The Human Soul in Relation to World Evolution. Lecture 8.
Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, May
28, 1922:
Today I want to bring forward certain
matters which concern humankind's evolution in so far as this evolution is
dependent upon our relationship with certain spiritual powers during the
Earth's future.
We
have seen how it is possible, through exact observation, to gain insight into
the fact that within the physical-soul-spiritual being of man something comes
together which, in a certain sense, belongs to the external world, in so far as
this world consists of etheric forces and beings. Man draws together these
forces to form his etheric body as he descends to earthly life. We see also that
with this entity, consisting of forces from the external etheric world, there
unites the effect of man's earthly deeds, of everything he causes to happen — in
short, his karma.
I
have often mentioned that a new stream of spirituality is now ready to pour into
man's earthly existence. The present forms a link in mankind's evolution between
an era of mainly intellectual development which began in the first third of the
fifteenth century and has now practically run its course — and a future devoted
to the spiritual. The most important task for mankind in the era of
intellectuality was the development of reason through the investigation of
external nature and the development of technology.
In
this direction great and impressive results have been accomplished in recent
centuries. However, it must be said that the intellect has begun to lose its
creativity, though we still live with its heritage. The most creative period was
from the time of Copernicus, Galileo, and Giordano Bruno right up to the
nineteenth century. Especially in Western civilization the greatest intellectual
achievements have been attained in recent centuries.
It
is obvious, even to an external unbiased observation, that the intellect has
lost some of its creative power. In general, mankind has no longer the same
enthusiasm for intellectual accomplishments. Yet the practice of centuries
continues through a certain cultural inertia. Thoughts run along the old grooves,
but the intellect brings nothing new of real importance to the fore. This is
particularly noticeable in our young people. Not so long ago it was a real
pleasure to listen to a young person who had studied some subject. It may not
have applied to everyone but certainly to those who had achieved something; one
was eager to hear what they had to say, and it was the same everywhere in
Western academic circles. But a change has come about in the last few
decades: when a young person fresh from university speaks, one is no longer
curious about what he will say next. One is not curious, because one knows it
already; it comes out automatically; it is as if the brain itself has lost its
vitality. One gets the feeling that the activity of the intellect has slid down
from the head to some deeper region. That human intelligence has become
something mechanical which no longer springs from the region of the head must be
obvious even to external observation. This situation has come about because
intelligence was originally a natural endowment which mankind was predestined to
develop predominantly between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.
However, in order to fructify the developed intellect, a stream of
spirituality from higher regions of world existence now seeks entry into the
earthly life of mankind. Whether this will happen depends upon us opening our
heart and soul to what thus seeks entry, through many doors, as it were, into
the earthly world from the spiritual world. It will be necessary for man not
only to become conscious once more of the spiritual in all nature, but able to
perceive it.
Consider how in the older civilizations humankind in general
perceived — in all the kingdoms of nature, in every star, in every moving cloud,
in thunder and lightning — spirit and soul. On the background of this general
consciousness the yoga exercises evolved. As I explained yesterday, the yogi
attempted to penetrate to his own self. Through inner exercises he sought to
attain what today is taken for granted because we are born with it:
consciousness of the ‘I’ — the feeling of selfhood. This the yogi had first to
develop in himself.
But, my dear friends, it would be a great mistake to compare the
ordinary consciousness of self that we have today with that of the yogi. It
makes a difference whether something is achieved through one's own human effort
or whether one simply has it. When, as was the case with the yogi, one first had
to struggle to attain consciousness of self, then, through the inner effort, one
was transported into the great universal laws; one participated in world
processes. This is not the case when one is simply placed into the sphere of
self-consciousness. To belong willy-nilly to a certain level of human evolution
is not the same as attaining that level through inner exercises.
You will realize from what was said yesterday that humankind must
gradually acquire knowledge in a different way: we must set our thought
processes free from the breathing process. As I explained yesterday, this has
the effect that thinking, by no longer being bound up with the subject, is able
to unite itself with the rhythm of the external cosmos. We must go with our
thinking out of ourselves into the external world, whereas the yogi crept into
his inner being by hitching together, as it were, the systems of thought and
breath. In so doing he identified himself with what his spirit-soul nature was
able to experience on the waves of the inner rhythm of breathing. By contrast,
we must give ourselves up to the world in order to participate in all the
various rhythms which go through the mineral, plant, animal, and human worlds
right up to the realm of the hierarchies. We must enter into, and live within,
the rhythm of external existence. In this way humankind will again gain insight
into that spiritual foundation of nature which external knowledge does not
reach.
The sciences of physics, chemistry, and biology which are pursued
nowadays provide humankind with a vast amount of popular information. What they
actually do is explain how sense observation, interpreted by the intellect, sees
the world. But the time has come when humankind must rediscover what lies behind
the knowledge provided by external observation and intellectual
interpretation.
If
one has in mind their physical aspect only, when speaking about the four
elements of earth, water, air, and fire, then it makes no difference whether one
uses these terms or prefers the more recent ones of solid, liquid, aeriform
bodies, and conditions of heat. When they are referred to today, all one has in
mind is how the physical substances within them are either combined or mixed, or
else separated. However, it must be stressed that everything of a solid, earthen
nature has as its foundation an elemental spirituality. Today's ‘enlightened’
people may laugh when reminded that older folks used to see gnomes in everything
earthy. However, when knowledge is no longer obtained by means of combining
abstract, logical thoughts, but by uniting ourselves through our thinking with
the world rhythm, then we shall rediscover the elemental beings contained in
everything of a solid earthy nature. The outstanding characteristic of these
elemental begins dwelling in solid earth is cleverness, cunning, slyness — in
fact, a one-sidedly developed intellect.
Thus, in the solid earth element live spiritual beings of an
elemental kind who are very much more clever than human beings. Even a person of
extreme astuteness intellectually is no match for these beings who, as
supersensible entities, live in the realm of solid earth. One could say that
just as man consists of flesh and blood so do these beings consist of
cleverness, of super-cleverness. Another of their peculiarities is that they
prefer to live in multitudes. When one is in a position to find out how many of
these astute beings a suitable earthy object contains, then one can squeeze them
out as if from a sponge — in a spiritual sense, of course — and out they flow in
an endless stream. But counting these gnome-like beings is a difficult task. If
one tries to count them as one would cherries or eggs — i.e., one, two, three —
one soon notices that they will not be counted that way. When one has reached
say three, then there are suddenly a lot more. So counting them as one would on
the physical plane is no use; nor is any other form of calculation, for they
immediately play tricks on you. Suppose one put two on one side and two on the
other in order to say that twice two makes four. One would be wrong, for through
their super-cunning they would appear as seven or eight, making out that two
times two makes eight, or something like that. Thus these beings defy being
counted. It must be acknowledged that the intellect developed by man in recent
times is very impressive. But these super-intelligent beings show a mastery over
the intellect even where it is merely a question of numbers.
The elemental beings dwelling in the fluid element — i.e., in
water — have particularly developed what is, in humans, our life of feeling and
sensitivity. In this respect we humans are really backward compared with these
beings. We may take pleasure in a red rose or feel enchanted when trees unfold
their foliage. But these beings go with the fluid which as sap rises in the rose
bush and participate in the redness of the blossoms. In an intimate way they
share feelingly in the world processes. We remain outside of things with our
sensitivity, whereas they are right inside the process themselves and share in
them.
The elemental beings of air have developed to a high degree what
lives in the human will. It is splendid that the analytical chemist discovers
the atomic weight of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, and that he finds out how
hydrogen and oxygen combine into water to be further analyzed, or else how
chloride of lime is analyzed, and so on. But elemental spiritual beings are
active behind all this, and it is essential that man should acquire insight into
their characteristics. During the period in which man developed the intellect —
as already mentioned, this was from the first third of the fifteenth century to
the end of the nineteenth century — these elemental beings were pushed to one
side, as it were. While the intellect played a creative part in man's cultural
life there was not much they could do., and because the elemental beings
dwelling in solids had, in a certain sense, to hold back and leave the intellect
to man, they also held back the beings of water and air. But now we live at a
time when the intellect has begun to decline within the civilized world; it is
falling into decadence. If mankind does not become receptive to what streams
toward him from the spiritual world, then the result of this dullness on man's
part will be — and there are signs already of it happening — that these
elemental beings will gather together to form a kind of union and place
themselves under the leadership of the supreme intellectual power: Ahriman.
If
it should happen that the elemental beings come under the guidance of Ahriman
with the clear intention of opposing human evolution, then mankind would be
unable to make further progress. The possibility would arise that the ahrimanic
powers in union with the elemental beings would divert the Earth from its
intended course. The Earth would not continue what is described in my Occult
Science: An Outline as the Saturn-Sun-Moon-Earth evolution. The Earth
can only become what it was originally intended to become if human beings, in each epoch,
tackle our task rightly.
One can see already how matters stand. Those who have reached a
certain age know that formerly one gained insight into another human being's
inner thoughts and feelings simply through normal conversation and exchange of
ideas. One took it for granted that a person's reason and intellect resided in
his head, and what was in the head would be conveyed through the spoken word.
There are many people today who no longer take it for granted that reason is
located in the head of many of their contemporaries; rather do they assume it to
have slid further down. So instead of listening they now analyze. This is just
one example from one misunderstood aspect of the whole problem. But I would say
that when one starts to psychoanalyze people instead of just letting them talk,
then that is in fact an admission that reason no longer resides in the head. It
is assumed to have slid down into deeper regions of human nature and must be
psychoanalyzed to be brought up again to consciousness. In this age of a
declining intellect there are already people who dislike it if one appeals to
their intelligence; they prefer to be analyzed. This is because they do not want
to participate with the head in what their soul brings to light.
Nothing is achieved by looking at these things merely from an
external point of view. To see clearly what is involved they must be considered
— as we have just done — in the wider context of world evolution. Certain
aspects of psychoanalysis may do some good. There are conditions which formerly
were simply accepted but are no longer tolerated and must be cured. However, as
so many cures are needed, physical ones do not suffice, so one resorts to
psychological ones. Why this should be so must be seen in a wider context.
Superficially judged, there is no point in objecting to all the
good reasons and beguiling arguments put forward by psychoanalysts, not even
from the wider viewpoint of world evolution. People want to avoid seeing things
in their wider context, though it would lead them to the recognition that a
spiritual stream is seeking to enter our present civilization to replace the
declining intellect.
What we have considered so far amounts to one aspect of what in
the future threatens humankind. There is another aspect: just as the lower
elements of earth, water, and air are inhabited by elemental beings, so are the
higher elements of light ether, chemical ether, and life ether. However, these
beings of the higher elements differ considerably from those of the lower ones.
The beings of light, and particularly those of life, do not aim at becoming
multitudes. The ones who strive the most to become multitudes are the beings of
the earth element. The beings of the etheric element strive rather toward
unity. It is difficult to differentiate them from one another; they do not
express any individuality and rather strive to amalgamate. Certain initiates in
ancient times, through whom certain teachings of the Old Testament originated,
turned their attention particularly toward the etheric elements. The strong
tendency of these elements towards unification created an influence which
resulted in the strict monotheism of Judaism.
The religion which is based on the worship of Jehovah originated
mainly from a spiritual vision of the realm of the ethers. In this realm live
spiritual beings who do not strive to separate from one another and become many
individuals. Rather do they strive to grow together and disappear into one
another; they seek to become a unity.
If
these beings are disregarded by man — i.e., if he does not turn to spiritual
knowledge and the insight that what exists up in the sky is not merely the
physical Sun, but that with the Sun's warmth and light etheric beings stream
down to Earth — if our comprehension stops at the external material aspect, then
the possibility exists that these beings will unite with ahrimanic powers. In
order for the Earth to become what it was originally intended to become, we
must wake up to the dangers that threaten from both sides — on the one hand, the
danger that those beings who dwell in the lower elements will join forces with
ahrimanic powers, and on the other, that the ahrimanic powers will unite with
those of the higher elements in their striving for unity.
The significance of spiritual knowledge for humankind's earthly destiny
cannot be emphasized too strongly. Unless we draw near to spiritual reality,
something completely different from what ought to happen will happen to the
Earth. No matter how far or how deeply our sophisticated sciences of physics and
chemistry investigate the material world around us, the fact remains that what
is investigated will all disappear along with Earth existence itself. In the
last resort, chemistry and physics have no value whatever beyond the Earth. When
the evolution of the Earth comes to an end, all mineral substances will turn to
dust and dissolve in the cosmos. Only what pertains to the plant, animal, and
human world will pass over to the Jupiter existence. Therefore, all the
magnificent achievements of these sciences are related only to what is
transitory. It is essential that knowledge is attained of that which endures
beyond the Earth.
As
already mentioned, whatever physical laws are discovered, whatever is
investigated concerning the atomic weight of individual elements or whatever
chemical formulae are produced, all these things are concerned only with what
has merely transient significance. Man must grow beyond Earth existence through
knowledge of the kind of things I have explained. These are matters of great
import and significance.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment