Why the human lifespan is 72 years. The soul of anthroposophy: reverence for that which is above

    

Karmic Relationships. Lecture 54 of 82

Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, July 6, 1924:

We have seen how the study of karma, wherein the destiny of man is contained, leads us from the affairs of the farthest universe — from the worlds of the stars — down to the tenderest experiences of the human heart, inasmuch as the heart is an expression of all that man feels working upon him during life, — of all that happens to him in the whole nexus of earth-existence. When we try to arrive at our judgments through a deeper understanding of the karmic connections, we are driven again and again to look into these two domains of world-existence which lie so far removed from one another. Indeed we must say: Whatever else we may be studying, — be it Nature, or the more natural configuration of human evolution in history or in the life of nations — none of these leads us so high up into cosmic realms as the study of karma. The study of karma makes us altogether aware of the connections between human life here upon earth and that which goes on in the wide universe. We see this human life taking its course on earth, unfolding till about the 70th year of life, when in a certain connection it attains its limit. Whatever lies beyond this is in reality a life given by grace. What lies below this limit stands under karmic influences, and these we shall now have to study.

It is possible, as I have often mentioned from varied points of view, to put the length of human life on earth at about 72 years. Now 72 years, seen in relation to the secrets of the cosmos, is a remarkable number, the true significance of which only begins to dawn upon us when we consider what I may call the cosmic secret of human earthly life. We have already described what the world of the stars is from a spiritual point of view. When we enter on a new earthly life, we return, so to speak, from the world of stars to this life on earth.

At this point once more it is astonishing how the ancient ideas — even if we do not take our start from tradition — simply emerge again of their own accord when we approach these domains of life with the help of modern spiritual science. We have seen how the various planetary stars and fixed stars take part in human life and in all that permeates this human life on earth. If we have before us an earthly life that has taken its full course, — one that does not come to an end all too soon, but that has passed through half at least of the allotted earthly time, — then in the last resort we find this truth once more: The human being, inasmuch as he comes down from cosmic spiritual spaces into an earthly life, comes always from a certain star. We can trace the very direction of it, and it is not unreal — on the contrary, it is most exact, to say: — ‘The human being has his star.’ If we take what is experienced beyond all space and time between death and a new birth, and translate this into its spatial image, we can say: Every man has his star, which determines what he has attained between death and a new birth.

He comes from the direction of a certain star. We may indeed receive into our minds this conception. The whole human race inhabiting the earth is to be found on the one hand by looking round about us upon earth, passing through these many continents, finding them peopled by the human beings who are now incarnated. And the others who are not on the earth, where in the universe shall we find them? Whither must we look in the great universe if we would turn our soul's gaze to them, — assuming that a certain time has elapsed since they went through the gate of death? The answer is: We look in the true direction when we look out upon the starry heavens. There are the souls — or at least the directions which will enable us to find the souls — -who are spending their life between death and a new birth. We see and comprehend the entire human race that inhabits the earth, when we look upward and downward.

Those alone who are now on the way thither or returning thence, we find in the planetary region. But we can certainly not speak of the midnight hour of existence between death and a new birth, without thinking of some star which the human being as it were indwells between death and a new birth (albeit we must always bear in mind what I have said about the beings of the stars).

Then, my dear friends, we shall approach the cosmos with this knowledge. Away there are the stars, the cosmic signs from which there shines and lightens down upon us the soul-life of those who are between death and a new birth. And then we become aware that we can look also at the constellations of stars, saying to ourselves: ‘How is all this, that we behold in cosmic spaces, connected with the life of man?’ We look up with a new fulness of heart and mind to the silvery moon, the dazzling blaze of the sun, the twinkling stars at night-time, and we feel ourselves united even humanly with all of these. This is what Anthroposophy is to attain at last for the souls of men: they shall feel themselves united even in a human way with the whole cosmos. It is at this point that certain secrets of cosmic existence first begin to dawn upon us.

The sun rises and sets; the stars rise and set. We can trace how the sun sets, for example in the region where there are certain groups of stars. We can trace what is now called the apparent course of the stars, circling round the earth. We can trace the course of the sun. In 24 hours, the sun circles around the earth — ‘apparently’ as we say nowadays, — and the stars too circle around the earth. So we say: but it is not quite correct. For if again and again we attentively observe the course of stars and sun, we perceive at length that the sun does not always rise at the same time in relation to the stars. It grows ever a little later. Day after day it arrives a little later at the place where it was on the previous day in relation to the stars. These spaces of time, by which the sun remains behind the stars in their course, add up till they become an hour, two hours, three hours, and at length a day. Thus at length the time approaches when we can say: The sun has remained behind the star by a whole day.

Now let us assume: Someone was born on the 1st of March in a particular year. And, let us say, he lived till the end of his 72nd year. He always celebrates his birthday on the 1st of March, for the sun says: His birthday is on the 1st of March. And he can celebrate it so, for throughout the 72 years of his life (though it progresses in relation to the stars) the sun shines forth ever and again in the neighbourhood of the star that shone when he came down to earth. But when he has lived for 72 years, a full day has elapsed. He has arrived at an age in life when the sun leaves the star into which it entered when he began his life. At his birthday now he is beyond the 1st of March. The star no longer says the same as the sun; the stars say it is the 2nd of March; the sun says it is the 1st. The human being has lost a cosmic day, for it takes just 72 years for the sun to remain behind a star.

During this time which the sun can spend in the region of his star, a man can live on earth. Then (under normal conditions) when the sun is no longer there to comfort his star for his life on earth, when the sun no longer says to his star: ‘He is down there, and I from myself am giving thee what he — this human being — has to give to thee; and for the time being, as I cover thee, I am doing for him what thou dost for him between death and a new birth,’ when the sun can no longer speak thus to the star, the star summons the man back again.

Thus you perceive the processes in the heavens immediately connected with human existence upon earth. In the mysteries of the heavens we see the age of man's life expressed. Man can live 72 years, because in this time the sun remains a day behind. After that time the sun can no longer comfort the star which it could comfort while it stood before and covered it. The star has become free again for the soul-spiritual work of man within the cosmos.

These things cannot be understood in any other way than with reverence, — with that deep reverence which was called in the ancient Mysteries ‘the reverence for that which is above.’ For this reverence leads us ever and again to see what happens here on earth in connection with what is unfolded in the sublime, majestic writing of the stars. It is indeed a limited life men lead today, compared to what was still existing at the beginning of the 3rd Post-Atlantean epoch. They did not merely base their reckoning, their understanding of man, on that which describes his steps upon the earth; they reckoned with what the stars of the great universe are saying about the life of man.

Once we are attentive to such connections and able to receive them with reverence into our souls, then too we know: ‘Whatever happens here on earth has its corresponding counterpart in the spiritual worlds.’ In the writing of the stars is expressed the kind of connection that exists between what happens here, and what happened (to speak from the earthly point of view) ‘some time ago’ in the spiritual world. In truth our every reflection upon karma should be accompanied by holy reverence and awe before the secrets of the universe.

In such a mood of reverence, let us approach the studies of karma which we are to make here during the near future. To begin with let us take this fact: Here are sitting a number of human beings, a section of what we call the Anthroposophical Society; and though one of us may be united with this Anthroposophical Society by stronger links, and another by less strong, it is in all cases part of a man's destiny — and the destiny that underlies these things is powerful — it is a part of his destiny that he has found his way into the Anthroposophical Society. Moreover, it lies inherent in the spiritualisation which must come over the Anthroposophical Society since the Christmas Foundation Meeting: — We must become ever more conscious of the spiritual, cosmic realities that underlie such a community as this Society. For out of such a consciousness the individual will then be able to take his true stand in the Society. Hence you will understand — along with all the other responsibilities resulting from the Christmas Foundation Meeting — that we must now begin to say something too about the karma of the Anthroposophical Society. It is very complicated, for it is a karma of community, — a karma that arises from the karmic coming-together of many single human beings. Take in its true and deep meaning all that has been said in these lectures and all that results from the many relationships that have been unfolded here; then, my dear friends, you will yourselves perceive that what is taking place here in our midst — where a number of human beings are led by their karma into the Anthroposophical Society — has been preceded by many and important events which happened to these very human beings before they came down into this present earthly life — events moreover which were themselves the after-effects of what had taken place in former lives on earth.

Let your thought dwell for a moment on the great vistas that are opened up by such an idea as this. Then you will realise how this thought may by and by be deepened till there emerges the spiritual history that stands behind the Anthroposophical Society. But this cannot be accomplished all at once. It can only enter our consciousness slowly and gradually; then only will it be possible to build even the conduct and action of the Anthroposophical Society on the foundations which are actually there for anthroposophists.

It is of course Anthroposophy as such which holds the Society together. In one way or another, everyone who finds his way into the Society must be seeking for Anthroposophy. And the preceding causes are to be sought for in the experiences which were undergone, by the souls who now become anthroposophists, before they came down into this earthly life.

At the same time, if we look out into the world with a clear perception of what has happened hitherto, we are also bound to admit: There are many human beings whom we find here or there in the world today, and of whom — looking at their connection with their pre-earthly life — we must say that they were truly pre-destined by their pre-natal life for the Anthroposophical Society; and yet, owing to certain other things, they are unable to find their way into it. There are far more of them than we generally think.

This must bring still nearer to our hearts the question: What is the pre-destination that leads a soul to Anthroposophy?

I will take my start from extreme examples, which are all the more instructive in showing how the karmic forces work. In the Anthroposophical Society the question of karma does indeed arise before the individual in a more intensive way than in other realms of life. I need only say the following: The souls who are incarnated in a human body now, — to begin with we cannot possibly follow them back far enough to assume that they experienced directly in their past earthly lives anything that could lead them, for example, to Eurhythmy (to take this radical instance from within the Anthroposophical Movement). For Eurhythmy did not exist in the times when the souls who now seek for it were incarnated. Thus the burning question arises: How comes it that a soul finds its way into Eurhythmy out of the working of the karmic forces?

But so it is in all the domains of life. Souls are there today, seeking the way to that which Anthroposophy can give them. How do they come to unfold all the pre-dispositions of their karma from past earthly lives, precisely in this direction which leads them to Anthroposophy?

In the first place there are some souls who are driven to Anthroposophy with strong inner intensity. The intensity of these forces is not the same in all. Some souls are driven to Anthroposophy with such inward intensity that it seems as though they were steering straight towards it without any by-ways at all, finding their way directly into one domain or another of the anthroposophical life.

There are a number of souls who steer their cosmic way in this sense for the following reason: In past centuries, when they had their former life on earth, they felt with peculiar intensity that Christianity had reached a definite turning-point. They lived in an age when the main effect of Christianity was to pass over into a more or less instinctive human feeling. It was an age when Christianity was practised in a perfectly natural and simple way but quite instinctively; so that the question did not really occur to the souls of men: Why am I a Christian? Such souls we find especially if we turn our gaze to the 13th, 12th, 11th, 10th, 9th, and 8th centuries after Christ. There we find Christ-permeated souls, who were growing and evolving towards the age of Consciousness (the age of the Spiritual Soul), but who, since this age had not yet begun, were still receiving Christianity into the pure Mind-Soul. On the other hand, with respect to the worldly affairs of life, they already experienced the dawn of what the Spiritual Soul is destined to bring.

Thus their Christianity lived in a way unconsciously. It was in many respects a deeply pious Christianity, but it lived, if I may say so, leaving the head on one side and entering straight into the functions of the organism. Now that which is unconscious in one life becomes a degree more conscious in the next life on earth: and so this Christianity which had not become fully clear or self-conscious, became at length a challenge and a question for these human souls: ‘Why are we Christians?’

The outcome was (I am speaking in an introductory way today, hinting at matters which will be spoken of more fully afterwards) the outcome was that in the life between death and a new birth these souls had a certain connection once more in the spiritual world, especially in the first half of the 19th century. In the first half of the 19th century there were gatherings of souls in the spiritual world, — souls who took the consequences of the Christianity they had experienced on earth, finding it again in the radiance, in the all embracing glory of the spiritual world. Above all in the first half of the 19th century, there were souls in the life between death and a new birth who strove to translate into cosmic Imaginations what they had felt in a preceding Christian life on earth. The very thing that I once described here as a great cult or act of ritual was there enacted in the Supersensible. A large number of souls were gathered in these mutually-woven cosmic Imaginations, in these mighty pictures of a future existence, which they were to seek again in an altered form during their next life on earth.

But in all this was also interwoven all that had taken place between the 7th and 13th or 14th centuries A.D. by way of dire and painful inner conflicts, which were indeed more painful than is generally thought. For the souls to whom I now refer had undergone very much during that time; and all that they had thus undergone, they wove it into the mighty cosmic Imaginations which were woven together by a large number of souls in common, during the first half of the 19th century.

The great cosmic Imaginations that were thus woven were shot through on the one hand by something that I cannot otherwise describe than as a kind of longing and expectant feeling. Working out these mighty Imaginations, the souls experienced within them a concentrated feeling, gathered from manifold experiences, a concentrated feeling within their disembodied souls. It was a feeling which I can describe somewhat as follows: ‘In our last life on earth we inclined towards the living experience of Christianity. Deeply we felt the Mysteries which tradition had preserved for all Christians, telling of the sacred and solemn happenings in Palestine at the beginning of the Christian era. But did He really stand before us in all His glory, in His full radiance?’ The question arose out of their hearts. ‘Was it not only after our death that we learned how Christ had descended from cosmic heights, as a Being of the Sun, to the earth? Did we really experience Him as the Being of the Sun? He is here no longer, He is united with the earth. Here we can only find what is like a great cosmic memory of Him. We must find our way back again to the earth, in order to have the Christ before our souls.’

A longing for Christ accompanied these souls from that time forth, when with the Spirit-Beings of the Hierarchies they wove the mighty and sublime cosmic Imaginations. This longing went with them from their pre-earthly life into the present life on earth.

This can be experienced with overwhelming intensity by spiritual vision when it observes what was taking place in mankind, incarnate and discarnate, in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. And as I said, all manner of things were mingled into these impressions. For we must remember that in their Christian experience the souls who are now returning had shared in all that was taking place as between those who were striving for Christianity and those who still stood within the old Pagan consciousness, — which was frequently the case during the centuries to which I just now referred. In these souls therefore, many of those influences are present which make it possible for man to fall a victim to the temptations of Lucifer on the one hand and Ahriman on the other. For in karma, Lucifer and Ahriman are weaving, no less than the good gods: this we have already seen.

All that was thus interwoven, and that works itself out karmically today, must be followed out in detail, if we would really penetrate the spiritual foundations of anthroposophical striving. If the Christmas Foundation Meeting is to be taken in real earnest, the time has now come when we must draw aside the veil from certain things. Only they must be taken with the necessary earnestness.

Let us begin, as I said, with a radical instance; and while we discuss the following, let there hold sway in the background, for the rest of this hour, all that has now been said.

From the pre-earthly into this earthly existence, through their education, through all that they experience on earth, human souls find their way. They seek and find their way into the Anthroposophical Society, and remain in it for a time. But there are isolated cases among them, where, having shown themselves zealous, nay over-zealous members of the Anthroposophical Society for a while, they become the most violent opponents. Let us observe the working of karma in an extreme case of this kind.

A person comes into the Anthroposophical Society. He proves a very zealous member, yet after a time he somehow manages to become not only an opponent but a maligner among opponents. We must admit, it is a very strange karma.

We will consider a single case. There is a soul. We look back into a past life on earth, into a time when old memories from the ages of Paganism still lingered on, enticingly for many people. It was a time when men were finding their way on the one hand into a Christianity that spread out with a certain warmth and fire, and yet, for many of them, with a certain superficiality.

When such things are spoken of, we must always remember that we have to begin somewhere or other, at some particular earthly life. Every such earthly life leads back to earlier ones in turn; therefore there will always be some things that remain unexplained — things to which we simply refer as matters of fact. They are of course the karmic consequences of still earlier events, but we have to begin somewhere.

In the period to which I have just referred we find a certain soul. We find him, indeed, in a way that very nearly concerned myself and other present members of this Society. We find him as a would-be maker of gold, in possession of writings, manuscripts which he is hardly able to understand but interprets in his own way and then makes experiments in accordance with the instructions, though he has no real notion what he is doing. For it is by no means a simple matter to look into the spiritually chemical relationships, if we may call them so. Thus we see him as an experimenter, with a little library containing the most varied instructions and recipes going far back into Moorish and Arabian sources. We see him unfolding this activity in an almost out-of-the-way place, though visited by many inquisitive persons. At length, under the influence of the practices in which he engages without understanding, he gets a strange physical debility, — a disease attacking especially the larynx, — and (this being a masculine incarnation) his voice becomes hoarser and hoarser till it has almost vanished.

Meanwhile the Christian teachings are spread abroad; they are taking hold of men on all hands. This man is filled on the one hand with the greedy longing to make gold, and, with the making of gold, to attain many other things attainable at that time if one had been successful in making gold. On the other hand Christianity comes near to him, in a way that is full of reproaches. There arises in him what I may perhaps describe as a kind of Faustian feeling, though not altogether pure. Strong becomes the feeling in him: ‘Have I not really done an awful wrong?’ By-and-by under the influence of such reflections the conclusion grows upon him, living with scepticism in his soul: ‘Your having lost your voice is the divine punishment, the just punishment, for meddling with unrighteous things.’

In this situation of his inner life, he sought out the advice of human beings who have also become united at this present time with the Anthroposophical Society, and who were able at that time really to play a helpful part in his destiny. For they were able to save his soul from deep and anxious doubt. We can really speak of a certain ‘salvation of the soul’ in this case. But all this took place under such conditions that he experienced it with feelings which remained to some extent external, no matter how intense they were. He was overwhelmed on the one hand with a sense of gratitude toward those who had saved his inner life. But on the other hand — unclear as it all was — an appalling Ahrimanic impulse became mingled with it. After the strong inclination towards unrighteous magic practices, and with his present feeling — which was not quite genuine — of having entered into Christian righteousness, an Ahrimanic trait became mixed up in all these things. For in effect the soul was brought into confusion; things were not really clear, and the result was that he brought an Ahrimanic trait into his gratitude. His thankfulness was transformed into something that found an unworthy expression in his soul, and that appeared to him in this light, during his life between death and new birth. It came before him especially when he had reached that point which I described, in the first half of the 19th century. There he had to live through it again; and he experienced the deep unworthiness of what his soul had evolved in that former life, by way of gratitude which was superficial, external, nay even cringing.

We see this picture of Ahrimanised gratitude mixed up in the cosmic Imaginations of which I spoke. And we see the soul descend from that pre-earthly existence into a new earthly life. We see him descend on the one hand with all those impulses that entered into him from the time when he was seeking to make gold, — the materialistic corruption of a spiritual striving. On the other hand we see evolving in him under the Ahrimanic influence something which is distinctly to be perceived as a sense of shame, — shame at his gratitude improperly expressed and superficial.

These two currents live in his soul as he descends to earth. And they express themselves in this way: The soul of whom I am speaking, having become a person again in earthly life, finds his way to those others who were also with him in the first half of the 19th century.

To begin with, a kind of memory arises in him of what he lived through in the Imaginative picture of the unworthy external gratitude. All these things become unfolded now, almost automatically. Then there awakens what is living there within him, — what I described as a sense of shame at his own attitude which had been unworthy of a man. This takes hold of his soul, but, influenced as it is by Ahriman (through the karma of former epochs too, of course), it finds vent as an appalling hatred against all that he had at first espoused. The sense of shame against himself becomes transformed into a wild and angry opposition. And this again is united with dreadful disappointment that all his old subconscious cravings have been so little satisfied. For they would have been satisfied if anything had arisen now, similar to what was contained in the old, improper art of making gold.

You see, my dear friends, here we have a radical example showing how such things turn inward. We have traced the strange mysterious by-ways of such a thing as this: the connection of a sense of shame with hatred. Such things must also be discovered in the connections of human life if we would understand a present life from its preceding conditions.

When we consider such things as these, a certain measure of understanding is indeed poured out over all that takes place through human beings in the world. Then indeed great difficulties of life begin, when we take the thought of karma in real earnest. But these difficulties are meant to come, for they are founded in the real essence of human life. Such a Movement as the Anthroposophical must indeed be exposed to many things, for only so can it evolve the strong forces which it needs.

I gave you this example first, so that you might see how we must seek — even for negative things — the karmic relationships with the whole stream of destiny which is causing the Anthroposophical Movement to arise out of the preceding incarnations of those who are joined together in this Society.

So, my dear friends, we may hope that there will awaken in us by-and-by an entirely new understanding of the essence of this Anthroposophical Society. We may hope to discover, as it were, the very soul of the Anthroposophical Society with all its many difficulties. For in this case too, we must not remain within the limits of the single human life, but trace it back to what is now being — I cannot say re-incarnated — but re-experienced in life. In this direction I wanted to begin today.

Source: Karmic Relationships, July 6, 1924

Keep on treadmillin'

 

“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”  — William Blake

Source: https://allpoetry.com/poem/15409312-The-Marriage-of-Heaven-and-Hell---7--A-Memorable-Fancy-by-William-Blake

Meditation and our petty ego

 

Rudolf Steiner, July 7, 1924:

And now I would like to go on to speak of what you as educators must undertake for your own self-education. You can take your start from certain given meditations. A meditation that is particularly effective for a teacher is the one I gave here two days ago ["In me is God" "I am in God"]. Meditating upon it inwardly with the right orientation of heart and mind, it will in time bear fruit within you. For you will discover that as you are carried along in your feeling on the waves of an astral sea, borne hence away from the body, you will begin to find yourself in a world — you can liken it only to a world of gently surging billows — where you are given the possibility to see around you the very things that provide answers to your questions.

But here, I must warn you that if you desire really to make your way through to the place where such things are possible, you must comply with the conditions — I do not mean merely knowing them in theory, I mean faithfully fulfilling in real earnest the conditions that are necessary for development on the path of meditation, and that are described in the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment [aka How to Know Higher Worlds]. You will remember how mention is made there of egoism as a hindrance on the path of development — egoism in the sense that man centers his attention upon his own I, values his I too highly. What does it mean when we hold our I in such high esteem?

We have, as you know, to begin with, our physical body, which derives from Saturn times and has been gradually formed and completed with such wonderful artistic power in four majestic stages of development. Then we have the etheric body, which has undergone three stages of development. And we have besides the astral body, which has undergone only two. These three members of man's being do not fall within the field of Earth consciousness; the I alone does so. Yet it is really no more than the semblance of the I that falls within the field of Earth consciousness; the true I can be seen only by looking back into an earlier incarnation. The I that we have now is in process of becoming; not until our next incarnation will it be a reality. The I is no more than a baby. And if we are able to see through what shows on the surface, then, when we look at someone who is sailing through life on the sea of his own egoism, we shall have before us the Imagination of a fond foster-mother or nurse, whose heart is filled with rapturous devotion to the baby in her arms. In her case the rapture is justified, for the child in her arms is other than herself; but we have a spectacle merely of egoism when we behold man fondling so tenderly the baby in him. And you can indeed see people going about like that today. If you were to paint a picture of them as they are in the astral, you would have to paint them carrying each his child on his arm. The Egyptians, when they moulded the scarab, could at least still show the I carried by the head organization; but the man of our time carries his I, his ego, in his arms, fondling it and caressing it tenderly. And now, if the teacher will constantly compare this picture with his own daily actions and conduct, once more he will be provided with a most fruitful theme for meditation. And he will find that he is guided into the state I described as swimming in a surging sea of spirit.

Whether we are able to get in this realm the answers to our questions will depend upon whether we have in our soul the inner peace and quiet which we must seek to preserve in such moments. If someone complains that things are constantly happening that prevent him from meditating, the complaint will of itself afford a pretty sure indication as to whether or not he is in a fair way to make progress in this direction. For you will never find that one who is genuinely undergoing development will complain that this or that hinders him from meditating. In point of fact we are not really hindered by these things that seem to come in our way. On the contrary, it should be perfectly possible to carry out a most powerful meditation immediately before taking some decisive step, before doing a deed of cardinal importance — or, on the other hand, to carry out the meditation after the deed, in entire forgetfulness of what has been experienced in the performance of the deed. Everything depends, you see, upon having it in our power to wrest ourselves away from the one world and live for the time being completely within the other world; and whenever we want to summon up our inner spiritual powers, right at the very beginning must come the ability to do this.

Watch for yourselves and observe the difference — first, when you approach a child more or less indifferently, and then again when you approach him with real love. As soon as ever you approach him with love, and cease to believe that you can do more with technical dodges than you can with love, at once your educating becomes effective, becomes a thing of power. And this is more than ever true when you are having to do with abnormal children.

Source: July 7, 1924

The Curative Education Course, lecture 12 of 12. What the world needs now is anthroposophy

 

Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland, July 7, 1924:

What we have really been endeavouring to do in our talks together here is to delve a little more deeply into Waldorf School pedagogy, in order to find in that pedagogy the kind of education with which we can approach the so-called abnormal child. It will have been clear to you from our discussions that, if you want to educate an abnormal child in the right manner, you will have to form your judgement and estimation of him in quite another way than you do for the so-called normal child — and of course differently again from the way he is regarded in ordinary lay circles, where people are for the most part content merely to specify the abnormality and not trouble themselves to look further and enquire into the causes of it. For there is no denying it, the man of today is not nearly so far on (in his study, for example, of the human being), as Goethe was in his study of the growth and nature of the plant. (And, as we saw, Goethe's work in this direction was a beginning, it was still in its elementary stage.) For Goethe took a special delight in the malformations that can occur in plants; and the passages where he deals with such are among the most interesting in all his writings. He describes, for example, how some organ in a plant, which one is accustomed to find in a certain so-called normal form, may either grow to excess, becoming abnormally large, or may insert itself into the plant in an abnormal manner, sometimes even going so far as to produce from itself organs that would normally be situated in quite another part of the plant. In the very fact that the plant is able to express itself in such malformations, Goethe sees a favourable starting point for setting out to discover the true “idea” of the archetypal plant. For he knows that the idea which lies hidden behind the plant manifests quite particularly in these malformations; so that if we were to carry out a whole series of observations — it would of course be necessary to make the observations over a wide range of plants — if we were to observe first how the root can suffer malformation, then again how the leaf, the stem, the flower, and even the fruit can become deformed, we would be able, by looking upon all these malformations together, to arrive at an apperception of the archetypal plant.

And it is fundamentally the same with all living entities — even with beings who live in the spirit. More and more does our observation of the human race lead us to perceive this truth — that where we have abnormalities in man, it is the spirituality in him which is finding expression in these abnormalities.

When once we begin to look at the phenomena of life from this aspect, it will at the same time give us insight into the way men thought about life in olden times; and we shall understand how it was that education was regarded as having an extremely close affinity with healing. For in healing men saw a process whereby that in man which has received Ahrimanic or Luciferic form and configuration is made to come nearer to that in him which, in the sense of good spiritual progress, holds a middle course between the two extremes. Healing was, in effect, the establishment of a right balance in the human being between the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic. And then, having a more intimate and deep perception of how it is only in the course of life that man comes into this condition of balance, of how he needs indeed to be brought into it by means of education, these men of an older time saw that there is something definitely abnormal about a child as such, something in every child that is in a certain respect ill and requires to be healed. Hence the primeval words for “healing” and “educating” have the very same significance. Education heals the so-called normal human being, and healing is a specialised form of education for the so-called abnormal human being.

If it has become clear to us that the foregoing is a true and fundamental perception, we can do no other than carry our enquiry further along the same road. All the illnesses that originate within the human being have, in reality, to do with the spiritual in him, and ultimately even the illnesses that arise in him in response to an injury from without; for when you break your leg, the condition that presents itself is really the reaction that arises within you to the blow from without — and surgery could certainly learn something by looking at the matter in this light. Starting therefore from this fundamental perception, we find ourselves ready to approach in a much deeper and more intimate manner the question: How are we to deal with children, having regard to the whole relationship of their physical nature to their soul and spirit?

In the very young child, physical and spiritual are intimately bound up together, and we must not assume — as people generally do today — that when some medicament or other is given to a child, it takes effect physically alone. The spiritual influence of a substance is actually greater in the case of a very little child than it is with a grown person. The virtue for the child of the mother's milk, for example, lies in the fact that there lives in it what was called in the archaic language of an earlier way of thought the “good mummy” in contrast to the “bad mummy” that lives in other products of excretion. The whole mother lives in the mother's milk. Mother's milk is permeated with forces that have, as it were, only changed their field of action within the organisation. For up to the time of birth, these forces are active in the region that belongs in the main to the system of metabolism and limbs, while after birth they are chiefly active in the region of the rhythmic system. Thus they migrate within the human organisation, moving up a stage higher. In doing so, the forces lose their I content, which was specifically active during the embryonic time, but still retain their astral content. If the same forces that work in the mother's milk were to rise a stage higher still — moving, that is, to the head — they would lose also their astral content and have active within them only the physical and etheric organisation. Hence the harmful effect upon the mother, if these forces do rise a stage higher and we have all the abnormal phenomena that can then show themselves in a nursing mother.

In mother's milk we still have therefore astral formative forces that work spiritually; and we must realise what a responsibility rests upon us when the time comes to let the little child make the transition to receiving his nourishment directly for himself. The responsibility is particularly great for us today, since there is now no longer any consciousness of how the spiritual is active everywhere in the external world, and of how the plant, as it ascends from root up to flower and finally to fruit, becomes gradually more and more spiritual — in its own nature and also in its activity and influence. Taking first the root, we have there something that works least spiritually of all; in comparison with the rest of the plant, the root has a strongly physical and etheric relation to the environment. In the flower however begins a life which reaches out, in a kind of longing, to the astral. In a word, the plant spiritualises, as it grows upwards.

Then we must carry our study a stage further, and enquire into the place of the root within the whole cosmic connection. Its part and place within the cosmos is expressed in the fact that the root has grown into the soil of the Earth, has embedded itself right into the light. The truth is that the root of the plant has grown into the soil in the same way as we have grown with our head into the free expanse of air and into the light. We can therefore say that here below

we have that which in man is of the head nature and has to do with perception; while here above we have the part of the plant that in man has to do with digestion, with nourishment. The upper part of the plant contains the spirituality that we long for in our metabolism-and-limbs system, and is on this account related to that system in us. One who is able with occult perception to regard first the mother's milk, and then the astral which hovers over the plant and for which the plant longs and yearns, can behold — not indeed a perfect similarity, but an extraordinarily close relationship between the astrality that comes from the mother with the mother's milk, and the astrality that comes from the cosmos and hovers over the blossoms of the plants.

These things are said, not in order that you may possess them as theoretical knowledge, but in order that you may come to cherish the right feeling towards what is in a human being's environment and enters thence into the sphere of his deeds and actions. As you see, we shall have to take care that we find the right way to accustom the little child — gradually — to external nourishment, stimulating him with the fruiting part of the plant, fortifying his metabolic system with the flowering part, and coming to the help of what has to be done by the head by means of a gentle admixture of root substance in his food. The theoretical mastery of these relationships will serve merely to start you off in the right direction; what should then happen is that in the practice of life the knowledge of them flows into all your care for the child, not as theory but more in a spiritual way.

In this connection we cannot but recognise how extraordinarily difficult it is in our day to “behold” a human being as he really is. Again and again, in every field of knowledge into which we enter, our attention is drawn away from that which is essential in man as man. Modern education and instruction is not calculated to enable us to see man in his true being. For it is a fact that in the course of the first half of the nineteenth century the power to behold what is essential in man died right away. Up to that time, and even still during that time, an idea was current which survives now only in certain words that have remained in use — lives on, here and there, so to speak, in the genius of language. We might describe this idea in the following way.

Surveying the whole human race, we find it subject to all manner of diseases. We could, if we chose to be abstract, write these all down. We could take some plane surface and write upon it the names of the various illnesses in such a way as to make a kind of map of them. In one corner, for instance, we might write illnesses that are inter-related one with the other; in another corner, illnesses that are fatal. In short, we could classify them all so nicely as to produce in the end a regular chart or map, and then it would not be difficult to find the place on the map where a child with a particular organisation belonged. One could imagine how some special pre-disposition in regard to illness could be shown in a kind of diagram on transparent paper and then the name of the child be written in on the region of the map where he belonged. Let us suppose, then, that you regarded illnesses in this way and made such a map as I have described. In the first half of the nineteenth century people still had the idea that whenever the name of an illness had to be written in, they could always write in, for that illness, the name of some animal. They still believed that the animal kingdom inscribes into Nature all possible diseases, and that each single animal, rightly understood, signifies an illness. For the animal itself the illness is, so to speak, quite healthy. If however this same animal enters into man, so that a human being, instead of having the organisation that properly belongs to him, is organised on the pattern of that animal, then that human being is ill.

It was not superstitious people alone who continued to hold such conceptions in the first half of the nineteenth century; this idea of the nature of disease in man was held, for example, by Hegel — and a very fruitful and productive idea it was. Think what a light can be thrown upon the nature and character of a particular human being if one can say: he “takes after” the lion, or the eagle, or the ox; or again, he gives evidence of being wrenched away in the direction of the spiritual — the spiritual works too powerfully in him. Or, let us say, carrying the idea a step further, suppose the ether body of a certain human being is too soft and flabby and shows obvious affinity to physical substance, then that would be for one an indication of a type of organization that generally occurs only in the lower animal kingdom. These are fundamental conceptions of a kind that it is important for you to acquire.

And now I would like to go on to speak of what you as educators must undertake for your own self-education. You can take your start from certain given meditations. A meditation that is particularly effective for a teacher is the one I gave here two days ago ["God is in me" "I am in God"]. Meditating upon it inwardly with the right orientation of heart and mind, it will in time bear fruit within you. For you will discover that as you are carried along in your feeling on the waves of an astral sea, borne hence away from the body, you will begin to find yourself in a world — you can liken it only to a world of gently surging billows — where you are given the possibility to see around you the very things that provide answers to your questions.

But here, I must warn you that if you desire really to make your way through to the place where such things are possible, you must comply with the conditions — I do not mean merely knowing them in theory, I mean faithfully fulfilling in real earnest the conditions that are necessary for development on the path of meditation, and that are described in the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment [aka How to Know Higher Worlds]. You will remember how mention is made there of egoism as a hindrance on the path of development — egoism in the sense that man centers his attention upon his own I, values his I too highly. What does it mean when we hold our I in such high esteem?

We have, as you know, to begin with, our physical body, which derives from Saturn times and has been gradually formed and completed with such wonderful artistic power in four majestic stages of development. Then we have the etheric body, which has undergone three stages of development. And we have besides the astral body, which has undergone only two. These three members of man's being do not fall within the field of Earth consciousness; the I alone does so. Yet it is really no more than the semblance of the I that falls within the field of Earth consciousness; the true I can be seen only by looking back into an earlier incarnation. The I that we have now is in process of becoming; not until our next incarnation will it be a reality. The I is no more than a baby. And if we are able to see through what shows on the surface, then, when we look at someone who is sailing through life on the sea of his own egoism, we shall have before us the Imagination of a fond foster-mother or nurse, whose heart is filled with rapturous devotion to the baby in her arms. In her case the rapture is justified, for the child in her arms is other than herself; but we have a spectacle merely of egoism when we behold man fondling so tenderly the baby in him. And you can indeed see people going about like that today. If you were to paint a picture of them as they are in the astral, you would have to paint them carrying each his child on his arm. The Egyptians, when they moulded the scarab, could at least still show the I carried by the head organization; but the man of our time carries his I, his ego, in his arms, fondling it and caressing it tenderly. And now, if the teacher will constantly compare this picture with his own daily actions and conduct, once more he will be provided with a most fruitful theme for meditation. And he will find that he is guided into the state I described as swimming in a surging sea of spirit.

Whether we are able to get in this realm the answers to our questions will depend upon whether we have in our soul the inner peace and quiet which we must seek to preserve in such moments. If someone complains that things are constantly happening that prevent him from meditating, the complaint will of itself afford a pretty sure indication as to whether or not he is in a fair way to make progress in this direction. For you will never find that one who is genuinely undergoing development will complain that this or that hinders him from meditating. In point of fact we are not really hindered by these things that seem to come in our way. On the contrary, it should be perfectly possible to carry out a most powerful meditation immediately before taking some decisive step, before doing a deed of cardinal importance — or, on the other hand, to carry out the meditation after the deed, in entire forgetfulness of what has been experienced in the performance of the deed. Everything depends, you see, upon having it in our power to wrest ourselves away from the one world and live for the time being completely within the other world; and whenever we want to summon up our inner spiritual powers, right at the very beginning must come the ability to do this.

Watch for yourselves and observe the difference — first, when you approach a child more or less indifferently, and then again when you approach him with real love. As soon as ever you approach him with love, and cease to believe that you can do more with technical dodges than you can with love, at once your educating becomes effective, becomes a thing of power. And this is more than ever true when you are having to do with abnormal children.

Wherever people have the right feeling about their activities, these activities do work together in the right way. Just as in the physical organism heart and kidneys must work together if the organism as a whole is to have unity, so must the constituents work together for the great end they all have in view, while each of them fosters within itself that element in the whole for which it is in particular responsible. And anyone who then sets out to undertake some new task in the world must bring what he is doing into coordination with what emanates from the constituents.

Suppose you have the intention of undertaking work with backward children. The first thing you have to do is to study and observe the pedagogy that is followed in the anthroposophical movement. That whole living stream of activity must flow into all that you do and undertake. For within this educational stream is contained that which can heal the typical human being, and enable him to take his place rightly in the world. And then you will find that the Medical Section is able to give you what you need in order that you may deepen this pedagogy and adapt it to the abnormality of the individual in question. If you set out in all earnestness to accomplish this, yon will soon realise that there can be no question of expecting simply to be told: This is good for this, that is good for that. No, what is wanted is a continual living intercourse and connection between your own work and all that is done and given in the educational and in the medical work of the [Dynamic] movement. No break in this living connection must ever be permitted. Egoism must not be allowed to creep in and assert itself in some special and individual activity; rather must there always be the longing on the part of each participant to take his right place within the work as a whole.

Curative Eurythmy having come in to collaborate with Curative Education, the latter is thereby brought into relation also with the whole art of Eurythmy. Here too it should be evident that you must look for a living connection. This will mean that anyone who practises Curative Eurythmy must have gone some way towards mastering the fundamental principles of Eurythmy as an art. Curative Eurythmy has to grow out of a general knowledge of Speech Eurythmy and Tone Eurythmy — although the knowledge will not necessarily have been carried to the point of full artistic development. Nor must we lose sight of the importance before all else of human contacts. If Curative Eurythmy is being given, the one who is giving it must on no account omit to seek contact with the doctor. When Curative Eurythmy was first begun, the condition was laid down that it should not be given without consultation with the doctor. You see from all this how closely, how livingly interlinked the different activities have to be in Anthroposophy.

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It will thus be necessary to take care that the work you are initiating at Lauenstein — a work, let me say, that I regard as full of hope and promise — is carried on in entire harmony with the whole Anthroposophical Movement. You can rest assured that the Anthroposophical Movement is ready to foster and encourage any plans with which it has expressed agreement — naturally through the channels that have been provided in accordance with the Christmas Foundation Meeting. And conversely you should keep constantly in mind that whatever you, as a limb or member of the movement, accomplish — you do it for the strengthening of the whole Anthroposophical Movement, for the enhancement of its work and influence in the world.

This then, my dear friends, is the message I would leave with you. Receive it into your hearts, as a message that comes verily from the heart; may it go with you, and may its impulse continue to work on into the future.

If we who are in this spiritual movement are constantly thinking: how can this spiritual movement be made fruitful for practical life? — then will the world not fail to see that it is verily a movement that is alive.

And so, my dear friends, let me wish you all strength and good guidance for the right working out of your will.

Source: July 7, 1924

What the world needs now is anthroposophy. The Curative Education Course, lecture 11 of 12

 

Spirit-Man	—	Neptune
Life-Spirit	—	Uranus
Spirit-Self	—	Saturn
Spiritual Soul	—	Jupiter
Intellectual Soul	—	Mars
Sentient Soul	—	Venus
Sentient Body	—	Mercury
Ether Body	—	Moon
Physical Body	—	Sun

Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland, July 6, 1924:

We will now go on to consider the children of whom we had not time to speak yesterday.

There was a little girl of ten years old, who was suffering from loss of memory. She is only in the Second Class at school (where the children would be mostly about seven years old.) She has adenoids. The symptom is connected with an excess of etheric powers of growth in the region of the bladder, which condition is then reflected in the head. Thus we have here a case where the physical origin of the trouble is immediately patent. The girl is ten years old — that is to say, she is at the age when, as I have repeatedly pointed out, it is particularly important that the teacher shall have made the right relationship with the child.

The child herself has of course, so to speak, slept through the antecedent facts and processes that have led up to the present moment. The inflamed condition that shows itself in the neighbourhood of the bladder and has its reflection in the upper part of the organism is clear evidence of the fact that the ether body is not properly at home in the organism — the reason being that its co-operation with the astral body is not able to come about as it should. You must never lose sight of the fact that where a process of this kind occurs, which finds expression in the soul organism, then its source and origin has to be sought in the subtler, finer organisation of the body; for the coarser, cruder organisation cannot put us on the right track in our search. An irregularity in the higher organisation of man is, naturally, more easily noticed than in the lower organisation. In this child, owing to a defective astral body, the ether body does not function properly, with the result that what the child receives by way of impressions fails to penetrate into the organisation. What we have to do, therefore, if we are to help such a child, is to strengthen as much as ever possible the impressions we intend her to receive; in all our work with her, we must see to it that strong impressions are brought to bear on the child.

For consider how it is with memory. Memory is dependent on a right and proper organic relation between physical body and ether body; astral body and I have no part in the retention of impressions in memory. As you know very well, dreams make their appearance only when astral body and ego have begun to enter into the physical and ether body, not before. As far as astral body and ego are concerned, everything is forgotten between the times of falling asleep and awakening. The impressions are left lying in the part of the human being that remains in bed. But when, as in the child we are considering, this part is not properly organised, then what is left there of the impression of the day does not succeed in embodying itself into it. Our first task will be therefore to induce strong impressions, in order to bring it about that the higher organisation — I and astral body — shall be roused to an energetic activity within the lower organisation — ether body and physical body.

I do not know whether the experiment has yet been made of testing the little girl's memory for simple folk-melodies? (Frl. Dr. K.: “She finds that easier.”) So the capacity for receiving impressions of this nature is, you see, present. Starting from it, we should now try to work on further. We should, for example, take with the child little poems where a refrain is repeated — say, after every three lines. She will in this way receive a powerful impression of rhythm; and then later on, the moment will come when we can approach her with impressions that are without rhythm. Do not imagine that any substantial success can be looked for under three or four years — that is, not before puberty. Working on these lines, we must first reach the point where rhythmical impressions are able to act upon the child, and then go on to non rhythmical impressions. In this way we shall be able to achieve something in the educational sense. The therapy we have already indicated; the girl should have compresses with Berberis vulgaris 10 per cent, and Curative Eurythmy: L — M:S — U.

Note that an inner perception underlies the giving of these particular sounds in Curative Eurythmy. The formative, moulding influence will enter right into the mobile astral body. Then the M, as I have told you, is the sound that places the whole organism into the out-breathing, and so the astral organisation will there meet the etheric. With S, the aim is to bring the astral body into powerful and living activity — but it must be an activity that is restrained, held in check; and for this purpose the U is added. These are the measures that suggested themselves when we had the child immediately before us; here we are simply recalling them. Compresses of Berberis vulgaris are prescribed because the causes of inflammation require to be neutralised, and can be by this means.

And then we had a sixteen-year-old boy, a kleptomaniac of the very same type as the little fellow who was brought before you a few days ago, and in whom you could see a perfect example of kleptomania. Your boy at Lauenstein will have to be treated on exactly the same lines. You will need however to watch whether the impressions you bring to him link up with this or that. The results of our work with kleptomaniacs can differ quite considerably according to the education the children have already received. ^E6

And now we must go on to speak of the child who is so restless and fidgety. A sleepy, backward little boy, who has not learned to speak and is behind-hand with all the education he should have received in the first epoch of life. You can see at once what is lacking; the child has entirely failed to get hold of the principle of imitation, he has never attempted to imitate. This means, in other words, that his I and astral body are incapable of bringing his organs into movement. He is a most lovable little fellow, but it is extraordinarily difficult for him to overcome the longing that he has in his physical body for rest and quiet. The first thing to be done is to give him Tone Eurythmy. That will be the way to help him on. (You will understand, I can do no more here than indicate the ideal.) If the boy does Tone Eurythmy properly, it can come about that he is so stirred and stimulated in his astral body that the rhythm begins to take hold also of the ether body.

Another thing you must do is to let him repeat after you rhythmical sentences, so that he plunges, as it were, right into sound as such. Take, for instance, the line: “Und es woget und woget und brauset und zischt.” [From Schiller's Der Taucher.] You must go through the sentence with the child rather slowly (you will discover for yourselves what is just the right pace), first forwards and then backwards. (For this particular case, I purposely say “woget” instead of “siedet”, since we are here using the line with a therapeutical end in view.) Go on doing this again and again, forwards and backwards. Wherever possible, the same method should also be followed with a sequence of vowels. In this way we can awaken the child, inwardly. Surprise, amazement, begin to rise up in him, as we get him to intone A (ah), then E (eh), I (ee); and then backwards, I, E, A; then again, A, E, I, and so on. The child gradually wakes up, and, despite all difficulties, the principle of imitation will begin at last to work. It will be necessary to take the child by himself, and to see to it that imitation has its place in everything you do with him; always stop after a few moments and get him to intone after you.

And then, in addition, some therapeutical treatment will be needed; and here you will have to ensure that two opposite influences work together. First, you must provide a dispersing influence that works centrifugally and drives the substantiality of the organism to the circumference. Hypophysis always works in this way. For the child we are considering, hypophysis must not however be used just in the way we use it for rickety children in whom we definitely want to induce dispersal. Here we have to call into action at the same time the opposite principle that works centripetally. You will accordingly need to find something which will have, while working together with hypophysis, the tendency to build up the human organism out of substance. Both Carbo Vegetabilis and Carbo Animalis are able to do this. You could therefore use Carbo Animalis, alternating it with the hypophysis. The Carbo Animalis will supply the form principle, and then in the hypophysis cerebri you will have the organising principle that tends to encourage organic growth.

One of the most important things to bear in mind, when you are starting a Home for Curative Education, is the necessity for constant observation. Each single person who is helping in the work must observe everything he or she takes in hand to do with the children. And it should really be so that we accompany — and in that way strengthen — all that we do with a certain inner trust and confidence.

In the case of this child, our worst trouble will be, not with the boy himself — you will soon be able to notice progress in him — but with the parents. The mother is firmly convinced it is for us to do wonders with him, and that quickly. I have heard that she even wants to come with the child. (One of the teachers interposed: “She is only bringing him to us.”) That is better, it is a relief to hear that you will not have the mother there with you. But with a child of this kind, it will, in any case, be imperative to hold your own — even with a certain obstinacy — in face of the demands and expectations of the parents. These demands are perfectly understandable, but sometimes terribly foolish and unwise. The parents of such a child do not, and cannot, know what is right and necessary for him.

Now it will be very good if you can bring such a child even physically also into the alternating conditions that can be induced by means of the A E I, I E A, etc. I will tell you an excellent way of doing this. First, put the child into a bath of moderately warm water, and then, comparatively quickly, give him instead a douche, also of a moderate temperature. You will by this means call to life that which needs to be roused to life and activity. As a matter of fact, wherever an abnormality expresses itself in laziness and inertia, this measure cannot fail to have good effect, so long as we are careful not to overdo it. Do not be anxious if, immediately after a bath treatment of this kind has been begun, the children get rather excited. That will pass. You will see, a reaction will come, and a more balanced condition gradually establish itself.

And now we must pass on to another boy who sees everything in colours. He is the boy, you remember, who never has any money! I can see him there before me as I speak. The fundamental fact about this child is that he is incapable of making the right approach to the external world; he remains rooted in himself. In order to render this phenomenon intelligible, I shall have to explain it for you in plastic terms. The boy cannot make his way out into the external world; consequently his I organisation is perpetually pushing at his astral body from within. This gives rise to an inner clumsiness — better expressed, an inner slovenliness. But along with this, in connection with the continual pressure on the astral body, there develops also a delicate sensitiveness; so that the boy has really something gentle and noble about him. And that goes together with the seeing in colour. He sees colours because he is able to be awake in his astral body.

Now, we cannot begin to do anything in the way of education for this boy until we have a clear perception of a state of affairs that is developing in him all the time in increasing measure — namely, a certain dim hankering after ideals, but at the same time a starting-back, a flinching from the world as from something he cannot get on with. The boy can be taught entirely on the lines of Waldorf School education, but everything will depend in his case on how you yourself feel and behave towards him; you must preserve all the time a natural trust and confidence in him. There is really hardly anything more than this to be said.

Take for example, writing. The boy writes something like this, does he not? Now it will be for you to set to work and take the utmost care and pains that he shall gradually change his handwriting and develop it into a finely formed script. And you will find that while he is doing this, there will be clear signs also of a transformation taking place in his whole inner constitution. When he shows a tendency to boast and talk big, then you must at once, on the basis of the trust he has learned to place in you, contrive some means to make his boasting ridiculous. ^E7

I was speaking to you yesterday about the albinos, and I came to the point where I said we need to find the cosmic impulse that can have influence in such cases. Let us now first ask our expert on cosmic constellations whether she has noticed anything special in these or other horoscopes that albinos have in common. (To Dr. Vreede) Did you notice that among the outer planets, Uranus and Neptune were particularly prominent? (Dr. Vreede replied: “Yes, there are many such aspects. Apart from that, I should not have anything special to say about them.”) I address my question purposely to you, because you are frequently engaged in the contemplation of horoscopes and have probably often had such things in your mind. Up to now, I have from you only these two that we are considering. We are here treading new ground, and it will be best if we go forward entirely in the spirit of discovery. A great many factors in the case might well claim consideration, but I would like us to give our attention for the moment to the following.

Consider the human being. We divide him into certain members. In accordance with that memberment which arranges the whole nature and being of man rather from the etheric principle, we divide him, as you know, into physical body, etheric body, sentient body, which last we then bring into relation with sentient soul; after that we have intellectual or mind soul (which the Greeks call soul of force or power), and consciousness or spiritual soul. And then we come to spirit-self, life-spirit and spirit-man. And all these several members reveal themselves to us as forming together a single, relatively independent whole; taken all together, they compose man. But now, the way in which the members are put together to compose man, differs in each single human being. One person will have a little more power and strength in his ether body, and correspondingly less in his physical body; another a little more power in the consciousness soul; and so on. And right in the midst of all these members stands man in his very own individuality, which individuality goes through repeated earth lives and has the task of bringing under control this whole connection of various members, has the task of uniting them, on the principle of freedom, under one individual ordering.

And now let us see how that which comes to man from cosmic realms unites itself with these several members. The influence of the Sun, which works strongly on man as a whole, works strongest of all on the physical body. In connection with the etheric body we find that the strongest influences come from the Moon; in connection with the sentient body it is the influences of Mercury that work with special strength; and in the sentient soul we have the strongest influences of Venus. The strongest influences of Mars serve to help the development of the intellectual or mind soul, and of Jupiter the consciousness or spiritual soul, whilst Saturn brings its influences to bear especially on the spirit self. And the members that have not yet developed in man find their support in Uranus and Neptune — the vagrants, so to speak, among the planets, who attached themselves at a later time to our planetary system. In Uranus and Neptune therefore we shall expect to find planetary influences which, under normal conditions, exert no very strong influence upon the constellation at birth.

Spirit-Man	—	Neptune
Life-Spirit	—	Uranus
Spirit-Self	—	Saturn
Spiritual Soul	—	Jupiter
Intellectual Soul	—	Mars
Sentient Soul	—	Venus
Sentient Body	—	Mercury
Ether Body	—	Moon
Physical Body	—	Sun

You know of course, from other anthroposophical lectures how strong is the influence of the Moon on man, via the ether body. I need not remind you of how the Moon is connected with the whole principle of heredity, of how it impresses all manner of forces and powers into the model of the physical body, which comes from the parents. Beginning with the earliest embryonic development, this Moon influence determines the whole direction that development shall take in the child.

Now it is possible for a constellation to occur where the impulse from the Moon is sufficiently strong for the human being descending to Earth to receive by way of heredity a disposition to be drawn down into the metabolic organisation. Or again, it can also happen that the Moon influences are to some extent wrested away, turned aside, whilst influences that come from quite another quarter and that refuse to tolerate the Moon influences, namely Uranus and Neptune, attract what should really be in the sphere of the Moon's influence: Other constellations are also possible. But in the case of the children we are considering, the latter is the constellation that we find; and we have here a clear instance of how by looking at what the horoscope shows we can see what is really the matter.

Take first this horoscope (of the elder sister). It will probably have struck you that you find here in this region, Uranus together with Venus and Mars. You will not really need to carry your considerations any further than this triangle. Here then are Mars, Venus and Uranus. Consider first Mars. For this child, who was born in 1909, Mars stands in complete opposition to the Moon. Mars, which has Venus and Uranus in its vicinity, stands — itself — in strong opposition to the Moon. Here is the Moon and here is Mars. And Mars pulls along with it Uranus and Venus.

And now I would ask you to pay careful attention also to the fact that the Moon is at the same time standing before Libra. This means, the Moon has comparatively little support from the Zodiac, it wavers and hesitates, it is even something of a weakling in this hour; and its influence is still further reduced through the fact that Mars (which pulls along with it the Luciferic influence) stands in opposition to it.

Now let us turn to the horoscope of the young child. Again, here are Venus and Uranus and Mars near together, the three of them covering between them no more than this section of the heavens. So you see, once again these three are found near to each other. In the case of the elder girl we saw that they were standing in opposition to the Moon, which was at the time standing in Libra. On this second horoscope, Mars, Venus and Uranus are in close proximity, exactly as before; but when we examine more nearly the position of Mars, we find it is not, as before, in complete opposition to the Moon. It is however very nearly so. Although the younger child does not come in for a complete opposition, there is an approximation to opposition.

But what strikes us as still more remarkable is that when we come to make our observation of the Moon, we discover she is again in Libra — while being at the same time, as we have seen, almost in opposition to Mars, which latter drags Uranus and Venus along with it. We have therefore again a background of Libra. I am not saying that it must have been so; we have, you see, no properly authorised records of the births. On the first horoscope the Moon is in Libra, and here on the second too. (Dr. Vreede said: “It is curious that in both there is also the same constellation between Moon and Neptune.”) That would have to be explained on its own account. Horoscopes require to be interpreted quite individually. It is not a matter for surprise that there is this similarity in the two horoscopes, considering that the girls are sisters. That we find in the elder child a stronger opposition than in the younger (who has been influenced by the elder) is also no cause for astonishment. What is important for us is that we find here a constellation that is perfectly intelligible, a constellation that, when interpreted, shows us the following.

Mars, who is the bearer of iron, makes himself independent of the principle of propagation — independent, that is, of the Moon. He brings away from its true mission that which comes to man through the Venus principle and is connected with love. Mars tears this out of its true path of action, does not allow it to be in connection with generation, nor afterwards with growth; with the result that that which rightly stands in connection with the growth forces and should live in the lower part of the body, presses up into the head organisation. Consequently we find that in the growth process that takes place within the child iron will be lacking, whereas everything that tends to be in conflict with iron, notably sulphur, will be present to excess.

We have therefore here to do with an extraordinarily strong predestination of the will, and our first concern must be to see that we treat the nerves-and-senses organisation of these two children with the utmost care and delicacy. Their nerves-and-senses organisation is, as a whole, slippery and unstable, unable to endure strong impressions; and we must be ready at every moment with the right thing to do, we must sense it in our finger-tips! A fine feeling and tact is needed in all one's dealings with the nerves-and-senses organisation of children of this kind; especially must we avoid straining the eyes in reading and such-like occupations. Try to impart your teaching without requiring the use of the eyes at all — I mean, without any reading. On the other hand, accustom the eyes to colour impressions where the colours shade off gently into one another. For instance, let the colours of the rainbow pass over from one into another, slowly, the child following all the time with her gaze. There you have, you see, measures that will be quite easy to carry out.

If you are also to treat the children therapeutically, there is just one thing I must tell you, and that is, that after puberty the remedies will no longer be very effective. And that can be an important indication for you, since the one child was born in 1909, and the other in I921; the effects of treatment can in their case be thoroughly observed and the difference noted.

What we want to do for a child of this kind is to introduce powerful radiations of iron, letting them stream up from the metabolism-and-limbs organisation. The way to bring this about is to take pyrites in very fine powder form and lay it on a surface that transmits iron radiations only very slightly. A glass surface would fulfil this condition, but naturally you cannot use glass. So you must try using a clean grease-saturated paper; best of all would be a very thin parchment-like paper, but it must be really thin so that it clings to the body. Ordinary paper that is made from linen rags is no good. You must rub resin or something of that sort over the paper and sift the pyrites powder finely on to it. By this means you can bring the iron radiation to enter right into the child. Lay the paper all along the legs and on the shoulder-blades, and then try the application of a “drawing” compress — say, of cochlearia — on the forehead.

If this treatment be applied to the organism at the time when the change of teeth is taking place — a time when particularly powerful streamings and counter-streamings (or radiations) are going on — much can be done towards overcoming the instability.

Such is then the result of our investigations so far. The problem must of course be the subject of further study. Up to now, the world has done nothing with albinos except expose them for show, getting them to tell their tale: “I am rather fat, I have white hair, I can see nothing by day, I can see better at night.” This is the kind of thing that actually goes on with albinos today, and there is on the whole very little knowledge about them; for the scientists of our day do not concern themselves with problems of this nature. But directly we turn our attention to striking facts such as those I have been putting before you here we begin to see how strongly the cosmic influence is working, wherever this complete irregularity is present in the mutual disposition of the members of the human being.

And now I should like you to bring forward any questions you are wanting to ask.

(Question: “That we find ourselves in the situation of having questions to ask has come about through Dr. L. approaching Frau Dr. Wegman on quite other grounds. He was of opinion that the mood of those attending the lectures was not as it should be.”)

It is surely quite unnecessary that we should waste time discussing what is after all a simple matter. Dr. L. came to me and explained that there was a deep feeling among the Lauenstein members of the importance of the task they were undertaking; they felt they were about to embark upon what would prove to be a new mission within the Anthroposophical Movement, and it would surely be good if the karmic connections between those who are engaging in the work could be thoroughly explained and understood. (l. shakes his head.) Well, anyway, let us concentrate our attention on the main point. What L. said amounted to this: The Lauenstein members believe that they have now set out upon a task that is entirely new and of fundamental importance; to which I replied that in that case what they will need before all else will be sincerely and faithfully to learn what is being given in this course. If it should prove that anyone is not satisfied with what is being given in this course of lectures and would rather remain in the realm of abstractions, would rather set to work, for example, to organise a completely new movement, then all I can say is that such an attitude would be no more than the natural result of practices that have been followed only too long among our members. Anyone taking such a path would find himself in danger of megalomania. Nevertheless, in order that the partly justified feelings in the background may have ample opportunity to find expression, I have asked you to put your questions. And so now our best plan will be to ask and consider together quite practical questions.

(S. asks, what connection has the Lauenstein Home with the fact that Trüper [Johannes Trüper, 1855-1921, Founder and for many years Leader of the Youth Sanatorium in Jena.] was the first to undertake the education of backward children.)

What do you mean? That Trüper was the first to concern himself with these children and do something for them? You are attaching too much importance to the work of this man. I do not think that the Educational Homes for backward children which were started in Hanover — very early, comparatively speaking, and not without success — can have been influenced by Trüper. In point of fact, the first step in this direction dates much farther back. But what has been lacking all along is just the very thing that can enable one to look right into the whole being of the child. For we have really no means of discovering the simplest facts without the help of anthroposophical knowledge. And the converse is no less true, that the human beings themselves are constantly affording us new and deeper insight into Anthroposophy.

Consider how it is, for instance, with regard to Goethe's Theory of Metamorphosis. In the form it was able to develop under Goethe himself, who was after all a clever man, it appears to us today, does it not, as an abstract theory? It abounds in statements and premises, but has to be content with showing how the leaf lives in the blossom, how a petal changes into a stamen, etc. — treating, that is, of no more than an elementary metamorphosis. When it goes on to speak of animal and man, all that the theory can do is to adduce — rather shyly — the transformation of the vertebrae into the bones of the skull. In no realm of nature does it get beyond the elementary stage. I myself was amazed and perplexed. Did it never dawn upon Goethe — so I kept asking myself all through the eighties — that the whole brain is a transformation of one single ganglion? Spiritually, I could see that it was so; it had dawned upon him. Then, later on, I made a discovery, which showed that it was only Goethe's discreet reserve which had restrained him all the time from giving expression to the truth he clearly perceived. When I came to Weimar, I found in a little note-book — which was written all in pencil — this note: The brain is a transformed main ganglion. It was not until the nineties of last century that that sentence of Goethe's found its way, through me, into print. Suddenly it was as though a new author made his appearance; Goethe became thenceforward the most fruitful of authors.

But now consider what a long way it is from the Theory of Metamorphosis as taught by Goethe to the Theory of Metamorphosis as demonstrated in the one-year-old little child who was lying there before you a few days ago — normal in other respects, but metamorphosed into a giant embryo. That was an instance of a metamorphosis of retardation, where the embryonic condition was retained after birth. And you will yourselves come to acquire a true insight into this kind of metamorphosis if you continue to practise again and again the meditation I gave you yesterday, when I told you: Here is a circle, here is a point; there the circle is a point, there the point of a circle, and so (see Figure 3.). Over and over again you must, in meditation, let the circle steal into the point, let the point expand to the circle. As you do this, you will find that something reveals itself to you, namely, how the metabolism-and-limbs organisation comes into being out of the head organisation. Continue with the meditation until, when you say to yourself: The point is a point, the circle is a circle, you are sensible of the head; and when you say to yourself: The point is a circle, the circle is a point — when, that is, you assert the converse — you discover that you are gliding right down into the metabolic system. You will then have before you the developed Theory of Metamorphosis, and you will see quite clearly that it is only through this kind of thinking that we can ever hope to attain insight into the nature of the defects in backward children. And this is what we have been attempting in these lectures.

Search for the impulses that are already there in the place where you are beginning your work; find what impulses are there that can inspire you with enthusiasm and so make for a continuity. Ask yourselves the question: What antecedents are there here which we can link onto?

Now, as you know, a remarkable historical figure is associated with Jena. Once, long ago, the German Abbot Hildebrand, feeling within him — exactly as do the youth of today — great gifts and capacities, moved too, as they also are, by religious and spiritual impulses (but in his case the spiritual was methodically conceived), went to Rome, became Pope Gregory VII, and strongly influenced the direction given from Rome to the course of affairs in European history. We have thus a powerful Roman impulse, spreading its activity out over Europe, mediated through an impulse that derives from the order of Cluny and has been transplanted into the Roman stream. You should study that passage of history. For the remarkable thing is that in his next life on Earth this individuality is drawn to Jena and appears there as Ernst Haeckel. The development is really just the same as happens in the human being when the disintegrating principle inserts itself, dovetails itself, in a regular manner into the upbuilding principle. So you have here in Jena a centre for currents of influence that are in direct and explicit opposition to the current of Roman activity. Jena is the meeting place of opposite streams.

Haeckel made a speech in Jena on his sixtieth birthday. He was speaking on that occasion at the Phylogenetic Institute. Listening to him, one could really have the feeling that the old Hildebrand was standing there before one. The same manner of expression, the very same kind of delivery — speaking slowly, with a good deal of “padding”, weighing the words carefully, like someone who has done quite a lot of speaking and yet never made himself quite master of the art. Another curious thing could be noticed. Abbot Hildebrand, who had of course always very much the air of being a strict Pope — he would stand there before you as the very mouthpiece of the Church — had, at the same time, this trait in his character: he was fond of relating stories that made the rest of the company smile — not overmuch, but with pleasure and enjoyment. And now with Haeckel, it was really quite delightful to watch how he would sometimes at dinner between the courses fall into the mood of telling funny anecdotes out of his own life, and loosening in this way the tongues of the rest of the company. This sixty-year-old man with his childlike smile would lead the others on, and by his whole manner and behaviour bring them right away from the subject in hand. I can still remember how amusing it was to see Oskar Hertwig sitting there in travail with his speech that could not be brought to birth, while Haeckel went on and on with one funny story after another.

You would, I believe, find yourselves well repaid if, now that I have laid for you this esoteric foundation, you were to get hold of this speech that Haeckel made on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. It is not long, but remarkable for being personal and at the same time extraordinarily objective. And then compare with it the speech delivered by Prof. Gärtner, who invariably manifested a disinclination to see in Haeckel a person of any particular historical significance. Indeed, he expressly states in his speech that this time he will leave out of account that Haeckel is the author of the “History of the Creation” and concentrate attention on the vast number of microscope slides that Haeckel has made; for we shall find, he says, that Haeckel has made more slides than all the rest of us put together — a most remarkable fact; actually the rest of us have made so few, that taken all together ours fail to reach the number made by Haeckel alone. A pedant, a regular pedant, this Gärtner! Really quite absurd! In Haeckel's speech you have something so alive, so quick with fresh, new life! Then the scaffold is brought in, and Gärtner comes forward and performs the execution, while the physiologist (a Catholic clerk in holy orders!) looks sadly on. ^E8

But what a power Haeckel was amid all that company! What a rejuvenating influence he had upon them! Even the young students grew suddenly brilliantly clever, and showed quite remarkable powers of imagination. Look up the little book where all the songs are recorded which were sung that day. You will find a most witty account of how an archaeopteryx sharpened his bill on a church steeple. That book of songs will enable you to form some picture of the fresh young life that suddenly blossomed forth in Jena on that day.

This event too I would commend for your meditation. By entering meditatively into the event, you will come to have an intimate experience of the place occupied by Jena in the spiritual evolution of Europe.

Source: https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA317/English/RSP1972/19240706p01.html