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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Macrocosm and Microcosm
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Macrocosm and Microcosm
Schmidt Number: S-2203
On-line since: 7th July, 2002
EXPERIENCES OF INITIATION IN THE NORTHERN MYSTERIES
At the conclusion of what was said yesterday on the subject of the
deeper mystical path, it was necessary to speak of the chief danger
encountered on this path by anyone who attempted to tread it without a
leader in times before the methods of Initiation now available, were
in existence. In order to indicate still more explicitly how great
these difficulties were, I want to add the following.-
We have heard that the difficulties are mainly due to the fact that on
descending into his inner being, a man becomes almost entirely filled
by his egoistic impulses. The Ego awakens with a strength that would
place everything in its service; everything would be viewed in
accordance with the colouring given it by this reinforced Ego. For
this reason it was essential in the process of the ancient Initiation
that the strength of the, Ego-feeling, the Ego-consciousness, should
be subdued. The Ego had as it were to be given over to the spiritual
leader or teacher. This subjugation of the Ego was effected in such a
way that through the power emanating from the spiritual leader, the
Ego-consciousness of the candidate for Initiation was reduced, to
begin with, to one-third of its ordinary strength. That is a very
considerable reduction, for it can be said, broadly speaking, that
with the exception of the very deepest stage of all, our consciousness
in sleep is reduced to about one-third. But in the ancient Mysteries
the process was carried further than that; the consciousness was
reduced to a quarter of a third (that is, to one-twelfth), so that
finally the candidate was actually in a condition resembling death. To
outer observation he was exactly like a dead man.
But I must emphasise that this Ego-consciousness did not fade away
into nothingness. That was not the case. On the contrary, only then
was it possible to realise through spiritual perception the intense
strength of human egoism; for even when Ego-consciousness was reduced
to one-twelfth, a powerful force of egoism still came forth
spiritually from the individual. And strange as it may sound, in order
to hold in check this outpouring egoism, to keep a spiritual hold on
the man whose Ego was thus subdued, twelve helpers were needed for the
teacher or leader. That is one of the so-called secrets of
higher Initiation in certain ancient Mysteries. It has been mentioned
here only in order that a man may know what is found when he descends
into his own inner being. Left to his own resources he would develop
traits twelve times worse than those he possessed in ordinary life.
These traits were held in check in the ancient Mysteries by the twelve
helpers of the priest of Hermes. This is said merely to
supplement the references made at the end of the lecture yesterday.
Today we will turn our minds to the other path that a man may take,
not by descending into his inner self at the moment of waking, but by
consciously experiencing the moment of going to sleep, consciously
experiencing the condition during which he is given over to sleep. We
have heard how man has then expanded as it were into the Macrocosm,
whereas in his waking state he has plunged into his own being, into
the Microcosm. We also heard that what a man would experience if his
Ego were to pour consciously into the Macrocosm, would be so dazzling,
so shattering, that it must be regarded as a wise dispensation that at
the moment of going to sleep man forgets his existence altogether and
consciousness ceases.
What man can experience in the Macrocosm opening out before him,
provided he retains a certain degree of consciousness, was described
as a state of ecstasy. But it was said at the same time that in
ecstasy the Ego is like a tiny drop mingling in a large volume of
water and disappearing in it. Man is in the state of being outside
himself, outside his ordinary nature; he lets his Ego flow out of him.
Ecstasy, therefore, can by no means be considered a desirable way of
passing into the Macrocosm, for a man would lose hold of himself and
the Ego would cease to control him. Nevertheless in bygone times,
particularly in certain parts of Europe, a candidate who was to be
initiated into the mysteries of the Macrocosm was put into a condition
comparable with ecstasy. This is no longer part of the modern methods
for attaining Initiation, but in olden times, especially in the
Northern and Western regions of Europe, including our own, it was
entirely in keeping with the development of the peoples living there
that they should be led to the secrets of the Macrocosm through a form
of ecstasy. Thereby they were also exposed to what might be described
as the loss of the Ego, but this condition was less perilous in those
times because men were still imbued with a certain healthy, elemental
strength; unlike people today their soul-forces had not been enfeebled
by the effects of highly developed intellectuality. They were able to
experience with far greater intensity all the hopefulness connected
with Spring, the exultation of Summer, the melancholy of Autumn, the
death-shudder of Winter, while still retaining something of their Ego
although not for long. In the case of those who were to become
initiates and teachers of men, provision had to be made for this
introduction to the Macrocosm to take place in a different way. The
reason for this will be evident when it is remembered that the main
feature in this process was the loss of the Ego. The Ego became
progressively weaker, until finally man reached the state when he lost
himself as a human being.
How could this be prevented? The force that became weaker in the
candidate's own soul, the Ego-force, had to be brought to him from
outside. In the Northern Mysteries this was achieved by the candidate
being given the support of helpers who in their turn supported the
officiating initiator. The presence of a spiritual initiator was
essential, but helpers were necessary as well. These helpers were
prepared in the following way.
Through a special kind of training, one individual underwent with
particular intensity the experiences arising from inner surrender, for
example to the budding life of nature in Spring. Certainly, any human
being can have something of the same feeling, but not with the
necessary intensity. Therefore individuals were specially trained to
place all their forces of soul in the service of the Northern
Mysteries, to forgo all the experiences connected with Summer, Autumn
and Winter, and to concentrate their whole life of feeling on the
budding life of Spring. Others again were trained to experience the
exuberant life of Summer, others the life characteristic of Autumn,
others that of Winter. The experiences which a single human being can
have through the course of the year were distributed among a number,
so that individuals were available who in very different ways had
strengthened one aspect of their Ego. Because they had cultivated one
force in particular to the exclusion of all the rest, they had within
them a superfluity of Ego-force, and now, in accordance with certain
rules, they were brought into contact with the candidate for
Initiation in such a way that their superfluity of Ego-force was
transmitted to him. His own Ego-force would otherwise have become
progressively weaker. Thus the one who in the process of Initiation
was to experience the whole cycle of the year, lived through all the
seasons with equal intensity; the Ego-force of these helpers of the
initiating priest streamed into him so effectively that he was led on
to a stage where certain higher truths connected with the Macrocosm
were revealed to him. What the others were able to impart poured into
the soul of the candidate for Initiation.
To understand such a process we must be able to form an idea of the
intense devotion and self-sacrifice with which men worked in the
Mysteries in those olden times. The exoteric world today has very
little conception of such fervent self-sacrifice. In earlier times
there were individuals who willingly developed one side of their Ego
with the object of placing it at the service of the candidate for
Initiation and thus being able eventually to hear from him a
description of what he had experienced in a condition that was not
ecstasy in the usual sense, but because extraneous Ego-force
had poured into him a conscious ascent into the Macrocosm.
Twelve individuals-three Spring-helpers, three Summer-helpers, three
Autumn helpers and three Winter-helpers were necessary; they
transmitted their specialised Ego-forces to the candidate for
Initiation and he, when he had risen into higher worlds, was able to
give information about those worlds from his own experience. A team or
college of twelve men worked together in the Mysteries in
order to help a candidate for Initiation to rise into the Macrocosm. A
reminiscence of this has been preserved in certain societies existing
today, but in an entirely decadent form. As a rule in such societies
special functions are also carried out by twelve members; but this is
only a last and moreover entirely misunderstood echo of acts once
performed in the Northern Mysteries for the purposes of Initiation.
If, then, a man endowed with an Ego-force artificially maintained in
him, penetrated into the Macrocosm, he actually ascended through
worlds. [* See Note on terminology (at the end of this work) with
reference to the different terminology employed for these worlds.] The
first world through which he passed was the one that would be revealed
to him if he did not lose consciousness on going to sleep. We will
therefore now turn our attention to this moment of going to sleep as
we did previously to that of waking.
The process of going to sleep is in very truth an ascent into the
Macrocosm. Even in normal human consciousness it is sometimes
possible, through particularly abnormal conditions, to become
conscious to a certain extent of the processes connected with going to
sleep. This happens in the following way. The man feels a kind
of bliss and can distinguish this consciousness of bliss quite clearly
from the ordinary waking consciousness. It is as though he became
lighter, as though he were growing out beyond himself. Then this
experience is connected with a certain feeling of being tortured by
remembrance of the personal faults inhering in the character during
life. What arises here as a painful remembrance of personal faults is
a very faint reflection of the feeling a man has when he passes the
Lesser Guardian of the Threshold and can perceive how imperfect he is
and how trivial in face of the great realities and Beings of the
Macrocosm. This experience is followed by a kind of convulsion
indicating that the inner man is passing out into the Macrocosm. Such
experiences are unusual but known to many people when they were more
or less conscious at the moment of going to sleep. But a person who
has only the ordinary, normal consciousness loses it at the moment of
going to sleep. All the impressions of the day colours, light,
sounds, and so on vanish, and the man is surrounded by dense
darkness instead of the colours and other impressions of daily life.
If he were able to maintain his consciousness as the trained
Initiate can do at the moment when the impressions of the day
vanish, he would perceive what is called in spiritual science the
Elementary or Elemental World, the World of the
Elements.
This World of the Elements is, to begin with, hidden from man while he
is in process of going to sleep. Just as man's inner being is hidden
on waking through his attention being diverted to the impressions of
the outer world, so, when he goes to sleep, the nearest world to which
he belongs, the first stage of the Macrocosm, the Elementary World, is
hidden from his perception. He can learn to gaze into it when he
actually ascends into the Macrocosm in the way indicated. To begin
with, this Elementary World makes him conscious that everything in his
environment, all sense-perceptions and impressions, are an emanation,
a manifestation of the spiritual, that the spiritual lies behind
everything material. When a man on the way to Initiation not,
therefore, losing consciousness while passing into sleep
perceives this world, no doubt any longer exists for him that
spiritual Beings and spiritual realities lie behind the physical
world. Only as long as he is aware of nothing except the physical
world does he imagine that behind this world there exist all kinds of
conjectured material phenomena such as atoms and the like. For
the man who penetrates into the Elementary World there can no longer
be any question of whirling, clustering atoms of matter. He knows that
what lies behind colours, sounds and so forth is not material but the
spiritual. Certainly, at this first stage of the World of the
Elements the spiritual does not yet reveal itself in its true form as
spirit. Man has before him impressions which, although in a different
form from those known in waking consciousness, are not yet the
spiritual facts themselves. It is not yet anything that could be
called a true spiritual manifestation but to a considerable degree it
is something that might be described as a kind of new veil over the
spiritual Beings and facts.
The form in which this world reveals itself is such that the
designations, the names, which since olden times have been used for
the Elements are applicable to it. We can describe what is there seen
by choosing words used for qualities otherwise perceived in the
physical world: solid, liquid or fluid, airy or aeriform, or warmth;
or: earth, water, air, fire. These expressions are taken from the
physical world for which they are coined. Our language is after all a
means of expression for the physical world. If therefore the spiritual
scientist has to describe the higher worlds, he must borrow the words
from the language that was coined for the things of ordinary life. He
can speak only in similes, endeavouring so to choose the words that
little by little an idea is evoked of what is perceived by spiritual
vision. In depicting the Elementary World we must not take the terms
and expressions that are used for circumscribed objects in the
physical world but those used for certain qualities common to a
category of objects. Otherwise we shall lose our bearings. Things in
the physical world reveal themselves to us in certain states which we
call solid, liquid, aeriform; and in addition there is also what we
become aware of when we touch the surfaces of objects or feel a
current of air which we call warmth.
Things in the everyday world are revealed to us in these states or
conditions: solid, liquid, aecriform or gaseous, or as warmth. These,
however, are always qualities of some external body, for an external
body may be solid in the form of ice or also be liquid or gaseous when
the ice melts. Warmth permeates all three states. So it is in the case
of everything existing in the outer world of the senses.
The fact is there are not objects in the Elementary World such as are
found in the physical world, but in the Elementary World we find as
realities what in the physical world are merely qualities. We
perceive something there that we feel we cannot approach. The feeling
might be described as follows: I have before me something
either an entity or an object of the Elementary World which I
can observe only by going round it; it has an inner and an outer side.
Such an entity of the Elementary World is called earth.
Then too there are things and entities which may be described as
liquid or fluid. In the Elementary World we
can see through them, we can penetrate into them, we have a sensation
similar to the sensation in the physical world of dipping the hand
into water. We can plunge into them, whereas what is called
earth is something that offers resistance, like a hard
object. The second state is described in the Elementary World as
water. Whenever mention is made of earth and
water in books on spiritual science, this is what is
meant; physical water is only an external simile for what is seen at
this stage of development. Water is something that pours
through the Elementary World, not, of course, perceptible to the
physical senses, but intelligible to the higher senses, to the faculty
of spiritual perception, of the Initiate.
Then there is something in the Elementary World comparable with what
we call airy or aeriform in the physical
world. This is designated as air in the Elementary World.
Then, further, there is fire or warmth, but it
must be realised that what is called fire in the physical
world is only a simile. Fire as it is in the Elementary
World is easier to describe than the other three states for these can
really only be described by saying that water, air and earth are
similes of them. The fire of the Elementary World is
easier to describe because everyone has a conception of warmth of
soul as it is called, of the warmth that is felt, for example,
when we are together with someone we love. What then suffuses the soul
and is called warmth, or fire of excitement, must naturally be
distinguished from ordinary physical fire which will burn the fingers
if they come into contact with it. In daily life, too, man feels that
physical fire is a kind of symbol of the fire of soul which, when it
lays hold of us, kindles enthusiasm. By thinking of something midway
between an outer, physical fire that burns our fingers, and fire of
soul, we reach an approximate idea of what is called elemental
fire. When in the process of Initiation a man rises into the
Elementary World, he feels as if from certain places something were
flowing towards him that pervades him inwardly with warmth, while at
another place this is less the case. An added complication is that he
feels as if he were within the being who is transmitting the warmth to
him. He is united with this elementary being and accordingly feels its
fire. Such a man is entering a higher world which gives him
impressions hitherto unknown to him in the world of the senses.
When a man with normal consciousness goes to sleep his whole being
flows out into the Elementary World. He is within everything in that
world; but he takes his own nature, what he is as man, into it. He
loses his Ego as it pours forth, but what is not Ego his astral
qualities, his desires and passions, his sense of truth or the reverse
all this is carried into the Elementary World. He loses his Ego
which in everyday life keeps him in check, which brings order and
harmony into the astral body. When he loses the Ego, disorder prevails
among the impulses and cravings in his soul and they make their way
into the Elementary World together with him; he carries into that
world everything that is in his soul. If he has some bad quality, he
transmits it to a being in the Elementary World who feels drawn
towards this bad quality. Thus with the loss of his Ego he would, on
penetrating into the Macrocosm, transmit his whole astral nature to
evil beings who pervade the Elementary World. Because he contacts
these beings who have strong Egos, while he himself, having lost his
Ego, is weaker than they, the consequence is that they will reward him
in the negative sense for the sustenance with which he supplies them
from his astral nature. When he returns into the physical world they
transmit to him, for his Ego, qualities they have received from him
and made particularly their own; in other words they strengthen his
propensity for evil.
So we see that it is a wise dispensation for man to lose consciousness
when he enters the Elementary World and to be safeguarded from passing
with his Ego into that world. Therefore one who in the ancient
Mysteries was to be led into the Elementary World had to be carefully
prepared before forces were poured into him by the helpers of the
Initiator. This preparation consisted in the imposition of rigorous
tests whereby the candidate acquired a stronger moral power of
self-conquest. Special value was attached to this attribute. In the
case of a mystic, different attributes humility, for example
were considered particularly valuable.
Accordingly upon a man who was to be admitted to an Initiation in
these Mysteries, tests were imposed which helped him to rise above
disasters of every kind even in physical existence. Formidable dangers
were laid along his path. But by overcoming these dangers his soul was
to be so strengthened that he was duly prepared when beings confronted
him in the Elementary World; he was then strong enough not to succumb
to any of their temptations, not to let them get the better of him but
to repel them. Those who were to be admitted into the Mysteries were
trained in fearlessness and in the power of self-conquest.
Once again let it be said at this point that no one need feel alarmed
by the description of these Mysteries, for nowadays such tests are no
longer imposed, nor are they necessary, because other paths are
available. But we shall understand the import of the modern method of
Initiation better if we study the experiences undergone in the past by
very many human beings in order to achieve Initiation into the secrets
of the Mysteries.
When the candidate in those ancient Mysteries, after long experiences
connected with the Elementary World, had become capable of realizing
that earth, water, air,
fire everything he perceives in the material world
are the revelations of spiritual beings, when he had learned to
discriminate between them and to find his bearings in the Elementary
World, he could be led a stage further to what is called the World
of Spirit behind the Elementary World. Those who were initiates
and this can only be described as a communication of what they
experienced now realised that in very truth there are beings
behind the Physical and the Elementary Worlds. But these beings have
no resemblance at all to men. Whereas men on the Earth live together
in a social order, in certain forms of society, under definite social
conditions, whether satisfactory or the reverse, the candidate for
Initiation passes into a world in which there are spiritual beings
beings who naturally have no external body but who are related
to each other in such a way that order and harmony prevail. It is now
revealed to him that he can understand the order and harmony he
perceives in that world only by realising that what these spiritual
beings do is an external expression of the heavenly bodies in the
solar system, of the relationship between the Sun and the planets in
their movements and positions. Thereby these heavenly bodies give
expression to what the beings of the spiritual world are doing.
It has already been said that our solar system may be conceived as a
great cosmic clock or timepiece. Just as we infer from the position of
the hands of a clock that something is happening, we can do the same
from the relative positions of the heavenly bodies. Anyone looking at
a clock is naturally not interested in the hands or their position
per se, but in what this indicates in the outer world. The
hands of a clock indicate, for example, what is happening here in
Vienna or somewhere in the world at this moment. A man who has to go
to his daily work looks at the clock to see if it is time to start.
The position of the hands is therefore the expression of something
lying behind. And so it is in the case of the solar system. This great
cosmic clock can be regarded as the expression of spiritual happenings
and of the activity of spiritual beings behind it.
At this stage the candidate for the Initiation we have been describing
comes to know the spiritual beings and facts. He comes to know the
World of Spirit and realises that this World of Spirit can best be
understood by applying to it the designations used in connection with
our solar system; for there we have an outer symbol of this World of
Spirit. For the Elementary World the similes are taken from the
qualities of earthly things solid, liquid, airy, fiery. But for
the World of Spirit other similes must be used, similes drawn from the
starry heavens.
And now we can realise that the comparison with a clock is by no means
far fetched. We relate the heavenly bodies of our solar system to the
twelve constellations of the Zodiac, and we can find our bearings in
the World of Spirit only by viewing it in such a way as to be able to
assert that spiritual Beings and events are realities; we compare the
facts with the courses of the planets but the spiritual
Beings with the twelve constellations of the Zodiac. If we
contemplate the planets in space and the zodiacal constellations, if
we conceive the movements and relative positions of the planets in
front of the various constellations to be manifestations of the
activities of the spiritual Beings and the twelve constellations of
the Zodiac as the spiritual Beings themselves, then it is possible to
express by such an analogy what is happening in the World of Spirit.
We distinguish seven planets moving and performing deeds, and twelve
zodiacal constellations at rest behind them. We conceive that the
spiritual facts the courses of the planets are brought
about by twelve Beings. Only in this way is it possible to speak truly
of the World of Spirit lying behind the Elementary World. We must
picture not merely twelve zodiacal constellations, but Beings,
actually categories of Beings, and not merely seven planets, but
spiritual facts.
Twelve Beings are acting, are entering into relationship with one
another and if we describe their actions this will show what is coming
to pass in the World of Spirit. Accordingly, whatever has reference to
the Beings must be related in some way to the number twelve;
whatever hag reference to the facts must be related to the
number seven. Only instead of the names of the zodiacal
constellations we need to have the names of the corresponding Beings.
In Spiritual Science these names have always been known. At the
beginning of the Christian era there was an esoteric School which
adopted the following names for the Spiritual Beings corresponding to
the zodiacal constellations: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Kyriotetes,
Dynameis, Exusiai, then Archai (Primal Beginnings or Spirits of
Personality), then Archangels and Angels. The tenth category is Man
himself at his present stage of evolution. These names denote ten
ranks. Man, however, develops onwards and subsequently reaches stages
already attained by other Beings. Therefore one day he will also be
instrumental in forming an eleventh and a twelfth category. In this
sense we must think of twelve spiritual Beings.
If we wanted to describe the World of Spirit we should have to
attribute the origin of the spiritual universe to the co-operation
among these twelve categories of Beings. Any description of what they
do would have to deal with the planetary bodies and their movements.
Let us assume that the Spirits of Will (the Thrones) co-operate with
the Spirits of Personality (Archai) or with other Beings and
Old Saturn comes into existence. Through the co-operation of other
Spirits the planetary bodies we call Old Sun and Old Moon come into
existence.
We are speaking here of the deeds of these spiritual Beings. A
description of the World of Spirit must include the Elementary World,
for that is the last manifestation before the physical world; fire,
air, water, earth, must also be considered. On Old Saturn, everything
was fire or warmth; during the Old Sun evolution, air was added;
during the Old Moon evolution, water. In describing the World of
Spirit we must begin with the Beings. We call them the
Hierarchies and pass on to their deeds which come to expression
through the planets in their courses. And to have a picture of how all
this manifests in the Elementary World we must describe it by using
terms derived from this world. Only in this way is it possible to give
a picture of the World of Spirit lying behind the Elementary World and
our physical world of sense.
The Beings, the spiritual Hierarchies, their correspondences with the
zodiacal constellations, the planetary embodiments of our Earth
described by using expressions connected with the Elementary World-all
this is presented in detail in the chapter on the evolution of the
world in the book
Occult Science an Outline,
[*
Chapter IV, Man and the Evolution of the World,
pp. 102-221 in the 1962-3 edition.] and we can now understand the
deeper reasons for that chapter having been written in the way it has.
It describes the Macrocosm as it should be described. Any real
description must go back to the spiritual Beings. I tried in the book
Occult Science
to give guiding lines for the right kind of description of the World
of Spirit the world entered when there has been an actual
ascent into the Macrocosm.
This ascent into the Macrocosm can of course proceed to still higher
stages, for the Macrocosm has by no means been exhaustively portrayed
by what has here been said. Man can ascend into even higher worlds;
but it becomes more and more difficult to convey any idea of these
worlds. The higher the ascent, the more difficult this becomes. If we
want to give an idea of a still higher world it must be done rather
differently. An impression of the world that is reached after passing
beyond the World of Spirit may be obtained in the following way.
In describing man as he stands before us we may say that his
existence was only made possible through the existence of these higher
worlds. Man has become the being he is because he has evolved out of
the physical world but above all out of the higher, spiritual worlds.
Only a fantasy-ridden, materialistic mind can believe that it would be
possible for a man to originate from the nebula described by the
Kant-Laplace theory. Such a nebula could have produced only an
automaton never a man!
Around us, we have, firstly, the physical world. The physical body of
man belongs to the world we perceive with our senses. With ordinary
consciousness we perceive it only from outside. To what world do the
more deeply lying, invisible members of man's nature belong? They all
belong to the higher worlds. Just as with physical eyes we see only
the material aspect of man, so too we see of the great outer world
only what the senses perceive; we do not see those super-sensible
worlds of which two the Elementary World and the World of
Spirit have been described. But man, with his inner
constitution, has issued from these higher worlds. The whole of man's
being, his external, bodily nature too, has become possible only
because certain invisible spiritual Beings have worked on him. If the
etheric body alone had worked on man, he would be like a plant, for a
plant has a physical and an etheric body. Man has in addition the
astral body; but so too has the animal. If man had only these three
members (physical body, etheric body, astral body) he would be an
animal. It is because man has his Ego as well that he towers above
these lower creatures of the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms of
nature. All the higher members of man work on his physical body; the
physical body could not be what it is unless man also possessed these
higher members. A plant would be a mineral if it had no etheric body.
Man would have no nervous system if he had no astral body; he would
not have his present structure, his upright gait, his over-arching
brow, if he had not an Ego. If he had not his invisible members in
higher worlds, he could not confront us as the figure he is.
Now these different members of man's organism and constitution have
been formed out of different spiritual worlds. To understand this we
shall do well to remind ourselves of a beautiful, profoundly wise
saying of Goethe: The eye is formed by the light for the
light. [* See Goethe's Studies in Natural Science.
(Kürschner, Nationalliteratur, Vol. 35, p. 88). The
eye owes its existence to the light. Out of indifferent animal organs
the light produces an organ to correspond to itself; and so the eye is
formed by the light for the light so that the inner light may meet the
outer.] Schopenhauer, and Kant too, want to present the whole
world as man's idea; this philosophy seeks to emphasise that without
an eye we should perceive no light, that without an eye there would be
darkness around us. That, of course, is true, but the point is that it
is a one-sided truth. Unless the other side is added a
one-sided truth is being regarded as the whole truth than which
there is nothing more pernicious. To say something that is incorrect
is not the worst thing that can happen, for the world itself will soon
put one right about it; but it is really serious to regard a one-sided
truth as the absolute truth and to persist in so regarding it. That
without the eye we could see no light is a one-sided truth. But if the
world had remained forever filled with darkness, we should have had no
eyes. When animals have lived for long ages in dark caves they lose
their sight and their eyes go to ruin. On the one side it is true that
without eyes we could gee no light, but on the other side it is
equally true that the eyes have been formed by the light, for the
light. It is always essential to look at truths not only from the one
side but also from the other. The fault of most philosophers is not
that they say what is false in many cases their assertions
cannot be refuted because they do state truths but that they
make statements which are due to things having been viewed from one
side only. If you take in the right sense the saying that the
eye is formed by the light, for the light, you will be able to
say to yourselves that there must be something in the light that
admittedly we do not see with our eyes but that has developed the eyes
out of an organism which at first had no eyes. Behind the light there
is something hidden. Let us say here: The eye-forming power is
contained in every ray of sunlight. From this we can realise that
everything round about us contains the forces which have created us.
Just as our eyes are created by something within the light, all our
organs have been formed by something that underlies everything we see
in the world outside as external surfaces only.
Now man also has intellect, intelligence. In physical life he is able
to use his intelligence because he has an instrument for it. Remember,
we are speaking now of the physical world, not of what becomes of our
thinking when we are free of the body after death, but of how we think
through the instrument of the brain when we have wakened from sleep in
the morning; after waking we see light through the eyes. In the light
there is something that has formed the eye. We think through the
instrument of the brain; thus there must be something in the world
that has formed the brain in such a way that it could become an
instrument of thinking suitable for the physical world. The brain has
been made into an organ of thinking for the physical world by the
power which manifests externally in our intelligence. Just as the
light we perceive with the eye is an eye-forming power, our brain is
the surface manifestation of a brain-forming power or force. Our brain
is formed from out of the World of Spirit.
One who has attained Initiation recognises that if only the Elementary
World and the World of Spirit existed, man's organ of intelligence
could never have come into being. The World of the Spirit is indeed a
lofty world but the forces which have formed the physical organ of
thinking must have streamed into man from a yet higher world in order
that intelligence might manifest outwardly, in the physical world.
Spiritual science has not without reason figuratively expressed this
frontier of the world we have described as the world of the
Hierarchies, by the word Zodiac. Man would be at the level
of the animal if only the two worlds that have been described were in
existence. In order that man could become a being able to walk
upright, to think by means of the brain and to develop intelligence,
an in-streaming of even higher forces was necessary, forces from a
world above the World of Spirit. Here we come to a world
designated by a word that is totally misused today because of the
prevailing materialism. But in a past by no means very distant the
word still conveyed its original meaning. The faculty man unfolds here
in the physical world when he thinks, was called
Intelligence in the spiritual science of that earlier
period. It is from a world lying beyond both the World of
Spirit and the Elementary World that forces stream down through these
two worlds to build our brain. Spiritual Science has also called it
the World of Reason (Vernunftwelt). It is the world in which
there are spiritual Beings who are able to send down their power into
the physical world in order that a shadow-image of the Spiritual may
be produced in the physical world in man's intellectual activity.
Before the age of materialism no one would have used the word
reason for thinking; thinking would have been called
intellect, intelligence. Reason (Vernunft) would
have been spoken of when those who were initiates had risen into a
world even higher than the World of Spirit and had direct perception
there. In the German language reason is connected with
perception (Vernehmen), with what is directly apprehended,
perceived as coming from a world still higher than the one denoted as
the World of Spirit. A faint image of this world exists in the shadowy
human intellect. The architects and builders of our organ of intellect
must be sought in the World of Reason.
It is only possible to describe a still higher world by developing a
spiritual faculty transcending the physical intellect. There is a
higher form of consciousness, namely, clairvoyant
consciousness. If we ask: how is the organ evolved which enables
us to have clairvoyant consciousness? the answer is that there
must be worlds from which emanate the forces necessary for the
development of this clairvoyant consciousness. Like everything else,
it must be formed from a higher world. The first kind of clairvoyant
consciousness to develop is a picture-consciousness, Imaginative
Consciousness. This Imaginative Consciousness remains mere phantasy
only for as long as the organ for it is not formed by forces from a
world lying beyond even the World of Reason. As soon as we admit the
existence of clairvoyant consciousness we must also admit the
existence of a world from which emanate the forces enabling the organ
for it to develop. This is the World of Archetypal Images
(Urbilderwelt). Whatever can arise as true Imagination is a
reflection of the World of Archetypal Images.
Thus we rise into the Macrocosm through four higher worlds: the
Elementary World, the World of Spirit, the World of Reason and the
World of Archetypal Images. In the next lectures I will deal with the
World of Reason and the World of Archetypal Images and then describe
the methods by which, in line with modern culture, the forces from the
World of Archetypal Images can be brought down in order to make
possible the development of clairvoyant consciousness.
Last Modified: 02-Nov-2024
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