The Underlying Nonduality of Insects and Plants

Man as Symphony of the Creative Word
Part 2: The Inner Connection of World-Phenomena and World-Being

Lecture 4 of 12. Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland, October 26, 1923:

We have studied certain aspects of the connection between Earth-conditions — world-conditions — animals, and man. We shall continue with these studies during the coming days. Today, however, I wish to find the transition to those wider spheres which we shall have to consider later. I should like, in the first place, to draw attention to what has already been described in my Occult Science as the evolution of the Earth in the cosmos — beginning with the primordial Saturn-metamorphosis of the Earth. This Saturn-condition must be thought of as already containing within itself everything belonging to our planetary system. The separate planets of our planetary system, from Saturn onwards to the Moon, were at that time still within old Saturn — which, as you know, consisted only of warmth-ether — as undifferentiated world-bodies. Saturn, which had not even attained to the density of air, but was merely warmth-ether, contained in an undifferentiated etheric condition everything which later took on independent form, becoming individualized in the separate planets.

We then distinguish as the second metamorphosis of Earth-evolution what, in a comprehensive sense, I have called the Sun-condition of the Earth. Here we have to do with the gradual formation — from the fire-globe of Saturn — of the air-globe: the light-permeated, light-irradiated, glittering air-globe, Sun.

Then we have a third metamorphosis, out of which, after the ancient conditions had been recapitulated, there took form on the one hand all that was of a Sun-nature, which at that time still comprised the Earth and Moon — all this is described in Occult Science — and on the other hand all that was already externalized, and to which Saturn in its state of separation belonged.

At the same time, however, during this period of the Moon-metamorphosis, we meet the fact that the Sun separated from what was now a blend of Earth and Moon. I have often described how the kingdoms of nature which we know today did not then exist, how the Earth did not enclose a mineral mass, but was, if I may so express myself, of the nature of horn, so that the solid constituents freed themselves, forming rock-like projections of horny substance, jutting out from the Moon-mass, which was now of the consistency of water. And then there arose the conditions of the fourth metamorphosis, which are the Earth conditions of today.

Now when we depict these four metamorphoses in their sequence, we have first the Saturn-condition, which still contained dissolved within it everything later contained in our planetary system; then we have the Sun-metamorphosis, the Moon-metamorphosis, and the Earth-metamorphosis. These four manifestations fall into pairs.

Just consider how things were during the evolution of Saturn and on into the Sun-epoch, where even then substance had only advanced to a gaseous state! Evolution takes its start from the globe of fire; the fire-globe becomes metamorphosed, densified to a globe of air, which is, however, imbued with light, glittering with light. Here we have the first part of evolution.

Then we have that part of evolution in which the Moon first plays its own role. For it is the role played by the Moon which enables it to fashion those horny rock-formations. And during the Earth-metamorphosis the Moon separates off, becomes a subsidiary planet, leaving behind for the Earth the inner-earth-forces. The forces of gravity, for instance, are essentially forces which, in a physical connection, have remained behind from the Moon. The Earth would never have developed the forces of gravity had not the residue of what was contained in old Moon been left behind; the Moon itself departed. The present Moon is that colony in cosmic space about which I spoke to you from its spiritual aspect only a few days ago. Its substantiality is quite different from that of the Earth, but it left behind in the Earth what, speaking in the widest sense, may be called Earth-magnetism. The forces of the Earth — namely the earthly forces of gravity, the activities described as the effects of weight — these have remained over from the Moon. And thus we can say: on the one hand we have (Saturn-and-Sun-condition) the essentially warm, light-irradiated metamorphosis, when the two conditions are taken together; on the other we have (Moon-and-Earth-condition) the Moon-sustained, watery metamorphosis, the watery condition which evolved during the Moon-metamorphosis, and which then remained during the Earth-metamorphosis; the solid element is called forth by the forces of gravity.

These two pairs of metamorphosis differ from each other to a marked degree, and we must be clear about the fact that everything present in an earlier condition is again inherent in the later one. What constituted the ancient fire-globe of Saturn remained as warmth-substance in all the subsequent metamorphoses; and when today we move about in the regions of the Earth and everywhere encounter warmth, this warmth which is everywhere to be found is the remains of the ancient Saturn condition. Wherever we find air, or gaseous bodies, we have the remains of the ancient Sun-evolution. When, having imbued ourselves with feeling and understanding for this epoch of evolution, we look out into the Sun-irradiated atmosphere, we can say to ourselves with truth: In this Sun-irradiated atmosphere we have remains of the ancient Sun-evolution; for had this ancient Sun-evolution not taken place, the relationship of our air with the rays of the Sun, which are now there outside, would not have existed. Only through the fact that the Sun was once united with the Earth, that the light of the Sun itself shone in the Earth, which was still in a gaseous condition — so that the Earth was an air-globe radiating light into cosmic space — only through this could the later metamorphosis appear, the present Earth-metamorphosis, in which the Earth is enveloped by an atmosphere of air, into which the Sun's rays fall from outside. But these Sun-rays have a deep inner connection with the Earth's atmosphere. They do not, however, behave — as present-day physicists somewhat crudely state — as though projected like small shot through the gaseous atmosphere; but the rays of the Sun have a deep inner relationship with the air. And this relationship is actually the after-effect of their one-time union during the Sun-metamorphosis. Thus everything is mutually interrelated through the fact that the earlier conditions ever and again play into the later conditions in manifold ways. But during the time in which, speaking generally, Earth-evolution took its course — as you find in Occult Science, and as I have briefly sketched it for you here — everything on and around the Earth, everything also within the Earth, has been evolved.

And now we can say: When we contemplate the present-day Earth, we have within it what produces the solid element, the inner Moon, actually anchored in Earth-magnetism; the inner Moon, whose action is such that it is the cause of the solid-element, the cause which produces everything which has weight. And it is the forces of weight which form the solid element out of the fluid. We have next the actual Earth-realm, the watery element which appears in manifold ways — as underground water, for instance, but also in the water which is present in the rising mist-formations, in the descending rain clouds, and so on. And further we have in the circumference what is of the nature of air. Moreover all this is permeated by the element of fire, the remains of old Saturn. So that we also have to ascribe to our present-day Earth what, there above, is Sun-Saturn or Saturn-Sun. We can always say to ourselves: Everything which is present in the warm air, which is irradiated with light, is Saturn-Sun. We look up and actually find our air imbued with what is Saturn-activity, what is Sun-activity, evolving in the course of time into the actual atmosphere of the Earth, which, however, is only an after-effect of the Sun-metamorphosis. Broadly speaking, this is what we find when we direct our gaze upwards.

When we direct our gaze downwards, it is more a question of what arose from the last two metamorphoses. We have what is heavy, the solid element, or better expressed, the working of the forces of weight into what is becoming solid; we have the fluid element, we have the Moon-Earth. These two parts of Earth-existence can be strictly differentiated from each other.

If you read Occult Science again with this in mind, you will see that the whole style alters at the place where the Sun-metamorphosis passes over into the Moon-metamorphosis. Even today there is still a kind of sharp contrast between what is above, what is of the nature of Saturn, and what is below, what is of the nature of Earth-Moon-watery condition.

Thus we can quite well differentiate between the Saturn-Sun-gaseous element and the Moon-Earth fluidic element.

When someone who sees into these things with initiation science contemplates the general course of Earth-evolution — everything also which has developed along with the Earth, which belongs to it — his gaze falls first upon the manifold variety of the insect world. One can well imagine that the very feeling engendered by the fluttering, glittering insect world would bring us into a certain connection with what is above, with what is of the nature of the Saturn-Sun-gaseous condition. And this is indeed the case. When we look at the butterfly with its shimmering colors, we see it fluttering in the air, in the light-flooded, light-irradiated air. It is upborne by the waves of the air. It hardly contacts what is of an Earth-Moon-fluid nature. Its element is in the upper regions. And when one investigates the course of Earth-evolution, it is a remarkable thing that just in the case of the small insect one arrives at very early epochs of Earth-metamorphosis. What today shimmers in the light-irradiated air as the butterfly's wings was first formed in germ during old Saturn, and developed further during the time of old Sun. It was then that there arose what still today makes it possible for the butterfly to be in its very nature a creation of light and air. The Sun owes the gift of diffusing light to itself. The Sun owes the gift that its light can call forth in substances what is fiery, shimmering, to the working-in of Saturn-Jupiter-Mars. The butterfly-nature cannot indeed be understood by one who seeks for it on the Earth.

The forces active in the nature of the butterfly must be sought above, must be sought in Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. And when we enter more exactly into this wonderful evolution of the butterfly — I have already described it, in its connection with the human being, as what may be called the cosmic embodiment of memory — when we enter into this more exactly, we find in the first place the fluttering butterfly shimmering with light, carried up above the Earth by the air. It then deposits its egg. Yes, the crude materialist says: “The butterfly deposits its egg”, because, under the influence of present-day unscientific science, the things of greatest importance are simply not studied. The question is this: To what does the butterfly entrust its egg when it deposits it?

Investigate any place where the butterfly deposits its egg; everywhere you will find that the egg is deposited in such a way that it cannot be withdrawn from the influence of the Sun. The Sun's influence upon the Earth is in fact not only present when the Sun is shining directly on to the Earth. I have often drawn attention to the fact that in winter peasants put their potatoes into the earth, cover them with earth, because what comes towards the Earth during summer as the Sun's warmth and the power of the sunlight, is, just during winter, within the Earth. On the surface of the Earth potatoes become frosted; they do not become frosted but remain really good potatoes if they are buried in a pit and covered with a layer of Earth, because throughout the winter the activity of the Sun is inside the Earth. Throughout the whole winter we must look for the Sun-activity of summer under the Earth. In December, for example, at a certain depth within the Earth, we have the July-activity of the Sun. In July the Sun radiates its light and warmth on to the surface. The warmth and light gradually penetrate deeper. And if in December we wish to look for what we experience in July on the surface of the Earth, we must dig a pit, and then what was on the surface of the Earth in July will be found in December at a certain depth within it. There the potato is buried in the July Sun. Thus the Sun is not only where crude materialistic understanding looks for it; the Sun is actually present in many spheres. Only this is strictly regulated according to the seasons of the year in the cosmos.

The butterfly never deposits its eggs where they cannot remain in some way or other in connection with the Sun. Consequently one expresses oneself badly when one says that the butterfly lays its eggs in the realm of the Earth. This it does not do at all. It lays its eggs in the realm of the Sun. The butterfly never descends as far down as the Earth. Wherever the Sun is present in what is earthly, there the butterfly seeks out the place to deposit its eggs, so that they remain entirely under the influence of the Sun. In no way do they come under the influence of the Earth.

Then, as you know, out of this butterfly's egg creeps the caterpillar. When it emerges, it remains under the influence of the Sun, but it now comes under another influence as well. The caterpillar would be unable to crawl did it not also come under another influence. And this is the influence of Mars.

If you picture the Earth with Mars circling around it, what emanates from Mars in the upper region pervades everything, and remains everywhere. It is not a question of Mars itself being anywhere in particular, but we have the whole Mars sphere, and when the caterpillar crawls in some direction, it does so in the sense of the Mars sphere. Then the caterpillar becomes a chrysalis, building around itself a cocoon. We get a cocoon. I described to you how this is a sacrifice to the Sun on the part of the caterpillar, how the threads which are spun into it are spun in the direction of the line of light. The caterpillar is exposed to the Sun, follows the rays of light, spins, stops when it is dark, spins on further. The whole cocoon is actually cosmic sunlight, sunlight which is interwoven with matter. Thus when you have the cocoon of the silkworm, for example — which is used to make your silk garments — what is present in the silk is actually sunlight, into which is spun the substance of the silkworm. Out of its own body the silkworm spins its matter in the direction of the Sun's rays, and in this way forms the cocoon around itself. But that this may happen it needs the intervention of the Jupiter activity.

And then, as you know, the butterfly creeps out of the cocoon, out of the chrysalis — the butterfly which is upborne by light, radiant with light. It leaves the dark chamber into which the light only entered as it did into the cromlechs, in the way I described this to you, in the case of the cromlechs of the ancient Druids. The Sun, however, comes under the influence of Saturn, and it is only in conjunction with Saturn that it can send its light into the air in such a way that the butterfly can shine in the radiance of its variegated colors.

And thus, when we behold that wonderful sea of fluttering butterflies in the atmosphere, we must say: That is in truth no earthly creation, but is born into the Earth from above. The butterfly nowhere goes deeper with its egg than to where influences come to the Earth from the Sun. The cosmos bestows on the Earth the sea of butterflies, Saturn bestows their colors. The Sun bestows the power of flight, called forth by the sustaining power of the light, and so on.

Thus I might say that we actually have to see in the butterflies little creatures, strewn down, as it were, upon the Earth by the Sun, and by what is above the Sun in our planetary system. The butterflies, the dragonflies, the insects in general, are actually the gift of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Sun. And not a single insect could be produced by the Earth, not so much as a flea, were it not that the planets beyond the Sun, together with the Sun, bestow upon the Earth the gift of insect life. And we do in truth owe the fact that Saturn, Jupiter, etc. could so generously allow the insect world to flutter in upon us to the first two metamorphoses experienced by Earth-evolution.

And now let us look at the way in which the two last metamorphoses — the Moon-condition and the Earth-condition — have played their part. In view of the fact that the butterfly's egg is never actually entrusted to the Earth, it must be pointed out that at the time when the Moon-metamorphosis, the third condition, was in its beginning, the butterflies were not as yet as they are today. The Earth, too, was not so dependent upon the Sun. At the beginning of the third metamorphosis the Sun was actually still united with the Earth, and only later became separated. The butterfly, therefore, was not so averse to entrusting its germ to the Earth. When it entrusted it to the Earth, it was at the same time entrusting it to the Sun. Thus here there arose a differentiation. In the case of the first two metamorphoses one can only speak of a primal foreshadowing of the insect world. But at that time to entrust something to the outer planets, to the Sun, still signified entrusting it to the Earth. Only when the Earth condensed, when it acquired water, acquired the magnetic forces of the Moon, did matters change, and then it was that a differentiation appeared.

Let us take everything to do with warmth-air as belonging to what is above; and let us take what is below: water-earth. And let us consider those germs whose destiny it was to be entrusted to the Earth, whereas others were held back and not entrusted to the Earth, but only to the Sun within the earthly.

Now let us consider these other germs which were entrusted to the Earth at the time when the third metamorphosis, the Moon-condition, arose. These germs, you see, now came under the influence of Earth-activity — of the watery Earth-Moon activity — just as the insect germs had formerly come under the influence of the Sun activity and of what is beyond the Sun. And through the fact that these germs came under the influence of earth-water activity, they became the plant-germs. And the germs which remained behind in the upper regions, these remained insect-germs. When the third metamorphosis began — through what at the time was of a Sun-nature becoming transformed into what was of the nature of Moon-Earth — the plant-germs came into being, during this third metamorphosis of Earth evolution. And what you now have in the butterfly, under the development of the extraterrestrial cosmos, this whole development from the germ, through the caterpillar, through the chrysalis to the butterfly — this you are now in a position to follow in the plant. In that the seed became earthly it was not the butterfly which developed; but when the seed became earthly, entrusted to the Earth — not now to the Sun — the plant root developed, the first thing to arise out of the germ. And instead of the caterpillar creeping out, under the influence of the forces which proceed from Mars, the leaf arises, creeping upwards in spiral formation. The leaf is the caterpillar which has come under the influence of what is earthly. When you see the creeping caterpillar you have, in the upper regions, what corresponds, below, to the leaf of the plant; the leaf develops out of what became root through the fact that the seed was transplanted from the region of the Sun to the region of the Earth.

Proceeding further upwards, we find contracted to the calyx what is of the nature of the chrysalis. And finally the butterfly develops in the blossom, which is colored, just like the butterfly in the air. The circle is completed. Just as the butterfly lays its egg, so does the blossom develop within itself the new seed for the future. So you see, we look up towards the butterfly, and we understand it to be the plant raised up into the air. What the butterfly becomes from egg to full development under the influence of the Sun with the upper planets, the plant becomes here below under the influence of the Earth. When the plant comes into leaf (see diagram) we have from the Earth aspect the influence of the Moon, then the Venus influence and the Mercury influence. Then there is a return to the Earth influence. The seed is again under Earth influence.

We can, therefore, place before ourselves two verses, which give expression to a great secret of nature:

Behold the plant:
It is the butterfly
Fettered by the Earth.

Behold the butterfly:
It is the plant
Freed by the cosmos.

The plant — the butterfly fettered by the Earth! The butterfly — the plant freed from the Earth by the cosmos!

If one looks at the butterfly, indeed at any insect, from the stage of the egg to when it is fluttering away, it is the plant raised up into the air, fashioned in the air by the cosmos. If one looks at the plant, it is the butterfly fettered to what is below. The egg is claimed by the Earth. The caterpillar is metamorphosed into leaf-formation. In what is contracted in the plant we have the metamorphosis of the chrysalis-formation. And then what unfolds into the butterfly itself, in the plant develops into the blossom. Small wonder that such an intimate relationship exists between the world of the butterflies, the insect-world in general, and the world of the plants. For in truth those spiritual beings which are behind the insects, the butterflies, must say to themselves: There below are our relatives; we must have intercourse with them, unite ourselves with them — unite ourselves with them in the enjoyment of their juices, and so on, for they are our brothers. They are our brothers who have wandered down into the domain of the Earth, who have become fettered to the earthly, who have won another existence.

And again, the spirits who ensoul the plants can look up to the butterflies and say: These are the heavenly relatives of the earthly plants.

You see, one must really say that understanding of the world cannot come about through abstractions, for abstractions do not attain to understanding. Cosmic activity is indeed the greatest of artists. The cosmos fashions everything according to laws which bring the deepest satisfaction to the artistic sense. And no one can understand the butterfly, which has sunk down into the Earth, unless he metamorphoses abstract thoughts into artistic sense. No one can understand the nature of the blossoming plant, which, as the butterfly, has been uplifted into the air by the light and by cosmic forces, unless once again he can bring artistic movement into abstract thoughts. There always remains something immensely uplifting when we turn our minds to the deep, inward connection between the things and beings of nature.

It is a unique experience to see an insect poised on a plant, and at the same time to see how the astrality holds sway above the blossom. Here the plant is striving outwards from the earthly. The plant's longing for the heavenly works and weaves above the iridescent petals of the blossom. The plant cannot of itself satisfy this longing. Thus there radiates towards it from the cosmos what is of the nature of the butterfly. In beholding this the plant realizes the satisfaction of its own desires. And this is the wonderful relationship existing in the environment of the Earth, namely that the longings of the plant-world are assuaged in looking up to the insects, in particular the world of the butterflies. What the blossoming flower longs for as it radiates its color out into world-space becomes for it fulfillment in knowledge when the butterfly approaches it with its shimmer of colors. Outstreaming warmth, outstreaming longing: instreaming satisfaction from the heavens — this is the interplay between the world of the blossoming plants and the world of the butterflies. This is what we should see in the environment of the Earth.

Having thus established the connection with the plant world, I shall now be in the position to extend still further in the near future the studies which lead from the human being to the animals. We can already include the plant world, and thus we shall gradually come to man's connection with the whole Earth. But for this it was necessary to build, as it were, a bridge from the fluttering plant of the air, the butterfly, to the butterfly firmly rooted in the Earth, the plant. The earthly plant is the firmly rooted butterfly. The butterfly is the flying plant. Having recognized this connection between the Earth-bound plant and the heaven-freed butterfly, we have now established the bridge between the animal world and the plant world, and thus we can now look down with a certain unconcern upon all the trivialities which are always saying how spontaneous generation and the like took place. These prosaic concepts will never lead us into those regions of the universe to which we must attain. Those spheres are only reached when prosaic concepts can be led over into artistic concepts, so that we may then arrive at the picture of how, from the heaven-born butterfly which is only entrusted to the Sun, the plant later arose through this butterfly's egg becoming metamorphosed in such a way that, whereas it was formerly entrusted to the Sun, it now became entrusted to the Earth.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0230/19231026p01.html

The Eagle

"The Eagle" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Rudolf Steiner:  "Let us look at the bird in the air — the eagle, let us say, in his majestic flight — upon whom, as though by an outer gift of grace, the rays of the Sun and their action bestowed his plumage, bestowed his horny beak — let us look at this eagle as he flies in the air. Certain forces work upon him there. The Sun does not only possess the physical forces of light and warmth of which we usually speak. When I described the Druid Mysteries to you, I drew your attention to the fact that spiritual forces too emanate from the Sun. It is these forces which give to the different species of birds their variegated colors, the special formation of their plumage. When we penetrate with spiritual perception into the nature of the Sun's working, we understand why the eagle has his particular plumage, and when we deepen our contemplation of this being of the eagle, when we develop an inner, artistic comprehension of nature which contains the spiritual within it, when we can perceive how formative forces work out of the impulses of the Sun — strengthened by other impulses of which I shall speak later — when we see how the Sun-impulses stream down over the eagle even before he has emerged from the egg, how they conjure forth the plumage, or, to be more exact, how they conjure it into his fleshy form, then we can ask ourselves: What is the significance of all this for man? The significance of this for man is that it is what makes his brain into the bearer of thoughts. And you have the right insight into the macrocosm, into Great Nature, when you so regard the eagle that you say: The eagle has his plumage, his bright, many-colored feathers; in these lives the self-same force which lives in you in that you make your brain into the bearer of thoughts. What makes the convolutions of your brain? What makes your brain capable of taking up that inner salt-force which is the basis of thinking? What really enables your brain to make a thinker of you? It is the same force which gives his feathers to the eagle in the air. Thus we feel ourselves related to the eagle through the fact that we think: we feel the human substitute for the eagle's plumage within us. Our thoughts flow out from the brain in the same way as the feathers stream out from the eagle." -- October 19, 1923

Edward Schure on first meeting Rudolf Steiner: "I shall never forget the extraordinary impression made upon me by this man when he entered the room. As I looked at that thin, powerful face, at the black mysterious eyes flashing light as if from unfathomable depths, it struck me that for the first time in my life I was facing one of those supreme seers who have direct vision of the great beyond."

The Human Being's Indebtedness to the Earth — the Meaning of the World

Man as Symphony of the Creative Word. Lecture 3 of 12.
Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland, October 21, 1923:

We have tried, again from a particular aspect, to place the human being into the universe. Today we wish to put the subject forward in a way which will, as it were, weld everything into a whole. During our physical life we live upon the Earth; we are surrounded by those events and facts which are there because of the physical matter of the Earth. This matter is moulded and shaped in the most varied manner so as to be adapted to the beings of the kingdoms of nature, up to the human form itself. The essential element in all this is the physical matter of the Earth. Today — because we shall immediately have to speak about its opposite — let us call this matter the physical substance of the Earth, comprising all that provides the material basis for the various earthly forms; and then let us differentiate from it everything in the universe which is the opposite of this physical substance, namely spiritual substance. This last is the basis not only of our own soul but also of all those formations in the universe which, as spiritual formations, are connected with physical formations.

It is not right to speak only of physical matter or physical substance. Think only of the fact that we must place into the total picture of the world the beings of the higher hierarchies. These beings of the higher hierarchies have no earthly substance, no physical substance, in what in their case we would call their bodily nature. What they have is spiritual substance. When we look upon what is earthly we become aware of physical substance; when we can look upon what is outside the earthly we become aware of spiritual substance.

Today people know little of spiritual substance. That is why they also speak of that Earth-being who belongs both to the physical and the spiritual — the human being — as though he, too, only possessed physical substance. This, however, is not the case. Man bears both spiritual and physical substance in himself in so remarkable a way as to astonish anyone who is not accustomed to pay heed to such matters. If, for example, we consider that element in man which leads him into movement, namely what is connected with the human limb-system and its continuation inwards as digestive activity, then it is incorrect to speak primarily of physical substance. You will soon understand this still more exactly. We only speak correctly about the human being when we regard the so-called lower part of his nature as having as its basis what is in fact spiritual substance. So that, if we were to represent the human being schematically, we would have to say: The lower man actually shows us a formation in spiritual substance, and the more nearly we approach the human head the more is man formed of physical substance. Basically the head is formed out of physical substance; but of the legs — grotesque though this may sound — it must be said that essentially they are formed of spiritual substance. So that when we approach the head we must represent the human being in such a way that we allow spiritual substance to pass over into physical substance; in the human head in particular, physical substance is contained. Spiritual substance, on the other hand, is diffused in a particularly beautiful way just where — if I may put it so — man stretches out his legs, stretches out his arms, into space. It is really as though the most important matter for arm and leg is precisely this being filled with spiritual substance, as if this is their essence. In the case of arm and leg it is really as though the physical substance were only swimming in the spiritual substance, whereas the head presents a compact formation composed of physical substance. In a form such as man possesses, however, we must differentiate not only the substance, but also the forces. And here again we must distinguish between spiritual forces and earthly, physical forces.

In the case of the forces, things are completely reversed. Whereas for the limb-system and digestion the substance is spiritual, the forces in the limbs — for instance in the legs — are heavy, physical forces. And whereas the substance of the head is physical, the forces active within it are spiritual. Spiritual forces play through the head; physical forces play through the spiritual substance of the limb and metabolic system in man. The human being can only be fully understood when we distinguish in him the upper region — his head and also the upper part of the breast, which are actually physical substance worked through by spiritual forces (I must mention that the lowest spiritual forces are active in the breathing). And we must regard the lower part of man as a formation composed of spiritual substance, within which physical forces are working. Only we must be clear as to how these things are interrelated in man, for the human being also projects his head-nature into his whole organism, so that the head — which is what it is because it is composed of physical substance worked through by spiritual forces — the head also projects its entire nature into the lower part of the human being; and what man is because of his spiritual substance, in which physical forces are at work, this, on the other hand, plays upwards into the upper part of the organism. In these activities in the human being there is mutual interaction. Man can in fact only be understood when he is regarded in this way, as composed of physical-spiritual substantiality and physical-spiritual dynamics, that is to say what is of the nature of forces.

This is something of great significance. For if we look away from external phenomena and enter into the inner being it becomes clear to us, for instance, that no irregularities can be allowed to enter into this apportioning of what is of the nature of substance and of forces in the human being.

If, for example, what should be pure substance, pure spiritual substance in man, is too strongly penetrated by physical matter, by physical substance — if, that is to say, physical substance, which should in fact tend upwards towards the head, makes itself too strongly felt in the metabolism — then digestion becomes too strongly affected by the head-system, and man becomes ill; certain quite definite types of illness then arise. And then the task of healing consists in paralyzing, in driving out, the physical substance-formation which is intruding into the spiritual substantiality. On the other hand, when man's digestive system, in its peculiar manner of being worked through by physical forces in spiritual substance, when this digestive system is sent up towards the head, then the head becomes, as it were, too strongly spiritualized, then there sets in a too strong spiritualization of the head. And now, because this also presents a condition of illness, care must be taken to send enough physical forces of nourishment to the head, so that they reach the head in such a way that they do not become spiritualized.

Anyone who turns his attention to man in health and sickness will very soon be able to perceive the usefulness of this differentiation, if he is really concerned with truth, and not with external illusion. But something essentially different also plays into this matter. What here plays in — the fact that man feels himself as a being constituted in the way I have described — this at first remains for the ordinary consciousness of today below in the unconscious. There, certainly, it is already present; and there it emerges as a kind of mood, a kind of life-mood of man. But it is spiritual vision alone that brings it to full consciousness, and I can only describe this spiritual vision to you thus: The man who knows from present-day initiation-science this secret of the human being — namely that the head is the most important, the most essential organ which needs physical substance with spiritual forces; who knows further that the most essential thing in the system of limbs and metabolism is spiritual substance which needs physical forces — the forces of gravity, of balance, and the other physical forces in order to exist; who can thus penetrate with spiritual vision into this secret of the human being and who then turns his gaze back to this human, earthly existence — this man must acknowledge himself as a tremendous debtor to the world. For he must admit that in order to maintain his human existence he requires certain conditions — but through these very conditions he becomes a debtor to the Earth. He is continually withdrawing something from the Earth. And he finds himself obliged to say that the spiritual substance, which as man he bears within himself during earthly existence, is actually needed by the Earth. When man passes through death, he should in fact leave this spiritual substance behind him for the Earth, for the Earth continually needs spiritual substance for its renewal. But this man cannot do, for he would then be unable to traverse his human path through the period after death. He must take this spiritual substance with him for the life between death and a new birth; he needs it, for he would disappear, so to speak, after death, if he did not take this spiritual substance with him.

Only by carrying this spiritual substance of his limb-metabolic system through the gate of death can man undergo those transformations which he must there undergo. He would be unable to meet his future incarnations if he were to give back to the Earth this spiritual substance which he actually owes to it. He cannot do this. He remains a debtor. And this is something which there is no means of bettering as long as the Earth remains in its middle period. At the end of Earth-existence things will be otherwise.

It is indeed the case, my dear friends, that one who beholds life with spiritual vision has not only those sufferings and sorrows — perhaps also that happiness and joy — which are offered by ordinary life, but — with the beholding of the spiritual — cosmic feelings, cosmic sufferings and joys, make their appearance. And initiation is inseparable from the appearance of such cosmic suffering as, for example, the fact that one has to admit: Simply because I must maintain my humanity I must make of myself a debtor to the Earth. I cannot give to the Earth what I really should give if, in a cosmic sense, I were to act with complete rectitude.

Matters are similar as regards the substance which is present in the head. Because throughout the entire course of Earth-life spiritual forces are working in the physical substance of the head, this head-substance becomes estranged from the Earth. Man must take away from the Earth the substance for his head. But he must also, in order to be man, continually imbue this substance of his head with extra-terrestrial spiritual forces. And when the human being dies, this is something extremely disturbing to the Earth, because it must now take back the substance of the human head which has become so foreign to it. When the human being passes through the gate of death and yields up his head-substance to the Earth, then this head-substance — which is entirely spiritualized, which bears within itself what results from the spiritual — does in fact act as a poison, as a really disturbing element, in the totality of the life of the Earth. When man sees into the truth of these matters, he is obliged to say to himself that the honest thing would be to take this substance with him through the gate of death, for it would in fact be much better suited to the spiritual region which man traverses between death and a new birth. He cannot do this. For if man were to take this spiritualized Earth-substance with him, he would continually create something adverse to all his development between death and a new birth. It would be the most terrible thing that could happen to man if he were to take this spiritualized head-substance with him. It would work incessantly upon the negation of his spiritual development between death and rebirth.

One must therefore acknowledge, when one sees into the truth of these things, that here, too, man becomes a debtor to the Earth; for something for which he is indebted to the Earth but has made useless for it, this he must continually leave behind, he cannot take it with him. What man should leave for the Earth he takes from it; what man should take with him, what he has made useless for it, this man gives over to the Earth with his earthly dust, thus causing the Earth immense suffering in its entire life, in its whole collective being.

It is indeed the case that at first, just through spiritual vision, something weighs heavily upon the human soul, something like a tremendous feeling of tragedy. And only when one surveys wider epochs of time, when one beholds the development of entire systems, only then is the prospect revealed that, when the Earth will have approached its end, in later stages of human evolution — in the Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan stages — will man be able to restore the balance, to annul the debt.

Thus it is not only by passing through the experiences of a single life that man fashions karma, but man creates karma, world karma, cosmic karma, just through the fact that he is an earthly human being, that he is an inhabitant of the Earth, and draws his substance from the Earth.

Here it is possible to look away from man, to look towards the rest of nature and see how — though man must burden himself with the debt of which I have just told you — balance is nevertheless continually restored by cosmic beings. And here one penetrates into wonderful secrets of existence, into secrets which, when taken in conjunction with each other, become something from which one can first gain a conception of the wisdom of the world.

Let us turn our gaze away from man and towards something which has claimed much of our attention during the last few days: let us turn our gaze to the world of the birds, represented for us by the eagle. We spoke of the eagle as the representative of the bird-world, as the creature which synthesizes the characteristics and forces of the bird-kingdom. When we consider the eagle, we are in fact considering, in their cosmic connection, all the attributes which prevail in the bird-world as a whole. In future, therefore, I shall simply speak of “the eagle.”

I have told you how the eagle actually corresponds to the head of man, and how those forces which give rise to thoughts in the human head give rise in the eagle to his plumage. So that the Sun-irradiated forces of the air, the light-imbued forces of the air, are actually working in the eagle's plumage.

This is what shimmers in the eagle's plumage: the light-irradiated power of the air.

Now the eagle — to whom many bad qualities may certainly be ascribed — does nevertheless possess, as regards his cosmic being, the remarkable attribute that outside his skin, in the structure of his plumage, everything is retained which is formed in it by the Sun-irradiated forces of the air. What takes place here is, in fact, only to be noticed when the eagle dies.

For it is only when the eagle dies that one becomes aware of what a remarkable superficial digestion he has compared with the thorough-going digestion of the cow, with its process of chewing the cud. The cow is really the animal of digestion — again as representative of many creatures of the animal kingdom. Here digestion is thoroughly performed. The eagle, like all birds, digests in a superficial way; the business of digestion is only begun. In the eagle, compared with his whole existence, digestion is merely a subsidiary process and is treated as such. On the other hand, everything in the eagle which has to do with plumage proceeds in a thorough way. (In the case of some other birds this is even more so.) Everything to do with the feathers is worked out with immense care. Such a feather is indeed a wonderful structure. Here we find most strongly in evidence what may be called earthly matter, which the eagle has taken from the Earth, spiritualized by the forces of the heights, but in such a way that the eagle does not assimilate it; for the eagle makes no claim to reincarnation. He need not, therefore, be troubled about what is being brought about in the earthly matter of his plumage through the spiritual forces of the heights; he need not be troubled about how this works on in the spiritual world.

Now, when the eagle dies and his feathers fall into decay — as already mentioned this holds good for every bird — the spiritualized earthly matter ascends into spirit-land and becomes changed back into spiritual substance.

You see we have a remarkable relative interplay as regards the relationship of our head to the eagle. What we cannot do, the eagle can; he can continually conjure forth from the Earth what becomes spiritualized in the Earth through spiritual forces working on earthly substance.

This, too, is why we experience such a remarkable sensation when we observe an eagle in its flight. We feel him as something foreign to the Earth, something which has more to do with the heavens than with the Earth, although he draws his substance from the Earth. But how does he do this? He obtains his substance in such a way that, as regards the Earth, he is just a robber. For according to what may be called the ordinary, commonplace law of Earth-existence no provision was made for the eagle to get anything. He becomes a robber; he steals his substance, as is done in all sorts of ways by the bird-kingdom as a whole. But the eagle restores the balance. He steals his material substance, but allows it to be spiritualized by the forces which exist as spiritual forces in the upper regions; and after death he carries off into spirit-land those spiritualized Earth-forces which he has stolen. With the eagles the spiritualized Earth-matter withdraws into spiritland.

Now the life of animals also does not come to an end when they die. They have their significance in the universe. And the eagle in flight is only a symbol of his real being. He flies as physical eagle — Oh, but he flies further after his death! The spiritualized physical matter of the eagle nature flies into the universe in order to unite itself with the spiritual substance of spiritland.

You see what wonderful secrets of the universe one comes upon when one enters into the reality of these things. Only then does one really learn why the various animal and other forms of the Earth are there. They all have their great, their immense, significance in the whole universe.

And now let us turn to the other extreme, to something which we have also studied during these days: let us turn to the cow, so venerated by the Hindu. There we have the opposite extreme. Just as the eagle is very similar to the head, so is the cow very similar to the human digestive system. The cow is the animal of digestion. And, strange as it sounds, this animal of digestion consists essentially of spiritual substance into which the physical matter consumed is merely scattered and diffused. In the cow is the spiritual substance, and everywhere the physical substance penetrates into it, and is absorbed, made use of, by the spiritual substance. It is in order that this may happen in a really thorough way that the process of digestion in the cow is so comprehensive, so fundamental. It is really the most fundamental digestive process that can be conceived, and in this respect — if I may put it so — the cow fosters what is fundamental to animal nature more thoroughly than any other animal in the absolute sense. She actually brings animal-nature — this animal egoism, this animal egoity — out of the universe down on to the Earth, down into the region of Earth-gravity.

No other animal has the same proportion between the blood-weight and the entire body-weight as the cow; other animals have either less or more blood than the cow in proportion to the weight of the body. And weight has to do with gravity, and the blood with egoity — not with the ego, for this is only possessed by man, but with egoity, with separate existence. The blood also makes the animal, animal — the higher animal at least. And I must say that the cow has solved the world-problem as to the right proportion between the weight of the blood and the weight of the whole body — when there is the wish to be as thoroughly animal as possible.

You see, it was not for nothing that the ancients called the zodiac “the animal circle.” The zodiac is twelvefold; it divides its totality into twelve separate parts. Those forces, which come out of the cosmos, from the zodiac, take on form and shape in the animals. But the other animals do not conform to the zodiacal proportion so exactly. The cow has a twelfth part of her body-weight in the weight of her blood. With the cow the blood-weight is a twelfth part of the body-weight; with the donkey only the twenty-third part; with the dog the tenth part. All the other animals have a different proportion. In the case of man the blood is a thirteenth of the body-weight.

You see, the cow has seen to it that, in her weight, she is the expression of animal nature as such, that she is as thoroughly as possible the expression of what is cosmic. A fact I have mentioned repeatedly during these days — namely that one sees from the astral body of the cow that she actually manifests something lofty in physical-material substance — this comes to expression of itself through the fact that the cow maintains the partition into twelve in her own inner relationships of weight. The cosmic in her is at work. Everything to do with the cow is of such a nature that the forces of the Earth are working into spiritual substance. In the cow Earth-heaviness is obliged to distribute itself according to zodiacal proportion. Earth-heaviness must accommodate itself to allow a twelfth part of itself to fall away into egoity. What the cow possesses as spiritual substance has necessarily to enter into earthly conditions.

Thus the cow, lying in the meadow, is in actual fact spiritual substance, which Earth-matter takes up, absorbs, makes similar to itself.

When the cow dies, this spiritual substance which the cow bears within herself can be taken up by the Earth, together with the earthly matter, for the well-being of the life of the whole Earth. And man is right when he feels in regard to the cow: You are the true beast of sacrifice, for you continually give to the Earth what it needs, without which it could not continue to exist, without which it would harden and dry up. You continually give spiritual substance to the Earth, and renew the inner mobility, the inner living activity, of the Earth.

When you behold on the one hand the meadow with its cattle, and on the other hand the eagle in flight, then you have their remarkable contrast: the eagle who, when he dies, carries away into the expanses of spiritland that earth-matter, which — because it is spiritualized — has become useless for the Earth; and the cow, who, when she dies, gives to the Earth heavenly matter and thus renews the Earth. The eagle takes from the Earth what it can no longer use, what must return into spiritland. The cow carries into the Earth what the Earth continually needs as renewing forces from spiritland.

Here you become aware of something like an upsurging of feelings and perceptions from out of initiation-science. It is usually believed about this initiation-science, well, that one certainly studies it, but that it results in nothing but concepts, ideas. One fills one's head with ideas about the supersensible, just as one otherwise fills one's head with ideas about the things of the senses. But this is not how it is. Penetrating ever further into this initiation-science, we reach the point of drawing forth from the depths of the soul feelings and perceptions the existence of which we formerly did not even surmise, but which nevertheless are there unconsciously in every human being; we reach the point of experiencing all existence differently from the way we experienced it before. And so I can describe to you an experience which actually belongs to the living comprehension of spiritual science, of initiation science. It is an experience which would make us acknowledge that if man alone were upon the Earth, we should — if we recognize his true nature — have to despair of the Earth ever receiving what it needs, namely, that at the right time spiritualized matter should be withdrawn and spirit-substance bestowed. We should have to experience an opposition between man and the being of the Earth, which causes great, great pain, and causes that pain because we have to admit that, if man is to be rightly man upon the Earth, the Earth cannot be rightly Earth because of man. Man and Earth have need of each other, but man and Earth cannot mutually support each other. What the being of the one requires is lost to the other; what the other needs is lost to the one. And we should have no security as regards the life-relationship between man and Earth were it not that the surrounding world enables us to say: What the human being is unable to achieve as regards the carrying of spiritualized Earth-substance over into spiritland, this is accomplished by the bird-kingdom; and what man is unable to do as regards giving spiritual substance to the Earth, this is accomplished by the animals which chew the cud, as represented by the cow.

In this way, you see, the world is rounded into a whole. If we look only at man, uncertainty enters our feelings as regards the being of the Earth; if we look at what surrounds man, our feeling of certainty is restored.

And now you will wonder even less that a religious world-conception which penetrates so deeply into the spiritual as does Hinduism venerates the cow, for she is the animal which continually spiritualizes the Earth, which continually gives to the Earth that spiritual substance which she herself takes from the cosmos. And we must learn to accept as actual reality the picture that, beneath a grazing herd of cattle, the Earth below is quickened to joyful, vigorous life, that there below the elemental spirits rejoice, because they are assured of their nourishment from the cosmos through the existence of the creatures grazing above them. And we would have to make another picture of the dancing, rejoicing, airy circle of the elemental spirits hovering around the eagle. Then again one would portray spiritual realities, and in the spiritual realities one would see the physical; one would see the eagle extended outwards in his aura, and playing into the aura the rejoicing of the elemental air-spirits and fire-spirits of the air.

And one would see that remarkable aura of the cow, which so strongly contradicts her earthly nature, because it is entirely cosmic; and one could see the lively merriment in the senses of the elemental Earth-spirits, who are thus able to perceive what has been lost to them because they are sentenced to live out their existence in the darkness of the Earth. For these spirits, what here appears in the cows is Sun. The elemental spirits whose dwelling place is in the Earth cannot rejoice in the physical Sun, but they can rejoice in the astral bodies of the animals which chew the cud.

Yes, my dear friends, there does indeed exist a natural history which is different from what is to be found today in books. What is actually the end and aim of the natural history found today in books?

There has just appeared the sequel to that book by Albert Schweitzer which I discussed some time ago. You may remember my article dealing with this little book on present-day conditions of civilization, which appeared some time back in “The Goetheanum”. [* See Das Goetheanum, No. 47 of 1923.] The preface to this sequel is in fact a somewhat sorry chapter in the spiritual productions of the present day; for whereas the first booklet, which I then discussed, possessed at least a certain force and the insight to admit what our civilization lacks, this preface is a really sorry chapter. For Schweitzer here takes credit to himself for being the first to perceive that, fundamentally speaking, knowledge alone can provide absolutely nothing, and that ethics and a world-conception must be gained from somewhere other than knowledge.

Now in the first place much has been said about the boundaries of knowledge, and it is — how shall I put it? — a trifle short-sighted to believe that one has been the first to speak about the boundaries of knowledge. This has been done by the natural scientists in every possible key. So one has no need to pride oneself upon being the first to discover the colossal error.

Seen apart from this, however, the fact appears that such an excellent thinker as Schweitzer — for he is an excellent thinker, as his first little volume certainly shows — has reached the conclusion that if we wish to have a world-conception, if we wish to have ethics, then we must look right away from science and knowledge, for these in fact give us nothing. Recognized science and knowledge, as put forward today in books, these aspects of science and knowledge do not enable us — as Schweitzer says — to discover meaning in the universe. For, indeed, if one looks upon the world as these personalities do, one cannot avoid the conclusion that eagles in their flight have no purpose, apart from the fact that they can be used in making armorial crests; cows are physically useful because they give milk, and so on. But because man also is regarded only as a physical being, he only possesses physical usefulness; and all this has no meaning for the world as a whole.

If people are unwilling to go further than this, they will certainly not reach the level where a world-meaning can appear; we must pass on to what the spiritual, to what initiation-science, can say to us about the world; then we shall certainly discover the meaning of the world. Then we shall find this meaning of the world as we discover wonderful mysteries in all existence — mysteries such as that which unfolds itself in connection with the dying eagle and the dying cow; and there between them the dying lion, which in his turn so holds spiritual substance and physical substance in balance within himself, through the harmony he establishes in the rhythm of breathing and of blood, that it is he who regulates, through his group-soul, how many eagles are necessary, and how many cows are necessary, to enable the correct process both upwards and downwards to take its course in the way I have described to you.

You see, the three animals — eagle, lion, ox or cow — they were created out of a wonderful intuitive knowledge. Their connection with man is imbued with feeling. For the human being, when he sees into the truth of these things, must really admit: The eagle takes from me the tasks which I myself cannot fulfill through my head; the cow takes from me the tasks which I myself cannot fulfill through my metabolism, through my limb system; the lion takes from me those tasks which I myself cannot fulfill through my rhythmic system. And thus from myself and the three animals something complete is established in the cosmos.

Thus one lives one's way into cosmic relationships. Thus one feels the deep connections in the world, and learns to know how wise are those powers which hold sway in the world of being into which man is woven, and which live and move around him.

In this way you see how we were able to weld together into a whole the divers matters which came to our knowledge when we sought to discover man's connection with the three animal representatives about whom we have spoken in recent weeks.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0230/19231021p01.html

The Alluring Call of the Eagle, of the Lion, and of the Cow

Man as Symphony of the Creative Word. Lecture 2 of 12.
Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland, October 20, 1923:

Having considered in the lecture yesterday the nature of the animals of the heights, represented by the eagle, the animals of the middle region, represented by the lion, and the animals of the earth-depths, represented by the ox or cow, we can today turn our attention to man's connection with the universe from that particular aspect which reveals the inner structural relationship of the human being to these representatives of the animal world.

Let us first turn our gaze to the upper regions, about which we said yesterday that when the animal derives its particular forces from them, they do then in fact cause the whole animal to become head-organization. There we see how the bird owes its very being to the Sun-irradiated atmosphere. This Sun-irradiated atmosphere — everything, that is to say, which can be absorbed by the bird through the fact that it owes the most important part of its being to it — is a necessity to the bird. And I told you yesterday that it is upon this that the actual formation of the plumage depends. The bird has its actual being within. What is brought about in the bird by the outer world is embodied in its plumage. But when the influence of this Sun-irradiated air is not impressed on the being from without, as in the case of the eagle, but is activated within, as in the case of the human nervous system, then thoughts arise — momentary thoughts, as I said, thoughts of the immediate present.

When we thus turn our gaze upwards to the heights, and are filled with all that results from such a contemplation, it is to the tranquil atmosphere and to the streaming sunlight that our attention is drawn. We must not, however, think of the Sun in isolation. The Sun maintains its power through the fact that it comes into connection with the different regions of the universe. Human knowledge has expressed this relationship by connecting the Sun activities with the so-called animal circle or zodiac, so that when the sunlight falls to Earth from Leo, from Libra, or from Scorpio, its significance also signifies something different for the Earth according to whether it is strengthened or weakened by the other planets of our planetary system. And here different relationships arise in regard to the different planets; the relationships in regard to the so-called outer planets — Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn — are different from those in regard to the so-called inner planets — Mercury, Venus, and Moon.

If we now consider the organization of the eagle, it is most important first of all to observe how far the Sun-forces become modified, strengthened or weakened, by their interaction with Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. It is not for nothing that legend speaks of the eagle as the bird of Jupiter. In general Jupiter stands as the representative of the outer planets. And if we were to draw a diagram illustrating what is meant here, we would have to draw the sphere which Saturn has in world-space, in the cosmos, as also that of Jupiter and Mars.

Let us draw this, so that we may actually see it, in a diagram:



the Saturn sphere, the Jupiter sphere, the Mars sphere; then we find the transition to the Sun sphere, giving us in the outermost part of our planetary system the working together of Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn.

And when we see the eagle circling in the air we do in fact utter a reality when we say: These forces which stream through the air from the Sun in such a way that they are composed of the working together of Sun with Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn — these forces are those which live in the whole structure of the eagle, in the very being of the eagle. But at the same time they live in the formation of the human head. And when we place man into the universe in accordance with his true nature — on Earth he is only, so to speak, a miniature picture of himself — as regards his head we must place him into the eagle-sphere.

We must therefore think of Man in regard to his head as belonging to the eagle-sphere; and therewith we have indicated that element in the human being which is connected with the upward-tending forces.

The lion is the representative of those animals which are in the real sense Sun-animals, in which the Sun unfolds its own special force. The lion prospers best when the constellations above the Sun and the constellations below the Sun are so ordered that they exert the least influence upon the Sun itself. Then those special characteristics appear which I described to you yesterday, namely that the forces of the Sun itself, permeating the air, produce in the lion a breathing system of just such a kind that in its rhythm it is in perfect balance with the rhythm of the blood-circulation, not as regards number but as regards its dynamic. In the lion this balances itself out in a wonderfully beautiful way. The lion regulates his blood-circulation through the breathing, and the blood-circulation continually stimulates the stream of the breath. I told you that this can be seen even in the form, in the very structure, of the lion's mouth. In this form itself the wonderful relationship between the rhythm of the blood and the rhythm of the breath is actually expressed. One can see this, too, in the remarkable gaze of the lion, resting in itself, and yet turned boldly outwards.

But what lives in the lion's gaze lives also in the other elements of human nature: the metabolic system; the head system; and the breast or heart system — that is, the rhythmic system of Man.

And if we picture the special Sun-activity we must so draw the diagram of the human being that we place his heart, and the lungs connected to it, into the region of this Sun-activity. It is here, in this sphere, that we have the lion-nature in man.

When we turn to the inner planets nearer the Earth, we have first the Mercury sphere. This has to do in particular with the finer parts of the digestive organism of man, the region where the foodstuffs are transformed into lymphatic substance, which is then carried into the circulation of the blood.

Progressing further, we come into the region of Venus-activity. This is connected with the somewhat coarser parts of man's digestive system, to that part of the human organism which works primarily from the stomach upon the foodstuffs which have been taken in. We next come into the sphere of the Moon. (I am drawing this in the sequence customary today in astronomy; I could also draw it differently.) There we enter that region where those digestive processes which are connected with the Moon act and react upon the human being.

In this way we have placed man into the entire universe. By turning our minds to those cosmic activities which the Sun carries out in conjunction with Mercury, Venus, and Moon we come into the region containing the forces which are taken up by the order of the animals represented for us by the cow, in the sense which I spoke of yesterday. There we have what the Sun cannot do by itself alone, but what the Sun can only do when its own forces are conducted to the Earth by means of the planets which are nearest to the Earth. When these forces are all at work, when they do not only stream through the air but penetrate through the Earth's surface in various ways, then these forces work up again from the Earth's depths. And what thus works up from the depths of the Earth belongs to the sphere which we see embodied outwardly in the organism of the cow.

The cow is the animal of digestion. It is, moreover, the animal which accomplishes digestion in such a way that there lies in its digestive processes the earthly reflection of something actually super-earthly; its whole digestive process is permeated with an astrality which reflects the entire cosmos in a wonderful light-filled way. There is — as I said yesterday — a whole world in this astral organism of the cow, but everything is heavy, everything is so organized that the weight of the Earth works there. You have only to consider that the cow is obliged to consume an eighth of her weight in foodstuffs each day. Man can be satisfied with a fortieth part and remain healthy. Thus the cow needs the Earth's gravity in order fully to meet the needs of her organism. Her organism is orientated towards this need for the weight of matter. Every day the cow must digest an eighth of her weight. This binds the cow with her material substance to the Earth, whereas  through her astrality she is at the same time an image of the heights, of the cosmos.

This is why, as I said yesterday, the cow is an object of so much veneration for those who confess to the Hindu religion. The Hindu says to himself: The cow lives here on the Earth; but through this fact she forms in solid physical substance an image of something super-earthly. It is indeed the case that man's nature is organized in a normal way when he can bring into harmony these three cosmic activities manifested in a one-sided way in eagle, lion, and cow — when he himself is the confluence of the activities of eagle, lion, and cow.

In accordance with the general course of world events, however, we are now living in an age when the evolution of the world is threatened by a certain danger; and this danger will — if I may so express myself — actually take effect in man also in a one-sided way. From the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries up to our own day the facts of human earthly evolution are such that, to an ever-increasing degree, the eagle activities wish to make one-sided claims upon the human head, the lion activities upon the human rhythmic system, and the cow activities upon the human metabolism and upon all man's activity on the Earth.

This is the stamp of our age, that it is the aim of the cosmic powers to bring about a threefold division of man, and that each form of these cosmic powers is always striving to suppress the others. The eagle strives to subjugate the lion and the cow and make them of no account, and in like manner with each of the other elements. Just in our present age something particularly alluring is working upon the subconscious in man — alluring because in a certain sense there is also something beautiful about it. In his conscious life man today is unaware of this, but for his sub-consciousness three calls surge and sound through the world seeking to tempt him with their allurement. And I must say that it is the secret of our present time that, from the sphere of the eagle, there sounds down to man what actually gives the eagle his eagle nature, what gives him his plumage, what hovers around him as astrality. It is the eagle nature itself which becomes audible for the sub-consciousness of man. This is the alluring call:

Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To create a universe
In thine own head.

Thus speaks the eagle. That is the call from above, which today wishes to impose one-sidedness upon man.

And there is a second alluring call. This is the call which comes to us from the middle region, where the forces of the cosmos form the lion-nature, where, through the mingling of  Sun and air, they bring about that equilibrium between the rhythms of breathing and blood-circulation which constitutes the nature of the lion. What thus vibrates through the air, from the nature of the lion, what wills to make man's own rhythmic system one-sided, this today speaks alluringly to man's sub-consciousness, saying:

Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To embody the universe
In the radiance* of the encircling air.
[* German Schein, for which there is no exact English equivalent.]

Thus speaks the lion.

These voices, which speak to man's sub-consciousness, have more effect than is supposed. Yes, my dear friends, there are certain human natures on Earth organized in such a way that they are particularly liable to absorb their influences. Thus, for instance, all those who populate the West are so organized that they are specially prone to be allured, to be led astray, by the voice of the eagle. Thus American civilization, on account of the special organization of its people, is particularly exposed to the temptation offered by what the eagle speaks. And Central Europe, which is imbued with much of the culture of classical antiquity, which contains so much of what caused Goethe, for instance, to make his journey to Italy, a journey which acted on his life like a liberation — central Europe is particularly exposed to what is uttered by the lion.

Oriental civilization is pre-eminently exposed to what is uttered by the cow. And just as both other animals give utterance in their cosmic representation, so there sounds upwards from Earth-depths, like a rumbling, muffled roaring, the call of what lies in the heaviness of the cow. It is actually the case, as I described to you yesterday, that when one sees a herd of cattle replete with grazing, sees them as they lie there in their own peculiar way, their very form revealing that they are given over to Earth-gravity, then all this is conditioned by the fact that this bodily form must assimilate daily an eighth of its own weight. And to this must be added that the Earth-depths — which, under the influence of Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Moon, bring all this about in the digestive system of the cow — these Earth-depths, as if with demonic rumbling power, resound through such a herd with the words:

Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To wrest from the universe
Measure, number, and weight.

Thus speaks the cow. And it is the Orient which is especially exposed to the allurement of this call. What is meant here, however, is that, though it is the Orient which is primarily exposed to this alluring call of the cow on account of the ancient veneration of the cow in Hinduism, yet, if this allurement were actually so to seize hold of mankind that what arises from this call would gain the mastery, then these influences emanating from the Orient would produce a civilization which, spreading over center and West, would hinder progress and engender decadence. The demonic  Earth-forces would work in a one-sided way upon Earth-civilization. What then would actually happen?

The following would happen. In the course of the last centuries, under the influence of a technology brought about by external science, an external technological life has come about on the  Earth. Certainly our technical achievement is wonderful in every sphere. But in technology, nature forces work in their lifeless form. And the important factors in bringing these lifeless nature forces into play so absolutely and utterly that they would impose a stratum of civilization over the Earth — these factors are number, measure, and weight.

The scales, the measuring rod — to weigh, to count, to measure — these are the ideal of the modern scientist, of the modern technician, whose entire profession is actually dependent upon external science. We have brought things to such a pass that an important mathematician of our times, in response to the question "What is the guarantee of existence?" gives the following answer. (Philosophers of all ages have tried to answer the question: What is actually real?) This important physicist says: What can be measured is real; what cannot be measured is unreal. The ideal is to regard all being in such a way that it can be brought into the laboratory and weighed, measured, and counted; and from what is weighed, measured, and counted, science, or what stands for it, is constructed. All this then streams out into technology. Number, measure, and weight have become the standards of the whole of civilization.

Now as long as people only apply themselves with their ordinary understanding to measure, number, and weight, things are not particularly bad. People are certainly very clever, but they are still a long way from being as clever as the universe. And this is why things cannot become particularly bad so long as, in comparison with the universe, they go about the measuring, weighing, and counting in a dilettante way. But if present-day civilization were to be transformed into initiation, things would be bad indeed if this attitude of mind remained. And this can happen if the civilization of the West, which stands entirely under the sign of measure, number, and weight, were to be flooded by what might well come to pass in the East, namely, that through initiation-science people might fathom what actually lives spiritually in the organism of the cow. For if you penetrate into the organism of the cow, burdened with earthly heaviness, with this eighth of her weight in foodstuffs, with all that can be weighed, measured, and counted, you learn what is being organized spiritually in the cow by this Earth-heaviness, you learn to understand the whole organism of the cow as it lies in the meadow digesting, and in this process of digestion manifesting wonderful revelations from the astrality of the universe. Then you learn how to form what can be weighed, measured, and counted into a system with which you could overcome all other forms of civilization and impose upon the whole Earth-globe one civilization, which would do nothing but weigh, count, and measure, making everything else disappear. For what would result from initiation into the organization of the cow? That is a question of utmost gravity, a question of immense significance. What would be the result?

Well, the whole way in which people construct machines varies greatly according to the nature of the machine in question; but everything tends towards the gradual development of these still imperfect, primitive machines into a kind of machine which depends upon vibrations, and where the aim is to make the machines effective by means of vibrations or oscillations, by means of movements which run a periodic course. Everything is hastening towards such machines. But if once these machines in their coordinated activity could be constructed in such a way as can be learned from the distribution of foodstuffs in the organization of the cow, then the vibrations which would be conjured up on the Earth-globe through the machines, these small Earth-vibrations, would so run their course that what is above the  Earth would sound together with, vibrate together with, what is happening on the  Earth; so that our planetary system in its movements would be compelled to vibrate with our Earth-system, just as a string tuned to a certain pitch vibrates in sympathy when another one is struck in the same room.

That is the terrible law of the sounding in unison of vibrations which would be fulfilled if the alluring call of the cow would so decoy the Orient that it would then be able to penetrate in an absolutely convincing way into the unspiritual, purely mechanistic civilization of the West and center; and thereby it would become possible to conjure up on the Earth a mechanistic system fitting exactly into the mechanistic system of the universe. Through this everything connected with the working of air, with the forces of the circumference, and everything connected with the working of the stars would be exterminated from human civilization. What man experiences, for instance, through the cycle of the year, what he experiences through living together with the sprouting, budding life of spring, with the fading, dying life of autumn — all this would lose its import for him. Human civilization would resound with the clattering and rattling of the vibrating machines and with the echo of this clattering and rattling which would stream down upon the Earth from the cosmos as a reaction to this mechanization of the Earth.

If you observe what is active at the present time, you will say to yourselves: A part of our present-day civilization is actually on the way to having this terrible element of degeneracy as its goal.

Now turn your thoughts to what would happen if the center fell prey to the allurements of what is spoken by the lion. Then, it is true, the danger I have just described would not be present. Then mechanism would gradually disappear from the face of the Earth. Civilization would not become mechanistic — but, with a one-sided power, man would be given over to all that lives in wind and weather, in the cycle of the year. Man would be yoked to the year's course, and thereby compelled to live particularly in the interaction of his rhythms of breathing and blood-circulation. He would develop in himself what his involuntary life can give him. He would primarily develop his breast-nature. Through this, however, such human egoism would come over Earth civilization that everyone would be intent upon living for himself alone, that no one would bother about anything save his own immediate well-being. It is this temptation to which the civilization of the center is exposed: such is the existence which could hang like a fate over the civilization of the Earth.

And yet again, if the alluring call of the eagle were to seduce the West, so that it would succeed in spreading its way of thinking and attitude of mind over the whole Earth, binding itself up in a one-sided way in this kind of thinking and mental attitude, then  in mankind as a whole there would arise the urge to enter into connection with the super-earthly world, as this once was, as it was in the beginning, at the outset of Earth-evolution. People would feel the urge to extinguish what man has won for himself in freedom and independence. They would come to live only and entirely in that unconscious will which allows the gods to live in human muscles and nerves. They would revert to primitive conditions, to original, primitive clairvoyance. Man would seek to free himself from the Earth by turning back to beginnings.

And I must say that, for exact clairvoyant vision, this is further emphasized through the fact that man is continually approached by what may be called the voice of the grazing cow, which says: “Do not look upwards; all power comes from the Earth. Learn to know all that lies in Earth-activity. Thou shalt become the lord of the Earth. Thou shalt perpetuate the results of thy work on Earth.” Yes, if man were to succumb to this alluring call it would be impossible to avoid the danger of which I have spoken: the mechanizing of Earth civilization. For the astrality of this animal of digestion wills to make the present enduring, to make the present eternal. From the lion-organization proceeds not what wills to make the present endure, but rather what would make the present as fleeting as possible, what would make everything a mere sport of the cycle of the year, always repeating itself, what would spend itself in wind and weather, in the play of the sunbeams, in the currents of the air. And civilization, too, would take on this character.

If, with real understanding, one contemplates the eagle as he soars through the air, it appears as though he were bearing upon his plumage the memory of what was there at the very inception of the Earth. He has preserved in his plumage the forces which have worked into the Earth from above. It can be said that in every eagle we see the past millennia of the Earth; with his physical nature he has not touched the earth, or at the most only for the purpose of seizing his prey, and in no way for the satisfaction of his own life. To fulfill his own life the eagle circles in the air, because he is indifferent to what has developed on the Earth, because he has his joy and inspiration from the forces of the air, because he actually despises the life of Earth and wishes to live in that same element in which the Earth itself lived when it was not yet Earth, but when, in the beginning of its evolution, it was still imbuing itself with heavenly forces. The eagle is the proud creature which would not partake in the evolution of the solid Earth, which withdrew from the influence of this solidifying process and wished to remain united only with those forces which were there at the inception of the Earth.

Such are the teachings given to us by this threefold representation of the animal kingdom, if we can conceive it as an immense and mighty script, written into the universe for the elucidation of its riddles. For, in very truth, every single thing in the universe is a written character if we could but read it. And especially when we can read their connection do we understand the riddle of the universe.

How full of significance it is to have to realize: What we do when we measure with the compass or the measuring rod, when we weigh with the scales, when we count — this is in fact only a putting together of something which is fragmentary; it becomes a whole when we understand the organization of the cow in its inner spirituality. This means to read in the secrets of the universe. And this reading in the secrets of the universe leads into the understanding of the being of the world and of man. This is modern initiation wisdom. It is this which must be uttered at the present time from out of the depths of spiritual life.

It is difficult indeed today for man to be really man. For, if I may put it so, in face of the three animal types, man conducts himself like the antelope in the fable which I told you yesterday. What wills to be one-sided takes on a particular form. The lion remains lion, but he wishes to have his fellow beasts of prey as metamorphoses of the other animal representatives. Thus for what in truth is eagle he substitutes a fellow beast of prey, the hyena, whose nature it is to live upon what is dead, upon that element of death which is induced in our head, and which continually, at every moment, contributes atomistic particles toward our death. So this fable replaces the eagle with the hyena, the hyena which consumes decay; and in the place of the cow — in line with the degeneration — the lion puts his fellow beast of prey, the wolf. Thus we have in the fable the other threefold animal group, the lion, the hyena, the wolf. And as today the alluring calls stand over against each other, their cosmic symbolism is confronted with its opposite, in that when the alluring calls resound, the eagle sinks to Earth and becomes the hyena, and the cow no longer desires in her holy, humble way to be an image of the cosmos, but becomes the ravening wolf.

And now we can translate the legend with which I ended my lecture yesterday from the old African version into that of modern civilization. Yesterday I had to narrate this legend from what may be called the old African point of view: The lion, the wolf, and the hyena went out hunting. They killed an antelope. First the hyena was asked to divide the prey; he apportioned it according to hyena-logic, and said: “A third for everyone: a third for the lion, a third for the wolf, and a third for me.” Whereupon the hyena was consumed. And now the lion said to the wolf: “You divide it.” So the wolf said “You get the first third because you have killed the hyena, and therefore the hyena's share is also your due. The second third is yours because, according to the verdict of the hyena, you would have had a third in any case, for each of us was to have had a third — and you got the last third as well, because of all the beasts, you are the wisest and bravest.” And the lion said to the wolf: “Who taught you to divide in so excellent a way?” The wolf said: “The hyena.”

The logic is the same in both cases, but in its application to reality something quite different results according to whether the hyena, or the wolf with the hyena's experience, applied the logic. It is in the application of logic to reality that the essential matter lies.

Now we can also translate this fable into what I may call the version of modern civilization and tell the story somewhat differently. But please notice that what I am telling is in terms of the whole development of the great course of culture. Thus, expressed in modern fashion, the story could perhaps run as follows: The antelope is killed. The hyena withdraws and delivers a silent verdict; he does not dare to arouse the growling of the lion. He draws back, delivers a silent verdict, and waits in the background. The lion and the wolf now begin to fight for the body of the antelope. They fight and fight, until they have so severely wounded each other that both die from their wounds. Now comes the hyena, and consumes antelope, wolf, and lion, after they have entered into a state of decay. The hyena is the image of what lies in the human intellect, the element in human nature which kills. He is the reverse side, the caricature, of the eagle civilization.

If you feel what I wish to convey by the europeanizing of the old African fable, you will understand that just at the present time these things should be rightly understood. But they will only be rightly understood when, in opposition to the threefold alluring call — the call of the eagle, and of the lion, and of the cow — man learns what he himself should utter, that utterance which today should be the good shibboleth of man's strength, and thinking, and activity:

I must learn
Thy power, O Cow,
From the language
Which the stars reveal in me.

To comprehend Earth-gravity, not as mere weighing, measuring and counting; to understand not merely what lies in the physical organization of the cow, but what is embodied in her; humbly to turn our gaze away from her organization up to the heights — this alone will ensure the spiritualization of what would otherwise become the mechanistic civilization of the Earth.

And the second utterance of the human being must be:

I must learn
Thy power, O Lion,
From the language
Which, through year and day,
Encircling space makes active in me.

Notice the words “reveal” and “make active”.

And the third utterance which man must learn is:

I must learn
Thy power, O Eagle,
From the language
Which Earth-born life creates in me.

Thus man must oppose his threefold utterance to the one-sided alluring calls, that threefold utterance whose meaning can bring what is one-sided into harmonious balance. He must learn to look toward the cow, but then, after entering with deep experience into her nature, turn his gaze upward to what is revealed by the language of the stars. He must learn to direct his gaze upward to the eagle, but then, after deeply experiencing within himself the eagle's nature, he must look down with the clear gaze that the eagle's nature has bestowed upon him, and behold what springs and sprouts forth from the Earth, and what also works from below upward in the organization of man. And he must learn so to behold the lion that the lion reveals to him what is wafted around him in the wind, what flashes toward him in the lightning, what rumbles around him in the thunder, what wind and weather, in the course of the seasons, bring about in the life of the Earth into which man himself is yoked. Thus, when man shall direct his physical gaze upward with his spiritual gaze downward, when he shall direct his physical gaze downward  with his spiritual gaze upward, when he shall direct his physical gaze outward  toward the East with his spiritual gaze in the opposite direction toward the  West — thus when man shall allow above and below, forward and backward, spiritual gaze and physical gaze to interpenetrate each other, then he will be able to receive and understand the true calls, bringing him strength and not weakness — the calls of the eagle from the heights, of the lion from the circumference, of the cow from below within the Earth.

This is what man should learn in regard to his connection with the universe, so that thereby he may become ever more fitted to work for Earth-civilization, and to serve not its decadence but its upward progress.

Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To create a universe
In thine own head.

Thus speaks the Eagle.
West.

Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To embody the universe
In the radiance of the encircling air.

Thus speaks the Lion.
Center.

Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To wrest from the universe
Measure, number, and weight.

Thus speaks the Cow.
Orient.

I must learn
Thy power, O Cow,
From the language
Which the stars reveal in me.

I must learn
Thy power, O Lion,
From the language
Which, through year and day,
Encircling space makes active in me.

I must learn
Thy power, O Eagle,
From the language
Which Earth-born life creates in me.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19231020p01.html