YESTERDAY I tried first of all to point out the way which leads the
human soul to the observation of the spiritual world hidden directly
behind our material physical world; and then to draw attention to two
classes or categories of spiritual beings, perceptible to occult
vision when the veil of the sense-world has been drawn aside.
To-day we shall speak of two other forms or categories of
nature-spirits. The one is disclosed to trained occult sight when we
observe the gradual fading and dying of the plant world in the late
summer or autumn, the dying of nature-beings in general. As soon as
the plant begins to develop fruit in the blossom, we can allow the
fruit to work upon the soul in the manner described in our last
lecture; and in this way, we receive in our imagination the impression
of spiritual beings concerned with the fading and dying of the beings
of nature. We were able to describe yesterday, that in spring the
plants are, so to speak, drawn out of the earth by certain beings
which are subject to perpetual metamorphosis, and we can likewise say
that when, for instance, the plants have finished this development,
and the time has come for them to fade, other beings then work upon
them; beings of whom we cannot even say that they too are continually
changing their forms, for, strictly speaking, they have no form of
their own at all. They appear flashing up like lightning, like little
meteors; now flashing up, now disappearing; they really have no
definite form, but flit over our earth, flashing and vanishing like
little meteors or will-o'-the-wisps.
These beings are primarily connected with the ripening of everything
in the kingdoms of nature; the ripening process comes about because
these forces or beings exist. They are only visible to occult vision
when it concentrates on the air itself, indeed, on the purest air
possible. We have described the second sort of nature-beings by saying
that to perceive them we must allow falling water, or water condensed
into cloud-formation or something of a like character to work upon us.
Now air as free from moisture as possible, played upon by the light
and warmth of the sun, must work upon the soul, if we are to visualize
in our imagination these meteor-like, flashing, and disappearing
beings, which live in air free from moisture, and eagerly drink in the
light which permeates the air and which causes them to flash and
shine. These beings then sink down into the plant-world, or the animal
world, and bring about their ripening and maturity. In the very way we
approach these beings we see that they stand in a certain relation to
what occultism has always called the elements.
What we described in the last lecture as the first class of such
beings, we find when we descend into the depths of the earth and
penetrate the solid substance of our planet; our imagination is then
confronted with beings of a definite form, and we may call these the
nature-spirits of solid substance, or the nature-spirits of Earth. The
second category which we then described are to be found in water that
collects and disperses; so that we may connect these spiritual beings
with what in occultism has always been called the Fluid or Watery
Element. In this element they undergo metamorphosis, at the same time
doing the work of drawing forth from the earth everything that grows
and sprouts. The beings of whom we have just spoken, stand, on the
contrary, in connection with the Element of Air, air when it is as
free from moisture as possible; so that we may now speak of
nature-spirits of earth, of water, and of air. There is a fourth
category of such spiritual beings with which occult vision can become
familiar. It must wait until a blossom has brought forth fruit and
seed, and then observe how the germ gradually grows into a new plant.
Only on such an occasion can this be done with ease, otherwise it is
difficult to observe this fourth kind of being, for they are the
protectors of all the germs, of all the seeds in our kingdoms of
nature. As guardians they carry the seed from one generation of plants
or other nature-beings, to the next. We can observe that these beings,
which are the protectors of the seeds or germs, make it possible that
the same beings continually re-appear on our earth, and that these
beings are brought into contact with the warmth of our planet
with what from early times had been called the Element of Fire or
Heat. That is why the forces of the seed are also connected with a
certain degree of heat, a certain temperature. If occult vision
observes accurately enough, it describes that the necessary
transmutation of the warmth of the environment into such heat as is
needed by the seed or germ in order to ripen, the changing of lifeless
warmth into a living heat, is provided for by these beings. Hence they
can also be called the nature-spirits of Fire, or of Heat. So that, to
begin with (more details will be given in the subsequent lectures), we
have become acquainted with four categories of nature-spirits, having
a certain relation to what are called the elements of earth, water,
air, and fire.
It is as though these spiritual beings had their jurisdiction, their
territory, in these elements; just as man himself has his in the whole
planet. Just as that is his home in the universe, so have these beings
their territory in one or other of the elements mentioned. We have
already drawn attention to the fact that for our earthly physical
world, for the earth as a whole with its various kingdoms of nature,
these different beings signify what the etheric body or life-body,
signifies for individual man. Only we have said that in man this
life-body is a unity, whereas the etheric body of the earth consists
of many, many such nature-spirits, which are, moreover, divided into
four classes. The living cooperation of these nature-spirits is the
etheric or life-body of the earth. Thus it is no unity, but
multiplicity, plurality.
If we wish with occult vision to discern this etheric body of the
earth, then as was previously described we must allow
the physical world to influence us morally, thereby drawing aside the
veil of the physical world. Then the etheric body of the earth which
lies directly behind this veil becomes visible. Now, how is it, when
one also draws aside this further veil, described as the etheric body
of the earth? We know that behind the etheric body is the astral body,
as the third principle of man that body which is the bearer of
our desires, wishes and passions. Thus, if we disregard the higher
principles of man's nature, we may say that we have first of all in
the human being the physical body, behind this the etheric body, and
behind that the astral body. It is just the same in external nature;
if we draw aside the physical, we come certainly to a plurality, but
this represents the etheric body of the whole earth, with all its
kingdoms of nature. Now can we also speak of a sort of astral body of
the earth, something which, in relation to the whole earth and to all
its kingdoms, corresponds to the astral body of the human being? It is
certainly not so easy to penetrate to this astral body of the earth as
to the etheric body. We have seen that the etheric body can be reached
if we allow the phenomena of the world to work upon us not merely
through the sense impressions but morally. If we wish, however, to
penetrate further, deeper occult exercises are necessary, such as you
will find described in part in so far as they can be in an open
publication in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and
How to Attain It. At a definite point of esoteric or occult
development as you may read there a man begins to be
conscious, even at a time when he is usually unconscious, namely
during the time between his falling asleep and waking.
We know that the ordinary unconscious condition, the ordinary
sleep-condition of man, is caused by the fact that he leaves his
physical and etheric bodies lying in the bed, and draws out the astral
body and the rest of what belongs to it; but the normal man is then
unconscious. When, however, he devotes himself more and more to those
exercises which consist of meditation, concentration, and so on, and
further strengthens the slumbering hidden forces of his soul, then he
can establish a conscious condition of sleep. Thus when he has drawn
his astral body out of his physical and etheric bodies, he is no
longer unconscious, but has then around him not the physical
world, not even the world just described, the world of the
nature-spirits but another and still more spiritual world. When
the time comes that a man, after he has freed himself from his
physical and etheric bodies, feels his consciousness flash up, he then
perceives quite a new order of spiritual beings. The next thing which
strikes the occult vision thus far trained, is that the new spirits
man now perceives have as it were command over the nature-spirits. Let
us be quite clear as to how far this is the case. I have told you that
those beings which we call the nature-spirits of the water, work
especially in the budding and sprouting plant-world. Those which we
may call the nature-spirits of the air, play their part in late summer
and autumn, when the plants prepare to fade and die. Then these
meteor-like air-spirits sink down over the plant-world and saturate
themselves, as it were, with the plants, helping them to fade away in
their spring and summer forms. The disposition that at one time the
spirits of the water, and at another the spirits of the air should
work in this or that region of the earth, changes according to the
different regions of the earth in the northern part of the
earth it is naturally quite different from what it is in the south.
The office of directing, as it were, the suitable nature-spirits to
their activities at the right time, is carried out by those spiritual
beings which we learn to know when the occult vision is so far trained
that, when we have freed ourselves from our physical and etheric
bodies, we can still be conscious of our environment. There are
spiritual beings, for instance, working in connection with our earth,
with our earth-planet, who allot the work of the nature-spirits to the
seasons of the year, and thus bring about the alternations of the
seasons for the different regions of the earth, by distributing the
work of the nature-spirits. These spiritual beings represent what we
may call the astral body of the earth, into which man plunges with his
own astral body at night when he falls asleep. This astral body,
consisting of higher spirits which hover round the earth-planet and
permeate it as a spiritual atmosphere, is united with the earth; and
into this spirit-atmosphere man's astral body plunges during the
night-time.
Now to occult observation there is a great difference of
nature-spirits, the spirits of Earth, Water, etc., and those beings
which on the other hand, direct these nature-spirits. The
nature-spirits are occupied in causing the beings of nature to ripen
and fade, in bringing life into the whole planetary earth-sphere. It
is different with those spiritual beings which in their totality can
be called the astral body of the earth.
These beings are such that when man can become acquainted with them by
means of his occult vision, he perceives them as beings connected with
his own soul with his own astral body. They exert such an
influence upon the astral body of man (as also upon the astral
bodies of animals), that we cannot speak of a mere life-giving
activity; their activity resembles the action of feeling and thought
upon our own souls. The nature-spirits of water and air can be
observed; we may say they are in the environment; but we cannot say of
these spiritual beings of which we are now speaking, that they are in
our environment; we are in fact always actually united with them, as
if poured into them, when we perceive them. We are merged into them,
and they speak to us in spirit. It is as though we perceived thoughts
and feelings from the environment; impulses of will, sympathy and
antipathy come to expression in what these beings cause to flow into
us as thoughts, feelings, and impulses of will. Thus in this category
of spirits we see beings already resembling the human soul. If we turn
back again to what has been stated, we may say that all sorts of
regulations in time, of divisions in the relations of time and space,
are also connected with these beings. An old expression has therefore
been preserved in occultism for these beings, which in their totality
we recognize as the astral body of the earth, and this in English
would be, Spirits of the Rotation of Time. Thus, not only
the seasons of the year, and the growing and the fading of the plants,
but also the regular alternation which, in relation to the
earth-planet, expresses itself in day and night, is brought about by
these spirits, which are to be classed as belonging to the astral body
of the earth. In other words, everything connected with rhythmic
return, with rhythmic alternation, with the repetitions of happenings
in time, is organized by spiritual beings which collectively belong to
the astral body of the earth and to which the name Spirits of
the Rotation of Time, of our planet, is applicable. What the
astronomer ascertains through calculation about the rotation of the
earth on its axis, is perceptible to occult vision, because the
occultist knows that these spirits are distributed over the whole
earth, and are actually the bearers of the forces which rotate the
earth on its axis. It is extremely important that one should be aware
that in the astral body of the earth is to be found everything
connected with the ordinary alternations between the blossoming and
withering of plants and also all that is connected with the
alternations between day and night, between the various seasons
of the year, and the various times of the day, etc. Everything that
happens in this way calls up in the observer who has progressed so far
that he can, with his astral body, go out of his physical and etheric
bodies and still remain conscious an impression of the
spiritual beings belonging to the Spirits of the Rotation of Time.
We have now, as it were drawn aside the second veil, the veil woven of
the nature-spirits. We might say that when we draw aside the first
veil, woven of material physical impressions, we come to the etheric
body of the earth, to the nature-spirits, and we can then draw aside a
second veil and come to the Spirits of the Rotation of Time, who
regulate everything subject to rhythmic rotation. Now we know that in
our own astral body is embedded what may be called the higher
principles of man's nature, which at first we understand as the ego
embedded in our astral body. We have already said that our astral body
is plunged into the region of the Spirits of the Rotation of Time;
that it is immersed in the surging sea, as it were, of these spirits;
but as regards the normal consciousness our ego is still more asleep
than the astral body. A man who is developing occultly and progressing
esoterically becomes aware of this, because in the spiritual world
into which he plunges and which consists of the Spirits of the
Rotation of Time, he first learns to penetrate into the perceptions of
the astral body. In a certain respect this perception is really a
dangerous reef in esoteric development, for the astral body of man is,
in itself, unity; but everything in the realm of the Spirits of the
Rotation of Time is, fundamentally, multiplicity, plurality. And
since, in the way described, man is united with and immersed in this
plurality, if he is still asleep in his ego and awake in his astral
body, he feels as if he were dismembered in the world of the Spirits
of the Rotation of Time. That must be avoided in a properly ordered
esoteric development. Hence those who are able to give instruction for
such development, see that the necessary precautions are taken that
the man should not if possible allow his ego to sleep when his astral
body is already awake, for he would then lose inner cohesion and
would, like Dionysos, be split up into the whole astral world of the
earth, consisting of the Spirits of the Rotation of Time. In a regular
esoteric development precautions are taken that this should not occur.
These consist in care being taken that the student, who through
meditation, concentration, or other esoteric exercises is to be
stimulated to clairvoyance, should retain two things in the whole
sphere of clairvoyant, occult observation. In every esoteric
development it is specially important that everything should be so
adjusted that two things that man has in ordinary life should not be
lost which he might however very easily lose in esoteric
development if not rightly guided. If rightly guided he will not lose
them. First, he should not lose the recollection of any of the events
of his present incarnation, as ordinarily retained in his memory. The
connection with memory must not be destroyed. This connection with
memory means very much more in the sphere of occultism than it does in
the sphere of ordinary life. In ordinary life we only understand by
memory, the power of looking back and not losing consciousness of the
important events of one's life. In occultism a right memory means that
a man only values with his perceptions and feelings what he has
already accomplished in the past, so that he applies no other value to
himself or to his deeds than the past deeds themselves entitle. Let us
understand this quite correctly, for this is extremely important. If a
man in the course of his occult development were suddenly driven to
say to himself I am the reincarnation of this or the other
spirit, without there being any justification for it
through any action of his then his memory in an occult sense
would be interrupted. An important principle in occult development is
that of attributing no other merit to oneself, than what comes from
one's actions in the physical world in the present incarnation. That
is extremely important. Any other merit must only come on the basis of
a higher development, which can only be attained if one first of all
stands firmly on the ground that one esteems oneself for nothing but
what one has accomplished in this incarnation. This is quite natural
if we look at the matter objectively; for what we have accomplished in
the present incarnation is also the result of earlier incarnations; it
is that which Karma has, so far, made out of us. What Karma is still
making of us we must first bring about; we must not add that to our
value. In short, if we would set a right value on ourselves, we can
only do so, at the beginning of esoteric development, if we ascribe
merit only to what is inscribed in our memory as our past. That is the
one element which we must preserve, if our ego is not to sleep while
our astral body is awake.
The second thing which we as men of the present day must not lose is
the degree of conscience we possess in the external world. Here again
is something which it is extremely important to observe. You must have
often experienced that someone you know has gone through an occult
development, and if it is not guided and conducted in the right way,
you find that, in relation to conscience, your friend takes things
much more lightly than he did before his occult training. His
education, his social connection guided him before, so that he did
this thing or that, or dared not do it. After beginning an occult
development, many people begin to tell lies who never did so before,
and as regards questions of conscience, they take things more lightly.
We ought not to lose an iota of the conscience we possess. As regards
memory, we must only value ourselves according to what we have already
become; not according to any reliance on the future, or on what we are
still going to do. As regards conscience, we must retain the same
degree as we acquired in the ordinary physical world. If we retain
these two elements in our consciousness: a healthy memory which does
not deceive us into believing ourselves to be other than our actions
prove us to be, and a conscience which does not allow us morally to
take things more lightly than before, indeed if possible we
should take them more seriously if we retain these two
qualities, our ego will never be asleep when our astral body is awake.
We shall carry the connection with our ego into the world in which we
awaken with our astral body, if we can, as it were, remain awake in
our sleep, preserve our consciousness and carry it with us into the
condition in which with our astral body we are freed from the physical
and etheric bodies. Then, if we awake with our ego, not only do we
feel our astral body to be connected with all the spiritual beings we
have to-day described as the Spirits of the Rotation of Time belonging
to our planet, but we feel in a quite peculiar way, that we actually
no longer have a direct relation to the individual who is the bearer
of the physical body and etheric body in which we usually live. We
feel, so to speak, as if all the qualities of our physical and etheric
bodies were taken from us. Then too we feel everything taken from us
which can only live externally in any one country of our planet. For
that which lives on a particular territory of our planet is connected
with the Spirits of the Rotation of Time. Now, however, when we waken
with our ego, we feel ourselves not only poured out into the whole
world of the Spirits of the Rotation of Time, but we feel ourselves
one with the whole undivided spirit of the planet itself; we awaken in
the undivided spirit of the planet itself. It is extremely important
that we should feel ourselves as belonging to the whole of our planet.
For example, when our occult vision is sufficiently awakened, and we
are so far advanced that we can awaken our ego and astral body
simultaneously, then our common life with the planet so expresses
itself that, just as during the waking hours in the sense-world, we
can follow the sun as it passes over the heavens from morning till
night, so it no longer now disappears when we fall asleep. When we
sleep the sun remains connected with us; it does not cease to shine
but takes on a special character, so that whilst we are actually
asleep during the night, we can still follow the sun. Man is of such a
nature that he is connected with the changing conditions of the planet
only in so far as he lives in his astral body. When however, he
becomes conscious of his ego, he has nothing to do with them. He then
becomes conscious of all the conditions which his planet can go
through. He then pours himself into the whole substance of the
planetary spirit. When I say that a man becomes one with the planetary
spirit, that he lives in union with this planetary spirit, you must
not suppose that this implies an advanced degree of clairvoyance; this
is but a beginning. For when a man awakens in the manner described, he
really only experiences the planetary spirit as a whole; whereas it
consists of many, many differentiations of wonderful, separate,
spiritual beings as we shall hear in the following lectures.
The different parts of the planetary spirit, the special
multiplicities of this spirit, of these he is not yet aware. What he
realizes first of all, is the knowledge: I live in the planetary
spirit as though in a sea, which spiritually laves the whole earth
planet and itself is the spirit of the whole earth. One may go
through immensely long development in order further and further to
experience this unification with the planetary spirit; but to begin
with, the experience is as has been described. Just as we say with
regard to man: behind his astral body is his ego
so do we say that behind all that we call the totality of the Spirits
of the Rotation of Time is hidden the Spirit of the Planet itself, the
Planetary Spirit. Whereas the Spirits of the Rotation of Time guide
the nature-spirits of the elements in order to call forth the rhythmic
change and repetitions in time the alterations in space of the
earth-planet the Spirit of the Earth has a different task. It
has the task of bringing the earth itself into mutual relation with
the other heavenly bodies in the environment, to direct it and guide
it, so that in the course of time it may come into the right relations
to the other heavenly bodies. The Spirit of the Earth is, as it were,
the great sense-apparatus of the earth, through which the earth-planet
enters into the right relationship with the Cosmos. If I were to sum
up the succession of those spiritual beings with whom we on our earth
are first of all concerned, and to whom we can find the way through a
gradual occult development, I must say: As the first external
veil we have the sense-world, with all its multiplicity, with all we
see spread out before our senses and which we can understand with our
human mind. Then, behind this sense-world, we have the world of
nature-spirits. Behind this world of nature-spirits we have the
Spirits of the Rotation of Time, and behind these the Planetary
Spirit.
If you wish to compare what is known to the normal consciousness
concerning the structure of the cosmos, with the structure of the
cosmos itself, you may make that clear in the following way. We will
take it that the most external veil is this world of the senses,
behind that is the world of the nature-spirits, and behind that the
Spirits of the Rotation of Time and behind that the Planetary Spirit.
Now we must say that the Planetary Spirit in its activity, in a
certain respect penetrates through to the sense-world; so that in a
certain way we can perceive its image in the sense-world; this also
applies to the Spirits of the Rotation of Time, as well as to the
nature-spirits. So that if we observe the sense-world itself with
normal consciousness, we can see in the background as it were, the
impression, the traces, of those worlds which lie behind; as if we
drew aside the sense-world as the outermost skin, and behind this we
had different degrees of active spiritual beings. The normal
consciousness realizes the sense-world by means of its perceptions;
the world of nature-spirits expresses itself from behind these
perceptions as what we call the Forces of Nature. When science speaks
of the forces of nature, we have there nothing actually real; to the
occultist the forces of nature are not realities but Maya, they are
the imprints of the nature-spirits working behind the world of sense.
Again the imprint of the Spirits of the Rotation of Time is what is
usually known to ordinary consciousness as the Laws of Nature.
Fundamentally all the laws of nature are in existence because the
Spirits of the Rotation of Time work as the directing powers. To the
occultist the laws of nature are not realities. When the ordinary
natural scientist speaks of the laws of nature and combines them
externally, the occultist knows that these laws are revealed in their
reality when, in his awakened astral body, he listens to what the
Spirits of the Rotation of Time say, and hears how they order and
direct the nature-spirits. That is expressed in Maya, in external
semblance, as the laws of nature, and the normal consciousness, as a
rule, does not go beyond this.
(See Figure 1)
It does not usually
reach the imprint of the Planetary Spirit in the external world. The
normal consciousness of present-day humanity speaks of the external
world of perception, of the facts that can be perceived; speaks of the
forces of nature, light, warmth, magnetism, electricity, and so on; of
the forces of attraction and repulsion, of gravity, etc. These are the
beings of Maya, behind which, in reality, lies the world of the
nature-spirits the etheric body of the earth. External science
also speaks of the Laws of Nature; that again is a Maya. Underlying
these laws is what we have to-day described as the world of the
Spirits of the Rotation of Time. Only when we penetrate still further
do we come to the stamp or imprint of the Planetary Spirit itself in
the external sense-world. Science to-day does not do this. Those who
still do so are no longer quite believed. The poets, the artists do;
they seek for a meaning behind things. Why does the plant-world
blossom? Why do the different species of animals arise and disappear?
Why does man inhabit the earth? If we thus inquire into the
phenomena of nature, and wish to analyze the meaning, and to combine
the external facts as even a deeper philosophy still sometimes tries
to do, we then approach the imprint of the Planetary Spirit itself in
the external world. To-day, however, nobody really believes any longer
in this seeking after the meaning of existence. Through feeling, one
still believes a little, but science no longer wishes to know of what
could be discovered about the laws of nature by studying the passage
of the phenomena.
If we still seek a meaning as to the laws of nature in the things of
the world perceptible to our senses, we should be able to interpret
this meaning as the imprint of the Planetary Spirit in the
sense-world. That would be the external Maya. In the first place the
sense-world itself is an external Maya, for it is what the etheric
body the earth, the substance of the nature-spirits, drives out of
itself. A second Maya is what appears to man of the nature-spirits in
the forces of nature. A third Maya is that which appears as the laws
of nature, coming from the Spirits of the Rotation of Time. A fourth
Maya is something which, in spite of its Maya-nature, speaks to the
soul of man because, in the perception of the purpose of nature, man
at any rate feels himself united with the Spirit of the whole planet,
with the Spirit which leads the planet through cosmic space, and gives
meaning in fact to the whole planet. In this Maya lies the direct
imprint of the Planetary Spirit itself.
Thus we may say that we have to-day ascended to the undivided Spirit
of the Planet. If again we wish to compare what we have now discovered
for the planet, with man, we may say: The sense-world
corresponds to the physical body of man; the world of nature-spirits
to the etheric body, the world of the Spirits of the Rotation of Time
to the astral body, and the Planetary Spirit to the ego of man.
Just as the ego of man perceives the physical environment of earth, so
does the Planetary Spirit perceive everything in the periphery, and in
cosmic space as a whole outside the planet; it adjusts the acts of the
planet and also the feelings of the planet, of which we shall speak
tomorrow, according to these perceptions of cosmic space. For what a
planet does outside in space when it passes on its way in cosmic
distances, and what it effects its own body, in the elements of which
it consists, that again is the result of the observations of the
Planetary with regard to the external world. Just as the individual
human soul lives in the world of the earth side by side with other
men, and adjusts himself to them, so does the Planetary Spirit live in
its planetary body, which is the ground on which we stand; but this
Planetary Spirit lives in fellowship with other planetary Spirits,
other Spirits of the heavenly bodies.
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