Behind all the mysteries of the world there lies the great mystery of human karma

         

Karmic Relationships. Lecture 69 of 82

Rudolf Steiner, London

August 24, 1924 [100 years ago today]:

We shall best understand how karma is anchored in the individual and in the evolution of humanity, and how the single facts of karma lend themselves to description, if we begin by considering how human consciousness has evolved since the time when, even in his ordinary life, man had a direct, elementary perception of his karma. To-day it is a fact that in his waking consciousness man knows nothing of his karma. The world in which he lives from awaking to falling asleep prevents him from having any direct knowledge of his karma. But humanity has not always lived in the state of consciousness that is considered normal to-day. In olden times, moreover during the earlier Post-Atlantean periods of evolution, quite different states of consciousness prevailed, even in the everyday life of man. There are three states or conditions of normal consciousness to-day — I have often described them to you. Firstly, there is waking consciousness; secondly, dream-consciousness into which scattered reminiscences of the day's experiences make their way but mingled, too, with influences from the spiritual world; and lastly, sleep-consciousness proper, in which dimness and darkness surround the human soul and consciousness sinks away, so to speak, into unconsciousness.

1. Waking consciousness.

2. Dream consciousness.

3. Sleep consciousness.

It was not always thus. There was a time in man's evolution when the experiences of his everyday consciousness took quite different forms. Let us look back some eight or ten thousand years to the epoch immediately following the Atlantean catastrophe whereby many widespread forms of civilisation and culture were wiped out of existence.

It was an epoch when land began to arise where formerly there had been sea, and sea to cover tracts that had once been land, a time moreover when the earth was destined to pass through a period of intense cold. We discover there a humanity which had survived the Atlantean catastrophe and was also endowed with three distinct kinds of consciousness but of an essentially different character from those of to-day. The prosaic, everyday consciousness of modern man in his waking hours, by which he sees other human beings and the creatures and happenings of nature in sharp outlines — this the men of those ancient times did not possess. They saw the human being without sharp contours, extending in all directions into the Spiritual, spreading out into the aura; and in this aura they saw his soul. Animals too were seen in great and mighty auras; in their case it was the inner processes — digestion, breathing and so forth — that became visible in the aura. Plants reached up with their blossoms into a sort of cloud which permanently surrounded the Earth. Everything was bathed in a dying astral light. The day-consciousness of men who lived directly after the Atlantean Flood was a gradually fading astral vision of the physical world. I say “fading,” for in its power of giving light it was gradually waning away; before the Atlantean catastrophe this power of vision in astral light had been much stronger and more intense.

The awakening to this condition of consciousness — for the entering into it may be compared to an awakening — was very different from the awakening of normal man to-day, where the soul is confronted with chaotic dreams before passing into the waking consciousness of day. When these people of antiquity awakened it was no mere world of dreams that invaded their consciousness; they were within a world of reality of which they knew also that therein they had been among spiritual Beings of the higher Hierarchies and elementary spirit-beings. “Waking up” was for them as it might be with a man of to-day who leaves a place in which he has had many experiences and goes somewhere else where in a sphere of new experiences he remembers the others. When in those ancient times a man entered waking life, he had the new experiences of day; but the remembrances remained with him of how he had been in another world, with other beings, not with the physical human beings who together with the plants and animals are generally around him, but with disembodied human souls living between death and a new birth, and with other beings, too, who never incarnate on the earth.

Man felt that he had departed from beings dwelling in the cosmos and was now placed into another world, into the world of physical experience between birth and death, Nevertheless he still preserved a memory of the spiritual world, the world through which human beings pass between death and a new birth. Vision of the spiritual world still streamed into his already fading astral vision. The condition of consciousness in which man to-day lives among purely physical beings did not then exist at all. In those times men had the following experience — it was not a dream but a picture that was graphic and real: when they passed into the day-consciousness and looked at trees, animals, mountains, rocks and clouds, they felt that this was the same world in which were living those spirit-beings and human souls who were not incarnate on the earth but living in the spiritual world that is man's habitation between death and a new birth. And then there came to these men a concretely real picture of how these beings pass into the trees and rocks while man is in his waking consciousness, how they disappear into the depths of the mountains or rise up to the heights of the clouds, steal away into all the created things of outer physical nature.

On going into a forest, a man would, for example, notice a tree and know that it was the hiding place of a being with whom he had been together in the night. Men then saw clearly, as an Initiate can still see to-day, how spirit-beings made their way into physical habitations as though into their homes. No wonder that all these things passed over into the myths and that men talked of tree-spirits, water-spirits, spirits of clouds and mountains, for they saw their companions of the night disappearing into the mountains, into the waves, into the clouds, into the plants and the trees.

Such was early dawn in the experience of the soul: men saw the spirit-world disappearing into the physical world of sense. They spoke reverently of the great and lofty Spirits as taking rest by day in these physical habitations; they spoke of the lesser, elementary beings who live among men and often among animals, as lurking in the things of nature. They expressed it even roguishly. But whether expressed in sublime and reverent language or in pleasantries, it was exactly what they felt about this condition of early dawn in the soul's experience.

Picture it to yourselves. A human being had been in a spiritual world during the last phase of his sleep; it was when he awoke, and only then, that he clearly remembered having been in this spiritual world. How was this? Why did he only see this spiritual, super-sensible world as he awoke, when the spirits were already disappearing? Why did he only then see this spiritual, super-sensible world in which he lived between death and birth? It was because in those days, when during the last phase of his sleep man was able to see the spirit-world, he experienced yet a third condition of consciousness which conjured up another, an entirely different world before his soul. For it was so that during the time he was “asleep” in his earthly existence and present with power of vision in the spiritual world, he looked back on the evolution of his own karma.

This third state of consciousness experienced by men during the epoch immediately following the Atlantean catastrophe, consisted in a vision of karma. This vision of their own karma was an absolute reality to them.

1. Waking consciousness .... Fading astral vision.

2. Dream consciousness ..... Vision of the spiritual world.

3. Sleep consciousness ....... Vision of karma.

As the three states of consciousness alternate in the life of man to-day, so did ancient man experience successively the three conditions of a darkening astral vision, a vision of spiritual worlds and a vision of karma.

It is a fact that in olden times a vision of karma was a reality of consciousness for man; we can truly say that man once had a consciousness by means of which he beheld the reality of karma.

Evolution then took the following course. First of all this vision of karma ceased in the sleep that was of course no sleep as we understand it. The vision of karma began to grow dim. Of the facts of karma there only remained the knowledge possessed by the Initiates in the Mysteries. That which had once been vision and actual experience became a matter of learning and erudition. The ancient consciousness darkened and there only remained — so it was in the old Chaldean-Babylonian-Egyptian period — the power to look up into the spiritual world. Thus, in the centuries which preceded the Christian epoch, a vision of the super-sensible world still came about quite naturally, but the facts about karma were only taught, they were no longer seen. In the times immediately preceding the Christian era there was still an intense consciousness of the spiritual world, of the world in which man lives between death and a new birth, although the consciousness of karma had faded and was simply not there for humanity in general when the Christian era began. It is therefore understandable that special emphasis was laid upon man's connection with the spiritual world while he is in the disembodied state. Especially in the ancient Egyptian conception we can discern this intensely strong consciousness of the spiritual world, a purified, and clear-sighted consciousness of the world which man enters through the gate of death, when he becomes Osiris. But there is no consciousness any longer of repeated earthly lives.

Then came the gradual approach of the time which has now reached its apex and properly belongs to the humanity of our day. Astral vision has sunk into the prosaic, matter-of-fact consciousness we have in ordinary life between awaking and falling asleep, when we only perceive, for example, that insignificant part of man which is enclosed by his skin and consists in flesh and bones and different vessels; that is all we see in our day-consciousness. One can well understand that people want to array it in all kinds of so-called beautiful clothes in an attempt to give it some importance, since deep down in the sub-consciousness there is a feeling that in itself it is of no significance and belongs, rightly, in the radiant, glowing garment of the aura, of the astral and Ego nature. And when men became aware of the change from the vision that sees the human being in his aura to the vision that sees only the unimportant, bodily part of him, they endeavoured to imitate in the clothing what had once been seen as the aura; so that the fashions of old — if I may put it so — were in a certain sense copies of the aura. As for modern fashions, well, I can assure you they are no such thing!

The consciousness of the super-sensible world has taken on the form of chaotic dreaming. Man dreams it away! And in respect of the karma-consciousness, man is fast asleep. He would have the consciousness of karma if that part of his consciousness which is dreamless between falling asleep and awakening were suddenly to awake. Then he would have the consciousness of karma. Thus in the course of ten thousand years or thereabouts, the great change has taken place. Man “wakes” away — not only “sleeps” away — the spiritual reality in the physical world. He “wakes” away the Spiritual in nature, he “dreams” away the true spiritual world, he “sleeps” away his karma.

This development was necessary, as I have often told you, in order that the consciousness of freedom might arise. But humanity must now again emerge from its present condition of consciousness.

We have heard that what was a natural, albeit a dreamlike state of consciousness in olden times, namely knowledge of the super-sensible world and of karma, gradually grew dim and then became Mystery-teaching, while in the modern age of materialism it has been entirely lost. But in this age the possibility must again be found of building a bridge to consciousness both of the super-sensible world and of karma.

This means, in other words: When we picture to ourselves how in olden times at early dawn, the spirit-beings with whom man lived from falling asleep to awakening hid themselves in trees and clouds, in mountains and rocks, so that in the day man could say to himself when he saw a tree or a rock or a spring: “A spirit has been enchanted into it, a spirit with whom I was together during my sleep-consciousness” — so now, by accepting the new Initiation-Science, we must learn in our present day-consciousness to recognise the spirit and as we look at every rock or tree or cloud or star, or sun or moon, to recognise the spiritual beings in all their diversity.

We must set out on the path that leads to this. We must prepare for the time when it shall be even so. As truly as a man of olden time, on awakening, saw the spirit-beings with whom he had lived during the night steal into the trees and rocks, so truly for modern man shall the spirit-beings steal forth again from tree and rock and spring!

It can really happen, and in this way. A man can lay aside the standpoint of ordinary prejudice in which he has been living, into which even children in the kindergarten are led to-day; he can put aside the prejudices that make him imagine he cannot with healthy human understanding see into the spiritual world. And when the Initiate comes and tells of things of the spiritual world and of events that happen there, then, although he cannot yet himself see, nevertheless by making use of his unprejudiced human understanding, he can be enlightened by the communications that are given concerning the spiritual worlds. This is indeed, and under all circumstances, the right first step for each one to-day.

But difficulties are always cropping up ... Last year, after one of my lectures on how to attain knowledge of the spiritual worlds, a well-meaning paragraph appeared in a newspaper of some standing. We can really call it “well-meaning” and even “respectable” as compared with many vehement expressions of opposition to Anthroposophy to-day! In this lecture I had pointed out that there is no need to become clairvoyant in order to have knowledge of the spiritual world, but that when the seer imparts the knowledge it can be received and understood by the healthy human intellect. I had emphasised this very strongly. The man who wrote the paragraph said in all good faith: “Steiner wants to apply the healthy human intellect to knowledge of the super-sensible world. But so long as the human intellect remains healthy it can certainly know nothing of a super-sensible world; as soon as it does, it is no longer healthy.” I think I have never heard it put so honestly before! For it is after all what everyone is bound to say if he denies to the healthy human intellect a knowledge of the super-sensible world, and if he speaks in the usual way of the boundaries of knowledge. Either he must give up the present point of view, or he must agree with this assertion; no other way is really honest.

A modern Initiate can speak from clear and conscious knowledge of how from every star a spirit-being is released, of how other spirit-beings are released from plants. They come forward to meet us as soon as we pass beyond external sense-observation. Every time we go out into nature we may see all around where nature begins to be a little elemental, kobold-like elementary beings coming out of their stony shelters; if we become friendly with them, especially with the elementary beings of the mineral world, we can see behind them higher Beings who finally lead up to the First Hierarchy, to the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones.

It is a fact that if the exercises given in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment are practised regularly with strong inner energy, selflessness and devotion, they will lead — provided we have the necessary courage — to a new power of perception. We become able to see, for instance, in certain strata of the mountains, whole worlds of elemental beings lying hidden in rock and stone. They come forth on every side, they steal out, they grow big — and we discover that they have only been as it were rolled up and packed tight into these fragments of the elementary world. Beings are present in the mineral kingdom of nature, especially where the earth begins to grow green, and feels so fresh that we can scent its aroma and the aroma of the plants that cover it. But when we enter this sphere of elemental beings, we find that they can indeed inspire us with fear. For the beings we thus encounter are incredibly clever. We must be humble enough to say to ourselves, when we see these little dwarf-like beings emerging from the objects of nature: “How stupid man is! and how clever is this elemental world!” And because many do not like to say this in earnest, do not like even to admit that judged by spiritual perception a little new-born child is much wiser than a learned scholar, therefore these elementary beings withdraw from man's vision. If however we can discern them, the horizon is widened and the foreground opened up to us by these clever, playful little sprites leads away into a background that reaches right up to the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones.

Thus by means of the exercises to which I referred, a man whose consciousness has been made clear and quick by the study of what humanity has learned through modern natural science, can enter this world of elemental beings, and thence a higher world. If by a loving surrender to nature we thus acquire a consciousness that is not “sicklied o'er” by the authority-ridden knowledge that holds the ground to-day, we may gradually rise through Initiation-knowledge to that knowledge which humanity has lost.

And he who eventually attains the faculty to see the tree-spirits come forth from the trees — the same that the ancients saw stealing away in the dawn, and darting out again in the evening twilight — he will also be able, as he approaches a human being, to see emerge from him the figures of his earlier lives together with the evolution of his karma. For this kind of vision leads on to a vision of karma.

In the mineral world, where at first we perceive the clever, mischievous little dwarfs, the vision leads us to the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones.

In the plant world, the vision leads us to the Exusiai, Dynamis and Kyriotetes.

In the animal world (when we see emerge from the animals their own spiritual beings) we are led to a vision of the Archai, Archangels and Angels.

And in the human kingdom the vision leads to karma.

Behind the manifestations of the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones, behind all the other Beings of the higher Hierarchies, behind all the elemental nature-spirits who startle us by their cleverness when they dart forth from the minerals, or who come to meet us with their gentle importunities from the plant world, behind all that comes from the animals — fierce, passionate and violent as that may be at times, and also icy cold — behind all that stands here so to speak as a foreground, we face the overwhelming, the sublime manifestations of karma. For behind all the mysteries of the world there lies, in truth, the great mystery of human karma.

Having thus prepared our hearts and minds in the right way, we shall pass on in the remaining lectures to speak of particular facts of karma.

Continued: Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts

Related post: May your dharma be your karma

Source: Karmic Relationships, August 24, 1924 a.m.

Thinking, Feeling, and Willing in Relation to Karma. Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts #88 — #102

  

Aphorisms from a Lecture to Members Given in London on August 24, 1924.

In the present stage of its evolution the human consciousness unfolds three forms: the waking, the dreaming, and the dreamless sleeping consciousness.

The waking consciousness experiences the outer world through the senses, forms ideas about it, and out of those ideas can create such as portray a purely spiritual world. The dreaming consciousness develops pictures in which the outer world is transformed, as, for instance, when the Sun shining on the bed is experienced in dream as a conflagration in all its details. Or a man's own inner world may appear before him in symbolic pictures, as, for instance, the throbbing heart in the picture of an over-heated oven. Memories also reappear transformed in the dream consciousness. What these memory pictures contain is not borrowed from the world of the senses, but from the spiritual world. However, it is not possible through the memory pictures to penetrate with understanding into the spiritual world, because they are just too dim to rise into the waking consciousness, and because what little may be perceived cannot be really understood.

But it is possible in the moment of waking to grasp so much of the dream world as to become aware that it is the imperfect copy of a spiritual experience which has happened in sleep, but which for the most part evades the waking consciousness. In order to comprehend this, it is only necessary to shape the moment of waking in such a way that the outer world is not conjured all at once before the soul, but that the soul, without as yet regarding the outer world, feels itself surrendered to what has been experienced within.

In the dreamless sleep consciousness the soul passes through experiences which mean nothing more for the memory than an indifferent period of time between falling asleep and waking.

These experiences may be spoken of as non-existent, until the way into them has been opened up through spiritual scientific investigation. But if this takes place, if the Imaginative and Inspired consciousness described in anthroposophical literature be developed, then out of the darkness of sleep the pictures and inspirations belonging to the experience of previous lives on Earth make their appearance. It then becomes possible to survey also the content of the dream consciousness. This cannot be grasped by the waking consciousness; it has to do with the world in which man dwells as a disembodied soul between two earthly lives.

If one learns to know what is hidden behind the dream- and sleep-consciousness in the present age, then the way is clear to the understanding of the forms of human consciousness in past ages. One cannot, however, arrive at this by means of outer investigation; for evidence received from the outer world shows only the after-effects of the experiences of human consciousness in prehistoric times. Anthroposophical literature gives information as to how, by means of spiritual investigation, one may attain to the vision of such experiences.

It is found by means of spiritual research that in ancient Egyptian times man possessed a dream-consciousness which was much more like the waking consciousness than it is at the present day. The memory of the dream experiences passed into the waking consciousness, and the latter provided not only the sense impressions that can be grasped in clearly outlined thoughts, but in addition to these the spiritual that is at work in the world of the senses. Man's consciousness thereby lived instinctively in the world he had left when he incarnated on the Earth — the world he will re-enter when he passes through the gate of death.

Inscribed monuments and other records preserved from ancient times give to those who penetrate them with an impartial mind clear evidence of a consciousness of this kind, belonging to an age of which no outer relics exist.

In ancient Egyptian times the sleep-consciousness contained dreams of the spiritual world, just as the sleep consciousness of the present day contains dreams originating from the physical world. But among other peoples we find in addition another kind of consciousness. The experiences undergone during sleep passed over into the waking consciousness in such a way that there was an instinctive vision of repeated earthly lives. The traditions regarding the knowledge of repeated earthly lives possessed by ancient humanity originate from these forms of consciousness.

In the developed Imaginative consciousness we find again the dream-consciousness which in ancient times was dim and instinctive, only in the Imaginative consciousness it is fully conscious, like our waking life. And through the Inspired knowledge we become aware of the pre-historic instinctive insight which still saw something of the repeated earthly lives.

Modern writers of works on the history of humanity make no note of this transformation in the forms of human consciousness. They would like to believe that on the whole the present forms of consciousness have existed as long as humanity has been on the Earth. And what, in spite of this, does point to other forms of consciousness, viz., the myths and fairy-tales, they would prefer to look upon as the result of the poetic fantasy of primitive man.

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society

88. In the waking day-consciousness man experiences himself, during the present cosmic age, standing in the midst of the physical world. This experience conceals from him the presence, within his being, of the effects of a life between death and birth.

89. In dream-consciousness man experiences, in a chaotic way, his own being unharmoniously united with the spiritual being of the world. The waking consciousness cannot seize the real content of the dream-consciousness. To the Imaginative and Inspired Consciousness it is revealed how the Spirit-world through which man lives between death and birth is helping to build up his inner being.

90. In dreamless sleep-consciousness man experiences, all unconsciously, his own being permeated with the results of past earthly lives. The Inspired and Intuitive Consciousness penetrates to a clear vision of these results, and sees the working of former earthly lives in the destined course — the karma — of the present.

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society

91. The will enters the ordinary consciousness, in the present cosmic age, only through thought. Now, in this consciousness we always have to take our start from something sense-perceptible. Thus, even of our own will, we apprehend only what passes from it into the world of sense-perceptions. In the ordinary consciousness it is only by observation of himself in thought that man is aware of his will-impulses, just as it is only by observation that he is aware of the outer world.

92. The karma that works in the will is a property belonging to it from former lives on Earth. This constituent of the will cannot therefore be apprehended with the ideas of our ordinary sense-existence, which are directed only to the present earthly life.

93. Because they are unable to take hold of karma, these ideas refer what is unintelligible to them in man's impulses of will to the mystic darkness of the bodily constitution, whereas in reality it is the working of past earthly lives.

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society

94. With the ordinary life in ideas transmitted through the senses, man is in the physical world. For this world to enter his consciousness, karma must be silent in his thinking life. In his life of ideation, man as it were forgets his karma.

95. In the manifestations of the will, karma works itself out. But its working remains in the unconscious. By lifting to conscious Imagination what works unconsciously in the will, karma is apprehended. Man feels his destiny within him.

96. When Inspiration and Intuition enter the Imagination, then, besides the impulses of the present, the outcome of former earthly lives becomes perceptible in the working of the will. The past life is revealed, working itself out in the present.

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society

97. For a cruder description it is permissible to say: Thinking, Feeling, and Willing live in the soul of man. For greater refinement we must add: Thinking always contains a substratum of Feeling and Willing; Feeling a substratum of Thinking and Willing; Willing a substratum of Thinking and Feeling. In the life of thought, however, Thinking predominates; in the life of feeling, Feeling predominates; and in the life of will, Willing predominates over the other contents of the soul.

98. The Feeling and Willing of the life of Thought contain the karmic outcome of past lives on Earth. The Thinking and Willing of the life of Feeling karmically determine the man's character. The Thinking and Feeling of the life of Will tear the present earthly life away from karmic connections.

99. In the Feeling and Willing of Thinking man lives out his karma of the past; in the Thinking and Feeling of Willing he prepares his karma of the future.

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society

100. The thoughts of man have their true seat in the etheric body. There, however, they are forces of real life and being. They imprint themselves upon the physical body, and as such ‘imprinted thoughts’ they have the shadowy character in which the everyday consciousness knows them.

101. The Feeling that lives in the Thoughts comes from the astral body, and the Willing from the Ego. In sleep the human etheric body is certainly irradiated with the world of his Thoughts, but man himself does not partake in it. For he has withdrawn, with the astral body the Feeling of the Thoughts, and with the Ego their Willing, out of the etheric and the physical.

102. The moment the astral body and Ego loose their connection during sleep with the Thoughts of the etheric body, they enter into connection with ‘karma’ — with the beholding of the events through repeated lives on Earth. To the everyday consciousness this vision is denied, but a supersensible consciousness can enter into it.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0026/English/RSP1973/GA026_c02a.html

Human inhalation and exhalation throughout the ages: the weaving and working of spiritual beings into the direct processes of history

  

Supersensible Influences in the History of Mankind. Lecture 1 of 6

Rudolf Steiner, September 22, 1922:

In recent lectures I have been trying to describe in some detail the connection of man as a being of body and soul with the spiritual powers of the universe. I should like now to enlarge the picture by describing, in a similar way, certain historical happenings and their connections with spiritual worlds. In our materialistic age, study of the history of the human race is limited to its external aspect; attempts are made to depict what comes to pass in the physical world of sense, but no consideration is given to how the spiritual world plays into the activities and doings of men. In our epoch, human actions in the onflowing course of history are never studied from the point of view of their connection with the beings and powers behind human existence.

Let us think of very ancient times in the evolution of mankind — to begin with, of those epochs described in my Outline Of Occult Science as the Old Indian and Old Persian periods of culture. Naturally, many things that were done by men in those times go to form the content of history. But it must be realized that happenings which then constituted external history were by no means the outcome of fully conscious deliberation on the part of men, for human consciousness was pervaded by a kind of dreamlike clairvoyance. Pictures arose in men's consciousness — pictures interwoven with the activities of spiritual beings who then spurred men on to deeds of one kind or another.

In the epoch of which I am speaking now, the process of inbreathing was extremely important. The fact that through the exercises of yoga, breathing became a conscious process, a process of perception, indicates the significance of the part played by breathing in those ancient times. But the process of inbreathing was more important then than that of outbreathing.

We do not realize today that besides, shall I say, the coarse matter inhaled with the air, all kinds of substances are present, but in a state of exceedingly delicate, fine distribution. Those substances, too, which in present Earth existence are in the solid, mineral condition are contained in the air in fine, delicate distribution, and the human being breathes them in. Now, the peculiarity of these substances in their state of fine distribution through the air is that they have the tendency to assume forms and shapes. Earthly substances too, of course, assume the forms we know as the mineral crystals. I am not here referring to the crystals but to substances finely distributed in the air, or one might also say, in the air-ether, inasmuch as this plays through the air. These substances, too, build forms — forms that do not resemble those of the minerals but of the organs in man. This is a peculiarity of the ether, which pervades the air. When we can observe this ether with Imaginative Knowledge, we see within it floating forms, delicate ether-forms with the shape of lung, or liver, or stomach — at any rate, shapes of the inner organs of man. With trained etheric sight all these forms can be observed in the cosmic ether. In comparison with our physical organs, however, these cosmic forms are usually of gigantic dimensions. We see gigantic ether-forms, with the shapes of liver, lung, and so on, interpenetrating the cosmic space around us.

These forms, floating as it were in space, are breathed in by man — and it is good that this happens. For as man inbreathes these forms which enter into him with the air, they work beneficially and with healing effect upon his organs. Organs, after all, deteriorate as life progresses and, to speak colloquially, they are patched up again by what is inbreathed in this way. We well know how difficult it is for therapy to restore the physical organs, but this other kind of therapy works effectively and continuously upon the human being.

In those very early epochs of history it was possible for men, without special training and merely through their dreamlike clairvoyance, to see these ether forms and, above all, to realize what it means when, together with the finely dissolved, pepsin-like substances in the ether, the form of the stomach, let us say, is breathed in and received by the corresponding organ in the human body. In olden times a very great deal was known about this connection with the delicate organization of the surrounding world, and the further back we go in time, the greater was the knowledge.

This process of breathing in the ether form was not as if air were automatically pumped into a space emptied of air. Think of an ether form that passed into the human being through his inbreathing. Spiritual beings were active as the cosmic forms sank into him. In recent lectures, some public and some given here, we have heard about certain spiritual beings and of their significance for man. I refer to those spiritual beings who have their physical reflection in the Moon and its light: the spiritual Moon-beings. It was these Moon-beings who, in the times of which I am now speaking, were able by way of these cosmic forms to pass from the cosmos into the human being. So that in those ancient epochs of historical evolution on the Earth, men drew the spiritual Moon-cosmos into themselves in the process of inbreathing, stimulating the spiritual Moon-beings to activity within them.

What I am now telling you was the content of a science and was a body of wisdom to which much study was devoted in the most ancient Mysteries. For the initiates of these Mysteries knew that human beings drew the spiritual Moon-cosmos into themselves in this way. The Initiates knew, too, that this took place chiefly during the night, during sleep. But because in those olden days men were endowed with dreamlike clairvoyance, living in a state of consciousness midway between waking and sleeping, it was possible to reckon with the fact that these spiritual Moon-beings entered into human beings during certain periods of the day-consciousness. And the leadership given to mankind by the initiates of the ancient Mysteries aimed at gaining control of what passed into the human being in this way through the inbreathing, so that men might be able to utilize the forces of these Moon-beings in their own deeds.

You must realize that in those ancient times there was no such thing as intellectual instruction of the kind that is current today. Nevertheless the initiates of the Mysteries had much more potent ways and means of guiding and leading the peoples than was the case later on — and, above all, than is the case today. In the earliest period of human evolution the initiates had developed the art of conversing with the Moon-beings breathed in by man during the night and during the clairvoyant periods of his waking consciousness, and of causing these Moon-beings to inculcate something very definite into humanity. Inasmuch as the Moon-beings, via the inbreathing, became their helpers, the initiates of the ancient Mysteries were able, in this way, to give wonderful leadership to mankind.

Only the most inadequate conceptions exist today of these deeply mysterious processes which had their outward image in all manner of ceremonial rites — processes which were used in olden times in order, from the centers of the Mysteries, to lead and guide humanity.

As evolution proceeded, a different age came to birth. Darkness gathered over the old clairvoyance, with the result that the special processes, which the initiates had been able to make elective in the days of ancient India and ancient Persia, presented greater and greater difficulties. Up to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, of course, and for a few centuries afterwards, remnants of the old clairvoyance persisted, particularly in certain regions. But it was already dim, and by the second or third century B.C. the procedure of which I have spoken could no longer be as effective as it had been in the earliest times of human evolution after the Atlantean epoch. The initiates of the Mysteries were more and more at a loss when they desired to make use of the power of the Moon-beings in the guidance of mankind. If I am to describe what then took place between the initiates and the Moon-beings, I will say the following: When an initiate of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch approached one of these Moon-beings with the object of charging this being, when he had entered into a man via the inbreathing, to instill this or that into the soul, the Moon-being would often reply to the initiate: During the hours of day-consciousness we no longer have any dwelling-place on the Earth; we find a dwelling-place only during the hours of night.

But the initiates would have regarded it as unlawful thus to influence men on Earth during the hours of night-consciousness by way of the Moon-beings, for this would have meant handling them like automatons. Such procedure would have given rise to what is described in certain terminology as an art of black magic, and with this the good initiates would, naturally, have nothing whatever to do. So it was deeply significant for them when the Moon-beings who were to be their helpers in the guidance of humanity made answer: During the hours of the day-consciousness we have no dwelling-place on the Earth. The initiates of these Mysteries were thus faced with the danger of being without helpers in the methods they had used for leading mankind. On the other hand, what came into the world with the Christ Mystery was not yet in existence. There was an intermediate period between that of the ancient clairvoyance, when the procedures I have described were possible, and the epoch that changed the whole character of the workings of the Spiritual on the Earth — the epoch inaugurated by the Mystery of Golgotha.

The Egypto-Chaldean epoch, following that of ancient Persia, provides the best illustration for study of this intermediate period. The initiates among the Chaldean peoples hardly knew at all how to tackle the dilemma of which I am now speaking. In a certain respect they were extraordinarily helpless and they sought what they needed for the guidance of men through somewhat external means, namely, through their star lore, their art of astrology. For what the Chaldean initiates learnt through their astrology could be experienced in quite a different way through the Moon-beings who passed into the bodies of men via the inbreathing. Now, however, the Moon-beings were saying: There is no dwelling-place for us on the Earth. And so the Chaldean initiates substituted a power of external observation for the inner power which in former days had been imparted by these beings.

The initiates of Egypt set to work quite differently. They sought for ways and means whereby dwelling places might be provided on Earth for the Moon-beings. For beings, therefore, who according to the eternal laws of world evolution no longer had their appointed dwelling places on the Earth — for these beings the initiates of the Egyptian Mysteries sought to provide shelter. And the priests of the Egyptian Mysteries, the Egyptian initiates, did indeed succeed in providing dwelling places on the Earth for the Luciferic Moon-beings. By peopling the burial places with mummies, the Egyptian priests found the solution to the secret of enticing the Moon-spirits to come down to the Earth, although according to the laws of world evolution this was no longer their allotted role. Mummified human beings, mummified corpses, became dwelling places for the Luciferic Moon-beings. In earlier lectures I have spoken from a different point of view of what the mummified corpse signified, and I refer to it now from the aspect of cosmological history. Surrounded by their rows of mummies, the Egyptian initiates were able to make observations that were no longer possible in a natural way. In earlier times it was merely a matter of being together with men and clairvoyantly observing their breathing. In substitution for this a method was found for bringing about what had once happened in the natural process of inbreathing. Places were established to which these spirits could descend — the spirits who now had no dwelling-place within humanity during the hours of day and would otherwise have been obliged to wander homeless about the Earth. Under such conditions they could have played no part in the affairs of the Earth, and places were therefore established where they could, as it were, be given shelter. These places were the mummies, the mummified corpses of men. The mummies became the dwelling places of the Moon-beings. Standing with full understanding before the mummies, the Egyptian Initiate studied what the initiates of earlier times had studied from life in its fresh and natural state. The Egyptian initiate observed the activities of the Moon-beings in the dwelling places that had thus been provided for them, and by this means he became aware of what these Moon-beings were able to inculcate, in manifold ways, into the historical development of humanity.

Paradoxical as it will appear to the materialistic intellect of today, it is nevertheless true that if we wish to understand historical development during the Egyptian epoch of culture we must study not merely the external monuments but that eternal chronicle of worlds which can be read with the vision of Imagination and Inspiration, and in which are recorded the deeds of those spiritual Moon-beings to whom no outer monuments were erected and who left no written scripts. But the achievements of the men to whom the monuments were erected — these achievements were inspired through the work of the Initiates with the Moon-beings in the mummies, inspired by the spiritual Moon-beings for whom, during the hours of day-consciousness, dwelling places on Earth had been provided in the mummies. We can, in truth, only understand the origin of what is recorded in the ancient scripts when we are able to deck out, in the life of the cosmos, those beings who tell us: “During the third, second, and first millennia before Christ we could come down to the Earth only because the priest-initiates of Egypt provided dwelling places for us in the mummies.” From these Moon-beings we can learn the intentions behind deeds that go to form the history of that epoch.

To understand man in his true being, we must turn to the stars and to the spiritual hierarchies, as I said in the last two lectures given here. But to understand the historical development of humanity we must be able to study, as well, the spiritual powers that play into this development. We must study the meaning of a phenomenon as striking as that of the mummification of the human corpse in ancient Egypt. The inner purpose of things often regarded by modern materialism merely as curious customs can be understood when we are able to investigate them by means of spiritual science.

Once upon a time the mummies were the homes of Gods, dwelling places of Moon-beings who were now Luciferic beings. In the Greco-Roman epoch, the fourth Post-Atlantean epoch, conditions were somewhat different. The process of inbreathing now ceased to play the predominating part. Inbreathing retained its significance, certainly, but it was no longer as important as it had once been. Inbreathing and outbreathing were now of equal significance for the human being. The Greek initiates were well aware of this fact, and the wonderful balance between inbreathing and outbreathing, which was characteristic of the Greeks, enabled their art to become the model to which history always points. It would not have been in keeping with the nature of the Greeks to receive the Moon-beings specifically by way of the inbreathing. Through the work of their initiates the Greek people were able to make effective those beings who hovered — half flying, half floating — in the air, and who liked best to be cradled in the condition of balance between inbreathing and outbreathing. Looking back to those ancient times of Greek development when the real inspiration was given for what manifested later on in a more external form — looking back to the times when forms of primitive grandeur were the source and wellspring of plastic art, of the Greek art of tragedy and of philosophy, we find that the priest-initiates of the Mysteries in their guidance of humanity were able to make use primarily of those beings who cradled themselves in the condition of balance between man's inbreathing and outbreathing. We can have no real knowledge of the Apollonian art, or of Orphic wisdom, unless we realize that their inspiration came from dæmonic beings moving within this condition of balance between inbreathing and outbreathing. The strings of Apollo's lyre were tuned in accordance with what could be observed of those beings who lived between the Moon sphere and the Earth sphere, who liked best to hover, to dance, as it were, on the strings of the cosmos which had been woven into the balance between inbreathing and outbreathing. The dance of the daemons of the air — this was mirrored in the tuning of the strings of Apollo's lyre.

Thus we must look into the spiritual world if we would gain knowledge of what has come to pass in external history. Think of what I said some time ago, namely, that scansion, the development of the art of ancient recitative, of the hexameter, is based on the relation between the rhythms of breathing and blood circulation in man. Remind yourselves of what I once said in a series of lectures about the development of the hexameter. The study that led to the creation of the hexameter was, for the Greek initiates, full of concrete realities. As we breathe in we receive the moving waves of cosmic life into ourselves, and adjust them to our inner being. As we breathe out we impart to the rhythm of the breath something of the vibration of the pulse in the circulating blood. Thus we can say: The external world pulsates into our inbreathing. In our outbreathing our own blood pulsates. And so a Greek Initiate who was schooled in these things was able to observe how in and around the human being, in his ether-body and astral body, cosmic rhythm and the rhythm of the blood were meeting and intermingling, and how denizens of the air were moving and dancing in these rhythms.

Such was the study to which Homer applied himself when he was developing the hexameter, in particular, to its highest perfection of form — for the hexameter is born from the connection between the human being and the world.

Many things become clear for the first time when we study history with the eye of knowledge permeated by art, and with the eye of art permeated by knowledge. I have no desire to speak about the materialistic mentality of today, which instead of pondering deeply about the origin of, let us say, the “Songs of Homer” finds a way out by saying that Homer never existed. That is the simplest way out of the difficulty, from the standpoint of modern materialism. It is not possible for materialistic science to understand Homer, and according to a mentality that has become so vain and self-glorious in our times, anything that is incomprehensible cannot possibly exist. Things that cannot be explained by the academic mind do not exist! Homer is incomprehensible — therefore he never existed. He cannot be explained, so he doesn't exist ... but after all, surely there is a more sensible explanation than this!

In museums everywhere you will find sculptured heads of Homer. I am not saying that the likeness is particularly good, but when we look at this blind Homer, whose eyes, in spite of blindness, have such a mysterious expression and whose head has a striking pose, the portrayal is good enough to make us feel perhaps he blinded himself voluntarily — I am, of course, speaking metaphorically — perhaps he deliberately made himself blind in order that sight should not disturb a certain kind of listening; for Homer listens. Without the distraction of sight, he experiences the interplay between the pulsation of the cosmos and the pulsing of human blood, the pulsing of the human ether body, where the beings of the air carry out their dance of harmony and melody. In a kind of whirring ... as when one listens to the whirring of a swarm of flies ... Homer heard the hexameter and, undisturbed by sight or the ordinary clear light of day, it is as if his ears were touching at the same time as hearing.

Look at the heads of Homer from this point of view. The form of marble or plaster gives the impression of hearing that is also touching, touching that is also hearing; life of a very special kind is present here. The head-nature seems to flash from within through the blinded eyes. There is something that seems not only to hear, but actually to touch the sounds, to detain them, in order to lead over into scansion by the human voice what was drawn in from the cosmos. So it was, in days when the predominating factor was not the inbreathing or the outbreathing but the interplay between them. Contemplation of the head of Homer should give rise to the eager question: How did he breathe? This head is undisturbed by external light, is wholly given up to the mysteries of the breathing. To have this feeling about the sculptured heads that can be seen in many places would be more intelligent than to argue away the existence of Homer.

The reasons produced by scholars when they argued away the existence of Homer were so subtle and deceptive that even Goethe was a little disturbed. The German philologist Wolf was the first to argue away the existence of Homer, and even Goethe could not entirely put aside his subtle, plausible contentions. And although Goethe always had a feeling of horror at the thought that Homer had been demolished by Wolf, he was nevertheless a little shaken by the extremely astute arguments put forward. Modern cleverness is capable of anything! On this subject I have always said: Modern men are clever, extraordinarily clever and astute; but cleverness does not necessarily mean that they really know the world.

Hermann Grimm set to work ... not to bring Homer to life again, for he had not really been demolished by Wolf — all that had been demolished was a picture that had grown up in the course of time ... Hermann Grimm set to work as follows. He said: We will not, to begin with, concern ourselves with Homer, nor with Wolf who is supposed to have demolished him, but we will turn to the Iliad itself. Let us read this epic of Homer, not as a philologist reads it but as a human being reads it. Let us take the first Book, the first Song, and try to discover by what kind of art the introduction, the continuation, and the further development were created. Then pass to the second Song; again we find a remarkable unity in the composition and realize with what a wonderful feeling for art each Song is built on the preceding one. Hermann Grimm pursued this method of study through the whole of the Iliad and it did not fail. Then he said: It would indeed be strange if Homer had never existed, if one man had written a portion of the Iliad, a second man another portion, a third man another, and so on, and then such fragments had merely been put together — as people will probably one day say of Faust, because contradictions have been found in it. It would indeed be strange if a work like the Iliad with its unbroken uniformity of composition had been compiled from all kinds of fragments discovered here or there.

Truly, it is necessary in studying history to picture the weaving and working of spiritual beings in the happenings and proceedings of history. Anthroposophical spiritual science must also have this aim, and I have tried today to pursue it in respect of very early periods and up to the time of Greek culture. In the lecture tomorrow we shall see how in the present age, since the Mystery of Golgotha, spiritual beings have been manifestly working in human deeds which have become increasingly free and we shall learn what we ourselves have to do in order to find help as did the Egyptian initiates when they provided shelter for certain Moon-beings. Something not altogether dissimilar may have to be brought about, but out of a true understanding of the spirit.



Source: http://www.webcitation.org/5yMMdxFbo

The Lord is my refuge and my fortress

   

The Archangel Phanuel

  the protector of those seeking initiation  

Psalm 91

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.

With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

Anthroposophy and the Future of Humanity

 

Rudolf Steiner, February 24, 1911, Zürich

[N.B.: This is a sad little wrinkled balloon of a translation.]

Spiritual science or “theosophy” is widely unknown even today. You may probably hear some judgement and criticism about this spiritual science, but only few people really deal with it. One surely knows a little about it in the circles of our educated people. Those few people deal most seriously and in a quite scientific sense with the questions of the spiritual life, take the most elementary phenomena of this spiritual life as starting point and go up then to the highest questions which the human being can put to himself, to the questions of death and life, of the development of the whole of humanity, even questions of the evolution of our planet or planetary system. Such questions find a widespread prejudice by which people think to be entitled not to get themselves into such attempts. Since what, they mean, can one suppose behind it? Any sect based mainly on dilettantish ideas.—They know very little that the human beings who belong to this supposed sect study the important questions with scientific seriousness and thoroughness after methods and authorities that are just quite unknown to most of our present educated people. They do not suspect that talking about spiritual science as something sectarian is equally reasonable as if one considered chemistry or botany as something sectarian.

Since one believes, scientific methods are not at all possible compared with these questions, and believes to be offhand about such attempts. Today, indeed, one admits that one has to do preliminary studies in chemistry or botany, has to go to the resources to understand something of them, but one does not admit that it is necessary or even possible to do that concerning the highest questions of the spiritual life of humanity. Indeed, one is in the case of spiritual science still in another situation than compared with chemistry or botany. These sciences treat things and questions that concern special fields of life and one can make use of that which they give within these special relations of life. However, we have to regard that which is done with scientific thoroughness in the area of spiritual science as questions of big significance for the human future, for our whole life praxis, for the firmness and confidence of our whole life.

If one considers the question of the significance of spiritual science for the future, I have to point with some words to the whole being of this spiritual science at first. This is necessary, although I already had the honour several times to speak about these questions and about the method of spiritual science in this city. If there is talk of science today, one has that science in mind which is based on our senses and on everything that one can attain with the reason, which is bound to the outer instrument of the brain. The question always originates concerning the highest areas of existence how far one can penetrate with such a science into these areas which tell something about the questions: how is the nature of life? How is the nature of death? Which is the nature of humanity generally and its development?

Spiritual science argues that there is not only an outer science, which is connected with a particular level of human cognitive faculties, but that these cognitive faculties are capable of development, so that—if we only want it—we can unfold higher cognitive faculties than those are which observe in the sensory-physical world with the senses and understand with the reason bound to the brain. As well as the present science points to the experiment, to attempts with outer, mechanical means, spiritual science points to an attempt which can be done solely with the means of our soul itself. Our soul behaves in the normal life in a particular way. However, one can change this way, so that we can also put questions to the spiritual world as we put them to the phenomena of nature with experiments. Not with outer attempts and tools we can penetrate into the spiritual world, but while we wake slumbering soul forces. There are particular soul exercises—they are discussed in detail in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds?— intimate performances of our soul which can strengthen our will, so that we can perceive contents in our soul or by our soul where we perceive nothing in the so-called normal life. Then we experience moments by such soul exercises that you can compare, on one side, with falling asleep, that are quite different on the other side. What do we experience at first if we fall asleep? We experience if we observe only externally that the outer impressions stop and, finally, unconsciousness spreads out in us.

There that technique to which spiritual science refers shows that we have to talk of unconsciousness in this case of falling asleep only because we cannot develop so strong forces if all outer impressions stop, that the soul feels its own being and that it cannot establish a relationship to its environment in which it is then and which is spiritual. If now the human being opens himself to particular contents of thought and feeling, he can also feel as a being if all outer impressions are quiet. Then he is in the same situation as someone is who sleeps, and, nevertheless, his situation is radically different. He can exclude all outer impressions consciously and by his will and everything that speaks, otherwise, in the wake state to him by the senses and the reason. Then he is not unconscious but lets the full contents of the soul life light up.

I can only indicate the soul exercises. With the usual mental pictures, we can never develop such strong forces. Another kind of mental pictures is necessary to put those forces in motion in our soul; we can call them symbolic ones. We can open ourselves to a picture so that we do not admit outer impressions in our soul, quieten our recollections, and free the soul as it were. I imagine, for example, a rose or something else, and I let this symbol come to life in myself as the only image to which I dedicate myself. This is not appropriate to deliver usual, physical truths; however, it can work like a seed in our soul. As a seed which is planted in the earth stretches its roots in all directions, this image sends out its different ramifications into the whole soul life, and this image grows in us. Indeed, if we want to do such intimate soul exercises, our soul life must have a steady hold; we are not allowed to be dreamy, fantastic, confused people. We have to know for sure what we do and that we have such an image in our soul.

Let us imagine, for example, three cases of actions out of compassion, and from the comparison [of the actions] we try to develop not an entire image of thought but an entire image of feeling of compassion. Now we try to forget everything that actions of compassion are in our world and let this impulse solely be active in our soul. Then we have such a sensation, from which the roots go out to rich, full contents of the soul. Thereby we can reach that moment gradually which can be compared with falling asleep, and which is, nevertheless, quite different from it. The everyday impressions, joy and sorrow, all thoughts have to sink down. Somebody who wants to become a spiritual researcher has to exclude all outer impressions while he has developed his will with such inner experiences. He has to establish that condition which the soul experiences if the body is in the state of unconsciousness. Then soul states are created in which quite different states of consciousness exist where the soul positions itself quite different to the outside world where it is for the soul like for a blind-born who has seen no colours and forms and sees them after an operation. In this clairvoyant state he sees something else than that which surrounds him, otherwise, in the physical world; he receives new impressions from the spiritual world which forms the basis of our physical-sensory world.

Then we may say, if the human being falls asleep in the evening, the whole human being does not exhaust himself in that which lies in the bed, but the core of the human being, the spiritual-mental, has left this outer cover. This core has no organs in the normal consciousness, but it has received spiritual-mental organs by the soul exercises characterised just now by which he feels moved into a new world. The real experience in the spiritual-mental is thereby given; a new world of observation is thereby given, and then from these elementary facts of spiritual experience we ascend to the highest facts. Now there are such single persons who do exercises full of renunciation to develop their souls as tools. If then these persons tell some people who are interested in such matters what they have found out in other states of consciousness, these believe it. With someone who becomes familiar with theosophy only cursorily it is comprehensible if he believes this, because if one knows only that which exists on the surface of life, it is exceptionally difficult to form an idea of how this spiritual science is practised. Hence, it is comprehensible that most people misjudge it. I have to emphasise this. One can understand that such persons only believe those revelations of the spiritual world that one attains in the described way. For most educated people it immediately suggests itself to regard such persons as daydreamers, romanticists, and sectarians.

However, one misjudges a particular fact: the developed soul, the developed other consciousness is necessary to do research in the spiritual world, to discover the spiritual truths. Even if today few people can only develop their souls as tools to behold into the spiritual world with them and then to inform what they have grasped there, it is enough for those who approach the matter with a certain sense of truth and with impartiality.

The trained soul of the spiritual researcher is necessary for discovering such truths; for understanding the facts, only unprejudiced logic is necessary. If such things are informed, they agree for everybody who wants to think in much higher degree with the whole life than any other philosophy does. Hence, everybody can check the probative force of that which the spiritual researcher informs. However, it is not enough to familiarise yourself with the results, because the logic and the whole system of concepts of the soul development to ascend to the higher worlds is subtle and strict. You can say that more strict demands are put on logic and comprehension than in the usual science in any field. However, if one does not want to judge the matters in a breath, but is anxious in the whole soul to settle in the way of this new imagination to understand what arises about the highest questions of existence, then this settling does not possibly work like suggestion, but the soul can pursue it consciously. Every soul can familiarise itself in those areas where the highest questions of human existence, of time and eternity are treated.

Does this proclamation of spiritual science or theosophy have any meaning for the human civilisation of today and the future? One has to put this question. Since one could argue, there can be people who are interested in such things because of certain longings, but they are mavericks who prefer to contemplate in their rooms, but would have nothing to do with the big processes in the human civilisation.—One cannot say this if one surveys the course of human development with understanding so that just the time at which we live now faces our soul after its being.

Our time has developed from that which humanity has experienced from prehistory up to now. From the present developmental level again the experiences of the future human beings develop. If we look back at the human states of consciousness, you realise that you are prejudiced if you believe that the whole soul condition, the way of thinking, the way how he forms ideas and concepts of his environment, that the states of the human consciousness are almost the same at all times. That is not the case. Indeed, one applies the word development to the transformation of the outer forms, but seldom to the human soul life, and just concerning the human soul life is the concept of development something that points us deeply to the most important questions of humanity.

The spiritual-scientific investigation of the human soul, and the conclusions which you can draw from it, show that. Since in ancient times the human consciousness lagged far behind, it was different from that of today so that we can speak of times of the human development at which the human soul lived even in a kind of clairvoyant state of consciousness. However, it was not in such a way as it is with the today's trained spiritual researcher. The clairvoyant state of the today's trained spiritual researcher takes place with full consciousness that he also has in the normal life. That was not the case with the old clairvoyant. He had a more dreamy clairvoyance, a dreamlike consciousness. It was in such a way that we can say, what the human being experiences today in his dreams is an atavistic remainder of the ancient state of consciousness. While today dream images mostly mean nothing particular for the reality of the outside world, those old states of consciousness were images that you can compare, indeed, to our dream images, nevertheless, they were different from them. The images that were often symbolic were the contents of an old clairvoyant consciousness, which was not penetrated with modern intellectuality. In the soul of the prehistoric human beings, these images surged up and down. The prehistoric human beings possibly did not always have such pictorial consciousness. Wake states and sleeping states also alternated, but while these merge into each other with us and a mostly meaningless dream state is between them, the third state of consciousness existed in ancient times, the state of such a pictorial consciousness, in which our sensory images did not surge up and down in the soul but symbols as art has them at most in weakened form.

These symbols surged up and down with full liveliness in these three states of consciousness, and they were not like our dream images that we must not refer them to a reality, but they were clearly directed upon a reality, so that the outer reality was recognised with them, even if only in symbols. One experienced a spiritual world that was behind the sensory world. Thus, the prehistoric human beings had a picture consciousness, so that they did not need our today's intellectuality and wisdom of the wake consciousness. For it, they beheld into a spiritual world in the pictures of a dreamlike clairvoyance.

Now one may ask, is there anything in the outer world that proves that to some extent what you spiritual researchers behold there, if you look back at prehistory? Is there anything that can deliver a document that once humanity could behold into the spiritual worlds?—Oh, there is such a thing! However, the human beings have to learn to interpret this thing in right way. What is preserved of the prehistoric attempts to penetrate into the inner being of the things? With the prehistoric humanity, we look in vain for a science as we have it today, but legends and myths have been preserved. Now the present enlightened human being says that this corresponds to the childish imagination of the ancient humanity; we have entered into the manhood of science now. However, someone who delves into the myths of the various peoples experiences something else than such a superficial rater, he experiences that these images are associated in miraculous way everywhere [with the spiritual life of humanity]. If one penetrates into these images, deep connections with this spiritual life of humanity and its culture present themselves. One gets more and more respect for the wonderful arrangement of the pictures in the ancient myths and legends, so that you often say to yourself, what are all philosophies of the present compared with the wonderful pictures that the myths have preserved. They agree all over the world and they comply with that which the spiritual researcher can find with his method in the spiritual world, so that we have to ask ourselves, where from do these old images come which can be found all over the world?.

A conscientious research finds the explanation only if it supposes that these things are remains of an ancient clairvoyance. One judges wrong if one says, the myths of the ancient peoples have arisen from childish imagination. No, we can understand them only if we assume that our ancestors beheld with their clairvoyant picture consciousness [into the spiritual world].

Still about 1800 numerous persons had a notion of the fact that there was such pictorial wisdom and that the wonderful spiritual voices from the myths of the various peoples tell of a primeval wisdom. At that time they were still clear in their mind that the peoples which one regards as decadent today have only descended from a higher point of view that, however, everything that humanity has as culture today goes back to primeval times where the knowledge of the spiritual world was still alive.

There were serious researchers who were convinced of this fact. If we ask Aristotle, Plato, and the other Greek philosophers, we find numerous passages where they speak about the fact that any science goes back to the primeval wisdom that the gods had given the human beings. Plato speaks of human beings of the Cronus age who took over the old wisdom directly from the spiritual world. The spiritual researchers do not only say to us that this was in such a way, but also, why this ancient clairvoyance gradually disappeared from humanity.

There we come to the important law that you can also observe in nature that is especially obvious, however, in the spiritual life of humanity: the fact that for the development of a certain force at first another force has to withdraw. The ancient human beings who could behold in certain states of their consciousness into a spiritual world did not yet have our intellect; they had no science, no civilisation in our sense. Intellectuality had only to develop. Development is something that leads us to the deepest questions of the soul life. Our intelligence, the intellectual condition that we have today, where we completely rely on the sensory perception and on the reason bound to the brain, could enter in the general human consciousness only while the old clairvoyance withdrew for a while, was drowned by the intellectual consciousness.

Somebody who knows something of the basic character of the Middle Ages knows that the peculiar spiritual development of the Middle Ages can be explained if one knows that the Middle Ages were the time in which gradually the old clairvoyance disappeared. The biggest impulse in the human development, the Christ impulse that will once induce humanity to take up clairvoyance completely had the task to make the old clairvoyance withdraw. Thus, a peculiar phenomenon appears with the advent of the new time: the old clairvoyance withdraws, only the traditional truths remain which one had gained with the old clairvoyance. Thus, the branches of knowledge propagated in the Middle Ages which were gained on the basis of the old clairvoyance. However, one did not know that, one had only understood the ideas which were found in primeval times, yes, one applied them even quite wrong at the end of the Middle Ages.

One example: Aristotle was already at the turning point of the intellectual age, but he still saw back in dark notion at the time in which the human being knew something by clairvoyance, at the processes of human imagining and feeling, at the human evolution, and he describes this. He did no longer have the ancient clairvoyance; he had the tradition only. There he said, if the human being is active in his soul, in his wake state, we deal with the physical body at first, and this has its organs. However, Aristotle would still have been reluctant to regard the material body as the only member of the human being. He pointed to a higher member that has its centre near the heart, and from this supersensible member certain currents originate which go up especially to the brain and spread as supersensible currents in the human body. One still called these currents “cold light” in the Middle Ages that pours forth in particular into the brain to invigorate its physical organs. Still in the Middle Ages people spoke of this cold light which spreads out where the physical heart is.

One can understand Aristotle only if one knows that that which he lets originate from the heart is thought as supersensible currents that he does not mean physical strands, organs, or the like. Now the Middle Ages came. The people lost the understanding of the old clairvoyance. They read Aristotle, and through the Middle Ages the faith in Aristotle was like a faith in the Bible. Aristotle was the basis of natural science, of medicine, of everything. Everything was based on Aristotle. However, people had no idea of that which, actually, Aristotle had meant. Thus, a peculiar mental picture could develop just with the most religious supporters of Aristotle, with those who believed bravely in him, but did no longer understand him. Since—as everybody knows—it is not necessary that everything is understood that one believes. Mental pictures could develop so that one did not mean supersensible currents that originate in the heart but sensory strands. Thus, Aristotle's believers believed that from the heart the nerves originate.

Now the great researchers and thinkers came at the end of the Middle Ages, like Giordano Bruno, Galilei and others who designed a new worldview on the basis of the worldview of Copernicus. However, Aristotle's believers were not inclined to accept this new worldview simply. Galilei and Giordano Bruno pointed to the real world of the senses because now the time began in which the human beings should develop their knowledge by sensory observation and intellect. There it happened that Galilei led a friend who was a good Aristotle believer in front of a corpse and showed him that the nerves originate not from the heart but from the brain. The friend saw this and said, yes, it seems to be in such a way, as if the nerves originate from the brain, but I read something different with Aristotle, and if a contradiction exists, I believe Aristotle.

This time was ripe to dismiss what of the ancient clairvoyance was handed down as tradition, because it was completely misunderstood. At that time, there was a special impetus of the intellectual development. Many physical concepts lead back to the way of thinking of Galilei with which we still work today. The material, mechanical thinking was directed immediately upon the outer sensory world and upon its intellectual understanding. The age of intellect was dawning in scientific areas, and now we can observe from that time up to now repeatedly how the human being wants to conquer this area of the human soul life whose most important part was the conquest of the outer reality with the intellect. The following shows a particularly drastic expression how one could think solely materially in the Middle Ages, but still had the old tradition.

None of the old clairvoyant wise men would have come up with the idea that the spiritual world is “on top,” that there is a blue firmament, which encloses our world. The old clairvoyants did not think this way; one only misunderstood them later. There one pointed to the fixed starry sky as a kind of bowl that surrounds our world. It was a great moment, when Copernicus pulled the rug out from under the feet of the human beings as it were. It was a great moment when Gordano Bruno expanded this “bowl” into the infinity of the physical space. However, Giordano Bruno put something else beside the sensory picture. We need only to call a few words of Giordano Bruno in mind and we realise that he accomplished the great action to put a spiritual picture beside this sensory picture. He said that everything that surrounds us in the sensory world is rooted in the thoughts of the universal spirit, which manifest in the outer forms, in that which we perceive with the senses. If Giordano Bruno points to the endless cosmic space and looks for the being of the things manifest to the senses, this was for him, nevertheless, nothing but the embodiment of the thoughts of the universal spirit. Giordano Bruno calls the human mental pictures shades of the divine thoughts, not shades of the outer things. If Giordano Bruno turns the physical view to the outer world, the idea of the universal spirit enters into his soul mysteriously, and the human concepts are not shades of the outer sensory things but the thoughts of the universal spirit.

It is very important that we face Giordano Bruno as a great spirit who points to the cosmic space but also strongly to that which connects the human soul with the primeval spirit. You can compare this attitude already with the intelligence and the attitude of the today's science which was still fertilised, however, by the traditions of the old clairvoyance. One may say, a shade of the old clairvoyance and of the relationship with the divine-spiritual world still lived in Giordano Bruno. However, to us only the picture remained which he designed of the outer sensory world, and no more that which was still alive in him at that time. The picture of the old clairvoyance that lived in him disappeared. You only need to pursue the development without prejudice up to now, then you realise that more and more the mere intellect spread in the normal consciousness.

Hence, what has one to say about our age? There one may say that we live so surely in the age of intellect, of reason and its application to the sensory world. Now one has to investigate the peculiar effect of the intellect in the sense of spiritual science compared to the clairvoyant knowledge. This differs substantially from the knowledge of the intellect and the sensory observation. The difference consists in the fact that any clairvoyant knowledge that anyhow enables the connection of the human being with the spiritual world works on our mood, and from it, a feeling of the position of the human being in the whole universe arises. The clairvoyant knowledge is powerful, it pours sensations and feelings in our souls, it satisfies our longings, strengthens our hopes, kindles our love. One cannot imagine that the human being participates in the supersensible knowledge without changing it into feeling and sensation. Hence, we realise how the pictorial legends and myths were taken up in the images of ancient peoples not indifferently, but in such a way that the whole soul either could be delighted and given to a supersensible world or be contrite about its own smallness. This also belongs to the nature of intelligence: that it darkens any supersensible knowledge in a way. We can observe that in our usual soul life. When any pictorial image which appears, as one says, intuitive or on the way of inspiration is grasped in abstractions, the deep emotional contents disappear which it gives the whole personality and the whole soul life. Intellect brings understanding largely, but extinguishes any immediate soul effect of the supersensible knowledge.

I bring in nothing made-up, nothing that you cannot read in numerous books. There the representatives of intelligence point to Buddha, to Christ, to Zarathustra, to Pythagoras and so on and say, the human soul faces the big world, it grasps the world in different way. The fact that the supersensible knowledge reaches to the soul was connected with strong courage for existence that caused the consciousness of our connection with the spiritual of the world. Indeed, intelligence leads to understanding on the surface of the things, but it cannot evoke a feeling of inner courage. Thus, we see despondence, feebleness toward the penetration of knowledge as a characteristic feature of our time. Our time praises and emphasises that which science accomplishes. They do that rightly. However, where people believe to think deeper they say that the human being does not come to the primal grounds of the things. Neither Pythagoras, nor Christ, nor Zarathustra would have known how to say something about these primal grounds. Nevertheless, this proves very well that instead of the old knowledge and confidence a knowledge of despondence appeared.

There are two forms of resignation. The old clairvoyant could say, as well as in my conditions, in my age the human abilities have developed, they are not sufficient to behold into the primal grounds of the things—- one has to resign.—This was another resignation than that which we find today. Why did the old clairvoyant resign? Because he realised: as I am, I am not yet capable to attain knowledge.—He resigns out of modesty, out of the consciousness that in him, indeed, the highest forces are, but that he cannot unfold them because of his imperfection. This is heroic resignation, full of confidence; this is the human being to whom the gates of the world riddles are not closed.

However, one says today, the human being cannot at all penetrate [into the knowledge of higher worlds]; as well as he is constituted; his cognitive faculties can never be so highly developed.—This is a fundamental resignation. It differs quite substantially from the heroic resignation; it has something arrogant because it declares the level of knowledge to be absolute. What it cannot recognise is generally beyond the human knowledge.

The age of intelligence is fulfilled with other sensations, with sensations of negative kind because it cannot be productive, in contrast to the times of the old clairvoyance. Humanity had to come to this point if it should lose all old mental pictures, also those of faith, and for that, it required the culture of intelligence.

However, the inner life would become banal if only the intelligence should be entitled to illumine the inner life of the human being. Hence, spiritual science or theosophy appears in the present and shows that it is possible again to bring out forces from the depths of the human soul that penetrate the intelligence with a higher cognitive power which leads the human beings again into the spiritual worlds. Thus, the new clairvoyant knowledge wants to be an incentive and a help to the intellectual knowledge, and it gives humanity again that which it needs to possess the light of intelligence not only that leaves the soul empty, but also to possess such a knowledge which again brings strength and confidence and hope in our lives. Numerous human beings long for such knowledge that can be changed into courage and power in our soul. Someone who understands the whole spirit of the new development from the dawn of the intellectual age up to its today's climax will also understand that for the future of humanity the fulfilment of the soul with contents is necessary. Since intelligence only would be able to extinguish the soul, but would not deliver new soul contents. Advanced people of the present criticize the old mental pictures or register them at most as history. One dives, so to speak, back to register the old mental pictures. However, spiritual science will be—although it is true science—always such a science that gives the powerful feeling of the coherence with the spiritual worlds. It wants to give our souls contents and to fertilise them with contents.

With it spiritual science points to its future mission. Such a science will again give sensation and feeling in the most natural way. Indeed, intelligence builds the bridge from the ancient times to the future, but the mission of spiritual science is to penetrate this intelligence with the living value of the spiritual life as food for the souls. Because in our time intelligence has reached its highest development, just this time was chosen by those who know how to interpret the spirit of the time to attempt to intervene by spiritual science to conquer [living soul contents for] the soul gradually again.

Thus, spiritual science positions itself not as something arbitrary or as something arbitrarily invented in our age, but as something that has to get to know the real sense, the deepest tasks, and the riddles of our age. If the human soul opens itself to spiritual science with complete impartiality, then it will feel that spiritual science copes with any outer science concerning logic and intellect that it develops the logic in such a way that it appears as a force of love, of compassion, of life security in our souls. Any soul will feel the high sense of spiritual science and understand whose nature we can summarise with the words:

The things of cosmic space
Speak to the human senses;
They change in the course of time.
The human soul lives recognising,
Spatially unlimited and not
Confused by the course of time,
In the realm of the eternal spirit.

Source: February 24, 1911