation of the world which are to be met with particularly in the Bible </span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px;">—</span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px;"> </span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;">teachings which, as things are today, are not so easy to see through. Consider the Bible story of the Creation, particularly as interpreted by those who still had the old traditions. Fundamentally, the Biblical story of Creation can only be understood if we are able to combine the genesis of the world which we derive by looking at the outer Universe, with that which we derive by Embryology. What is set forth in the Book of Genesis is in fact compounded of Embryology and of what is seen in the outward glory of the sense world. Hence the repeated attempts to interpret the Biblical story of Creation, even word for word, by embryological facts. Truly, it calls for such interpretation.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I introduced this today, my dear friends, for quite a definite reason.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You see, if our present studies — intended, as they are, to form a bridge between the external Science of today and Spiritual Science — are to have any meaning at all, we must first acquire a quite definite feeling and must permeate ourselves with this feeling; otherwise we can get no further. We must become able to feel that certain modern ways of thought are superficial and external, — to feel this in a thoroughly deep way. We must learn to see the superficiality, on the one hand, of setting up pictures of the Universe which only try to make some slight corrections in the Copernican System, and on the other hand, of researching into the embryonic life in the ways which are customary today. One might say that Nietzsche's dictum: “The world is deeply thought and wrought; more deeply than the passing day”, proceeded from such a feeling. The impulses must be acquired not to seek explanations in the mere superficial acceptance of what presents itself directly, even if it be to the enhanced sight of telescope or microscope or X-ray apparatus. We must learn to have respect for explanations of another nature, aspiring to other faculties of knowledge, such as were sought by the old Indian sages in the Yoga System, so as to penetrate into reality and find the means of forming an adequate picture of reality.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Since we have now outgrown the Yoga system, we must feel impelled towards a new way of penetrating into the Universe by processes which still remain to be developed — which are not to be derived so simply from the habitual methods of today. For man is placed in the midst between the picture of the world, — a picture which presents itself to him in an overwhelmingly forceful way in the starry Heavens, the secrets of which will never be disclosed through the mere intellectual faculties, — and what meets him with ever-changing mood and temperament in the processes of reproduction, by virtue of which the human race exists. Into the midst of this great whole which is thus separated for him into two halves, man is placed. To find a connection between the two, he must look for a way of spiritual development, even as he did in an older form in the Yoga system, — a form no longer possible today.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif">Astronomy, </span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px;">as</span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px;"> </span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;">hitherto </span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px;">practiced</span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0.25in;">, will never lead to a grasp of reality; it will only give us pictures. And Embryology, though in this realm we seize reality, will not enable us to penetrate the reality with ideas and mental pictures. Astronomical pictures of the world are poor in reality; embryological pictures are poor in idea — we fail to penetrate the facts with clear ideas. Thus in the theory of knowledge too we must approach the human being as a whole, instead of merely indulging in philosophical and psychological speculations about sense-perception. We must take our start from the whole of man. We must learn how to place man as a whole into the Universe. That is our task today.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is very evident today, how on the one hand in Astronomy the ground of knowledge is being lost. And it is evident how on the other hand in Embryology, where knowledge fails to reach the wellsprings of reality, all that results is a mere talking round and round the given facts, whether in terms of the biogenetic law or of developmental mechanisms. Amplification of our fundamental methods is quite evidently needed in both of these directions.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I had to put all this before you, so that we might understand each other better in what follows. For it will help you see that it would be of no use if I were simply to add another formal picture of the Universe to the existing ones, although admittedly that is the kind of thing which people nowadays desire.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span><div></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: auto; text-indent: 0.25in; widows: auto;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0323/19210105p01.html">http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0323/19210105p01.html</a></span></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-80441995786230605102024-03-15T17:51:00.000-04:002024-03-15T17:51:27.383-04:00The Birth of the Intellect and the Mission of Christianity<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJhez5sdnJFFQdbocmJp-w2-vTGWoW8D5Vk4sg2HPRkl1ldFS8qi1ZIBMdsNvDgheaDVfFGH9HYrOzKg0j_Uic2VAelR324X-QlPj4eQKCO0nUsBj5ExtBcfA6tdFoysWTZGbDNE9AlVBdt6RrtiN3MfRpuVQETaKNqbkxILUsS9QIeJ8eUzBVIDRpu9Hm/s451/september%2019,%201924.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="450" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJhez5sdnJFFQdbocmJp-w2-vTGWoW8D5Vk4sg2HPRkl1ldFS8qi1ZIBMdsNvDgheaDVfFGH9HYrOzKg0j_Uic2VAelR324X-QlPj4eQKCO0nUsBj5ExtBcfA6tdFoysWTZGbDNE9AlVBdt6RrtiN3MfRpuVQETaKNqbkxILUsS9QIeJ8eUzBVIDRpu9Hm/w638-h640/september%2019,%201924.jpg" width="638" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><em><div style="text-align: center;"><em>An Esoteric Cosmology. Lecture 1 of 18</em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><br /></em></div></em><em><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Notes of an audience member of a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Paris on May 25, 1906:</em></div></em></span><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is only in recent times that the truths of occultism have been the subject of public lectures. Formerly, these truths were only revealed in secret societies, to those who had passed through certain degrees of initiation and had sworn to obey the laws of the Order through the whole of their life. Today, man is entering upon a very critical period. Occult truths are beginning to be disclosed to the public. In a matter of twenty years or so, a certain number of them will already be common knowledge. Why is this? The reason is that humanity is entering upon a new phase, which it is the object of this lecture to explain.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the Middle Ages, occult truths were known in the Rosicrucian Movement. But whenever they leaked out, they were either misunderstood or distorted. In the eighteenth century they entered upon a phase of much dilletantism and charlatanry, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century they were put entirely in the background by the physical sciences. It is only in our day that they are beginning to re-emerge, and in the coming centuries they will play an important part in the development of mankind. In order to understand this, we must glance at the centuries preceding the advent of Christianity and follow the progress that has been made.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It does not require any very profound knowledge to realize the difference between a man of pre-Christian times and a man of today. Although his scientific knowledge was far less, man of olden times had deeper feelings and intuitions. He lived more in the world beyond — which he also perceived — than in the world of sense. There were some who entered into direct and actual communication with the astral and spiritual world. In the Middle Ages, when earthly existence was by no means comfortable, man still lived with his head in the heavens. True, the mediaeval cities were somewhat primitive, but they were a far truer representation of man's inner world than the cities of today. Not only the cathedrals but the houses and porches with their symbols reminded men of their faith, their inner feelings, their aspirations, and the home of their soul. Today, we have knowledge of many, many things and the relations among human beings have multiplied ad infinitum. But we live in cities that are like deafening factories in awful Babels, with nothing to remind us of our inner world. Our communion with this inner world is not through contemplation but through books. We have passed from intuition into intellectualism.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">To find the origin of the stream of intellectualism we must go back further than the Middle Ages. The epoch of the birth of human intellect, the period when this transformation took place, lies about a thousand years before the Christian era. It is the epoch of Thales, <span style="color: black;">Pythagoras</span>, Buddha. Then for the first time arose philosophy and science, that is to say truth presented to the reason in the form of logic. Before this age, truth presented itself in the form of religion, of revelation received by the teachers and accepted by the masses. In our times, truth passes into the individual intelligence and would fain be proved by argument, would like to have its own wings clipped.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What has happened in the inner nature of man to justify this transition of his consciousness from one plane to another, from the plane of intuition to that of logic? Here we touch upon one of the fundamental laws of history — a law no longer recognized by contemporary thought. It is this: <i>Humanity evolves in a way which enables the different elements and principles of man's being to unfold and develop in successive stages.</i> What are these principles?</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">To begin with, man has a <i>physical body</i> in common with the mineral kingdom. The whole mineral world is found again in the chemistry of the body. He has an <i>etheric body</i>, which is, properly speaking, the vital principle within him. He has this etheric body in common with the plants. This principle engenders the process of nutrition and the forces of growth and reproduction. Man has also an <i>astral body,</i> in which feelings and sentiments, the power of enjoyment and of suffering, are enkindled. He has the astral body in common with the animals.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Finally, there is a principle in man which cannot be spoken of as a body. It is his innermost essence, distinguishing him from all other entities — mineral, plant, and animal. It is the <i>self</i>, the soul, the divine spark. The Hindus spoke of it as <i>Manas</i>; The Rosicrucians as the ‘<i>Inexpressible</i>.’ A body, in effect, is only part and parcel of another body, but the self, the ‘I,’ of man exists in and by itself alone — “I am I.” This principle is addressed by others as ‘thou,’ or ‘you;’ it cannot be confused with anything else in the universe. By virtue of this inexpressible, incommunicable self, man rises above all created things of the Earth, above the animals, indeed above all creation. And only through this principle can he commune with the Infinite Self, with God. That is why, at certain definite times, the officiating hierophant in the ancient Hebrew sanctuaries said to the High Priest: Shem-Ham-Phores, which means: What is his name (the name of God)? He-Vo-He, or — in one word — Jev or Joph, meaning God, Nature, Man; or again, the inexpressible ‘I’ of man, which is both human and divine.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">These principles of man's being were laid down in remote ages of his vast evolutionary cycle — but they only unfold slowly, one by one.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The special mission of the period which began about a thousand years before the Christian era has been to develop the human ego in the intellectual sense. But above the intellectual plane there is the plane of Spirit. It is the world of Spirit to which man will attain in the centuries to come, and to which he will be wending his way from now onwards. The germs of this future development have been cast into the world by the Christ and by true Christianity.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Before speaking of this world of Spirit, we must understand one of the forces by means of which humanity <i>en masse</i> passed from the astral to the intellectual plane. It was by virtue of a <i>new kind of marriage</i>. In olden times, marriages were made in the bosom of the same tribe or of the same clan — which was only an extension of the family. Sometimes, indeed, brothers and sisters married. Later on, men sought their wives outside the clan, the tribe, the civic community. The beloved became the stranger, the unknown. Love — which in days of yore had been merely a natural and social function — became personal desire, and marriage a matter of free choice. This is indicated in certain Greek myths like that of the rape of Helen and again in the Scandinavian and Germanic myths of Sigurd and Gudrun. Love becomes an adventure, woman a conquest from afar.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This change from patriarchial marriage to free marriage corresponds to the new development of man's intellectual faculties, of the ego. There is a temporary eclipse of the astral faculties of vision and the power of reading directly in the astral and spiritual world — faculties which are included in ordinary speech under the name of <i>inspiration.</i></span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Let us now turn to Christianity. The brotherhood of man and the cult of the One God are certainly features of it, but they only represent the external, social aspect, not the inner, spiritual reality. The new, mysterious, and transcendental element in Christianity is that it creates divine Love, the power which transforms man from within, the leaven by which the whole world is raised. Christ came to say: ”If you leave not mother, wife, and your own body, you cannot be my disciple.”</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">That does not imply the cessation of natural links. Love extends beyond the bounds of family to all human beings and is changed into vivifying, creative, transmuting power.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This Love was the fundamental principle of Rosicrucian thought, but it was never understood by the outer world. It is destined to change the very essence of all religion, of all cults, of all science.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The progress of humanity is from unconscious spirituality (pre-Christian), through intellectualism (the present age), to <i>conscious</i> spirituality, where the astral and intellectual faculties unite once more and become dynamic through the power of the Spirit of Love, divine and human. In this sense, Theology will tend to become Theosophy.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What, in effect, is Theology? A knowledge of God imposed from without under the form of dogma, as a kind of supernatural logic. And what is Theosophy? A knowledge of God which blossoms like a flower in the depths of the individual soul. God, having vanished from the world, is reborn in the depths of the human heart.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the Rosicrucian sense, Christianity is at once the highest development of individual freedom and universal religion. There is a community of free souls. The tyranny of dogma is replaced by the radiance of divine Wisdom, embracing intelligence, love, and action.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The science which arises from this cannot be measured by its power of abstract reasoning but by its power to bring souls to flower and fruition. That is the difference between ‘Logia’ and ‘Sophia,’ between science and divine Wisdom, between Theology and Theosophy.</span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In this sense, Christ is the center of the esoteric evolution of the West. Certain modern Theologians — above all in Germany — have tried to represent Christ as a simple, naive human being. This is a terrible error. The most sublime consciousness, the most profound Wisdom live in Him, as well as the most divine Love. Without such consciousness, how could He be a supreme manifestation in the life of our whole planetary evolution? What gave Him this power to rise so high above His own time? Whence came transcendental qualities?</span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span></div></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0094/19060525p01.html">http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0094/19060525p01.html</a></span></div></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-68607336106820317412024-03-15T05:48:00.000-04:002024-03-15T05:48:31.372-04:00The necessity of the threefolding of society. The Social Question as a Question of Consciousness. Lecture 5 of 8<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> <span style="text-align: center;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0eUbhoEhcTI/V0GA9qjjdRI/AAAAAAAABvY/Onv_CoGRiY84rZzkDZnzpQXdWHGZXySpQCLcB/s1600/PIET_D1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0eUbhoEhcTI/V0GA9qjjdRI/AAAAAAAABvY/Onv_CoGRiY84rZzkDZnzpQXdWHGZXySpQCLcB/s640/PIET_D1.jpg" width="610" /></span></a></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span>The Social Question as a Question of Consciousness</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span>Lecture 5 of 8</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland, March 2, 1919:</i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yesterday from a certain standpoint we endeavored to go deeply into the present social movement. The fact brought to light by the subject of our observations was that, to have any understanding of a movement promoted by mankind, careful distinction must be made between what goes on superficially in ordinary consciousness in the soul, and what on the other hand is working in the depths of the soul in the subconscious regions. We became aware of the three impulses behind the modern proletariat movement: first, the so-called materialistic interpretation of history; then what the proletariat have learnt from their leaders, what they understand as the class struggle that is at the basis of all that happens historically; and then we gave our attention to the theory of surplus value which has worked so incisively on the proletarian soul. These are the things at work today on the surface of their soul life. In its depths something very different is stirring and coming to life. Whereas the modern proletarian surrenders himself to illusion when he says that all that develops historically amply reflects purely economic processes, arising like smoke from the spiritual life, he in really yearning, with all present-day humanity, for definite spiritual knowledge of the world. But so far he is ignorant of this subconscious yearning of his soul for spiritual knowledge. What is going on in the subconscious depths of his life of soul, and appears in a different guise on the surface, often just expresses itself in the most uncontrolled instincts.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Similarly, when the modern proletarian utters the phrase "class struggle," he does not realize that this is only an attempt to disguise what is filling the soul of modern mankind as a deep yearning, namely, the impulse toward freedom of thought. On its way from the subconscious to the conscious, the striving for freedom of thought changes into its opposite. This striving for freedom of thought is the real basis of the very intensive life in the element of authority, in sheer class-consciousness. And true socialism, which is the fundamental aim of our times, is expressed also in its opposite — in the striving to put all surplus value to egoistic uses.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Whoever does not understand this secret of the existing proletarian movement cannot today discover the underlying social impulses. Having had all this before our souls yesterday, we will now consider a few of its relevant truths.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A very different attitude to a world historic movement arises in those who look more deeply into what is happening, from the attitude of those who observe merely what is on the surface. The present social movement is now finding its most radical expression in Bolshevism, which is more a social method, having for its content all that has been absorbed into the will of the most advanced so-called socialism. The student of history as reality, rather than theory, endeavors above all to understand how certain streams in the cosmic development of man reveal themselves in their most extreme form. For in an extreme form it is often easier to recognize what, though no less active, is frequently hidden in the less extreme. If we are rightly to understand the historic consequences of Bolshevism, the horrifying deeds of which are already historic fact, we shall, in some measure, have to observe the more recent life of history.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In answer to the question: Who are the Bolshevists? various names would have to be given today. The names most often repeated are those of Lenin and Trotsky. I will, however, give you a third name which may perhaps astonish you. But from a certain point of view I can do no less than call Johann Gottlieb Fichte a genuine Bolshevist. I have often spoken to you of him and tried to present his life history from a rather more profound standpoint, and we have also called up before our souls some of his leading thoughts. It cannot be denied that Fichte was one of the most forceful thinkers of recent times and, in the truest sense of the word, an idealist. He stated his views on socialism in a little book entitled <i>Der geschlossene Handelsstaat</i> (<i>The Enclosed Commercial State</i>). If what he there presents as a kind of ideal picture of social conditions is studied in its reality, it can only be said that, if realized, this social ideal set forth in Fichte's book could lead to nothing but Bolshevism. Trotsky's writings — sentence for sentence, almost word for word, as far as this can be the case in such widely different things — are reminiscent of Fichte's <i>Der geschlossene Handelsstaat</i>.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #000033;"><span style="line-height: 22.5px;">Now Fichte is, it is true, a Bolshevist long since dead. This is a reason, however, to go further into the matter. In Fichte we have, above all, a solitary thinker who reached great heights in in his philosophical ideas. He reflected upon the crying injustices of the social order of his time, and how they could be swept away to give place to more just social conditions. And out of his own innermost soul arose a picture of a communal order that aimed at organizing human beings in much the same forceful way as Russian Bolshevism organizes them, and as its followers will continue to do. I can imagine that many people today, concerned about the injustices arising within the social order, feel themselves captivated by the very simple conceptions developed by Fichte in his book. I need not dwell upon this; it is enough to think that you have here, described in the cultured language of a philosopher, what Bolshevism is doing. You will then have an idea of </span></span><i style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px;">Der geschlossene Handelsstaat</i><span style="color: #000033;"><span style="line-height: 22.5px;"> by Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It is just these facts that can prove a justification of the threefold nature of the healthy social organism.</span></span></span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now, what is the aim of this threefold order? In public lectures I have often pointed out how this particular way of thinking socially differs from other ways. I have said that seeing what has partly come into being already, in one or another of the forms of States, seeing what those who are socialistically minded aim at realizing, we have the feeling that what people think of already as medieval superstition is nevertheless deeply rooted in their souls. It is as if in the human soul there were a certain hankering after superstition, and when superstition is driven out on the one side, it turns to the other side. Thus, many things existing in social life, as well as the aims of socialistic thinkers, recall the scene in the second part of Goethe's <i>Faust</i> where Wagner is producing Homunculus. Homunculus is supposed to be put together mechanically, out of certain ingredients in accordance with dry intellectual principles. The alchemists, looked upon as superstitious, considered that this could not be done thus simply, and set this artificial creation of a manikin, of Homunculus, in contrast to the forming of a true human organism. A true human organism cannot be put together out of just so many ingredients; the necessary conditions must be forthcoming in which he can to a certain extent produce himself. It is thought that in scientific spheres alchemistic superstitions have been overcome. But in the social sphere, superstition continues to flourish. And it endeavors to set up an artificial social order consisting in all manner of ingredients out of the human will.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This way of thinking is diametrically opposed to the fundamentals of spiritual science represented here. The way of thinking we represent aims at getting rid of all social superstition, so that in a practical way we can answer the following question: What conditions must be set up, not to enable some cleverly designed, socialistic ideal to be put into practice, but so that human beings in mutual cooperation should bring about the necessary shaping of the social life?</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">One finds, however, that in actual fact this social organism, like the natural organism, must consist of three relatively independent members. Just as the human head, the chief bearer of the sense-organs, by reason of these organs stands in a special relation to the external world and is centered in itself; just as, too, the rhythmic system, the lungs and the breathing, and then again the digestive system. are centered in themselves — as these three work together in relative independence, so it is fundamentally necessary for the social organism to be threefold, its three members being relatively independent. There must work side by side the independent spiritual organism, the independent organism of the political state in its narrow sense, and the independent economic life. Each of these bodies should have its own legislation and government, arising out of its own conditions and its own forces. This seems to be abstract, but this threefold order is just the element in which man can be so fused that from the working together of all the members a healthy social organism can result. It cannot be just a question of thinking out what form the social organism is to take. Our thinking, indeed, is not so advanced in the social sphere that a structure can be given straightway to the social organism. One individual by himself could as little bring about such a structure as a man growing up alone on a desert island without any human society could, out of himself, learn to speak. Everything social arises through cooperation, but a cooperation harmoniously regulated on this threefold basis. It is only by keeping in mind the direction leading to a really practical structure, a really practical life, that we understand how a man like Johann Gottlieb Fichte came to think out a social system which, put into practice, would actually be Bolshevism.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">For what kind of personality is Fichte? Fichte is a characteristic modern thinker. He cultivated in the most energetic way and in its purest form the thinking that was evolving, as we know, though not always on the same level. (Read about this in my <i>Rätseln der Philosophie; Riddles of Philosophy</i>). It is just in a personality like Fichte that one can see in what direction thinking goes when a man wishes to draw it entirely out of himself, out of his ego. And if one applies this thinking to the social structure there arises the picture given in Fichte's <i>Der geschlossene Handelsstaat</i>. Only with deep insight can it be understood how thinking like Fichte's is not suitable for finding the right social structure. Thinking drawn entirely from the impulse of the ego is not able to find the social structure of the ego, any more than the single man can invent speech. The social structure is far more readily found when men are brought together into such a relation that this structure can be created through their mutual intercourse and cooperation. We must make a halt, so to speak, before certain things relating to the social structure; we must dare to follow the way only so far as we are shown: This is the relation in which men must stand if the social organism is to be realized through their combined efforts. — That is thinking in terms of reality and experience! Fichte's thinking is born out of the pure ego and is ultimately, though in a different form, Bolshevistic thinking. It is an anti-social thinking because it is born out of the ego alone; its form does not originate in human association. The community life of the proletariat has accepted this anti-social form on the authority of an individual leader who has become its guiding principle.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">The question now arises: How is it that this life in common gives us more justice in the social sphere than does the inner life of the individual man? Here we must be clear whither the purest form of thinking, as arising in Fichte, actually leads. The ordinary man with no grounding in philosophy, accustomed to reading the newspaper or light literature, and having perhaps some knowledge of science as taught today in the universities — this man coming to Fichte's works cannot cope with them. He feels himself overcome by the thoughts which are so forceful and so abstract in their development. To most people they seem just a web of thoughts. The reason is that it is pure thinking, woven out of the content of the soul alone, apart from all concrete experience. Studying Fichte's <i>Wissenschaftlehre</i> (<i>Theory of Knowledge</i>) you follow it sentence by sentence in the heights of abstraction, often with no idea why, as these thoughts mean nothing to you, you should be concerned with them at all. You can read pages of this and simply experience the following: The ego is asserting itself. To begin with many pages are taken up with an analysis of this. Next we come to — the ego fixes the non-ego, which again takes up a number of pages. Thirdly, the ego establishes itself, its limits being the non-ego, and the non-ego being bounded by the ego. — So it goes on through the <i>Wissenschaftlehre</i> in which only these propositions with far-reaching deductions are set forth. You will say: I am not interested in all this, for ultimately it is just empty abstraction. — Nevertheless when you consider Fichte's life and endeavors, as I described them to you here a little time ago, you come to respect both him and his striving after pure thinking. Whence comes then this remarkable contradiction? It arises from the necessity for man to arrive at a certain period of his evolution at this pure thinking, this thinking filled with pure thought. For in more ancient days human thinking was filled only with pictures. Men like Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel have thought in thoughts alone, pictureless thoughts. The Greeks could never have thought in this way, nor the Romans, nor could men have thought thus in the Middle Ages, for in spite of all their abstractions, the thinking of the Scholastics was still quite different. Why then has abstract thinking arisen in modern historical evolution? It is because men have to make great inner effort! And it partakes of this effort when, in Fichte's sense, for example, an endeavor is made to rise to the abstract, and there is a real struggle to attain to such abstraction. This is said by the ordinary, practical men to be of no use, because all experience has been eliminated. And that is indeed so. Such abstractions are, however, necessary as a stage in progress. And as soon as there is a </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; text-indent: 0.25in;">sufficiently strong impulse within the human life of soul to develop to a stage beyond these abstractions, then the soul rises into the spiritual life. In modern mysticism there is no sound path that does not lead through vigorous thinking. That must first be achieved. After vigorous thinking, the next step is to actual experience of the spiritual. In historical evolution this naturally takes a long time, but it is the path on which mankind has to travel. And this longing holding sway in present-day mankind, to get beyond the abstract to the spiritual life, lies secretly at the basis of the force in the modern proletarian movement. The proletarian fights against the activity of spiritual forces in history, where he considers economic forces alone should prevail. He clings to the most blatant external perception, and regards what he thus perceives as the only historic development. The life of the spirit is for him a mere superstructure, an ideology, a reflection of external economic processes. He pictures it thus because when modern man directs his gaze within, he can no longer discover the old atavistic visions; he sees merely abstractions, abstract thoughts, in which he can find no reality. For that, he would have to take the next step, which I have already described. Thus each seeks in the external world that reality for which he inwardly yearns. Being tied, since capitalism arose, to the economic life alone, the proletarian seeks there his reality.</span></span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And what will be the next obvious step? The next step will be to see that ultimately no real driving forces lie in the economic order. In exact contrast to this historical materialism, it is out of the inner life that, as historical impulse, the force will develop for pressing forward to the spiritual. What comes to appearance in historical materialism is only the caricature of the yearning in the deep recesses of man's soul.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the same way, the force of each man's individuality is contained in class-consciousness, and this individuality looks within itself for a content it has so far been unable to find. Still finding emptiness there, it leans on the class as a whole in order, as man, to feel the strength of a common bond.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Thus all the impulses holding good on the surface of the social movement secretly issue from the sources I have described. Therefore at the time Fichte was working — a time not then ripe for developing Spiritual Science — nothing more could appear than a thinking that awaited the approach of the spiritual world and had no power to serve external reality. For when thinking that really should be concerned with the spiritual world,is applied instead — powerfully, logically, and fundamentally — to the external reality of the senses, it does not work upon this reality constructively but destructively. Now I have often spoken to you of the function of evil. I have told you what forces are really active in what we call the evil in man. I have said that, from a plane higher than that of the senses, from the spiritual plane that is nearest to ours, we can, with the perception we then have, see what is at work in evil. For the forces living in thieves, robbers, murderers would not then be experienced in their unlawful aspect as here in the sense-world, but on the higher plane they would be metamorphosed, transformed, and thus fully within their rights. That is where evil belongs. Evil is misplaced good. Only because the ahrimanic powers force upon our world something belonging to a quite different world, does what we see as evil arise. And thus arises also destructive thinking, when social ideals are spun out of what is within man, and the pure thinking does not wait to be filled by the spiritual world.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This gives us a glimpse into the difference between all the prevalent ruling abstractions and what is striving for a really practical grasp of the social organism. For in what arises and is cultivated in man's community life, when rightly brought about, there does not live abstract thought. Abstract thought is not experienced when human beings are together. For then hidden, secret Imaginations are experienced. And only when these are actually realized do they give the appropriate form to the social organism. The progress to be made in modern Spiritual Science will be closely connected with the only impulses essential for a sound socialistic ordering of the world. And the deficiencies and defects, all that is unhealthy in the present social organism, consist in what can be the result of experience alone being, in the manner of Fichte, woven out of demands arising merely within man.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When we observe the direction of the modern endeavor to make the State more and more into a uniform State in which everything would be centralized, it becomes clear that this can lead to nothing but a shattering, a disturbance, of the social organism. And the reason for this lies far deeper than is thought by those who consider the modern proletarian movement to exist merely to be concerned with bread or wages. For even if a movement concerned with bread and wages should be necessary or were in actual practice today, what is important is not the endeavor to change the bread situation or its organization, but the way in which this is striven for. And you arrive at that way through considerations such as today I have once again put forward. Think of the question of surplus value, to which we came at the end of yesterday's lecture. Whoever has had experience of the proletarian movement knows what a deep effect this question has made, as it has been planted in the souls of proletarians by certain of the leaders.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now, upon what does this theory of surplus value rest? It rests actually upon what I was describing in yesterday's public lecture in Basel, namely, that there is something false in the relations between employer and employee, of which neither employer nor employee is conscious. The facts of the matter are masked. But although unconsciously, it is working on the soul out of the subconscious depths as fact: it is working as feeling.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Let us observe the main point more closely. The employee stands today in a quite definite relation to the employer, a relation that, as a human being, he finds unworthy, although in a conscious description he might sometimes put it quite differently. In his soul he experiences it as unworthy because it leads to the sale to the employer of his labor power as a commodity. In the secret depths of his soul he feels that nothing human should be for sale. When a man sells his labor power, the whole man is sold.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The question could be put differently, and in the usual socialistic way of thinking it is put thus: How is man to be refunded in the right way for his labor power? The socialistic ideals run mostly on the lines of making adequate refund for power expended on manual labor. But the facts are quite otherwise. A human study of folk-economy makes it clear that no form of human labor power can be exchanged for anything else: neither goods nor anything representing goods, such as money, are interchangeable with labor power. Even when transformed into reality it is no real process but only a thing of the imagination that the manual worker should give his work, and then, in exchange, receive money for what he expends in labor power. That is absolutely false and the true process is masked; something quite different happens. In the present social organism the worker brings his labor power to market and the employer, the contractor, buys it with wages. But it is not really thus. In the economic life there can only be exchange of one commodity with another — commodities, that is, in the widest sense; and in reality the whole of economic life consists in the exchange of commodities. What is a commodity, if we think of its reality? A piece of ground is not a commodity; coal, when under the earth, is not a commodity. A commodity is the result of human activity alone, something transformed by human activity or something man has moved from one place to another. Under those two headings you find everything that can be brought into the concept ‘commodity.’ The nature of a commodity has been the subject of much argument. A close study of economic connections generally shows that in reality only this definition will hold water.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now, in the modem social organism there has been an element of confusion in the circulation and interchange of commodities, which has driven the social organism to its present revolutionary convulsions. It is fantastic today to believe it possible not only to exchange commodities for commodities but also commodities for labor power, as in the matter of wages. It is fantastic too when we believe it possible to exchange commodities, or the money representing them, for what cannot be a commodity — ground, land, for example, that has not been changed by man. For land, as such, is not an object belonging to the economic process. Upon the land things of the economic process are attained by human activity, but land, as such, cannot be counted as belonging to this process. With regard to the significance of the land in the social organism, we see that one man or another has exclusive right to use and work this land. It is this right to land that has a real significance for the social organism. Land itself is not a commodity but commodities come from the land. And here enters the right the possessor has to the land. If you acquire a piece of land by sale, that is, by exchange, what you really acquire is a right, you exchange something for a right, such as is the case for example in buying a patent. There one gets a good idea of the process of fusion that has had such unfortunate results: the fusion of the purely political rights-State with the economic life. For this there can be no cure other than separation. The economic life must be left to the independent management of its own production, circulation, and consumption of commodities, in a life of association in which production, consumption, and individual professional interests link men together and place them in proper relation. But in these associations and groups there would be only mutual economic activity, just as the human metabolic system is concerned only with the digestion. Digestion is then taken up from another side by the independent system of lungs and heart, which for its part is connected with the external world. So, too, must be established from a special source what is implanted in the economic life as rights. This means that everything relating to political conditions should have a relatively independent existence alongside the economic life. Those who are observant see what unreality lies in the relation between employer and employee, where their relation is represented as though labor power could really be refunded. Labor power is not immediately refunded but only immediately funded, what appears being a certain apparent right which has become economically powerful, by which, not manifestly but fundamentally, the employer is able to drive the worker to the machine or into the factory. What is here exchanged is in reality not labor power for commodities or for the money representing them, but for something performed. Commodities produced by the worker are bartered for other commodities or money. For the commodities given him by the employer the worker barters the goods he produces. Here, clearly revealed, we have the unreality of goods apparently being bartered for labor power. This is what the modern proletarian secretly feels to be beneath his dignity as a man, and makes him say: You produce an amount of goods of which the employer gives you back only a certain proportion.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The correct relation between contractor or employer and the worker cannot be brought about in the sphere of economic processes, but only in the sphere of the political State as a relation of rights. That is what it really comes to. If on the one side man stands on the ground of economic life, on the other side on the ground of an independent life of rights, then the economic life will be determined by the two sides; on the one hand by the life of rights, on the other hand it will depend on the natural independent factors of human activity.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">At Basel, in public lectures, I have pointed out that on a certain piece of ground in order to produce wheat, for example, more labor has to be expended than in other places where the rate of productivity is higher. That is the working of natural causes which, on the one side, border on the economic life. On the other side, what should be the relation between employee and employee must flow from the life of rights into the economic life.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now, people who take a superficial view of things will say: Yes, but today that is already the case, for a contract is drawn up. — How does it help if a Trade Union decides about something that is recognizably a false relation? For the decision is made about the relative position between worker and employer in respect to labor power and its earnings. The right relation will come about only when the decision is not concerned about payment but about the way in which employer and employed share in the results produced. Then the worker will see — and more depends on this than is thought at present — that without the production of surplus value no subsistence will be forthcoming. But he must perceive how surplus value arises. He must not be implicated in a false relationship. Then the worker will see that without the creation of surplus value there can be no spiritual culture at all, and no rights State, for all this comes out of surplus value. When the social organism is healthy, however, all this comes into being as a result of its threefold ordering.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">One can naturally speak not for merely hours but for weeks on end about all this, and this is what we have already nearly done. And of course we continually come upon fresh details that help to make the matter clearer; for every individual concrete question that will arise makes itself felt, the solution of which will be sought in practical life through the threefold social organism.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The following above all must be kept in mind. In the economic life commodities are exchanged; with this life is closely allied that of the political State that controls the labor power in man's common life, in his life of rights. So that whereas this economic life is, on the one hand, dependent upon natural elements, on the other hand it depends on what is settled by the State, for instance, the hours of work, work in relation to the individual man — to his strength, weakness, age, and so on. There can be no set maximum for working hours, or anything of that kind; in reality there can be merely a higher or lower limit. These are conditions flowing into the economic life from the side of the rights State, just as the natural elements come to meet it from the other side. Once the social organism is put on this healthy basis, the evil will disappear that arises from the connection of wages with the economic life. The fact that wages rise in good times and fall in a crisis will be changed into its opposite. The good and bad times will be influenced by what is paid for labor.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This can be seen especially clearly where ground-rent is concerned, which today largely depends upon the price of the goods produced on the land, upon market prices. The opposite would be healthier, namely, for the rights expressed in ground-rent on their part to influence market prices. Under the threefold order much will be the exact opposite of the existing conditions that have caused the present revolutionary upheavals. The whole of life will run a different course.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now, what is it that above all calls for our attention in the mutual relation of the economic life and the political State, in their narrower sense? Let us take as an example what is sometimes felt to be extremely unpleasant — the payment of taxes. In this connection we have simply to make ourselves clear that taxes must come out of surplus value; while in the common democratic political life we must always bear in mind the living conditions of the political organism, just as we do those of the economic life when, in buying and selling, we perceive clearly through human needs the realities of the economic conditions. Here, too, the opposite will result to what exists today. I do not say that the legislation with regard to taxes should be altered; there is much today that does not allow of change, for then what is at fault might just be shifted to another quarter. So many things in social life will be regarded differently under the influence of the sound threefold organism. It will be seen that for the social life as such, for the life of men in the social organism, getting money has no significance. Man separates himself from the social organism in money-getting, which is a matter of indifference to it. In the functioning of the social organism, what money man gathers in has no significance; he becomes a social being only when he gives out.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is in his giving-out that a men begins to act in a social way. The point is — and here I am not thinking of indirect taxes but of direct taxes, which are a quite different matter — that it is in connection with paying-out, that the rate of taxation should be settled. Although it could be worked out, naturally I cannot give details here, because for a lecture it would mean going too deeply into the science of economics. Nevertheless some indication of it can be given.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In a healthy economic life of the social organism, separate from the other members, it is clear that for geographical reasons, because of natural conditions, wheat in a certain territory, for instance, must be dearer to produce than elsewhere. And it can be shown that no adjustment will be created through mere associations. But the matter can be properly adjusted by the Rights-State in such a case, and this would arise out of its very nature by those who buy wheat more cheaply, namely, those who pay out less being more highly taxed than those who give out more when buying the wheat.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If the rights in the economic life are well regulated by the Rights-State, if the rights are not merely economic interests brought to realization, if members of the agricultural unions have no seat in parliament but only those are there who consider rights as between man and man, then there will come about a satisfactory ordering of the economic life.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I have shown this in an abstract generalization, but it could be gone into in detail. The tax position is a question to be regulated between the economic life and that of rights. The regulation, however, between these two spheres, on the one hand, and on the other the cultural, spiritual life, is such that it can be established only on mutual trust and understanding. As the payment of taxes must be compulsory even in a healthy social organism, what on the other hand is given to the spiritual life can be a matter of free will alone; for the spiritual life must be built wholly upon the spirit of man and be completely emancipated from anything else. Then it will react on everything else in the deepest, most intensive way.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Such is the outline I can give you of the way in which the healthy social organism must function. This Threefold Order is not an invention, it is simply what can be observed if one recognizes the underlying forces active today in human evolution. These forces can be brought into action in the next ten, twenty, thirty years if only various people exert their will in various directions. It is a question of the way. The forces have been observed and have been given a perceptible form. It is in this way we must live in regard to historical life. Freedom, in its quite different relations, will be as little disturbed by this as by the fact that one cannot grasp the moon, for example, however much we wish to do so. Freedom is realized according to the necessities lying in the natural as well as in the historical processes of evolution.</span></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VitGTSqTiro/UytPuUSrcUI/AAAAAAAAATw/OhH-6Og0WmsP0re9VrwYgUYHFWqRzmf9wCKgB/s1600/7th%2Bseal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VitGTSqTiro/UytPuUSrcUI/AAAAAAAAATw/OhH-6Og0WmsP0re9VrwYgUYHFWqRzmf9wCKgB/s640/7th%2Bseal.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div style="color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><br /></span></span><div style="color: #000033; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.5px; text-indent: 0px;">Source:</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA189/English/UNK1970/19190301p01.html" style="background-color: white;">http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA189/English/UNK1970/19190302p01.html</a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-87528156196439388892024-03-14T18:45:00.000-04:002024-03-14T18:45:05.855-04:00Not praying is a sin of omission<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmACHLCy2HY_emmgr6TdhKMwZThzAIdyDVxNbPx1CVnSuqov4f72PfkZVhHm_pCN8-S3ym47mdlePwecH1OHHUtBltHDrvoBYkmHSZZYbi3lkKjwJKZiikte9x_qkW_k6EYvvSRF-F99qb0pF9xopTCtvADY7j0IToFQq6TfX3UMD0G5vSKFKg4nZZ5Q=s720" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="720" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmACHLCy2HY_emmgr6TdhKMwZThzAIdyDVxNbPx1CVnSuqov4f72PfkZVhHm_pCN8-S3ym47mdlePwecH1OHHUtBltHDrvoBYkmHSZZYbi3lkKjwJKZiikte9x_qkW_k6EYvvSRF-F99qb0pF9xopTCtvADY7j0IToFQq6TfX3UMD0G5vSKFKg4nZZ5Q=w640-h354" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #fffff8; hyphens: auto; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><u>from the notes of an attendee at an Esoteric Lesson</u></i></span></p><p style="background-color: #fffff8; hyphens: auto; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><u>Rudolf Steiner:</u></i></span></p><p style="background-color: #fffff8; hyphens: auto; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #fffff8; hyphens: auto; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A primitive man used to receive prayers that he said in the evening before going to sleep, and in the morning after waking up, and that was good, for he strengthened his soul with spiritual forces as he prepared his soul for higher worlds, and after he left them, he again permeated his soul with higher forces, and as it were, sucked out soul forces from spiritual worlds.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffff8; hyphens: auto; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms below man are permeated with spiritual forces that always become renewed; the same is true of the four elements fire, water, air, and earth. Things are different with men. If a man doesn't connect himself with these spiritual forces, he doesn't receive them. If he goes to sleep without preparation he doesn't get any forces in the worlds he enters then. No matter how learned, scientific, and high-ranking a materialist is, if he goes into spiritual worlds unprepared in the evening, he stands far below a simple primitive man who has already connected himself with them through his prayer. Man has increasingly forgotten prayer in our materialistic age with its very admirable scientific achievements. He goes to sleep and wakes up with his everyday thoughts. But what does he do thereby? Something happens through this omission. He kills some of the spiritual life and forces on the physical plane each time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0266/19100206e01.html">June 16, 1910</a></span></p><p><br /></p>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-57496912450488538002024-03-14T08:46:00.000-04:002024-03-14T08:46:06.449-04:00Reality is incommensurable. The Redemption of Science. Lecture Series #3: Astronomy: Lecture 4<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background-color: #fffff8; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img height="640" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-17-07.gif" style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="462" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br />Adam Kadmon in the golden womb, Hiranyagarbha</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /><br /><img alt="Figure 7 and Figure 8" height="433" src="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-01-05.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><div><span style="text-align: start;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">"'Fate' and 'soul' are two names for one concept." — <i>Novalis</i></span></b></span></div><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #000033; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvIQCcK386KweCo06z9vMvn0mXKwnVS7FxsBRY8ZdP60nTN8qeLCScJtALEf945dmRNQKtm2KC_f6AgRSWJlt0CXmU4g5hMbuAzZFlUBHLREtlAgZ-_yw4sFf14CR7gRyS3Lkn7WOLj6L62CfyHZRRZ6MsETCX1UlC8ahvBZPtWizSAAXpYU6IYDi3YA/s1426/7th%20seal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1426" data-original-width="1426" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvIQCcK386KweCo06z9vMvn0mXKwnVS7FxsBRY8ZdP60nTN8qeLCScJtALEf945dmRNQKtm2KC_f6AgRSWJlt0CXmU4g5hMbuAzZFlUBHLREtlAgZ-_yw4sFf14CR7gRyS3Lkn7WOLj6L62CfyHZRRZ6MsETCX1UlC8ahvBZPtWizSAAXpYU6IYDi3YA/w640-h640/7th%20seal.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">"Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.... The nature of man cannot be understood unless we are just as conscious of our connection with the stars as of our connection with the Earth." <i>— Rudolf Steiner</i></span></b></div></div></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b><i>Astronomy in Relation to the Other Scientific Disciplines. Lecture 4 of 18</i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Rudolf Steiner, Stuttgart, Germany, January 4, 1921:</span></i></b></div><div><b><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></b></div><div><b><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></b></div><div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">My Dear Friends,</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If I had the task of presenting my subject purely according to the methods of Spiritual Science, I should naturally have to start from different premises and we should be able to reach our goal more quickly. Such a presentation, however, would not fulfill the special purpose of these lectures. For the whole point of these lectures is to throw a bridge across to the customary methods of scientific thought. Admittedly, I have chosen just the material which makes the bridge most difficult to construct, because the customary mode of thought in this realm is very far from realistic. But in contending against an unreal point of view, it will become apparent how we can emerge from the unsatisfying nature of modern theories and come to a true grasp of the facts in question. Today, then, I should like to consider the whole way in which ideas have been formed in modern times about the celestial phenomena.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We must, however, distinguish two things in the formation of these ideas. First, the ideas are derived from observation of the celestial phenomena, and theoretical explanations are then linked on to the observations. Sometimes very far-reaching, spun-out theories have been linked on to relatively few observations. That is the one thing, namely, that a start is made from observations, out of which certain ideas have been developed. The other is that, the ideas having been reached, they are further elaborated into hypotheses. In this creating of hypotheses, — a process which ends in the setting up of some definite cosmology, — much arbitrariness prevails, since in the setting-up of theories, any preconceived ideas existing in the minds of those who put forward the theory make themselves strongly felt.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I will therefore first call your attention to something which will perhaps strike you as paradoxical, but which, when carefully examined, will none the less prove fruitful in the further course of our studies.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the whole mode of thought of modern Science there prevails what might be called, and indeed has been called, the ‘Regula philosophandi’. It consists in saying: What has been traced to definite causes in one realm of reality is to be traced to the same causes in other realms. In setting up such a ‘regula philosophandi’ the starting-point is as a rule apparently self-evident. It will be said — scientists of the Newtonian school will certainly say — that breathing must have the same causes in man as in the animal, or again, that the ignition of a piece of wood must have the same cause whether in Europe or in America. Up to this point the thing is obvious enough. But then a jump is made which passes unnoticed, — is taken tacitly for granted. Those who are wont to think in this way will say, for example, that if a candle and the Sun are both of them shedding light, the same causes must surely underlie the light of the candle and the light of the Sun. Or again, if a stone falls to Earth and the Moon circles round the Earth, the same causes must underlie the movement of the stone and the movement of the Moon. To such an explanation they attach the further thought that if this were not so, we should have no explanations at all in Astronomy. The explanations are based on earthly things. If the same causality did not obtain in the Heavens as on Earth, we should not be able to arrive at any theory at all.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yet when you come to think of it, this ‘regula philosophandi’ is none other than a preconceived idea. Who in the world will guarantee that the causes of the shining of a candle and of the shining of the Sun are one and the same? Or that in the falling of a stone, or the falling of the famous apple from the tree by which Newton arrived at his theory, there is the same underlying cause as in the movements of the heavenly bodies? This would first have to be established. As it is, it is a mere preconceived idea. Prejudices of this kind enter in, when, having first derived theoretical explanations and thought-pictures inductively from the observed phenomena, people rush headlong into deductive reasoning and construct world-systems by deductive methods.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What I am now describing thus abstractly has, however, become a historical fact. There is a continuous line of development from what the great thinkers at the opening of the modern age — Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo — concluded from comparatively few observations. Of Kepler — notably of his Third Law, quoted yesterday — it must be said that his analysis of the facts which were available to him is a work of genius.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It was a very great intensity of spiritual force which Kepler brought to bear when, from the little that lay before him, he discovered this ‘law’ as we call it, or better, this ‘conceptual synthesis’ of the phenomena of the universe. Then however, by way of Newton a development set in which was not derived from observation but from theoretical constructions, including concepts of force and mass and the like, which we must simply omit if we only want to hold to what is given. The development in this direction reaches a culminating point — conceived, admittedly, with genius and originality — in Laplace, where it leads to a genetic explanation of the entire cosmic system (as you will convince yourselves if you read his famous book “Exposition du Systeme du Monde”), or again in Kant, in his “Natural History and Theory of the Heavens”. In all that has followed in this trend we see the effort constantly made to come to conclusions based on the thought-pictures that have thus been conceived of the connections of the celestial movements, and resulting in such explanations of the origin of the universe as the nebular theory and so on.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It must be noted that in the historical development of these theories we have something which is put together from inductions made, once again, with no little genius in this domain — and from subsequent deductions in which the special predilections of their authors were included. Inasmuch as a thinker was imbued with materialism it was quite natural for him to mingle materialistic ideas with his deductive concepts. Then it was no longer the facts which spoke, for one proceeded on the basis of the theories which had emerged from the deductions. Thus, for example, inductively men first arrived at the mental pictures which they summed up in the notion of a central body, the Sun, with the planets revolving around it in ellipses according to a certain law, namely: the radius-vectors describe equal areas in equal periods of time. By observing the different planets of a solar system, it was moreover possible to summarize their mutual relations in Kepler's Third Law: ‘For different planets the squares of the periods of revolution are proportional to the cubes of the radius-vectors’. Here was a certain picture. The question, however, was not decided, whether this picture completely fitted the reality. It was in truth an abstraction from reality; to what extent it related to the full reality was not established. From this picture — not from reality, but from this picture — people deduced what then became a whole genetic system of Astronomy. All this must be borne in mind. Modern man is taught from childhood as if the theories which have been reached in the past few centuries by deductive reasoning were the real facts. We will therefore, while taking our start from what is truly scientific, disregard as far as is possible all that is merely theoretical and link on to those ideas which only depart from reality to the extent that we shall still be able to discover in them a connection with what is real. It will be my task, in all that I give today, to follow the direction of modern scientific thought only up to those ideas and concepts which still permit one to find the way back again into reality. I shall not depart so far from reality that the concepts become crude enough to allow of the deduction of nebular hypotheses.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Proceeding in this way, — pursuing the modern method of forming concepts in this particular field, — we must first form a concept which presented itself inductively to Kepler and was then developed further. I repeat expressly, I will only go so far in these concepts that even if the picture in the form in which it was conceived should be mistaken, it has departed only so far from reality that it will be possible to eliminate the mistake and return to what is true. We need to develop a certain flair for reality in the concepts we entertain. We cannot proceed in any other way if we wish to throw a bridge across from the reality to the spun-out theories of modern scholarship and science.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Here then, to begin with, is a concept which we must examine. The planets have eccentric orbits, — they describe ellipses. This is something with which we can begin. The planets have eccentric orbits and describe ellipses, in one focus of which is the Sun. They describe the ellipses in accordance with the law that the radius-vectors describe equal areas in equal periods of time.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A second essential for us to hold to is the idea that each planet has its own orbital plane. Although the planets carry out their evolutions in the neighborhood of each other, so to speak, yet for each planet there is the distinct plane of its orbit, more or less inclined to the plane of the Sun's equator: If this depicts the plane of the Sun's equator (<a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0323/19210104p01.html#Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig.1</a>), an orbital plane of a planet would be thus; it would not coincide at all with the plane of the Sun's equator.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="Fig1" name="Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; font-weight: bold;"></a><img height="198" src="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-04-01.gif" width="300" /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Fig. 1</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">These are two very significant mental pictures, to be formed from the facts of observation. And yet, in the very forming of them we must take note of something in the real world-picture, which as it were, rebels against them. For instance, if we are trying to understand our solar system in its totality, and only base it upon the picture of the planets moving in eccentric orbits, the orbital planes being inclined at varying degrees to the plane of the solar equator, we shall be in difficulties if we also take into account the movements of the <i>comets</i>. The moment we turn our attention to the cometary movements, the picture no longer suffices. The outcome will be better understood from the historical facts than from any theoretical explanations.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Upon these two thought-pictures, — that the orbital planes of the planets lie in the proximity of the plane of the Sun's equator, and that the orbits are eccentric ellipses, — Kant, Laplace and their successors built up the nebular hypothesis. Follow what emerges from this. At a pinch, and indeed only at a pinch, it is a way of imagining the origin of the solar system. But the astronomical system thus constructed contains no satisfactory explanation of the part played by the cometary bodies. They always fall out of the theory. This discordance of the comets with the theories which were formed, as described, in the course of scientific history, proves that the cometary life somehow rebels against a concept formed not from the whole but only from a part of the whole. We must be clear, too, that the paths of the comets frequently coincide with those of other bodies which also play into our system and present a riddle precisely through their association with the comets. These are the meteoric swarms, whose paths very frequently — perhaps even always — coincide with the cometary paths. Here, my dear friends, taking into account the totality of our system, we are led to say: A sea of ideas has gradually been formed from the study of our planetary system as a whole, — ideas with which we cannot do justice to the seemingly irregular and almost arbitrary paths of the comets and meteoric swarms. They simply refuse to be included in the more abstract pictures that have been reached. I should have to give you long historical descriptions to show in detail how many difficulties have arisen in connection with the concrete facts, when the investigators — or rather, thinkers — approached the comets and meteoric swarms with their astronomical theories.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I wish only to point out the directions in which a sound understanding can be sought. We shall come to such an understanding if we pay attention to yet another aspect.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Starting in this way from concepts which still have a remnant of reality in them, we will now try to go back a little towards what is real. It is indeed always necessary to do this in relation to the outer world, in order that our concepts may not stray too far from reality, — for this is a strong propensity of man. We must go back again and again to the reality.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is already no little danger in forming such a concept as that the planets move in ellipses, and then beginning at once to build a theory upon this concept. It is far better, after forming such a concept, to turn back to reality in order to see if the concept does not need correcting, or at least modifying. This is important. It is very clearly seen in astronomical thinking. Also in biological and especially in medical thought, the same failing has led people very far astray. They do not take into account how necessary it is, directly they have formed a concept, to go back to reality in order to make sure that there is no reason to modify it.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The planets, then, move in ellipses. But these ellipses vary; they are sometimes more circular, sometimes more elliptical. We find this if we return to reality with the ellipse idea. In the course of time the ellipse becomes more bulging, more like a circle, and then again more like an ellipse. So I by no means include the whole reality if I merely say, ‘the planets move in ellipses’. I must modify the concept and say: The planets move in paths which continually struggle against becoming a circle or remaining one and the same ellipse. If I were now to draw the elliptic line, to be true to the reality I should have to make it of india-rubber, or form it flexibly in some way, continually altering it within itself. For if I had formed the ellipse which is there in <i>one</i> revolution of the planet, it would not do for the next revolution, and still less for the following one. It is not true that when I pass from reality to the rigid concept I still remain within the real. That is the one thing.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The other is: We have said that the planes of the planetary orbits are inclined to the plane of the Sun's equator. Where the planets cross the point of intersection of their orbits (with the Ecliptic) in an upward or downward direction, they are said to form Nodes. The lines joining the two Nodes (K-K 1 in Fig. 1), are variable. So too are the inclinations of the planes to one another, so that even these inclinations, if we try to express them in a single concept, bring us to a rigid concept which we must immediately modify in face of the reality. For if an orbit is inclined at one time in one way, and at another time in another way, the concept we deduce in the first instance must afterwards be modified. To be sure, once such a point has been reached, we can take an easy line and say that there are ‘disturbances’ and that the reality is only grasped ‘approximately’ with our concepts. We then go on swimming comfortably in further theories. But in the end we swim so far that the fanciful and theoretic pictures we are constructing no longer correspond to the reality, though they are meant to do so.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is easy to agree that this mutability of the eccentric orbits, and of the mutual inclination of the planes of the orbits, must somehow or other be connected with the <i>life</i> of the whole planetary system, or shall we say, with its continuing activity. It must be connected in some way with the living activity of the whole planetary system. That is quite evident. Starting from this, one might again try to form the concept, saying: Well now, I will bring such mobility into my thoughts that I picture the ellipses continually bulging out and contracting, the planes of the orbits ascending, descending and rotating, and then from this starting-point I will build up a world-system according to reality. Good. But if you think the idea through to the end, then precisely as the outcome of such logical thought, the result is a planetary system which cannot possibly go on existing. Through the summation of the disturbances which arise especially through the variability of the Nodes, the planetary system would move towards its own ultimate death and rigidity. Here there comes in what philosophers have pointed out again and again. While such a system <i>can</i> be thought out, in reality it would have had ample time to reach the ultimate finale. There is no reason why it should not. The infinite possibility would have been fulfilled; rigidity would long ago have set in.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We enter here into a realm where thought apparently comes to a standstill. Precisely by following my thinking through to the very last, I arrive at a world-system which is still and rigid. But that is not reality.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now, however, we come to something else, to which we must pay special attention. In pursuing these things further — you can find the theory of it in the work of Laplace; I will only relate the phenomena — one finds that the reason why the system has not actually reached rigidity under the influence of the disturbances — the variability of the Nodes, etc., — is that the ratios of the periods of revolution of the planets are not commensurable. They are incommensurable quantities, numbers with decimals to an infinite number of places. Thus we must say: If we compare the periods of revolution of the planets in the sense of Kepler's Third Law, the ratios of these periods cannot be given in integers, nor in finite fractions, but only in incommensurable numbers. Modern Astronomy is clear on this. It is to the incommensurability of the ratios between the periods of revolution of the several planets (in Kepler's Third Law) that the planetary system owes its continued mobility. Otherwise, it must long ago have come to a standstill.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Observe now what has happened. In the last resort, we are obliged to base our thoughts about the planetary system upon numbers which in the end elude our grasp. This is of no little importance.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We are therefore led, by the very requirements of scientific development, to think of the planetary system mathematically in such a way that the mathematical results are no longer commensurable. We are at the place where in the mathematical process itself we arrive at <i>incommensurable numbers</i>. We have to let the number stand, — we come to a stop. We can write it in decimals no doubt, but only up to a certain place. Somewhere or other we must leave off when we come to the incommensurable. The mathematicians among you will be clear about this. You will see that in dealing with incommensurable number I reach the point where I must say: I calculate up to here and then I can go no further. I can only say (forgive my using a somewhat amusing comparison for a serious subject) that this coming to an inevitable halt in mathematics reminds me of a scene in which I was once a participator in Berlin. A fashion in Variety-entertainment came about through certain persons, one of whom was Peter Hill. He had founded a kind of Cabaret and wanted to read his own poems there. He was a very lovable person, in heart and soul a Theosophist, he had rather gone to seed in Bohemian circles. I went to a performance in which he read his own poems. The poem had got so far that single lines were finished, and so he read it aloud:</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Sun came up. ... etc. (The first line.)</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Moon rose. ... etc. (That was the second line.)</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">At each line he said ‘etc.’ That was a reading I once attended. As a matter of fact it was most stimulating. Everyone could finish the line as he chose! Admittedly with incommensurable numbers [you] cannot do this, yet here too you can only indicate the further process. You can say that the process continues in a certain direction, but nothing is given by which you might form an idea as to what numbers may yet be coming. It is important that precisely in the astronomical field we are led into incommensurabilities. We are forced by Astronomy to the very limits of mathematising; here the reality escapes us. Reality escapes us, we can say nothing else; reality eludes our grasp.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What does this mean? It means that we apply the most secure of our sciences, Mathematics, to the celestial phenomena, and in the last resort the celestial phenomena do not submit; the moment comes where they elude us. Precisely where we are about to reach their very life, they slip away into the incommensurable realm. Here then, our grasp of reality comes to an end at a certain point and passes over into chaos.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We cannot say without more ado what this reality, which we are trying to follow mathematically, actually does when it slides away into the incommensurable. Undoubtedly this is related to its power of continued life. To enter the full astronomical reality we must take leave of what we are able to master mathematically. The calculation plainly shows this; the very history of science shows it.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Such are the points which we must work towards, if we would proceed in a realistic spirit. Now I would like to set before you the other pole of the matter. If you follow it physiologically you can begin from any point you like in <i>embryonic development</i>, whether it be from the development of the human embryo in the third or second month, — or the embryo of some other creature. You can follow the development back as far as ever you can with the means of modern science. (it is in fact only possible to a limited extent, as those of you who have studied it will know.) You can trace it back to a certain point, from which you cannot get much further, namely to the detachment of the ovum — the fertilized ovum. Picture to yourselves how far you can go back. If you wished to go still further back you would be entering the indeterminate realm of the whole maternal organism. This means that in going back you come into a kind of chaos. You cannot avoid this, and the fact that it cannot be avoided is shown by the course of scientific development. Think of such scientific hypotheses as the theory of “Panspermia” for instance, where they speculated as to whether the single germ-cell was prepared out of the forces of the whole organism, which was more the point of view of Darwin, or whether it developed in a more segregated way in the purely sexual organs. You will see when you study the course of scientific development in this field that no little fantasy was brought to bear on the attempt to explain the underlying genesis, when tracing backward the arising of the germ cell from the maternal organism. You come into a completely indeterminate realm. There is little but speculation in the external science of today as to the connection between the germ-cell and the maternal organism.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Then at a certain point in its development this germ appears in a very definite way, in a form which can be grasped at least approximately by mathematical or at any rate geometrical means. Diagrams can be made from a certain point onward. Many such diagrams exist in Embryology. The development of the germ-cell and other cells can be delineated more or less exactly. So one begins to picture the development in a geometrical way, representing it in forms similar to purely geometrical figures. Here we are following up a reality which in a way is the reverse of what we had in Astronomy. There we pursued a reality with our cognitional process and came to incommensurable numbers; the whole thing slips <i>into</i> chaos through the process of knowledge itself. In Embryology we slip <i>out of</i> chaos. From a certain moment onward we can grasp what emerges from chaos through forms that are like purely geometrical forms. Thus in effect, in employing Mathematics in Astronomy we come at one point into chaos. And by pure observation in Embryology we have at a certain point nothing before us but chaos; it all seems chaotic at first, observation is impossible. Then we come out of chaos into the realm of Geometry. It is therefore an ideal of certain biologists — a very justifiable ideal — to grasp in a geometrical form what presents itself in Embryology; not merely to make illustrations of the growing embryo naturalistically, but to construct the forms according to some inherent law, similar to the laws underlying geometrical figures. It is a justifiable ideal.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now therefore we can say: When in Embryology we try to follow up the real process by observation, we emerge out of a sphere which lies about as near to our understanding as that which is beyond the incommensurable numbers. In Astronomy on the one hand, we proceed with our understanding up to the point where we can no longer follow mathematically. In Embryology on the other hand our understanding <i>begins</i> at a certain point, where we are first able to set to work with something resembling Geometry.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Think the thought through to its conclusion. You <i>can</i> do so, since it is a purely ‘methodological’ thought, that is to say the reality of it is in our own inner life.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If in arithmetic we reach the incommensurable numbers, — that is, we reach a point where the reality is no longer represented by a number that can be shown in its complete form — then we should also begin to ask whether the same thing may not happen with geometrical form as with arithmetical analysis. (We shall speak more of this in the next lecture.) The analytical process leads to incommensurable number. Now let us ask: How do geometrical forms image the celestial movements? Do not these images perhaps lead us to a certain point similar to that to which arithmetical analysis is leading when we reach incommensurable number? Do we not in our study of the heavenly bodies — namely the planets — come to a boundary, at which we must admit we can no longer use geometrical forms as a means of illustration; the facts can no longer be grasped with geometrical forms? Just as we must leave the region of commensurable numbers, it may well be that we must leave the region where reality can still be clothed in geometrical (or again arithmetical, algebraic, analytical) forms, such as in drawings of spirals and other figures derived from Geometry. So, in Geometry too, we should be coming into the incommensurable realm. In this sense it is indeed remarkable that in Embryology, though arithmetical analysis is not yet of much use, Geometry makes its presence felt pretty strongly the moment we begin to take hold of the embryological phenomena as they emerge from chaos. Here we are dealing not indeed with incommensurable <i>number</i> but with something that tends to pass from incommensurable into commensurable <i>form</i>.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We have thus sought to grasp reality at two poles: On the one hand where the process of cognition leads through analysis into the incommensurable, and on the other where observation leads out of chaos to a grasping of reality in ever more commensurable forms. It is essential that we bring these things before our minds with full clarity, if we would add reality to what is presented by the external science of today. In no other way can we reach this end.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I should now like to add a methodical reflection, from which we can tomorrow make our way into more realistic problems.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In all that we have spoken of hitherto, we have been taking it for granted that the cosmic phenomena have been approached from the standpoint of Mathematics. It appeared that at one point the mathematician comes up to a limit — a limit he encounters too in purely formal Mathematics. Now there is something underlying our whole way of thinking in this realm, which perhaps passes unnoticed because it always wears the mask of the ‘obvious’ and we therefore never really face the problem. I mean the whole question of the application of mathematics to reality. How do we proceed? We develop Mathematics as a formal science and it appears to us absolutely cogent in its conclusions; then we apply it to reality, without giving a thought to the fact that we are really doing so on the basis of certain hypotheses. Today however, sufficient ground has already been created for us to see that Mathematics is only applicable to outer reality on the basis of certain premises. This becomes clear when we try to continue Mathematics beyond certain limits. First, certain laws are developed, — laws which are not obtained from external facts, as for example are Kepler's Laws, but from the mathematical process itself. They are in fact <i>inductive</i> laws, developed within Mathematics. They are then employed <i>deductively</i>; highly elaborate mathematical theories are built upon them.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Such laws are those encountered by anyone who studies Mathematics. In lectures given recently in Dornach by our friend Dr. Blumel, significant indications were given of this line of mathematical research. One of the laws in question is termed the <i>Commutative Law</i>. It can be expressed in saying: It is obvious that a + b equals b + a , or a x b equals b x a . This is a self-evident fact so long as one remains within the realm of real numbers: But it is merely an inductive law derived from the use of the implicit postulates in the arithmetic of real numbers.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The second law is the <i>Associative Law</i>. It is expressed as (a + b) + c = a + (b + c). Again this is a law, simply derived by working with the implicit postulates in the arithmetic of real numbers.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The third is the so-called <i>Distributive Law</i>, expressible in the form: a (b + c) = ab + ac. Once more, it is a law obtained inductively by working with the implicit postulates in the arithmetic of real numbers.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The fourth law may be expressed as follows: ‘A <i>product</i> can only equal <i>zero</i> if at least one of the factors equals <i>zero</i>.’ This law again is only an inductive one, derived by working with the implicit postulates in the arithmetic of real numbers.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We have, then, these four laws; the commutative law, the associative law, the distributive law, and this law about the product being equal to zero. These laws underlie the formal Mathematics of today, and are used as a basis for further work. The results are most interesting, there is no question of that. But the point is this: These laws hold good so long as we remain in the sphere of real numbers and their postulates. But no thought is ever given to the question, to what extent the real facts are in accord with them. Within our ordinary formal modes of experience it is true, no doubt that a + b = b + a, but does it also hold good in outer reality? There is no ascertainable reason why it should. We might be very astonished one day to find that it did not work if we applied to some real process the idea that a + b equals b + a. But there is another side to it. We have within us a very strong inclination to cling to these laws; with them, therefore, we approach reality — and everything that does not fit in escapes our observation. That is the other side.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In other words: We first set up postulates which we then apply to reality and take them as axioms of the reality itself. We ought only to say: I will consider a certain sphere of reality and see how far I get with the statement a + b = b + a. More than that, I have no right to say. For by approaching reality with this statement we meet what answers to it, and elbow aside anything that does not. We have this habit too in other fields. We say for example, in elementary physics: Bodies are subject to the law of inertia. We define ‘inertia’ as consisting in the fact that bodies do not leave their position or alter their state of motion without a definite impelling force. But that is not an axiom; it is a postulate. I ought only so say: I will call a body which does not alter its own state of motion ‘inert’, and now I will seek in the real world for whatever answers to this postulate.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In that I form certain concepts, I am therefore only forming guiding lines with which to penetrate reality, and I must keep the way open in my mind for penetrating other facts with other concepts. Therefore I only regard the four basic laws of number in the right way if I see them as something which gives me a certain direction, something which helps me <i>regulate </i>my approach to reality. I shall be wrong if I take Mathematics as <i>constituting</i> reality, for then in certain fields, reality will simply contradict me. Such a contradiction is the one I spoke of, where incommensurability enters in, in the study of celestial phenomena.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px;"></div><table style="background-color: #fffff8; width: 620px;"><tbody><tr style="font-size: large;"><td style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif;"><blockquote><div style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif, verdana, arial, tahoma, helvetica; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></blockquote><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Source: <a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0323/19210104p01.html">http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0323/19210104p01.html</a> <br /></span><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-24055934687532261752024-03-14T04:40:00.001-04:002024-03-14T04:44:55.865-04:00Liberty! Equality! Fraternity! What the world needs now is anthroposophy!<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GbjXjvVkQVo/W5EGe-iuucI/AAAAAAAAFCU/cq9XTdBc8cATlpEHXVKtdXN5Sz8KB25iQCLcBGAs/s1600/39522043_2060620177600377_8680802463462195200_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="720" height="608" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GbjXjvVkQVo/W5EGe-iuucI/AAAAAAAAFCU/cq9XTdBc8cATlpEHXVKtdXN5Sz8KB25iQCLcBGAs/s640/39522043_2060620177600377_8680802463462195200_n.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>The Tension Between East and West</i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Lecture 10 of 10</i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Rudolf Steiner, Vienna, June 11, 1922:</i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When, some three years ago, at the request of a group of friends who were disturbed by the social aftermath of the Great War, I published my book <i>The Threefold Commonwealth</i>, the immediate result, from my point of view, was the profound misunderstanding it met with on every side. This was because it was promptly classed among the writings that have attempted, in a more or less Utopian manner, to advocate institutions which their creators envisaged as a sort of nostrum against the chaotic social conditions thrown up in the course of man's recent development. My book was <i>intended</i> not as a call for reflection about possible institutions, but as a direct appeal to human nature. It could not have been otherwise, given the fundamentals of spiritual science, as will be apparent from the whole tone of my lectures so far.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In many cases, for example, what I included solely to illustrate the central argument was taken to be my main point. In order to demonstrate how mankind could achieve social thinking and feeling and a social will, I gave as an example the way the circulation of capital might be transformed so that it would no longer be felt by many people to be oppressive, as frequently happens at present. I had to say one or two things about the price mechanism, the value of labour, and so on. All this solely by way of illustration. Anyone who seeks to influence human life as a whole must surely hearken to it first, in order to derive from it the human remedies for its aberrations, instead of extolling a few stereotyped formulae and recommending their indiscriminate application.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">For anyone who has reacted to the social life of Europe in the last thirty or forty years, not with some preconceived attitude or other but with an open mind, it is clear above all that what is needed in the social sphere today is already prefigured in the unconscious will of mankind in Europe. Everywhere we find these unconscious tendencies. They exist already in men's souls, and all that is needed is to put them into words.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">That is what made me give in to my friends and write the book I have mentioned. My purpose was to attempt, out of the sense of reality which — in all modesty we can say this — spiritual science instils in man, to observe what has been going on in Europe in recent years, beneath the surface of events and institutions, among all ranks and classes of society. What I wanted to say was not: I think that this or that is correct, but rather: This or that is secretly desired by the unconscious, and all that is required is for us to become conscious of the direction in which mankind is really trying to go. The reason for many of our social abuses today is precisely that this unconscious movement contradicts in part what mankind has worked out intellectually and embodied in institutions. Our institutions, in fact, run counter to what men today desire in the depths of their hearts.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is another reason why I do not believe there is any real point today in simply advocating some particular Utopian institution. In the historical development of mankind in the civilized world we have entered a phase where any judgment about relationships among and between men, however shrewd, can be of no significance unless men accept it — unless it is something towards which they are themselves impelled, though for the most part unconsciously.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If we wish to reflect at all upon these things at the present time, therefore, I believe we must reckon with the democratic mood which has emerged in the course of man's history, and which now exists in the depths of men's souls — the democratic feeling that something is really valuable in the social sphere only if it aims, not at saying democratic things, but at enabling men to express their own opinions and put them over. My main concern was thus to answer the question: Under what conditions are men really in a position to give expression to their opinions and their will in social matters?</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When we consider the world around us from a social standpoint, we cannot help concluding that, although it would be easy to point to a great deal that should be different, the obstacles to change are legion, so that what we may know perfectly well and be perfectly willing to put into practice, cannot be realized! There are differences of rank and class, and the gulfs between classes. These gulfs cannot be bridged simply by having a theory of how to bridge them; they result from the fact that — as I stressed so much yesterday — the will, which is the true centre of man's nature, is involved in the way we have grown into our rank or class or any other social grouping. And again, if you look for the obstacles which, in recent times, with their complicated economic conditions, have ranged themselves alongside the prejudices, feelings and impulses of class consciousness, you will find them in economic institutions themselves. We are born into particular economic institutions and cannot escape from them. And there also exists, I would say, a third kind of obstacle to true social co-operation among men; for those who might perhaps, as leaders, be in a position to exert that profound influence of which I have been speaking, have other limitations — limitations that derive from certain dogmatic teachings and feelings about life. While many men cannot escape from economic limitations and limitations of class, many others cannot rise above their conceptual and intellectual limitations. All this is already widespread in life and results in a great deal of confusion.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If, however, we now attempt to reach a clear understanding of everything which, through these obstacles and gulfs, has affected the unconscious depths of men's souls in recent decades, we become aware that in fact the essentials of the social problem are not by any means located where they are usually looked for. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="Pg166" style="background: transparent; color: #336699;"></a>They reside in the fact that there has arisen in the recent development of civilized man, alongside the technology which is so complicating life, a faith in the supreme power of the monolithic state. This faith became stronger and stronger as the nineteenth century wore on. It became so strong and so fixed that it has never been shaken even in the face of the many shattering verdicts on the organization of society that multitudes of people have reached.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">With this dogmatic faith that thus takes hold of men, something else is associated. Through their faith, people seek to cling to the proposition that the object of their faith represents a kind of sovereign remedy, enabling them to decide which is the best political system, and also — I will not say to conjure up paradise, but at least to believe that they are creating the best institutions conceivable.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This attitude, however, leaves out of account something that obtrudes itself particularly on those who observe life realistically, as it has been observed here in the last few days. Anyone who, just because he is compelled to mould his ideas to the spiritual world, acquires a true sense of reality, will discover that the best institutions that can be devised for a particular period never remain valid beyond that period and that what is true of man's natural organism is also true of the social organism.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I am not going to play the boring game of analogies, but by way of illustration I should like to indicate what <i>can</i> be discovered about society from a study of the human organism. We can never say that the human organism — or, for that matter, the animal or plant — will display only an upward development. If organisms are to flourish and to develop their powers from within themselves, they must also be capable of ageing and of dying off. Anyone who studies the human organism in detail finds that this atrophying is going on at every moment. Forces of ascent, growth and maturation are present continuously; but so too are the forces of decomposition. And man owes a great deal to them. To overcome materialism completely, he must direct his attention to just these forces of decomposition in the human organism. He must seek, everywhere in the human organ, ism, the points at which matter is disintegrating as a result of the process of organization. And he will find that the development of man's spiritual life is closely linked to the disintegration of matter. We can only understand the human organism by perceiving, side by side with the forces of ascent, growth and maturation, the continuous process of decay.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I have given this simply by way of illustration, but it really <i>does</i> illustrate what the impartial observer will discover in the social organism too. It is true that the social organism does not die, and to this extent it differs from the human organism; but it <i>changes</i>, and forces of advancement and decline are inherent in it. You can only comprehend the social organism when you know that, even if you put into practice the wisest designs and establish, in a given area of social life, something that has been learnt from conditions as they really are, it will after a time reveal moribund forces, forces of decline, because men with their individual personalities are active in it. What is correct for a given year will have changed so greatly, twenty years later, that it will already contain the seeds of its own decline. This sort of thing, it is true, is often appreciated, in an abstract way. But in this age of intellectualism, people do not go beyond abstractions, however much they may fancy themselves as practical thinkers. People in general, we thus discover, may admit that the social organism contains forces of dissolution and decline, that it must always be in process of transformation, and that forces of decline must always operate alongside the constructive ones. Yet at the point where these people affect the social order through their intentions and volition, they do not recognize in practice what they have admitted in theory.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Thus, in the social order that existed before the Great War, you could see that, whenever capitalism formed part of an upward development, it resulted in a certain satisfaction even for the masses. When in any branch of life capitalism was expanding, wages rose. As the process advanced further and further, therefore, and capitalism was able to operate with increasing freedom, you could see that wages and opportunities for the employment of labour rose steadily. But it was less noticed that this upward movement contained at the same time other social factors, which move in a parallel direction and involve the appearance of forces of decline. Thus with rising wages, for instance, conditions of life would be such that the rising wages themselves would gradually create a situation in which the standard of life was in fact raised relatively little. Such things were, of course, noticed, but not with any lively and practical awareness of the social currents involved.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Hence today, when we stand at a milestone in history, it is the fundamentals, not the surface phenomena of social life that we must consider. And so we are led to the distinct branches that go to make up our social life.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">One of these is the spiritual life of mankind. This spiritual life — though we cannot, of course, consider it in isolation from the rest of social life — has its own determinants, which are connected with human personalities. The spiritual life draws its nourishment from the human individuals active in any period, and all the rest of social life depends on this. Consider the changes that have occurred in many social spheres simply because someone or other has made some invention or discovery. But when you ask: How did this invention or discovery come about? then you have to look into the depths of men's souls. You see how they have undergone a certain development and have been led to find, in the stillness of their rooms, so to speak, something that afterwards transformed broad areas of social life. Ask yourselves what is the significance, for social life as a whole, of the fact that the differential and integral calculus was discovered by Leibniz. If from this standpoint you consider realistically the influence of spiritual life on social life, you will come to see that, because spiritual life has its own determinants, it represents a distinctive branch of social life as a whole.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If asked to define its special quality, we would say: Everything that is really to flourish in the spiritual life of mankind must spring from man's innermost productive power. And we inevitably find that the elements that develop freely in the depths of the human soul are what is most favourable for social life as a whole.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We are, however, also affected by another factor, one that has become increasingly apparent in recent decades. It is the impulse — subsequently absorbed into a faith in the omnipotence of political life — for civilized humanity, out of the depths of its being, to become more and more democratic. In other words, aspirations are present in the masses of humanity for every human being to have a voice in determining human institutions. This democratic trend may be sympathetic or unsympathetic to us — that is not a matter of primary importance. What matters is that the trend has shown itself to be a real force in the history of modern man. But in looking at this democratic trend, we are particularly struck, if our thinking is realistic, by the way in which, out of an inner pressure, out of the spiritual life of Middle Europe ideas evolved, in the noblest minds, about the political community of men.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I do not mean to suggest that today we must still attach any special value to the “closed commercial state” put forward by one of the noblest of Germans. We need pay attention less to the content of Fichte's thought than to his noble purpose. I should, however, like to emphasize the emergence in a very popular form, at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, of what we may call the search for concepts of <i>natural</i> law. At that time, certain eminent and high-minded men devoted themselves to the question: What is the relation of man to man? And what in general is man's innermost essence, socially speaking? They believed that, by a right understanding of man, they would also be able to find what is the law for men. They called this “the law of reason” or “natural law.” They believed that they could work out rationally which are the best legal institutions, the ones under which men can best prosper. You need only look at Rotteck's work to see how the idea of natural law still operated for many writers in the first half of the nineteenth century.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In opposition to this, however, there emerged in the first half of the nineteenth century in Europe the <i>historical</i> school of law. This was inspired by the conviction that you cannot determine the law among men by a process of reason.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yet this historical school of law failed to notice what it is that really makes any excogitation of a rational law unfruitful; they failed to see that, under the influence of the age of intellectualism, a certain sterility had invaded the spiritual life of mankind. Instead, the opponents of natural law concluded that men are not competent to discover, from within their souls, anything about law, and that therefore law must be studied historically. You must look, they said, at man's historical development, and see how, from customs and instinctive relationships, systems of law have resulted.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The historical study of law? Against such a study Nietzsche's independent spirit rebelled in <i>On the Use and Abuse of History for Life</i>. He believed that, if we are always looking solely at what has exercised mankind historically, we cannot be productive and evolve fruitful ideas for the present; the elemental forces that live in man must revolt against the historical sense, in order that, from these forces, there may develop a constitution of social relationships.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Among leading personalities there developed in the nineteenth century, at the height of intellectualism, a battle over the real foundations of law. And this also involved a battle over the foundations of the state. At least, it was generally assumed so at the time. For the state is, ultimately, no more than the sum total of the individual institutions in which the forces of law reside. The fact that the ability to detect the foundations of law had been lost also meant, therefore, that it was no longer possible to attain clarity about the real nature of the state. That is why we find — not simply in theory, but in real life as well — that, during the nineteenth century, the essence of the state became, for countless people, including the masses, a problem that they had to solve.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yet this applied more particularly, I would say, to the upper and more conscious reaches of civilized humanity. From underground, the democratic attitude I have described was tunnelling its way towards the surface. Its appearance, if properly understood, leads us to conceive the problem of the nature of law in a way that is much deeper and much closer to reality than is usual today. There are many people today who think it self-evident that, from within the individual, you can somehow arrive at what is actually the law in a given sphere. Modern jurists, it is true, soon lose sight of the ground when they attempt to do so; and what they find, when they philosophize in this way or indeed think they are reflecting in a practical way upon life, is that law loses its content for them and becomes an empty form. And then they say: This empty form must be given a content; the economic element must be decanted into it.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">On the one hand, then, there exists a definite sense of man's powerlessness to reach a concept or feeling of law from within himself. On the other hand, we do continually attempt to derive the nature of law from man himself. And yet the democratic attitude jibs at any such attempt. What it says is that there is no such thing as a general abstract determination of law; there is only the possibility that the members of a particular community may reach an understanding and say to one another: “You want this from me, I want that from you,” and that they will then come to some agreement about their resulting relations. Here, law springs exclusively from the reality of what men desire from one another. There cannot therefore be any such thing as a law of reason; and the “historical law” that has come into being can always do so again if only we find the right foundation for it. On this foundation, men can enter into a relationship in which, through mutual understanding, they can evolve a realistic law. “I want to have my say when law is being made” — so speaks the democratic attitude. Anyone, then, who wishes to write theoretically about the nature of law cannot spin it out of himself; he just has to look at the law that appears among men, and record it. In natural science too, our view of the phenomenal world does not allow us to fashion the laws of nature out of our head; we allow things to speak to us and shape natural laws accordingly. We assume that what we try to encompass in the laws of nature is already created, but that what exists in the legal sphere has to be created among men. This is a different stage of life. In this realm, man stands in the position of creator — but as a social being, alongside other men — so that a life may come about that shall infuse the meaning of human evolution into the social order. This is precisely the democratic spirit.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The third thing that presents itself to people today and calls for social reorganization is the complicated economic pattern which has developed in recent times, and which I need not describe, since it has been accurately described by many people. We can only say: This economic pattern certainly results from factors quite different from those controlling the other two fields of the social organism — spiritual life, where all that is fruitful in the social order must spring from the individual human personality (only the creativity of the individual can make the right contribution here to the social order as a whole), and the sphere of law, where law, and with it the body politic, can only derive from an understanding between men. Both factors — the one applicable to spiritual life and the other to political and legal life — are absent from economic life.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In economic life, what may come about cannot be determined by the individual. In the nineteenth century, when intellectualism enjoyed such a vogue among men, we can see how various important people — I do not say this ironically — people in the most varied walks of life, gave their opinion about one thing and another — people who were well placed in economic life, and whose judgment one would have expected to trust. When they came to express an opinion about something outside their own speciality, something that affected legislation, you often found that what they said, about the practical effect of the gold standard for example, was significant and sensible. If you follow what went on in the various economic associations during the period when certain countries were going over to the gold standard, you will be astonished at the amount of common sense that was generated. But when you go further and examine how the things that had been prophesied then developed, you will see, for instance, that some very important person or other considered that, under the influence of the gold standard, customs barriers would disappear! The exact opposite occurred!</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The fact is that, in the economic sphere, common sense, which can help one a very great deal in the spiritual sphere, is not always a safe guide. You gradually discover that, as far as economic life is concerned, the <i>individual</i> cannot reach valid judgments at all. Judgments here can only be arrived at collectively, through the co-operation of many people in very different walks of life. It is not just theory, but something that will have to become practical wisdom, that truly valid judgments here can arise only from the consonance of many voices.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The whole of social life thus falls into three distinct fields. In that of spiritual life, it is for the individual to speak. In the democratic sphere of law, it is for all men to speak, since what matters here is the relationship of man to man on a basis of simple humanity — where any human being can express a view. In the sphere of economic life, neither the judgment of the individual, nor that which flows from the un-sifted judgments of all men, is possible. In this sphere, the individual contributes, to the whole, expert knowledge and experience in his own particular field; and then, from associations, a collective judgment can emerge in the proper manner. It can do so only if the legitimate judgments of individuals can rub shoulders with one another. For this, however, the associations must be so constituted as to contain views that <i>can</i> rub shoulders and then produce a collective judgment. — The whole of social life, therefore, falls into these three regions. This is not deduced from some Utopian notion, but from a realistic observation of life.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">At the same time, however — and this must be emphasized over and over again — the social organism, whether small or large, contains within itself, together with constructive forces, also the forces of decline. Thus everything that we feed into social life also contains its own destructive forces. A constant curative process is needed in the social organism.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When we look at spiritual life from this standpoint, we can even say, on the lines of the observations put forward here in the last few days: in Oriental society, the life of the spirit was universally predominant. All individual phenomena — even those in political and in economic life — derived from the impulses of spiritual life, in the way I have been describing. If now you consider the functioning of society, you find that for a given period — every period is different — there flow forth from the life of the spirit impulses that inform the social structures; economic associations come into being on the basis of ideas from spiritual life, and the state founds institutions out of spiritual life. But you can also see that spiritual life has a constant tendency to develop forces of decline, or forces from which such forces of decline can arise. If we could see spiritual life in its all-powerful ramifications, we should perceive how it constantly impels men to separate into ranks and classes. And if you study the reasons for the powerful hold of the caste system in the Orient, you will find that it is regarded as a necessary concomitant of the fact that society sprang from spiritual impulses. Thus we see that Plato still stresses how, in the ideal state, humanity must be divided into the producer class, the scholar class and the warrior class — must be divided, that is, into classes. If you analyse the reasons for this, you will find that differences of rank and class follow from the gradation which is implicit in the supreme power of spiritual life. Within the classes, there then appears once more the sense of human personality, which experiences them as prejudicial to the social system. There thus always exist, within spiritual life, opportunities for the appearance of gulfs between classes, ranks, even castes.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We now turn to the field of politics, and it is here especially that we must look for what I have been calling the subjection of labour, in the course of man's development, to the unitary social organism. It is precisely because theocracy, coming from Asia, developed into a political system that is now dominated by concepts of law, that the problem of labour arises. In so far as each individual was to attain his rights, there developed a demand for labour to be properly integrated into society. Yet as law cast off its links with religion and moved further and further towards democracy, there insinuated itself more and more into men's lives a certain formalized element of social thinking.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Law developed in fact from what one individual has to say to another. It cannot be spun out of a man's own reasoning faculty. Yet from the mutual intercourse of men's reasoning faculties — if I may so put it — a true life of law arises. Law is inclined, therefore, towards logic and formalized thought. But humanity, on its way down the ages, goes through phases of one-sided development. It went through the one-sided phase we call theocracy, and similarly, later on, it goes through the one we call the state. When it does so, the logical element of social life is cultivated — the element of excogitation. Just think how much human ratiocination has been expended on law in the course of history!</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In consequence of this, however, mankind also proceeds towards the capacity for abstraction. You can sense how human thinking, under the influence of the principle of law, becomes increasingly abstract. What mankind acquires in one sphere, however, is extended at certain periods to the whole of human life. In this way, I would say, even religion was, as I have indicated earlier, absorbed into the juridical current. The God of the Orient, universal legislator and giver of Grace to men, became a God of judgment. Universal law in the cosmos became universal justice. We see this especially in the Middle Ages. As a result, however, there was imported into men's habits of thought and feeling a kind of abstraction. People tried increasingly to run their lives by means of abstractions.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In this way, abstraction came to extend to religion and spiritual life, on the one hand, and economic life, on the other. Men began to trust more and more in the omnipotence of the state, with its abstract administrative and constitutional activity. Increasingly, men regarded it as progressive for spiritual life, in the shape of education, to be absorbed completely into the sphere of the state. Here, however, it could not avoid being caught up in abstract relationships, such as are associated with the law. Economic activity, too, was absorbed into something that was felt to be appropriate when the state is in control. And at the time when the modern concept of the economy was formed, it was the general opinion that the state should be the power above all which determined the proper organization of economic activity. In this way, however, we subject the other branches of life to the rule of abstraction. This statement itself may sound abstract, but in fact it is realistic. Let me demonstrate this with regard to education.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In our age, where common sense is so commonplace, men can come together in a committee, in order to work out the best pedagogic procedures. When they meet together in this way and work out how education should be organized and just what should be covered by this class or the other in the timetable, they will — and I say this without irony — work out first-rate things. I am convinced that, so long as they are fairly sensible — and most people are nowadays — they will draw up ideal programmes. We live — or did live at least, for some attempt is being made to escape — in the age of planning. There is certainly no shortage of programmes, of guiding principles in any given area of life! Society after society is founded and draws up its programme: a thing is to be done in this way or that. I have no objection to these programmes, and indeed I am convinced that no one who criticizes them could draw up better ones. But that is not the point. What we work out, we can impose on reality; only reality will not then be suitable for men to live in. And that is what really matters.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And so we have reached a kind of dead end in the matter of programmes. We have seen recently how, with the best and noblest of intentions for the development of mankind, a man drew up one of these programmes for the entire civilized world, in fourteen admirable points. It was shattered immediately it came into contact with reality. From the fate of Wilson's fourteen abstract points — which were the product of shrewd intellects, but were not in accordance with reality, not quarried from life itself — an enormous amount can be learnt.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In education and teaching, it is not programmes that matter, for they after all are only a product of politics and law. You can, with the best of intentions, issue a directive that this or that must be done; in reality, however, we are dealing with a staff composed of teachers with a particular set of capacities. You have to take these capacities into account in a vital way. You cannot realize a programme. Only what springs from the individual personalities of the teachers can be realized. You must have a feeling for these personalities. You will need to decide afresh, each day, out of the immediate life of the individual, what is to happen. You will not be able to set up a comprehensive programme: this remains an abstraction. Only out of life itself can something be created. Let us imagine an extreme case: In some subject or other, there are available only teachers of mediocre ability. If, at a time when they were free of teaching and had nothing to do but think, these teachers were to work out pedagogic aims and issue regulations, even they would no doubt come up with something extremely sensible. But the actual business of teaching is another thing altogether; all that matters there is their capabilities as whole men. It is one thing to reckon with what derives solely from the intellect, and quite another to reckon with life itself. For the intellect has the property of overreaching; fundamentally, it is always seeking to encompass the boundless nature of the world. In real life, it should remain a tool in a specific concrete activity.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now if we reflect particularly on the fact that what takes place between human beings, when they confront each other as equals, can turn into law — then we must say: The things humanity develops are all right when they are the outcome of contemporary abstraction; for that is how men do feel. Men establish legal relations with one another, based on certain abstract concepts of man, and they arrive at these legal relations through the circumstance that they stand together on democratic ground. Yet it will never be possible in this way to create for the whole of humanity something that springs directly from the life of the individual; but only what is common to the whole of humanity. In other words: to be quite honest, there cannot well up, from a democratic foundation, what ought to spring from the individuality of man within spiritual life.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We must, of course, realize that a belief in the predominance of law and politics was a historical phenomenon, and that it was historically legitimate for modern states, at the time when they came into being, to take over responsibility for the schools, since they had to take them away from other authorities who were no longer administering them properly. You should not try to correct history retrospectively. Yet we must also perceive clearly that in recent years there has developed a movement to shape the life of the spirit once again as something independent, so that it contains within itself its own social structure and its own administration; and also that what takes place in individual classes can stem from the vital life of the teacher and not from adherence to some regulation or other. Despite the fact that it has been regarded as a step forward to hand over spiritual life, and with it schools, to the state, we must make up our minds to reverse this trend. Only then will it be possible for the free human personality to achieve expression within spiritual life, including the sphere of education. Nor need anyone be afraid that authority would suffer in consequence! Where a productive influence is exercised by the human personality, the individuals concerned yearn for a natural authority. We can see this at work in the Waldorf School. Everyone there is pleased when one person or the other can be his authority, because he needs what the individual talents of that person have to offer.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It then remains possible for politics and law to function on a democratic basis.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Here again, however, the fact is that, simply through its tendency to abstractness, the state contains within itself the germ of what are later to become forces of decline. Anyone who studies how, by virtue of the existence of this tendency, what men do in the political and legal sphere cannot help becoming increasingly cut off from any concrete interest in a particular aspect of life, will also realize that it is precisely political life which provides the basis for the abstractness that has become increasingly apparent in connection with the circulation of capital. The formation of capital nowadays is much criticized by the masses. But the campaign against it, as conducted at present, reveals an ignorance of the true situation. Anyone who wanted to abolish capital or capitalism would have to abolish modern economic and social life as a whole, because this social life cannot survive without the division of labour, and this in turn implies the formation of capital. In recent times, this has been demonstrated particularly by the fact that a large part of capital is represented by the means of production. The essential point, however, is that in the first place capitalism is a necessary feature of modem life, while on the other hand, precisely when it becomes nationalized, it leads to the divorce of money from specific concrete activities. In the nineteenth century, this was carried so far that now what actually circulates in social life is as completely divorced from specific concrete activities, as the bloodless ideas of a thinker who lives only in abstractions are divorced from real life. The economic element that is thus divorced from specific activities is money. When I have a certain sum in my pocket, this sum can represent any given object in the economy or even in spiritual life. This element stands in the same relation to specific concrete activities as a wholly general concept does to specific experiences. That is why crises must inevitably arise within the social order.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">These crises have been extensively studied. A theory of crises is prominent in Marxism, for example. The mistake lies in attributing the crises to a single chain of causes, whereas in fact they are due to two underlying trends. There may be too much capital, in which case the excess that is circulating gives rise to crises. It may also happen, however, that too little capital is available, and this also leads to crises. These are two different types of crisis. Such things are not examined objectively, even by political economists today. The fact is that, in the real world, a single phenomenon may have very varied causes.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We can see, therefore, that, just as spiritual life tends to develop forces of decline arising from differences of class, rank and caste, so too the life that is moving towards abstractions — and rightly so — includes a tendency, on the one hand to develop the constructive forces that are part of a legitimate formation of capital, but on the other hand to give rise to crises because capitalism results in abstract economic activity, in which a capital sum can be used indifferently for one purpose or another.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When people realize this, they become social reformers and work out something that is designed to produce a cure. But now you come up against the fact that, although the individual does shape economic life by contributing his experiences through the appropriate associations, he cannot <i>as a single individual</i> determine the shape of economic life. That is why, when we go beyond the political and legal and the spiritual spheres, I have posited the association as a necessity of economic life.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In this connection, I was struck by the fact that, when I was speaking in Germany to a fairly small group of working-men about associations, they said to me: We have heard of very many things, but we don't really know what associations are; we haven't really heard anything about them. An association is not an organization and not a combination. It comes into being through the conflux of the individuals within the economy. The individual does not have to adopt something handed out from a central body, but is able to contribute the knowledge and ability he has in his own field. From a collaboration in which each gives of his best, and where what is done springs from the agreement of many — only from such associations does economic life in general derive.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Associations of this kind <i>will</i> come into being. They are certain to arise, I have no doubt of that. To anyone who tells me this is Utopian, my reply is: I know that these associations spring only from subconscious forces in man. We can, however, foster them by the reason and make them arise more quickly, or we can wait until they arise from necessity. They will link together those engaged in production and commerce, and the consumers. Only production, distribution and consumption will have any part in them. <i>Labour</i> will come more and more under the aegis of law. On the question of labour, men must reach an understanding in a democratic manner. In consequence, labour will be insulated from the only force which can be effective in economic life — that which is the resultant of a collective judgment in associations linking producers and consumers, together with distributors.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the sphere of economic life, therefore — in the associations — goods alone will have a part to play. This will, in turn, have an important consequence: we shall cease entirely to have any fixed notions of the price and value of an article. Instead, we shall say: the price and value of an article is something that changes with the surrounding circumstances. Price and value will be set by the collective judgment of the associations. I cannot go into this at length here; but you can follow it up in my book <a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA023/English/AP1972/GA023_index.html" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;" target="compare"><i>The Threefold Commonwealth</i></a>.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I have been trying to outline how, from our observation, we become aware that social life falls into three regions, shaped by quite distinct and different factors: spiritual life, legal and political life, and economic life. Within the recent development of civilization, these three have been achieving some degree of independence. To understand this independence, and gradually to allocate to each field what belongs to it, so that they may collaborate in an appropriate manner, is the important task today.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Men have reflected in very different ways on this tripartite articulation of the social organism. And, as my <a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA023/English/AP1972/GA023_index.html" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;" target="compare"><i>Threefold Commonwealth</i></a> began to attract attention here and there, people pointed out various things in it that were already foreshadowed by earlier writers. Now I do not wish to raise the question of priority at all. What matters is not whether it was a particular individual who discovered something, but how it can become established in life. If a lot of people were to hit on it, one would be only too pleased. One point must be noted, however: when Montesquieu in France outlines a sort of tripartite division of the social organism, it is merely a division. He points out that the three sections have quite different determinants, and that we must therefore keep them separate. This is not the tenor of my book. I do not try to distinguish spiritual life, legal life and economic life, in the way that you would distinguish in man the nervous system, the respiratory system and the metabolic system, if at the same time you wanted to insist that they are three systems, each <i>separate</i> from the other. In itself, such a division leads nowhere; you can advance only by seeing how these three different systems function together, and how they best combine into a single whole by each operating on its own terms. The same is true of the social organism. When we know how to establish spiritual life, political and legal life, and economic life on the terms that are native to each, and how to let them run off their native sources of power, then the unity of the social organism will also follow. And then you will find that certain forces of decline are released within each of these fields, but that they are countered through collaboration with other fields. This suggests, not a tripartite<i>division</i> of the social organism, as in Montesquieu, but a threefold <i>articulation</i> of it, which yet comes together in the unity of the social organism as a whole, by virtue of the fact that, after all, every individual belongs to all three regions. The human personality — and that is what is all-important — inhabits this triform social organism in such a way as to unite the three parts.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Especially in the light of what I have been saying, then, we find that what we must aim at is not a division but an articulation of the social organism, in order that a satisfying unity may be attained. And in a more superficial way, you can also see that, for over a century, mankind in Europe has tended to seek such an articulation. It will come about, even if men do not consciously desire it; unconsciously, they will so conduct themselves, in the economic, spiritual, and political and legal spheres, that it will come about. It is demanded by the actual evolution of humanity.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And we can also point to the fact that the impulses which correspond to these three different aspects of life entered European civilization at a particular moment in the shape of three quintessential ideals, three maxims for social life. At the end of the eighteenth century in Western Europe, a demand spread abroad for liberty, equality and fraternity. Is there anyone who bears with the development that has taken place in modern times, who would deny that these maxims contain three quintessential human ideals? Yet on the other hand it must be admitted that there were many people in the nineteenth century who argued ingeniously against the view that a unified social organism or state <i>can</i> exist if it has to realize these three ideals all together. Several persuasive books were written to demonstrate that liberty, equality and fraternity cannot be completely and simultaneously combined within the state. And one must admit that these ingenious arguments do evoke a certain scepticism. In consequence, people once again found themselves face to face with a contradiction imposed by life itself.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yet it is not the nature of life to avoid contradictions; life is contradictory at every point. It involves the repeated reconciliation of the contradictions that are thrown up. It is in the propagation and reconciliation of contradictions that life consists. It is, therefore, absolutely right that the three great ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity should have been put forward. Because it was believed in the nineteenth century, however, and right down to our own times, that everything must be centrally organized, people went off the rails. They failed to perceive that it is of no importance to argue about the way in which the means of production be employed, capitalism developed, etc. What matters is to enable men to arrange their social system to accord with the innermost impulses of their being. And in this connection we must say: We need to comprehend, in a vital way, how liberty should function in spiritual life, as the free and productive development of the personality; how equality should function in the political and legal sphere, where all, jointly and in a democratic manner, must evolve what is due to each individual; and how fraternity should function in the associations, as we have called them. Only by viewing life in this way do we see it in its true perspective.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When we do so, however, we perceive that the theoretical belief that it is possible to accommodate all three ideals uniformly in the monolithic state has led to a contradiction within life. The three ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity can be understood in a vital way only when we realize that liberty has to prevail in spiritual life, equality in the political and legal sphere, and fraternity in the economic sphere. And this not in a sentimental manner, but in a way that leads to social systems within which men can experience their human dignity and their human worth. If we understand that the unified organism can come into being only when out of liberty spirit develops in a productive way, when equality functions in the political and legal sphere and fraternity in the economic one, in the associations, then we shall rise above the worst social dilemmas of the present.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">For man gains a spiritual life that is rooted in truth only out of what can freely spring from him as an individual; and this truth can only make its appearance if it flows directly from men's hearts. The democratic tendency will not rest easy until it has established equality in the political and legal sphere. This can be achieved by rational processes; if not, we expose ourselves to revolutions. And in the economic field, fraternity must exist in the associations.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When this happens, the law — which is founded on a human relationship in which like meets like — will be a vital law. Any other kind of law turns into convention. True law must spring from the meeting of men, otherwise it becomes convention.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And true fraternity can found a way of life only if this derives from economic conditions themselves, through the medium of the associations; otherwise, the collaboration of men within groups will establish not a way of life, but a routine existence, such as is almost invariably the case at the present time.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Only when we have learnt to perceive the chaotic nature of social conditions that spring from the predominance of catchwords instead of truth in the spiritual sphere, convention instead of law in the political and legal sphere, and routine instead of a way of life in the economic sphere, shall we be seeing the problem clearly. And we shall then be following the only path that affords a correct approach to the social problem.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">People will be rather shocked, perhaps, to find that I am not going to approach the social problem in the way many people think it ought to be approached. What I am saying now, however, is based solely on what can be learnt from reality itself with the aid of spiritual science, which is everywhere orientated towards reality. And it turns out that the fundamental questions of social life today are these:</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">How can we, by a correct articulation of the social organism, move from the all too prevalent catch-word (which is thrown up by the human personality when its creative spirit is subordinated to another) to truth, from convention to law, and from a routine existence to a real way of life?</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Only when we realize that a threefold social organism is necessary for the creation of liberty, equality and fraternity, shall we understand the social problem aright. We shall then be able to link up the present time properly with the eighteenth century. And Middle Europe will then be able, out of its spiritual life, to reply, to the Western European demand for liberty, equality, fraternity: Liberty in spiritual life, equality in political and legal life, and fraternity in economic life.</span></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="Pg164" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 248); color: #336699;"></a><span style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033;"></span></span><br /></span></p><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This will mean much for the solution of the social problem, and we shall be able to form some idea of how the three spheres in the social organism can collaborate, through liberty, equality and fraternity, in our recovery from the chaotic situation — spiritual, legal, and economic — which we are in today.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0083/19220611a01.html">https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0083/19220611a01.html</a></span></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-31526635194334571422024-03-14T04:30:00.002-04:002024-03-15T08:47:28.265-04:00First-Class Lesson #5<p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXA1j2grMf6fGcvYWrvwCK6cM8-qqjrjojDY7e_YgLEtBd9FMgERYD_99lgbU4Na3_siuBlTlnsTG8b8sQ5zxZo03xrdV93eivFgUUbHJRoNlExZ2j9DsIj7nH5vULsDi7PskjDBfuP-xv2vJjPS1Kbx3d_g0HS1ePALIwjK1tmLmfYmLcDbT3MBVSeCTj/s594/417411682_7638444559513127_6165013671613504103_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="461" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXA1j2grMf6fGcvYWrvwCK6cM8-qqjrjojDY7e_YgLEtBd9FMgERYD_99lgbU4Na3_siuBlTlnsTG8b8sQ5zxZo03xrdV93eivFgUUbHJRoNlExZ2j9DsIj7nH5vULsDi7PskjDBfuP-xv2vJjPS1Kbx3d_g0HS1ePALIwjK1tmLmfYmLcDbT3MBVSeCTj/w496-h640/417411682_7638444559513127_6165013671613504103_n.jpg" width="496" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">March 14, 1924</span></p><p><br /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">My dear friends! We have seen what sorts of transformation a person goes through when he becomes acquainted with the being of the Guardian of the Threshold. And the perception of the Guardian of the Threshold certainly hinges on whether the person approaches the spiritual world in a certain manner, and whether he is able to develop an appreciation of the spiritual world. We have seen that what in human inner nature normally consists of thinking, feeling, and willing, in the domains of the Guardian of the Threshold undergoes an intrinsic alteration. And here in the last class hour, it was made especially clear to us that thinking, feeling, and willing take essentially different paths on entry into the spiritual world, that they work in a way very different than they do customarily in people's earth-consciousness.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">We have seen how a person is strongly drawn by his willing into earthly inter-connectedness. In the blink of an eye, on a person’s entering the spiritual world, thinking, feeling, and willing simply disconnect in the soul from a definite relationship. And willing, which then lives in the soul a great deal more autonomously than previously, willing proves itself for a person in the highest degree to be related to those forces that drag a person down to earth. Feeling proves itself to be related to those forces that hold a person in the periphery of the earth, in that periphery of the earth, so to speak, within which light dwells, emerging on one side in the morning, brilliant all day long, and fading on the other side for the gaze of man in the evening. Thinking, however, is the force that directs a person upward towards the heavenly heights. And so, in the very same blink of an eye in which a person arrives before the Guardian of the Threshold, this Guardian makes him take note of his belonging to the entire world. He belongs through his willing to the earth, through his feeling to the periphery, and through his thinking to the higher powers.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">But my friends, this is indeed just what must become clear to a person on entering spiritual life. A growing together with the whole world enters through the life of the spirit. For customary awareness we stand there in the world just so, so that there outside, external to us, powers are ruling, are active in plant-realms, in animal-realms, in mineral-realms, in physical human-realms, the powers have dominion which we have access to through our senses and which actually show no relationship to human beings initially. And so we stand there apart as humans, gazing within ourselves, becoming aware of our thinking, feeling, and willing, becoming aware that our thinking, feeling, and willing are to some extent dissociated from external nature, are to some extent standing on their own. And we feel a deep rift between our humanity and the natural world spread out around.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">However, this rift must be bridged. For this rift, which for the most part we become aware of only in its external aspects in the course of customary awareness, this rift is precisely the Threshold. And becoming aware of the Threshold really rests on this: that we simply stop accepting whatever unconsciously turns us away from ourselves when we look simultaneously into our inner being and out upon an external natural world foreign to humans. When we direct our gaze externally the rift simply needs to become visible for us, then it emerges in its whole immensity and significance, not only for human life, but also for the life of the world.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Now please take note, that the moment someone enters the esoteric, a bridge must be constructed over this rift, over this abyss. To some extent we must grow together with nature. We must cease saying to ourselves: that out there is nature, where moral life certainly does not take place. We must cease saying that we don’t share with minerals the search for morality, for which in soul we have the highest interest, and that we don’t share in the search with plants, that we don’t share in search with animals. And we have even ceased in sharing our search with other people in this materialistic era, because a person enters into relationship with another only with his physical being.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And on the other hand, when one looks within a person, one finds in customary awareness merely passive thinking, by means of which the person misrepresents the world as an imagination, an enervated imagination. A thought living in us is merely our momentary property, through which we become acquainted with things of the world. It has, as a thought, initially no power. Our life of feeling is our innermost life. But remaining within it we are somehow separated, sundered from the world. And although we direct our will onto things outside of us, directly in this manner, in imparting our will onto external things, the external things take on the aspect of being foreign to us.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Something grand must confront a person, when he becomes aware of the abyss between nature and himself, when he comes into proximity with the Guardian of the Threshold, something grand. And this grandeur is just that, already inscribed in words in ancient times, words moreover, which must be understood in new ways in each and every era, and these words are, that nature must appear divine, and a human must be able to persevere, must be able to exist in this enchantment. What does it mean, that nature must be able to appear divine?</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Nature must be able to appear divine. This means that as we initially acquire a sense of it, comprehend it with understanding, it most certainly is not godlike. One might say that godliness, that divinity conceals itself in nature. Nature appears in its externality. At first, seeing nature in a sort of relationship to the inner life of a man may occur only in dreams. We may be aware that an irregularity in our breathing indicates a dream full of joy and excitement, or quite the opposite a dream laden with fear and anger. We may become aware of how a clean room suffused by warmth comes to the forefront in certain dreams that have a sort of soulful moral quality. The dream carries such things on its back, nature laden with the psyche.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">We ourselves know that consciousness is submerged in our dreams, and so the spirit cannot impart things to us directly in dreams. We must begin to see much more, as inspiration comes to us, much more than what nature displays in the awareness of sleep.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Well then, in the natural world we have at first, my friends, a relationship of our human physical body with what is fixed in nature, with all that carries the essential nature of earth. And we have a relationship of the human etheric body with all that carries within itself an essential nature that is watery. The relationship of the human physical body with the earth lies submerged, in solitude. And the relationship of the human etheric body with all that freely flows and fluxes with watery formative force, this also lies deeply in solitude under whatever man initially experiences.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Something that is first and foremost quite close to a person is his process of breathing, his ruler-ship over the shaping of air. And so one may start from the breathing process, and then continue upward. On approaching the spiritual in this specific region, one may begin to feel one’s relationship to nature.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">In considering the breathing process, we have the shaping of formative forces of air, in which we live and move,</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px 3em 1em; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">air</em> [The word was written on the board.]</p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">We then have, over the shaping of air, the containing or embracing nature of warmth,</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px 3em 1em; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">warmth</em> [This second word was written over "air."],</p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">and over the containing nature of warmth, the embrace of the beings of light. So, warmth-ether, light-ether.</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px 3em 1em; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">light</em> [Over "warmth" this third word was written.]</p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">If we rise up higher, we reach the region about which we must speak later, for initially it does not lie overly close to a person.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">That a person lives and moves in the element of air, this much can certainly be obvious for totally external observation. For a person needs merely to reflect on dreams, on how constrained they are in certain self-contained processes of irregularity, certain abnormalities of the breathing processes. When the breathing process plays out in waking life, we do not pay much attention to it, because as a rule we do not pay attention to processes that just occur in normal life as if by themselves.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">What the element of warmth signifies, life understood more or less through warmth, can be clarified in turn through a superficial observation. When we come into contact with a cold object, colder than our own body, when, for instance, we are startled by the chill of two cold metal rods, such as knitting needles, we may be aware of the disconnectedness of the cold rods, even if they are held fairly close to one another, for we are very susceptible to the cold. When we come into contact with some object or substance that is warmer than our own body, however, we don't notice the difference so starkly. If we were to hold two cold knitting needles close together, we would still notice which is the colder of the two. If we were to hold two knitting needles that had become warm, however, the close contact would flow together in a flash, and we would have to separate them quite a bit in order to form any distinct impression of their being separate. We are just much more sensitive to cold than to warmth. And why is this? We bear warmth with more ease, for we are warm-blooded creatures. The warmth is of our own nature, for we live and move in the warmth. As the cold is alien to us, we are extraordinarily and starkly sensitive to it.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Please take note, it is more difficult to deal with light in customary awareness. Now we will certainly delve into these things more fully, with the esoteric in tow, but just now it may be enough to have taken into consideration from the viewpoint of customary awareness the formative forces of air and the behavior of warmth. Even so, in customary experience, a person feels that even the air is something external, is something belonging to nature. He feels that warmth is something that touches him from outside in some sort of way, and he feels that light is something that comes to him from outside.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">The very moment a person makes the jump of his life, bringing himself into proximity with the Guardian of the Threshold, in that very moment he becomes aware of just how inwardly and intimately he is related to all that he previously confronted as external to himself.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">I have certainly often drawn attention to how at every moment of our lives, even for customary awareness, we may become aware on a basic level of the relationship we have with the world, directly through our relationship with air. There outside is the air. This selfsame air, that is just now out there, somewhat later I will draw into myself. Still later the air in me, this same air, will again be outside. We simply do not become aware of it, for our muscles and bones constantly support us, and their arrival and passing becomes known only in embryonic life and in death. But as beings of air we constantly carry air in us and then again release it to the outside, once again to be taken up by the world external to us, so that we become one with the whole movement, life, and being of air, and all that pertains to air, in that we are men of earth.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">The moment we enter the spiritual realm it no longer remains the same. At this moment we feel that we are inexorably drawn along with every outward breath, with every outward movement of breath. We are carried on the wings of the out-breathing air out into the far-off spaces of existence, into which the out-breathed air is dispersed. And then on breathing in, we take in spiritual beings, the spirits that live in the circling currents of air. We take them back into us. The spiritual world flows into us as we breathe in, and our own being is carried on the tide of our breathing out.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Of course, it is not this way merely with all that pertains to air. It is the same, but to a still higher degree, with all that pertains to warmth. As we exist within the encircling air, in turn encircled by the earth [This was illustrated on the board with two white circles.], a creature transformed thereby into a man of air, it is also just so, but to a still higher degree, with the essence of warmth that encircles and pervades the earth, [Red was added.] with which we are one.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And when, as we approach the spiritual world, we have the specific experience of spirituality flowing into us with the in-breath, and of our own essence dispersing out into the breadth of the world with the out-breath, thereby engaging in spiritual motion with in-breathing and out-breathing, we have just such an experience with the being of warmth, although felt much more intensively. For as we step up into the warmth, insofar as we ourselves are in the warmth element, we become more human. If we fall away from the warmth, we become less human. Whatever else drops out of the warmth, becoming something merely bounded by nature, we perceive it to be in such a place, as we say to ourselves, discerning it with inner soul filled with warmth, with the effective working spirit of warmth, we perceive it as inwardly related to our humanity. Then we feel that the climb up into the warmth is accompanied by a working spirit emplaced in the element of warmth, who addresses us so: “Through the element of warmth I give you your humanity. Through the element of cold I take away from you your humanity."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And now let us bravely progress on to light, for we also move and live in light. We don't normally take note of it, because in customary awareness we have no idea that the inner movement of light is contained in our own thoughts, that each thought is collected light, collected light both for those physically able to see, and also collected light for those who are physically blind. The light is objective. The light is taken up not only by those physically able to see. The light is also taken up by those who are physically blind, when they think. The thought held fast within, the thought to which we are inwardly attached, is ever-present light within.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And so, we may say, as we approach the Guardian of the Threshold, forewarned just so by the Guardian of the Threshold himself: "Human being, in your thinking, your existence is not in you, it is in the light; human being, in your feeling, your existence is not in you, it is in the warmth; human being, in your willing, your existence is not in you, it is in the air.” Think about it, that your thinking is none other than your experience of light welling up and interconnecting with the world. Think also, that your feeling is none other than the coming-into-effect of the warmth-element of all that is interwoven and is alive. And think finally, that your willing is none other than the coming into effect in the air-element of all that is interwoven and is alive.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">All this must be taken seriously in full awareness, that before the Guardian of the Threshold one's world elements will be split apart, that one will no longer be able to self-assuredly hold one's essence together, as one holds it together, dark and chaotic, in customary awareness. And this is the great experience, and leads to the introductory insight, the insight that you may cease your serious holding of the idea that you are encased in your head. Certainly, it is merely an indication of what we are as human beings. But it is most certainly an illusion, in the light of spiritual awareness, that all seems to be concentrated inside the head, for a human being is as large as the entire surrounding world. One's thoughts are as wide as the light; one's feelings are as wide as the warmth; one's willing is as wide as the air.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And if a highly developed being, highly developed in the area of awareness, were to descend from some other celestial body, it would speak to a person in quite a different way than people on the earth remaining in customary awareness speak with one another. Such a being would say that the light interwoven about the earth is differentiated. [Around the air and warmth circles, an envelope of light was drawn in gold.] Many individual differentiated beings at the summit of inter-connectivity dwell there within the light. One must picture it in such a way, that within the light of the earth, surrounding the earth, interwoven and vibrant upon the earth, all in a space, many such interconnected beings have their existence, as many as there are people upon the earth. They are all arrayed in the realm of the light of earth. And for such a being, all thoughts that come down to earth into the lonely heads of earth, all the thoughts of mankind, are in this envelope of light, they dwell within the interwoven light of the earth. And all feelings dwell within the envelope of warmth, and all willing dwells within the atmosphere, in the envelope of air.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Then such a being would say: that just there, purely, qualitatively, I have sorted out a being. That it is there, is shown to me through a body, “body A," and another, again within the entire surrounding envelope, is shown to me through another body, “body B," and so forth. [In the gold were drawn two compact inclusions "A" and "B."] These are the outward markings, indicating that something is there. The human reality is to put it all together, an intertwining encirclement of the earth in light, warmth, and air.</p><figure style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px;"><img alt="Layers of Man" src="https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA270/English/SOL2023/images/270-05-01.webp" style="border: none; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin: 0px auto 1em; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px;" /></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">For those who really come before the Guardian of the Threshold, this is not speculation, but experience. And therein lies spiritual progression, in a person's being awake in uniting with the encircling world. A person needs to do it and not just talk about it theoretically. It is certainly not some sort of deep mystical speculation, speaking about becoming one with the world. A person may have his eye only on the thought, and not begin to actually become inwardly aware of the experience, but in actuality when he thinks, he literally lives in the entire light of the earth, he becomes one with the entire light of the earth, and he thereby, in becoming one with the entire light of the earth, rises as a human being into a godlike-spiritual existence. He effectively reaches out through all the pores of his skin to become one with the being of earth itself, and in like manner with other parts of his corporeal body. This is certainly, of all that will really lead to a relationship with the spiritual world, this is certainly what must be grasped in a completely sincere manner.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Now please take note, at first the light must work with moral effect. And a person must become aware of his situation concerning the light, for the light becomes related to him in esoterically experiencing the world. But then stepping forth quite clearly for a person, in the blink of the eye the moment a person steps up to the Threshold, is the awareness that light is locked into the nature of being, and also that it has to engage in a pitched battle with the dark powers. Light and darkness there will be real. And something makes its appearance there, confronting a person, by means of which he says to himself, "When I go out with my thinking fully into the light, then I am lost in the light.” For the moment that I go out into the light with my thinking, the beings of light gather me up, and say to me: "Human being, we will no longer let you go, we will hold you within our midst." This applies to the will of these beings of light. Through a person's thinking, the beings of light wish to draw the person into themselves, to make the person one with the light, to tear him away from all the powers of earth, and to interweave him into the light. Around us there are most certainly beings of light, which in their own way wish to carry a person off and away from the earth, and wish to interweave him with the sunlight welling up around the earth. They are living there, these beings of light, in the circumference of the earth, and are saying: "Human, you should not remain with your soul in your body. In the morning with the first rays of the sun you should shine out radiant with the light of the earth. With the evening's glow you should also set, and so as light you should encircle the earth!"</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Ever and again, we feel the allurement of these beings of light. The moment one approaches the Threshold, he will be aware there of the allurement of these beings of light and of their wish to draw him out and away from the earth. It will be clear to him that it is not worthy of a person to remain within the fetters of earth, through heaviness to be fettered to the earth. They wish to take him up into the brilliance of the sun. For customary awareness, the sun certainly shines overhead, and we stand down here as men and women and allow the sun to shine upon us. For developed awareness, the sun stands in the heavens as the great allurer, which wishes us always to become one with its light, which wishes to rip us loose from the earth, and which forever whispers in our ear, "O Man, you need not remain upon the earth, you yourself are able to have your being in the radiance of light. Then you will shine upon and be able to bring joy to the earth. Then you will no longer need the earth to shine upon you and bring you joy."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Such is the nature of being, entered upon by our encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold, that the natural world, previously resting outside us, and in customary awareness making no demands on us, this natural world achieves the ability to speak to us in tones of morality. The natural world bursts upon the scene, and even as the sun, bursts upon us as an allurer. What was just now peaceful shining sunlight, well, it becomes alluring speech, becomes ensnarement, becomes temptation. And this first characterization, as we become aware of sunlight, of the spirituality that is woven into and living in sunlight, this first characterization is that within the light of the sun appear to us the allurers, the temptation-beings, who wish to carry us out and away from the earth. And these legions of beings are in continual battle with the others, with those constituted within the earth, within darkness.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And when we are caught up in the extreme of the moment, as without doubt we will be, for experiences before the Guardian of the Threshold are without doubt absolutely serious, deeply penetrating, and soul-gripping, when we are caught up in this and become aware of how alluring the sunlight is through its beings of light, then we will draw back from it, that is if we remember that we should still be human beings. And we cannot afford to lose this memory. If we lose it, then as we continue to live out our physical life upon the earth, in a certain way, we will be partially lame in our souls. When we become aware of the allurement of the sunlight, however, and correspondingly turn to the other side, in turning away from this allurement we will find peace in the darkness, the darkness with which the light forever fights. And were we to swing out of the light into the darkness, then we would fall into the opposite extreme. This self of darkness threatens us, would carry us down and out of the bright shining sunlight on the one side of existence-awareness. This self of darkness threatens to make us solitary, severed from all the rest of existence. As human beings, we can live only in equilibrium between the light and the darkness.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">That is the great experience before the Guardian of the Threshold, that we are confronted on one side by the allurement of light, and on the other side by the power of darkness to induce in a person a loss of self. Light and darkness become moral powers, and have moral authority over us. And we humans must say to ourselves, that it is perilous to look upon the pure light, and also perilous to look upon the pure darkness. And we reach an inner state of calmness at the Threshold, we see how the instrumental gods, the good gods, the gods of normal progression, reveal the light in brilliant yellows and brilliant reds, and then we know that we can no longer be lost to the earth. We will become aware of the light, we will not be lured into blindness, but rather we will become aware of spirit-colors in the revealed light.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">It is just as perilous giving in to pure darkness. And we will become inwardly free if we do not merely confront the pure black darkness in the land of spirits, but rather if we confront the illuminated darkness in shades of violet and blue. Shades of yellow and gold say to us in the land of spirits: "Through allurement the light will not be able to lift your soul away from the earth.” Shades of violet and blue say to us: "The darkness will not be able to overwhelm your soul. You will be able to hold yourself firm against the effects of the heaviness of earth."These are the experiences as nature and morality grow together as one, when light and darkness become bound into the nature of being. And without light and darkness becoming bound into the nature of being, we would not become aware of the true nature of thinking. That is what we should hear in the words that the Guardian of the Threshold speaks, as we encounter him with our thinking that has become independent and separate in our soul-life.</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px 3em 1em; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">There battles light with powers dark<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In that realm, where your thinking<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In spirit-presence <sup class="footnote" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #000066; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; position: relative;">1<span class="footnoteText" style="background-color: #fffff8; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: rgb(123, 105, 62) 0.1em 0.15em 0.6em; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; cursor: pointer; font-weight: normal; left: 0px; line-height: normal; min-width: 16em; padding: 10px; position: absolute; top: 0px; visibility: hidden; z-index: 1;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span></span></sup> would like to be. <sup class="footnote" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #000066; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; position: relative;">2<span class="footnoteText" style="background-color: #fffff8; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: rgb(123, 105, 62) 0.1em 0.15em 0.6em; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; cursor: pointer; font-weight: normal; left: 0px; line-height: normal; min-width: 16em; padding: 10px; position: absolute; top: 0px; visibility: hidden; z-index: 1;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span></span></sup><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You’ll find, <sup class="footnote" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #000066; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; position: relative;">3<span class="footnoteText" style="background-color: #fffff8; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: rgb(123, 105, 62) 0.1em 0.15em 0.6em; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; cursor: pointer; font-weight: normal; left: 0px; line-height: normal; min-width: 16em; padding: 10px; position: absolute; top: 0px; visibility: hidden; z-index: 1;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span></span></sup> striving toward the light,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Your self by spirit being taken from you;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You can, if darkness lures you,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In matter lose the self.</p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">In this we become aware of the duality, within which one is placed and amidst which one must find the balance, the harmony, in thinking. [This stanza was now written on the blackboard.]</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px 3em 1em; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">There battles light with powers dark<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In that realm, where your thinking<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In spirit-presence would like to be.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You’ll find, striving toward the light,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Your self by spirit being taken from you;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You can, if darkness lures you,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In matter lose the self.</em></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">One must with vigor take up the sort of impulse which can emerge from such words. With vigorous thinking, a person must learn from the surrounding light, must take to heart the surrounding darkness. The light will most certainly be arrayed, suffused with colors. A person must seek a balanced unity in spiritual beholding, as thinking shifts in this fight between light and darkness, for when it comes to the light, it will effectively be taken outward, will be taken up, will be interwoven within the light, and when it comes to the darkness, it will disappear.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And in order to experience such a thing, my friends, have courage, inner courage. If a person does not yet say to himself that he needs courage, and so denies his need for courage, then without doubt he does not know what it entails. For he thinks he would need courage to allow his finger to be cut off, but he needs no courage to allow his disconnected thinking to stream about, within the maelstrom with which he is gripped, when it is stretched out in the fight between light and darkness. And in this arena, it will always be so. Only in this way is knowledge gained, of that which always is, and that a person can become aware of.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">In every waking moment a person’s thinking is certainly in danger, due to certain spiritual beings surrounding our corporeality. It has been known in each era, in each century, that for humanity it is possible for light to prevail over darkness, or for darkness to prevail over light.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Yes, my friends, for human beings in customary awareness, life appears as danger-free as for the sleepwalker, whose time has not yet been called, and so never falls down. The person who really observes life, however, is aware of the struggle, and he really can't say in all certainty, whether light or darkness will have prevailed in victory in a hundred years, or whether future generations of men and women upon the earth will even consciously exist in a human-worthy existence-awareness. And he may come to know why such catastrophes in the prior development of mankind on earth have not come to completion.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">I can utilize yet another analogy. If you see a tightrope walker on a rope, then you are aware that at any moment he may fall down to the right or to the left. That you walk on such a rope in your soul, and that everyone can crash down to the left or to the right in soul, of this there is no awareness in customary life, because one does not see the abyss to the right and to the left. But it is there.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">That is the good granted to people by the Guardian of the Threshold, that he does not allow this abyss to be visible, until by means of his own admonitions various people are ready for it. Moreover, this was always the secret of all mystery schools of all times, that someone would be made aware of this abyss, and would thereby become enabled to acquire the initial forces that are necessary for knowledge of the real world.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">As it is with light in respect to thinking, so is it with warmth in respect to feeling. Whoever comes before the Guardian of the Threshold with respect to feeling, that person will become aware that he enters into a battle between warmth and cold, that the warmth continually is an allurement to our feelings, for it would like to soak these feelings up into itself. As the beings of light, the Luciferic beings, in a certain sense would have us fly away from the earth to the light, so will the Luciferic beings of warmth soak up our feelings in the general universal warmth. All the feelings of mankind would drop away from mankind and become soaked up in the general universal warmth.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And it is alluring on the basis of being right at hand, which the recipient of this introductory knowledge becomes aware of when he arrives with his feelings at the Threshold, and as the beings of warmth appear, and in overabundance of exuberance would give to a person what is certainly his element, in which he lives, namely warmth. Insofar as one becomes aware of it, however, as he steps bravely up to the Threshold, and these beings of warmth appear, he becomes warm, warm, warm, he becomes fully the warmth himself, he flies up into the warmth, he rises into the throes of lust, and that is the allurement. All this gushes forth through a person, without end. A person must know all about this. For without a person knowing that the warmth-lust allurement is there, it is unlikely that he will attain a clear view of the land of spirits.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And the enemies of these Luciferic beings of warmth are the Ahrimanic beings of cold. These Ahrimanic beings of cold, they draw a person on, until an awareness has been acquired of how dangerous it is to float within the limbo of lust-warmth. The person would like to dive into the healing of the cold ones, and so he is propelled into the other extreme, where the cold ones harden him. And then arises, when the cold ones bring a person into this situation, into this condition, then arises unending pain, which is at the same time physical pain. The physical and the psychic, the material and the spiritual become a unity. The human experiences the cold taking claim to his whole being, as if being torn to pieces in immeasurable pain.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">That this stands behind a person, that a person certainly lives continuing on within this struggle between warmth and cold, that is what a person should in turn make clear to himself by means of the admonition of the Guardian, in regard to his feelings.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">[The second stanza was written on the blackboard at this time.]</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px 3em 1em; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">There battles warmth with cold<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In that realm, where your feelings<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In spirit- weave would like to live.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You’ll find, loving the warmth,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Your self in spirit-bliss blowing away;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You can, if coldness hardens you,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In sorrow waste the self.</em></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Concerning the will, a person plunges into a world that seems to lie right near to us. It really is near. It is the world of the air, the world that supports our process of breathing. A person does not suspect how inwardly changed the human will is with this air, for our willing depends on our breathing. And within the air, my friends, lies life and death, lies enlivened oxygen, and lies death-embracing nitrogen. There we have it, I would like to say, fast in hand. And the chemist says, in dreadfully untruthful abstraction, that the air consists of oxygen and nitrogen. And yes, so long as a person abides in customary awareness, he may say just oxygen and nitrogen. Should a person step before the Guardian of the Threshold, however, one thing will be clear to him, that oxygen is the offering of spiritual beings of clarion calling, the very spiritual beings who have given life to mankind. Nitrogen, moreover, is also the external offering of spiritual beings of clarion calling, of the spiritual beings who have given mankind death, the death, also, which, at every waking moment of our lives when we are thinking, when we are developing our lives of soul, is partially held at bay, and is overcome in us.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">In the air a battle rages. The Luciferic oxygen-spirits battle there with the Ahrimanic nitrogen-spirits. If the Threshold is approached abstractly, as abstractly as a chemist, then the air is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen. But as one approaches the Threshold in reality, it is composed of Ahriman and Lucifer, for the oxygen is the external face of Lucifer, and the nitrogen is the external face of Ahriman. And a battle is being fought in the air. This battle is concealed from customary illusory awareness. One comes to it as one approaches the Threshold.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And just there, at all times, when one ought to join that which lives in the oxygen-spirits, that which lives in the life-elements, when one should bind his will to the creativity of gods, when one should be moved by the oxygen-spirits to valor, just then the danger appears, for a person may be taken away, taken away with his whole creativity from the creativity of the gods, so that a person might cease to be human, and that what one has as force of will from the spiritual world will be taken into the service of the Luciferic world.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And if a person now turns to the contralateral side, then the enticement of the nitrogenous Ahrimanic powers appears. Then what rules as death in airy elemental forces allures a person. Positioned there is not merely the death that a person confronts purely in the physical, bearing no real relationship to a person, but if a person were to come into a relationship with this death, he would begin by holding onto this death as something to be observed, then as something to be in union with, and then as something never again to be parted from. Whenever with elementary force of life the spirits wish to descend upon someone, so that their deeds are carried over as the deeds of the person, one will be thrown, in accordance with the contralateral side, the side of the Ahrimanic nitrogenous spirits, one will be thrown into the nothingness of life. One is cramped, and instead of being able to act, one is cramped within oneself.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Ever again a person is positioned between these two opposites, which he must become aware of in regard to his will. [The third stanza was now written on the blackboard.]</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px 3em 1em; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">There battles life with death<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In that realm, where your willing<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In spirit-work would like to rule.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You’ll find, holding on to life,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Your self in spirit-power to vanish;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You can, if death-power binds you,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In nothingness confine the self.</em></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">My friends, if a person would now say, "I would certainly rather avoid this awareness altogether! Why should I take this on, this standing before the Guardian of the Threshold, when such things are paraded before me, such things that encase a person in a way that hardly seems beneficial. Can it be fruitful for a person to become aware of these frightful truths?" It is obvious that a person raises this objection in complacency, specifically when he asks, "Why should someone get caught up in such truths?" If a person says this in this way, he is certainly saying just what he would rather not want to know about.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">But my dear friends, the challenge of the present time is this, that a person should penetrate to true reality, that a person should not cower in fright before true reality, that he should penetrate to true reality, so that he can thereby come into union with those who in certainty have accounted for his being. For although we could, so long as we travel in this short life upon the earth, hold our heads in the sand and know nothing of these truths, we really may no longer do this, as we would have done in another era of time, in which a person would flourish after death, even if in life on earth he were not to acquire any awareness of what he will experience after death.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And how will it be after death? When a person walks through the portal of death, with his awareness still intact, looks back, and the retrospection begins to come into his awareness, various high spiritual beings whisper gently within this retrospection, as if there in muted overtones. One looks back, in the couple of days past one's death, during the etheric body's dispersal out into the general etheric realm; as one looks back, looking upon the pictures of the life spent on earth, certain spirits whisper there within.</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px 3em 1em; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">There battles life with death<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In that realm, where your willing<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In spirit-work would like to rule.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You’ll find, holding on to life,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Your self in spirit-power to vanish;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You can, if death-power binds you,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In nothingness confine the self.</p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And just then a person knows, that this is a reality, that one thing or another can happen, if one does not find a course through the middle, but instead finds a course to the right or to the left.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And always, having completed the time of sleep after death, which does not linger very long, when a person enters into the region of awareness wherein he wanders for a time equal to a third of his life on earth, wandering through the life he has just lived on earth, as has been described in general anthroposophical dissertations, then approaching a person, there where the awareness of this life-retrospection begins, is this actual experience. But always, ever and ever again, as I may say, in walking past the milestones of this experience, the admonishing spirits loom and speak to us.</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px 3em 1em; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">There battles warmth with cold<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In that realm, where your feelings<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In spirit-weave would like to live.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You’ll find, loving the warmth,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Your self in spirit-bliss blowing away;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You can, if coldness hardens you,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In sorrow waste the self.</p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">This has been referred to quite often, what is asked here, in regard to the deceased who have stood near you, as to the attitude you should have in thoughts of the deceased, which for instance might convey the sense of, "I send my love to you, it will warm your chill, and ease your heat," because throughout the backward viewing of the linked events of life, warmth and cold play just this role. But it is also being pointed out to us, that this selfsame role continually directs the time there. These things are absolute complete realities.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">And when we pass beyond this experience of backward-looking, into the experience of being free in the land of spirits, preparing for the next earthly life, then ever and again along the milestones of this experience the admonishing spirits appear and call out to us without end.</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px 3em 1em; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">There battles light with powers dark<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In that realm, where your thinking<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In spirit-presence would like to be.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You’ll find, striving toward the light,</p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">There the striving is an obvious reality, one can veer right, or left.</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px 3em 1em; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Your self by spirit being taken from you;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You can, if darkness lures you,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In matter lose the self.</p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">My dear friends, when the human being still possessed an instinctive clairvoyance, then it was true, that when he passed through the portal of death, then straightaway, through this instinctive clairvoyance, he could also understand the words so spoken to him in the three partitions of his life after death. During the era of time through which he has had to pass in order to gain freedom for himself, it became less and less possible for him to understand the things that were being addressed to him there. And now we live in an era in which human beings, if they have not been made aware of the sense of these words during earthly life, will come upon these words addressed to them in the language of the spirits, and will not understand them.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">This is how it is, this may happen to a person, when he is engaged in living the future, and is going through the world he must traverse, where these words will be addressed to him, and he cannot understand them, and must live through the agony of this lack of understanding. And all the agonies of this lack of understanding, what do they indicate? They indicate the ever-growing undercurrent of fear within one's soul that the connection to the spiritual powers of creation will be lost, and at the end of one's days the powers will not be there to which one owes his existence, but rather among unknown powers the wellsprings of his humanity will be lost.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Delineated and flowing through and through the esoteric, my friends, is not mere instruction, not mere theory, but as delineated herein one comes to confront and deal with the really serious concerns of life. And whoever immerses himself in the esoteric immerses not in lessons, not in theory, but immerses in life. Becoming aware of the meaning of life is only the external revelation, for behind every hour of study is the spiritual world. We do not penetrate so far when we chafe within what lies within such words themselves. As we become deeply engrossed in such words in meditation however, then our thinking, feeling, and willing will grow strong, then our thinking, feeling, and willing will be in position to seize the spirit, which we must undertake as human beings, to really seize the spirit.</p><figure style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px;"><img alt="Blackboard (left side)" src="https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA270/English/SOL2023/images/270-05-02.webp" style="border: none; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin: 0px auto 1em; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px;" /><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">Blackboard (left side)</figcaption></figure><figure style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px;"><img alt="Blackboard (right side)" src="https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA270/English/SOL2023/images/270-05-03.webp" style="border: none; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin: 0px auto 1em; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px;" /><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: small; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">Blackboard (right side)</figcaption></figure><table style="border-collapse: collapse; color: black; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px auto 1em; padding: 0px; width: 616.641px;"><caption style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.5em;">Blackboard Text for the Fifth Lesson</caption><caption style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.5em;"></caption><tbody style="box-sizing: border-box;"><tr style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: top;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Es kämpft das Licht mit finstren Mächten<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In jenem Reiche, wo dein Denken<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In Geistesdasein dringen möchte.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Du findest, lichtwärts strebend,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Dein Selbst vom Geiste dir genommen;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Du kannst, wenn Finstres dich verlockt,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Im Stoff das Selbst verlieren.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Es kämpft das Warme mit dem Kalten<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In jenem Reiche, wo dein Fühlen<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Im Geistesweben leben möchte.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Du findest, Wärme liebend,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Dein Selbst in Geisteslust verwehend;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Du kannst, wenn Kälte dich verhärtet,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Im Leid das Selbst verstäuben.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">Es kämpft das Leben mit dem Tode<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In jenem Reiche, wo dein Wollen<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Im Geistesschaffen walten möchte.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Du findest, Leben fassend,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Dein Selbst in Geistesmacht verschwinden;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Du kannst, wenn Todesmacht dich bändigt,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Im Nichts das Selbst verkrampfen.</p></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: top;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">There battles light with powers dark<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In that realm, where your thinking<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In spirit-presence would like to be.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You’ll find, striving toward the light,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Your self by spirit-being taken from you;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You can, if darkness lures you,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In matter lose the self.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">There battles warmth with cold<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In that realm, where your feeling<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In spirit-weave would like to live.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You’ll find, loving the warmth,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Your self in spirit-bliss blowing away;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You can, if coldness hardens you,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In sorrow waste the self.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;">There battles life with death<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In that realm, where your willing<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In spirit-work would like to rule.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You’ll find, holding on to life,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Your self in spirit-power to vanish;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />You can, if death-power binds you,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In nothingness confine the self.</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><br /></p><p>Source: <a href="https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA270/English/SOL2023/19240314-JR.html">March 14, 1924</a></p><p><br /></p>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-73667389336645173432024-03-13T09:41:00.001-04:002024-03-13T09:41:45.811-04:00The New Yoga : Anthroposophy : The Yoga of Light<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8XJ0ZoSumH1NN_-vMDLDcp91G18YttunYgnXWiE1NDz_ftITFZJXQaS10OlBdfieNpm0MDxAk5PajUS_yY7rRFXdrqLKFkirbPbsxF565OvnauNJc_uIxQQzQpGG28t89mNybd_CGRHwTexN1xOJecABdyk99vuIu-OvEfrfZaLT1BDtaAfzVwjoibA/s1426/7th%20seal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1426" data-original-width="1426" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8XJ0ZoSumH1NN_-vMDLDcp91G18YttunYgnXWiE1NDz_ftITFZJXQaS10OlBdfieNpm0MDxAk5PajUS_yY7rRFXdrqLKFkirbPbsxF565OvnauNJc_uIxQQzQpGG28t89mNybd_CGRHwTexN1xOJecABdyk99vuIu-OvEfrfZaLT1BDtaAfzVwjoibA/w640-h640/7th%20seal.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><p><span style="background-color: #fffff8; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"><span><br /> </span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fffff8; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"><br /></span></p><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> Striving Spirit-Powers</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> Struggle with Matter;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> It is not Matter they find —</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> They find themselves.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> They hover over the natural life,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> Living within themselves:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> Breathing the Power of Michael.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> Ringende Geisteskräfte</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> Streben im Stoff;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> Sie finden nicht den Stoff,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> Sie finden sich selber.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> Sie schweben über Natürlichem,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> Sie leben in sich selber:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"> Michael-Kraft atmend.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="text-indent: 23.622px;"> </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="text-indent: 23.622px;"> <i>—Rudolf Steiner</i></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p><span style="background-color: #fffff8; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"><span><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /><br /></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtwmtYs6Uyx2UB-GtDx8cC64nS4sVX3bYDaZ20w8x3cl5547rT6QiC84uWhvcSwAlnFji-azGPIkxpG0_03TasF2OtMQ0JnBU_3S9Un0M68k9AVIEoXmKc9sqZUXX99PEjO9H9dVKrhPEUt84Xf1vzEn8qOODkhmhqLrtwGdxdwbIrUkfwnqLQQ0SXVA/s1455/326926078_898084687887919_4933113697865247569_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1455" data-original-width="904" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtwmtYs6Uyx2UB-GtDx8cC64nS4sVX3bYDaZ20w8x3cl5547rT6QiC84uWhvcSwAlnFji-azGPIkxpG0_03TasF2OtMQ0JnBU_3S9Un0M68k9AVIEoXmKc9sqZUXX99PEjO9H9dVKrhPEUt84Xf1vzEn8qOODkhmhqLrtwGdxdwbIrUkfwnqLQQ0SXVA/w398-h640/326926078_898084687887919_4933113697865247569_n.jpg" width="398" /></span></a></div><p><span style="background-color: #fffff8; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"><span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><br /></span></span></p><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4845016040552768899" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWtVT8Y0Q2l4ztnklW-wfoqXs1JVNcA9a8gt8M1l-xnipFdDXxC3toTFe_DkL5pBFD4aDZDVuvx2yCMGkcLzPkbK_72TtH7VZVahNY6r2vWZk6peAxi_mfSdBzvAJ1rhyLevXW2zP5qbTaO5sinlZaevCR8PwIUYY_8Nmqy9gAifajimWaOcSKjdqr_A/s720/40217_1249902387888_1839344728_493505_126578_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="720" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWtVT8Y0Q2l4ztnklW-wfoqXs1JVNcA9a8gt8M1l-xnipFdDXxC3toTFe_DkL5pBFD4aDZDVuvx2yCMGkcLzPkbK_72TtH7VZVahNY6r2vWZk6peAxi_mfSdBzvAJ1rhyLevXW2zP5qbTaO5sinlZaevCR8PwIUYY_8Nmqy9gAifajimWaOcSKjdqr_A/w640-h354/40217_1249902387888_1839344728_493505_126578_n.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;"><br /></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;"><i>Rudolf Steiner: </i>"One who understands how to observe such things knows what a great change took place in the last third of the nineteenth century with respect to the life of human thought. Before that time man could only feel how thoughts formed themselves in his own being; from the time indicated he is able to raise himself above his own being; he can turn his mind to the spiritual; he there meets Michael, who proves his ancient kinship with everything connected with thought. He liberates thought from the sphere of the head; he clears the way for it to the heart; he enkindles enthusiasm in the feelings, so that the human mind can be filled with devotion for all that can be experienced in the </span><i style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">light of thought.</i><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;"> The Age of Michael has dawned. Hearts are beginning to have thoughts; spiritual fervor is now proceeding not merely from mystical obscurity but from souls clarified by thought. To understand this means to receive Michael into the heart. Thoughts which at the present time strive to grasp the spiritual must originate in hearts which beat for Michael as the fiery Prince of Thought in the universe."</span><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">Springing from powers of the Sun,<br /></span><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">Radiant spirit-powers, blessing all worlds!<br /></span><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">For Michael's garment of rays<br /></span><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">You are predestined by Divine Thought.</span></span></span></span></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4845016040552768899" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">He, the Christ messenger, reveals in you--<br /></span><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">Bearing humankind aloft--the sacred will of worlds.<br /></span><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">You, the radiant beings of ether worlds,<br /></span><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">Bear the Christ-Word to human beings.</span></span></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4845016040552768899" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">Thus shall the herald of Christ appear<br /></span><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">To the thirstily waiting souls<br /></span><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">To whom your Word of Light shines forth<br /></span><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">In the cosmic age of the Spirit Human Being.</span></span></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4845016040552768899" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">You, the disciples of spirit knowledge,</span></span></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4845016040552768899" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">Take Michael's beckoning wisdom;</span></span></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4845016040552768899" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">Take the Word of Love of the Will of Worlds</span></span></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4845016040552768899" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;" /><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;">Into your soul's aspiring, fervently!</span></span></span><span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p><span style="background-color: #fffff8; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><br /></span></span></p><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z4Wunx4PTFo/XJCUFMwEl_I/AAAAAAAAGM0/CEjoYpTogrooCEKSXmw4jCDCYAMBs7yVQCKgBGAs/s1600/360px-Grunewald_-_christ.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-indent: 0mm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="360" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z4Wunx4PTFo/XJCUFMwEl_I/AAAAAAAAGM0/CEjoYpTogrooCEKSXmw4jCDCYAMBs7yVQCKgBGAs/s640/360px-Grunewald_-_christ.jpg" width="384" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""helvetica neue" , "verdana" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: black; text-indent: 0mm;">Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. </span><i style="text-indent: 0mm;">—John 8:12</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wrJtcZiEXDE/XJCTwPU3J3I/AAAAAAAAGMs/ENoR122q3K8oNLu29hE-FgSWSzFZwgkxgCKgBGAs/s1600/4th%2Bseal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1421" data-original-width="1421" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wrJtcZiEXDE/XJCTwPU3J3I/AAAAAAAAGMs/ENoR122q3K8oNLu29hE-FgSWSzFZwgkxgCKgBGAs/s640/4th%2Bseal.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">At the turning point of time</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">the cosmic spirit-light of the world</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">entered the stream of earth existence.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Darkness of night had ceased its reign;</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Day-radiant light</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">shone forth in human souls:</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Light </span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">that gives warmth </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">to simple shepherds' hearts;</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Light </span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">that enlightens </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">the wise heads of kings.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Godly Light!</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Christ Sun!</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Warm our hearts!</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">enlighten our heads!</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">that good may come</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">from what we cradle in our hearts,</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">what we direct from our heads</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">with holy fervor!</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VitGTSqTiro/UytPuUSrcUI/AAAAAAAAATw/ilOivYwFkP02gEW2LpQGHGWug9nBORAVQCPcB/s1600/7th%2Bseal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VitGTSqTiro/UytPuUSrcUI/AAAAAAAAATw/ilOivYwFkP02gEW2LpQGHGWug9nBORAVQCPcB/s640/7th%2Bseal.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0mm;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BFphAaqCdYs/UytPuQf2EwI/AAAAAAAAABg/Bnekb81frak/s1600/40217_1249902387888_1839344728_493505_126578_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="354" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BFphAaqCdYs/UytPuQf2EwI/AAAAAAAAABg/Bnekb81frak/s640/40217_1249902387888_1839344728_493505_126578_n.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span class="text Num-21-9" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><i><u><br /></u></i></span><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="text Num-21-9" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><i><u><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 0mm;"><i><u>John 3:11-21</u></i></span></u></i></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="text John-3-11" id="en-KJV-26132" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.</span></span></div></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="text John-3-12" id="en-KJV-26133" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?</span></span></div></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="text John-3-13" id="en-KJV-26134" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.</span></span></div></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="text John-3-14" id="en-KJV-26135" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:</span></span></div></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="text John-3-15" id="en-KJV-26136" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.</span></span></div></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="text John-3-16" id="en-KJV-26137" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.</span></span></div></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="text John-3-17" id="en-KJV-26138" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.</span></span></div></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="text John-3-18" id="en-KJV-26139" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.</span></span></div></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="text John-3-19" id="en-KJV-26140" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.</span></span></div></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="text John-3-20" id="en-KJV-26141" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.</span></span></div></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="text John-3-21" id="en-KJV-26142" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.</span></span></div></div></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aQIRNQ0saDo/XXI8gAY_q3I/AAAAAAAAG9w/7QvaSuTEvNggDl-O1wzt_85rYHz6g5YvACKgBGAs/s1600/360px-Grunewald_-_christ.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="360" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aQIRNQ0saDo/XXI8gAY_q3I/AAAAAAAAG9w/7QvaSuTEvNggDl-O1wzt_85rYHz6g5YvACKgBGAs/s640/360px-Grunewald_-_christ.jpg" width="384" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #1d2129;"></div><div style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span><div style="background-color: #ffffe6; color: #000b58; line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."<em> — </em></span><em style="line-height: 16.9px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Matthew 11:28-30</span></em></span></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><em style="line-height: 16.9px;"><br /></em></span></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><em style="line-height: 16.9px;"><br /></em></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvwyK62bxEQ/X-DsKObvSzI/AAAAAAAAIng/BUSJsDwReV0_VebTtwKapgV7cldI8py4gCLcBGAsYHQ/s600/93857452_3341094719238742_8428752612639113216_n%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="566" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvwyK62bxEQ/X-DsKObvSzI/AAAAAAAAIng/BUSJsDwReV0_VebTtwKapgV7cldI8py4gCLcBGAsYHQ/w604-h640/93857452_3341094719238742_8428752612639113216_n%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="604" /></span></a></div><p><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">"ES IST ICH"</span></b></p><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><em>Rudolf Steiner:</em> "In older languages the self was not specifically designated, for it was contained within the verb. The ‘I’ was not directly mentioned. The verb was used to show what one was doing, and this was what indicated that one was speaking about oneself. There was no name for the self. It only came about in later times that the human being gave his self a name, and in our German language that name <em>[ich]</em> contains the initials of Jesus Christ, which is an important symbolic fact." [<em><u>I</u></em>esus <em><u>CH</u></em>ristus: ICH]</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div></div><span style="color: #000033; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br style="font-weight: 700;" /></span></div><div><span style="color: #000033; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0mm;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0mm;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">"The Ancient Yoga Culture and the New Yoga Will. The Michael Culture of the Future"</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Lecture 6 of <i>The Mission of the Archangel Michael</i></span></span></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: center;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0mm;"></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: right;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0mm;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland<br />November 30, 1919</span></i></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0mm;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></div></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You have seen from my lectures of the last few days that it is necessary, for a complete understanding of the human being, to distinguish the various members of the human organism and to realize the incisive difference between that which we may call the human head organization and that which constitutes the rest of the human organization. As you know, the rest of the human organization consists of two members, so that on the whole we obtain a three-fold membering, but for the comprehension of the significant impulses in mankind's evolution with which we are faced at the present time and in the immediate future the differentiation between head man and the organization of the rest of man is primarily important.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now, if we speak spiritual-scientifically about the human being by differentiating between head man and the rest of man, then these two organizations are, at the outset, pictures for us, pictures created by nature herself for the soul element, for the spiritual element, whose expression and manifestation they are. Man is placed in the whole evolution of earth humanity in a way which becomes comprehensible only if one considers how different is the position of the head organization in this evolution from that of the rest of the human organization. Everything connected with the head organization, which chiefly manifests as man's life of thought, is something that reaches far back in the post-Atlantean evolution of mankind. When we focus our attention upon the time which followed immediately after the great Atlantean catastrophe, that is, the time of the sixth, seventh, eighth millennium before the Christian era, we shall find a soul mood holding sway in the regions of the civilized world of that period which can hardly be compared with our soul mood. The consciousness and whole conception of the world of the human being of that time can scarcely be compared with that which characterizes our sense perception and conceptual view of the world. In my <i>Occult Science, an Outline</i> I have called this culture which reaches back into such ancient times, the primeval Indian culture. We may say: the human head organism of that time was different from our present head organism to a great degree and the reckoning with space and time was not characteristic of this ancient people as it is of us. In surveying the world, they experienced a survey of immeasurable spatial distances, and they had a simultaneous experience of the various moments of time. The strong emphasis on space and time in world conception was not present in that ancient period.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The first indications of this we find toward the fifth and fourth millennium in the period we designate the <i>primeval Persian period</i>. But even then the whole mood of soul life is such that it can hardly be compared with the soul and world mood of the human being of our age. In that ancient time, the main concern of the human being is to interpret the things of the world as various shades of light, brilliancy, and darkness, obscurity. The abstractions in which we live today are completely foreign to that ancient earth population. There still exists a universal, all-embracing perception, a consciousness of the permeation of everything perceptible with light and its adumbration, shading, with various degrees of darkness. This was also the way the moral world order was conceived of. A human being who was benevolent and kind was experienced as a light, bright human being, one who was distrustful and selfish was experienced as a dark man. Man's moral individuality was, as it were, aurically perceived around him. And if we had talked to a man of this ancient, primeval Persian time about that which we call today the order of nature, he would not have understood a word of it. An order of nature in our sense did not exist in his world of light and shadow. For him, the world was a world of light and shadow; and in the world of tones, certain timbres of sounding he designated as light, bright, and certain other timbres of sounding he designated as dark, shadowy. And that which thus expressed itself through this element of light and darkness constituted for him the spiritual as well as the nature powers. For him, there existed no difference between spiritual and natural powers. Our present-day distinction between natural necessity and human freedom would have appeared to him as mere folly, for this duality of human arbitrary will and the necessity of nature did not exist for him. Everything was to be included for him in one spiritual — physical unity. If I were to give you a pictorial interpretation of the character of this primeval-Persian world conception, I would have to draw the following line. (It will receive its full meaning only through that which will follow.)</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: center;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><table align="CENTER" bgcolor="#000066" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" style="text-indent: 0px; width: 601.818px;"><tbody><tr bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><td align="CENTER" valign="TOP"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img alt="Diagram I from The Mission of Michael ..." border="0" height="636" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/MissMich/images/19191130p01as.png" width="600" /></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Then after this soul mood of man had held sway for somewhat more than two thousand years, there appeared a soul mood, the echoes of which we can still perceive in the <i>Chaldean</i>, in the <i>Egyptian</i> world conception, and in a special form in the world conception whose reflection is preserved for us in the Old Testament. There something appears which is closer to our own world conception. There the first inkling of a certain necessity of nature enters human thoughts. But this necessity of nature is still far removed from that which we call today the mechanical or even the vital order of nature; at that time, natural events are conceived of as identical with Divine willing, with Providence. Providence and nature events are still one. Man knew that if he moved his hand it was the Divine within him, permeating him, that moved his hand, that moved his arm. When a tree was shaken by the wind, the perception of the shaking tree was no different for him from the perception of the moving arm. He saw the <i>same</i> divine power, as Providence, in his own movements and in the movements of the tree. But a distinction was made between the God without and the God within; he was, however, conceived of as unitary, the God in nature, the God in man; he was the same. And it was clear to human beings of that time that there is something in man whereby Providence that is outside in nature and Providence that is inside in man meet one another.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">At that time, man's process of breathing was sensed in this way. People said: If a tree is shaking, this is the God outside, and if I move my arm, it is the God inside; if I inhale the air, work it over within me, and again exhale it, then it is the God from outside who enters me and again leaves me. Thus the same divine element was sensed as being outside and inside, but simultaneously, in one point, outside and inside; people said to themselves: By being a breathing being, I am a being of nature outside and at the same time I am myself.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">If I am to characterize the world conception of the third culture period by a line, as I have done for the primeval Persian world conception by the line of the preceding drawing, I shall have to characterize it through the following line:</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: center;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><table align="CENTER" bgcolor="#000066" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" style="text-indent: 0px; width: 600.909px;"><tbody><tr bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><td align="CENTER" valign="TOP"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img alt="Diagram II from The Mission of Michael ..." border="0" height="302" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/MissMich/images/19191130p01bs.png" width="599" /></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">This line represents, on the one hand, the existence of nature outside, on the other hand, human existence, crossing over into the other at the one point, in the breathing process.</span></span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Matters become different in the fourth age, in the <i>Graeco-Latin age</i>. Here the human being is abruptly confronted by the contrast outside-inside, of nature existence and human existence. Man begins to feel the contrast between himself and nature. And if I am again to draw characteristically how man begins to feel in the Greek age, I will have to draw it this way: on the one hand he senses the external and on the other the internal; between the two there is no longer the crossing point.</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: center;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><table align="CENTER" bgcolor="#000066" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" style="text-indent: 0px; width: 601.818px;"><tbody><tr bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><td align="CENTER" valign="TOP"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img alt="Diagram III from The Mission of Michael ..." border="0" height="306" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/MissMich/images/19191130p01cs.png" width="600" /></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">What man has in common with nature remains outside his consciousness. It falls away from consciousness. In Indian Yoga an attempt is made to bring it into consciousness again. Therefore Indian Yoga culture is an atavistic returning to previous evolutionary stages of mankind, because an attempt is made again to bring into consciousness the process of breathing, which in the third age was felt in a natural way as that in which one existed outside and inside simultaneously. The fourth age begins in the eighth pre-Christian century. At that time the late-Indian Yoga exercises were developed which tried to call back, atavistically, that which mankind had possessed at earlier times, quite particularly in the Indian culture, but which had been lost.</span></span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Thus, this consciousness of the breathing process was lost. And if one asks: Why did Indian Yoga culture try to call it back, what did it believe it would gain thereby? one has to answer: What was intended to be gained thereby was a real understanding of the outer world. For through the fact that the breathing process was understood in the third cultural age, something was understood within man that at the same time was something external.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">This must again be attained; on another path, however. We live still under the after-effects of the culture in which a twofold element is present in the human soul mood, for the fourth period ends only around the year 1413, really only about the middle of the fifteenth century. We have, through our head organization, an incomplete nature conception, that which we call the external world; and we have through our inner organization, through the organization of the rest of man, an incomplete knowledge of ourselves.</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: center;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><table align="CENTER" bgcolor="#000066" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" style="text-indent: 0px; width: 601.818px;"><tbody><tr bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><td align="CENTER" valign="TOP"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img alt="Diagram IV from The Mission of Michael ..." border="0" height="737" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/MissMich/images/19191130p01ds.png" width="600" /></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: center;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">That in which we could perceive a process of the world and at the same time a process of ourselves is eliminated; it does not exist for us.</span></span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is now a question of consciously regaining that which has been lost. That means, we have to acquire the ability of taking hold of something that is in our inner being, that belongs to the outer and the inner world simultaneously, and which reaches into both.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">This must be the endeavor of the fifth post-Atlantean period; namely, the endeavor to find something in the human inner life in which an outer process takes place at the same time.</span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: center;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><table align="CENTER" bgcolor="#000066" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" style="text-indent: 0px; width: 601.818px;"><tbody><tr bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><td align="CENTER" valign="TOP"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img alt="Diagram V from The Mission of Michael ..." border="0" height="328" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/MissMich/images/19191130p01es.png" width="600" /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;"><br /></span><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">You will remember that I have pointed to this important fact; I have pointed to it in my last article in </span><i style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">Soziale Zukunft</i><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;"> (The Social Future) {</span><i style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">Soziale Zukunft</i><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">, Vol. III: </span><i style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">Geistesleben, Rechtsordnung, Wirtschaft</i><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;"> (Spiritual Life, Rights order, Economy), Vol. IV: </span><i style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">Dreigliederung und soziales Vertrauen</i><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;"> (The Threefold Social Order and Social Confidence), where I seemingly dealt with these things in their importance for </span><i style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">social </i><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">life, but where I clearly pointed to the very necessity of finding something which the human being lays hold of </span><i style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">within himself</i><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;"> and which he, at the same time, recognizes as a process of the </span><i style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">world</i><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">. We as modern human beings cannot attain this by going back to Yoga culture; that has passed. For the breathing process itself has changed. This, of course, you cannot prove clinically; but the breathing process has become a different one since the third post-Atlantean cultural period. Roughly speaking, we might say: In the third post-soul; today he breathes air. Not only our thoughts have become materialistic; </span><i style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">reality itself has lost its soul</i><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">.</span></span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I beg you, my dear friends, not to see something negligible in what I am now saying. For just consider what it means that reality itself, in which mankind lives, has been transformed so that the air we breathe is something <i>different</i> from what it was four millennia ago. Not only the consciousness of mankind has changed, oh no! there was soul in the atmosphere of the earth. The air was the soul. This is it no longer today, or, rather, it is soul in a different way. The spiritual beings of <i>elemental nature</i> of whom I have spoken yesterday, they penetrate into you, they can be breathed if one practices Yoga breathing today. But that which was attainable in <i>normal</i> breathing three millennia ago cannot be brought back artificially. That it may be brought back is the great illusion of the Orientals. What I am stating here describes a reality. The ensouling of the air which belongs to the human being no longer exists. And therefore the beings of whom I spoke yesterday — I should like to call them the anti-Michaelic beings — are able to penetrate into the air and, through the air, into the human being, and in this way they enter into mankind, as I have described it yesterday. We are only able to drive them away if we put in the place of Yoga that which is the right thing for today. We must strive for this. We can only strive for that which is the right thing for today if we become conscious of a much more subtle relation of man to the external world, so that in regard to our ether body something takes place which must enter our consciousness more and more, similar to the breathing process. In the breathing process, we inhale fresh oxygen and exhale unusable carbon. A similar process takes place in all our sense perceptions. Just think, my dear friends, that you see something — let us take a radical case — suppose you see a flame. There a process takes place that may be compared with inhalation, only it is much finer. If you then close your eyes — and you can make similar experiments with every one of your senses — you have the after-image of the flame which gradually changes — dies down, as Goethe said. Apart from the purely physical aspect, the human ether body is essentially engaged in this process of reception of the light impression and its eventual dying down. Something very significant is contained in this process: it contains the soul element which, three millennia ago, was breathed in and out with the air. And we must learn to realize the sense process, permeated by the soul element in a similar way we have realized the breathing process three millennia ago.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You see, my dear friends, this is connected with the fact that man, three millennia ago, lived in a night culture. Yahve revealed himself through his prophets out of the dreams of the night. But we must endeavor to receive in our intimate intercourse with the world not merely sense perceptions, but also the spiritual element. It must become a certainty for us that with every ray of light, with every tone, with every sensation of heat and its dying down we enter into a soul-intercourse with the world, and this soul-intercourse must become significant for us. We can help ourselves to bring this about.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I have described to you the occurrence of the Mystery of Golgotha in the fourth post-Atlantean period which, if we wish to be accurate, begins with the year 747 B.C. and ends with the year 1413 A.D. The Mystery of Golgotha occurred in the first third of this period, and it was comprehended at the outset, with the remnants of the ancient mode of thought and culture. This ancient way of comprehending the Mystery of Golgotha is exhausted and a new way of comprehension must take its place. The ancient way does no longer suffice, and many attempts that have been made to enable human thinking to grasp the Mystery of Golgotha have proved unsuitable to reach up to it.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You see, dear friends, all external-material things have their spiritual-soul aspect, and all things that appear in the spiritual-soul sphere have their external-material aspect. The fact that the air of the earth has become soul-void, making it impossible for man to breathe the originally ensouled air, had a significant spiritual effect in the evolution of mankind. For through being able to breathe in the soul to which he was originally related, as is stated at the beginning of the Old Testament: “And God breathed into man the breath as living soul,” man had the possibility of becoming conscious of the pre-existence of the soul, of the existence of the soul before it had descended into the physical body through birth or through conception. To the degree the breathing process ceased to be ensouled the human being lost the consciousness of the pre-existence of the soul. Even at the time of Aristotle in the fourth post-Atlantean period it was no longer possible to understand, with the human power of comprehension, the pre-existence of the soul. It was utterly impossible.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We are faced with the strange historical fact that the greatest event, the Christ Event, breaks in upon the evolution of the earth, yet mankind must first become mature in order to comprehend it. At the outset, it is still capable of catching the rays of the Mystery of Golgotha with the remnants of the power of comprehension originating in primeval culture. But this power of comprehension is gradually lost, and dogmatism moves further and further away from an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. The Church forbids the belief in the pre-existence of the soul — not because pre-existence is incompatible with the Mystery of Golgotha, but because the human power of comprehension ceased to experience the consciousness of pre-existence as a force, the air having become soul-void. Pre-existence vanishes from head-consciousness. When our <i>sense processes will become ensouled again</i>, we shall have established a crossing point, and in this crossing point we shall take hold of the human will that streams up, out of the third stratum of consciousness, as I have described it to you recently. Then we shall, at the same time, have the subjective-objective element for which Goethe was longing so very much. We shall have the possibility of grasping, in a sensitive way, the peculiar nature of the sense process of man in its relation to the outer world. Man's conceptions are very coarse and clumsy, indeed, which maintain that the outer world merely acts upon us and we, in turn, merely react upon it. In reality, there takes place a soul process from the outside toward the inside, which is taken hold of by the deeply subconscious, inner soul process, so that the two processes overlap. From outside, cosmic thoughts work into us, from inside, humanity's will works outward. <i>Humanity's will and cosmic thought</i> <i>cross</i> in this crossing point, just as the objective and the subjective element once crossed in the breath. We must learn to feel how our will works through our eyes and how the activity of the senses delicately mingles with the passivity, bringing about the crossing of cosmic thoughts and humanity's will. We must develop this <i>new Yoga will</i>. Then something will be imparted to us that of like nature to that which was imparted to human beings in the breathing process three millennia ago. Our comprehension must become much more soul-like, much more spiritual.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Goethe's world conception strove in this direction. Goethe endeavored to recognize the <i>pure phenomenon</i>, which he called the primal phenomenon, by arranging the phenomena which work upon man in the external world, without the interference of the Luciferic thought which stems from the head of man himself; this thought was only to serve in the arranging of the phenomena. Goethe did not strive for the law of nature, but for the primal phenomenon; this is what is significant with him. If, however, we arrive at this pure phenomenon, this primal phenomenon, we have something in the outer world which makes it possible for us to sense the unfolding of our will in the perception of the outer world, and then we shall lift ourselves to something <i>objective-subjective</i>, as it still was contained, for instance, in the ancient Hebrew doctrine. We must learn not merely to speak of the contrast between the material and the spiritual, but we must recognize the interplay of the material and the spiritual in a unity precisely in sense perception. If we no longer look at nature merely materially and, further, if we do not “think into it” a soul element, as Gustave Theodore Fechner did, then something will arise which will signify for us what the Yahve culture signified for mankind three millennia ago. If we learn, in nature, to receive the soul element together with sense perception, then we shall have the Christ relationship to outer nature. This Christ relationship to outer nature will be something like a kind of spiritual breathing process.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We shall be aided by realizing more and more, with our sound common sense, that pre-existence lies at the basis of our soul existence. We must supplement the purely egotistical conception of post-existence, which springs merely from our longing to exist after death, by the knowledge of the pre-existence of the soul. We must again rise to the conception of the real eternity of the soul. This is what may be called Michael culture. If we move through the world with the consciousness that with every look we direct outward, with every tone we hear, something spiritual, something of the nature of the soul element, streams out into the world, we have gained the consciousness which mankind needs for the future.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I return once more to the image: You see a flame. You shut your eyes and have the after-image which ebbs away. Is that merely a subjective process? Yes, says the modern physiologist. But this is not true. In the <i>cosmic ether</i> this signifies an objective process, just as in the air the presence of carbonic acid which you exhale signifies an objective process. You are dealing here with the objective element; you have the possibility of knowing that something which takes place within you is at the same time a delicate cosmic process, if you become but conscious of it. If I look at a flame, close my eyes, let it ebb away — it will ebb away even though I keep my eyes open, only then I will not notice it — then I experience a process which does not merely take place within me, but which takes place in the world. But this is not only the case in regard to the flame. If I confront a human being and say: this man has said this or that, which may be true or untrue, this then constitutes a judgment, a moral or intellectual act of my inner nature. This ebbs away like the flame. It is an objective world process. If you think something good about your fellow-man: it ebbs away and is an objective process in the cosmic ether; if you think something evil: it ebbs away as an objective process. You are unable to conceal your perceptions and judgments about the world. You seemingly carry them on in your own being, but they are at the same time an objective world process. Just as people of the third period were conscious of the fact that the breathing process is a process that takes place simultaneously within man and in the objective world, so mankind must become aware in the future that the soul element of which I spoke is at the same time an objective world process.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This transformation of consciousness demands greater strength of soul than is ordinarily developed by the human being of today. To permeate oneself with this consciousness means to permit the Michael culture to enter. Just as it was self-evident for the man of the second and third pre-Christian millennium to think of the <i>air</i> as ensouled — so must it become self-evident for us to think of <i>light</i> as ensouled; we must arouse this ability in us when we consider light the general representative of sense perception We must thoroughly do away with the habit of seeing in light that which our materialistic age is accustomed to see in it. We must entirely cease to believe that merely those vibrations emanate from the sun of which, out of the modern consciousness, physics and people in general speak. We must become clear about the fact that the soul element penetrates through cosmic space upon the pinions of light; and we must realize, at the same time, that this was not the case in the period preceding our age. That which approaches mankind today through light approached mankind of that former period through the air. You see here an objective difference in the earth process. Expressing this in a comprehensive concept, we may say, <i>Air-soul-process</i>, <i>Light-soul-process</i>. This is what may be observed in the evolution of the earth. The Mystery of Golgotha signifies the transition from the one period to the other.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: center;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0mm;"><table align="CENTER" bgcolor="#000066" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" style="width: 401.818px;"><tbody><tr bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><td align="CENTER" valign="TOP"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img alt="Diagram VI from The Mission of Michael ..." border="0" height="200" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/MissMich/images/19191130p01fs.png" width="400" /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">My dear friends, it does not suffice, for the present age nor for the future age of mankind, to speak in abstractions about the spiritual, to fall into some sort of nebulous pantheism; on the contrary, we must begin to recognize that that which today is sensed as a merely material process is permeated by soul.</span></span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="text-indent: 23.622px;">It is a question of learning to say the following: there was a time prior to the Mystery of Golgotha when the Earth had an atmosphere which contained the soul element that belongs to the soul of man. Today, the Earth has an atmosphere which is devoid of this soul element. The same soul element that was previously in the air has now entered the light which embraces us from morning to evening. This was made possible through the fact that the Christ has united Himself with the Earth. Thus, also from the soul-spiritual aspect, air and light have undergone a change in the course of Earth evolution. </span><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">My dear friends, it is a childish presentation that describes air and light in the same manner, purely materially, throughout the millennia in which Earth evolution has unfolded. Air and light have changed inwardly. We live in an atmosphere and in a light sphere that are different from those in which our souls lived in previous earthly incarnations. To learn to recognize the externally-material as a soul-spirited element: this is what matters. If we describe purely material existence in the customary manner and then add, as a kind of decoration: "This material existence contains everywhere the spiritual!" — this will not produce genuine spiritual science. </span><br /><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">My dear friends, people are very strange in this respect; they are intent on withdrawing to the abstract. But what is necessary is the following: in the future we must cease to differentiate abstractly between the material and the spiritual, but we must look for the spiritual in the material itself and describe it as such; and we must recognize in the spiritual the transition into the material and its mode of action in the material. Only if we have attained this shall we be able to gain a true knowledge of man himself. </span><br /><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;">“Blood is quite a special fluid,” but the fluid physiology speaks about today is not a “special fluid,” it is merely a fluid whose chemical composition one attempts to analyze in the same way any other substance is analyzed; it is nothing special. But if we have gained the starting point of being able to understand the metamorphosis of air and light from the soul aspect, we shall gradually advance to the soul-spiritual comprehension of the human being himself, in every respect; then we shall not have abstract matter and abstract spirit, but spirit, soul, and body working into one another. <i>This will be Michael-culture</i>.</span></span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This is what our time demands. This is what ought to be grasped with all the fibers of the soul life by those human beings who wish to understand the present time. Whenever something out of the ordinary had to be introduced into human world conception it met with resistance. I have often quoted the following neat example: In 1837 (not even a century ago), the learned Medical College of Bavaria was asked, when the construction of the first railroad from Fuerth to Nuremberg was proposed, whether it was hygienically safe to build such a railroad. The Medical College answered (I am not telling a fairy tale, the documents concerning it exist): Such a railroad should not be built, for people who would use such a means of transportation would become nervously ill. And they added: Should there be such people who insist on such railroads, then, it is absolutely necessary to erect, on the right and left side of the tracks, high plank walls to prevent the people whom the train passes from getting concussion of the brain. Here you see, my dear friends, such a judgment is one thing; quite another is the course which the evolution of mankind takes. Today we smile about such a document as that of the Bavarian Medical College of 1837; but we are not altogether justified in smiling; for, if something similar occurs today, we behave in quite the same manner. And, after all, the Bavarian Medical College was not entirely wrong. It we compare the state of nerves of modern mankind with that of mankind two centuries ago, then we must say that people have become nervous. Perhaps the Medical College has exaggerated the matter a bit, but people did become nervous. Now, in regard to the evolution of mankind it is imperative that certain impulses which try to enter <i>Earth</i> evolution really should enter and not be rejected. That which from time to time wishes to enter human cultural development is often very inconvenient for people, it does not agree with their indolence, and what is duty in regard to human cultural development must be recognized by learning to read the objective facts, and must not be derived from human indolence, not even from a refined kind of indolence. I am concluding today's lecture with these words because there is no doubt that a strongly increasing battle will take place between anthroposophical cognition and the various creeds. We can see the signs for this on all sides. The creeds who wish to remain in the old beaten tracks, who do not wish to arouse themselves to a new knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha, will reinforce their strong fighting position which they already have taken up, and it would be very frivolous, my dear friends, if we would remain unconscious of the fact that this battle has started.</span></div></div></div><div style="padding: 0mm; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 6.25mm;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I myself, you can be sure, am not at all eager for such a battle, particularly not for a battle with the Roman Catholic Church which, it seems, is forced upon us from the other side with such violence. He who, after all, thoroughly knows the deeper historical impulses of the creeds of our time will be very unwilling to fight time-honored institutions. But if the battle is forced upon us, it is not to be avoided! And the clergy of our day is not in the least inclined to open its doors to that which <i>has</i> to enter: the spiritual-scientific world conception. Remember the grotesque quotations I read to you recently where it was said that people should inform themselves about anthroposophically-oriented spiritual science through the writings of my opponents, since Roman-Catholics are forbidden by the Pope to read my own writings. This is not a light matter, my dear friends; it is a very serious matter! A battle which arises in such a manner, which is capable of disseminating such a judgment in the world, such a battle is not to be taken lightly. And what is more; it is not to be taken lightly since we do not enter it willingly. Let us take the example of the Roman-Catholic Church, my dear friends; matters are not different in regard to the Protestant Church, but the Roman-Catholic church is more powerful — and we have to consider time-honored institutions: if one understands the significance of the vestments of the priest when he reads the Holy Mass, the meaning of every single piece of his priestly garments, if one understands every single act of the Holy Mass, then one knows that they are sacred, time-honored establishments; they are establishments more ancient than Christianity for the Holy Mass is a ritual of the ancient Mystery culture, transformed in the Christian sense. And modern clergy who uses such weapons as described above lives in these rituals! Thus, if one has, on the one hand, the deepest veneration for the existing rituals and symbolism, and sees, on the other hand, how insufficient is the defense of and how serious are the attacks against that which wishes to enter mankind's evolution, then one becomes aware of the earnestness that is necessary in taking a stand in these matters. It is truly something worth deep study and consideration. What is thus heralded from that side is only at its beginnings; and it is not right to sleep in regard to it; on the contrary, we have to sharpen our perception for it. During the two decades in which the Anthroposophical Movement has been fostered in Middle Europe, we could indulge in sectarian somnolence which was so hard to combat in our own ranks and which still today sits so deeply embedded in the souls of the human beings who have entered the Anthroposophical Movement. But the time has passed in which we might have been allowed to indulge in sectarian somnolence. That which I have often emphasized here is deeply true, namely, that it is necessary that we should grasp the world-historical significance of the Anthroposophical Movement and overlook trifles, but that we should also consider the small impulses as serious and great.</span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Related posts:</span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;"><span style="color: #0000ee; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><u>https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-old-yoga-breathing-and-new-yoga.html</u></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;"><span style="color: #0000ee; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><u><a href="https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-old-yoga-and-new-yoga.html">https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-old-yoga-and-new-yoga.html</a><br /></u></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="text-indent: 6.25mm;"><span style="color: #0000ee; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-yoga-of-anthroposophy-yoke-of-jesus.html">The Yoga of Anthroposophy</a><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2020/07/becoming-clairvoyant-developing.html">https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2020/07/becoming-clairvoyant-developing.html</a></span></span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2019/12/anthroposophy-elixir-of-life-only.html">https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2019/12/anthroposophy-elixir-of-life-only.html</a></span></div><div style="text-indent: 23.622px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0194/19191130p01.html">http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0194/19191130p01.html</a></span></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div></div></div><p><span style="background-color: #fffff8; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 23.622px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="background-color: #fffff8; clear: both; text-align: center; text-indent: 23.622px;"><br style="text-indent: 23.622px;" /></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-52673202882462599372024-03-13T09:17:00.001-04:002024-03-13T09:42:37.039-04:00The Yoga of Anthroposophy : The Yoke of Jesus Christ<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><div style="background-color: #fffff8; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aQIRNQ0saDo/XXI8gAY_q3I/AAAAAAAAG9w/7QvaSuTEvNggDl-O1wzt_85rYHz6g5YvACKgBGAs/s1600/360px-Grunewald_-_christ.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="360" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aQIRNQ0saDo/XXI8gAY_q3I/AAAAAAAAG9w/7QvaSuTEvNggDl-O1wzt_85rYHz6g5YvACKgBGAs/s640/360px-Grunewald_-_christ.jpg" width="384" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span><div style="background-color: #ffffe6; line-height: 16.9px; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 2.4rem; min-width: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span class="text Matt-11-28" id="en-KJV-23488">"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. </span>Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." <span style="text-align: center;"><i>— Matthew 11:28-30</i></span></span></p><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><span style="color: white; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><em style="line-height: 16.9px;"><br /></em></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvwyK62bxEQ/X-DsKObvSzI/AAAAAAAAIng/BUSJsDwReV0_VebTtwKapgV7cldI8py4gCLcBGAsYHQ/s600/93857452_3341094719238742_8428752612639113216_n%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="566" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvwyK62bxEQ/X-DsKObvSzI/AAAAAAAAIng/BUSJsDwReV0_VebTtwKapgV7cldI8py4gCLcBGAsYHQ/w604-h640/93857452_3341094719238742_8428752612639113216_n%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="604" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p></div><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 2.4rem; min-width: 0px;"><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: midnightblue; line-height: 29.4px; margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></h2><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: midnightblue; line-height: 29.4px; margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 0px; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhssUEk3aUUHyHrGaZnUIR-yXmz4S0uz8rzjSAdIk8vnkhwQYXCFJWWPCpSgkdhVn_UXEhaC_dqh_YSMQnMw79SlzKUgjVpJ9YHI0L7O192vPiVu3Bx1Mj55n79Z8gsRTntnvKmoMc9LMMXS2X0EFN56wHph-rHSIzUvvTqcVJ3SsMv0LQ-0MFa4-CrcpOZ/s720/40217_1249902387888_1839344728_493505_126578_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="720" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhssUEk3aUUHyHrGaZnUIR-yXmz4S0uz8rzjSAdIk8vnkhwQYXCFJWWPCpSgkdhVn_UXEhaC_dqh_YSMQnMw79SlzKUgjVpJ9YHI0L7O192vPiVu3Bx1Mj55n79Z8gsRTntnvKmoMc9LMMXS2X0EFN56wHph-rHSIzUvvTqcVJ3SsMv0LQ-0MFa4-CrcpOZ/w640-h354/40217_1249902387888_1839344728_493505_126578_n.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></h2><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: midnightblue; line-height: 29.4px; margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The End of the Dark Age<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><small style="box-sizing: border-box;">GA 211</small></span></h2><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 3em 1em; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The lecture presented here is the 12th of 12 lectures in the series entitled: <span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>The Sun Mystery ... Death, Resurrection</i></span>. This lecture is also known as "Anthroposophy as a Striving for the Christianization of the World" and also "Anthroposophy: A Striving for Spiritual Understanding of Nature Permeated by Christ" </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="date" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Rudolf Steiner, Vienna, June 11, 1922:</span></p><p class="date" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="Translator" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="Translator" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Mankind unfolded its intellectual life in the course of many centuries. This intellectual life gradually led it away from spirituality. The intellect itself is spirit, but its content is no longer a spiritual content. Indeed, the intellect is spiritual, but it seeks as its content external Nature, the external life of Nature. Hence the intellect is spirit, but it fills itself with something which cannot appear to it as spiritual. The great tragedy, the modern tragedy of the world, is that man may look into himself and that he must say to himself: When I am intellectually active, I am spiritually active, but at the same time my intellect, which is pure spirit, cannot absorb in a direct way the spiritual. I fill the spirit in me only with things pertaining to Nature.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This is what devastates and rends the human soul to-day. Even though we do not wish to admit this torn and devastated condition, it nevertheless exists in the spiritual regions of the human soul and constitutes the fundamental evil and the fundamental tragedy of our age.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If we wish to express in habitual terms what I have explained to you just now, we must draw attention to all the spiritual powers that are still active in the whole life of Nature; they enter into us because we fill our own spirit with the life of Nature, and we may designate these powers as the Ahrimanic powers.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Our intellect is thus exposed to the great danger of falling a prey to the Ahrimanic powers. During the past centuries, when the intellect was still unfolding and still possessed the inheritance of an old spiritual life, these Ahrimanic powers did not have that great influence on man which they have now. The life of Nature is apparently spread out round about us; but this is only apparent: for Ahriman lives in Nature. And by absorbing Nature, by believing that it is only controlled by neutral laws of Nature, we really absorb spiritual powers, even though we are not aware of this; we absorb Ahrimanic spiritual powers, who took over a special task in cosmic life, in the whole evolution of the world.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When we speak of the task of these spiritual powers, some people are easily inclined to say: But why does the divine guidance of the world admit these powers? — To this we must reply: All that exists in the earthly sphere may be grasped with the ordinary understanding; but when it is a question of grasping in a spiritual-scientific way that which transcends the earth, we must do this through spiritual vision (Anschauung).</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Consequently we must say: These powers exist, — but the way in which they are connected with the divine-spiritual powers pertaining to man, can only be grasped in the course of long epochs; indeed, the powers belonging to the super-human sphere are perhaps quite inaccessible to the human understanding. We can therefore only say: These powers exist, they show themselves to those who have spiritual knowledge.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The tasks of the Ahrimanic beings is the following: To prevent the earth from continuing to develop as it should develop in accordance with the intentions of the divine-spiritual powers with whom man is connected from the very outset, inasmuch as he is a human soul. (You will find all these things mentioned in my “Occult Science”). In my “Occult Science” I have spoken of the future development of the earth, of the Jupiter and Venus phases of evolution: The aim of the Ahrimanic powers is to prevent this course of development.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Their aim is to harden and freeze up the earth, to shape it in such a way that, together with the earth, man remains an earthbound creature. He becomes hardened, as it were, within earthly substance and continues to live in the future ages of the world as a kind of statue of his past. These powers thus pursue definite aims, which undoubtedly appear as part of their own individual striving.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The earth could not reach its goal if the Ahrimanic powers were to gain the victory, if man were alienated from his beginnings, from the powers who supported him at the beginning of his evolution. Outwardly, the human being would develop in a way entirely in keeping with the earthly sphere, but by suppressing his innate disposition, which must lead him beyond the earth.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Ahrimanic powers could not touch man while the intellect was still rooted in the spiritual through an old inheritance, as was the case during the past three or four centuries. But this has changed since the beginning of the 20<sup style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0;">th</sup> century. The ancient Indian wisdom knew this, and fixed the end of the 19<sup style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0;">th</sup> century as the end of the “Dark Age,” of Kali-Yuga. Thus it had an intimation of a new age. This new age was to indicate that from the beginning of the 20<sup style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0;">th</sup> century, our deepest concern should no longer be that of clinging to an old spiritual inheritance, but of absorbing the new light, the pure light, in our earthly life.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Continued: <a href="https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-new-yoga-anthroposophy-yoga-of-light.html">The New Yoga</a></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><br /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA211/English/Singles/19220611p01.html">June 11, 1922 GA 211</a></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT Sans", helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16.8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><br style="font-size: 16.8px;" /></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-41188597656225440582024-03-13T04:03:00.000-04:002024-03-13T04:03:56.891-04:00What the world needs now is anthroposophy<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cqdxgv_DjTs/W4-h_D-BCkI/AAAAAAAAFB0/3Yad1B_vUzYbjPODS9bY1gPJEf5FtUPtQCLcBGAs/s1600/39522043_2060620177600377_8680802463462195200_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="720" height="608" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cqdxgv_DjTs/W4-h_D-BCkI/AAAAAAAAFB0/3Yad1B_vUzYbjPODS9bY1gPJEf5FtUPtQCLcBGAs/s640/39522043_2060620177600377_8680802463462195200_n.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><p><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>The Tension Between East and West</i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Lecture 9</i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Rudolf Steiner, Vienna, June 10, 1922:</i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If you are seeking, within the present social system, forces that inspire confidence, you will have to look in hidden places. Social distresses and deficiencies are only too evident; prospects, genuine ones at any rate, rather less so.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There are, of course, self-deceivers, on a greater or lesser scale, who even in face of the grave difficulties of the present seek salvation in this or that recipe; they devise all kinds of social institutions in which they claim that mankind, or at any rate a section of mankind, would prosper better than it ever has before. It seems to me, however, that nowadays we have become so clever, if I may so express it, that it is relatively easy to work out, on a would-be national basis, any kind of social system. It is possible today to be familiar with quite a lot of social systems advocated by the various shades of party opinion, wthout finding anything really bad about them; and yet, we do not expect anything very much from them, either. Certainly, anyone who considers the society of today, not simply as raw material for sociological theories, but from the standpoint of a knowledge of man, can only talk of the emergence of social prospects when man is able once again to come close to his real self.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The most important thing at this stage is not the excogitation of institutions, but the possibility of discovering man and including him in the social institutions we inhabit. And at this point it must even be admitted that, when it does become possible to discover man within the social order — or, at the present day, within the social <i>chaos</i> — then any given institution can serve the same purpose, more or less. The fact is that mankind can prosper socially in all kinds of different ways, within the most varied institutions.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What matters today is human beings, not just institutions. For this reason, I evoked a certain amount of satisfaction, particularly in circles where they <i>feel</i> the social problem more than they think about it, with my book <i>The Threefold Commonwealth</i>, by not merely showing how a given institution might be different. Instead, I argued that a great deal nowadays depends on whether the man who has to run a business, for instance, is able to bring his whole personality to bear, either directly or through assistants, on his work-people, so that he comes close to them by really discussing with them, as man to man, everything that goes on in the business, from the purchase of the raw material to the marketing of the finished product and the means by which it reaches the consumer. If you repeatedly discuss this chain of production with your employees, in a way that is attuned to human considerations, you establish a basis on which you can build the other things that are socially desirable and worth striving for today.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yet it is still not enough to talk to people technically, in this way; something further is needed. What is needed, if we are to have hope in the prospects of society once more, is what I want to talk about today.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">For a long time, the view has been widespread that the man who is a leader in the social sphere must first and foremost establish contact with the masses. Efforts in this direction were made throughout the nineteenth century. And as the social problem became more and more of a burning question, you could see people working in factories for months on end, in an attempt to get to know the life of the workers. There have been senior civil servants who, after reaching the retiring age and so completing their work in society, have gone among the working people and been astonished to discover what it is really like there. In short, there have long been efforts to get to know the common man, and in particular the proletariat. We may say, too, that the achievements of our literature and art in this respect have been considerable. The mode of existence of the workers and the masses in general, often impressively presented through works of art and literature, certainly deserves full recognition. With the major problems of the present, however, the most important point is not really that the leaders should know what goes on among the workers or the masses in general. Fundamentally, very little depends on our artistic depiction, from the inside, of the life of the masses: the miseries and cares that beset them, their struggles, their ideas and goals, and so on. I would say:</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What we need today is not so much a way of understanding the masses, as a way of being understood <i>by</i> them; of going into the factory and business, whatever its kind, and being able to speak in such a way that we are not felt to be academic or “educated” or theoretical, but are taken as men who have something to say that appeals to men's souls.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">For a long time now there have been laudable attempts to establish institutions for adult education, up to university level. What is made available to the people in this way does, it is true, interest them for a while by virtue of the piquancy of many scientific results; there is some excitement if the lecture is illustrated by lantern slides, or if we take people to zoos and the like. But we ought not to be under any illusion that this really appeals to their souls or touches their hearts. To do <i>this</i>, we must have something to say about man's relation to existence as a whole. On this point, it is true, leading personalities today still have rather odd opinions. They consider that the masses are not really interested in “philosophical questions,” as they call them. But they are! If you can only find the right language to express it, then eyes light up and hearts unfold. For example, if you start with quite simple scientific facts, and know how to handle them in such a way that, out of your reflections, human essence and human destiny ultimately emerge; and if you show people that what you say is well founded, and at the same time that it is not fragmentary knowledge that at best can occupy us in our moments of leisure, but something a man can absorb as nourishment for his soul — only if you succeed in doing this will you have made a start on the creation of confidence between the people, as they are called, and the leaders. It is possible today to speak from a party viewpoint, to provide the people with concepts such as “capitalism,” “labour,” “surplus value” and the like: the people will gradually assimilate these concepts, and then you can talk on party lines. But by doing so you will not provide men with systems in which they can participate with all their humanity, or enable them to co-operate in the creation of the society we must hope for if the forces of advancement, and not those of decline, are to prevail.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If you want to, you can soon see what the real situation is today, and where the real obstacles and restrictions occur. I was for some years a teacher at a workers' educational college, where I had to teach all kinds of subjects. I never kowtowed to any party dogma; at the same time, I never encountered any resistance on the part of a worker to understanding, when I presented history, for example, in such a way as to reveal at every point that it is not something that can be comprehended by a historical materialist interpretation, but something in which spiritual forces and spiritual impulses are operative. I was even able to evoke some understanding of why it was that Marx, whose ideas were thoroughly familiar to the members of my audiences, arrived at the view that is called “historical materialism,” the view that regards all spiritual phenomena as merely the effect of mechanistic and economic factors and the like. I was able to show them that this is because in fact, from about the sixteenth century onwards, there have increasingly come into play the forces that have made <i>economic</i> life dominant and decisive. In consequence, art and science and the rest really seem like — and in a sense even are — the results of economic life, mechanistic life. Marx made the mistake he did because he was only familiar with modern history.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is not my wish to argue for one view or the other, however, but simply to observe that even this point was understood. It was not a lack of confidence on the part of the audiences that made my kind of popular instruction impossible, but the fact that one day the authorities noticed: the teaching here is not in accord with party dogma; instead, what is presented by way of illustration is drawn, to the best of the teacher's knowledge and judgment, from what appeals to human nature. And they grew anxious lest the audience should increase. One day, their emissary appeared at a meeting that was summoned for the purpose, to investigate whether I was fit to be a teacher at the workers' educational college. One of the workers' leaders appeared. And when I commented that, if the principle of progress was to be established in these circles, then the teacher must at least have freedom to teach as he wished, the representative replied: “Freedom is something we don't recognize! We recognize only a proper compulsion.”</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This was the attitude that led to my expulsion from the teaching staff of that workers' educational college. From my point of view, however, it was really an illuminating experience. Not so much the expulsion itself, as the preceding acquaintance with the wide variety of people that make up the modern proletariat. An illuminating experience, because you could see that, if only you will speak out of your full humanity, so that your hearers</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">feel you are saying something to them that reaches into their hearts and affects their human and earthly being, they will regard thinking, when it springs from a philosophy of life, as the most important thing they can be offered. There exists today a feeling that enlightenment — not in any party sense, but in a general human sense — must spread among the masses. People long, more or less unconsciously, for something that springs from a really far-reaching philosophy of life.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And how should it be otherwise? For, after all, vast sections of mankind today are employed in such a way that their work cannot conceivably interest them. They perform it as if faced with something that has no relationship whatever with their humanity. Hence, although the clubs, guilds and unions that tend to be formed in these circles are indeed organized on the basis of the various trades — there are metal workers' unions, printers' unions, and so on — fundamentally they have surprisingly little to do with the business of production. They are primarily concerned with the element in the material sphere of life which is of general human interest — with consumption and the satisfaction of human needs. Mankind has had to become resigned about production, but not to anything like the same extent about consumption. And so large numbers of people are faced at present with work that turns them back upon themselves. Their environment cannot interest them, nor what they do from morning till night, unless it be so presented to them that they <i>can</i> find it interesting; what interests them first and foremost — and this is where we must begin — is what confronts a man when he is alone with himself after work and can simply concentrate his attention on his own humanity. We must also admit that, when we examine the social chaos of our time, we can see quite clearly that there are also many people in executive positions who are cut off from a direct interest in and relationship with what they are doing. It should be, not just an open secret, but something known to the widest possible circles, that even people whose work is intellectual often have so little interest in their profession that they too are reduced to waiting until after working hours in order to pursue their genuine and human interests. For that very reason it is obvious that we must provide human beings with things of human significance, if we wish to establish a basis for social optimism.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In the intellectual sector of civilization, we have accomplished an extraordinary amount. Today, we can point to all the things that human intelligence has achieved. And undoubtedly, people can learn an enormous amount when we acquaint them with the results of man's achievements in science and art. But that is not the point; the point is that we should be capable not only of disseminating intellectual culture, as a foundation for social structures, but also of exciting people, of inspiring them — not by producing grandiose utterances or well-rounded periods, but by having something to say, something that makes men feel: This touches my humanity.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If, on the other hand, we go to people with a philosophy of life derived from what is now popular and from what is recognized as true by our excellent natural sciences, you can see at once how impossible it is really to grip men's hearts with it and give them something that touches their humanity. Men will always regard the sort of thing they are usually given, as something superficial. In particular, what a man will say if he is willing to speak freely — because you have gained his confidence in other ways — is: “That's all very well: but in the first place we can't really understand what you say, because so much of it needs special preparation; and secondly it isn't straightforward enough for us; there is something that says to us: No thoroughfare!” I have heard many people talk like this about adult education colleges, public libraries and the like, as they are today. If now we seek to base on this experience an approach to society, we must look more deeply for the causes of the difficulty. And here once more I am compelled to introduce — in parenthesis, so to speak — part of a philosophy of life.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When, as we have often done during the last few days, we look at the Asiatic civilizations, so many legacies from which survive in our schools (even our secondary schools and universities), we find there, at any rate where the culture was at its height, something that must still be of inestimable value to us today. Its characteristic feature is that the knowledge of the world and philosophy of life discovered there were apprehended by the human <i>spirit</i>; and this in turn developed into the <i>intellect</i>, which I have described as the specific force of modern times. Our modern highly-developed intellect is, fundamentally, a late development of what, in the East, was dream-like clairvoyance. This dream-like clairvoyance has cast off its direct insight into the outside world and evolved into our inner logical order — into the great modern means of acquiring knowledge of nature.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And in the last analysis we must recognize, in the medium of philosophical communication in Europe today, yet another legacy from the Orient. It is not only the medieval schoolmen who still made use of words and concepts and ideas imbued with powers of the soul which derived from the East; we ourselves, however much we may deny it, speak, even in chemistry and physics, in language that we should not use if our education, right up to university level, were not conditioned by something derived from the Orient.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But in becoming intellect, this early clairvoyance has thrown off at the same time another shoot, which has affected the outlook on life of the <i>masses</i> in many ways. It has given rise to views which for the most part have already died out in Europe today, views which have been eradicated by modern elementary school education, and of which only vestiges survive among the most uneducated classes. While on the one hand the intellect has been developing to amazing heights, there has also developed deep down among the people (and far more than present-day psychology has yet revealed) something that projected certain subjective experiences, quite involuntarily, on to the outside world. These assumed the most varied forms, but they can all be covered by the single word “superstition.” Superstition, which signifies the projection of subjective experiences outwards into space and time, played a much greater rôle in mankind's development than is thought today. Even people who are only half-educated can now recognize the belief in ghosts as a superstition; yet there still persist in us, atavistically, many of the feelings that developed under the influence of this belief. In so far as we are the descendants of Oriental humanity in this respect too, we operate in our art and in other branches of life with at least the feelings that spring from this current in human development.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is possible to examine what is emerging from the depths of social humanity, so to speak, at the present time; to look at the man who has developed out of the technical and mechanical world of modern times; to look into his heart and his quality of soul. And anyone who does so will see that this man — who has not gone through the process that makes the intellect supremely valuable to us today, the process of secondary and university education — has no genuine personal interest in all that can be achieved within the sphere of intelligence; what he has is something quite different. I would say: Something elemental reveals itself in such a man, welling up from depths that are rising to the surface in our social order — something elemental which, in Europe today, is quite inadequately understood, because fundamentally it is something new. But, when it <i>is</i> understood, it can show us the right way to bring a philosophy of life to the masses.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Anyone today who, growing up within mankind, has no contact with our inheritance from the Orient and is thus thrown back upon himself, as the working-man is and very many members of the upper classes too, is not interested first and foremost in the intellect. For him, it is above all the <i>will</i> that he is interested in — and will is something which rises up into the soul from deep below, something which emerges exclusively from man himself. Since this fact has, of course, been noticed in a superficial way, there exists today a certain longing to regard man as a being of will. Many people, indeed, believe that they can speak to the masses in terms of philosophy only if they deal primarily with the element of will in man. As a result of hankerings of this kind, it has come about — as frequently happens — that people have described to the masses “primitive culture,” in which man is still a creature of instinct. They describe to the working-man how these primitive people lived in simple circumstances, and then attempt to draw inferences about what the social order should be like today. In primary education today, a great deal of time is spent in describing the living conditions of these primitive, instinctive people. And there is a good deal of other evidence for the existence of a certain instinctive tendency to put forward the element of will, when people are called upon to expound a philosophy of life.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Out of a certain appetite for the sensational, the man of today does, it is true, accept these descriptions; to some extent, too, he feels in his own being, which has not advanced to a higher level of education, something akin to this instinctive element in human nature. But if you want to warm people, if you want to preserve their souls from desiccation, if you want to make contact with the whole man, then accounts of this kind will not help you.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Why is this? It is because, when you have scaled the peaks of science and acquired what science currently accepts as true, you develop, simply by doing so, something that really constitutes a modern superstition. Admittedly, it is not yet recognized as such; but just as the educated man of more recent times has learnt to regard the old belief in ghosts as a superstition, so to some extent the masses today — as it were prophetically, looking into the future — regard as a kind of superstition the ideas and concepts and notions that we assert about these primitive conditions of humanity.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What <i>do</i> we assert? We assert that mankind was originally governed by instinctive drives. These are something quite obscure, operating in unconscious regions that people are unwilling to define more precisely; they include the instincts, which are also found in animals, and all that is indefinite in man's feelings and expressions of will. People point to the element of natural creature active in man. Many thinkers today regard it as an ideal to depict man in such a way that what is inside him is presented as far as possible in terms of material processes, only elevated into those indefinite concepts that we call drives or instincts.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Let us, however, remember the view of man's inner make-up that I have developed in the last few days. I have shown how the exercises of spiritual science, by developing man, enable him to really see inside himself. He thereby reaches the stage of contemplating his inner organism, not as does the modern physiologist or anatomist from without, but in such a way that the parts of the organism can be inwardly experienced. When you have broken through the reflector of memory, you can look down upon the lungs, heart, etc., as something whose physical structure is merely the outward expression or manifestation of the spiritual — of that spiritual element which I have been able to represent as a world-memory linked with the great cosmos.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This can be sensed by the very man who today is thrown back by his work on to himself. Everywhere he longs to attain an understanding of it. But we achieve this understanding only when we clearly perceive what we are actually doing, when we perceive in its spiritual essence the element of spirit and soul which lies within us — which is not even our property and does not belong to our human personality, but which is the gulf, so to speak, that the cosmos sends into us as human beings. Man can come to know man only when, looking into himself, he finds as the basic substance of his physical being a spiritual element. Once we realize this, however, we also know that to speak of drives, instincts, and all the other things that people are always speaking of nowadays, is to interpose something in front of our real inner nature, just as superstition formerly interposed ghosts in front of external nature. When we speak of drives, instincts and the like in man, we mean only the psyche obscured, so to speak, by our own outlook. In speaking of our human make-up as it really is, we must ignore these spectres that we call instinctive drives, passions and the like, and see through them to reality. We must leave behind the spectres within us, represented by all these definitions of drives, lusts, passions, will and the like, in the same way as we have left behind the ghosts in the sphere of the external, natural order. With those ghosts, we interposed something from within us in front of external nature, and so projected what was subjective on to the objective sphere. Nowadays, we are setting up something that is, objectively, of a spiritual nature, as if it were something material; our drives and instincts, as usually defined, are materialized and internalized ghosts that obscure the true spiritual sphere. This is something which, as a matter of cognitive fact, is little understood nowadays, although it is <i>felt</i>when, with a true knowledge of man, we seek to approach anyone who, from the depths of his unconscious — and in the depths of this unconscious lies the spiritual sphere — instinctively feels: Don't talk to me about your materialized ghosts! You ought to be telling me something about the way in which man and the cosmos have grown up together.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If you have a feeling for society, you will rejoice over experiences like the one I had a few weeks ago, when I was lecturing to a group of working-men. I was originally supposed to speak about political economy. But I always arrange for the audience to choose the subject themselves; before the lecture begins, I let them hand it up to me or tell me, so that the knowledge imparted to them is of a kind that they themselves determine. On this occasion, a working-man took out a copy of our periodical <i>The Three</i>. He said he had read an article of mine in it, but couldn't quite understand what the planet was actually like which preceded the earth, subsequently went over into darkness, and eventually gave rise to the earth. I was able to lay before this man, in a straightforward and simple manner, an explanation in terms of spiritual science. And you could see that, whereas if you speak drily, in abstract concepts, they may feel: There's nothing much for us here! Yet when you speak of this kind of thing, their eyes light up, because they feel that here is something their souls can feed on, just as their bodies feed on what they eat. How their eyes light up when you give them something that grips their whole personality, their heart and soul — something that is not simply a <i>concept</i> of life, but an <i>outlook</i>, a <i>philosophy</i> of life in the sense that it really contains life and can excite enthusiasm, even when the worker comes straight from the machine.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And I certainly believe that social influence of this kind must be exerted first, before we can win men over in any other way — and they must <i>be</i> won over — to establish the appropriate social structures. How long this will take depends on men's determination. I know that many people say: “Oh, you are fobbing us off with something that will only be realized in four or five hundred years time.” To this I always reply: “Quite true, if not enough people want it; but in affairs of this kind, the important thing is not to calculate how long it may take for men to reach these social structures, but to forsake calculation and put our trust in the will.” If the will is present in a sufficiently large number of men, we may hope to attain, in not too great a length of time, what we might otherwise intellectually suppose would take centuries. Nothing is more of an obstacle to our reaching these social configurations than the hesitation that derives from such calculations. You should start, not by worrying about the results of intellectual calculation, but by attempting to come close to man. Then, you will see that, with a philosophy of life that does not interpose materialized ghosts before people's souls, but reveals to them man's link with the cosmos, you will soon meet with an appreciative reception.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Today, the usual reception you will get is as follows: If you take this kind of philosophy of life to those who are professionally qualified to judge it, they will compare it with what is already in existence, and will then take the view that it is amateurish, dilettante and so forth. Or the converse will happen: You wish to speak about these things, which so affect man's innermost self that drives, instincts and the like become spiritualized, and you feel obliged to adopt the scientific forms of expression customary today; otherwise what you have to say will be rejected before you start. But if you do adopt them, you are then told that you are speaking a language that is not for the people. You already knew this. That was why, when speaking to people who expect a great deal from those with scientific education, you set it in quite different contexts of ideas. What is said, however, is exactly the same. And that is how you come to realize that the man whose intellect has not been taught to run along a few particular lines by his specific intellectual training, <i>will</i> understand it. We shall, it is true, first have to leave behind an age in which, for doing this, a man can be thrown out of workers' educational colleges by those who regard themselves as the authentic leaders of the people.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I have had to demonstrate to you, then, that because of the very nature of the masses of humanity, there must exist today a philosophy of life in the form of an anthroposophically orientated spiritual science. For only out of such a philosophy, which can really talk about the spiritual sphere in speaking of man, can there arise any hope of attaining a social understanding. And then, from this social understanding, with people understanding one another, we can go forward to other things.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We can hope for this. This hope is native to us in Central Europe where, throughout the nineteenth century, the best minds sought a method of education by which it would be possible to lay hold of the child, so to speak, in the sphere of the will. They had perceived that a modern human being must be taken hold of in his will. They had not, of course, seen this as clearly as it can be seen with the aid of the philosophy of life I am propounding. But they had a notion of it. That is why they exerted themselves to find intellectual methods which would enable them to reach the child's will by way of his ideas, to lay hold of his will through his thought-forces. And an enormous amount of good was achieved in Central Europe, as a result of the German spirit — this is fully acknowledged in the West, or was at least until the Great War. Attention has always been drawn, in England, to the way in which, in Central Europe, people tried to take hold of the will indirectly, via a pedagogic method, and how this has been transplanted to England. This has always been recognized and described.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When we go still further West, to America, however, we find that, by the circumstances of spiritual geography, they have developed over there a distinct form of primitive philosophy of life — if I may so put it without offence — which yet carries within itself striking potentialities for the future. We find, for example, that in America, when educated people sum up what they think about human beings, they will say: What a man works out intellectually depends on the political party into which circumstances have led him, and on the church he belongs to. In reflecting the opinions of his church, his class, or his party, he does of course make use of his intellect; the real source, however, is not the intellect but the will. Again and again we can see American writers pointing to man's will as his primary substance. Present-day Americans like to quote writers who say: The intellect is nowadays nothing but a minister of state, and the will is the ruler — even though, as Carlyle said, the intellect may be an expensive minister.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This view, moreover, is not an invented abstraction, but something that is in the bones of educated Americans. Even the physiologists there talk in these terms. Anyone who has an ear for such things can perceive a marked difference between the language of physiologists in Europe and that of physiologists in America. Over there, people explicitly discuss how a man's brain is shaped by his situation in the world. They consider the brain to be a mechanism which is dependent, even down to its speech-centres, on the company a man keeps, the extent to which he gets on in life, and so forth. They therefore see the development of the will within the world as the primary aspect of man, and regard all the products of the brain as subordinate, as something which, fundamentally, has very little to do with a man's individuality. These people say: If you want to discover a man's individuality, you must examine his will and see how it developed in his childhood, in the context of his family, his church, his political allegiance, etc.; and then consider how he acquires an intellect which — as an American has said — has about as much to do with his essential being as the horse you ride has to do with the rider.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Although the legacy of the East has also extended as far as America, then, we have there, emerging directly from educated circles, something that in Europe lies in the subterranean depths of human existence. Our own America so to speak, the America that is within Europe, is the instinctive direction of humanity towards the will, and thus towards a very large class of people here. This also gives us the ground on which Europe must in fact reach an understanding with America, if a world-wide social rapprochement is to come about.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We do indeed find that a good deal of what the Americans have developed represents a primitive form of the exercises by which a spiritual vision is attained. Thus, we find Americans repeatedly commending self-control, self-discipline, self-education as all-important: what matters is not having learned something, but implanting it in your will by the constant repetition of a given exercise. We know the effect of rhythmically repeating concepts, and we know how the influence thus brought to bear on man's true centre in turn affects the will. It sometimes takes curious forms, this conscious direction to what, for modern man, must represent the innermost kernel of his being.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And precisely from a rapprochement of this kind we shall be able to develop the further recognition that we must pass through contemplation of the will to reach the spiritual element of man. There follows the prospect of a philosophy of life which (even though the working man cannot help being materialistic at present) can yet be such as I have expounded here — a power that can be developed from the social conditions themselves, so to speak, precisely through a rapprochement between Europe and America.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It was in Central Europe that the finest minds sought for intellectual topics that would be capable of taking hold of the temperament, the volitional side of children. Central European educators in the nineteenth century tried to discover the art of capturing the will by starting from the intellect. But they did not get beyond abstract thinking, which had not then advanced to the living thought. They were still caught up in the Oriental world and its legacy, and on the basis of this early Oriental heritage they sought to take hold of the will.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Then came a great mass of humanity who made will sovereign everywhere. And today we live in a period that contrasts with an earlier age when forces existed to uphold the social order. Even those of us whose outlook is not reactionary cannot help understanding that, in earlier times, a prince attended the same sermon as the lowest peasant in the district; and the man who spoke from within the spiritual life, on behalf of all, had something to say that affected everyone. A perfectly clear public image of the consolidation of the social orders by means of the spirit was definitely there in those earlier periods. It was a definite legacy from the Orient, this image which is apprehended by the head and only later sinks down into the heart. Now something else, something that springs from the will, has appeared. We must find once more a way of speaking philosophically out of a spirit that embraces us all, from the most uneducated to the most educated. Only in this way can we work together, think, feel and will together, so as to establish, in the present, social prospects for the future.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This will come about if we can create a rapprochement between the embryonic beginnings in Europe, as they have been described in the last few days, and what has emerged in America, at a higher level of civilization, so to speak, among educated people in general. A rapprochement aimed at moving westwards will create a basis for an understanding of the development of spirit in the West.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Only if we as Western men show that we are able, out of what we can apprehend within ourselves, to summon up something spiritual and to counter the Oriental spirit, which today is in a state of decadence, with a European-American spirit, will a world economy and a world commerce, such as exists only externally today, be possible, in a framework of genuine confidence between men. Today, even though the Asiatic trades in one form or another with us Western men, in his heart there is still the feeling: Your machines do not impress us! With them, you are turning <i>yourselves</i> into intellectualized machines; that is the kind of men you are, inside. Even X-rays do not impress them. The Oriental will say: With their aid, you can look inside man physically; but what is really important requires no apparatus, it arises from our clairvoyant inner self. Whether legitimate or not, this is the attitude of the Orient. They have a profound belief in the spirit in human nature, and look down with contempt on anything that accepts the constraint, as it seems to them, of technology and the machine, in such a way that man himself operates, in society, like a cog in a machine.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The gap between us and the Orient will be bridged only when we ourselves create a spiritual dimension in our philosophy of life, on foundations such as I have described, combining the spirit of Europe and America. This, however, will require the world to look more closely at Central Europe, which has gone furthest in the evolution of the intellect towards living thought. It is the men of the early part of the nineteenth century — Hegel, Fichte, Schelling — who have gone furthest in the evolution of thought towards life. At least they believed that in what they experienced as the substance of the world, albeit in thoughts that were still abstract, they had something vital and spiritual. What they had, of course, was only the <i>germ</i> of vital thought. That is why Central Europe itself forsook the paths it had been following. They need to be rediscovered by making thought genuinely vital. A rapprochement with Central Europe can bring this about.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When the West has brought forth spirit once again, and when the East not only sees its own spirit, but can also see, even in the trader and merchant, the representative of a spiritual philosophy of life, then the Oriental will no longer look down on us in arrogance; he will be able to reach an understanding. This is what we must seek if we are to have hopes for society. We cannot have them at all unless we realize what has to disappear.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There existed in Central Europe a spirit which proclaimed that everything ultimately collapses but that a new life springs up from the ruins. This is a hope we shall realize only when we look past the externals of society to its inner being. But then we must cease to try to maintain the old order at all costs, and instead have the courage to regard as expendable the things that must be overthrown. The old saying remains true: Nothing can come to fruition which has not first been cast into the earth as a seed, so that it may decay. Well, the word “decay” is not quite accurate here, but the image still holds. In discerning what we need to abandon as decayed, we must move forward to new impulses and to the new life that must blossom out of the ruins. Only in this way can we, in this age, have social hopes for the future.</span></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><br /></span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><br /></span><br /><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><br /></span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><br /></span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><br /></span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif">Source: <a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0083/19220610p01.html">https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0083/19220610p01.html</a></span></span></p>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-13088130495915253292024-03-12T18:44:00.000-04:002024-03-12T18:44:32.517-04:00The Redemption of Science. Lecture Series 3: Astronomy. Lecture 3 of 18<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> <span> </span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background-color: #fffff8; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img height="640" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-17-07.gif" style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="462" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br />Adam Kadmon in the golden womb, Hiranyagarbha<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> <span> </span><span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img alt="Figure 7 and Figure 8" height="433" src="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-01-05.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><div><span style="text-align: start;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">"'Fate' and 'soul' are two names for one concept." — <i>Novalis</i></span></b></span></div><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #000033; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: #ffffe6; color: #000b58; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_6hYe0rl_9t-1x9Ia-Oevc4d-ArsEoapHFGoj9MW3j5OruOEZ0z7J7e_9goN9D3sTqQCMlTP6NTROt_4OHVsdlaQyMPZ8LMrZ-raoIxGZvH6BzxVrHa0lYuckvRhk8Kdk4JJ6yQTZSppGjusQDW5EcfIOm-757iiFMGFH3C4D7c3Pi_tzGVvOAGEZQ/s300/241653944_10160252914713689_8376395494746163626_n.jpg" style="color: #336699; font-weight: 400; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_6hYe0rl_9t-1x9Ia-Oevc4d-ArsEoapHFGoj9MW3j5OruOEZ0z7J7e_9goN9D3sTqQCMlTP6NTROt_4OHVsdlaQyMPZ8LMrZ-raoIxGZvH6BzxVrHa0lYuckvRhk8Kdk4JJ6yQTZSppGjusQDW5EcfIOm-757iiFMGFH3C4D7c3Pi_tzGVvOAGEZQ/w640-h640/241653944_10160252914713689_8376395494746163626_n.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(128, 143, 255); padding: 4px;" width="640" /></a></b></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">"Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.... The nature of man cannot be understood unless we are just as conscious of our connection with the stars as of our connection with the Earth." <i>— Rudolf Steiner</i></span></b></div></div></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>The Redemption of Astronomy:<br />Toward the Reunion of Natural Science and Social Science</i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> Lecture 3 of 18.</span></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Rudolf Steiner, Stuttgart, January 3, 1921:</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">My dear friends!</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I have brought to your notice on the one hand how problematical it is to conceive the celestial phenomena in their mathematical and geometrical aspect alone. This is now being recognized by many people and from diverse angles. Only quite unadvanced thinkers still maintain that the world-picture of Copernicus and Galileo represents downright reality. Increasingly, we hear the voice of those who find this way of thinking of the celestial phenomena useful and practical, no doubt, for purposes of calculation, yet emphasize that it represents only a certain mode of understanding, and that quite other syntheses might be conceived.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There are even those who say, somewhat as Ernst Mach used to say: In the last resort, one can uphold the Ptolemaic just as well as the Copernican world-system, and a third system might equally well be devised. These are but practical ways of correlating the observed facts. The entire realm should now be confronted with a far freer kind of outlook.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You see from this that the problematical nature of the celestial charts, described but a short time ago as replicas of the real facts, is now conceded by the widest circles. On the other hand an escape from the manifest problems and uncertainties of this realm can only be found through such views as were brought forward in outline yesterday, — views which no longer remove Man from the whole cosmic background, but on the contrary, put him into it from the outset. We have to recognize the processes within Man himself in their connection with solar phenomena, lunar phenomena and terrestrial phenomena, thus taking as a starting-point all that goes on in Man, in order to find the way to what is going on out there in the Cosmos, the latter being in some sense the cause of the processes in Man.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A path like this can of course only be trodden from the standpoint of Spiritual Science. Precisely when we try to bring Astronomy into connection with the most varied spheres of life, we shall find that we are being led through Astronomy itself into the views of Spiritual Science. Bear in mind that the visible celestial phenomena, perceptible to our senses and also to our re-inforced senses, appear at first a manifestation of something outside of man. Man confronts and, as it were, arrests with his senses whatever approaches him, introducing it into his conscious world-picture. But the impulses streaming towards us from all sides, certainly do not come to a standstill before our senses. All that goes on without being held up by man's senses and brought into consciousness, all that lives in the celestial influences that stream towards us from all sides, must be sought for within our bodily organism. The organism must in a certain way reflect it all, and it does this in the unconscious and subconscious processes which can only be raised into consciousness in more complicated ways.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We will now continue in a certain direction what we began yesterday. Only an abstraction of our earthly world is dealt with in Geology or Mineralogy; the Earth as described by Geology consists of minerals has evolved in the mineral sphere; true as it is that forces are there in the Earth by virtue of which it brings forth the minerals; yet is is equally true that all that is living in plants, animals and physical human beings also belongs to the Earth. We only see the Earth in its totality when we do not simply cast aside what lives in plant, animal and man and have in mind the mere abstraction "mineral earth ", but bring it all into our consciousness. The living beings and entities that grow up out of the Earth are also part and parcel of the whole.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Of all that belongs in this way to the Earth, let us first take the plant kingdom. We will approach it in order then to find the transition to what meets us in man. Whereas the mineral kingdom to a certain extent carries on an independent Earth-existence and is only related to the Cosmos outside the Earth in such a way as is shown, for example, in the changing of water into ice in winter, the plant kingdom retains a much greater inner connection with the cosmic surroundings of the Earth — with all that enters the Earth from the Cosmos. Through the plant-world the life of the Earth as it were opens itself to the Universe. In geographical regions where in a given season an intensive interaction is taking place between Earth and Cosmos. We must pay heed to a phenomenon like this, for it will lead us into the realm of Astronomy not only quantitatively, but qualitatively. We must be able to derive our ideas from such a thing as this, even as the astronomers of our time derive their ideas from angles, parallaxes and so on.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Then we shall say to ourselves, for example: — The plant-life, covering a given region of the Earth, is a kind of sense-organ, sensitive to all that is revealed towards the Earth out of the Cosmos. At seasons when the interplay is more intense between a portion of the Earth's surface and the Universe, it is as though a human being were opening his eyes to the outer world to receive sense-impressions. And when the interplay is less intense between the Earth and the Cosmos, the consequent decline and inward closure of the vegetative life is like a closing of the eyes to the Cosmos. It is more than a mere comparison to say that through its vegetation a given territory opens its eyes to the Universe in spring and summer and shuts its eyes in autumn and winter, and as by opening and closing of our eyes we do in a way converse with the outer world, so too it is a kind of information or revelation from the Universe which the Earth receives by the opening and closing of its eyes through the life of plants.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And to describe it a little more precisely, we may consider the vegetation of a given region of the Earth when exposed, as it were, so to speak, to the most vivid interplay with the solar life, and we may then turn our attention to the state of vegetation in this region when it is not thus exposed. The winter, I need hardly say, does not interrupt the vegetative life of the Earth. It goes without saying that the vegetative life continues through the winter. But it expresses itself in quite another way than when exposed to the intensive working of the Sun's rays — or, shall we say, of the Cosmos. Under the influence of the solar life, the vegetative life of the Earth shoots outward into form. The leaves unfold and grow more complex; flowers develop. But when this is followed by the closing of the eyes to the Universe, if we may call it so, the vegetative life goes back into itself — into the seed. Withdrawing from the outer world, it no longer shoots into outward form; it concentrates, if I may put it so, into a point; it becomes centered in itself.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We may describe this contrast truly as a law of Nature. The interplay between the earthly and the solar life reveals itself in the Earth's vegetation. Under the solar influence the vegetative life shoots outward into form; under the influence of the earthly life it closes up into a plant, — it becomes seed or germ. In all this there is a quality of expansion and contraction or gathering into a center. Here we begin to apprehend the relationships of space itself in a directly qualitative aspect. This is the very thing which we must practice in the development of our ideas, if we would attain to really fruitful notions and perceptions in this sphere.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And now we pass from plant-life to the life of man. Naturally, what comes to expression in the life of plants will find expression in man too. In what way will it do so? What we somehow perceive, my dear Friends, so outwardly and evidently in the life of plants — what we have visibly before our eyes if only we are attentive to the qualitative aspect — this we can recognize in man, properly speaking, only in the first years of childhood.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Let us then trace the interaction of the solar and terrestrial life for man in the age of childhood, as we have just been doing for the plant kingdom. The little child opens through the senses to receive the impressions of the outer world. In doing so, the human being is really opening to receive the solar life. You only need see things in the proper light to recognize that what pours in upon our senses is inherently connected with what is brought about in the terrestrial sphere by the Cosmos. You can reflect upon the special case of light. When light and darkness succeed each other in the alternation of day and night, impressions are made upon our eyes by day, and no impressions are made by night. You can apply this also to other perceptions, though it is more difficult to make it clear. You will then say that a certain effect of the daily alternations, solar and earthly, expresses itself in man's soul-life. Man has an activity of soul through what arises in the rhythm of the day. What the Sun here brings to the Earth comes to expression in the soul-life of man. But if we follow the growth of the child, particularly until the 7th year — the change of teeth — and go into all the details, we find how, notably in the first years of the child's development (less and less, the older the child becomes), it is plainly perceptible that the changing seasons, year by year, have just as much significance for human growth as for the sprouting and dying-down of the vegetation.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We will represent it diagrammatically. If, for example, we study carefully and intelligently the development of the human brain in the earliest stages from year to year, we shall find the following. We have the human skull with its brain-content. (<a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210103p01.html#Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig. 1</a>)</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="Fig1" name="Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699;"></a><img height="300" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-03-01.gif" width="360" /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Fig. 1</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It remodels itself, and one can follow how it remodels itself through what in the course of the changing year. Something which works formatively and creatively upon the human head, molding it from outside in a corporeal, physical sense, — we find this intimately connected with the forces playing between Earth and Sun in the course of the year. In the <i>daily rhythm</i>we find what enters through the senses, independent of growth, to work on the <i>soul and spirit</i> of man. We see how what takes place in man by reason of the Sun's activity in the daily rhythm, has an inner effect which frees itself from the external world and becomes of a soul-and-spirit nature; it is what the child learns, what it assimilates through observation, what takes place in effect, in soul and spirit. Then we see how in a totally different tempo — from a different aspect — the brain remodels itself, organizes itself, and grows. That is the other activity, the <i>yearly activity</i> of the solar forces. We will say nothing yet of the changes occurring in the Universe between Sun and Earth; we will consider manifestations in man himself which are united with certain changes in the solar and terrestrial life.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We consider the day and find the soul- and spirit-life of man connected with the course of the Sun. We consider the change of seasons through the year and find man's life of growth, the physical, corporeal life, connected with the course of the Sun. We can say: <i>The change taking place between Earth and Sun in 24 hours has certain effects on the spirit and soul of man. What happens between Earth and Sun in the course of the year has certain effects on the physical, corporeal part of man</i>. We shall have to bring these effects into connection with others and thence arrive at a world-concept which can no longer be deceptive, for it speaks to us of real processes within ourselves, no longer dependent on illusory sense-impressions or the like.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Thus we must gradually draw near to what can give us a sure <i>basis</i> for the astronomical world-conception. We can only take our start from what appears in man himself. So we can say: the <i>day</i> is something in man's connection with the Cosmos that expresses itself in soul and spirit; the <i>year</i> is something in man's connection with the Cosmos that expresses itself in the physical-corporeal life, as for example in growth, and so on.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now let us look at another complex of facts, referred to yesterday. With human reproduction we must relate certain ideas referring to the life of the Cosmos. We indicated yesterday that the female organism shows in a striking manner how the monthly functions connected with the sex-life — though not, to be sure, coinciding with the Moon's phases — are yet a reflection of them in their time rhythm. The process wrests itself free from the Cosmos, as it were, but still reflects the Cosmic Moon-process in its periodic course. We have here an indication, my dear friends, of inner processes in the human organism which we can study better if we turn our attention to more familiar phenomena, such as may make these more remote phenomena easier to understand.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is something in the soul-life which actually reproduces in miniature the organic processes to which we have just alluded. Let us say, we have an outer experience which affects us through the senses and the mind, — perhaps also through our feelings. We retain a memory of the experience. The recollection — the retention of the experience — leads to the possibility of the picture of it emerging again at a later time. Anyone who considers these facts, not on the basis of fanciful theories, but with sound qualitative observation, will have to admit that in all that arises within us by way of memory, our physical bodily organization plays a part. The remembering itself is no doubt an event in the life of soul, but it needs the inner basis of the physical body in order to come into being. The activity of remembering is directly interrelated with bodily processes; though this has not yet been investigated sufficiently by external science. Comparing what occurs in the female organism in the monthly periods (it occurs in the male organism too, only it is less evident; it can be observed more in the etheric organism and this is not usually done) — comparing this with what happens in ordinary experience when we remember something, one will certainly find a difference. Yet if with sound inner perception one recreates the process in one's consciousness, one cannot but say that the activity of remembering, this soul-occurrence arising out of the physical organism, is similar to what takes place in the monthly functions of the female organism, only is in miniature and is more drawn into the realm of soul, less impressed upon the body. From this point of view you will be able to say: Inasmuch as man individualizes himself from the Cosmos, he develops the faculty of memory; inasmuch as he still lives within the Cosmos, developing more his sub-conscious functions, something in the nature of a common experience with the Cosmos arises, connected with the Moon-processes in the Cosmos. This experience remains, just as a past experience remains in our memory, and later it emerges in an inner constitutional process, like a remembrance which has been drawn into the body and has become organic.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is no other way, my dear friends, of understanding these matters than by thus proceeding from the simpler to the more complex. Just as it is not necessary for a recollection to coincide with a fresh outer experience, so it is not necessary for what appears in the female organism, as a memory of an earlier cosmic connection of the human organism with the phases of the Moon, to coincide in time with these phases. Nevertheless, it is connected with the Moon's phases no less essentially than is the recollection of an earlier experience with the experience itself. Here then we have an activity in the human organism, more on the psychological side and yet not unlike the effects — precipitated, as it were, into the life of time — of influences due originally to the Moon. For the organic periodicity of which we have been speaking embraces about 28 days, as you know.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now take the following. If we consider the <i>daily</i> influence of the Sun, we find an inner activity of soul and spirit; if we consider the <i>yearly</i> influence of the Sun, then we find laws of growth belonging to the outer physical body. Thus we can say, <i>for the Sun life</i>:</span></div><blockquote><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">1. Soul and Spirit: Day</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">2. Physical bodily nature: Year</span></div></blockquote><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And now we come to the <i>Lunar activity</i>. We pass on to consider the lunar life, the life of the Moon. What I have just described as taking place in rhythm of 28 days belongs indeed to the soul and spirit; it has only impressed itself deeply into the body. Physiologically, there is really no difference, in a finer sense, between what takes place in the body on the arising of a memory with respect to the event to which the memory refers, and what takes place in the monthly periods of the female body with respect to what the female organism experienced long ago in conjunction with the phases of the Moon. Only the latter is a stronger, a more intensive experience, — a soul spiritual experience pressed more intensively into the body. Thus, <i>for the Lunar life</i>:</span></div><blockquote><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Soul and Spirit: 28 day's activity</span></div></blockquote><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Let us now seek the corresponding phenomena for the physical body. What will they be? You can find it for yourselves by deduction. We will have bodily, physical effects with a 28-year period. As a day here corresponds to a year, we shall have 28 years.</span></div><blockquote><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Physical bodily nature: 28 year's activity</span></div></blockquote><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You need only remember that 28 years is the period bringing us to our full inner maturity of growth. It is then that we first cease to be in the ascending scale of growth. Just as the Sun works upon us from outside in its yearly activity, in order to complete in us an outward process corresponding to the daily process in the inner life o soul and spirit, so something works in the Cosmos in a 28-year period, organizing us from outside even as the female human being is organized inwardly. (In her it is more obvious than in the male, for in the man the corresponding daily rhythm is more withdrawn into the etheric.) Here then a 28-day period impresses itself inwardly in the realm of the soul and spirit, and we can say: As the daily Sun-life is related to the yearly Sun-life in regard to man, so the 28-day Moon-life related to the 28-year Moon-life with respect to the <i>whole</i> man (the former belonging, in effect, more to the human <i>head</i>).</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You see how we place man, and rightly place him, into the whole Cosmos. We leave off speaking of Sun and Moon merely as if we stood isolated here on Earth, and only looked out with our eyes or with our telescopes to Sun and Moon. We speak of Sun and Moon as of something inwardly united with our very life, and we perceive the connection in the special configurations of our life in time. Until we place man again, my dear friends, into the picture of the doings of Sun and Moon, we shall not have evolved a firm foundation for true Astronomy.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Thus a new science of Astronomy must be built upon a spiritual-scientific basis. It must be evolved out of a more intimate knowledge of man himself. We shall only be able to find a meaning in what is taught by the external Astronomy of today, when we are in a position to base our hypotheses on man himself. We shall then be able profitably to study the rather schematic statements made in Astronomy today and we shall also be able to make essential corrections in this external Astronomy.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What follows from all this? It follows that in these processes — no matter, for the moment, what the underlying basis of them is — a <i>universal life</i> reveals itself. Whether it be (and we will speak of this later) that the daily and yearly rotations of the Earth underlie what I have here described as solar life with respect to the soul and spirit for the day, and to the physical bodily nature for the year; whether it be the movements of the Moon described by modern Astronomy or something very different; — we shall never reach an understanding of it merely by setting up the well-known picture taught in the Schools. But we must understand all that is expressed in this picture as being in reality a continuing, enduring universal life — a life which cannot be approached in its fullness by a mere series of diagrammatic pictures.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We will now set to work in another way. We will begin to work from the standpoint offered us in the Astronomical ideas of a man who still had very much from the past. We do not want to return to the older ideas; we must work out of new ideas This man, however, still had much of the old qualitative virtues in his ideas. I refer to <i>Kepler.</i> Astronomy has become more and more quantitative in modern time, and it would be a delusion to look on Astrophysics as the entry of a qualitative element into Astronomy; of an universal life that lay behind the work of Kepler. In him a feeling still persisted that behind all that is manifest to ordinary astronomical observation there lies hidden something like the gesture of a vast cosmic life — a cosmic life that here reveals its presence.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If we have a man before us and see him move a hand or an arm, we do not merely calculate the mechanics of the movement; we recognize it as the outer revelation of an inner life of soul and spirit. We understand as an expressive gesture something that can, after all, also be looked on from a purely spatial, mathematical point of view. The further back one goes in the history of man's approach to Astronomy, the more one find men conscious that the pictures they conceived of the path of the Sun or of the stars were no mere passive pictures of indifferent events but that these pictures were <i>gestures</i> of life and being. It is quite easy to discern in olden times this feeling of the gesture-like nature of the movements of the heavenly bodies. When my hand moves through the air I shall not merely calculate its path, but in this path I see an expression of the soul . So did the earlier observer see in the path of the Moon an expression. of a life of soul. In all the movements of the heavenly bodies he saw expressions of a soul-nature lie pictures it somewhat in this s way — If I could held an umbrella here so that only my hand were seen, my hand would make an inexplicable movement, for I am there behind the umbrella; only the hand is to be seen. Somewhat in this way the men of ancient times pictured that the movement of the Moon up in the sky was but the outer expression — a sort of terminal ‘limb’ — end that the really active being stood behind it. So too in earlier times men did not speak of isolated heavenly bodies of the planets; they spoke of planetary <i>spheres</i>. They spoke of the several spheres, belonging to the heavenly bodies. Thus they distinguished the Moon-sphere, the Mercury-sphere, the Venus-sphere, the Sun-sphere, the Mars-sphere, the Jupiter-sphere, the Saturn-sphere, and then the eighth sphere — the Heaven of Fixed Stars They distinguished these eight spheres and saw in them something which expressed itself in outer gestures, so that a certain sphere expressed itself by lighting up now here, now there, and so on. The reality, for instance, was the <i>sphere</i> of the Moon. The Moon itself was not a separate entity, — only the gesture. Where the Moon appeared, the Moon-sphere was making a definite gesture I am relating this to show you the living nature of the old conceptions.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Kepler still retained in his whole consciousness a feeling for this universal life in space Only on this account was he able to draw up his three famous Laws For modern Astronomy the three famous Laws of Kepler are purely of a quantitative nature, to be regarded simply from the aspect of spatial and temporal concepts. For a man who still worked out of such a life of ideas as Kepler did, this was not the case. Let us now call to mind these Laws of Kepler. They are:</span></div><blockquote><div class="listEmphasis" style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The First Law:<br />The Planets move in ellipses round the central body, which is situated in one of the foci of the ellipse.</span></div><div class="listEmphasis" style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Second Law:<br />The Radius-vector of a Planet describes equal sectors, equal areas, in equal periods of time.</span></div><div class="listEmphasis" style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Third Law:<br />The squares of the periods of revolution of the different Planets are proportional to the cubes of the major semi-axes</span></div></blockquote><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now as we said, to the modern, purely quantitative view these laws too are purely quantitative To anyone like Kepler, the very expression ‘elliptical’ and the corresponding curve signified a greater livingness when it only moves in a circle, for it must use an inner impulse in order continually to alter the radius. When something simply moves in a circle it need do nothing to alter the radius. A more intense inner life must be employed in the radius-vector is continually altered. The simple. statement: “The Planets move in ellipses round the central body and the central body is not in the mid-point but in one of the foci of the ellipse”, implied an element of greater livingness than when something moves in a perfect circle.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Further: “The radius-vector describes equal sectors in equal periods of time”. We have here the transition from the line to the surface, to the plane. Please notice this.’ Inasmuch as at first only the ellipse is described, we remain in the line — the curve. When we are directed to the path that the radius-vector describes, we are led to the surface — the area. A more intensive condition in the planetary movement is disclosed, When the planet ‘rolls along’ — if I may express so myself — it is not only expressing something within itself, but draws its tail after it, as it were. The whole area which the radius-vector describes belongs to it spiritually. Moreover, in equal periods of time equal areas are described, Special attention is thus drawn to the quality, the inherent character of the movement of the planets.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The third Law above all relates to the life that plays its part <i>between</i> the various planets. This Law assumes a more complicated form. “The squares of the periods of revolution of the Planets are in proportion to the cubes of the semi-major axes” (or of the mean distance from the central body). This Law, you see, contains a great deal if one still understands it in Kepler's living way. Newton then killed the law. He did this in a very simple fashion. Take Kepler's Third Law. You can write it thus:</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img height="75" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-03-Formula-1.gif" width="171" /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">or written differently:</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img height="75" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-03-Formula-2.gif" width="181" /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now write it in a somewhat different form. Write it thus:</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img height="75" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-03-Formula-3.gif" width="205" /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">(I might of course also have written it in the reverse order.)</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What have we on the left-hand side of the equation, here in the left-hand ratio? No less than what is expressed by one half of Newton's Law, and on the other side the other half, the <i>forces</i> of Newton's Law. You need only write Kepler's Law thus differently and you can say: “The forces or attraction are inversely proportional to the squares of the distances.” <i>Here then you have the Newtonian Law of Gravity deduced from the Law of Kepler.</i> The force of gravity between the planets, the celestial bodies, is in inverse proportion to the squares of their distances apart. It is nothing else than the killing of Kepler's Third Law. In principle that is what it is.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But now take the matter actively and livingly. Do not set before yourself the dead product “force of gravity” — “the forces of attraction decrease with the squares of the distances”, — but take what is living still in Kepler's form, <i>the squares of the periods of time.</i> Fill out the <i>caput mortum</i> of the Newtonian force of attraction, which is a mere external concept, with what is implied in the square of the period of time, and you will fill with inner life of the Newtonian concept, which is really the corpse of an idea! For inner life has to do with time. And here you have before you not only time in its simple course, you have time squared — time to the second power! We shall yet have to come back to what it means to speak of ‘time squared’ But you can realize that to speak of time to the second power is to speak or something of an inward nature. It is, indeed, time which in the life of man actually represents the course of his inner soul-life. The point is that we should look right <i>through</i> it dead concept of the Newtonian force of attraction to that which suddenly darts into the center, bringing time into it and therewith bringing in an element of inner life.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now look at the matter from another point of view. Notice that Kepler's first Law also has reference to the Earth. Not only does the Earth describe an ellipse, but <i>you</i>, since you are on the Earth, describe an ellipse together with it. What takes place outwardly is in you an inner process. Thus the arising of the ellipse from the circle, in the living way in which Kepler still conceived it, corresponds to a process in your own inner being. And inasmuch as you move in the line which is formed by the radius-vector describing equal sectors in equal times, it is <i>you</i> who continually relate yourself to the central body, placing yourself in relation to your own Sun. You, together with the curve, are describing a path in time, along which you are in continual relation to the Sun. If I may put it a little quaintly You must take care all the time that you do not ‘skid’ or side-slip, that you do not go too fast, — that your radius-vector does not describe too great an area. This outer point which moves in the ellipse must be continuously in the right relation to the Sun. There you have the movement you yourselves make, characterized as a pure line in space. The relation to the Sun is characterized in the Second Law.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And if we pass on to the Third Law, you have an inner experience of the relation to the other planets — your own living connection with the other planets.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Thus we not only have to find, in man himself, processes that lead us out again into the Cosmos. If we interpret rightly the mathematical pictures presented to us by the cosmic process, we also turn into an inner experience what is apparently external and quantitative. For the cosmic Mathematics indwells man. Man is himself in the midst of the living Mathematics. Of this we shall speak more tomorrow.</span></div></div></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210103p01.html">https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210103p01.html</a></span></div></span></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-25241020276660979172024-03-12T08:45:00.001-04:002024-03-12T08:45:31.367-04:00Namaste: I revere our Self in you<p> </p><div style="background-color: #fffff8; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvwyK62bxEQ/X-DsKObvSzI/AAAAAAAAIng/BUSJsDwReV0_VebTtwKapgV7cldI8py4gCLcBGAsYHQ/s600/93857452_3341094719238742_8428752612639113216_n%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="566" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvwyK62bxEQ/X-DsKObvSzI/AAAAAAAAIng/BUSJsDwReV0_VebTtwKapgV7cldI8py4gCLcBGAsYHQ/w604-h640/93857452_3341094719238742_8428752612639113216_n%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="604" /></span></a></div><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: #ffffe6; color: #000b58; font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; line-height: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></h3></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-quintessential-maha-vakya-es-ist-ich.html">The quintessential Maha-Vakya:</a> "ES IST ICH"</span></div></div><p style="background-color: #fffff8;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: #ffffe6; color: #000b58; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; line-height: 16.9px;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 2.4rem; min-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Rudolf Steiner: </i>"In older languages the self was not specifically designated, for it was contained within the verb. The 'I' was not directly mentioned. The verb was used to show what one was doing, and this was what indicated that one was speaking about oneself. There was no name for the self. It only came about in later times that the human being gave his self a name, and in our German language that name <i>[ich]</i> contains the initials of Jesus Christ, which is an important symbolic fact." [<u>I</u>esus <u>CH</u>ristus: ICH]</span></p><div style="background-color: #fffff8; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vk2VE8BgW0U/YJGDn8EaJkI/AAAAAAAAJJI/FkkzfyGbl0EE75DuVpOKPd2Dodd4RDMcgCLcBGAsYHQ/s595/HILOGOJ.TIF" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="595" height="468" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vk2VE8BgW0U/YJGDn8EaJkI/AAAAAAAAJJI/FkkzfyGbl0EE75DuVpOKPd2Dodd4RDMcgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h468/HILOGOJ.TIF" width="640" /></a></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1.6rem; line-height: 2.4rem; min-width: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1.6rem; line-height: 2.4rem; min-width: 0px;"><br /></p><div style="line-height: 20.8px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><strong style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.8px;">At-one-ment</strong></span></div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1.6rem; line-height: 2.4rem; min-width: 0px;"><span class="text John-17-26"></span></p><div style="line-height: 20.8px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><div style="line-height: 1.3em;"><h2><div style="background-color: #fffff8; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.3em;"><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; line-height: 1.3em;"><b style="background-color: white;">Washed in the Blood of the Lamb are We</b></span></div><b style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; line-height: 1.3em;"></span></b></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.3em;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;">Awash in a Sonburst Sea</b></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.3em;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;">You—Love—and I—Love—and Love Divine:</b></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.3em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #990000;"><b style="background-color: white;">We are the Trinity</b></span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #990000;"><b style="background-color: white;"><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.3em;"><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; line-height: 1.3em;"><b style="background-color: white;">You—Love—and I—We are One-Two-Three</b></span></div><b style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; line-height: 1.3em;"></span></b></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.3em;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;">Twining Eternally</b></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.3em;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;">Two—Yes—and One—Yes—and also Three:</b></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.3em;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;">One Dual Trinity</b></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.3em;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;">Radiant Calvary</b></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.3em;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;">Ultimate Mystery</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;"><br /></b></span></div></h2></div></div></div></div></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p></p><p class="separator" data-blogger-escaped-data-blogger-escaped-style="clear: both; color: #000b58; font-family: tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: center;" data-blogger-escaped-style="clear: both; color: #000b58; font-family: tinos; font-size: medium; margin: 0px; text-align: center;" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; clear: both; color: #000b58; font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span data-blogger-escaped-data-blogger-escaped-style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;" data-blogger-escaped-style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span data-blogger-escaped-data-blogger-escaped-style="color: black; font-weight: 400; text-indent: 0px;" data-blogger-escaped-style="color: black; font-weight: 400; text-indent: 0px;" style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; text-indent: 0px;"></span></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Continued: <a href="https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2023/07/satisfaction-42-years-at-himalayan.html?fbclid=IwAR2-8uzbJc5PaSTpdWLEUcRxKFLBYM8r1eQ_rReivc2Z3rBmBIoyXtOB1e8">42 years at the Himalayan Institute</a><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-10051668662943869682024-03-12T05:26:00.001-04:002024-03-12T05:26:52.494-04:00Self and Society : What the world needs now is anthroposophy<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YbbJbOI2nTk/W45PW4Dv0uI/AAAAAAAAFBo/abACJeTrRIofRoAD0CgL4tF7k_mgGPOmgCLcBGAs/s1600/39522043_2060620177600377_8680802463462195200_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="720" height="608" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YbbJbOI2nTk/W45PW4Dv0uI/AAAAAAAAFBo/abACJeTrRIofRoAD0CgL4tF7k_mgGPOmgCLcBGAs/s640/39522043_2060620177600377_8680802463462195200_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><br /></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>The Tension Between East and West</i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Lecture 8</i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Rudolf Steiner, Vienna, June 9, 1922:</i></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When the conversation turns to what is lacking in society today, there is scarcely anyone who does not have something really significant to contribute, from his own particular position in life. My purpose here, however, is not to draw up a list of all the various deficiencies that a survey would reveal. It is rather to direct attention to some of the antecedents of a phenomenon that has, quite justifiably, attracted comment on many sides and has led a large part of mankind into a mood of extraordinary pessimism and hopelessness.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">One of the most extreme expressions of this hopelessness came from a man of whom it might perhaps have been least expected — a man, moreover, who belonged to a period for which such an opinion cannot help striking us as something out of the ordinary. In one of his last books, the influential art-historian Herman Grimm, who did not live to experience the most fearful war in history, but died at the turn of the century, makes this surprising statement: “When we survey the international situation today, and observe, with the `mind's eye' I would say, how the various nations of the civilized world behave to one another, how they attack one another, and how they hold within them the seeds of further conflicts, then we feel ready to set a date for mass suicide, since we cannot envisage where all these things that bring men and nations into conflict, strife and combat, are to lead, if not to the utter collapse of civilization.” I regard this statement as striking precisely because it comes from Herman Grimm — since his philosophy of life was in itself a joyous one; throughout his life, he kept his eyes fixed on all the things that can elevate mankind and that exist in man as creative and productive forces. It is striking, moreover, that he did not make this statement under the influence of the sense of gloom that was to be experienced in the years just before the outbreak of the Great War, or during it. His observation sprang entirely from the spirit of the nineteenth century, at the end of which it was made. Nothing that has happened since then seems likely in any way to cushion the impact on us of such a statement.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yet at the same time it can never be the business of mankind to get bogged down in mere hopelessness; we must rather be on the look-out for anything that can lead to revival, to reconstruction, to a new dawn. This being so, it is necessary for us to look more deeply into the causes of the extraordinarily difficult situation that has gradually developed inside European civilization. Even if we believe that these causes can only be economic ones, we shall still have to look to the spiritual life of modern civilization for the main reason underlying this economic decline.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In my lectures here, I have pointed out more than once how our present temper of soul — together with all the soul-powers we can acquire at present — is affected by historical forces, and to understand these we have to go back a long way in human development. Specifically, I pointed out yesterday how at the threshold of the spiritual life of the West, looked at historically, there stands a figure who still has one eye on Asia, whilst the other is already directed at the perspectives of Europe. I mean Plato.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When we examine Plato's social theories, they appear to our modern consciousness extraordinarily alien in many respects. We find that he sees the ideal social system in the creation of a <i>community</i> even at the expense of the development of <i>individual</i>human beings who have been born into this earthly life. Plato thinks it quite feasible that children who appear unfit for life should simply be abandoned, so that they may not occupy a place in the community and thus disturb the social organism. He also manages to regard as an ideal social organism one in which only members of a certain caste enjoy the full privileges of citizenship. Apart from the fact that slavery appears quite natural to him, he would also grant those responsible for trade and commerce only a precarious position within his social system. All those who are not fixed within this system by virtue of having been born — by right, as he sees it — into its fabric, are not in fact completely accepted into the organization. Much else might be said, too, on the question: How does Plato's ideal relate to the individual human being? And here, from the standpoint of modern consciousness, we must conclude that there is present as yet little understanding of this human individuality. Attention is still directed entirely to the community, which is seen as primary. The man who is to live in it is regarded as secondary. His life is accepted as justified only in so far as he can match the social ideal that exists outside his own personality.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">To discover what led Plato to this concept of community, we must look once more at Oriental civilization. And when we do so, we realize how, in the last analysis, the historical development of Europe's spiritual life is like a small peninsula jutting out from a great continent.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When we look at Asia, we find that there the idea of community is the primary one, and that Plato simply took it over from the East. To what has been said already about this idea, one thing must be added, if the social situation throughout the world is to be illuminated.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When we come to examine the basic character of spiritual life in the Orient, we find that it embraced a humanity quite different in type from the Europeans of later civilization. In many psychic and spiritual matters, indeed, we can say that there prevailed in Asia a high level of civilization, one to which many Europeans, even, long to return. I have already mentioned the often-quoted expression: Light comes from the East. What is most striking of all, however, is that these men of different type did not have the feature that has been typical of Europeans since they first began to play a civilized part in the world's development. What we observe there in Asia is a subdued sense of self, a sense of personality that is still quiescent in the depths of the soul. The European's awareness of personality is not as yet found in Asia. If on the other hand this high level of Asian civilization is adopted by an <i>individual</i> who still lacks this sense of personality — and it is a civilization suited for adoption by a human <i>community</i> — then he experiences it as in a dream, without sense of personality.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Obviously, in an age when human individuality had not yet attained its full development, communities were more receptive to and capable of a high level of culture than were individuals. In communal life, human capacities for absorbing this civilization increased not simply in an arithmetical but in a geometrical progression. Meanwhile, the particular ideal that Oriental civilization had set before itself, as it gradually passed over into Europe, was minted by European spirits in a simple formula — the Apolline dictum: “Know thyself!”</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We can, in a sense, regard the entire Ancient East as developing towards the realization in Greece, as the ultimate intention of Oriental self-less civilization, of that sentence: “Know thyself!” — a sentence which has since survived as a spiritual and cultural motto to direct mankind. Yet we can also see, there in the East, that it is regarded as desirable, for the attainment of a higher stage of development in mankind, to penetrate to the self after all. On the spiritual side, I have already indicated this in characterizing yoga. On the social side, it reveals itself when we look at the theories current in the East with regard to leadership of the masses. Everywhere we find that the man who was the teacher and the leader was at the same time, in the spiritual sphere, the priest, but also at the same time the healer. We find in the East an intimate connection between all that mankind sought as knowledge and as higher spiritual life, on the one hand, and healing, on the other. For early Oriental civilization, the doctor cannot be separated from the teacher and the priest.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This is, of course, connected with the fact that Oriental civilization was dominated by a feeling of universal human guilt. This feeling introduces something pathological into human development, so that the cognitive process itself, and indeed every effort to reach a higher spirituality, is regarded as having the function of healing man as nature made him. Education to a higher spirituality was also healing, because man in his natural state and thus uneducated was regarded as a being who stood in need of healing. Connected with this were the early Oriental mysteries.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The cult of mysteries sought to achieve, in institutions that were, I would say, church and school and source of social impulses combined, the development of the individual to a higher spiritual life. They did this in such a way that, as I have already indicated in my previous lectures, religion, art and science were combined: in performing the ritual actions, men were religious beings; and here what mattered was not the articles of faith, still less the dogmas, that occupied the soul, but the fact that the individual was participating in a socially organized rite, so that man's approach to the divine was made principally through sacrifice and ritual act. Yet the ritual act and its foundations in turn involved an aesthetic element. And this combination of aesthetic and religious elements gave to knowledge its original form.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The man who was to attain this unified triad of religion, art and science, however, had not merely to accept something that represented a step forward in his development; he had also to undergo a complete transformation as a man, a kind of rebirth.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The description of the preparations that such a student of the higher spiritual life had to undertake makes it clear that he had consciously to undergo a kind of death. He experienced, that is, something that set him apart from life in the ordinary world, as death sets men apart from this life. Then, when he had left behind everything in his inner experience that appertained to earthly life, he would, after passing through death, experience the spiritual world in a complete rebirth. This is the old religious form of catharsis, the purification of man. A new man was to be born inside the old. Things that man can so experience in the world as to arouse in him passions and emotions, desires and appetites, notions that are of this world — all these he was to experience within the mysteries in such a manner that they were left behind and he emerged as one purified of these experiences. Only then, as a man reborn, was he credited with being capable of exerting any social influence on his fellow-men. Even the academic scholarship of our time has quite correctly observed that the surviving remnants of this cult have been of enormous importance for social life, and that the impulses aroused in those who have experienced such a catharsis in these very secret places have exerted the greatest conceivable influence on social life outside. As I say, this is not merely a pronouncement of spiritual science, it is something that even academic scholarship has arrived at. You can see this by looking at Wilamowitz. What we find is that, in Oriental civilization, the aim was to cure man by knowledge and by all the efforts to achieve a spiritual education.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What existed in the East passed over in another form to Greece and thus to Europe, and it has continued to affect Europe to the extent that Greek culture itself has influenced European spiritual life and civilization. Let me mention a point that is not usually emphasized. In his study of Greek tragedy, from which the West has derived so much of artistic importance for its spiritual life, Aristotle produced a description that is usually taken far too much at its face value. People are always quoting the familiar sentence in which Aristotle says that the aim of tragedy is to arouse fear and pity, so that the excitation of these and other emotions shall bring about a purification, or catharsis, of them. In other words, Aristotle is pointing to something in the aesthetic sphere — the effect that tragedy should produce. Armed for the interpretation of Aristotle's dictum, not with academic philology, but with an understanding of Oriental spiritual life — with a knowledge, that is, of its roots in the past — we can interpret what</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Aristotle means by pity and fear more extensively than it is usually interpreted. He means in fact, as we come to perceive, that the spectator is brought by tragedy to mental participation in the sorrow, pain and joy of others, and that in this way the spectator in his mental life escapes from the narrow confines that he naturally occupies. Through the contemplation of the suffering of others, there is aroused in the spectator — for here man goes outside his physical existence, if only vicariously — that fear which always arises when a human being is confronted with something that takes him outside himself, and creates in him a transport of faintness and breathlessness. We can say, therefore: Aristotle really means that, in looking at tragedy, man enters a world of feeling that takes him out of himself; that he is overcome by fear; and that a purification or catharsis ensues. In this way he learns to bear what in the natural state he cannot bear; through purification he is strengthened for the sympathetic experience of alien sorrow and alien joy; he is no longer overcome by fear when he has to go outside himself and into social life. In ascribing a function of this kind to tragedy, Aristotle, we perceive quite clearly, is really demonstrating that tragedy also educates man towards a strengthening of his sense of self and his inner security of soul.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I am well aware that to introduce the aesthetic element into social life in this way strikes many people today as a devaluation of art, as if one were trying to attribute some kind of extrinsic purpose to it. Objections of this kind, however, often really betray a certain philistinism, resting as they do on the belief that any attempt to assimilate art into human life as a whole, into all that the human soul can experience, implies its subordination to a merely utilitarian existence. This is not what it meant for the Greeks; it meant rather the inclusion of art in the life that carries man above himself, not just beneath himself into mere utility.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If we can look beyond the mere utility that typifies our time, we shall be able to understand the precise significance of the Greek view of art: that the Greeks saw in tragedy, side by side with its purely artistic aspect, something that brought man face to face with himself, drawing him away from a dream, a half-conscious perception of the world, nearer and nearer to a complete awareness of himself. We may say: in the social sphere, tragedy was certainly intended to make its contribution to the all-important precept: “Man, know thyself!”</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If, moreover, from this extension of art into the social sphere we pass on to a consideration of the position of the individual <i>vis-à-vis</i> society, and from this perspective look back at the Orient, we find that, in the mysteries too, what was sought through therapeutic treatment — the rebirth of man as a higher being — represented a strengthening of the sense of self. From an awareness that the soul was not then attuned to a sense of self, and that such a sense still remained to be developed, the mysteries attempted a rebirth in which man emerged to individuality. For this ancient society, therefore, experience of self was really something that had still to be attained. It was seen as a social duty to foster the birth of this sense of self in individuals who could become leaders in the social sphere. Only when we comprehend this can we gain an understanding of the strong sense of community persisting in Plato's ideal state, and of his belief that man is entitled to develop his individuality fully only if he does so through the rebirth that was accessible to the wisdom of the time. This shows that humanity at that time had no awareness of the claims of individuality in the fullest sense.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What grew out of this kind of society in Asia then established itself in Europe, combined with Christianity, passed over into the Middle Ages and even survived here for a long period. The manner of its survival, however, was determined by the fact that the hordes which, mainly from Northern and Central Europe, streamed into this civilization — South European now, but inherited from Asia — were endowed by nature with a strong sense of self. These tribes acquired the important historical task of carrying over what Oriental man had achieved with a still subdued sense of self, into complete self-consciousness and a full sense of self. For the brilliant civilization of the Greeks, “Know thyself!” was still an ideal of human cognition and society. The peoples who descended from the North during the Middle Ages brought with them, as the central feature of their being, this sense of self. It was theirs by nature. Though they lived in groups, they none the less strove to incorporate into their own personality what they absorbed in the cognitive and social sphere. It was in this way, then, that there came to be established the contrast between community life and individual life. The latter only appeared in the course of history, and did so, I would say, with the assistance of man-made institutions.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In thus making its appearance in human development, the sense of self was bound to link up with something else, with which it certainly has an organic connection. Looking back once more at the features of Oriental-Greek civilization even as it appeared to Plato, we are nowadays very much aware that this whole civilization was in fact built on slavery, on the subjugation of large numbers of people. A great deal has been said from various standpoints about the significance of slavery in earlier times, and if we are willing to sift this properly, we shall naturally find a great deal that is significant in it. But the point that above all others is still relevant for our life today is precisely the one that I said has actually received little attention. For community life — and also for the social life which sprang from the mysteries, and for the development of which the Greek regarded his art as providing an impetus — the full significance of human labour within the social order was quite unrealized. In consequence, they had to exclude human labour from their discussion of the ideal image of man.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When we describe Oriental-Greek man, with the dignity that gave him his authority, we are describing something that was in fact constructed over the heads of the masses, who were actually doing the work. The masses merely formed an appendage to the social system, which developed within a society that had not absorbed labour into its being, since it regarded labour and those who performed it as a natural datum. Human society really only began where labour left off. At a higher level, in a higher psychic sense, man experienced something that also finds expression in the world of animals. In their world, the food supply, which with us forms part of the social organization, is provided by nature. The animal does not calculate; it does what it does out of its inmost being; and specialization is unnecessary for animals. Where apparent exceptions occur, they must be regarded as proving the rule. We can therefore say: in transplanting itself to Europe and entering further and further into the demands of individuality, Oriental civilization also took on the task of integrating human labour into the social system. When man's awareness of self is fully wakened, it is quite impossible to exclude labour from that system.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This problem — which did not exist as yet in Greece — became the great social question round which countless battles were fought in Rome. It was felt instinctively that only by integrating labour into the social system can man experience to the full his personality. In this way, however, the entire social organization of humanity took on a different aspect. It has a different appearance in civilized Europe from what it had in civilized Asia. Only by looking back at the <i>development</i> of individuality in Europe shall we understand something of what has repeatedly, and rightly, been emphasized as significant when we come to describe the source of the deficiencies of our time.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is rightly pointed out here that the specific shape of the social order in our time was actually only decided with the emergence of modern technology and division of labour. It is also pointed out that modern capitalism, for instance, is merely a result of the division of labour. What the traditional teaching of modern Western civilization has to say in this respect, in characterizing division of labour and its consequences in the social deficiencies of our time, is extraordinarily significant. But when something like this is said, and from one point of view rightly said, the unprejudiced observer cannot help looking at, say, ancient Egypt or Ancient Babylon, and observing that these states contained cities of an enormous size, and that these achievements too were only made possible by a division of labour. I was able yesterday to show that, as early as the eleventh century, a kind of Socialism existed in China, yet that similarity of surface features is not what really matters. In the same way, I must point out that division of labour, too, which in modern times has rightly been seen as the central social problem, was also found in earlier epochs of human development; it was in fact what made the Oriental social systems possible, and these in turn have since affected Europe. In Europe, division of labour, after being less common at first, gradually evolved. I would say: division of labour in itself is a repetition of something that also occurred in earlier times; but in the Oriental civilizations it bore the stamp of a society in which individuality was still dormant. The modern division of labour, which makes its appearance along with technology, on the other hand, impinges on a society of men who are now seeking to expand their individuality to the full. Once again, then, the same phenomenon turns out to have a quite different significance in different ages.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">For the Oriental social order, the first consideration was thus to allow man to grow clear of social restrictions and of communal life. If he was to move up to a higher spiritual life, man really had to find his individuality. The European of a later age already had this sense of self, and needed to integrate it into the social order. He had to follow precisely the opposite path from that followed in the East.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Everywhere in Europe we find evidence of the difficulty men experience in accommodating their individuality to the social order, whereas at one time the social system had been such that men sought to rescue their individuality from it. This difficulty still faces us on every side today as an underlying social evil.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When, some years ago, I was often called upon to lecture to audiences of working men, I saw a good deal of evidence that there did exist in men's souls this problem of articulating the ego into the general social order. Men are unable to find the way from a highly developed sense of self into the social order. And in attempting repeatedly to show proletarian audiences, for instance, what this way would need to be like — how it would have to be different from the ways that Socialist or Communist agitators commonly offer nowadays — one came across very curious views in the ensuing discussions. They might appear trivial; but a thing is trivial no longer when it provides the motive power for innumerable people in life. Thus, I once attempted to talk about social problems in a working men's club. A man came forward and introduced himself straight away as a cobbler. Naturally, it can be extremely pleasant to hear what such a man thinks; in this case, however, what he was unable to think was much more revealing than what he did think. First of all he set forth, in marked opposition to my own views, <i>his</i> conception of the social order; and then he reiterated that he was a simple cobbler: in the social order that he had outlined, therefore, he could never rise to be a registrar of births, marriages and deaths. Underlying his outlook, however, was the quite definite assumption that he might perfectly well be a Cabinet Minister! This shows the kind of bewilderment that ensues when the question arises: How is the ego, strengthened within spiritual life, to articulate itself into a social order?</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In another working men's association (I am giving one or two examples, which could be multiplied indefinitely), someone said: “Oh, we don't really want to be foremen; we don't want to manage the factory; we want to remain what we are, simple workmen; but as such we want all our rights.” Justified as such a statement may be from one point of view, it displays, in the last analysis, no interest in social organization, only an interest in the strongly developed self.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I am well aware that many people today will not consciously admit that this particular discrepancy between the experience of self and the social order lies at the root of many, indeed almost all of our social deficiencies and shortcomings. But anyone who looks at life with unclouded vision cannot escape the conclusion: We have certainly managed to develop the feeling of self, but we cannot connect it with a real insight into man. We say the word “I;” but we do not know how to relate this “I” to a human personality that is fully comprehended and fully self-determining.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We can experience this once again when we come across views that are very much of the present, as opposed to what, on the basis of spiritual science, we regard as necessary for the health of humanity. A leading figure in present-day educational circles once said something very curious to me during a visit to the Waldorf School. I showed our visitor round personally, and explained to him our educational methods and their social significance. I pointed out that, with a sound educational method of this kind, education of the spirit and the soul must be linked with that of the body. Anyone wishing to teach and educate must first of all know the effect of this or that action on the forces of recovery or decline in the human organism, the human body; he must know how the exercise or neglect of memory expresses itself later in life in physical symptoms, and how, simply by treating the life of the soul, we can gradually bring about an improvement in physical ailments. The teacher, I concluded, must certainly understand the body's association with the soul and the spirit in health and sickness. And the reply I got was that, to do this, the teacher would have to be a doctor!</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Well, up to a certain point it would indeed be desirable if this were the case. For when we look at our social system, with the difficulty of integrating the self into it, we are reminded once more of what I have touched on today in connection with the civilization of two regions: the Orient, where the doctor was also the teacher and leader of the people; and Greece, where, as I have shown, art had an educative influence. The art of medicine was associated with every aspiration of the spirit, because at that time man was regarded, if only instinctively, as a physical, mental and spiritual whole; in the treatment that was then applied to the soul, forces were brought into play which yielded knowledge for a general therapy of man.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The leaders at that time told themselves: I must attempt to cure man by leading him to true spirituality. To do this, I must bring healing forces to bear on a fairly normal life. Once I understand these forces thoroughly and can follow out their effects, this knowledge will tell me what to do when a man is ill.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">From observation of the healthy man, I learn what forces to employ when confronted by the sick man. The sick man is simply one whose organism has deviated further in one direction or the other than it does in everyday life. Knowing how to bestow health on man in his normal state, I also know how to cure him when sick. Knowing which drink, which cordial affords me this or that insight into connections between man and nature — knowing, that is, the effect of a natural product in the sphere of knowledge — I shall also know what effect it has on a sick man, if used in greater strength.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The intimate association of medical art with education and development towards spirituality in general, which was the goal of the Ancient Orient and had an important rôle there, appears once more as a spiritual residuum in the Greek experience of art. Here, the aim is that the soul should be healed through art. Armed with this knowledge, we can still perceive in the use of the word “catharsis” in connection with tragedy how — because the same word was used in connection with the early mysteries, for the complete purification of man on entry to a new life — something of this sense is taken over. We are, however, also reminded that, for Greek doctors in the early period, knowledge and medicine still went together, and that in education, but also in popular culture in general, people saw something on a more spiritual level that was related to medicine, something that in a sense sprang from medicine.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We need to examine these phenomena of a bygone age, if we are to gain a strength of soul such that, when we contemplate the social systems in our own age, we can keep in view the whole man, and also such that, when we meet our fellow-men, we not only unfold a strong sense of self, but also connect this with a perception of the whole man in body, soul and spirit. If by an advance in spiritual science we can do this, there will become available, simply through the temper of soul that ensues, ways and means of integrating this whole man, but also all men, into the social order, thus annexing labour for society in the way that historical evolution in any case makes necessary. For this is what we are still suffering from today: the need to fit labour properly into the social order.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is true that people often regard labour as something that goes into the article produced, being crystallized in it, so to speak, and giving it its value. Those who look more closely, however, will observe that what matters is not simply that a man should work, devoting to society his physical strength. The important factor in determining price and value is rather how the work fits into social life as a whole. We can certainly conceive of a man doing a job of work that is fundamentally uneconomic in the social order. The man may work hard and may believe that he is entitled to payment for his work; but when his work exists in the context of an inadequate social system, it often does more harm than good. And one ought to examine in this light a great deal of labour within society which, though exhausting, is really worthless. Consider how our literature is constantly accumulating; it has to be printed; a tremendous amount of work is involved in the manufacture of paper, the printing, etc., and then, apart from the tiny proportion that survives, it all has to be pulped once more: work is being done here which, I would say, disappears into thin air. And if you consider how much work has disappeared into thin air during the butchery of the recent war, you will gradually come to see that labour as such cannot lay claim to any absolute value, but derives its value from its contribution to the life of society.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The disease that most affects our age, however, is precisely the lack of this basic capacity to integrate labour into the social organism, taking account of the fact that everything men do, they really do for others. We need to win through to this by learning to integrate our own individual selves into the community. Only by achieving a true understanding between man and man, so that what the other man needs becomes part of our own experience and we can transpose our self into the selves of others, shall we win through to those new social groupings that are not given us by nature, but must be derived from the personality of man.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">All our social needs certainly spring from the self. People sense what is lacking in the social order. What we need to find, however, is a new understanding of what human fellowship in body, soul and spirit really means. This is what a social order ought really to be able to bring forth out of the self.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The great battle that is being fought over the division of labour — fought quite differently from the way such battles have ever previously been fought under the influence of human individuality — is what underlies all our social shortcomings. Nowadays, we found associations for production; we participate in them, concerned not with their rôle in the social organism, but with our own personal position — and this is understandable. It is not my aim here to complain, pedantically or otherwise, about human egotism. My aim is to understand something for which there is considerable justification. Without this sense of self, we should not have advanced to human freedom and dignity. The great spiritual advances have been possible only because we have attained this sense of self. But this in turn must also find a way to imaginative identification with others.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is a great deal of talk nowadays about the necessity of conquering individualism. This is not what matters. The important thing is to find society in man himself. The Oriental had to discover man in society. We have to discover society in man. We can do so only by extending on every side the life of the soul.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">That is why I tried, at the close of one of my mystery-plays, to present a scene showing how a man wins through to an inner experience of the different forms of mankind. These differences exist outside us. In society, differentiation is necessary; we must each have our profession. If we find the right bridge between man and man, however, we can experience within us all that is separate in the social world outside — each individual profession. Once this social system comes into being within us, once we can experience the reality of society inside ourselves, we shall be able to follow that opposite way of which I have spoken: the way from the self to the social order. This will also mean, however, that everything connected with the individual — today we can point to labour; in the next two days we shall be looking at capital — is capable of finding its place in human society. In co-operatives, in the formation of trusts and combines, in the trade union movement, everywhere we feel a need to find a way out of the self into association with others. But here precisely is the great struggle of the present day: to enable what exists around us really to take root within us.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">As already indicated, there was a time, not so very far behind us — we need only go back to the thirteenth century — when man had a bond with the product of his labour, and the making of every key and every lock gave pleasure, because the maker poured into it something of his own substance. The legacy of an earlier social order still made its mark upon the product. With their individuality as yet not fully awakened, people still accepted society. Since then, individuality has reached its zenith with the advance of technology. In the last analysis, the man of today is often extraordinarily remote from the product of his labour, even when his work lies in the spiritual sphere. What we perform in the outside world needs to take root in us and to link up with our individuality. This, however, will only happen if we develop the life of the soul on every side in the way I have described in the last few days. For if we do develop the life of the soul, our interest in all that has its being around us will be fired once more.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You encounter many people in this purely intellectual age who find their own profession uninteresting. It may have become so, perhaps. There must come a time, once more, when every detail of life becomes of interest. Whereas formerly what was interesting was the nature of objects, in the future the interest will lie in our knowing how our every activity is articulated into the social organization of mankind. Whereas formerly we looked at the product, we shall now look at the man who requires the product. Whereas formerly the product was loved, the love of man and the brotherhood of man will now be able to make their appearance in the soul that has developed, so that men will know the reason for their duties.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">All this, however, needs to take hold of the soul before people try to reach an understanding about the particular social deficiencies of our time. From this standpoint, too, we must consider that Europe is still engaged in its battle for human individuality against the forces in its spiritual tradition that continue to flow from Asia — from foundations quite unlike those that exist today, foundations that took root in the souls of men, but at a time when full individuality had not yet been attained.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Thus the present time occupies a position not only between abstract concepts of individuality and community, but also in the centre of something that pervades man's soul and brings every individual human being today into action in defence of his individuality. We are only at the beginning of the road that leads to the discovery of the right relationship between self and community. It is from this fact that the shortcomings of the time, which for this reason I do not need to enumerate, derive.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Perceiving this psychological basis, this spiritual foundation, we shall be able to view in their proper light many of the needs, deficiencies and miseries that confront us in society today. To win our way through to this light, we need courage. Only then shall we know whether the pessimism that Herman Grimm expressed in so extreme a form is justified, and whether people are justified in saying: There remain only forces of decline in</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">European civilization, one can only be pessimistic, even: The date for mass suicide ought to be fixed.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">That is, indeed, the question: whether all the Asiatic features that Europe <i>had</i> to conquer have in fact <i>been</i> conquered, so that after finding itself Europe can now, from the centre of the world's development, also reach an understanding with the East.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is from a standpoint such as this that we must consider whether what we ought to see is the kind of thing Herman Grimm had in mind, or whether we are not justified in thinking that mankind can still, through the development of what lies dormant in its soul, prove capable of choosing a time when understanding shall be achieved, and that what faces us is not the death of this European civilization, but its rebirth.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Whether and how far this is possible will be examined, at least in outline, in the remaining lectures.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0083/19220609p01.html">https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0083/19220609p01.html</a></span></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-30053074476030986482024-03-11T17:38:00.000-04:002024-03-11T17:38:32.333-04:00The Redemption of Science. Lecture Series 3: Astronomy. Lecture 2 of 18<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background-color: #fffff8; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img height="640" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-17-07.gif" style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="462" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br />Adam Kadmon in the golden womb, Hiranyagarbha<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> <span> </span><span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img alt="Figure 7 and Figure 8" height="433" src="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-01-05.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><div><span style="text-align: start;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">"'Fate' and 'soul' are two names for one concept." — <i>Novalis</i></span></b></span></div><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #000033; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: #ffffe6; color: #000b58; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_6hYe0rl_9t-1x9Ia-Oevc4d-ArsEoapHFGoj9MW3j5OruOEZ0z7J7e_9goN9D3sTqQCMlTP6NTROt_4OHVsdlaQyMPZ8LMrZ-raoIxGZvH6BzxVrHa0lYuckvRhk8Kdk4JJ6yQTZSppGjusQDW5EcfIOm-757iiFMGFH3C4D7c3Pi_tzGVvOAGEZQ/s300/241653944_10160252914713689_8376395494746163626_n.jpg" style="color: #336699; font-weight: 400; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_6hYe0rl_9t-1x9Ia-Oevc4d-ArsEoapHFGoj9MW3j5OruOEZ0z7J7e_9goN9D3sTqQCMlTP6NTROt_4OHVsdlaQyMPZ8LMrZ-raoIxGZvH6BzxVrHa0lYuckvRhk8Kdk4JJ6yQTZSppGjusQDW5EcfIOm-757iiFMGFH3C4D7c3Pi_tzGVvOAGEZQ/w640-h640/241653944_10160252914713689_8376395494746163626_n.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(128, 143, 255); padding: 4px;" width="640" /></a></b></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">"Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.... The nature of man cannot be understood unless we are just as conscious of our connection with the stars as of our connection with the Earth." <i>— Rudolf Steiner</i></span></b></div></div></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>The Redemption of Astronomy:<br />Toward the Reunion of Natural Science and Social Science</i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> Lecture 2 of 18.</span></i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Rudolf Steiner, Stuttgart, January 2, 1921:</i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">My dear friends!</span></div><div style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yesterday I showed a connection between two branches of science which according to our modern ideas are widely separated. I sought to show that the science of Astronomy should provide certain items of knowledge which must then be turned to account in quite a different branch of science, from which the study and method of Astronomy is completely excluded nowadays. In effect, I sought to show that Astronomy must be linked with Embryology. It is impossible to understand the phenomena of cell-development, especially of the sex-cells, without calling to our aid the realities of Astronomy, which lie apparently so far removed from Embryology.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I pointed out that there must come about a regrouping of the sciences, for a man specializing nowadays along certain lines finds himself hemmed in by the circumscribed divisions of science. He has no possibility of applying his specialized knowledge and experience to spheres which may lie near to hand but which will only have been presented to him from certain aspects, insufficient to give him a deeper understanding of their full significance. If it is true, as will emerge in these lectures, that we can only understand the successive stages in human embryonic development when we understand their counterpart, the phenomena of the Heavens; if this is a fact — and it will turn out to be so — then we cannot work at Embryology without working at Astronomy. Nor can we occupy ourselves with Astronomy without bringing new light to the facts of Embryology. In Astronomy we are studying something which reveals its most important activity in the development of the human embryo. How, then, shall we explain the meaning and reason of astronomical facts, if we bring into the kind of connection with these facts the very realm in which this meaning and reason are revealed?</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You see how necessary it is to come to a reasonable world-conception, out of the chaos in which we are today in the sphere of science. If, however, one only accepts what is fashionable nowadays, it will be very difficult to grasp, even as a general idea, anything like what I said yesterday. For the evolution of our time has brought it about that astronomical facts are only grasped through mathematics and mechanics, while embryological facts are recorded in such a way that in dealing with them anything of the nature of mathematics or mechanics is discarded. At most, even if the mathematical-mechanical is brought into some kind of relation to Embryology, it is done in a quite an external way, without considering where lies the origin of what, in embryonic development, might truly be expressed in mathematical and mechanical terms.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now I need only point to a saying of Goethe's, uttered out of a certain feeling — a ‘feeling knowledge’ I might call it — but indicating something of extraordinary significance. (You can read of it in Goethe's “Spruche in Prosa”, and in the Commentary which I added to the publication in the Kurschner edition of the Deutsche National-Literatur, where I spoke in detail about this passage.) Goethe says there: People think of natural phenomena so entirely apart from man that they are tending ever more and more to disregard the human being in their study of the phenomena of Nature. He, on the contrary, believed that natural phenomena only reveal their true meaning if they are regarded in full connection with man — with the whole organization of man. In saying this, Goethe pointed to a method of research which is well-nigh anathematized nowadays. People today seek an 'objective' understanding of Nature through research that is completely separated from the human being. This is particularly noticeable in such a science as Astronomy, where no account at all is taken of the human being. On the contrary, people are proud that the apparently ‘objective’ facts have shown that man is only a grain of dust upon an Earth which has somehow been fused into a planet, moving first round the Sun and then, in some way or other, moving with the Sun in space. They are proud that one need pay no attention to this ‘grain of dust’ which wanders about on Earth, — that one need only pay attention to what is external to the human being in considering the great celestial phenomena.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now the question is, whether any real results are to be obtained by such a method.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I should like once more to call attention, my dear friends, to the path we must pursue in these lectures. What you will find as proof will only emerge in the further course of the lectures. Today we must take a good deal simply from observation in order to form certain preliminary ideas. <i>We must first build up certain necessary concepts; only then shall we be able to pass on to the verification of these concepts</i>.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">From what source, then, can we gain a real perception of the celestial phenomena merely through the mathematics which we apply to them? The course of development of human knowledge can disclose — if one does not take up the proud position of thinking how ‘wonderfully advanced’ we are today and how all that went before was childish — the course of human development can teach us how the prevailing points of view can change.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">From certain aspects one can have great reverence for the celestial observations carried out, for instance, by the ancient Chaldeans. The ancient Chaldeans made very exact observations concerning the connection of human time-reckoning with the heavenly phenomena. They had a highly develop ‘Calendar-Science’. Much that appears to us today as self-evident really dates back to the Chaldeans. Yet the Chaldeans were satisfied with a mathematical picture of the Heavens which portrayed the Earth more or less as a flat disc, with the hollow hemisphere of the heavenly vault arched above, the fixed stars fastened to it, and the planets moving over it. (Among the planets they also included the Sun.) They made their calculations with this picture in the background. Their calculations for the most part were correct, in spite of being based upon a picture which the science of today can only describe as a fundamental error, as something ‘childish’.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Science, or more correctly, the scientific tendency and direction, then went on evolving. There was a stage when men pictured that the Earth stood still, but that Venus and Mercury moved round the Sun. The Sun formed the central point, as it were, for the motions of Venus and Mercury, while the other planets — Mars, Jupiter and Saturn — moved round the Earth. Thereafter, men progressed to making Mars, Jupiter and Saturn also revolved around the Sun, but the Earth was still supposed to stand still, while the Sun with its encircling planets as well as the starry Heavens revolved round the Earth. This was still the fundamental view of Tycho Brahe, whereas his contemporary Copernicus established the other concept, namely, that the Sun was to be regarded as standing still and that the Earth was to be reckoned among the planets revolving round the Sun. Following hard one upon the other in the time of Copernicus were the two points of view, one which existed in ancient Egypt, of the stationary Earth with the other planets encircling the Sun, still represented by Tycho Brahe; the other, the Copernican concept, which broke radically with the idea of the center of coordinates being in the center of the Earth, and transferred it to the center of the Sun. For in reality the whole alteration made by Copernicus was nothing else than this, — the origin of coordinates was removed from the center of the Earth to the center of the Sun.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What was actually the problem of Copernicus? His problem was, how to reduce to simple lines and curves these complicated apparent motions of the planets, — ; for so they appear as observed from the Earth. When the planets are observed from the Earth, their movements can only be described as a variety of looped lines, such as these (<a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210102p01.html#Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig. 1</a>). So, when taking the center of the Earth as the center of coordinates it is necessary to base the planetary movements on all sorts of complicated curves. Copernicus said, in effect: ‘as an experiment, I will place the center of the whole coordinate system in the center of the Sun.’ Then the complicated planetary curves are reduced to simple circular movements, or as was stated later, to ellipses. The whole thing was purely the construction of a world-system which aimed at being able to represent the paths of the planets in the simplest possible curves.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="Fig1" name="Fig1" style="background: transparent; color: #336699;"></a><img height="134" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-02-01.gif" width="250" /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Figure 1</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now today we have a very remarkable fact, my dear friends. This Copernican system, when employed purely mathematically, supplies the necessary calculations concerning the observed phenomena as well as and no better than any of the earlier ones. The eclipses of the Sun and Moon can be calculated with the ancient Chaldean system, with the Egyptian, with the Tychonian and with the Copernican. The outer occurrences in the Heavens, in so far as they relate to mechanics or mathematics, can thus be foretold. One system is as well suited as another. It is only that the simplest thought-pictures arise with the Copernican system. But the strange thing is that in practical Astronomy, calculations are not made with the Copernican system. Curiously enough, in practical Astronomy, — to obtain what is needed for the calendar, — the system of Tycho Brahe is used! This shows how little that is really fundamental, how little of the essential nature of things, comes into question when the Universe is thus pictured in purely mathematical curves or in terms of mechanical forces.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now there is another very remarkable fact which I will only indicate today, so that we shall understand each other about the aim of these lectures. I shall speak further about it in succeeding lectures. Copernicus in his deliberations bases his cosmic system upon three axioms. The first is that the Earth rotates on its own North-South axis in 24 hours. The second principle on which Copernicus bases his picture of the Heavens is that the Earth moves round the Sun. In its revolution round the Sun the Earth itself, of course, also revolves in a certain way. This rotation, however, does not occur round the North-South axis of the Earth, which always points to the North Pole, but round the axis of the Ecliptic, which, as we know, is at an angle with the Earth's own axis. Therefore the Earth goes through a rotation during a 24-hour day round its own N. S. Axis, and then, inasmuch as it performs approximately 365 such rotations in the year, there is added another rotation, an annual rotation, if we disregard the revolution round the Sun. The Earth, then, if it always rotates thus, and then again revolves round the Sun, behaves like the Moon as it rotates round the Earth, always turning the same side towards us. The Earth does this too, inasmuch as it revolves round the Sun, but not on the same axis as the one on which it rotates for the daily revolution. It revolves through this 'yearly day' on another axis; this is an added movement, besides the one taking place in the 24-hour day.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Copernicus' third principle is that not only does such a revolution of the Earth take place round the North-South axis, but that there is yet a third revolution which appears as a retrograde movement of the North-South axis round the axis of the Ecliptic. Thereby, in a certain sense, the revolution round the axis of the Ecliptic is canceled out. By reason of this third revolution the Earth's axis continuously points to the North celestial Pole (the Pole-Star). Whereas, by virtue of revolving round the Sun, the Earth's axis would have to describe a circle, or an ellipse, round the pole of the Ecliptic, its own revolution, which takes the opposite direction (every time the Earth proceeds a little further its axis rotates backwards), causes it to point continually to the North Pole. Copernicus adopted this third principle, namely: The continued pointing of the Earth's axis to the Pole comes about because, by a rotation of its own — a kind of ‘inclination’ (?) — it cancels out the other revolution. This latter therefore has no effect in the course of the year, for it is constantly being annulled.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In modern Astronomy, founded as it is on the Copernican system, it has come about that the first two axioms are accepted and the third is ignored. This third axiom is lightly brushed aside by saying that the stars are so far away that the Earth-axis, remaining parallel to itself, always points practically to the same spot. Thus it is assumed that the North-South axis of the Earth, in its revolution, remains always parallel to itself. This was not assumed by Copernicus; on the contrary, he assumed a perpetual revolving of the Earth's axis. Modern Astronomy is therefore not really based on the Copernican system, but accepts the first two axioms because they are convenient and discards the third, thus becoming lost in the prevarication that it is not necessary to suppose that the Earth's axis itself must move in order to keep pointing to the same spot in the Heavens, but that the place itself is so far away that even if the axis does move parallel to itself it will still point to the same spot. Anyone can see that this is a prevarication. To-day therefore we have a ‘Copernican system’ from which a most important element has actually been discarded.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The development of modern Astronomy is presented in such a way that no one notices that an important element is missing. Yet only in this way is it possible to describe it all so neatly: “Here is the Sun the Earth goes round in an ellipse with the Sun in one of the foci.” (<a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210102p01.html#Fig2" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig. 2</a>)</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="Fig2" name="Fig2" style="background: transparent; color: #336699;"></a><img height="166" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-02-02.gif" width="169" /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Fig. 2</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">As time went on it became no longer possible to hold to the starting-point of the Copernican theory, namely that the Sun stands still. A movement is now attributed to the Sun, which is said to move forward <i>with</i> the whole ellipse, perpetually creating new ellipses, so to speak (<a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210102p01.html#Fig3" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig. 3</a>). It became necessary to introduce the Sun's own movement, and this was done simply by adding something new to the picture they had before. A mathematical description is thus obtained which is admittedly convenient, but few questions are asked as to its possibility or its reality. It is only from the apparent movement of the stars that the Earth's movement is deduced by this method. As we shall presently see, it is of great significance whether or no one assumes a movement — which indeed must be assumed — namely the aforesaid ‘inclination’ (?) of the Earth's axis, perpetually annulling the annual rotation. Resultant movements, after all, are obtained by adding up the several movements. If one is left out, the whole is no longer true. Thus the whole theory that the Earth moves round the Sun in an ellipse comes into question.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="Fig3" name="Fig3" style="background: transparent; color: #336699;"></a><img height="173" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-02-03.gif" width="291" /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Fig. 3</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You see, purely from these historical facts, that burning questions exist in Astronomy today, though it is seemingly a most exact science because it is mathematical. The question arises: Why do we live in such uncertainty with regard to a real astronomical science? We must then ask further, turning the question in another direction: Can we reach any real certainty through a purely mathematical approach? Only think that in considering a thing mathematically we lift the observation out of the sphere of external reality. <i>Mathematics is something that ascends from our inner being; in mathematics we lift ourselves out of external reality</i>. It must therefore be understood from the outset that if we approach an external reality with a method of investigation that lifts itself out of reality, we can, in all probability, only arrive at something relative.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">To begin with, I am merely putting forward certain general considerations. We shall soon come to the realities. The point is that in regarding things purely from the mathematical standpoint, man does not put reality into his thought with sufficient energy, in order to approach the phenomena of the outer world rightly. This, indeed, demands that the celestial phenomena be brought nearer to man; they must not be regarded as quite apart from man, but must be brought into relationship with man. It was only one particular instance of this associating of the heavenly phenomena with the human being, when I said that we must see what takes place out there in the starry world in its reflection in the embryonic process. But let us look at the matter at first somewhat more generally. Let us ask whether we cannot perhaps find another approach to the celestial phenomena than the purely mathematical one.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We can indeed bring the celestial phenomena, in their connection with earthly life, somewhat nearer to man in a purely qualitative way. We will not disdain to form a basis today with seemingly elementary ideas, these ideas being just the ones that are excluded from the foundations of modern Astronomy. We will ask the following question: How does man's life on Earth appear, in relation to Astronomy? <i>We can regard the external phenomena surrounding man from three different points of view</i>. We can regard them from the standpoint of what I will call the <i>solar life</i>, the life of the Sun; the <i>lunar life</i>; and the terrestrial, the <i>tellurian life</i>.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Let us think first in quite a popular, even elementary way how these three domains play around man and upon him. Clearly there is something on the Earth which is in complete dependence upon the Sun-life, including also that aspect of the Sun's life which we shall have to look for in the Sun's movement or state of rest, and so on. We will leave aside the quantitative aspect and today merely consider the qualitative. Let us try to be clear as to how, for instance, the vegetation of any given region depends upon the solar life. Here we need only call to mind what is very well known with regard to vegetation, namely, the difference in the vegetation of spring, summer, autumn and winter; we shall be able to say that we see in the vegetation itself an imprint of the solar life. The Earth opens herself in a given region to what is outside her in heavenly space, and this reveals itself in the unfolding of vegetative life. If the Earth closes herself again to the solar life, the vegetation recedes.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is, however, an interplay of activity between the terrestrial or tellurian and the solar life. There is a difference in the solar life according to the variation of tellurian conditions. We must here bring together quite elementary facts and you will see how they lead us further. Take, for example, Egypt and Peru, two regions in the tropical zone. — Egypt, a low-lying plain, Peru a table land, and compare the vegetation. You will see how the tellurian element, simply the distance from the center of the Earth in this instance, plays its part in conjunction with the solar life. You only need study the vegetation over the earth, regarding the Earth, not as mere mineral but as incorporating plant-nature as well, and in the picture of vegetation you have a starting-point for an understanding of the connection of the earthly with the celestial. But we perceive the connection most particularly when we turn our attention to mankind.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We have, in the first place, two opposites on the Earth: the <i>Polar and the Tropical</i>. The Polar and the tropical form a polarity, and the result of this polarity shows itself very clearly in human life.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Is it not so that life in the polar regions brings forth in man a condition of mind and spirit which is more or less a state of apathy: The sharp contrast of a long winter and a long summer which are almost like one long day and one long night, produces a certain apathy in man; it is as though the setting in which man lives makes him apathetic. In the Tropics, man also lives in a region which makes him apathetic. But the apathy of the polar region is based upon a sparse external vegetation — sparse and meager in a peculiar way even where it develops to some extent. The tropical apathy of man is caused by a rich, luxuriant vegetation. Putting together these two pictures of environment one can say that the apathy which affects man in polar regions is different from that affecting him in tropical regions. He is apathetic in both regions, but the apathy results from different causes. In the Temperate Zone lies the balance. Here the human capacities are developed in a certain equilibrium.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">No-one will doubt that this has something to do with the solar life. But what is the connection: (I will, as I said, first make a few remarks based on observation and in this way arrive at essential concepts.) Going to the root of things, we find that in the life around the Poles there is a very strong working-in of the Sun-forces upon man. In those regions the Earth tends to withdraw from the life of the Sun; she does not let her activity shoot upward from below into the vegetation. But the human being is exposed in these parts to the true Sun-life (you must not only look for the Sun-life in mere warmth). That this is so, the vegetation itself bears witness.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We have, then, a preponderance of solar influence in the Polar zones. What kind of life predominates in the Tropical? There it is the tellurian, the Earth-life. This shoots up into the vegetation, making it rich and luxuriant. This also robs man of a balanced development of his capacities, but the causes in the North and in the Tropics come from different directions. In Polar regions the sunlight represses man's inner development. In the Tropics, what shoots up from the Earth represses his inner powers. We thus see a certain polarity, the polarity shown in the preponderance of the Sun-life around the Poles, and of the tellurian life in tropical regions — ; in the neighborhood of the Equator.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If we then observe man and have in mind the human form, we can say the following. (Please do not object at once if it seems paradoxical, but wait a little. We shall be taking the human form seriously.) The head, the part of the human form which in its outer configuration copies universal space, — namely the sphere, the spherical shape of the Universe as a whole — the head is exposed by life in polar regions to what comes from the Cosmos outside the Earth. In the Tropics, the metabolic system in its connection with the limbs is exposed to the Earth-life as such.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We come to a special relationship, you see, of the human head to the cosmic life outside the Earth and of the human metabolic and limb-system to the Earth-life. Man is so placed in the Universe as to be more co-ordinated with the cosmic surroundings of the Earth in his head, his nerve-senses system, and with the Earth-life in his metabolic system. And in the temperate zones we shall have to look for a kind of perpetual harmonizing between the head-system and the metabolic system. In the temperate zones there is a primary development of the rhythmic system in man.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You see then that there exists a certain connection between this threefold membering of man — nerves-and-senses system, rhythmic system, metabolic system — and the outer world. <i>The head-system is more related to the whole Cosmos, the rhythmic system is the balance between the Cosmos and the earthly world, and the metabolic system is related to the earth itself</i>. Then we must take up another indication, which points to a working of the solar life upon mankind in a different direction.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The connection of the solar life with the life of man which we have just been considering can only be related to the interplay of the earthly and extra-earthly life in the <i>course of the year</i>. But as a matter of fact, in the <i>course of the day</i> we are also concerned with a kind of repetition, even as in the yearly course. The yearly course is determined by the relation of the Sun to the Earth, and so is the daily course. In the language of purely mathematical astronomy we speak of the daily rotation of the Earth on its axis, and of the revolution of the Earth round the Sun in the course of the year. But we are then confining ourselves to very simple aspects. We have then no justification for assuming that we are really starting from adequate premisses, giving an adequate basis for our investigations. Let us call to mind all that we have considered with regard to the yearly course. I will not say ‘the revolution of the Earth round the Sun’, but the course of the year with its alternating conditions. This must have a connection with the three-fold being of man. Since through the earthly conditions it finds different expression in the Tropics, in the Temperate Zones and at the Poles, this yearly course must be connected in some way with the whole formation of man — with the relations of the three members of the threefold man. When we bring this into consideration, we acquire a wider basis from which to proceed and can perhaps arrive at something quite different from what we reach when we merely measure the angles which one telescopic direction makes with another. It is a matter of finding broader foundations in order to be able to judge the facts.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Speaking of the <i>daily course</i>, we speak in the astronomical sense of the rotation of the Earth on its axis. But something rather different is here revealed. There is revealed a far-reaching <i>in</i>dependence of man upon this daily course. The dependence of man on the yearly rhythm, namely on what is connected with the yearly course, the shaping of the human form in the various regions of the Earth, shows us a very great dependence of man on the solar life, — on the changes that appear on Earth in consequence of the solar life. The daily course shows it far less. True, very much of interest will also be revealed in connection with the daily course, but as regards the life of mankind as a whole it is relatively insignificant. The differences appear in individual human beings. Goethe, who can be regarded in a certain respect as a normal type of man, felt himself best attuned to production in the morning; Schiller at night. This points to the fact that the daily rhythm has a definite influence upon certain subtler parts of human nature. A man who has a feeling for such things, will tell us that he has met many persons in his life who have confided to him that their really important thoughts were worked out in the dusk, that is, in the temperate period of the day-to-day rhythm, not at midday nor at midnight, but in the temperate time of the day. It is however, a fact that man is in a way independent of the daily course of the Sun. We have still to go into the significance of this independence and to show in what way a certain dependence does nevertheless exist.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A second element is the lunar life, the life that is connected with the Moon. It may be that a great deal of what has been said on this subject in the course of human evolution appears today as mere fantastic nonsense. But in one way or another we see that the Earth-life as such, for example in the phenomena of tidal ebb and flow, is connected quite evidently with the movement of the Moon. Nor must it be overlooked that the female functions, although they do not coincide in time with the Moon's phases, coincide with them in their periodicity, and that therefore something essentially concerned with human evolution is shown to be dependent in time and duration upon the phases of the Moon. It is as though this process of the female function were lifted out of the general course of Nature, but has remained a true image of Nature's process; it is accomplished in the same period of time as the corresponding natural phenomenon.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Just as little must it be overlooked — only people do not make rational, exact observations of these things if they turn aside from them at the very outset — just as little must it be overlooked that as a matter of fact, man's life of fancy and imagination is extraordinarily bound up with the phases of the Moon. If anyone were to keep a calendar-record of the upward and downward flow of his life of imagination, he would notice how much it had to do with the Moon's phases. The fact that the Moon-life, the lunar life, has an influence upon certain lower organs should he studied in the phenomenon of the sleep-walker. In the sleep-walker, interesting phenomena can be studied; phenomena which are overlaid by normal human life, but are present in the depths of human nature and point in their totality to the fact that the lunar life is just as much connected with the rhythmic system of man as is the solar life with his nerves-and-senses system.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This gives a sort of crossing of influences. We have seen how the solar life, in its interplay with the forces of the Earth, works on the rhythmic system in the temperate zones. Crossing this influence, we now have the direct influence of the lunar life upon the rhythmic system.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When we now look at the tellurian, the Earth-life as such, we must not disregard a domain in which the earthly influence makes itself felt; though, to be sure, this is not ordinarily taken into account. I ask you to turn your attention to such as phenomenon as home-sickness. It is difficult to from any clear ideas about home-sickness. It can no doubt be explained from the point of view of habit, custom, and so on. But I ask you to note that real physiological effects can be produced entirely as a result of this so-called home-sickness. Home-sickness can go so far as to make a man ill. It can express itself in such phenomena as asthma. Study the complex of the phenomena of home-sickness with its consequences, asthmatic conditions and general ill-health, a kind of emaciation, and it is possible to come to the following conclusion. One comes to see that ultimately the feeling of home-sickness results from an alteration of the metabolism — the whole metabolic system. Home-sickness is the reflection in consciousness of changes in the metabolism — changes entirely due to the man's removal from one place, with its tellurian influences from below, to another place, with different influences coming from below. Please take this in connection with other things which, unfortunately, Science as a rule leaves unconsidered.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Goethe, I said, felt most inspired to poetry, to the writing of his works in the morning. If he needed a stimulant however, he took that stimulant which in its nature takes least hold of the metabolic system, but only stirs it up via the rhythmic system, namely wine. Goethe took wine as a stimulant. In this respect he was, indeed, altogether a Sun-man; he let the influence of the solar life work upon him. With Schiller or Byron this was reversed. Schiller preferred to write his poetry when the Sun has set, that is to say when the solar life was hardly active any more. And he stimulated himself with something which takes thorough hold of the metabolic system — with hot punch. The effect was quite different from that obtained by Goethe from wine. It worked into the whole metabolism. Through the metabolism the Earth works upon man; so we can say that Schiller was essentially tellurian — an Earth-man. Earth-men work more through the emotions and what belongs to the will; the Sun-man works rather through calm and contemplation. For those persons, therefore, who could not endure the solar element, but only liked the tellurian, only what is of the Earth Goethe increasingly became “the cold literary Greybeard” as they called him in Weimar — “the cold, literary greybeard with the double chin.” That was the name which was so often given to Goethe in Weimar in the 19th century.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now I should like to bring something rather different to your notice. We have observed how man is set into the universal connections of Earth, Sun, Moon: the Sun working more on the nerves-and-senses system; the Moon working more on the rhythmic system; the Earth, inasmuch as she gives man of her substance as nourishment and makes substance directly active in him, working upon the metabolic system, working tellurically. We see something in man through which we can perhaps find starting-point for an explanation of the Heavens as they exist outside man, upon broader foundations than merely through the measurement of angles by the telescope and so on.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This is especially so if we go yet further, if we now consider Nature outside of man, — but consider it so as to see more in it than a mere register of external data. Look at the metamorphosis of insects. In the course of the year it is a complete reflection of the external solar life. I would say that with man we must make our researches more in the inner being in order to follow what is solar, lunar and tellurain in him, whereas in the insect-life with its metamorphoses, we see the direct course of the year expressed in the successive forms the insect assumes. We can now say to ourselves: Maybe we have not to only proceed quantitatively, but should also take into account the qualitative impression which such phenomena make upon us Why always merely ask what a phenomenon of the outer Universe looks like in the objective of the telescope? Why not ask what relation is given, not merely by the objective of the telescope, but by the insect? How does human nature react? Is anything revealed to us through human nature regarding the celestial phenomena? Are we not led in this way to broader foundations, making it impossible that on the one hand, theoretically, we should be Copernicans when desiring to explain the world philosophically, while on the other we use Tychonic System as our basis for calculating the calendar etc., as practical Astronomy still does to this day. Or that we are Copernicans, but set aside the most important part of his theory, namely his third axiom Can we not overcome the uncertainties which create burning problems even in the most fundamental realms of Astronomy today, by working on a broader basis — working in this sphere too from the quantitative to the qualitative?</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yesterday I sought to point out the connection of the celestial with the embryonic phenomena; today, the connection with fully developed man. Here you have an indication towards a necessary regrouping of the sciences. Now take another thing to which I have also referred to in the course of today's remarks. I indicated the connection of human metabolism with the Earth-life. In man we have the faculties of sense-perception mediated through the nerves-and-senses system, connected as a whole with the solar and cosmic life. We have the rhythmic system connected with what lies between Heaven and Earth. We have the metabolism related especially to the Earth, so that in contemplating metabolic man we should be able to get nearer to the real essence of the tellurian. But what do we do today if we want to approach the tellurian realm? We behave as we habitually do, and investigate things from the outside. But things have an inner side also! Will they perhaps only show it in its true form when they pass through the human being?</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It has become an ideal nowadays to regard the relationship of substances quite apart from man and to rest there; to observe by experimentation in chemical laboratories the reciprocal actions of substances in order to arrive at their nature. But if the substances only disclosed their nature within the human being, then we should have to practice Chemistry in such a way as to reach man. Then we should have to form a connection between true Chemistry and the processes undergone by matter within man, just as we see a connection between Astronomy and Embryology, or between Astronomy and the whole human form — the threefold being of man. Thus do the things work into one another. We only come to real life when we perceive them in their interpenetration.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">On the other hand, inasmuch as the Earth is poised in cosmic space, we shall have to see the connection between the tellurian and the starry realm.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Now we have seen a connection between Astronomy and the substances of Earth; also between the Earth and human metabolism; and again a direct influence of the solar and celestial events upon man himself. In man we have a kind of meeting of what comes directly from the Heavens and what comes via earthly substance. Earthly substances work on the human metabolism, while the celestial influences work directly upon man as a whole. In man there meet the direct influences for which we are indebted to the solar life, and those influences which, passing indirectly through the Earth, have undergone a change by reason of the Earth. Thus we can say: The interior of the human being will become explicable even in a physical, anatomical sense as a resultant of cosmic influences coming directly from the Universe outside the Earth, and cosmic influences which have first passed through the earthly process. These flow together in man (<a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210102p01.html#Fig4" style="background: transparent; color: #336699; text-decoration-line: none;">Fig. 4</a>).</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="Fig4" name="Fig4" style="background: transparent; color: #336699;"></a><img height="230" src="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/images/323-02-04.gif" width="347" /></span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Figure 4</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You see how, contemplating man in his totality, the whole Universe comes together. For a true knowledge of man, it is essential to perceive this.</span></div><div style="line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What then has come about by scientific specialization? It has led us away from reality into a purely abstract sphere. In spite of its 'exactness', Astronomy — to calculate the calendar — cannot help using in practice something other than it stands for in theory. And then again, Copernican though it is in theory, it discards what was of great importance to Copernicus, namely the third axiom. Uncertainty creeps in at every point. These modern lines of research do not lead to what matters most of all, — to perceive <i>how Man is formed from the entire Universe</i>.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210102p01.html">https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19210102p01.html</a></span></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-50359971977767440422024-03-11T10:52:00.000-04:002024-03-11T10:52:02.576-04:00The soul's unspecific longings are satisfied by the specifics of anthroposophy<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_XmAGOz_WWmPCHmCIKybn7oMh1ZiDbZutnaKNxK-O3KoJIm1lvRLLQEQ2IpoAQ_x6r0A-6x0tzOldDtGvNOnbyF8TH8IXfZXfFXobrxvaAd0-JGxiu-efMZ02BGX5AQZGX4YBy3ocV-g2EzbZPk7BMMxPwkyvvM1AgvTDTQtxL5Wj3tUYXIfhNx9nDqzS/s804/359843637_677383307768591_731038559377456084_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="804" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_XmAGOz_WWmPCHmCIKybn7oMh1ZiDbZutnaKNxK-O3KoJIm1lvRLLQEQ2IpoAQ_x6r0A-6x0tzOldDtGvNOnbyF8TH8IXfZXfFXobrxvaAd0-JGxiu-efMZ02BGX5AQZGX4YBy3ocV-g2EzbZPk7BMMxPwkyvvM1AgvTDTQtxL5Wj3tUYXIfhNx9nDqzS/w640-h640/359843637_677383307768591_731038559377456084_n.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVIFiPl9w0Wz9knKjxeLGNy1Qj6NO7-N5FkKI7Fm8HoViMC4qNDyNLllxh2aHzmgMpfaEHjYFUpetKpnjeIsO0Nz_DMzJP_WOHuCKD6k7Hu0yBDZh8EnVWdU3pAIB83kfAsBwVqyfMeXDBT9leT0idSCH96ijIVlbp84SJrCpMGim87vNLtelA8XRBaBna/s1426/7th%20seal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1426" data-original-width="1426" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVIFiPl9w0Wz9knKjxeLGNy1Qj6NO7-N5FkKI7Fm8HoViMC4qNDyNLllxh2aHzmgMpfaEHjYFUpetKpnjeIsO0Nz_DMzJP_WOHuCKD6k7Hu0yBDZh8EnVWdU3pAIB83kfAsBwVqyfMeXDBT9leT0idSCH96ijIVlbp84SJrCpMGim87vNLtelA8XRBaBna/w640-h640/7th%20seal.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div id="verse-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 34px; margin-top: 1em; min-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Rudolf Steiner:</i> "Anthroposophy is very difficult to grasp, in spite of the fact that virtually all of our modern soul forces are longing for it. Why is this so? It is because we cannot move beyond our conscious judgments, feelings, and so on to the unconscious longing that really is already present in every thinking human soul. This unspecific longing, this unconscious goal, demands that we aspire to more profound and higher knowledge of the eternal and that we acquire this knowledge through very specific exercises that elevate the human soul and its capacity for knowledge."</span></div><div id="verse-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 34px; margin-top: 1em; min-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span><div id="verse-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 34px; margin-top: 1em; min-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div id="verse-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 34px; margin-top: 1em; min-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div id="verse-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 34px; margin-top: 1em; min-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Related post: <a href="https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-basic-mood-in-which-to-approach.html">The basic mood</a></span></div><div id="verse-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 34px; margin-top: 1em; min-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Related post: <a href="https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2023/07/i-cannot-even.html">I cannot even.</a></span></div><div id="verse-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 34px; margin-top: 1em; min-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: April 14, 1922. <i>The Sun Mystery, </i>p. 98. GA 211</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p><br /></p>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-46443210838880264892024-03-11T05:06:00.002-04:002024-03-11T06:18:39.378-04:00The Antecedents of Present-Day Social Structures. What the world needs now is Anthroposophy<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> <a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WGPRgbqHqsQ/W40K7B3eq8I/AAAAAAAAFBc/J4yvF0nkGLAmqQ1o7ScYEn7vWmG-0Zl_QCLcBGAs/s1600/39522043_2060620177600377_8680802463462195200_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="720" height="608" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WGPRgbqHqsQ/W40K7B3eq8I/AAAAAAAAFBc/J4yvF0nkGLAmqQ1o7ScYEn7vWmG-0Zl_QCLcBGAs/s640/39522043_2060620177600377_8680802463462195200_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="color: #000033; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="color: #000033; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="color: #000033; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>The Tension Between East and West. Lecture 7:</i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="color: #000033; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br />The Individual Spirit and the Social Structure</i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="color: #000033; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div style="color: #000033; text-align: center;"><span><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></span></div><div style="color: #000033; text-align: center;"><span><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Rudolf Steiner, Vienna, June 8, 1922:</span></i></span></div><div style="color: #000033; text-align: center;"><span><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></span></div><div style="color: #000033; text-align: center;"><span><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></span></div><div style="color: #000033;"><span><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></span></div><div style="color: #000033;"><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A few months ago, the British Colonial Secretary remarked that the world's centre of gravity has shifted from the Baltic and Atlantic to the Pacific. His observation is certainly indicative of the transformation now taking place in the social structure of the whole world. Only now, in fact, is the world gradually beginning, in circumstances that have arisen in the course of centuries and have changed so significantly as a result of the cruellest of wars, to realize the consequences of something that has long been brewing — the fact that not only economic and social relationships, but the whole of human relationships throughout the world are tending to transform themselves into a totality, a single entity.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If this is true, however, then the change in external economic organization (directly determined by the conversion of world trade into a world economy from the last third of the nineteenth century onwards) must also be followed by a profound spiritual transformation throughout the world, of which perhaps only the beginnings can be discerned today.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yet we must also remember that, however social structures may change throughout the world, there live within them human beings who must reach an understanding as men if they wish to establish a relationship with one another. Understanding between men, however, involves trust. And trust involves a kind of insight into the souls of others. In Western civilization to date it has only been possible, generally speaking, to extend our horizons slightly, to include the Continent of Europe and its immediate colonial dependencies. A world-wide view has yet to be found.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Starting from one or two features of the historical background, which yet are directly reflected in man's life today, I shall try this evening to indicate what is actually happening in this direction. To do so, I shall first have to say something about understanding and attempts at understanding within Western civilization itself.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If you listen to the way educated Englishmen speak about Europe, about Central Europe and in particular about Germany, which has set the tone in certain respects for so long in Central Europe, what they say — and write in their books — is usually something like this: With us, everything rests on a democratic basis. The individual very largely determines what happens in spiritual and also in economic life. The greater part of public affairs is left to individual initiative. But when we look across at Central Europe — I do not want to claim that what they say is absolutely correct, only to illustrate what is in fact a widely-held view — a certain autocracy becomes apparent, a system of administration by officials — very capable, of course — who determine, from the centre of national life, the nature of individual human relationships. There is — or was before the war, at least — always this pointed reference to a centralized and more or less autocratic system. If we were then to look further East, we should have to say, following the same line of thought: further East, we find not just autocracy, but a kind of patriarchal autocracy. This is pervaded, not only by the ordinances of administrators, but also by a religious impulse: men therefore feel that what they do on earth is actually ordained by spiritual, extra-terrestrial powers and entities, the impulses from which are absorbed into their feelings.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Behind this English attitude there certainly lies something of great importance, which affects all the social structures of the present day. We can say: the further West we go, the more man with his whole thinking and feeling is bound up in the affairs he has to manage. This comes out most clearly when we look at economic affairs. In the West, what a man wishes to accomplish in economic life he accomplishes by attention to practical detail. He has an immediate personal relationship with the externals of life. In Central Europe, as the psychologically perceptive observer cannot help noticing, things are rather different. There is a tendency towards what the Englishman, from his standpoint, calls “academic administration by the state:” a tendency for certain ideas to prevail which are regarded as correct. These are expected to shape laws and inform administrative principles, and are set forth from the beginning in an administrative, a political system. The individual who comes to the affairs of actual life, even economic affairs, may look to economic practice first of all; but he is always looking over his shoulder at something of a juridical-political character that belongs to one of these systems. And he regards his personal activities as a part of such a system. The Englishman has no inclination to think up a system of this kind; his eye is only on the concrete details of life, not on the overall system that imposes itself upon them.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">At this point, our attention is drawn to a historical phenomenon that has become particularly important in very recent times. For millions upon millions of people, the name of Karl Marx is of extraordinary significance. The rigidly dogmatic and formula-ridden Marxism that occupied the souls of many millions of men like a kind of religion, fifty years or so ago, has been modified in many ways. Yet for the broad masses of the European proletariat, the name Marx still denotes a prophet of social reorganization. On this occasion, I am not concerned to demonstrate the errors of Marxism. I only want to point to a certain aspect of Marx as a historical phenomenon.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Marx was educated in Central Europe, in Germany, where he absorbed a disposition towards the kind of systematization of ideas that I have just been describing. Then, however, he went to the West, to France and in particular to England, in order to study concrete details of the social and economic development of recent times. What he studied were concrete details — for that is all that exists in the British working-class. What he constructed from them is a system of social organization such as only a Central European temperament can create. And this system took root, not primarily in the West, but in Central Europe. And we may say: the concrete details that Marx observed in the West he shaped into a grand systematic edifice of ideas, which his disciples have made increasingly dogmatic and increasingly theoretical. It came to be regarded as the ideal organization of human society as a whole from the economic standpoint. And when its exponents had the opportunity of realizing it in Eastern Europe, it became, in a sense, the ideal economic and political organization — though in fact it has not been realized to any great extent, and even this little is gradually leading to absurdity. The essential point, however, is that we can see quite clearly, just with a phenomenon like this, how fundamentally the mode of thought even in Central Europe differs from that in Western Europe. From this, however, we must suppose that the variations throughout the world are very much greater still, and that only an impartial attitude, quite free of preconceptions, is capable of gaining a conspectus of these variations.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What strikes us as diversity within the small sphere of Western civilization must be seen today against a world background. This is because our present-day structures, including the social ones, are affected by world conditions as these have developed historically in East and West, just as they are affected by philosophical impulses, in the way I have described here in the last few days. A similar approach will be in place when we attempt to depict present-day social structures.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In so many of these, a great deal survives in a disguised form, so that its origin is only dimly visible. What originated long ago in the East exists side by side with what is specifically Central European and with what is just beginning to appear in the West as a quite new configuration. This is true of the social structures as it was of the philosophical situation throughout the world.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">When we look across at the East — which, at some time in the future. Western structures will have to be extended to include — we can see in the modes of thought and social attitudes of people today definite survivals of ancient institutions and ancient impulses from which these arose. Decadent as it has become in the East, everything that can still be observed today points back to times when the Orient was ruled by a variety of priest-theocracies. In a way possible and appropriate to the culture of the time, their leaders embodied in the social structures things that they felt they had to ascertain from the spiritual worlds by means of the old instinctive spiritual vision, as I have described in the last few days. On the basis of historical documents, people today describe the priestly hierarchies as ruling by teaching the populace that all natural phenomena were inhabited by divine and spiritual entities, and that by certain magical operations one could gain the favour of these gods, or their love. This is true of a later epoch of the Oriental priest-theocracies, but it is precisely a <i>later</i> epoch, when the original qualities of the Orient were already in decline.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is true that, in ancient Oriental civilization, certain select individuals sought a kind of connection with the spiritual world which was based on things that have no charms at all for us today. It was based on certain quite material activities of the human body: potions that were brewed and substances that were eaten. They regarded as a secret the fact that, by the consumption of these potions and substances, man's normal sensory activity is suspended, and he is taken back to times when there was as yet no sense of purely external natural law and when spiritual life, too, was not yet so abstract as it later became — times when the moral and spiritual element was still united with the physical and natural. These priest-scholars sought to return to primeval ages in the development of the earth itself by associating their metabolism with certain material essences of the outside world.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What they were actually asserting we again become capable of understanding when, by the quite different modern path into super-sensible worlds, we come to know what I expounded in my fifth lecture: that through spiritual insight into his own nature man experiences within himself a kind of world-memory. He thus goes back, in his spiritual vision of course, to times when for men natural laws were not as they are today — expressing themselves more or less by chance — and spiritual laws were not so abstract as they are today. In consequence, spiritual vision arrives, not at the purely mechanistic Kant-Laplace nebula, but at an origin of the earth that is to be interpreted physically and spiritually. As I have demonstrated in the last few days, the world-memory men gain in this way is achieved entirely without manipulating the physical, in a spiritual way by spiritual exercises. This was not so in those early Oriental times, when men established contact with the spiritual world through stimulating their unconscious instincts by associating their metabolism with essences of one type or another. They knew what each plant in nature could develop from their instinctive life by a kind of dream-like spiritualization; they knew that, if this or that plant was eaten, the effect upon their organism was such that they could transport themselves to a particular area of spiritual activity. This was in fact the way in which the high priests of the Oriental theocracies, who also had complete power over social and political structures, originally established contact with the spiritual world. They believed they had thereby obtained impulses that proved to be the actual guiding impulses for social life.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We may say: The subsequent belief, or rather superstition, that to this or that natural object this or that “spirit” was linked, is already a product of cultural decadence. The original implication was that, if we allow these natural objects to affect us in a certain way, we shall be led to a particular kind of spiritual being, from whom we can receive various impulses, including social ones. Oracles, star-gazing, everything astrological was basically a product of the decline of these older views, towards which, however, objective science today is already being led, if dimly as yet. Objective science has given up seeing crude polytheism deep down in all primitive peoples, and can now perceive a monotheism of primitive man. In the same way, it will arrive at the outlook that has been evolved by consideration of the historical background and by spiritual investigations such as I have described.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">On the one hand, therefore, there existed a complete awareness of how impulses from extra-terrestrial nature, from spiritual entities, manifest themselves in human nature itself — these impulses had, after all, been obtained by stimulating the instincts, by a spiritualization of the instincts. Yet at the same time people could not help attaching some importance to what displayed itself in these instincts, which they ascribed to the particular quality of the blood, let us say in a family with a particular constitution. In the manifestations of this instinctive life also, they detected social impulses sent into the world from extra-terrestrial spheres. When decadence later set in, it was natural, for the men who were striving for power, to take over, quite arbitrarily, the general view that looked to this manifestation of the instinctive life, which they sought in blood and in what could be discovered through its spiritualization. In this way, however, something unspiritual and (based on blood) something patriarchal entered Eastern life as a whole. We can only discuss this patriarchal element, of course, by referring to what is known; but its point of departure lies in the relations that the old priest-rulers of the Orient sought with the spiritual world. For this reason, all the social configurations of the Orient are steeped in this religious element, this awareness that divine and spiritual powers must prevail in everything on earth, and that ultimately no man should give orders unless he has first allowed the power of the divine word to flow into the spirit, the soul that is to give them. Impulses initially felt as religious, as impulses of grace from extra-terrestrial powers, thus assumed for social life the character of commandments. Even when, in certain Eastern civilizations, we appear to be confronted with laws in the later sense of the word, we soon find, when we analyse the spirit of legislation such as that of Hammurabi, for example, that it is based on impulses of the commandment type, which derive from what was regarded as the commerce of the elect with the spiritual world.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In an increasingly attenuated form, this has survived in all the social configurations that rest on ecclesiastical and religious foundations. And however much these things are disguised in social structures today, we can see, even in those left-wing associations that rest on a religious basis, that the ancient Oriental impulses I have described still operate in an attenuated form. There is much in present-day social structures that we cannot understand at all if we are not in a position to ask: In what sense do human souls cling to such structures? They cling to them because, in these souls' subconscious depths, there still remain legacies of the religious inclinations of the Orient. This is true even where the religious views themselves have taken on quite different forms, forms that have detached themselves from economic life, as is the case with the religions of the West. That the effect of Oriental religions is felt even in detailed features of economic life could be observed in Eastern Europe right down to the Great War.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">To understand social configurations, we must discuss the spiritual impulses that inform them. For the description often given these days of social structures really only relates to their external appearance, as can be shown quite clearly by an example such as the following.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Today, it is clear, we can only look with horror at the social organization that is trying to establish itself in Eastern Europe. Yet in considering what is going on there today, we cannot help remembering what happened some eight hundred years ago, in China. Here, quite suddenly, men sought and very largely realized a political system that aimed at ordering all the affairs of man, even those of an economic nature, in every detail on behalf of the state. At this period in China, there were government authorities that fixed prices from week to week, authorities that laid down how the land was to be cultivated here, there and everywhere, authorities that provided country people with the seed for the year. At this period in China, an attempt was made to impose a high rate of tax on people who were particularly rich, so that gradually their fortunes passed to the general public. Remembering all this, we may say: the social configuration sought in Europe in our time by certain circles was largely realized eight hundred years ago, over a period of three decades, until the Socialist government concerned was overthrown and its supporters expelled from China. For thirty years, a system persisted whose features, if we described them without mentioning China, might very well be taken to refer to present-day Russia.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We can point to such things if our aim is to direct attention to the surface features of social structures. For here we can see that Socialism, as it is popularly understood, need not be solely a product of our own time, but could arise eight hundred years ago there in the Far East on quite different cultural foundations.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yet if we look at the spirit of these two social structures, we observe a significant difference. In the Chinese Socialism there clearly survive features of the theocracy that had always ruled over China, and does so still; in modern Russian Socialism there is embodied an abstract thinking, culled from natural science, which has nothing whatever to do with man's consciousness of a connection with spiritual worlds. Things that appear the same in their outward form are not the same when we consider them spiritually.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Looking at human history from this standpoint, we shall find that the particular form of the theocratic state — or rather, theocratic social structures — lasted for a definite period. When the Asiatic theocracies were at their zenith, the tribes in Western and Central Europe were still in an entirely uncivilized state. In moving over to Europe, what was theocratic in form has gradually assumed a quite special shape.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If we are sufficiently unprejudiced, we can discover a transitional form in the Platonic Utopian state. There is certainly something here faintly reminiscent, I would say, of the Oriental priestly hierarchies. For this reason, no doubt, Plato wished to choose as leaders of his state those who had become — in the Greek sense, it is true — wise men, philosophers. Within Greek civilization, in fact, the philosopher took the place of the Oriental priest. Yet Plato's Utopia derives, after all, from the social outlook of his own time, in the sense that it reproduces what was currently felt about society; and in it we can recognize a form into which Oriental society had already developed. No longer was a relationship of man to super-sensible powers sought. The religious feelings appropriate to this relationship were more or less taken over from the Ancient East; what the Greeks themselves evolved, however, was something that had played no particular part in early Oriental society, and ultimately plays no particular part even in the social structures we meet in the Old Testament. What was now elaborated independently was the relationship of man to man.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We encounter this relationship in its purest form when we look into the life of the soul in Greece. Here, man still felt a certain intimate association between the spiritual and the physical in his make-up. In conscious inner life, there was for the Greek as yet no separation of body and spirit, such as there is for us. We look within and apprehend the mind in a very diluted form, metaphorically speaking; so that, comprehending it by ordinary consciousness, we can have no conception how it activates the vigorous body or is influenced by it. For the Greeks it was different. And that is why Goethe longed to achieve their outlook in his own experience. The Greeks had no such concept of body and spirit as we have. For them, spiritual and physical were one. Not until Aristotle, a late Greek, does the distinction begin to creep in. Although Plato's views are often presented abstractly, the spirit in which he spoke is one that saw the body everywhere permeated by soul, even in its organic functions, and felt the soul to be so powerful that it could everywhere extend its antennae towards the physical organs. The attitude to the soul is more physical, to the body more spiritual. Such a view is linked at the same time, however, to a particular feeling that grows up between men. And from this view has arisen what is characteristic of the civilization of Central Europe.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">If we look with a sensitive eye at the felt relationship between man and man among the Ancient Greeks, and recognize how it has evolved from man's old relationship to the divine, we can say: what was previously an attitude permeated by religion has transformed itself into the legal attitude, the political attitude. Out of this, out of a combination of the nature of Greek and Roman, there then arose something that could maintain itself in social configurations. The priest gradually becomes merely the successor of the Oriental national leaders, for, although he may have kept himself in the background, the priest in the Orient was always the real spiritual leader, even with Darius and Xerxes. There comes to the fore a mode of thinking that cultivates ideas based on the relationship between man and man. And this goes so far that even religious life is swallowed up by this legal current, as I would call it. A juridical element enters man's world-picture, and even the cosmology of the time; and this element then remains almost throughout the Middle Ages and can be detected when we study the political views of, say, Augustine or Aquinas. Religious impulses themselves, while remaining what they are, take on legal forms.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This entry of legal forms into man's religious, cosmological views is eloquently documented in the wonderful picture of the Last Judgment that faces us as we enter the Sistine Chapel in Rome. It is at its most monumental here in this picture in which Christ appears as judge over all the world. His status as judge magnificently symbolizes the transition from a purely religious and devotional element to that conception which permeates religious feeling with a legal element — one that is carried over into the theory of man's world government and guidance.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This legal element informs all the social structures of the Middle Ages and much that persists in those of today. When we remove the disguise, we observe the presence of this legal element, and see how it has transmitted to us religious impulses from ancient times. And in modem political systems, right down to their terminology and the workings of their laws, where these go back to the Middle Ages, we perceive how, in the middle period of human experience and in the civilization between East and West, this legal and logical element has made its appearance.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We may say: what was Oriental and theosophical changes into something legal and logical; the <i>sophia</i> of the Orient becomes the <i>logos</i> of the Occident; and from the <i>logos</i> there develops in turn the juridical structure, which then proceeds to reproduce itself.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Throughout the Middle Ages, the legal element also determined social configurations. You need only study the economic ordinances of the period: everywhere you will find that social structures are shaped by something which is permeated by ancient Oriental religiosity and is juridical.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Nowadays, we observe the religious element still active in the less formal human groupings or in those that arise from religious denominations, whereas in the major social structures that are the nations we observe the operation of legal thinking. We notice, however, that with the transition from medieval to modern history the religious element allows itself to be pushed more and more into the background, whilst the legal one becomes increasingly predominant.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">At this stage, the legal element invades economic configurations. What I am now describing can be traced in all its detail in the history of Roman Law. We can see how concepts of property, customs of ownership, and everything economic in fact, has been decisively determined by a social mould of this nature.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yet in the course of human development an independent economic element does assert itself increasingly in the West, the nearer we come to modern times. We can say: in earlier periods, economic activity is completely cradled in religious and legal forms. It is in the West that the economic element first emancipates itself in human thinking.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">You need only examine the economic element as it presented itself to the Phoenicians, and compare it with the economic systems of modern times (though admittedly these are only at an early stage in their development). You will realize the difference: Phoenician economic life is the product of the impulses I have described; Western economic systems have gradually emancipated themselves from them.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Religion and law are thus joined by a third current which, at any rate at first, tends to endow economic conditions with a social configuration of their own. This trend derives from the West, which in turn has adopted, to a greater or a lesser extent, something of what originated in the East and in the region between. We can see, for example, how, in American civilization especially, economic conditions, unaffected by other cultural currents, evolve along their own lines, until trusts and syndicates emerge. We can see, too, how Western man is inclined to attempt to separate economic from religious life, though he is less successful in separating it from what he later absorbed from juridical thinking and feeling. Even so, we are clearly aware how economic configurations, in their social aspect, are gradually struggling free of the intellectual straightjacket that was imposed on them while they were still under the sway of the legal element. Increasingly, we find economic life pure and simple attaining its emancipation. There can then evolve categories that derive from economic life itself.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">At this point, however, we become aware of something that must establish relationships between men and between peoples, yet also lead to conflicts between peoples, and indeed conflicts within nations. We perceive that, in the ancient Orient, the religious element included the legal and economic ones; that the legal element subsequently became more or less distinct, but still contains the economic one, whilst the religious element has become more independent; and that now, in the West, an independent economic life is seeking to develop. Perceiving this, we must also consider how the various cultural patterns of humanity stand in relation to these currents.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And here we may conclude that the theocratic and patriarchal element, with its roots in the East, can really only produce something consonant with an agrarian system, with a social organization based principally on the cultivation of land, on an arable economy. We thus observe a certain correlation between agrarian life and the theocratic element. Moreover, this has its effect on all the social structures of more modern times. In admitting that the theocratic element continues to inform social structures right down to our own times, we must also realize that, because other branches of human activity have come to the fore, they have come into conflict with it, to the extent that in agrarianism, in accordance with the nature of human agriculture, the theocratic element seeks to maintain its position. The correlation exists. A split occurs in it, however, when human activities of another kind seek to assert themselves.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Here we may point to something that can be regarded as a barometer for this aspect of world history. I recommend you some time to study the Austrian parliamentary proceedings of, say, the seventies of the last century. You can observe, sitting in this parliament, men who believe that the old order, with its roots in theocracy and jurisprudence, is intimately associated with agriculture. They are faintly aware of something that later became a great flood, the influx of Western produce — including it is true country produce — deriving from a mode of thought and a social order built on a quite different branch of the economy — on industrialism. Although this is only faintly audible in the various parliamentary speeches, yet we can perceive precisely here, where so much has come together and may be studied, something that illuminates world-wide perspectives.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">To what is here developing in the West, the theocratic mode of thought is less applicable than it is to any other branch of the economy. What is developing is industrialism. Naturally, land cultivation is not included in it. But land cultivation itself is then caught up by social configurations that are distinctly reminiscent of the tutelage of industrial thinking.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Yet industrial thinking today, however much it has developed its technical structures, has still not assumed the social structures appropriate to it. On the one hand, we can see the correlation between the theocratic mode of thought, with its patriarchal essence, and the agrarian system. We can see, for example, that in Germany, right down to the present day, it has been impossible for agrarian thinking and industrial thinking to come to terms properly, for reasons I have indicated. We can see this correlation, therefore; but on the other hand we can also see how everything appertaining to commerce is, in the last analysis, correlated with politics and the law.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">That is why, in the ancient Orient, commerce is a kind of appendage to the patriarchal administration of human affairs. And in the form that is socially significant for us today, commerce really develops alongside the legal element. For what is required between man and man in trade is something that develops particularly in the juridical sphere. In so far as it did develop in the Orient, the way was prepared by certain commandments, transposed into legal terms but definitely regarded as divine. Commerce, however, has achieved its social organization only within the political and legal current in human development. We can say, therefore, that it is the commercial aspect of economic life that has proved to be particularly suited to political systems based on law and legal thinking.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">At the same time, it is true that — because in the whole man everything must be connected with everything else — the political and legal element has also linked up with the industrial sector of economic life. As we go further and further West, therefore, we find that, although men evolve their personal relationship to anything chiefly from industry and the things associated with it, yet they also take over features of commerce. For with social structures as they are today, any undertaking is viewed, in point of fact, in the light of its commercial function in the social order. The industrialist himself sees his own undertaking within a commercial framework, so that in this way too the second current, the legal one, maintains its influence on the economic life of the West.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In other present-day social structures, we can see even more clearly how this politico-legal element continues to exert an influence below the surface among the broad masses of the people. As concomitants of modern technical life, all kinds of social structures have emerged. We need only recall the trade unions. We correctly perceive the nature of these only when we realize that economic conditions have created them. Nevertheless, those who see these things in a vital manner know that, even if the unions emerge from economic conditions — associations of metalworkers, printing trades unions and so on — the way men behave within them, the way they vote, the way they look at things and discuss them, is the parliamentary, political and legal one, the administrative way. It is something that derives from the second current I have described. The ideas appropriate to the third current are still in their infancy, and it still has to take its social patterns from what is old.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">At the present time, therefore, we can see three principal types of social configuration existing side by side, widely differentiated of course in one direction and another. They co-exist in such a way that, we may say, history is deployed in space. And in adapting ourselves to any individual social configuration — an economic association, a political association or a religious community — we do in fact, since each of them is in contact with the others, enter a community where elements that have arisen successively in history now co-exist. They have now become shuffled together in space, and call for our understanding today, for this is the time when mankind must regain, at a higher level, the nai'vet^ from which creativity originally sprang.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It was once proper that primitive economic and political life should be poured into the theocratic mould. At a later period, a duality developed, taking over from earlier times the religious element, and evolving the political and legal element, incorporating economic life. So, today, economic life cries out for independent organization, for vital human ideas that can operate once more in a formative manner, as the vital impulses! of the legal forms of Greece and Rome, and the Orient's religious impulses, once operated. Since these three currents in human development are now mutually diverging, however, we must be able to consider them independently. We must look at the spiritual side of social structures, initially the only effective one; must look at their legal side, which became the dominant one in the Middle Ages; and must look at their economic side, for which a spiritual aspect must also be sought.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This has been put forward simply as a reflection on the antecedents of present-day social structures. It is intended to indicate that, in order to understand these structures, we must enter with real understanding upon the contemplation of those world-wide perspectives to which I drew attention at the beginning of this lecture. To do so, however, we shall have need of vital thought. That this vital thought is needed can be seen on the one hand from the sociological tone of my observations here; but it also emerges from direct contemplation of contemporary life. Everywhere, people are longing to begin to permeate economic life with the vital thought-impulses appropriate to it.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In this respect, of course, educated men of the West are of peculiar interest. In an extraordinarily significant treatise written in England in the very year before the fearful event of the Great War, a notable Englishman pointed out how fundamentally the English way of thinking differs from the German one — in the sense that I indicated at the beginning of my observations today. But he points out something else too: what strikes him is that, within the German-speaking population of Central Europe, there has always existed <i>thought</i>. And he observes that thought is the element in the human soul that in the most intimate way points continually to the great enigmas. Through civilizations that cultivate thought, as the German does, we are confronted again and again with the deepest riddles of man and the cosmos, even if — and here comes the tail-piece characteristic of this man of Western Europe — even if, he says, we perceive the futility of supposing their solution.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Well, it was proper to speak of the “vanity” of a solution when one could only point to the thought that emerged by abstraction from the body of law and logic; for, although as thought it may rise to supreme heights, this still remains a kind of dead thought. Anyone, however, who becomes aware that in our time the souls of men can provide a birth-place for vital thought, will speak, not perhaps of a final solution, but of a path that can lead to our being able to solve, at least for that particular period, the social problems that face us at any time.</span></div><div lang="en-GB" style="background-color: #fffff8; line-height: 22.5px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">For it is probably true that, once thinking about social structures has appeared in human evolution, we cannot speak of being able to solve the social problem all at once, but must rather say that among the evolutionary impulses that must survive into the future are included reflections about social organization. We can say, therefore: It is true that we shall not be able to speak of solutions, but of a vital human thinking that in a conscious way will first perceive the goals and in a conscious way will then move towards the solution of the social riddles of existence.</span></div></div><div style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0083/19220608p01.html">https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0083/19220608p01.html</a></span></div>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118460531969113351.post-8315929361845717782024-03-10T19:14:00.000-04:002024-03-10T19:14:51.787-04:00Faith in the supreme power of the monolithic state is a core societal problem<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt8Pv0Rqk6kWQPmMLEEv-ybt5pEJTlfOk9DjUJxWqMyhCTFt-v9mrzZ1B7xvrcU96tbIaDccQjPn2VlNLYDfFufRAMgndpMkjv3TRoD_9r-rdoUTbsbN6YyPVd7Jf6adgB3ce0C0l3dY3NAi-mQ_tIz_8YXZ74RMWRNQPviCmJ8Qilm4Saz95MySNzbjfD/s1242/428599921_767163771992901_2113769823670914906_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="902" data-original-width="1242" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt8Pv0Rqk6kWQPmMLEEv-ybt5pEJTlfOk9DjUJxWqMyhCTFt-v9mrzZ1B7xvrcU96tbIaDccQjPn2VlNLYDfFufRAMgndpMkjv3TRoD_9r-rdoUTbsbN6YyPVd7Jf6adgB3ce0C0l3dY3NAi-mQ_tIz_8YXZ74RMWRNQPviCmJ8Qilm4Saz95MySNzbjfD/w640-h464/428599921_767163771992901_2113769823670914906_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijxpUEu4jwK_i0p9ZWmtipM5G9e-pTyqEms0fyzbrOhWQZ1cQhEpG6RIk__FQzgfACSqtKi08lh3fsEs20-ldox_kao_C2ty6ZcNroubpSiBKt1oeM5JsJSqMNOZBryilVcZN1SLFQgVYcnozM2jcFeWcTPUNb7L2kzMwvJ4sJARZduI1Q2ZZolf0fT-di/s1217/430062723_10228079180018160_8889548173642407306_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1217" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijxpUEu4jwK_i0p9ZWmtipM5G9e-pTyqEms0fyzbrOhWQZ1cQhEpG6RIk__FQzgfACSqtKi08lh3fsEs20-ldox_kao_C2ty6ZcNroubpSiBKt1oeM5JsJSqMNOZBryilVcZN1SLFQgVYcnozM2jcFeWcTPUNb7L2kzMwvJ4sJARZduI1Q2ZZolf0fT-di/w568-h640/430062723_10228079180018160_8889548173642407306_n.jpg" width="568" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><span style="background-color: #fffff8; color: #000033; text-indent: 24px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>Rudolf Steiner:</i> "In fact the essentials of the social problem are not by any means located where they are usually looked for. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="Pg166" style="background: transparent; color: #336699;"></a>They reside in the fact that there has arisen in the recent development of civilized man, alongside the technology which is so complicating life, a faith in the supreme power of the monolithic state. This faith became stronger and stronger as the nineteenth century wore on. It became so strong and so fixed that it has never been shaken even in the face of the many shattering verdicts on the organization of society that multitudes of people have reached."</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Source: <a href="https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2021/03/liberty-equality-compassion-what-world_11.html">June 11, 1922 GA 83</a></span></p><p><br /></p>Larry Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04668413396581996155noreply@blogger.com0