Lecture II
Blood is a Very Special Fluid
Berlin 25th October, 1906
The title of
today's lecture no doubt reminds you of a passage in Goethe's
Faust, when Faust, representing striving man, enters
into a pact with evil powers, represented by the emissary
from hell, Mephistopheles. Faust is to sign the pact in
blood. At first he regards this as a joke, but Goethe
undoubtedly meant the words spoken by Mephistopheles at this
point to be taken seriously: “Blood is a very special
fluid.”
Goethe
[
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was a German poet,
novelist, and playwright.
]
commentators usually provide curious interpretations of this passage.
You will be aware that so much has been written about Goethe's
Faust that it can fill libraries. I naturally cannot
go into what every commentator has said about this particular
passage, but it all amounts more or less to what is said by a
recent commentator, Professor Jacob Minor.
[
Jacob Minor (1855–1912) was professor of philology.
]
Like others, he regards
Mephistopheles' remark to be ironic, but Minor adds a curious
sentence. I quote it in order to illustrate the amazing
things said about Goethe's Faust. Minor states:
“The devil is an enemy of blood.” He goes on to
point out that as blood invigorates and sustains human life,
the devil, being an enemy of the human race, must of
necessity be also an enemy of blood. Minor is quite right
when he further demonstrates that in sagas and legends blood
always plays the kind of role it plays in Goethe's
Faust. The oldest version of the Faust legend
clearly describes how Faust makes a slight cut in his left
hand with a penknife, dips a quill in the blood in order to
sign the agreement, and as he does so, the blood, flowing
from the wound, forms the words: “Oh man,
escape!”
This is all
quite correct, but what about the remark that the devil is an
enemy of blood and for that reason demands the signature
written in blood? Can you imagine anyone wishing to possess
the very thing he abhors? The only reasonable interpretation
of the passage is that Goethe, as well as earlier writers of
Faust legends, wishes to show that the devil regards blood as
especially valuable, and that to him it is important that the
deed is signed in blood rather than in neutral ink. The
supposition must be that the representative of the powers of
evil believes, or rather is convinced, that he will gain a
special power over Faust by possessing at least a drop of his
blood. It is quite obvious that Faust must sign in blood, not
because the devil is his enemy, but because he wants to have
power over him. The reason behind this passage is a strange
premonition that if someone gains power over an individual's
blood, one gains power over the person. In short, the feeling
is that blood is a very special fluid and it is the real
issue in the fight for an individual's soul between good and
evil.
A radical
change must come about in our modern understanding and
evaluation of the sagas and myths handed down since ancient
times. We cannot go on regarding legends, fables and myths as
childlike folklore or pretentiously declare them to be
poetical expressions of a nation's soul. The poetic soul of a
nation is nothing but a fantasy product of donnish
officialdom. Anyone with true insight into the soul of a
people knows with certainty that the contents of fables and
myths, depicting powerful beings and wonderful happenings, is
something very much more profound than mere invention. When
with knowledge provided by spiritual research we delve into
sagas and myths, allowing the mighty primordial pictures to
act on us, we begin to recognize the profound ancient wisdom
they reveal.
To begin with,
one naturally wonders how it was possible for primitive man,
with his unsophisticated views, to depict in the form of
fables and myths, cosmic riddles that are unveiled and
described in exact terms by means of modern spiritual
research. This at first seems very surprising. However, as
further research reveals how these ancient fables and myths
came into existence, one ceases to be amazed, and all doubt
vanishes. One discovers that myths and fables, far from
containing naive views, are filled with primordial wisdom. A
thorough study of myths and fables yields infinitely more
insight than today's intellectual, experimental sciences.
Admittedly the approach to such a study must be with
spiritual scientific methods. Whatever legends have to say
about blood is important, because in earlier times an
individual's inherent wisdom made him aware of the true
significance of blood, this special fluid that in human
beings is a stream of flowing life.
Whence this
wisdom came in ancient times is not our concern today; it
will be the subject of a later lecture, though an indication
will be given at the close of this one. Today we shall look
at the significance of blood in human evolution and its role
in cultural life. However, our discussion will not be from a
physiological, or any other natural scientific point of view,
but from that of spiritual science. It will be a help if
before pursuing our subject we remind ourselves of a maxim
that originated within the civilization of ancient Egypt,
where the priestly wisdom of Hermes held sway. This maxim,
which expresses a fundamental truth, is known as the Hermetic
maxim and runs as follows: As above, so below.
All kinds of
trivial explanations of this saying are to be found, but the
one that concerns us today is the following. It is obvious to
spiritual science that the world accessible to our five
senses, far from being complete in itself, is a manifestation
of a spiritual world hidden behind it. This hidden world is
called, according to the Hermetic axiom, the “world
above, or the upper world.” The sense world spread all
about us, perceptible to our senses and accessible to our
intellect, is called the “world below,” and is an
expression of the spiritual world above it. The physical
world is therefore not complete to the spiritual researcher,
but is a kind of physiognomic expression of the soul and
spirit world behind it, just as when looking at a human face
one does not stop short at its shape and features, but
recognizes them as an expression of the soul and spirit
behind them.
What everyone
does instinctively when faced with an ensouled being, the
spiritual researcher does in regard to the whole world. The
axiom, As above, so below, when applied to a human being,
means that a person's soul impulses come to expression on the
face. A hard, coarse face denotes coarseness of soul, a smile
inner joy, and tears inner suffering.
Let us now
apply the Hermetic axiom to the question: What is wisdom?
Spiritual science has often pointed to the fact that human
wisdom is related to experience, particularly to painful
experience. For someone actually in the throes of pain and
suffering, the immediate experience will no doubt be inner
discord. But when pain and suffering have been conquered,
when only their fruits remain, a person will say that from
the experience a measure of wisdom is gained. The happiness,
enjoyment and contentment life brings one gratefully accepts;
but more valuable by far, once it is overcome, is the pain
and suffering, for to that people owe what wisdom they
possess. Spiritual science recognizes in wisdom something
like crystallized pain; pain transformed into its
opposite.
It is
interesting that modern research, with its more materialistic
approach, has come to the same conclusion. A book well worth
reading was published recently about the mimicry of thought.
The writer is not an anthroposophist, but a natural scientist
and psychologist. He sets out to show that a person's thought
life reveals itself in the physiognomy, and draws attention
to the fact that a thinker's facial expression always suggest
assimilated pain.
Thus, you see
emerging, interspersed with more materialistic views, a
confirmation of an ancient maxim that originated from
spiritual knowledge. This will happen more and more
frequently; you will find ancient wisdom gradually
reappearing within the framework of modern science.
Spiritual
research confirms that everything that surrounds us in the
world: the configuration of minerals, the covering of
vegetation, the world of animals, is the physiognomic
expression of the life of spirit behind it. It is the
“below” reflecting the “above.”
Spiritual science maintains that what thus surrounds us can
be properly understood only when one has knowledge of the
“above,” that is, knowledge of the prototypes,
the primordial beings from whom it all originated. Today we
shall turn our attention to that which creates on earth its
physiognomic expression in the blood. Once the spiritual
background of blood is understood, it will be recognized that
such knowledge must of necessity influence our spiritual and
cultural life.
The problems
human beings are facing today are momentous and
pressing — especially educational problems involving not
only the young but also entire populations. These particular
problems are bound to increase as time goes on. The great
social upheavals taking place make this evident to anyone.
Demands causing anxiety are continually made, whether in the
guise of the woman question, the labor question or the peace
question. These are all problems that become understandable
once insight is gained into the spiritual nature of
blood.
Another
question, similar in nature, which is again coming to the
fore, is that of race. The racial problem cannot be
understood unless one understands the mysterious effect when
blood of different races is mingled. And finally, there is
the problem of colonization that also belongs in this
category. This problem has become even more pressing since
attempts have been made to tackle it more consistently than
was formerly the case. It arises when cultivated people are
to share their lives with uncultivated people. Certain
questions ought to be asked when attempts are made to tackle
the problem: To what extent is it possible for a primitive
people to assimilate a strange culture? Can a savage become
civilized? What here comes under consideration are vital and
far-reaching questions of existence, not just concern about
doubtful morality. It is unlikely that one will find the
right way of introducing a strange culture to a people if it
is not known whether it is on an ascending or descending line
of evolution; whether this or that aspect of its life is
ruled by its blood. When the significance of blood is
discussed, all these things come under scrutiny.
The physical
composition of blood will be known to you from science in
general. In humans, and also in the higher animals, blood is
truly the stream of life. Our inner bodily nature is in
contact with the external world through the fact that we
absorb into the blood the life-giving oxygen from the air, a
process by which the blood is renewed. The blood that meets
the instreaming oxygen acts as a kind of poison, as a kind of
destroyer within the organism. This blue-red blood, by
absorbing the oxygen, is transformed into red, life-giving
blood through a process of combustion. This red blood that
penetrates all parts of the organism has the task to absorb
directly into itself substances from the outer world, and
deposit them as nourishment along the shortest route within
the body. Humans and the higher animals must of necessity
first absorb nutritive substances into the blood, then,
having formed the blood, absorb into it oxygen from the air
and finally build up and sustain the body by means of the
blood.
A knowledgeable
psychologist once remarked that the blood circulating through
the body is not unlike a second person who, in relation to
the one made of bone, muscle and nerve, constitutes a kind of
outer world. And indeed our entire being constantly takes
from the blood what sustains it, and gives back what it
cannot use. One could say that a person carries in his or her
blood a double (Doppelgänger) who, as a
constant companion, furnishes him or her with renewed
strength and relieves a person of what is useless. It is
entirely justified to refer to blood as a stream of life and
compare its importance with that of fibre. What fibre is for
the lower organism. blood is for the human being as a
whole.
The
distinguished scientist Ernst Haeckel
[
Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a German biologist who
supported Darwin's theory of evolution and his theory of
ontogeny or the development of an individual organism.
]
has probed deeply into
nature's workshop, and in his popular works he quite rightly
points out that blood is the last to develop in an organism.
When tracing the stages of development in a human embryo, one
finds rudiments of bone and muscle long before there is any
indication of blood formation. Only late in embryonic
development does formation of blood and blood vessels become
apparent. This leads natural science to rightly conclude that
blood made its appearance only late in world evolution, and
that forces already in existence had first to reach a stage
of development comparable to that of blood before they could
accomplish what was necessary in the human organism. When as
embryos human beings repeat once more the earlier stages of
human evolution, they adapt to what existed before blood
first made its appearance, This a person must do in order to
achieve the crowning glory of evolution: the enhancement and
transmutation of all that went before into that special fluid
that is blood.
If we are to
enter into the mysterious laws of the spiritual realm that
hold sway behind blood, we must first take a brief look at
some of the basic ideas of spiritual science. You will come
to see that these basic ideas are the “above,”
and that this “above” comes to expression in the
laws that govern blood, as it does in all other laws, as if
in a physiognomy.
There are in
the audience some who are acquainted with the basics of
spiritual science; they will allow a brief repetition for the
sake of others who are present for the first time. In any
case, repetitions help to make these basic ideas clearer, as
light will be thrown on them from a different aspect. In
fact, what I am going to say may well appear as just a string
of words to those who as yet know nothing about spiritual
science, and are therefore unfamiliar with this outlook on
life. However, when ideas behind words seem to have no
meaning, it is not always the ideas that are at fault. In
this context a witty remark made by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
[
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1744–1799) was a physicist
and satirical writer.
]
is apt. He said: If a head and a book collide and the result is
a hollow sound, it is not always the book's fault. So, too,
when some of our contemporaries pass judgment on spiritual
truths, which to them seem like a string of words, it is not
always spiritual science that is at fault. However, those
acquainted with spiritual science will know that the
references made to higher beings are to beings that really do
exist, even if they cannot be found in the physical
world.
Spiritual
science recognizes that humans, as they appear in the sense
world to physical sight, represent only a part of their true
being. In fact, behind the physical body there are several
more principles that are invisible to ordinary sight. Human
beings have the physical body in common with the so-called
surrounding lifeless mineral world. In addition, they have a
life body, or ether body. What is here understood by ether is
not that of which natural science speaks. The life body or
ether body is not something speculative or thought out, but
is as concretely visible to the spiritual senses of the
clairvoyant as are physical colors to physical sight.
The ether body
is the principle that calls inorganic matter into life and,
in lifting it out of lifelessness, weaves it into the fabric
of life. Do not for a moment imagine that the life body is
something the spiritual investigator thinks into the
lifeless. Natural science attempts to do that by imagining
something called the “principle of life” into
what is found under the microscope, whereas the spiritual
investigator points to a real definite entity. The natural
scientist adopts, as it were, the attitude that whatever
exists must conform to the faculties a person happens to
have; therefore, what he or she cannot perceive does not
exist. This is just about as clever as a blind person saying
that colors are nothing but a product of fantasy. The person
to pass judgment on something must be the one who has
experienced it, not someone who knows nothing about it.
Nowadays one
talks of “ignorabimus” and “limits of
knowledge”; this is possible only as long as human
beings remain as they are. But, as spiritual science points
out, we are constantly evolving, and once we develop the
necessary organs, we will perceive, among other things, the
ether body, and will no longer speak of “limits of
knowledge.” Agnosticism is grave obstacle to spiritual
progress because it insists that, as human beings are as they
are, their knowledge can only be limited accordingly. All
that can be said to this is that then human beings must
change, and when they do they will be able to know things
they cannot now know things they cannot now know.
Thus, the
second member of a person's being is the ether body, which
one has in common with the vegetable kingdom.
A human being's
third member is the astral body. This name, as well as being
beautiful, is also significant; that it is justified will be
shown later. Those who wish to find another name only show
that they have no inkling as to why the astral body is so
named. In humans and animals, the astral body bestows on
living substance the ability to experience sensation. This
means that not only do currents of fluid move within it, but
also sensations of joy, sorrow, pleasure and pain. This
capacity constitutes the essential difference between plant
and animal, although transitional stages between them do
exist.
A certain group
of scientists believes that sensation should be ascribed also
to plants, but that is only playing with words. Certainly
some plants do react when something approaches them, but it
has nothing to do with sensation or feeling. When the latter
is the case, an image arises within the creature in response
to the stimulus. Even if certain plants respond to external
stimuli, that is no proof that they experience inner
sensation. The inwardly felt has its seat in the astral body.
Thus, we see that creatures belonging to the animal kingdom
consist of physical body, ether or life body, and astral
body.
Human beings
tower above the animal through a specific quality, often
sensed by thoughtful natures. In his autobiography, Jean Paul
[
Jean Paul (Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, 1763–1825), German author.
]
relates the deep
impression made upon him when, as a small child, standing in
the courtyard of his parent's house, the thought suddenly
flashed through his mind: “I am an ‘I,’ I
am a being who inwardly calls himself ‘I.’
” What is here described is of immense significance,
yet generally overlooked by psychologists. A subtle
observation will illustrate what is involved: In the whole
range of speech, there is one small word that in its
application differs from all others. We can all give a name
to the objects in this room. Each one of us will call the
table, “table,” the chairs, “chairs,”
but there is one word, one name that can only refer to the
one who speaks it: the little word “I.” No one
can call someone else “I.” The word
“I” must sound forth from the innermost soul to
which it applies. To me, everyone else is a
“you,” and I am a “you” to everyone
else.
Religions have
recognized that the “I” is that principle in us
that makes it possible for the human soul to express its
innermost divine nature. With the “I” begins what
can never enter the soul through the external senses, what
must sound forth in its innermost being. It is where the
monologue, the soliloquy, begins in which, if the path has
been made clear for the spirit's entry, the divine Self may
reveal itself.
In religions of
earlier cultural epochs, and still in the Hebrew religion,
the word “I” was called: “The unutterable
name of God.” No matter how it is interpreted according
to modern philology, the ancient Hebrew name for God
signifies what today is expressed by the word
“I.” A hush went through the assembly when the
initiate spoke the “Name of the Unknown God”; the
people would dimly sense the meaning contained in the words
that resounded through the temple: “I am the I
am.”
Thus, the human
being consists of physical body, ether body, astral body and
the “I” or the essential inner being. This inner
being contains within itself the germ of the three further
evolutionary stages that will arise out of the blood. They
are: Manas or Spirit Self, in contrast to the bodily self;
Buddhi or Life Spirit; and a human's true spiritual being:
Atma or Spirit Man, which today rests within us as a tiny
seed to reach perfection in a far-off future; a stage to
which at present we can only look to as a far-distant ideal.
Therefore, just as we have seven colors in the rainbow and
seven tones in the scale, we have seven members of our being
that divide into four lower and three higher.
If we now look
upon the three higher spiritual members as the
“above” and the four lower as the
“below,” let us try to get a clear picture of how
the above creates a physiognomic expression in the below as
it appears to physical sight. Take first what we have in
common with the whole inorganic nature, that is, that which
crystallized into the form of a person's physical body. When
we speak of the physical body in a spiritual-scientific
sense, it is not what can be seen physically that is meant,
but the combination of forces behind it that constructed this
form. The next member of our being is the ether body, which
plants and animals also possess, and by means of which they
are endowed with life. The ether body transforms physical
matter into living fluids, thus raising what is merely
material into living form. In animal and human the ether body
is permeated by the astral body, which calls up in the
circulating fluid inner participation of its movement,
causing the movement to be reflected inwardly.
We have now
reached the point where the being of humans can be understood
insofar as they are related to the animal kingdom. The
substances, such as oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulphur,
phosphorus, and so forth, out of which our physical body is
composed, are to be found outside in inorganic nature. If the
substances transformed by the ether body into living matter
are to attain the capacity to create inner mirror images of
external events, then the ether body must be permeated by the
astral body. It is the astral body that gives rise to
sensations and feelings, but at the animal level does so in a
specific way.
The ether body
transforms inorganic substances into living fluids; the
astral body transforms living substance into sensitive
substance. But — and of this please take special note
— a being composed of no more than the three bodies is
only capable of sensing itself. It is only aware of its own
life processes; its existence is confined within the
boundaries of its own being. This fact is most interesting,
and it is important to keep it in mind. Look for a moment at
what has developed in a lower animal: inorganic matter is
transformed into living substance, and living mobile
substance into sensitive substance. The latter is to be found
only where there is at least the rudiment of what at a higher
stage becomes a developed nervous system.
Thus, we have
inorganic substance, living substance, and nerve substance
capable of sensation. In a crystal you see manifest certain
laws of inorganic nature. (A crystal can be formed only
within the whole surrounding nature.) No single entity could
exist by itself separated from the rest of the cosmos. If we
were to be transferred a mile or two above the earth's
surface, we would die. Just as we are conceivable only within
the environment to which we belong, where the necessary
forces exist that combine to form and sustain us, so too, in
the case of a crystal. A person who knows how to look at a
crystal will see it as an individual imprint of the whole of
nature, indeed of the whole cosmos. Georges Leopold
Chrètien Cuvier
[
Georges Leopold Chretien Couvier (1769–1832) was a
French comparative anatomist and the founder of paleontology.
]
is quite right when he says that a competent
anatomist is able to deduce from a single bone to what kind
of animal it belongs, as each kind has its own specific bone
formation.
So you see that
in the form of a crystal a certain aspect of the whole cosmos
is reflected, just as an aspect of the whole cosmos is
imprinted on living substance. The fluid circulating in a
living creature is a small world that mirrors the great
world. When substance possesses not only life, but also
experiences inner sensation, it mirrors universal laws; it
becomes a microcosm that dimly senses within itself the whole
macrocosm. As the crystal is an image of cosmic form, so is
sentient life an image of cosmic life. The dullness of
consciousness in simple creatures is compensated by its
immense range, for mirrored in it is the whole cosmos.
The
constitution of humans is simply a more intricate structure
composed of the three bodies already found in simple sentient
creatures. If you consider people while disregarding their
blood, you have beings built up from the same substances as
those to be found in their environment. Like the plant, human
beings contain fluids that call mineral substances to life,
which in turn incorporate a system of nerves. The first
nerves to appear are those of the so-called sympathetic
nervous system. In humans it extends along both sides of the
vertebral column, forming a series of knots from which it
branches out and sends threads to the various organs, the
lungs, the digestive tract and so on.
In the first
instance, the sympathetic nervous system gives rise to the
kind of sentient life just described. But a person's
consciousness does not reach down far enough to experience
the cosmic processes it mirrors. The surrounding cosmic world
out of which the human being, as a living being, is created,
mirrors itself in the sympathetic nervous system. There is in
these nerves a dull inner life. If human beings could dive
down consciously into the sympathetic nervous system, while
the higher nervous system fell asleep, they would behold in a
world of light the workings of the great cosmic laws.
Human beings
once had a clairvoyant faculty that has been superseded.
However, it can still be experienced, if through certain
measures the function of the higher nervous system is
suspended, setting free the lower consciousness. When that
happens, the world is experienced through the lower nervous
system in which the environment is mirrored in a special way.
Certain lower animals still have this kind of consciousness.
As explained, it is extremely dull, but provides a dim
awareness of a far wider aspect of the world than the tiny
section perceived by humans today.
At the time
when evolution had reached the stage of the cosmos being
mirrored in the sympathetic nervous system, another event
occurred in human beings. The spinal cord was added to the
sympathetic nervous system. The system of brain and spinal
cord extended to the organs, through which contact was
established with the outer world. Once their organisms had
reached this stage, humans were no longer obliged to be
merely a mirror for the primordial cosmic laws; the mirror
image itself now entered into relationship with the
environment. The incorporation of the higher nervous system
in addition to the sympathetic nervous system denoted the
transformation that had occurred in the astral body. Whereas
formerly it participated dully in the life of the cosmos, it
now contributed its own inner experiences.
Through the
sympathetic nervous system, a being senses what takes place
outside itself; through the higher nervous system, what takes
place within itself. In individuals at the present stage of
their evolution, the highest form of the nervous system is
developed; it enables people to obtain from the highly
structured astral body what is needed to formulate mental
pictures of the outer world. Therefore, a person has lost the
ability to experience the environment in the original dull
pictures. Instead, individuals are aware of their inner life,
and build within the inner self a new world of pictures on a
higher level. This world of mental pictures mirrors, it is
true, a much smaller section of the outer world, but does so
much more clearly and perfectly.
Hand in hand
with this transformation, another one occurred on a higher
evolutionary level. The reorganization of the astral body
became extended to the ether body. Just as the ether body
through its reorganization became permeated with the astral
body, and just as there was added to the sympathetic nervous
system that of the brain and spinal cord, so what was set
free from the ether body — after it had called into
being the circulation of living fluids — now
transformed these lower fluids into what we call
“blood.”
Blood denotes
an individualized ether body, just as the brain and spinal
cord denote an individualized astral body. And through this
individualizing comes about that which expresses itself as
the “I.”
Having traced
man's evolution up to this point, we notice that we are
dealing with a gradation in five stages: First the physical
body (or inner forces); second the ether body (or living
fluids, to be found also in plants); third the astral body
(manifesting itself in the lower or sympathetic nervous
system); fourth the higher astral body emerging from the
lower astrality (manifesting itself in the brain and spinal
cord); and finally the principle that individualizes the
ether body.
Just as two of
humanity's principles, the ether, and astral bodies, have
become individualized, so will the human being's first
principle, built up out of external lifeless substances, that
is, the physical body, become individualized. In present day
humanity there is only a faint indication of this
transformation.
We see that
formless substances come together in the human body, that the
ether body transforms them into living forms, that through
the astral body the outer world is reflected and becomes
inner sensation, and finally this inner life produces of
itself pictures of the outer world.
When the
process of transformation extends to the etheric body, the
result is the forming of blood. This transformation manifests
itself in the system of heart and blood vessels, just as the
transformation of the astral body manifests in the system of
brain and spinal cord. And, as through the brain the outer
world becomes inner world, so does this inner world become
transformed through the blood into an outer manifestation as
the human body. I shall have to speak in similes if I am to
describe these complicated processes. The pictures of the
external world made inward through the brain are absorbed by
the blood and transformed into vital formative forces. These
are the forces that build up the human body; in other words,
blood is the substance that builds the body. We are dealing
with a process that brings the blood into contact with the
outer world; it enables it to take from it the most perfect
substance, oxygen. Oxygen continually renews the blood,
endowing it with new life.
In tracing
human development, we have followed a path that leads from
the outer world to humanity's inner world and back to the
outer world. We have seen that the origin of blood coincides
with our ability to face the world as an independent being, a
being able to form his or her own pictures of the external
world from its reflection within the self. Unless this stage
is reached, a being cannot say “I” to itself.
Blood is the principle whereby “I-hood” is
attained. An “I” can express itself only in a
being who is able independently to formulate the pictures the
outer world produces within the self. A being who has
attained “I-hood” must be able to take in the
outer world and recreate it within the self.
If we possessed
only a brain without a spinal cord, we would still reproduce
within ourselves pictures of the outer world and be aware of
them, but only as a mirror image. It is quite different when
we are able to build up anew what is repeated within
ourselves; for then what we thus build up is no longer merely
pictures of the outer world; it is the “I.” A
being who possesses brain and spinal cord will not only
mirror the outer world, as does a being with only the
sympathetic nervous system, but will also experience the
mirrored picture as inner life. A being who in addition
possesses blood will experience inner life within the self.
The blood, assisted by oxygen taken from the outer world,
builds up the individual body according to the inner
pictures. This is experienced as perception of the
“I”.
The
“I” turns its vision inwards into a person's
being, and its will outwards to the world. This twofold
direction manifests itself in the blood, which directs its
forces inwards, building up a person's being, and outwards
towards the oxygen. When humans fall asleep they sink into
unconsciousness because of what the consciousness experiences
within the blood, whereas when they, by means of sense organs
and brain, form mental pictures of the outer world, then the
blood absorbs these pictures into its formative forces. Thus,
the blood exists midway between an inner picture-world and an
outer world of concrete forms. This becomes clearer if we
look at two phenomena. One is that of genealogy, that is, the
way conscious beings are related to ancestors, the other is
the way we experience external events.
We are related
to ancestors through the blood. We are born within a specific
configuration, within a certain race, a certain family and
from a certain line of ancestors. Everything inherited comes
to expression in our blood. Likewise, all the results from an
individual's physical past accumulates in the blood, just as
within it there is prepared a prototype of that person's
future. Consequently, when the individual's normal
consciousness is suppressed, for example under hypnosis or in
cases of somnambulism or atavistic clairvoyance, a much
deeper consciousness becomes submerged. Then, in a dreamlike
fashion, the great cosmic laws are perceived. Yet this
perception is nevertheless clearer than that of ordinary
dreams even when lucid. In such conditions all brain activity
is suppressed, and in deep somnambulism even that of the
spinal cord. In this condition what the person experiences is
conveyed by the sympathetic nervous system; the individual
has a dull, hazy awareness of the whole cosmos. The blood no
longer conveys mental pictures produced by the inner life
through the brain; it only conveys what the outer world has
built including everything inherited from ancestors. Just as
the shape of a person's nose stems from his or her ancestors,
so does the whole bodily form. In this state of consciousness
a person senses his ancestors in the same manner that waking
consciousness senses mental pictures of the outer world. A
person's blood is haunted by his ancestors; he dimly
participates in their existence.
Everything in
the world evolves, also human consciousness. If we go back to
the time when our remote ancestors lived, we find that they
possessed a different type of consciousness. Today, during
waking life we perceive external objects through the senses,
and transform them into mental pictures that act an our
blood. Everything a person experiences through the senses is
working in not only his blood but also in his memory. By
contrast, a person remains unconscious of everything bestowed
by ancestors. We know nothing about the shape of our inner
organs. In the past all this was different; at that time the
blood conveyed not only what it received from outside through
the senses, but also what existed in the bodily form, and as
this was inherited, we could sense our ancestors within our
own being.
If you imagine
such a consciousness enhanced, you will get an idea of the
kind of memory that corresponded to it. When our experiences
are confined to what can be perceived through the senses,
then only such sense perceptible experiences are remembered.
A person's consciousness comprises only his experiences since
childhood.
In the past
this was different, because the inner life contained all that
was brought over through heredity. A human's mental life
depicted ancestors' experiences as if they were his own. A
person could remember not only his own childhood, but his
ancestors' lives, because they were contained in the pictures
absorbed by his blood. Incredible as it may seem to the
modern materialistic outlook, there was a time when human
consciousness was such that an individual regarded both his
and his forefathers' physical experiences as his own. When
someone said: “I have experienced... ,” he
referred not only to personally known events but also to
events experienced by his ancestors. It was a dim and hazy
consciousness compared with modern human waking
consciousness, more like a vivid dream. However, it was much
more encompassing, as it included not only his own life but
the lives of ancestors. A son would feel at one with his
father and grandfather, as if they were sharing the same
“I.” This was also the reason he did not give
himself a personal name but one that included past
generations, designating what they had in common with one and
the same name. Each person felt strongly that he was simply a
link in a long line of generations.
The question is
how this form of consciousness came to be transformed into a
different one. It happened through an event well-known to
spiritual historical research. You will find that every
nation the world over describes a significant moment in
history when a new phase of its culture began — the
moment when the old traditions begin to lose their influence,
and the ancient wisdom that had flowed down the generations
via the blood begins to wane, although the wisdom still finds
expression in myths and sagas.
A tribe used to
be an enclosed unit; its members married among themselves.
You will find this to be the case in all races and peoples.
It was a significant moment in the history of mankind when
this custom ceased to be upheld — the moment when a
mingling of blood took place through the fact that marriage
between close relations was replaced by marriage between
strangers. Marriage within a tribe ensured that the same
blood flowed through its members down the generations;
marriage between strangers allowed new blood to be introduced
into a people.
The tribal law
of intermarriage will be broken sooner or later among all
peoples. It heralds the birth of the intellect, which means
ability to understand the external world, to understand what
is foreign.
The important
fact to bear in mind is that in ancient times a dim
clairvoyance existed out of which arose sagas and legends,
and that the clairvoyant consciousness is based on unmixed
blood, whereas our awakened consciousness depends on mixed
blood. Surprising as it may seem, marriage between strangers
has resulted in logical, intellectual thoughts. This is a
fact that will increasingly be confirmed by external
research, which has already made a beginning in that
direction. The mingling of blood extinguishes the former
clairvoyance and enables humanity to reach a higher stage of
evolution. When a person today goes through esoteric training
and causes clairvoyance to reappear, that person transforms
it to a higher consciousness, whereas today's waking
consciousness has evolved out of the ancient dim
clairvoyance.
In our time, a
person's whole surrounding world in which he acted came to
expression in the blood; consequently, this surrounding world
formed the inner in accordance with the outer. In ancient
times it was more a person's inner bodily life that came to
expression in the blood. A person inherited, along with the
memory of his ancestors' experiences, also their good or bad
inclinations; these could be traced in his blood. This
ancestral bond was severed when blood became mingled through
outside marriages. The individual began to live his own
personal life; he learned to govern his moral inclinations
according to his own experiences. Thus, ancestral power holds
sway in unmixed blood; that of personal experience in mixed
blood.
Myths and
legends told of these things: “That which has power
over thy blood has power over thee.” Ancestral power
over a folk came to an end when the blood, through being
mingled with foreign blood, ceased to be receptive to its
influence. This held good in all circumstances.
Whatever power
wishes to subjugate a person will have to exert an influence
that imprints itself in his blood. Thus, if an evil power
wishes dominance over an individual, it must gain dominance
over his or her blood. That is the profound meaning of the
quotation from Faust, and the reason the representative of
evil says: “Sign your name to the pact in blood; once I
possess your name written in your blood, I shall have caught
you by the one thing that will hold man. I shall then be able
to pull you over to my side.” That which possesses a
person's blood possesses that person, and possesses the human
“I. ”
When two groups
of human beings confront one another, as used to be the case
in colonization, then only if there is true insight into
evolutionary laws is there any possibility of foreseeing if
the foreign culture can be assimilated. Take the case of a
people that is very much at one with its environment, a
people into whose blood the environment has as it were
inserted itself. No attempt to graft upon it a foreign
culture will succeed. It is simply impossible, and is also
the reason why in certain regions the original inhabitants
became extinct when colonized. One must approach such
problems with insight and realize that anything and
everything cannot be forced upon a people. It is useless to
demand of blood more than it is able to endure.
Modern science
has discovered recently that if blood from one animal is
mixed with that of another not akin to it, the two types of
blood prove fatal to one another. This is something that has
been known to spiritual knowledge for a long time. Just as
unrelated types of blood if mixed cause death, so is the old
clairvoyance killed in primitive humanity when blood from
different lines of descent are mingled. Our modern
intellectual life is entirely the outcome of the mingling of
blood. Once this approach is adopted it will be possible to
study what effect the mingling of blood has had on the
various people in the course of history.
Thus, when the
blood of animals from different evolutionary stages is mixed
the result is death, whereas that is not the case when the
species are related. The human organism survives when,
through marriage, blood is mingled with strange blood; here
the result is the extinction of the original animal kind of
clairvoyance, and the birth in evolution of a new
consciousness. In other words, something happens in humans,
but on a higher level, that is similar to what happens in the
animal kingdom where strange blood kills strange blood. In
the human kingdom strange blood kills the hazy clairvoyance
that is based on kindred blood.
Therefore, it
is a destructive process that gave rise to the modern human
wakeful day-consciousness. The kind of spiritual life that
resulted from intermarriage has been destroyed in the course
of evolution; while the very thing that destroyed it, that
is, marriage between strangers, gave birth to the intellect
and today's lucid consciousness.
What is able to
live in a person's blood lives in that person's
“I.” Just as the physical principle comes to
expression in the physical body, the ether body comes to
expression in the system of living fluids, and the astral
body in the system of nerves, so does the “I”
come to expression in the blood. Physical principle, ether
body and astral body are the “above” blood; the
“I” forms the center; and physical body, living
fluids and nervous system are the “below.”
Therefore, whatever power wishes to dominate humans must take
possession of their blood.
These are
things that must be taken into account if progress is to be
achieved in practical life. For example, just because the
“I” comes to expression in the blood, a people's
racial character can be destroyed through colonization, when
more is demanded than the blood can endure.
Not till Beauty
and Truth become part of a person's blood does he truly
possess them. Mephistopheles wants power over Faust's
“I”; that is why he seizes Faust's blood. So you
see that the quotation, which is the Leitmotiv of this
lecture, arose out of profound knowledge. Blood is indeed
a very special fluid.
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