SPIRITUAL KINGDOMS AND HUMAN
SELF-KNOWLEDGE
Through the Leading Thoughts which have been sent out from the
Goetheanum during the past weeks to the members of the
Anthroposophical Society, the soul has been directed to the Beings of
the spiritual kingdoms with whom man is connected from above, just as,
from below, he is connected with the kingdoms of Nature.
True self-knowledge may become the guide through which man finds his
way into these spiritual kingdoms. And when such self-knowledge is
striven after in the right way, then the understanding will be
awakened for what Anthroposophy is able to make known through its
insight into the life of the spiritual world. But self-knowledge must
be practised in the true sense, not as a mere rigid gazing into one's
inner being.
By means of such a true self-knowledge one arrives in the first place
at what lives in memory. In thought-pictures, the shadow of
what was a direct and living experience in the past is called up into
consciousness. Anyone seeing a shadow will, out of an inner impulse of
thought, be guided to the object which threw the shadow. He who bears
a memory within him cannot in this direct way turn the eye of his soul
to the experience which lives on in the memory. But when he truly
reflects on his own nature he will be obliged to say to himself: that
he himself, in his soul-being, is what his experiences have made of
him those experiences which throw their shadows into the
memory. The memory-shadows appear in the consciousness; in the soul
there shines what in the memory is shadow. Dead shadow
lives in the memory; living being lives in the soul in which the
memory is active.
It is only necessary that this relationship of the memory to the
actual soul-life should be made clear; and in this striving for
clearness in self-knowledge a man will then perceive that he is on the
path to the spiritual world.
Through memory, man is looking at the spiritual in his own soul. But
in the ordinary consciousness he does not arrive at a real grasp of
what he thus looks upon. He looks in the direction on something; but
his look meets with no reality. Anthroposophy, out of Imaginative
Knowledge, shows the way to this reality. Through it we are referred
from the shadow to that which gleams and shines. Anthroposophy does
this, in that it speaks of the etheric body of man. It shows how the
physical body is active in the thought-shadow pictures; but how in the
gleaming and shining the etheric body lives.
With the physical body man is in the sense-world; with the etheric
body he is in the etheric world. In the sense-world he has his
environment; in the etheric world also. And Anthroposophy speaks of
this latter environment as the first of the hidden worlds in which man
is living. It is the kingdom of the Third Hierarchy.
Let us now approach speech in the same way that we have
considered memory. It issues from within man just as does the memory.
It connects him with a certain state of being, as memory unites him
with his own experiences. In words, too, there is an element of
shadow. This is deeper than the shadow of the thoughts of memory. When
man inwardly casts the shadow of his experiences as his memories, his
own hidden self is active in the whole process. He is there when the
light casts the shadow.
In speech there is also a process of shadow-casting. The words are the
shadows. What is it in this case that shines? Something stronger
shines, because words are stronger shadows than are the thoughts of
memory. The element in the human self which in the course of an
earthly life can produce memories, cannot create words. Man must learn
these in connection with other human beings. Something which lies
deeper in him than that which casts the shadow of memory must take
part in this process. In this case Anthroposophy speaks from Inspired
Knowledge of the astral body, as in the case of memory it speaks of
the etheric body. The astral body is added to the physical and etheric
bodies as a third part of the human being.
This third part, too, has a cosmic environment about it. This is made
up of the Second Hierarchy. In human language we have a phantom of
this Second Hierarchy. As to his astral body, man lives within the
province of this Hierarchy.
We may go still further. In speech a portion of man's being is
engaged. When he speaks he brings his inner being into motion. That
which surrounds this inner being remains at rest. The movement of
speech wrings itself loose from the human being while he remains at
rest, but the whole man comes into motion when he brings into activity
all that belongs to his limbs. In such movement man is no less full of
expression than in memory and speech. Memory expresses his
experiences. The nature of language consists in its being the
expression of something. In the same way the man whose whole being is
in motion expresses something.
Anthroposophy points out that this something is another
part of the human being. From Intuitive Knowledge it speaks of the
real Self or I . This too, it
finds, has a cosmic environment, namely the First Hierarchy.
When man approaches the thoughts in his memory he meets with the first
supersensible element his own etheric being. Anthroposophy
points out to him the cosmic environment corresponding to it. When man
considers himself as one who makes use of language he finds his astral
being. This is no longer comprehended in that which only acts
inwardly, like memory. It is seen by Inspiration as that which in the
act of speaking shapes a physical process out of the Spiritual. Speech
is a physical process. At its foundation lies an activity which
proceeds from the sphere of the Second Hierarchy.
When the whole man is in motion there is a more intense physical
action than in speech. Not merely a part of man is moulded, the whole
man is given shape; and in the physical being which lives and moves in
form, the First Hierarchy is active.
In this way, then, true self-knowledge can be cultivated. But in doing
this man does not grasp his own Self alone. Step by step he
comprehends the parts of his body: the physical body, the etheric
body, the astral body and the Self. And by comprehending these he also
reaches up, step by step, to higher worlds which like the three
kingdoms of Nature, the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms, belong, as
the three spiritual kingdoms, to the whole Universe in which his being
is unfolding.
Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society
69. The Third Hierarchy reveals itself as pure soul and spirit. It
lives and moves in all that man experiences in the soul, in his inner
life. Neither in the etheric nor in the physical could any processes
arise if this Hierarchy alone were active. Soul-life alone could
exist.
70. The Second Hierarchy reveals itself as soul and spirit that works
in the etheric. All that is etheric is a manifestation of the Second
Hierarchy. This Hierarchy, however, does not reveal itself directly in
the physical; its power extends only to etheric processes. Only
etheric and soul-life could exist if the Third and the Second
Hierarchy alone were active.
71. The First and strongest Hierarchy reveals itself as the
spiritually active principle within the physical. It makes the
physical world into a Cosmos. The Third and the Second Hierarchy are
the Beings who minister to it in this activity.
Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society
72. As soon as we approach the higher members of man's being
the etheric, the astral body and the Ego-organisation we
are obliged to seek for man's relation to the beings of the spiritual
kingdoms. It is only the physical body's organisation which we can
illumine by reference to the three physical kingdoms of Nature.
73. In the etheric body the Intelligence of the Cosmos becomes
embodied in the human being. That this can happen, requires the
activity of cosmic Beings, who, in their combined working, shape the
etheric body of man, even as the physical forces shape the physical.
74. In the astral body the spiritual world implants the moral impulses
into the human being. That these can show forth their life in man's
Organisation, depends on the activity of Beings who are able not only
to think the Spiritual, but to shape it in its reality.
75. In the Ego-organisation man experiences himself, even in the
physical body, as a Spirit. That this can happen, requires the
activity of Beings who themselves, as spiritual Beings, live in the
physical world.
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