The human being as an image of the living spirit

Rudolf Steiner, London, September 2, 1923:

My Dear Friends,

After the excellent conference at Ilkley and summer school at Penmaenmawr, it gives me heartfelt pleasure to be able now to give this lecture at our London centre.

I may remind you first of what I said in former lectures here. Man, in accomplishing his work from day to day and from year to year, works in the physical body which is given to him upon Earth, and through which he is physically linked with all earthly life. So long as we contemplate what surrounds us here in this physical existence upon Earth, including that which we ourselves contribute to if, we shall of course fix our attention mainly on the times we spend in waking life. 

Yet as I said in those earlier lectures, that which goes on for man during the times when he is fast asleep is still more important for his whole existence — even for what he is and does in earthly life.

When we look back in memory from any given point in our life, we always exclude the times we spent asleep; we join the things we did and underwent by day and while awake, as though they were to form a continuous whole. Yet none of this would be possible without the intervening periods of sleep. Above all, if we want to know the true being of man, we must pay attention to these periods of sleep. A man might easily say that he knows nothing of what goes on during sleep. 

To ordinary consciousness this may seem true, but in reality it is not so. For if we had to look back into a life uninterrupted by sleep, we should be mere automata. True, we should still be spiritual beings, but we should be automata.

Even more important than the daily periods of sleep throughout our life are the times we spent in sleep as very little children. We retain the good effects of those early periods of sleep all through our life; in a sense, we only supplement them by what accrues to us spiritually night by night during the rest of life. If we came into the world as little children wide-awake and never slept, we should, once more, be automate; my, in this automatic state we should be unable to do anything consciously at all. We should not even recognize what came about through us, as our own concern.

We may believe we have no memory at all of what transpires during sleep, but even that is not quite true. When we look back in memory, seeing the things we experienced while awake and omitting the periods of sleep, the fact is that we see a void, a nothing, in the intervals of time when we were sleeping. It is as though you were looking at a white wall where at one place the white paint was lacking; you see a black circle. Or there might be a hole with no light behind it; you see the empty hole inasmuch as you see darkness. So do you see the darkness when you look back on your own life. The times you spent asleep appear as darkness in the midst of life. And in reality it is to these darknesses of life that you say ‘I.’ If you did not see the darknesses you would have no consciousness of ‘I.’ You owe the ability to say ‘I’ to yourself, not to the fact that you were active every day from morning until night, but to the fact that you were also sleeping. 

The Ego as we know it in this earthly life is, to begin with, darkness of life, emptiness, even non-existence. If we consider our life truly, we shall not say that we owe our consciousness of self to the day but rather that we owe it to the night. This is the truth. It is the night which males us real human being and no mere automata.

Indeed if we look back into earlier epochs of human evolution upon 

Earth, though he was no mere automaton even then, for he already had certain differences between his waking and sleeping states, yet inasmuch as he was more or less aware of his sleeping states even in ordinary waking life, man's earthly life and action was far more automatic than it is today.

Truth is, we never bring our real and inmost Ego with us from the spiritual world into the physical and earthly; we leave it in the spiritual world. Before we came down into earthly life it was in the spiritual world, and it is there again between our falling asleep and our awakening. It stays there always, and if by day — in the present form of human consciousness — we call ourselves an ‘I,’ this word is but an indication of something which is not here in the physical world at all; it only has its picture in this world.

We do not see ourselves aright if we say: ‘Here am I, this robust and real man, standing upon Earth; here am I with my inmost being.’ We only see ourselves aright if we say: ‘Our true being is in the spiritual world, and what is here of us on Earth is but a picture — an image of our true being.’ It is entirely true if we regard what is here on Earth, not as the real man himself, but as the picture of the real man.

I will now show how you can see this picture-character of man more clearly. Let us imagine ourselves asleep. The Ego is away from the physical and etheric body; the astral body too is away. Now it is the Ego which works in the blood of man and in his movements. In sleep the movements cease, inasmuch as the Ego is away; the blood however goes on working, and yet the Ego is not there. We need only think of the physical body and we must ask ourselves: What happens to it while we are asleep? Something must still be living and working in the blood, even as the Ego lives and works in it by day. Likewise the astral body, living as it does in the whole breathing process, leaves it by night, and yet the breathing goes on. Here again, something must be there within the breathing process, working in it even as the astral body does in waking life.

Thus every time we go to sleep, with our astral body we forsake those inner organs which are the organs of respiration, and with our Ego we forsake the pulsating forces of our blood. What then becomes of them by night? The answer is that while the man lies asleep in bed, Beings of the adjoining Hierarchy enter into the pulsating forces of the blood from which his Ego has departed. Angels, Archangels and Archai are then indwelling the self-same organs in which the human Ego dwells in waking life by day. Moreover in the breathing organs which we have forsaken inasmuch as the astral body is outside by night, Beings of the next higher Hierarchy — Exusiai, Dynamis andKyriotetes — are living then.

Thus when we go to sleep at night, setting forth with our Ego and astral body, leaving behind the body of our waking life, Angels, Archangels and higher spiritual Beings enter into us and animate our organs while we are outside — until we re-awaken. And what is more, as to our ether-body, even in our day-waking life we are not able to fulfill what is needed there. The Beings of the highest Hierarchy — Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones — have to indwell this ether-body even while we are awake; they remain there always.

Lastly the physical body; if we ourselves had to achieve all the great and wonderful processes taking place there, we should not merely do it very badly; we could not set about it at all. Here we are utterly helpless. What outer anatomy ascribes to the physical body could not even move a single atom of it. Powers of quite another order are required here, namely none other than those that have been known since primeval times as the supreme Trinity — the Powers of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They — the essential Trinity — indwell the physical body of man.

Therefore in truth, throughout our earthly life our physical body is not our own. If it depended on us, it could not go on at all. It is, as was said of old, the true Temple of the Godhead — of the Divine threefold Being. Likewise our ether-body is the dwelling-place of the Hierarchy of Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. They have to help in caring for the organs which are assigned to the etheric body. As to those physical and etheric organs on the other hand which are deserted every night by the astral body, they are provided for by the second Hierarchy — Kyriotetes, Dynamis and Exusiai. Lastly, the organs forsaken during sleep by the human Ego have to be cared for in the night by Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai. There is a constant activity within the human being, proceeding not only from man himself. Only in waking life he lives in this bodily nature, so to speak, as a subtenant. For at the same time it is the Temple and the dwelling-place of spiritual Beings — the Beings of the Hierarchies.

Bearing all this in mind, we only see this outer form of man aright if we admit: It is a picture — a picture of the working-together of all the 

Hierarchies. They are within it. Look at this human head in all the detail of its form; look at the rest of the body in its human form. I do not look at it truly if I describe it as a reality — as a real being, thus or thus. I only look at it truly if I say: It is a picture of an invisible, super-sensible working of all the Hierarchies together. Only when things are seen in this way can one speak truly and in detail of what is commonly propounded in a rather abstract manner. The physical world is not the true reality, so it is said; it is a maya — the true reality is behind it. Yet such a statement does not help us much. It is too general, as if one were to say: Flowers are growing in the meadow. Just as this statement will only be of use if you know what kind of flowers, so too the knowledge of the higher world can only be applied in practice if one is able to point out in detail how it is working in the outer picture, maya, or reflection, which is its physical, sense-perceptible manifestation.

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Man therefore, seen in his totality, both in his earthly life by day and in his earthly life by night, is related not only to his physical and visible environment on Earth but to a world of higher spiritual being. Through all the kingdoms of Nature upon Earth-mineral, plant, animal kingdom — there works what we may call a lower spiritual realm. So too throughout the world of stars there works a higher spiritual realm — a realm which also influences man. Looked at in his totality, man is related through his physical existence to plants and animals, to water and to air; so too, he is related spiritually to the world of stars. The latter too is but a picture, a revelation of the underlying spiritual reality. It is the Beings of the Hierarchies who are really there. When he looks up to the stars, man in reality is looking up to the spiritual Beings of the Hierarchies. That which is raying down upon him is but a kind of symbolic light which they send to him of their presence, so that here too, even in physical life, he may have some indication of the living Spirit which in reality fills the entire Universe.

Just as on Earth we may long to know this mountain or that river, this animal or yonder plant, so should we feel a longing to get to know the starry world in its true being. In its true being it is spiritual. In Penmaenmawr I tried to tell a little of the real spiritual nature of the Moon, such as it shines upon us from the cosmic spaces in the present phase of earthy evolution. When we look up to the Moon, we never really see the Moon itself; we see at most a scanty indication of it where the illuminated crescent is continued. What we are seeing is the reflected sunlight, not the Moon itself. So altogether, only the cosmic forces thrown back or reflected by the Moon reach us upon Earth, never what lives within the Moon itself. That it reflects the Sun's light to the Earth is but a part, nay, the smallest part of what pertains to the Moon. All physical and spiritual impulses that reach it from the great Universe, the Moon reflects to us like a mirror. And as we never see through to the other side of a mirror, so do we never see the interior of the Moon, where, in effect, there lives a spiritual population among whom are very high guiding Beings. These guiding Powers, with the rest of the Lunar population, were once upon a time on Earth, whence they withdrew to the Moon more than 15,000 years ago. 

Before that time the Moon looked even physically different. It did not 

merely reflects the sunlight to the Earth but mingled in the sunlight something of its own essence. This is however not the point which interests us now. What does concern us at this moment is the fact that in the present epoch the Moon is there like a fortress in the Universe — a cosmic fortress within which lives a population which fulfilled its human destinies more than 15,000 years ago, and, with the spiritual guides of humanity, withdrew thereafter to the Moon. For there were once upon a time on Earth very advanced Beings — Beings who did not put on physical human bodies as do the men of today. They lived rather in etheric bodies, yet for the men who lived on Earth at that time they were the great leaders and educators.

It was these mighty teachers and educators who brought to mankind, long, long ago, the primeval wisdom — the original and sublime wisdom-teachings of mankind, whereof the Vedas, the Vendanta, are but a distant echo. They now are living in the Moon and only radiating spiritually to the Earth what issues from the Universe outside the Moon.

Something of the erstwhile Moon-forces has indeed remained behind on Earth, namely the physical forces of reproduction in man and animal; but that is all. Only the most external and physical element remained behind when at a certain time of old Atlantis the great teachers of mankind migrated to the Moon, which had itself withdrawn from the Earth long before.

Therefore when we look upward to the Moon we only see it truly if we realize that there are lofty spiritual Beings there — Beings who were once upon a time on Earth and who now make it their task to ray down to Earth not what they bear within themselves, but the forces, both physical and spiritual, which they reflect and thus transmit from the great Universe. Whoever seeks Initiation-wisdom in present time, must among other things seek to receive into this Initiation-wisdom what the Beings of the Moon with their sublime spiritual forces have to tell.

Now this is only one of the ‘cities’ in the great Universe — one colony, one settlement among many. Others are no less important, notably those belonging to our planetary system. And as concerns ourselves — as concerns humanity on Earth — the other pole, the opposite extreme to the Moon, is the population of Saturn.

The Saturn population too, as you may gather from my Occult Science, was once united with the Earth, yet in a very different way from the population of the Moon. The Saturn-beings are connected with the earthly life in quite another way. They reflect nothing from cosmic space. Even the physical sunlight is only just reflected on to Earth by Saturn. Saturn like a lonely recluse wanders slowly round the Sun, shedding very little light. What outer Astronomy can tell us about Saturn is but a very small portion of the truth. The significance of Saturn for humanity on Earth is made manifest, if only in a picture, every night when man is sleeping, and it is realized more fully between death and new birth when man is going through the spiritual world — and therefore too through the world of stars — as I explained in a lecture here not long ago.

True, in the present phase of evolution man does not meet Saturn directly; yet by a roundabout way — which we need not go into now — he does come into contact with the Saturn-beings. Within Saturn in effect, Beings of high perfection, very sublime Beings live — Beings who are in near relation to Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones are as it were the Beings nearest to them — nearest among the Hierarchies.

The sublime Beings, whom we may call the Saturn population, do not ray down to Earth or give to men from Saturn anything that can be found in the external, physical world. But they preserve the cosmic memory, the cosmic record. All facts and all events, both physical and spiritual, which the planetary system has undergone, all that the Beings within our planetary system have ever experienced — the Saturn-beings faithfully preserve it in memory. In recollection they are forever looking back on the entire life of the planetary system. Even as we look back in memory upon the limited range of our earthly life, so do the Saturn-beings — in their collective activity — cherish the cosmic memory of what the planetary system as a whole and all the beings in it have undergone.

For man himself, the spiritual forces living in this cosmic memory are present, inasmuch as he comes into relation with the Saturn-beings between death and a new birth, and also — more in picture-form — every night. Thereby the spiritual forces proceeding from the Saturn-beings — forces in which the deepest inner life of the planetary system is contained — are also working within man. Even as memory is our own deepest inner life on Earth, so too what lives in Saturn represents the innermost and deepest ‘cosmic I’ of the whole planetary system.

Inasmuch as these influences are also there in man, many things are going on in human life, of the significance of which we are for the most part quite unconscious — which none the less play the greatest imaginable part in our lives. What we are conscious of, is after all only a very small portion of our life.

Say for example there was an incisive moment, an all-important event in your life. You met another human being with whom you then went on through life together; or it was some other event, essential to your future life. If you look back in time from this event, you will be struck by the fact that something like a plan was leading you towards it, beginning long before. Something that happened, say, between your thirtieth and fiftieth year — follow it backward through your life and you will very likely find: ‘I entered on the path leading to this event when I was ten or twelve years old; all that then followed was leading up to it, so that I landed there.’

Elderly people, looking back contemplatively upon their life, will find that it all works out. They will be able to say: ‘There was a subconscious thread running through it all. Unconscious forces were impelling me to the decisive events of my life.’ These are the Saturn forces — forces implanted in us through our relation, such as has been indicated, to the ‘inner population’ of Saturn.

While therefore, of the Moon, only the physical forces of reproduction are there on Earth (for these are Lunar forces, once again, which remained at the Moon's departure), the very highest forces, namely the cosmic moral forces, are on Earth through Saturn. The source of cosmic equity, the great ‘restorer of the balance’ for all that happens upon Earth, is Saturn. And if the Moon-forces, now upon Earth, have to do only with heredity — heredity through father, mother and so on — the Saturn forces enter into human life through all that lives in Karma, from incarnation to incarnation. In this respect the other planets are intermediate between the two — they mediate between the physical upon the one hand and the highest ethical upon the other.

Jupiter, Mars and so on are there between Moon and Saturn. They in their several ways mediate what Moon and Saturn at the uttermost extremes bring into human life — the Moon inasmuch as its spiritual Beings have withdrawn, leaving behind with the earthly realm only the physical aspect, the physical force of propagation; and Saturn inasmuch as it represents the moral justice of the Universe in its highest aspect. These two are working together in that the other planets are there between than, waving the one into the other. Karma through Saturn, physical heredity through the Moon: these in their interrelation show how man upon his way from earthly life to earthly life is connected with the Earth itself and with the great Universe beyond the Earth.

As you will readily understand, my dear Friends, the science of today, fixing attention upon the earthly life alone, can only tell about a very little part of man. It tells a lot about the forces of heredity, yet even here it fails to see that these are Lunar forces left behind on Earth. It fails to relate them to the cosmic activities, transcending the mere earthly life, to which they properly belong. And it knows nothing at all about the destiny of Karma with which this earthly life is infused. Yet in reality, even as physical man is pulsated through and through by the living blood, so are the Beings bearing within them the vast memory of the planetary system with all its cosmic happenings, pulsating through man's Karma upon Earth. Looking into our own inner life, we must admit: We are true human beings only inasmuch as we have memory. Looking out into the planetary system with all its physical and spiritual happenings, and reaching upward to Initiation-science, we must equally admit: This planetary system would be void of inner life were it not for the inhabitants of Saturn preserving through the ages the memory, the cosmic past thereof, and also pouring ever down into mankind the forces springing from this preservation of the cosmic past, whereby all human beings are immersed in a living spiritual-moral nexus of causes and effects leading from earthly life to earthly life.

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In earthly life, as to his conscious action, man is confined — in his relation to other men — within narrow limits. But if he takes into account what he experiences between death and new birth, there his relation to other human beings, who like himself will be discarnate, living no longer in physical bodies, reaches far wider circles. True, between death and re-birth he is at one time more in the neighbourhood of the Lunar influences and at another more in the neighbourhood of those of Saturn, Mars and so on. Yet through the cosmic spaces the one kind of planetary force interpenetrates the other. As upon Earth we work from man to man across the narrow confines of terrestrial space, so between death and new birth there is a working from planet to planet. The Universe then becomes the scene of man's activity and of the mutual relations between men. There between death and new birth, maybe the one departed soul is in the realm of Venus while the other is in Jupiter's domain; yet the interactions between them are far more intimate and tender than is possible within the narrow confines of earthly life. And even as the cosmic distances are called into play, to be the scene of action of the relations between human souls between death and new birth, so too the Beings of the Hierarchies are there, working throughout the cosmic spaces. We have to tell not only of the working of the several kinds of Beings — say, the inhabitants of Venus, or of Mars. We have to tell of the relations between the populations of Mars and Venus — a never-ending interaction, a constant to and fro of spiritual forces between the population of Mars and that of Venus amid the Universe.

This which goes on in the Universe between the populations of Mars and Venus — this everliving interplay in the spiritual Cosmos, the deeds of Mars and Venus fertilizing one another — all this again has its relation to man. Even as the Saturn-memory is related to human Karma, and the physical Lunar forces, left behind on Earth, to the external force of reproduction, so is the hidden spiritual interaction between Mars and Venus related to what appears in earthly life as human speech. For we could never speak by virtue of physical forces alone. It is the eternal being of man, going on from earthly life to earthly life, living in effect between death and new birth, which radiates into this outer world the gift of speech. Whilst as a spiritual being we are on our way from death to a new birth, we come into the sphere of action of the mutually fertilizing life which goes on between Mars and Venus — between the spiritual populations of Mars and Venus. Their spiritual forces, raying to and fro, co-operating, enter also into us ourselves upon our way from death to a new birth. This too is reproduced on Earth as in a physical picture, out of the innermost being of man, entering into the organs of speech and song. Never should we be able to speak through these organs if they were not physically kindled by the forces we receive into the depths of our being between death and new birth — forces derived from what is ever streaming to and fro in the Cosmos between Mars and Venus.

Thus in our daily life and action we are under the influence of the same spiritual forces, to the outward signs of which we look up with awe and wonder when we look out into the starry heavens. He alone is able to look up with inner truth who knows that in the stars, raying down to us from cosmic space, are to be seen the signs and characters of the great cosmic writing. For they are but the written signs of the great Universe — of the eternal, all-embracing spiritual life and process which also lives within us and of which we, once more, are but the image.

Long, long ago, in an instinctive atavistic clairvoyance, mankind had vision and perception of these things. The vision faded. If he had kept it, man could never have grown free. The ancient vision was therefore darkened. In compensation, the Mystery of Golgotha came into earthly life. A sublime Being from the population of the Sun came to Earth. He could not, it is true, bring to mankind all at once a consciousness of what is going on in yonder world of stars, but He brought with Him the forces whereby this consciousness can gradually be achieved.

Therefore it happened that to begin with, while the Mystery of Golgotha was taking place, a Gnostic wisdom was still there, inherited from olden time, through which the Mystery was understood This wisdom too then faded out; during the fourth century after Christ it vanished altogether. Yet the spiritual force which had come to Earth through Christ remained. Man can now call this force to life within him, if he once opens his eyes to the reality of spiritual worlds, as he can do through the communications of modern spiritual Science.

How much is yet to come to the humanity of modern time through looking thus once more to spiritual worlds! It is a striking fact: yonder in Asia, in more than one Asiatic, Oriental country, are living those who still preserve some relic of the old instinctive wisdom. They are the educated people, the true scholars, in the Oriental sense. No doubt this remnant of an ancient wisdom no longer belongs, in the best sense of the word, to our time; it needs to be replaced by a more conscious wisdom. And yet these bearers of an ancient and instinctive wisdom look down with not a little contempt upon the people of Europe and America. They are persuaded that their ancient Oriental wisdom even in its decadence, even the remaining rags and tatters of it, are preferable to the kind of knowledge of which Western civilization is so inordinately proud. Hence it is interesting to see a book recently published by a Cingalese, an Indian of Ceylon, The Culture of Souls among the Western Nations, wherein the author says to the Europeans, in effect: Since the Middle Ages your knowledge of the Christ has died out. No longer have you any real knowledge of the Christ, for he alone who can look up into the spiritual world can have real knowledge of the Christ. Hence you must first let teachers come to you from India, from Asia, to teach you Christianity again. You can actually read it in this book. A Cingalese Indian says to the Europeans: Teachers must come to you from Asia; they will be able to tell you what Christ really is. Your European teachers no longer know it. Since the decline of the Middle Ages you have lost your knowledge of the Christ.

Yet in reality it is for Europeans and Americans themselves once more to summon courage to look into the spiritual worlds from which the knowledge of the Christ, the wisdom of the Christ can be regained. Christ is the Being who came down from spiritual worlds into the earthly life. Therefore in His true inwardness He can only be understood in the light of the Spirit.

Upon this way it is also necessary for man to learn to look upon himself as a picture — an image of the spiritual Beings, spiritual realities and activities, on Earth. And he can do so best of all by permeating himself with such ideas and perceptions as I presented to you at the beginning of this lecture. Amid his conscious experiences in the stream of time he looks into the emptiness. He becomes conscious that his true Ego never descends from the spiritual world; that in the physical world he is but a picture. The real ‘I’ is not here in the physical world at all. He sees, as it were, a hole in time — a seeming darkness — and it is to this that he says ‘I’.

Man should therefore become aware of the deep significance of this fact. When he looks back and remembers his past life, he must admit: I see in memory the experiences I underwent from day to day, but there is ever and again a hole, a gap of darkness. It is this darkness which in my ordinary consciousness I call ‘I’. But I must now become conscious of something more than this.

I have summed up this ‘something more’ in a few words, which — as a kind of meditation reaching out to the true ‘I’ — may be inscribed in the soul of every human being of our time. Ever repeatedly we may call to life in us these words of meditation, which I will write as follows:

Ich schaue in die Finsternis:
In ihr ersteht Licht —
Lebendes Licht.
Wer ist dies Licht in der Finsternis?
Ich bin es selbst in meiner Wirklichkeit!
Diese Wirklichkeit des Ich
Tritt nicht ein in mein Erdendasein.
Ich bin nur Bild davon.
Ich werde es aber wieder finden,
Wenn ich,
Guten Willens fur den Geist,
Durch des Todes Pforte gegangen.

I gaze into the Darkness.
In it there arises Light —
Living Light!
Who is this Light in the Darkness?
It is I myself in my reality.
This reality of the ‘I’
Does not enter into my earthly life.
I am but a picture of it.
But I shall find it again
When with good will for the Spirit
I shall have passed through the Gate of Death.

Entering ever and again into a meditative saying of this kind, we can confront the Darkness. We realize that here on Earth we are only a picture of our true Being — that our true Being never comes down into the earthly life. Yet in the midst of the Darkness, through our good will towards the Spirit, a Light can dawn upon us, of which we may in truth confess: This Light am I myself in my reality.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA/GA0228/19230902p01.html

Weave in Wisdom — Live in Glory — Strive in Virtue

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?  —Micah 6:8

The nature of soul and of spirit; The difference between ancient yoga and modern spirituality

The Spiritual Ground of Education. Lecture 2 of 9.

Rudolf Steiner, Oxford, England, August 17, 1922:

First let me express my deepest thanks for the words from Mr. H. A. L. Fisher which have just been read out. They give me great encouragement in the task of the next few days. I have been informed that there was something difficult to understand in what I spoke about yesterday. In particular that difficulties had arisen from my use of the words “Spiritual” and “spiritual cognition.” This occasions me to depart somewhat today from the subject I had set myself and to discuss the use of the words “spirit” (Geist) and “spiritual life” (spirituelles Leben). This will lead us somewhat away from the subject of teaching and education. But from what I hear I gather we shall understand each other better during the next few days if I give these explanations of spirit, soul, and body today. During the next few days I shall find an opportunity of saying what I intended saying today.

Now, such an exposition as that to be given today makes it necessary to speak in a more theoretical way, to speak in ideas and concepts. I beg you to acquiesce in this for today; in the following days things will be better again and I shall not cruelly torment you with ideas and concepts but shall hope to please you with concrete facts.

The word ‘Geist’ (Spirit) and also the word ‘Spirituell’ (Spiritual) as used from the point of view and world outlook from which I now speak, is generally not understood profoundly enough. When the word ‘Geist’ (spirit) is used, people take it to mean something like ‘intellectual’ or to mean much the same as the English word ‘mind.’ But what I mean here by ‘spiritual’ and by ‘spirit’ (Geist) is something quite different. It must definitely not be confused with all these things designated as ‘spirit’ and ‘spiritual’ in mystical, fanatical, or superstitious sects and movements: on the other hand it is quite distinct from what is meant by intellect or mind.

If we can obtain an immediate concrete knowledge, a true insight, into what is working in a small child up to the time of changing its teeth — a working not directly perceptible, but observable in expressions of the child's nature which may appear to us even primitive — that, then is “Spirit” (Geist), and that then is “Soul.”

Nowhere in our observation of man and of nature are we confronted by spirit and soul so immediately as when we contemplate the manifestations of life in a tiny child. Here, as I said yesterday, in the moulding of the brain, in the shaping of the whole organism, spiritual forces are at work, soul essences are at work. What we see are manifestations of life in the child; we perceive these with our senses. But what works through from behind the veil of sense perceptible things is spirit, is soul; — so to be apprehended as nowhere else in life — unless we have accomplished an inner soul development.

Thus we must say: to immediate ordinary perception, spirit is quite unknown. At most, soul can manifest in ordinary percepts. But we must feel and sense it through the percept.

If I may use an image to indicate what is meant — not to explain it — I would say: When we speak, our speech comes from words, sounds made up of consonants and vowels. Observe the great difference between consonants and vowels in speech. Consonants round off a sound, give it angularity, make it into a breath sound or a wave sound [Usually called labials and dentals. But see Dr. Steiner's classification of vowels and consonants in his Dramatic and Eurhythmy courses.] according as we form the sound with one organ or another — with lips or teeth. Vowels arise in quite another way. Vowels arise while guiding the breath stream through the vocal organs in a particular manner. We do not give contour, we build the substance of the sound by means of vowels. The vowels, as it were, provide the substance, the stuff. The consonants mould and sculpture the substance provided by the vowels.

And now — using the terms spirit and soul in the sense we are giving them here — we can say: In the consonants of speech there is spirit, in the vowels there is soul.

When a child first begins to say A (AH) it is filled with a kind of wonder, a marvelling — a soul content. This content of soul is immediately present to us. It streams out in the A. When a child expresses the sound E (EH) it has a kind of slight antipathy in its soul. It withdraws, starts back from the thing affecting it. E (EH) expresses something antipathetic in the soul. Wonder: A. Antipathy: E. The vowels show soul content.

When I form a consonant of any kind I give contour, I surround and shape the vowel substance. When a child says Ma Ma — A twice over — the gesture shows the child's need to reach out to its mother for help [The gesture of M is meant. See Eurythmy.]. A by itself would be what the child feels and experiences about its mother. M is that which it would like the mother to do. So that Ma-Ma contains the whole relationship to the mother both according to spirit and soul. Thus we hear language spoken, we hear its sense content, but we do not attend to the way spirit and soul lie hidden in language. True, we are still occasionally aware of it in speech, but we fail to notice it in the whole human being. We see the outer form of a man. Within are soul and spirit as they are within speech. But this we no longer heed.

There was a time, however, in ages past when men did heed it and they said, not ‘In the beginning was the Spirit’ — that would have been too abstract — but ‘In the beginning was the word,’ for men still felt livingly how spirit was carried on the waves of speech. It is this spirit and what is characteristic of it that we designate here when we use the word ‘spiritual’ — a thing not revealed in intellect, nor yet in what we call mind. Mind and spirit are distinct from one another. They differ as much as my personality differs from the reflection I see in the looking-glass. When I stand there and hold a mirror and look at myself in it: my reflection is in the mirror. This reflection makes the same movements as I do, it looks like me, but it is not me; it differs from me in that it is an image, whereas I am a reality. ‘Spirit’ holds sway in hidden depths. Intellect only has the image of spirit. Mind is the reflected image of the spirit. Mind can show what spirit does, Mind can make the motions of spirit. But mind is passive. If someone gives me a blow, mind can reflect it. Mind cannot itself give the blow. Spirit is activity. Spirit is always doing. Spirit is creative. Spirit is the essence of productivity, productivity itself. Mind, Intellect, is copy, reflection, passivity itself: — that thing within us which enables us, when we are older, to understand the world. If intellect, if mind, were active we should not be able to understand the world. Mind has to be passive so that the world may be understood through it. If it were active it would continually alter and impinge upon the world. Mind is the passive image of the spirit.

Thus: Just as we look away from the reflection to the man himself when we seek reality, so when we seek the reality of spirit and soul we must endeavour to pass from the unproductive passive to the productive active.

This, men have endeavoured to do throughout all ages of human development. And today I wish to speak to you of one way of this seeking, so that we may agree upon the meaning of spirit and soul when I speak to you here. Commonly as adult human beings we only perceive spirit in its reflection as Intellect, Mind, or Reason. We only apprehend the soul in its manifestations, or expressions. We are nearer to the soul than to the spirit but we do not perceive the full inner activity even of the soul. We perceive revelations of the soul; we perceive spirit in its reflection only. A reflection retains nothing of the reality. — But we do perceive revelations of the soul. What we know as feeling, our sympathies and antipathies, our experience of desire and passion — these belong to the soul. But we do not perceive what the soul is within us.

What is soul within us? Now I can perhaps indicate what soul is in us if I distinguish between what we actually experience and what happens within us in order that we may experience. When we walk over soft ground we tread on it, our footprints remain in it. Now suppose someone finds our footprints; will he say: “Beneath the earth, below there, are certain forces which have shaped the earth so that it shows these concave forms”? No one would say such a thing. Any person would say: Someone has walked here.

Materialism says: I find imprints in the brain, the brain has impressions. — The earth too has impressions when I have gone over it! — But now Materialism says: There are forces in the brain, and these make the imprints. This is false. The soul makes the imprints, just as it is I who make them on the ground; and only because the imprints are there can I perceive the soul. I perceive a sensation in the soul. To begin with the soul is hidden. It has made the imprints in my body. If I make a very hard dent it hurts me, it is painful. I do not immediately see what I have done — (I can do it behind my back). But even if I do not see what I do, I experience the pain. In the same way the soul scores an impression upon my body, itself hidden. I perceive the effect in passions, in sympathy, etc. I perceive the effect of what the soul does in the manifestation. Thus: Of the spirit we have an image; of the soul an expression.

We are closer to the soul. But let us keep in mind that spirit or soul must be sought in profounder depths than mind or intellect or reason.

This may perhaps contribute to an understanding of spirit and soul.

To make the concept of spirit and soul yet clearer let me now turn to a historical aspect. And let me not here be misunderstood today, as has too often happened. I do this expressly for the sake of elucidation — not with any intention at all of maintaining that in order to reach spirit and soul we must proceed today in the manner used of old. But the present-day method of attaining to spirit and soul will be easier to understand when we turn to history.

In order to attain to the spirit in the twentieth century it is quite impossible to do the same as was done hundreds or thousands of years ago in ancient India. Neither can we do as was done before the event of the Mystery of Golgotha. We live within the development of Christianity. But we shall be helped in our understanding of spirit and soul if we look back to this older way and see, for example, how the way to soul and spirit of the spiritual man differs completely from the way of the merely intellectual man.

What do we do when today, in conformity with the general consciousness of our age, we want to get clear about ourselves? We reflect; we use our intellect. And what do we do when we want to get clear about nature? We experiment and bring our intellect to bear upon the experiments. Intellectual activity on all hands. In ancient times men sought to reach spirit and soul in quite a different manner. To take two examples from among many that I might cite: they sought to reach the spirit and soul, for instance, in very ancient times in the East by means of the so-called Yoga method, Now, the mention of Yoga produces a feeling of slight horror in many people today, for only the later Yoga methods are known to history, methods based on human egoism and which seek power in the external world. The older Yoga methods (which can only be discovered today through spiritual science — not through external science) were ways which men took toward the spirit. They rested on the fact that men instinctively said to themselves: we cannot attain to the spirit by mere reflection, by mere thinking. We must do something which reveals action, activity, in ourselves far more than mere reaction does. Thinking goes on in us even when we stand aside from the world merely as onlookers: we do not then bring about any perceptible change in ourselves.

The Yogi was seeking out a far more real happening or process in himself when he wanted to learn about the spirit. Suppose we ask ourselves what takes place, according to our present-day physiological knowledge, when we use our intellect? Well, something happens in our nervous system, in our brain, and in those parts in the rest of our organism which are connected with the brain through the nervous system. But what takes place in the nerves could never come about if an activity far more perceptible were not intermingled with the processes of our brain. Unceasingly from our birth till our death we breathe in, retain our breath, breathe out. When we breathe in, the breath passes over our whole organism. The thrust of the breath is through the spinal cord into the brain. We do not only breathe with our lungs, we breathe with our brain. But this means that our brain is in constant motion. The breath — inbreathing, breath-holding, and out-breathing — surges and lives within our brain. This goes on continuously — unconscious of it though we are today. The Yogi used to say: Something is taking place in man of which I must be conscious. Thus he did not breathe unconsciously in the usual way, he breathed abnormally: he breathed in differently, held his breath differently, breathed out differently. In this manner he became conscious of the breath-process. And what takes place unconsciously for us, took place for him in full consciousness, for he conceived and experienced it. Thus he came to experience how in the brain, breath unites with the material process which underlies thinking, which underlies intellectual activity. He searched into this union between thinking and breathing and finally experienced how thought, which is for us an abstract thing, pervades the whole body on the tide of the breath. Thus thought was not only in the brain, not only in the lungs, not only in the heart, thought was in the very fingertips. From real experience of the breath pulsing through him he learned how Spirit creates in man through the medium of the breath: “And God breathed the living breath into Man and he became a Soul.” Not only did He breathe the breath “in the Beginning” but continuously He breathes where breathing takes place. And it is in the breath process, not in thinking, not in the intellectual process, that we become soul. We feel our own being when we feel our thought pulsing throughout the body on the tide of breathing. You see, spirit was here no longer shut off, separated, as an intellectual and abstract thing; hence it could be sensed and felt throughout the whole body. And manhood could be felt as a creation of the Gods. You see, they had active Spirit.

In intellectuality we have passive, not active spirit. Nowadays, since we are differently organized, we cannot copy this Yoga process, nor would it be right for us to do so. For what was the Yogi's aim? He aimed at feeling how the thought process was bound up with the breath process, and in the breath process, which was his mode of cognition, he experienced his humanity. He united thought more intimately with man's whole nature than we do today. But our human progress rests on the fact that we have freed thought itself far more, have made it far more intellectual than it was when Yoga nourished. Never could the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Faraday, Darwin, etc., have been made with a system of thought such as that produced by the ancient Indians when they were Yogis. These achievements have required a thinking reduced to the state of reflection, of image, of intellectuality. And our whole civilization is based on the fact that we are no longer the same as those who developed the Yoga philosophy. People generally misunderstand this when I describe these things. They believe I wish to lead men back again to the Yoga philosophy. Not at all. On the contrary I wish to treat matters as they have to be treated in the age of Copernicus, Galileo, Faraday. We must realize that it is through intellectuality that our western civilization has achieved its greatness. But also we must feel differently from the way the Ancient Indians felt; and feel differently too from the way those who now practice Yoga, feel. Today we must proceed in a way quite different from that of Ancient Indian times, a more spiritual way. And because it must be a more spiritual way, and because people do not much like spirit nowadays, it follows that people do not like the new methods. It is easy, at least it seems easy, to perform Yoga-breathing today in order to find entry into the world of spirit. But this is not the means whereby men of today should come into spiritual realms. No, modern man must first have had to experience at some time the world of appearance (the unreality) which can be perceived by sheer intellectualism, the image nature of things. Man must for once go through all the suffering which goes with saying: “As long as I am merely engaged in intellectual activity, or in observations of that kind, I dwell in emptiness, in mere images. I am remote from reality.”

What I am saying here seems a small thing; but it is great in terms of inner experience. When one comes to experience that all thinking which is intellectual is unreal, is a mere image, then in one's own soul one experiences what in the body would be faintness: one experiences a fainting of the soul where reality is concerned. Actually, knowledge does not start by man's saying to himself: I can think, and can therefore reflect upon all things. Rather, knowledge proceeds from a man's saying to himself: Even if I think about all things with the image thinking that I possess, I shall be nothing but a weak, impotent being. The Yogi looked to find his manhood in the breath: we modern men have to lose our manhood, we have become weak and faint in contact with this intellectual image thought. And now we must be able to say to ourselves: We must not now go inwards, as was done in Yoga, into the breathing process. We must now go outwards, must look upon every flower, look upon every animal, look upon every man, and live in the outward environment.

In my book “Wie erlangt man Erkenntnis der hoheren Welten” which has been translated into English here under the title “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds,” I have described how one does this. How one looks upon the plant not merely externally, but how one participates in all its processes, so that one's thinking is taken right out of its image character and participates in the life of the external world. Or one sinks into the plant until one feels how gravity goes down through the root into the earth, how the formative forces unfold above. One participates in the blooming, the fruiting of the plant; one dives right into the external world. And then, O then — one is taken up by the external world. One awakens as from a swoon. But now one no longer receives abstract thoughts, now one receives “Imaginations.” One gets pictures. And a materialistic view would not recognize these pictures as knowledge. Knowledge, it is said, proceeds in abstract, logical concepts. Yes, but how if the world is not to be comprehended in the abstract concepts of logic? How if the world be a work of art; then we must apprehend it artistically, not logically. Then logic would be a means of discipline only. We should not understand anything about the world by logic. Thus we must enter into the objects themselves. Where Yoga went inwards we must go outwards, and endeavour in this manner to unite ourselves with all things. And thus actually we shall attain the same thing, only in a more psychic, a more spiritual way. By permeating with reality the endings of mere intellect, our concepts, our ideas, we can feel anew how spirit works in us creatively.

And from this we must come to feel that reality which is working in a child. It is not what we have called “mind” in us that is at work. That in a little child would not be a creative thing. That would only lead us astray. But it is what we come to know in the creative way just described which is at work in a child: it is this which forms the second teeth after the manner of the first, and reaches conclusion in the seventh year.

Now you may perhaps say: Yes, but a teacher cannot immediately become a seer, a clairvoyant. He cannot train himself in these methods! How shall we manage schooling and education if we are confronted at the outset with this complicated way of reaching spirit?

But one is not called upon to do this. A few people in the world can develop this higher knowledge. The rest only need sound judgment and sound observation. What the few discover these others will recognize by means of their sound judgment and sound observation. Just as not every person can observe the transits of Venus — they are visible far too rarely; astronomers can observe them on the rare occasions when they are visible. — But would it on this account be absurd to speak of the transits of Venus, just because they had not been observed by everybody? What was observed, and how it was observed, can be comprehended. It is the same thing with the spiritual world. It is only part of present-day egoism to want to do everything oneself.

But there is another way of making spiritual things fruitful, of making use of them. Once more, I will illustrate this by an example: Suppose I am teaching a child of nine or ten years old. I want to tell the child about immortality, the immortality of the human soul. If I go into philosophic dissertations, however charming, the child at his age will make nothing of it. He will be quite untouched by my expositions. But if now I say to him: Dear child, see how the butterfly comes out of the chrysalis — there you have an image that you can apply to man. Look at the human body, it is like a butterfly's cocoon. And just as the butterfly flies out of the chrysalis, so after death does the soul fly out of the body. Only, the butterfly is visible, the soul is invisible.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0305/19220817p01.html

Earth's future in a nutshell

Rudolf Steiner:  "The future of Earth evolution will have to consist of the Mystery of Golgotha being understood by humanity with ever greater maturity, that the glory coming from the Mystery of Golgotha will be understood more and more, with inner glory becoming cosmic glory and beginning to shine out over everything that human beings are able to look into."










9/15/23

The Trinity of the Earth's Soul Forces: The Three Daughters of Mother Easter

 

Anthroposophia  [Hecate]

The conclusion of "The Cycle of the Year as Breathing Process of the Earth. Lecture 3 of 5."
Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland, April 2, 1923:

"...But when anyone follows the whole course of the year, when he sees how the “three” is organized, how the spiritual and the physical-material life are present as a duality, and the rhythmic interweaving of the two as the third, then he perceives this three-in-one, one-in-three, and learns to know how the human being can place himself in this cosmic activity: three to one, one to three.

It would become the whole disposition of the human soul to permeate the cosmos, to unite itself with cosmic worlds, if once the Michael thought could awaken as a festival thought in such a way that we were to place a Michael festival in the second half of September alongside the Easter festival; if to the thought of the resurrection of the God after death could be added the thought, produced by the Michael force, of the resurrection of man from death, so that man through the Resurrection of Christ would find the force to die in Christ. This means, taking the risen Christ into one's soul during earthly life, so as to be able to die in Him — that is, to be able to die not at death but when one is living.

Such an inner consciousness as this would result from the inspiring element that would come from a Michael service. We can realize full well how far removed from any such idea is our materialistic time, which is also a time grown narrow-minded and pedantic. Of course, nothing can be expected of us, so long as it remains dead and abstract. But if with the same enthusiasm with which festivals were once introduced in the world when people had the force to form festivals — if such a thing happens again, then it will work inspiringly. Indeed it will work inspiringly for our whole spiritual and our whole social life. Then that which we need will be present in life: not abstract spirit on one hand and spirit-void nature on the other, but Nature permeated with spirit, and spirit forming and shaping naturally. For these are one, and they will once again weave religion, science, and art into oneness, because they will understand how to conceive the trinity in religion, science, and art in the sense of the Michael thought, so that these three can then be united in the right way in the Easter thought, in the anthroposophical shaping and forming. This can work religiously, artistically, cognitionally, and can also differentiate religiously, artistically, cognitionally. Then the anthroposophical impulse would consist in perceiving in the Easter season the unity of science, religion, and art; and then at Michaelmas perceiving how the three — who have one mother, the Easter mother — how the three become “sisters” and stand side by side, but mutually complement one another. Then the Michael thought, which should become living as a festival in the course of the year, would be able to work inspiringly on all domains of human life.

With such things as these, which belong to the truly esoteric, we should permeate ourselves, at least in our cognition, to begin with. If then the time could come when there are actively working personalities, such a thing could actually become an impulse which singly and alone would be able, in the present condition of humanity, to replace the descending forces with ascending ones."

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0223/19230402p01.html

The Spiritual Individualities of the Planets

Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland, July 27, 1923:

I want to add to what has previously been said some explanation of certain deeper foundations of world-mysteries of which in modern civilisation all knowledge has been lost. To realise the loss we need think only of the modern conception of the planetary system: that it originated in some kind of rotating, primeval nebula, from which the various planetary bodies were dispersed. The speculations derived from this picture have led merely to the idea that there are no fundamental differences between these heavenly bodies, and this is the prevailing attitude towards them.

If the whole planetary system is comprised in the picture of a rotating nebula, out of which the heavenly bodies gradually separated, what essential difference is there between, for example, the Moon and Saturn? It is of course true that very important researches carried out during the 19th century into earthly substances — particularly the minerals — have been able to say a great deal about the material composition of the heavenly bodies, and have worked out a certain kind of physics and chemistry for them. This has made it possible for ordinary text-books to give specific details about Venus, Saturn, the Moon, and so on. But all this amounts to no more than making an image of — let us say — the physical organism of man, leaving out of account altogether the fact that he is a being of soul and spirit. With the help of Initiation-science we must again learn to realise that our planetary system, too, is permeated with soul and spirit. And today I want to speak of the “individualities” and the individual characters of the several planets.

We will think, to begin with, of the planet nearest the Earth, the planet with whose history the Earth's history — though only in a certain sense — is bound up, and which once played an entirely different part in earthly life from the part it plays today. You know from my book Occult Science — an Outline [ New translation by George and Mary Adams, 1963. Rudolf Steiner Press, London.] that there was once a cosmic age — relatively speaking not in a very remote past — when the Moon was still united with the Earth. The Moon then separated from the Earth and now circles around it.

When we speak of the Moon as a physical body in the heavens, its physical nature is only the external, the most external, revelation of the Spiritual behind it. To those who have knowledge of both its outer and its inner nature, the Moon in our universe presents itself to begin with as a gathering of spiritual Beings living in great seclusion. Outwardly, the Moon acts as a mirror of the universe; the fact that it reflects the light of the Sun is evident to the most superficial observation. So we can say: What comes from the Moon is the light of the Sun which has shone upon it and is then reflected. First and foremost, then, the Moon is a mirror of the Sun's light. Now, as you all know, we see what is outside or in front of a mirror but we do not see what is behind it.

The Moon is not the mirror of the Sun's light only, for it reflects everything that radiates upon it — the radiations of the solar light being, of course, by far the strongest. All the heavenly bodies in the universe send their rays towards the Moon, and the Moon — as a mirror of the universe — then radiates them back in every direction.

It can be said, therefore, that the universe is before us in a twofold aspect. It reveals itself in the environment of the Earth and is radiated back by the Moon. The Sun's rays work with tremendous power in themselves and also in their reflection from the Moon. But every other radiation in cosmic space is also reflected by the Moon. There is the manifested universe and there is also its reflection from the Moon.

Anyone capable of observing the mirror-pictures thrown back by the Moon in all directions would have the whole universe before him in reflection. Only that which is within the Moon — that and that alone remains, if I may so express it, the Moon's secret; it remains hidden, just as what is behind a mirror remains hidden. What is behind the outer surface of the Moon, in the innermost sphere of the Moon, is significant above all in its spiritual aspect.

The spiritual Beings peopling this innermost sphere of the Moon are Beings who shut themselves off in strict seclusion from the rest of the universe. They live in their Moon “fortress”. And only someone who, by developing certain qualities connected with the human heart, succeeds in relating himself to the Sun's light in such a way that he does not see the reflection from the Moon — only for such a man does the Moon become as it were inwardly transparent and he can penetrate into this Moon fortress of the universe. He then makes the significant discovery that through the utterances, through the teachings, of those Beings who have withdrawn into seclusion in this Moon fortress, certain secrets can be revealed that were once in the possession of the most advanced spirits on the Earth but have long since been lost.

The farther we go back in the evolution of the Earth, the less do we find the abstract truths that are the pride of present-day humanity. More and more we find pictures, truths expressed in pictures. We wrestle our way through the deeply significant truths still preserved as a last echo of oriental wisdom in the Vedas and the Vedanta philosophy; we press on to the primal revelations hidden behind the myths and sagas, and we realise with wonder and awe that a glorious wisdom was once possessed by men who received it without intellectual effort as grace from the spiritual worlds. And finally we come to all that was once taught to primeval humanity on Earth by the Beings who have now withdrawn into the Moon fortress in the universe, after leaving the Earth together with the Moon. A certain memory was preserved of what these Beings had once revealed to the peoples of a remote past — to men whose nature was quite different from human nature as it is today.

If we succeed in fathoming this mystery — I will call it the Moon-mystery of the universe — we realise that these Beings who have now entrenched themselves in the Moon fortress were once the great Teachers of earthly humanity; but all consciousness of the realities, of spirit and soul hidden in this fortress has been lost. What is still transmitted to the Earth from the heavens represents only what the outer surface, the walls, as it were, of the Moon fortress radiate back from the rest of the universe.

This Moon-mystery was one of the deepest secrets in the ancient Mysteries, for it is the primal wisdom that the Moon enshrines within itself. What the Moon is able to reflect from the whole universe forms the sum-total of the forces which sustain the animal world of the Earth, especially the forces that are connected with the sexual nature of animals; these forces also sustain the animal element in man and are connected with his sexual nature in its physical aspect. So the lower nature of man is a product of what radiates from the Moon, while the highest wisdom once possessed by the Earth lies concealed within the Moon fortress.

In this way one comes gradually to a knowledge of the “individuality” of the Moon, to knowledge of what the Moon is in reality, whereas all other knowledge is only like information we could glean about a human being from a pasteboard image of him displayed in some exhibition. Such an image would tell us nothing whatever about the man's individuality. Equally it is not possible for a science that refuses any approach towards initiation to know anything about the individuality of the Moon.

*

We turn now to Saturn. In earlier times Saturn was regarded as the outermost planet of our system, Uranus and Neptune having been added much later. We will leave them out of consideration now and think of Saturn as a kind of antithesis to the Moon.

The nature of Saturn is such that he receives many diverse impulses from the universe but allows none of them to stream back — at all events not to the Earth. Saturn too, of course, is irradiated by the Sun, but what he reflects of the solar rays has no significance for earthly life. Saturn is an entirely self-engrossed heavenly body in our planetary system, raying his own being into the universe. When we contemplate Saturn, he tells us always what he is. Whereas the Moon — contemplated in its external aspect — tells us about everything else in the universe, Saturn tells us nothing at all about the impulses he receives from the universe. He speaks only of himself, tells us only what he himself is. And what he is reveals itself gradually as a kind of memory of the planetary system.

Saturn presents himself to us as the heavenly individuality who has steadfastly participated in whatever has come to pass in our planetary system and has faithfully preserved it in his cosmic memory. He is silent about the cosmic Present. He receives the things of the cosmic Present into himself and works upon them in his life of spirit and soul. True, the hosts of Beings indwelling Saturn lend their attention to the outer universe, but mutely and silently they receive the happenings in the universe into the realm of soul, and they speak only of past cosmic events. That is why Saturn is like a kaleidoscopic memory of our planetary system. As a faithful informant concerning what has come to pass in the planetary system, he holds its secrets of this kind within himself.

Whereas in endeavouring to fathom the mysteries of the universe we should turn to the Moon in vain, whereas we must win the confidence of the Moon Beings if we are to learn anything from them about cosmic mysteries, this is not necessary with Saturn. With Saturn, all that is necessary is to be open to receive the spiritual. And then, to the eyes of spirit and soul, Saturn becomes a living historian of the planetary system. Nor does he withhold the stories he can tell of what has come to pass in the planetary system. In this respect Saturn is the exact opposite of the Moon. Saturn speaks unceasingly of the past of the planetary system with such inner warmth and zest that intimate acquaintance with what he says can be dangerous. For the devotion with which he tells of past happenings in the universe arouses in us an overwhelming love for the cosmic past. Saturn is the constant tempter of those who listen to his secrets; he tempts them to give little heed to earthly affairs of today and to immerse themselves in what the Earth once was. Above all, Saturn speaks graphically about what the Earth was before it became Earth, and for this reason he is the planet who makes the past unendingly dear to us. Those who have a particular inclination towards Saturn in earthly existence are people who like to be gazing always into the past, who are opposed to progress, who ever and again want to bring back the past. These indications give some idea of the individuality, the individual character, of Saturn.

*

Jupiter is a planet with a different character. Jupiter is the Thinker in our planetary system, and thinking is the activity cultivated by all the Beings in his cosmic domain. Creative thoughts received from the universe radiate to us from Jupiter. Jupiter contains, in the form of thoughts, all the formative forces for the different orders of cosmic Beings. Whereas Saturn tells of the past, Jupiter gives a living portrayal of what is connected with him in the cosmic present. But what Jupiter reveals to the eye of spirit must be grasped with thoughtful intelligence. If a man does not himself make efforts to develop his capacities of thinking, he cannot, even if he is clairvoyant, approach the mysteries of Jupiter, for they are revealed in the form of thoughts and can be approached only through a genuine activity of thinking. Jupiter is the Thinker in our universe.

When efforts to bring clarity of thought to bear upon some weighty problem of existence are unsuccessful because of physical, etheric, and especially astral hindrances, the Jupiter Beings come to the help of mankind. A man who has tried hard to apply clear thinking to some problem but cannot get to the root of it, will find, if he is patient and works inwardly at it, that the Jupiter powers will actually help him during the night. And many a one who has found a better solution for some problem during the night, as though out of dream, than during the previous day, would have to admit, if he knew the truth, that it is the Jupiter powers who imbue human thinking with mobility and vigour.

Saturn, then, is the preserver of the Memory of our universe; Jupiter is the Thinker in our universe. To Jupiter man owes all the impulses he is able to receive from the spiritual present in the universe. To Saturn he owes all the impulses of soul and spirit he can receive from the cosmic past.

It was out of a certain intuition that such great veneration was paid to Jupiter in the days of ancient Greece, when the human spirit lived so intensely in the present.

A stimulus to the whole development of the human being is given also through the part played by Jupiter in the cycle of the year. You all know that as far as his apparent movement is concerned, Saturn moves slowly, very slowly, round his orbit, taking some 30 years. Jupiter moves faster, taking about 12 years. Because of this quicker movement Jupiter is able to bring satisfaction to man's need for wisdom. And when, at the cosmic hour of destiny in the life of a human being, a certain relationship is established between Jupiter and Saturn, there flash into human destiny those wonderful moments of illumination when many things concerning the past are revealed through thinking.

If we look in history for occasions in the time of the Renaissance — particularly during its last period — when there was a great renewal of ancient impulses, we shall find that this was directly connected with a certain relationship between Jupiter and Saturn.

But, as already said, Jupiter is in a certain respect impenetrable and his revelations remain in the unconscious if a man does not bring to them clear and active light-filled thoughts of his own. And that is why in ancient times, when active thinking was still at a very early state of development, the progress of humanity was in truth always dependent upon the relation between Jupiter and Saturn. When Jupiter and Saturn together formed a certain constellation, many things were revealed to our ancestors in those days. Modern man has to depend more upon receiving the memory of Saturn and the wisdom of Jupiter separately in the course of his spiritual development.

*

We now come to Mars. It is difficult to find appropriate expressions for these things, but Mars may be called the great “Talker” in the planetary system. Unlike Jupiter, who withholds his wisdom in the form of thoughts. Mars is constantly blurting out to the souls in his sphere whatever in the cosmos is accessible to him — which is not everything. Mars is the most talkative planet in our system, and he is particularly active when human beings talk in sleep or in dream. Mars has a great longing to be always talking, and whenever some quality in human nature enables him to make a man loquacious, he stimulates this tendency.

Mars does little thinking. He has few thinkers, but many talkers, in his sphere. The Mars Spirits are always on the watch for what arises here or there in the universe and then they talk about it with great zest and fervour. Mars is the planetary individuality who in the course of the evolution of humanity instigates human beings in manifold ways to make statements about the mysteries of the cosmos. Mars has his good and his less good sides — he has his Genius and his Demon. His Genius works in such a way that men receive from the universe the impulses for speech; the influence of his Demon results in speech being misused in many and various ways. In a certain sense Mars may be called the Agitator in our universe. He is always out to persuade, whereas Jupiter wants only to convince.

*

The planet Venus is again different. In a certain way — how shall I put it? — Venus wards off the universe. She is difficult to approach; she does not want to know anything about the universe. Her attitude is that if she were to expose herself to the external universe, she would lose her virginal nature. She is deeply shocked when any impression from the external universe attempts to approach her. She has no desire for the universe and rejects every would-be partner. It is very difficult to express these things, because the circumstances and conditions have to be described in terms of earthly language. On the other hand, Venus is highly responsive to everything that comes from the Earth. The Earth is, so to speak, her lover. Whereas the Moon reflects the whole surrounding universe, Venus reflects nothing at all of the universe, wants to know nothing of it. But she lovingly reflects whatever comes from the Earth. If with the eyes of soul we are able to glimpse the mysteries of Venus, the whole Earth with its secrets of the life of soul is there before us once again.

The truth is that human beings on Earth can do nothing in the secrecy of their souls without it being reflected back again by Venus. Venus gazes deeply into the hearts of human beings, for that is what interests her, that is what she will allow to approach her. Thus the most intimate experiences of earthly life are reflected again from Venus, in a mysterious and wonderful way. In the reflection she transforms everything, just as a dream transforms the happenings of physical existence. Venus transforms the occurrences of earthly life into dream-pictures. In reality, therefore, the whole sphere of Venus is a world of dream. The secrets of men in their earthly existence are transformed by Venus into dream-pictures of infinite diversity. She has a very great deal to do with poets, although they are not aware of it.

I said before that Venus wards off the rest of the universe. She does not, however, repel everything in the same way. In her heart, Venus repels what approaches her from the universe but not what comes from the Earth. As I said before, she declines every would-be suitor, but for all that she listens attentively to the utterances of Mars. She transforms and illumines her dreamlike experiences of earthly things with what is communicated to her from the universe through Mars.

All these things have their physical side as well. Impulses go out from these sources into what is done and what comes into existence in the world. Venus receives into herself everything that comes from the Earth and she listens always to Mars — but without any desire that he shall be aware of having her attention. And from this process — only of course the Sun is there to regulate it — spring the forces which underlie the organs connected with the formation of human speech.

If we want to understand the impulses in the universe connected with the formation of human speech, we must turn our gaze to this strange life that weaves between Venus and Mars. When destiny wills it, the relationship of Venus to Mars is therefore a factor of great significance in the development of the speech or language of a people. A language is deepened, imbued with the quality of soul, when, for example, Venus is square to Mars. On the other hand a language tends to become superficial, poor in qualities of soul, when Venus and Mars are in conjunction, and this in turn has an influence upon the people or nation concerned. Such are the impulses which originate in the universe and then work into the earthly world.

We come next to Mercury. In contrast to the other planets. Mercury is not interested in things of a physical, material nature as such, but in whatever is capable of co-ordination. Mercury is the domain of the Masters of co-ordinative thinking; Jupiter, the habitation of the Masters of wisdom-filled thinking.

When a human being comes down from pre-earthly life into earthly existence, it is the Moon impulse that provides the forces for his physical existence. Venus provides the forces for the basic qualities of heart and temperament. But Mercury provides the forces for capacities of intellect and reason, especially of intellect. The Masters of the forces of co-ordinative knowledge and mental activity have their habitation in Mercury.

There is a remarkable connection between these planets and the life and being of man. The Moon, which enshrines the Beings living in strict seclusion, and reflects only what is first radiated to it from the universe, builds and fashions the outer form, the body of man. It is therefore by the Moon that the forces of heredity are incorporated in his bodily constitution. The Moon is the cosmic citadel of those spiritual Beings who, in complete seclusion, muse upon what is transmitted in the stream of heredity flowing from generation to generation by way of the physical.

It is because the Moon Beings remain so firmly entrenched in their fortress that modern scientists know nothing essential about heredity. From a deeper insight, and in terms of cosmic language, it could be said that when at the present time heredity is discussed in one or another domain of science, the latter is “Moon-forsaken” and “Mars-bewitched”. For science speaks under the influence of the demonic Mars-forces and has not even begun to approach the real mysteries of heredity.

Venus and Mercury bring into the human being the karmic element that is connected more with the life of soul and spirit and comes to expression in his qualities of heart and in his temperament. On the other hand. Mars, and especially Jupiter and Saturn when a man has a right relationship with them, act as liberating factors. They wrest man away from what is determined by destiny and make him into a free being.

Biblical words in a somewhat changed form might be used as follows. Saturn, the faithful custodian of cosmic memory, said: Let us make man free in the realm of his own memory. Thereupon the influence of Saturn was forced into the unconscious; man's memory became his own possession and therewith he acquired the sure foundation of his personal freedom.

The inner will-impulse contained in acts of free thinking is due to grace vouchsafed by Jupiter. It would be in Jupiter's power to rule over and control all the thoughts of men. He is the one in whom we find the thoughts of the whole universe if we are capable of gaining access to them. But Jupiter too has withdrawn, leaving men to think as free beings.

The element of freedom in speech is due to the fact that Mars too has been gracious. Because Mars was obliged as it were to acquiesce in the resolution made by the other outer planets and could not exercise any greater coercion, man is free, in a certain respect, in the realm of speech too — not entirely, but in a certain respect free.

From another point of view therefore. Mars, Jupiter and Saturn may also be called the liberating planets; they give man freedom. On the other hand, Venus, Mercury and the Moon may be called the destiny-determining planets.

In the midst of all these deeds and impulses of the planetary individualities stands the Sun, creating harmony between the liberating and the destiny-determining planets. The Sun is the individuality in whom the element of necessity in destiny and the element of human freedom interweave in a most wonderful way. And no-one can understand what is contained in the flaming brilliance of the Sun unless he is able to behold this interweaving life of destiny and freedom in the light which spreads out into the universe and concentrates again in the solar warmth.

Nor can we grasp anything essential about the nature of the Sun as long as we take in only what the physicists know of it. We can grasp the nature of the Sun only when we know something of its nature of spirit and soul. In that realm it is the power which imbues with warmth the element of necessity in destiny, resolves destiny into freedom in its flame, and if freedom is misused, condenses it once more into its own active substance. The Sun is as it were the flame in which freedom becomes a luminous reality in the universe; and at the same time the Sun is the substance in which, as condensed ashes, misused freedom is moulded into destiny — until destiny itself can become luminous and pass over into the flame of freedom.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0228/19230727p01.html

The Sun: the flame in which freedom becomes a luminous reality

"We can grasp the nature of the Sun only when we know something of its nature of spirit and soul. In that realm it is the power that imbues with warmth the element of necessity in destiny, resolves destiny into freedom in its flame and, if freedom is misused, condenses it once more into its own active substance. The Sun is, as it were, the flame in which freedom becomes a luminous reality in the universe. And at the same time the Sun is the substance in which, as condensed ashes, misused freedom is molded into destiny--until destiny itself can become luminous and pass over into the flame of freedom."

--Rudolf Steiner, from "The Spiritual Individualities of the Planets," lecture of July 27, 1923. From Astronomy and Astrology, pp. 127-28

13 ways of looking at my guru. #100: Great Lion of God

My father was born 100 years ago today