LECTURE XXX
Berlin, 4th November 1905
Today in connection with the previous lecture some aphoristic remarks
will follow concerning the different races. First however attention
will be drawn to certain things, the reasons for which only appear in
a few books.
The so-called laws of nutrition in the various civilisations appear at
first to be very arbitrary. This is not so however, they are born out
of knowledge and wisdom, but we must strictly bear in mind that our
present-day humanity is not at all in a position to be able to follow
such matters as we now wish to deal with. They will nevertheless
provide a basis for certain laws of social life. Of course no one
should believe that one immediately becomes an adept simply by going
over to vegetarianism and so on.
Among oriental peoples there is a certain way of practising the art of
healing in which the doctors attach the greatest importance to the
nourishing of their own physical body.
(78)
In places where the old
spiritual life still exists, there are those who have become healers
by following a diet consisting exclusively of milk. They are quite
clear that because they exclude everything else they gain certain
healing forces within themselves, especially in the treatment of
so-called mental illnesses. They have their special methods. They know
for certain that when they only take milk they then develop quite
definite forces.
(79)
Let us be clear about the intuition upon which this depends. This
profound intuition can be understood in the following way. We know of
a definite happening in human evolution. In the middle of the Lemurian
Age the original human element divided into an ascending humanity and
an animal kingdom. With this is bound up the fact that the forces
which the Earth still had when it was united with the Moon also
divided and a part of the same separated with the Moon from the Earth.
Let us think of the time when the Earth was still united with the
Moon. Man then stood at quite a different stage of development. He
already had warm blood, but was not yet divided into two sexes. It was
with the separation of the Moon that this division is to be observed,
so that when today you look up at the Moon you can say: It is your
separation from the Earth that has brought it about that the power of
human reproduction has divided into two parts. There was also a time
on the Earth in which humanity was directly connected, was merged
together with what was animal, and was also nourished by the animal.
This kind of nourishment cannot be easily understood by those lacking
the power of clairvoyance. We can however form a conception of this
when we observe the normal manner of nourishment of mammals, which
feed their young with their own milk. With the division of the power
of reproduction this kind of nutrition also appeared. Earlier human
beings could absorb food substance just as today the lungs take in the
air. At that time threads of suction connected man with the whole of
Nature around him, somewhat in the manner in which today the embryo is
nourished in the body of the mother. This was the old form of
nourishment on the Earth. A relic of this is the suckling of mammals,
and milk is like the nourishment mankind took in Pre-Lemurian times.
It is the old food of the Gods, the first form of nourishment on the
Earth. At that time the nature of the Earth was such that everywhere
this nourishment could be sucked from it. Thus milk is a product of
the first form of human food. When the physical constitution of man
was nearer to the divine he sucked milk out of his surroundings.
Occultists know how man is connected with Nature.
The taking of milk is a transformation of a primeval form of
nourishment. Man's first food was always milk. In the saying: The
milk of human kindness, this expression is used intentionally. We
must ask: How was it originally brought about that milk, as it then
was, could be sucked out of the Earth? The Moon forces in the Earth
made this possible; like an all-pervading bloodstream they permeated
the entire Earth. But when the Moon departed these forces could only
be concentrated in special organs of living beings.
The occultist calls milk: the Moon-food. Sons of the Moon are those
who nourish themselves on milk. The Moon brought about milk. It has
been verified that the Oriental healers, who only live on milk, again
absorb the original forces which were on the Earth when milk still
flowed in streams. They said: These are the forces which brought
mankind into existence. These productive forces must also be health
bringing, so we ourselves gain the power to further health, when we
only take milk and exclude everything else.
Let us transfer ourselves into the pre-Lemurian Age. Then the
condition prevailed when milk was sucked out from the surroundings. A
condition arose when milk became the general nourishment for mankind,
and then the condition when nourishment was provided by the mother's
milk. Before the time when milk was imbibed from Nature, there was an
Age in which the Earth was still united with the Sun. There then
existed a Sun nourishment. Just as milk has remained over from the
Moon, products have also remained over which gained their maturity
from the Sun. Everything irradiated with sunlight, blossoms and fruits
of the plants, belongs to the Sun. Formerly their growth inclined
towards the centre of the Earth when it was united with the Sun. They
planted themselves into the Sun with their blossoms. When the Earth
separated from the Sun they retained their old character: they again
turned their blossoms towards the Sun. Man is the plant in reverse.
That part of the plant which grows above the Earth has the same
relationship to the Sun as milk has to the Moon, is therefore
Sun-food. Side by side with milk nourishment there arose a kind of
plant nourishment, namely from the upper parts of the plant. This was
the second form of human food.
Thus when the Lemurian Age was approaching its end two human types
faced each other: the one kind, the Sons of the Moon, who bred animals
and nourished themselves from what the animals produced, from their
milk; and a second kind who fed on plants, on the produce of the
Earth.
This fact is portrayed in the story of Cain and Abel.
(80)
Abel is a shepherd, Cain a tiller of the soil; Abel represented the Moon race
and Cain the Sun race. This allegory is very profound. Occult teaching
reveals this in a somewhat concealed way. That divine being who gave
man the possibility of becoming a Moon-being, nourishing himself with
the transformed Moon food, was called by the Jewish people Jehovah.
He was the nourishing force of Nature; this flowed towards Abel and he
took it from his flocks. It was a falling away from Jehovah when man
went over to the Sun-food. This is why Jehovah would not accept Cain's
offering, because it was the offering of a Sun-food.
When we go back into the most ancient times we find no nourishment at
all except milk, the food which man receives from living animals. This
is the first form of nourishment as it still is now in the first weeks
of life, and the Eastern healer relates this form of nourishment to
the saying: If you do not become as little children, you cannot enter
into the kingdom of heaven. All these things have their significance.
Now we come from the Lemurian to the Atlantean Age, to the peoples who
lived in the region of the present Atlantic Ocean. With the Atlanteans
something new appears. They began for the first time to eat food that
was not taken from what is living, but which came from what was dead.
They consumed what had yielded up life. This is a very important
transition in human evolution. Through the fact that human beings
nourished themselves from the lifeless it became possible to make the
transition to ego-hood. This feeding on what is dead is rightly
connected with the desire for the ego. Man became independent through
eating what is dead. He took the lifeless into himself in various
forms, at first in the case of the developing hunting peoples who
killed animals. Later, peoples arose who ate, not only what was
ripened by the sun, but what ripened below the surface of the earth.
This is just as lifeless as the dead animal. Everything living in the
lowest part of animal nature, what is saturated with, blood, has
turned away from the Moon-force. The Moon-force itself is still in
milk, which is connected with the life-process, whereas man absorbs
the forces of what is dying when he eats what is dead. Equally dead is
that part of the plant that grows below the surface of the Earth, that
is not shone upon and warmed through by the life principle of the Sun.
Thus there is a correspondence between the root and the
blood-saturated body of the animal.
Later another form of food was added which did not exist earlier. Man
introduced into his food what was purely mineral, what he took out of
the Earth, salt and so on. In his food therefore he passed through the
three kingdoms. This is approximately the course which the Atlantean
civilisation passed through in regard to nourishment. Firstly came the
hunting peoples, then the farming peoples and thirdly the development
of mining, which brought to light what is under the Earth.
All these things represent a turning away from the actual force of
life or production. The dead animal is separated from life. That part
of the plant which is in the soil is also separated from life.
Everything of the nature of salt is the dead nature of the mineral
kingdom, that remains over from the past.
Now we come to the fifth human race. The drinking of milk and the
eating of fruit continued; other things were added as something new.
In the Fifth Root-Race the most outstanding addition is what was
gained from minerals, that is to say, by means of a chemical process.
This is indicated in Genesis. What is it that was gained by means of a
chemical process? There is an ascent in evolution, chemistry is
applied to plants, to fruit. Out of this wine arose. This did not
exist on Atlantis. Therefore the Bible tells us that Noah, the
original ancestor of the post-diluvian race, became intoxicated by
wine. By means of a mineral-chemical process something was produced
from the plant kingdom. Wine then played a special role in the whole
of the Fifth Root-Race. All initiates from the beginning of the Fifth
Root-Race had taken over their traditions from the time of the
Atlantean Race, when there was as yet no wine. The Indian, Persian and
Egyptian initiates had no need of wine. What played a part in the
sacred rituals was exclusively water.
With the Fifth Root-Race wine made its appearance, in which the
mineral treatment of the plant had to play its part. The first three
Sub-Races were repetitions of what came earlier. The Fourth Sub-Race
was the first to develop the new, which was to appear in the Fifth
Root-Race. A certain sacredness was claimed for wine. In this
connection cults emerged in which wine played a part (the cult of
Dionysos). A wine-god even appeared.
This had gradually been prepared for in the development of humanity.
Wine had first made its appearance with the Persians. Here however
wine was still something quite secular. Only gradually did it find its
way into ritual, into the Dionysos-Cult. The Fourth Sub-Race is the
one which first brought forth Christianity and also the one which
seven hundred years earlier announced its mission through the
Dionysian dramas. These first took wine into the sphere of the cult.
This fact was portrayed in the most wonderful way by that evangelist
who knew most about Christianity: St. John. He describes at the very
beginning the transformation of water into wine, for Christianity came
at first for the Fourth Sub-Race of the Fifth Root-Race. A teaching
was needed which makes sacred what had to come about on the physical
plane. Wine cuts human beings off from everything spiritual. Whoever
takes wine cannot attain the spiritual. He can know nothing of Atma,
Buddhi and Manas, of what is lasting, of what reincarnates. This had
to be. The whole course of human evolution is a descent and a
re-ascent. Man had to descend to the lowest point. And it was in order
that he should come right down onto the physical plane that the
Dionysian Cult made its appearance. The human body had to be prepared
for materialism through the Dionysian cult; this was why a religion
had to appear that changed water into wine. Formerly wine was strictly
forbidden to the priests, they could experience Atma, Buddhi and
Manas. Now a religion had to come about which led right down onto the
physical plane, otherwise human beings would not have completely
descended. This religion which led them downwards had to have an outer
manifestation, a manifestation that was turned away from Atma, Buddhi
and Manas, from reincarnation, and only drew attention to what was of
a general nature. The next thing will be that wine is again turned
into water.
If at an earlier time water had not changed into wine, man would not
have received everything which is in this earthly vale. At the
beginning of St. John's Gospel in the description of the changing of
water into wine at the marriage in Cana, we are shown how Christ took
into account what was there. But he also reckoned with the future,
through the fact that for his part He inaugurated the Sacrament of the
Last Supper. The Last Supper is the greatest symbol of the One who
began this stream of civilisation with the Fourth Sub-Race. Being
indeed the true Son of Man, who descended to the greatest depths in
order to rise again with the greatest power, He had to hold to what
was there and show mankind how the physical constitution of the race
was connected with His mission. If humanity were to ascend again it
was necessary for them to have a symbol leading once more from the
dead to the living: Bread and Wine. In the occult sense, bread is what
only comes about when the plant has been killed. Again, wine comes
about when the plant has been killed, but then further treated with
mineral substance. When one bakes the plant one does the same as when
one kills the animal. When we draw wine from the plant kingdom in a
certain sense we do the same as when we bleed the animal. Bread and
wine are there as the symbol of the Fourth Race. What should develop
in the future is a further ascent from plant to mineral nourishment.
Bread and Wine must again be sacrificed, must be given up. Thus as
Christ appeared in the Fourth Sub-Race he pointed to Bread and Wine:
This is my Body; this is my Blood. Here He wished to create a
transition from animal nourishment to plant nourishment, the
transition to something higher.
At that time there were two classes of human beings: Firstly those
whose nourishment was flesh and blood; these are the pre-Christian
people with whom Christ in no way concerned himself. Secondly those
who only killed plants, who drew from plants their blood: people who
drank wine and ate bread. With these He was still concerned; they are
the forerunners of that humanity which will exist in the future.
The significance of the Last Supper is the transition from nourishment
taken from the dead animal to nourishment taken from the dead plant.
When our Fifth Sub-Race will have reached its end, in the Sixth
Sub-Race, the Last Supper will be understood. Even before this it will
be possible for the third form of nourishment to begin to make its
appearance, the purely mineral. Man himself will then be able to
create his nourishment. Now he takes what the Gods have created for
him. Later he will advance and will himself prepare in the chemical
laboratory the substances he will require.
So you see that all these things arise out of deep intuitions. When
with the old Eastern peoples we find all kinds of instructions about
what should be eaten, these are not actually laws, but stories: You
should not expect the effect of substance to be other than they are.
That which Christ killed, which was actually sacrificed after he had
partaken of the Last Supper, is the physical body. This dies. For the
whole of humanity this will die. Towards the middle of the Sixth
Root-Race, in the last third, there will no longer be a physical body.
Then the entire human being will again be etheric. It will pass over
into the finer substance. But this will not happen if man himself does
not bring it about. For this he must first pass over to the
nourishment which he prepares in the laboratory. So that man, in so
far as he no longer takes his nourishment from Nature, but gains it
from his own wisdom, from the God within him, so far does he also
hasten. towards his own deification.
When man begins to nourish himself, the foundation will also be laid
for something higher, that is, self-propagation. He will gradually
create life for himself out of the mineral world.
This is the great progression of human evolution. What the natural
scientist knows today is only a fraction of the great cycle.
With Saturn we come into the Mineral Age. In the Atlantean Epoch,
through consuming what was dead, preparation was made for what was to
bring about egoism. From the original Semites up to the Fifth
Sub-Race, the human ego was very gradually developed. In the Sixth
Sub-Race of the Fifth Root-Race the I will again reach a higher
stage of development. This means that we stand before a new so-called
spiral of existence. The previous spiral began in the time when the
original Semites laid the foundation for the present Root-Race.
It is to the original Semite civilisation that we owe
everything that has existed up till the present time. But now there
begins a new impact with the Slavonic Peoples which will lead into the
future. A kind of break with the past will be brought about by a
people who will introduce a new impulse into the world. This is
working as hidden spirituality out of the Russian peasantry. It will
form the second part of the coming spiral. At the present time a
certain culture is in process of destruction and a new one is being
prepared. It is being prepared in the West and will come to fruition
in the East. But the Old must activate the New. Wherever in our time
we have new impulses these are germinal, awkward, unskillful. On the
contrary the Old is clear-cut, but has a critical, destructive
character. It was the Semitic Race which gave birth to the bearers of
the Old Culture, who are the bearers of what spirals within the
spiral.
All these have something Semitic about them. Examples: Lassalle, Marx.
The spiral turns inwards. A continuation from here is not possible.
Now a leap must be made as though from one shore to another, to the
spirituality of the future culture of the East. This is a completely
new impulse.
What belongs to the future is as yet unformed and naturally
infiltrated by the old. Haeckel is a man who swims in midstream and is
pulled by both spirals. The first part of Haeckel's Weltritsel
(Riddles of the World)
(81)
is positive, elementary Theosophy: the
second part is negative and altogether destructive. This is a double
spiral (Wirbel).
We can also observe these contradictions in the Socialism of the East
and the West. The Socialism of the West is a Socialism of production;
that of the East is a Socialism of consumption. One who orders the
social life in the direction of production reckons with
possessiveness, with egoism. He who reckons with consumption turns his
attention to what others require from him; he bears in mind his fellow
men, reckons with brotherhood. The socialism of production
Marx, Lassalle only bears the worker in mind, in so far as he
is the producer. In the East the consumer is placed in the foreground,
as for instance with Kropotkin, Bakunin, Herzen. You can see things
building up to a climax if you follow Kropotkin. He had an immediate
understanding of the principle of helpful interaction in the case of
animals. The socialism of the West is entirely built up on strife.
Thus do the currents of World evolution play into one another.
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