Lecture VII
Basle, 22 November, 1907
In such a
document as St. John's Gospel everything is significant and
important, and it is very accurately expressed. For example,
why does the Holy Spirit appear in the form of a dove? If we
were to explain all that is connected with this we should
need a number of lectures; but we can gain at least an idea
of it if we study the evolution of humanity from still
another point of view. In our earlier lectures we made a
statement which: for a natural scientist of the present day,
would seem to be outrageous: that man was already there at
the beginning of the evolution of the Earth, and that he has
participated in the whole of the development of the Earth. Of
course it must not be forgotten that in former times man was
quite differently organised and constituted from what he is
to-day. Even the Atlantean had quite a different appearance
from the men of the present day. The difference was still
greater in the man of the Lemurian epoch; and still greater
in the men of the period when the Sun and Moon were still
united with our planet.
In order to
enter into the ideas of Spiritual Science on the subject of
evolution, we must start out from something that lies close
at hand. The human being now living on the Earth are not all
at the same stage of evolution; besides the peoples which
have reached a high level of culture there are children of
nature who have remained behind in civilisation. In
present-day natural science the view has developed —
and it is held with great tenacity, although new facts speak
against it — that the more highly developed peoples
have originated from those which have remained behind in
evolution; but this view is not in accord with the results of
spiritual research. Let us take, for example, the peoples
with which we became acquainted when America was discovered.
Let us briefly describe an episode which enables us to look
into the mental and spiritual life of these peoples. As is
well known, the whites had pushed the native Indians further
and further into the interior of the country, and had not
kept their promise to give them other hunting-grounds. One of
the Indian chiefs once said to the leader of the European
invaders: “You pale faces have taken from us our lands
and have promised to give us others. But the white man has
broken his word to the brown man, and we also know why. The
pale man has small signs in which are magical beings, and in
these he seeks to find the truth. But what he there finds is
not the truth; for it is not good. The brown man does not try
to find the truth in those little magical signs. He hears the
“great Spirit” in the rustling of the trees in
the forest and in the rippling of the brook. In lightning and
thunder the Great Spirit announces to him what is right and
what is not right.” The American Indians are a
primitive people which has remained very far behind; their
religious views are also very primitive, but they have
preserved their belief in a monotheistic Spirit, which speaks
to them from all the sounds of Nature. An Indian is in such
close touch with nature that he still hears in all its
manifestations the voice of the great creative Spirit;
whereas the European is so deeply immersed in his
materialistic culture that he can no longer hear the voice of
nature. Both peoples have the same origin, both spring from
the population of Atlantis, which had a monotheistic faith
that originated from a spiritual clairvoyance. But the
Europeans have risen to their present stage of culture, while
the Indians stood still and then degenerated. We have always
to bear this process of evolution in mind. It may be
represented in the following way. In the course of millennia
our planet changes, and this change makes the evolution of
humanity possible. The offshoots, which no longer fit into
the conditions, become decadent. Thus we have a main stem of
evolution and side branches which degenerate.
If we go back
from the point in Atlantis when the Europeans and North
American Indians were still united with one another, we
arrive at a period when the human body was still
comparatively soft, of jelly-like substance. There again we
see beings branch off and stand still. These bodies develop
further, but in a descending line; and out of them originate
the apes. We cannot say that man originates from the ape, but
both, man and ape, spring from a form which was common to
both but was quite different in shape from either the present
ape or the present man. The branching off took place at the
point where it was possible for this original form to ascend
on the one hand and to descend on the other and become a
caricature of man. We will only follow the theory of the
origin of species as far as is necessary to find the
connection with what has been said in former lectures.
Among the old
Atlanteans the etheric body was still partly outside the
physical body. To-day the astral body is still outside the
physical body during sleep; it is only during sleep,
therefore, that man is now able to conquer the tiredness of
the physical body, because his astral body is then outside
the physical body and is thus able to work upon it. Further
influences on the physical body are now no longer possible,
but remnants of these influences can still be seen in such
phenomena as reddening with shame, growing pale with fear and
terror, etc. But the further we go back in the Atlantean
Epoch and the more the etheric body was outside the physical
body, the more was it in a position to transform and mould
the physical body. The mastery of the etheric body over the
physical was so complete in former times because the physical
was much more mobile and plastic than it is now. At a period
in human evolution when the physical body only had the first
beginnings of the bony skeleton; the power of the etheric
body over the physical body was so great that man was able to
lengthen an arm or a hand at will, or to stretch forth
fingers out of them at will, etc. This seems absurd to the
man of the present day. It would be quite incorrect to think
of the Lemurian man as being like the present man. The
Lemurian did not walk about on his legs like a man of the
present day; he was more or less a being of the air, and all
the organs which are now possessed by the man of the present
day were then only germinal or rudimentary. He was able to
change his shape, to metamorphose himself. It is quite a
mistake to imagine that the Lemurians were similar to the men
of the present day, more uncouth, perhaps, but still
similar.
In the
Atlantean Epoch, also, the human body could still be moulded
and its form changed from within by the will. This, as we
have already said, was because the etheric body was still
partly outside the physical body. The etheric body,
therefore, worked upon the outer form, and the beings which
did not work in the right way on their body have developed
into the animals we now call apes. That was the way in which
these caricatures of the present human beings originated;
they originated from us, not we from them. We may now
enquire: why did the apes split off; why did a part stop at a
lower stage as soulless beings (we mean the higher soul, not
the astral body)? Man adapted himself to the body, but the
apes were unable to do this; their physical body hardened,
whereas man was able to keep his physical body soft and
plastic.
We have to
imagine man at the beginning of earthly evolution in a
delicate etheric body, which he continually remoulded and
transformed. A clairvoyant would have perceived men at that
time in the form of a globe.
The accompanying sketch will
help to explain the genealogical tree of evolution. It was
fairly late in the Atlantean Epoch when the species of
animals branched off which later became the present apes.
Earlier in the Atlantean Epoch certain higher animals
branched off; and in the earliest times of Atlantis certain
lower mammals. At that time man was at that stage of
evolution of a mammal, but mammals stopped at this stage
while man developed further. In still earlier times man was
at the stage of a reptile. His body was quite different from
the body of a present reptile; but the corporeal development
of the reptile has degenerated. Man developed as inner
members further; but the reptile stopped; it is a backward
brother of man. The creatures which later became the birds,
branched off still earlier, and earlier than that, man was at
the stage represented by the fish at the present time. At
that time there was on the Earth nothing higher than
complicated fish-forms. In primeval times man was at the
stage of the invertebrates, and in the very oldest times
there branched off, and have come down in this form to our
times, the unicellular beings Haeckel calls Monera, which are
brothers of man who branched off in the most ancient times.
If we were to elaborate this genealogical tree of man, it
would coincide with the one Haeckel describes in his works.
We might take over Haeckel's genealogical tree without
further ado; the only difference is that Haeckel starts with
the development of the lowest animal forms and then carries
the development up to man; whereas we see men already in the
very first form and consider the animal kingdom only as a
branching off at different stages, — as degenerated
human beings. Man is actually the firstborn of the Earth; he
has developed himself further in a straight line and has left
the other beings behind at the various stages.
If we observe
the time when the birds and reptiles branched off, we see
that at that time there were actually physical human forms
which looked like the later birds and some which looked like
the later reptiles. The seer can look back into that distant
time when the spiritual being of man had not yet taken
possession of his body; he sees the group-soul of man which
floats round the bird-like body. At this point those
spiritual beings stop, who had no need to descend to the
physical plane, and after they had come down to this stage of
evolution in the physical world, they developed up again to
the spiritual. These are the beings of the astral plane (the
world of the Holy Spirit) which kept the air as their
kingdom, just as man takes possession of the physical earth
as his kingdom. We must conceive of these beings also in the
form of the bird, if they are to make themselves physically
visible. Hence the writer of St. John's Gospel had to
represent the Holy Spirit who descended into the spiritual
soul of Jesus and filled it as the Spirit Self, under the
symbol of a dove. When we consider this symbol in connection
with the evolution of humanity it proves to be very
profound.
We will now
bring what is written in St. John's Gospel into connection
with the earthly evolution of humanity from another point of
view. For this purpose we will recapitulate very briefly a
conception which was put before the pupils in the Rosicrucian
School. At a certain stage in his development the pupil was
told the following: — Observe the plant and compare it
with man. The plant turns its root downward, to the centre of
the Earth, the seat of its ego. Its organs of reproduction it
turns chastely towards the sun, towards the light. It opens
its flowers in the light of the sun and lets it ripen the
fruit. In Spiritual Science this fertilising action of the
light is described as the touching with the Sun's sacred
lance of love. It opens the flowers and brings about the
fruitfulness of the Earth. The part which the plants sinks
into the Earth, the root, — this corresponds to the
head of man.
Man turns his head to the sun, to the light; and
what the plant turns towards the light, its organs of
reproduction, — these he turns towards the earth, Man
presents the reverse picture to the plant; and the animal
stands half way between the two. We represent the plant as
being turned vertically towards the earth, man as turned
vertically away from the earth, the animal horizontal,
— in this way we get the form of the cross. Plato
expressed this when he said: “The World-Soul is
crucified on the ancient World-Cross.” The Cross is a
cosmic symbol that has been placed in the evolution of the
world.
A feeling of
reverent awe filled the pupil when he was able thus to look
into the development of the world. In the plant, therefore,
we see a brother from the far-distant past. Originally man,
too, was an etheric being of plant-like nature; at that time
the substance of man's body was plant-like. If man had not
transformed the plant-like substance into flesh, he would
have remained chaste and pure like the plant, he would not
have become acquainted with passion and desire. But this
condition could not be maintained; for had it remained thus,
man would not have wakened to self-consciousness; he would
have remained in the dreamy life in which the plant still
lives to-day. Man had to be filled with passions and desires;
he had to be brought to a life in flesh. His organs were not
all changed into fleshly substances at the same time; the
0rgans which express the lowest impulses were drawn last into
fleshly evolution, and they are already in a state of
decadence. The organs of reproduction preserved their
plant-like character longest. Old legends and myths still
tell us of hermaphrodites; those were beings who did not
possess sexual organs of flesh and blood, but these organs
consisted of plant-like substance. Many people think that the
fig-leaf which the first human beings had in Paradise is an
expression of shame. No! in this story is preserved the
remembrance of the fact that instead of fleshly organs of
reproduction men then had reproductive organs of a plant-like
nature.
And now let us
turn our gaze into the future. The organs in the human body
which are still lower organs, the organs which were
incorporated last in the flesh, will also be the first to
fall away again, to disappear, to dry up in the human body.
Man will not stop at his present stage of development; just
as he descended from the chaste purity of the plant into the
sensuality of the world of passionate desire, so will he rise
again out of this sensuality with purified substance to a
chaste condition.
Certain organs
in the human body are degenerating and falling into ruin,
others have reached the zenith of their capacity of
development, others, again, are only beginning their
evolution . The organs of reproduction belong to the first
class, the brain to the second, the heart and larynx and
everything connected with the forming of the word belong; to
those which are only in their germinal state. From these last
organs will be developed that which will take on the
functions of the organs of reproduction and will go far
beyond them. They will become voluntary organs in the highest
sense. We pointed out, even in the first lecture of this
course, that through his speech man produces forms in the
air, and that in the future the word will be creative. Man
will by than have returned to the chasteness and purity which
the plant has preserved; but it will be a conscious
chasteness. The occult investigator can also observe that the
heart is only at the beginning of its evolution, it is by no
means the pump which it is represented to be by the
materialistic thinker; it is a mistake to think that the
heart is the cause of the circulation of the blood. Strange
as it may sound, the movement of the heart is the consequence
of the circulation of the blood. In the future, when man has
reached a higher stage of evolution, the heart will also be
subject to his conscious will. The foundations of this are
already there, in the transverse fibres which the heart
possesses in common with all voluntary muscles. Man will then
create his like consciously by the word; the substance in the
human being will then be chaste and purified, and what at a
lower stage was stretched out as the chalice of the flower
towards the sun and received the sunbeam as the arrow of
love, will at a higher stage of future humanity be again
turned towards the cosmos, as chalice which will be
fertilised from the Spiritual. This is represented in the
Holy Grail, the shining chalice, the attainment of which
floated as a shining goal before the knight of the Middle
Ages.
Let us now
consider the plant and its relation to the earth. The plant
possesses physical body and etheric body only, and for this
reason it is only possible for the plant to have the degree
of consciousness which man possesses during the night in
sleep. The consciousness of the plant is concentrated in the
centre of the earth. The plants are so closely bound up with
the earth that they must be regarded as belonging to it; Just
as the human hair belongs to the human body. The separate
plants do not possess an astral body of their own, they are
embedded in the astral body of the earth, which is correlated
to that of the sun. In the higher organism of the earth we
find a process which is similar to the alternation of
consciousness in man between sleeping and waking. In
consequence of this the plants grow in spring and summer;
they germinate, grow, and extend their flowers towards the
sun. In autumn and winter the astral body of the sun
withdraws from the earth; the astral body of the earth is
then left to itself; it creeps away to the centre of the
earth, and the vegetation rests. The seer can observe this
relation between the two astral bodies quite well, and as
this withdrawal of the astral body results in a stoppage in
the vegetation and in outer activity, man had to receive an
astral body of his own in the course of his evolution, for
only in this way could he achieve a continuous
consciousness.
In former
lectures we have considered the significance of Christ for
the evolution of humanity; we will now pass on to the study
of the significance of this Spirit for the cosmic evolution.
The Beings who, at the very beginning of the evolution of the
Earth, had already the state of perfection which humanity
will only achieve at the end of earthly evolution, have their
seat in the Sun. Christ belongs to these Beings as a cosmic-
force. His astral body, therefore, was united with the astral
body of the Sun at the beginning of our present earthly
evolution. He had His seat in the Sun. When the personality
of Christ came to the Earth, the astral body of this cosmic
force of the Christ Spirit sank down to the Earth at the same
time, and ever since the incarnation of Christ on the Earth
His astral body has been continually united with the astral
body of the Earth. Through the appearance of Christ on Earth
the astral body of the Earth has received from the Sun an
entirely new substance. If at the time of Christ a Being had
looked towards the Earth from another planet, he would have
seen the addition of this new substance to the astral body of
the Earth in the change of the colour radiating from the
astral body. Through the union of His astral body with that
of the Earth, the Sun Spirit Christ became the Spirit of the
Earth as well. The Christ is therefore Sun Spirit and at the
same time Earth Spirit. From the time when Christ walked the
earth He has remained continuously united with the earth; He
has become the planetary Spirit of the Earth. The Earth is
His body, and He guides the evolution of the Earth. He
accomplished this union upon Golgotha, and the Mystery of
Golgotha is the symbol of what took place at that time for
the evolution of the Earth.
Four chief
races peopled the surface of the earth; they divided it among
them: the white, yellow, red, and black races. But the
atmosphere which surrounds the earth is one and undivided.
This is referred to in John 19:23: “Then the soldiers,
when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made
four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat. Now
the coat was without seam, woven from the top
throughout”. The garments of Christ are the symbol for
the surface of the earth; the coat, on the other hand, woven
in one piece, symbolises the air which, undivided and
Indivisible, surrounds the earth on all sides. Here, again,
it must be emphasised that this symbol is also at the same
time an historical fact.
We are now in a
position to understand the following statement of the Master.
He said “He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up
his heel against me.”
(John 13:18)
[Luther's version reads: “He that eateth my bread treads
upon me with his feet”]
If Christ is the planetary Spirit of the Earth,
if the Earth is His body, is it, then, not justified to say
that men eat His flesh and drink His blood and tread upon Him
with their feet? When this Spirit points to the fruits which
come from the Earth, can He not then say: “This is my
body,” and when He points to the pure saps flowing
though the plants, can He not say: “This is my
blood” And when men walk about on the body of the
planetary Spirit, do they not tread upon Him with their feet?
He did not say this in a bad sense, but to indicate the fact
that the Earth is the true body of Christ. This passage in
the Gospel is also to be taken literally, and the remembrance
of this great truth is to be preserved to succeeding times
through the Mystery of the Holy Supper. The profound meaning
of the Holy Supper can only be appreciated by one who is able
to perceive the value of this mighty event to the whole of
cosmic evolution. He sees the force of Christ spring up in
the plants which the Earth puts forth in spring and holds up
towards the Sun: he knows that the event of Christ becoming
man is not only a human event, but that it is a cosmic
event.
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