XI.
PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT THROUGH THE
DIFFERENT CYCLES OF CULTURE
Yesterday, in
the description of the development of the various cycles of
earthly development, we reached a point which made us realise
how the three celestial bodies, the Sun. the Moon and the
Earth, gradually separated from one another. We began by
considering this separation and stopped at the point where
the Moon separated itself from the Earth, but we also tried
to reach this same point by setting out from the present time
and going back to the Atlantean epoch. Let us now consider
the condition of the Earth at the time of Atlantis. Long,
long epochs of time must be borne in mind, taking up millions
of years, so that the great changes which took place, not
only in the universe, but also upon the earth, need no longer
surprise us.
Let:us consider
once more the Earth, after its separation from the Moon. It
was still enveloped by a volume of air, which presented,
however, quite a different aspect from the present air. You
must not think that this air inwardly resembled a glowing
stove — although its temperature was far higher than is
the case now. At that time many substances which are now
solid existed within the Earth in a liquid state. An air
thickly permeated with gases of the most varied substances,
enveloped the Earth, an atmosphere which we might designate
as fire-air, a repetition of the former Moon-condition,
When the Earth
became independent after its separation from the present
Moon, it was surrounded by a strange atmosphere which may be
designated as fire-air, Through the fact that the Earth freed
itself from the atmosphere which went away with the Moon, the
beings who lived upon the Earth were able to attain certain
higher stages of development. Within the atmosphere of the
Earth the most advanced animal-men had reached a higher stage
than the one which they had attained upon the Moon, and these
were the beings who later developed into men. A great number
of these animal-men remained behind upon the Moon-stage. As a
result, they not only remained behind, but owing to the
entirely new conditions which now arose, they sank half a
degree below the level which they had previously attained,
(animal-men could, only live upon the Moon) and thus they
became animals. Animals did not as yet exist upon the Moon.
We therefore have two kingdoms: Human beings — and the
kingdom of animal-men, beings who had remained behind and had
gradually sunk to the level of animals.
The same
applies to the plant-animals. A certain number of these had
developed to a higher stage, to that of animals; others had
remained behind and changed into plants. A The kingdom of
plant-minerals also followed this line of development: some
became heavy minerals, while others ascended in their
development to the level of plants.
Not everything
arose in accordance with one standard of measure,
for the animals which we know to-day arose, for instance,
partly through the descending development of men-animals and
partly through the ascending development of plant-animals. In
the vegetable kingdom also we have side by side the
plant-minerals in an ascending course of development and
the plant-animals in a descending course. The plants now
chiefly constituting the pleasant plant-carpet of our earth,
arose through the ascending development of the Moon's
plant-minerals; this is, for instance, the case with the
violet. On the other hand, everything that gives us
a decaying impression is in a descending development, whereas
our green, leafy, plants will in future attain to higher
stages.
Our minerals
developed entirely upon the Earth; there were no minerals
upon the Moon, such as exist to-day. The mineral kingdom is
the former plant-mineral kingdom which sank down to a lower
stage and which was embedded into the earth as a firm crust.
When the Earth cast off the Moon, the substances which
remained behind and which later on became
minerals, solid metals,. etc., were still an altogether
liquid mass. The substances which at that time had already
reached a solid state, were hurled out into the cosmic
spaces, because, had it kept these substances, the Earth
could not have developed, further. Then the first metals
which reached a solid state were added. Sometimes they had
most peculiar forms! What you now encounter in the mountains
as granite or gneiss, at that time revealed quite clearly
that it had arisen through the descending development of
vegetable beings, of plants which had become stones.
You may gather
from this that upon the Sun and upon the Moon the mineral
kingdom was a vegetable kingdom. The vegetable kingdom has
not developed out of the mineral kingdom, but minerals have
developed out of the vegetable kingdom! The coal which is now
dug out of the earth is nothing but a complex of petrified
plant — plants which decayed and became stones, so that
now they can be dug out of the earth as petrified plants. If
you were to go back still further, you would see that once
even the hardest stones were plants; and that they have
arisen out of plants through the descending development of
plants to the mineral kingdom.
A clairvoyant
sees this in the following way: If you investigate gneiss,
the mineralogist will tell you that it consists of feldspath,
hornblende and mica — but he cannot go further. The
clairvoyant says: Feldspath in gneiss appears to spiritual
vision quite clearly as the petrified stalk and the green
leaves of plants, the petrification of those parts which
built them up; whereas the mica foundation is related to that
part of the plants which still develops to-day as the plants
sepals and corollae. When a modern occultist observes a piece
of gneiss he will say: This is a petrified plant, and even as
plants now possess leaves and flowers, etc., so the mica
foundation of gneiss has developed out of the sepals and
petals of ancient epochs.
Thus it can be
explained how every mineral developed out of former plants.
For the substances which came over from the ancient Moon were
plants, which then became densified in the liquid mass of the
Earth. Even as one can see the water in a receptacle freezing
into solid ice, so it is possible to observe in the early
stages of the Earth's development the gradual forming of
solid masses. Thus the solid crust of the Earth slowly
developed out of the liquid Earth. The further we proceed,
the higher and purer become the beings who live upon the
Earth, and those that were unable to ascend became petrified.
It was the same both with animals and men. Man reached the
stage of being able to transform his body in a still higher
measure.
The Moon-men
floated and swam about in a primordial ocean; they were
predisposed to this swimming movement. This may sound strange
to modern men, nevertheless it is true; and let it be said
without reserve, that I do not wish to mitigate some of these
apparently grotesque descriptions;, for generally people
laugh at truths when they are revealed for the first
time.
The human.
being who swam about in this primordial ocean had as yet no
eyes and endowed with sight such as we have to-day: man,
indeed, received the foundation of sight upon Saturn, but in
this primordial ocean he did not need to see; he had to
orientate himself in other ways. The ocean contained all the
food which he required for his life and also animals, some
benevolently disposed towards him; and some not. At that time
man still possessed an organ which now exists in the head, it
is the size of a cherry and is called the pineal gland (in
reality it is not a gland). Once upon a time, this organ was
of immense size; it enabled man to orientate himself in the
ocean and it protruded from his head like a lantern. Man
moved about, by using this lantern-like organ in front; it
was a sensitive organ, not an organ of sight. He used it when
swimming about. Later on, he no longer needed it and so it
shriveled.
At that time it
was not possible to speak of an Ego foundation. In regard to
everything which man did, he was still under the guidance of
higher spiritual powers: We may compare him with the animals
of to-day. From a spiritual-scientific aspect, we now look
upon animals by saying that man differs from the animal
through the fact that he has an individual soul; every man
has his own soul, his individual Ego.
This is not the
case with animals; for whole groups of animals have
one soul in common. For instance, all the animals
pertaining to the lion species have one soul, which
lives in the astral world. Similarly all the animals of
tiger-nature have a soul in common. In the case of animals we
therefore speak of group souls. All the horses
together have one group soul; these horses belong together.
Even as the single fingers belong to the hand, so the animals
belong to their group soul. Consequently we cannot speak of
individual responsibility in the case of animals. Only of an
individual soul can we say that it is either good or evil.
At that time,
the human beings possessed a kind of group-soul embedded in
the bosom of the Godhead. We must however realise that that
which now lives in us as our Ego already existed in those
early epochs, but it did not live within the human body.
Man's origin
must be sought in two currents: that which came over from the
Moon and continued to develop, constituted the animal-man who
lived upon the Moon; but that which now lives in us as our
individual soul, existed in those times in the higher realm,
in the care of the Godhead, — only man's body lived
below in the primordial ocean. Later on body and soul united;
the soul descended and spititualised the body, so that man
became an individual soul.
Imagine a
receptacle containing water; in it are many many drops of
water, but it is impossible to distinguish them. If you were
to take many hundreds of small sponges dipping them into the
water, the drops first contained in the volume of water would
be individualised. Similarly imagine your spirituality
soaring above the primordial ocean and compare your soul
reposing in the bosom of the Godhead with the drops of water;
the bodies absorb the souls, even as the small sponges absorb
the drops of water; the souls thus became independent, in the
same way in which the water becomes individualised into drops
through the sponges. Below we have the primordial ocean with
the floating-swimming bodies, and above there are the souls.
We cannot describe this better than by saying: “And the
Spirit of God moved (literally: brooded) over the face of the
waters,” which means that he elaborated that which was
below until it was able to take in the soul-drops.
The bodies
themselves had to soar and float, and for this purpose the
beings within them needed a special organ. At that time man
had no lungs, but a kind of air-bladder; this kept him afloat
in the ocean.
The fish which
have remained behind upon that stage, have even to-day an
air-bladder and no lungs. The lungs developed little by
little, as the air freed itself from the moisture and man
could raise himself above the water, so that he began to
breathe in air. A long process, lasting millions of years,
finally enabled man to breathe in the air through his lungs.
This gave rise to the physical form capable of absorbing the
soul. The more man became a being who breathed through lungs,
the more he became capable of taking in the soul. You cannot
express this better than with the words: “And God
breathed His own breath into man's nostrils and he became an
individual soul.”
At the same
time this enabled man to develop something which he did not
possess before; he became capable of forming red blood.
Before that time all human beings had a constitution which
gave them the same temperature as their environment; if they
were surrounded by a higher temperature, they were adapted to
it. Red blood did not exist at that time and the animals
above the stage of amphibians are human bodies which have
remained behind at a much later stage of development. After
the epoch in which man began to develop red blood, the
animals also began to develop into warm-blooded beings.
Even as a plant
cannot develop out of a stone, but stones developed out of
plants, so the animal developed out of man. Every being upon
a lower stage developed out of beings who once stood upon
higher stages, this is the theory of evolution. Man first had
to transform himself into a being with red blood, and then he
could leave behind the animals. You may literally see in
animals the stages left behind in man's development. In every
animal man perceives more or less a piece of himself which he
has left behind. Paracelsus expressed this so wonderfully in
the words: When we look about in the world, we see, as it
were, the letters of an alphabet; in the human being alone
these letters unite and form a word. Consequently the meaning
of that which lies spread out in man's environment is to be
seen in man himself.
You must then
bear in mind the following: An apparently insignificant
process (but in the light of spiritual science it is an
extraordinarily important process) took place at that time:
it already began in the early stages of the Earth's
separation from the Moon, when the Earth was still connected
with the Moon, and it consisted in a certain cooperation
between Mars and the Earth. During the whole first half of
the Earth's development, the forces of Mars streamed into the
Earth, so that this first half is actually designated as the
Mars condition of the Earth. Iron is connected with
this passage through Mars and iron then began to play an
entirely new role in the earthly process of evolution.
Iron plays a
far more superficial part in plants, but you can see how
things are connected: cosmically, the Earth passed through
Mars and Mars gave it iron; iron was then stimulated to
exercise the functions which it now possesses and iron
appeared in the blood. The aggressive side of human nature,
that which turns man into a warrior here on earth, is
connected with the iron in the blood. The Greek myth knew
this, for it designated Mars as the God of War.
The human body
thus became capable of taking in the Ego; for without red,
warm blood a body cannot be the bearer of an Ego. This is
very important. Pulmonary breathing is the first condition
for the formation of warm, red blood. The required processes
then arose upon the earth and became embodied with the blood.
Little by little, man developed so as to become a red-blooded
being breathing through lungs, and then he left behind the
other creatures, the lower warm-blooded animals.
In occultism,
animals are not only differentiated in the ordinary way, but
another differentiation is pointed out. We distinguish the
“inwardly sounding animals”, those which can
express their own pain and pleasure in sounds from the
“non-sounding animals”. If you descend to the
lower animals, you may still hear sounds, but these are
purely external, produced by rubbing together certain parts
of the body,or by climatic influences; these are sounds
produced by external causes. Only the animals which branched
off when man had developed into a warm-blooded being
were able to express pain or pleasure through sounds coming
from within.
This was the
time when man's larynx was transformed into an organ of
sound. The fact that outside the liquid earth substance
became crust, produced an inner process in the human being;
parallel with the external process of hardening, an osseous
and cartilaginous skeleton developed within the human being
out of the soft parts of his body. Beings with a skeleton did
not exist before that time.
The minerals
outside are the counterpart of the bones. The Earth
perpetuated this epoch in the masses of rock and man in his
skeleton. Man then gradually became an upright walking being,
thus changing over from his former horizontal position into a
vertical one. He turned round, so that his front extremities
became organs of work, and his other extremities were used
for walking. There is a connection in all this, for no being
without a sound-producing larynx and an upright walk can be
an Ego-being.
Animals were
predisposed for this, but they degenerated. Consequently they
could not transform themselves into beings endowed with
speech, for speech is connected with a larynx located in a in
a body having an upright position. We may gather this through
a primitive fact. Many dogs are undoubtedly cleverer than
parrots, yet a parrot learns more, because its larynx is in a
more vertical position. Parrots and starlings learn to speak
a little, because their larynx is located vertically.
This shows you
that the Earth and man advance to ever new stages of
development. The atmosphere also changed: a condition
developed in which the Earth was surrounded by a misty, foggy
air. This took place at the time, when the Lemurians saw
their continent crumbling away, so that they wandered out to
Atlantis and became Atlanteans.
During this,
phase of evolution; in which man acquired the first elements
of speech, which were, to be sure, sounds expressing mere
feelings, the soul emerged more and more. Essentially
speaking, the Atlantean had a dull kind of clairvoyance. As
he came out of the sub-earthly ocean, his eyes developed to
the extent of enabling him to participate in the light raying
out from the sun through the masses of mist. Physically, his
power of sight and perception developed more and more, but he
gradually lost his old clairvoyance. The most advanced race
of the Atlanteans developed in a certain region of the
Earth's surface during the last third of the Atlantean era,
which was a significant close of phase of evolution.
In view of the
existing conditions, the Atlantean who traveled more to the
West, became inwardly neutral natures, cold and indifferent,
and developed later on into the copper coloured population of
America. The others who traveled further South, became the
black Negro population, and those who turned to the East
became later on the yellow Malayan population. These
populations concentrated themselves in the most unfavourable
places which prohibited a further development. But the
peoples who lived in a region now occupied by Ireland, and
further West, in a country now covered by the ocean, reached
the highest stage of development. The mixtures of not and
cold streams which existed there, permitted the human body to
develop in the best and speediest manner. A pronounced
Ego-feeling, a first foundation of such a feeling, developed
from the still magical will power of those epochs. It was
then that man first learned to say “I”. The human
beings then also learned the first foundations of counting
and of arithmetic, and they developed the first capacity of
forming judgments and of combining thoughts.
There were
always Beings among them who had progressed further, who were
the leaders of humanity and their relationship to man was
that of Beings who belonged to a higher realm. These Beings
became the teachers and guides of men and it was they who
induced them to migrate towards the East. From the site which
lay in the neighbourhood of present-day Ireland certain
peoples had already migrated to the East, settling as far as
Asia. Now the most highly developed masses of peoples began
to migrate to the East, and everywhere along their journey
they formed colonies, the most powerful of these colonies,
with the most highly developed culture, existed in the
neighbourhood of the present Gobi desert. Later on, a certain
number of peoples travelled from there to many parts of the
world: one group went to the present India; where they
encountered an indigenous yellow-brown race, with whom they
became partly united.
It was after
the Atlantean flood, that this colony travelled South and
founded the first culture of the post-Atlantean epoch, the
first culture of our own age. The most advanced teachers who
went with this colony, the first great teachers of ancient
India, are called the ancient Indian Rishis. The Hindoos of
to-day are the descendants of that ancient population, but if
we wish to discover traces of this culture we must go far
back into times which are not known to history; the Vedas,
for example, already belong to a later epoch, for nothing was
recorded in those early days.
The ancient
Hindoo nation represents the first cultural group after the
Atlantean age and consequently they resembled the Atlanteans
most of all. The Atlantean was a kind of dreamer; his
consciousness was dull, he did not have any power of judgment
and self-consciousness and like a dreamer he wandered about
half consciously. The ancient Hindoos were the first to
overcome this condition, but they were still partly rooted in
it. The ancient Hindoo longed to experience the spirit realm
of past times and yearned for the clairvoyance which the
Atlanteans still possessed. In ancient India the early Yoga
training still consisted of a kind of dulling of human
consciousness, which transferred the human being back to the
times when he could still perceive in his environment
spiritual beings. The Hindoo longed for this clairvoyance of
ancient Atlantis and in the Yoga training the Rishis taught
him the methods of producing clairvoyance, though these
methods followed another line of development.
The Atlantean
did not possess any power of judgment, whereas in India the
power of judgment had already awakened; but men loved, so to
speak, that which they had already overcome and they knew how
to conjure it up again, by dulling their consciousness and by
recalling that which they had seen in earlier epochs. The
culture of ancient India preserved this through its highest
representatives. The Hindoo did not seek to enhance his
consciousness, but he dimmed it down to a dreamy state, and
this explains the passivity of the Hindoo character. It would
be a great disadvantage, indeed harmful, if modern culture
were to take hold in a greater measure of life in India.
During the
first epochs, the human beings did not perceive minerals; and
what the Atlantean saw least clearly of all ,was the mineral
kingdom. Through his visions, the spirit-world was the
one which existed for him, and this world lived in
everything. He perceived the human being surrounded by
colours — by sympathetic colours if he liked him. This
was the world which the Hindoo tried to conjure up again. But
human progress requires that man shall enter more and more
into a relationship with that which exists upon the earth in
the world of matter, The Atlanteans did not need any
instruments; they orientated themselves through their
clairvoyance and they attributed no importance whatever to
physical instruments. The Hindoo followed the Atlantean in
this, and consequently he looked upon the physical world as
Maya, as a kind of illusion and lie. He had no interest in
the world which is accessible to the ordinary senses. He
asked the dream-like world of the Spirit to rise up before
him.
The progress
from this Indian culture to the next cultural epoch, i.e. the
Persian one preceding the time of Zarathustra, consisted in
the fact of humanity learning to appreciate external reality.
A second colony went out from the Gobi desert and founded a
kingdom in Asia minor which existed in remote times and which
gave birth to the kingdom of Zarathustra. The Persian began
to perceive the existence of a world in which he had to be
active. The Divine essence appeared to him as something which
he had to overcome, against which he had to measure his
strength. From the spiritual world he drew the forces which
he needed in order to work in this world. The world appeared
to him as something dark, which had to be transformed with
the aid of the good forces. The Hindoo established a science
pertaining exclusively to the spiritual world, which told him
nothing about the external reality. But to the Persian this
external reality presented another aspect, it was something
which had to be constantly transformed through his own
work.
The third
colony which went out from the Gobi desert went further West
into Asia Minor and founded the Chaldean-Babylonian-Egyptian
cycle of culture. In addition to the earlier science of the
Spirit, these nations also possessed a science of the
physical world. An astrology and geometry arose in Egypt
which taught the Egyptians how to treat and cultivate the
earth. Science extended to spheres which the Hindoo still
looked upon as a world of illusion. Now this world of
illusion had become a world calling for the keenest thought,
for a manner of thinking connected with physical things. When
the Hindoo immersed himself in the starry world, this world
was to him only the expression of the Godhead. But the
Chaldean loved the physical World; to him it was a part of
the Godhead into which he penetrated and immersed himself.
This activity leading him from the divine into the physical
world appears to us in the Babylonian-Assyrian culture.
We have now
reached a point leading us to the fourth cultural cycle,
which we designate as the Graeco-Latin culture. The human
being is now included in the external perception, The
Egyptian knew that the world was not a chaos, but that it was
fraught with meaning and that it had been constructed
throughout immeasurable aeons of time. The sphinx and the
pyramid expressed great cosmic thoughts. The ancient Egyptian
concealed his knowledge of these truths in images: he created
the sphinx, which faces us like a riddle of evolution itself:
the development of man's higher essence from earlier
animal-like conditions. This was the wisdom which the
Egyptian spoke out into the world in his own way. In ancient
Egypt you may find calculations and measurements,which were
drawn directly from heaven. The cities were built in such a
way that the Egyptian expressed in these constructions a
sacred order of laws and they sought to express in images the
cosmic laws which governed the universe. This did not as yet
include the individual human essence, which only begins to
unfold in Greek art, and which shows us that man now takes
hold of his own being as an immediate reality and seeks to
create it as an image in space.
Man became more
and more familiar with the world which the Hindoo designated
as Maya. He began to face his own self. Within the world
which in ancient India was considered as an illusion, the
Greek created a world of realities and realised that he had
to create it without the help of the Gods; more and more he
united himself with the external reality and out of his own
strength he permeated the external reality with a divine
essence. If you study the Greek “polis” you do
not find in it any trace of jurisprudence. Man had to
establish this during the Roman epoch as “Roman
right” which governed the private social intercourse of
men, as Roman citizens.
The human being
thus acquired an ever greater knowledge of that which takes
place in the world of external reality.
The fifth cycle
of culture is the one in which we now live, with our
materialistic civilisation. It is the time in which man has
descended most profoundly into the external world. Compare,
our age with preceding ones: We know, to be sure, how to
apply the forces of the spiritual world to our physical
environment — we carry the spiritual world into it. But
in the light of spiritual science this presents strange
aspects. Think of the time when the human being still
produced his flour by grinding corn between two stones
— he did not apply much spiritual power to do this. In
ancient Egypt and Chaldea he still immersed himself in the
wisdom of the heaven; he still learned a great deal
concerning the spiritual significance of the earth itself and
of the starry sky. The Greek still placed into the world of
physical reality the idealised human form. What is the aspect
of our own time? A great amount of spiritual power is used to
produce modern natural science with its technical appliances.
How great is the difference between obtaining food by
primitive means, and obtaining it from America with the aid
of telephone, engines, etc.! Yet these complicated technical
means are after all used to satisfy the same needs also felt
by animals and which animals are able to satisfy by primitive
means! Try to investigate how many of the modern inventions
really serve spiritual life, and how much spiritual power is
used for the sake of furthering material life! What an
enormous amount of spiritual power must human beings develop
at the present time for the satisfaction of material
requirements! There is no great difference whether an animal
satisfies its hunger by grazing, or whether man obtains his
food from America or Australia through all kinds of
means.
This is hot an
adverse criticism, for this had to come. Man had to submerge
himself in the physical world. The Hindoo still looked, upon
it as an illusion, but modern man considers the physical
world as the only reality. We have reached the deepest point
in our descent and this rendered possible the greatest
progress upon the physical plane: This descent, however, must
not be in vain, even from a spiritual aspect!
A new element
has now arisen, an element that was implanted into the world
during the first third of the post-Atlantean epoch: it is the
rise of Christianity, the most significant influence in the
whole development of the earth. In the light of occultism,
everything which proceeded is only the preparation for
Christianity. Buddha, Hermes, and so forth, prophetically
pointed towards Christianity, for Christianity must lift man
out of his deepest entanglement with matter. And it will
raise man out of this entanglement. Man's ascent from matter
begins again. The task of spiritual science is to help in
this ascent into the spiritual world.
The next epoch
of our Post-Atlantean culture will bring still more
inventions and discoveries; but man will more and more
perceive mere letters in the physical world. A genuine
Christianity will speak of the external world as condensed
Spirit, and the Spirit will once more arise out of matter. We
shall then no longer say that the external world is an
illusion, for we shall recognise it fully and lose nothing,
and yet rise up to a higher spiritual world.
Christianity
will contribute most of all towards this course of
development. During the sixth epoch, great masses of men will
be deeply moved and seized by truths which are now revealed
to few, and this will give mankind an insight into the
spiritual world. What now exists as thought will in future be
a real force. Many people will have this power of thought
during the sixth epoch of culture. The theosophical
Christianity of to-day will spread among great masses of men.
These thoughts will grow stronger and stronger and they will
have a creative influence upon the human form.
Once upon a
time the human body had quite a different aspect from that
which it has to-day; indeed, if I were to describe to you
this human body of ancient times, you would be greatly
surprised. Because it was still soft, the Ego could exercise
a far greater influence upon it. Modern man has only retained
an insignificant rest of the psychic influence of will upon
his body, for instance, when you are seized by sudden fright
you grow pale, because the inner soul-condition penetrates as
far as the blood and your complexion changes. But other
bodily conditions can show you how little we are now able to
control our body. With the gradual ascent into the spiritual
world this will change; man's body will become softer and
softer and he will once more be able to influence the
thoughts which now still exist so sparsely, will gradually
grow stronger; these thoughts will then be able to transform
even the body. Man will be able to mould his own body —
but this will only be the case in a very distant future.
Sex arose in
the human being only during the Lemurian age; before that
time he was bi-sexual, both male-and female. With the
incorporation of the Ego, the human being was split into two
sexes. We shall learn to know this better, when we shall
consider more closely the development of the human blood.
This will lead us to the problem of the division into sexes
and also to the fact that the now existing division of the
sexes will again disappear.
Thus we look
into a future in which the human being will exercise quite a
different influence upon his body.
What is, for
example, that which sends the blush of shame into our face?
What is it? A last remnant of the influence which man once
exercised over his body. Man will more and more be able to
work consciously into his body, and then will come the time
when he will be able to transform the muscle of his heart
into one which obeys' him.
Science
describes the heart as a mere physical apparatus: as a pump.
But the blood does not only stream through the body because
the heart pumps the blood through it; everything which
constitutes the blood depends upon the soul; the blood pulses
more or less quickly according to our feelings, and it is the
blood which produces the movement of the heart. But in future
the human being will have a conscious influence upon the
heart; therefore the heart is an organ which is now at the
beginning of its development. The heart is a muscle with a
spiritual development, an organ through which the human being
will be able to express himself as he develops towards a
higher stage, thus exercising a creative influence upon his
whole body.
The heart is
only at the beginning of its development, and for this reason
it is a cross to materialistic science. Materialistic science
tells you: all the muscles through which you move, are formed
of transversal strips, but all those muscles which move
automatically consist of longitudinal strips. The heart
however is a peculiar organ upsetting every calculation! It
is an automatic muscle, nevertheless it has, even to-day,
transversal fibres.
To-morrow I
will show you how certain things can be explained in the
light of spiritual science.
Spiritual
science thus throws light upon that which surrounds us. We
shall redeem everything which has become matter from its
present rigid condition. This is how the thought of
redemption, may be grasped in its deepest essence! Man has
developed to an ever higher stage, leaving behind him certain
kingdoms in the course of this development. He will become
powerful and redeem that which he has left behind; he will
help to redeem the earth! But if he is to redeem the earth he
must not despise it, but unite himself with it.
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