IT will be well at the very beginning of today's lecture to speak of
how far what we considered yesterday relation to its parts, at least
in reference to some of parts, the physical world-system, the physical
cosmos, is of significance to man's outlook, to his perception and
knowledge. We spoke yesterday of the life of the comet, of the life of
the fixed star the solar life; of the life the moon the
lunar life; and of the planetary life. In speaking of these heavenly
bodies from the standpoint of ordinary consciousness, we naturally
refer to the heavenly bodies visible to our eyes. Now in the course of
our lectures we have, so to say, substituted something else for this
system of heavenly bodies; we have substituted the study of the
corresponding spiritual beings whom we have recognized as members of
the various hierarchies. Perhaps what has actually been said will be
made still clearer if we state the following: We found the category of
beings standing immediately above man to be the Angeloi, or
Angel-beings; we have also shown how, if a man really wishes to obtain
a view of the spiritual super-sensible world, he must, in a sense,
organize himself up to these beings next above him; must, as it were,
learn to see the world with the kind perception possessed by the
Angels. Now we can raise the question: if such a being of the next
higher category, in the ranks of the hierarchies acquires a
consciousness of the cosmos through his perception which we
call manifestation how does the cosmos appear to him? If this
question is answered what I intended to convey will be clearer to us.
Such an Angel-being would really see outside in the cosmos nothing of
all we see, and which as we know is Maya, an illusion only called up
by our human view. An Angel-being would see nothing of all this in the
same way as we do; we must be quite clear as to this. But the
Angel-being would instead see and perceive in his own way, in the
manner described, the various cooperative activities between the
beings of the hierarchies. Instead of saying, Over there is
Mars, he would say: Over there cooperate (in the way we
have described) certain beings of the higher hierarchies. This
means that to those beings, to the Angels or Angeloi, the whole cosmic
system directly appears as a sum of spiritual activities. How then
would the planets and other bodies visible to our eyes appear to such
a being? We may venture to speak of these matters, for indeed we could
not speak at all of the whole super-sensible world which lies behind
the planetary system, the heavens or cosmos, were we not able, through
occult schooling, to translate ourselves to some extent into the
consciousness of such a being. For clairvoyance simply means calling
forth within us the possibility of seeing the world as such beings see
it. Thus to clairvoyant consciousness those forms, those light-forms
visible to ordinary sight as the heavenly bodies, actually disappear;
they are no longer there. On the other hand, clairvoyant consciousness
gains, and so too does the consciousness of an Angel-being, an
impression of that which corresponds to the physical heavenly body.
Clairvoyant consciousness cannot perceive the Moon or Mars as they
appear to a dweller upon Earth, seen physically; but it is
nevertheless able to know what exists there. I should now like to call
up within you an idea of the kind of knowledge clairvoyant
consciousness has of such a heavenly body.
You can gain an idea of this, at first theoretically for occult
training can alone provide the practical knowledge if you call
up in your mind a memory-picture, a recollection, a picture-concept of
what you experienced yesterday or the day before. This picture concept
which lies in your soul, differs from the picture-concept of an object
which is immediately before your eyes. You only look at that with the
necessary intensity. If you remember this rose tomorrow, you will have
a memory picture of it. Now if you clearly realise that in your mind,
in your soul, the mere memory-picture differs from that which arises
as a perception-picture through a direct impression, it will then be
possible for you to understand how clairvoyant consciousness perceives
the heavenly bodies. Thus it transports itself clairvoyantly into the
cosmos, and if, for instance, it transports itself into Mars, into the
Moon, it does not know directly what would appear to sight if one were
to observe the heavenly body physically, but by thus transporting
itself it has something within it which cannot he described other than
as a memory-picture, a thought-picture. And so it is with everything
which our ordinary normal consciousness encounters as physical
heavenly bodies in the cosmos. To clairvoyant consciousness everything
appears in such a way that we have a direct knowledge that whatever we
see there is actually something past, something which has had complete
life in the past, and which, as it appears in the present, is not
really in its original, living form, but is so to speak
like a snail-shell from which the snail has gone. The whole physical
system of heavenly bodies is a testimony of past times, telling of
past occurrences. Whereas we, on our earth, are contemporary with the
things which appear before our physical eyes, what we see in the
starry heavens is actually Maya, for it does not represent an existing
condition, but had its full significance in the past, and has remained
behind. The physical world of heavenly bodies represents the remains
of the past activities of the corresponding beings of the hierarchies,
the after-effects of which still enter into the present.
Let us examine the matter still more closely by means of a concrete
example. When we observe our own earth-moon by clairvoyant
consciousness (which has withdrawn from everything else and, so to
speak, fixed itself only upon the moon) we get the remarkable
impression that the external physical moon disappears, and in its
place something appears which gives the impression of being like a
memory-picture. One has the impression that that which otherwise
appears to the physical eye (and which, of course, is there
physically, though everything physical is a Maya) gives the impression
of telling of a past, just like a memory-picture. And if we allow this
impression which begins to tell us past things to work upon us, it
says: If that which now actually appears to our occult vision
were to be active, if its activity were not paralyzed by other things,
our earth in its present form could not have endured the proximity of
what we see there. To our occult consciousness the moon tells of
something which should not take place as it shows itself there, if our
earth-life is to be at all possible. If that which is there
represented to us were not now paralyzed, so to speak, by other
things, man could not possibly live his present life, because of what
the moon tells us about herself. On the other hand, the present-day
animal life on the earth, nor the plant life, nor the activity in the
mineral world would be specially influenced. Certain beings of the
animal and plant kingdoms would certainly have to be quite different
in form that we know direct from the forces which work upon us
from the moon with such vehemence but substantially, though
animal, plant, and mineral life upon the earth would be possible,
human life would not. Thus the moon as we see her, tells of a
condition which, if it were active, would exclude human life from the
earth.
I am trying to describe these things as concretely as possible, as
seen by occult vision; I do not wish to speak in abstractions, which
would enable me to relate all sorts of things; I only wish to relate
things as they appear to occult vision. The impression one then
receives can only be compared with the following: If let
us say all the ideas a man of thirty had when he was fifteen
years old were suddenly to arise within him, and all the concepts
which he had been able to work into his soul since his fifteenth year
were to cease, the inner soul-life of his fifteenth year would then be
represented to his own consciousness, as it were, objectively; but he
would be obliged to say: If I now had within me only what was
contained in my soul at that time, I could not think all I now think.
The condition of soul in which I now am would not be possible.
Man would find himself forced back to his fifteenth year and he would
see clearly that, although what he then experienced as the content of
his soul could not bring about his present-day self, yet it has to do
with what he has become. In this way we can in a certain sense
describe the impression we receive from the moon. We can say:
Before us is something which really points to no present, but
speaks of a past. Just as if I, in my thirtieth year, could only
perceive the contents of my soul at my fifteenth year if I think away
everything which has developed within me since, so must I now think
away the possibility that there really is an earth; for the earth as
it is now, comprising the requirements of human life, is not possible
if that which is represented by the moon were to be realized. Now as
soon as this impression appears to clairvoyant vision, it is then
possible so to school this vision that we can gain an idea, a
conception, of what existed before an earth could possibly exist. For
what we there see was possible before the earth, and that which
later led to the production of the earth only became possible after
the condition thus perceived had disappeared.
You see, I have now described what the clairvoyant must do to travel
back in the Akashic Chronicles to an earlier condition of our
planetary system; for by fixing occult vision upon the moon, we have
recalled an earlier condition of our planetary system. If we now try
to describe that, we can speak of the condition of our planetary
system before our present earth existed. And because we must so
proceed that we can only learn about conditions before the origin of
our present earth by fixing our attention on what has remained upon
the moon as a sort of memory we have also become accustomed to
call the preceding condition of our earth, a moon-condition. We can,
however, only gain a complete elucidation of the whole circumstances
if we leave the clairvoyant state which we have developed for the
purpose of obtaining a sort of memory-picture of the planetary
condition, and passing from this into the ordinary condition of
consciousness try to make clear to ourselves wherein the difference
lies. The difference is ascertained by trying to bring the two
impressions into a sort of harmony; and this bringing into harmony is
only possible by first looking away from the moon; for the ordinary
external vision of normal consciousness does not tell us much about
the moon. You know indeed that external astronomy tries to tell us all
sorts of things about the moon, but external observation in general
does not tell us much. Rather for the sake of comparison we must make
use of a certain clairvoyant observation of our own earth as it is at
present, as a heavenly body upon which we ourselves wander. If we shut
off everything physical which appears before our eyes in the various
kingdoms of nature and observe our earth clairvoyantly, we see that
this earth beneath our feet and around us, as a physical planet,
discloses itself as a further development of what existed as the moon.
When we compare the two impressions, we may ask: How has the one
condition grown out of the other? And then arises before clairvoyant
vision, so to speak, the work which has been accomplished in order
that the old condition of our earth might pass over into our present
earth condition. We then have the impression that this transition has
been brought about by one or several of those spiritual beings, whom,
in the ranks of the hierarchies, we have called the Spirits of Form.
Thus do we gain a possibility of penetrating into the growth of the
planet, into its earlier conditions. The question now is: Can we look
back still further?
We must go into these considerations, for only by so doing shall we
understand in the right sense the spiritual beings who participate in
the work on these heavenly bodies.
As a second attempt of occult observation we must once more look away
from our earth and also from our moon, from all that is of the
moon-nature in the whole planetary system; and as far as we can,
transfer ourselves into the conditions of one or several of the other
planets, and compare their conditions one with another. Now, I am
referring to actual facts which can be apparent to our clairvoyant
consciousness. Clairvoyant vision, even if perhaps not simultaneously
(which the circumstances often do not permit) can be directed to other
planets of our planetary system, can become aware of the impressions
given by other planets of our system. If we thus observe a planet, or
several together, we do not yet gain much, for we do not yet gain a
clear conception of them; but we at once gain this if we proceed in a
certain way with these clairvoyant impressions. I will once more give
a comparison which will make clear what I actually mean. Suppose you
were to remember something you experienced in your eighteenth year,
and were to say to yourself. In my eighteenth year I took up a
standpoint with regard to this experience for which I was ripe at that
time. I shall perhaps be clearer about the matter if I call to mind
another experience. In my twenty-fifth year I experienced something
else connected with the same fact I will now compare the two
impressions one with another. Try to make clear to yourself what
you can gain in life by comparing things which belong together but are
apart from one another in time, and you then gain a general impression
in which the one will always throw light on the other. By means of
such a comparison you will actually call up and create a sort of
arithmetical method, a quite new concept from the cooperation of your
two memory-pictures. That is what the clairvoyant must do after
succeeding in allowing his vision to be impressed let us say
by Mars, Mercury, Venus, or Jupiter. He must now consider these
separate impressions, not individually but in relation and connection
with each other. He must let them work upon one another, bring them
into relation with each other. If he undertakes this work he will gain
the feeling that through the comparison of these impressions he again
has something like a memory-concept of the planetary system. This
again is not a condition possible at the present time, but one which
must have been possible in the past; for it expresses itself as
something which, as I described for the moon-condition, was the cause
of that which now exists in the planetary system. Now the impression
obtained in this way has really infinite peculiarities.
What must thus be related in what must seem to be very dry concepts,
is really one of the most wonderful impressions one can possibly have,
but here again, if we wish to describe the characteristics of this
impression, we can only do so by means of a comparison. I must admit
that I could not well endeavor to describe this impression in any
other way. I do not know whether you ever had the following experience
in ordinary physical life. No doubt there are times when you have been
moved to weeping and sadness, in pity and sympathy for the beings
around you in physical life. One may have yet another impression;
certainly many among you know the impression which comes occasionally
on reading an overwhelmingly arresting description in some work of
art, or, for example, when you read a scene in a book of which you
well know, if you would only consider a little, that there is no
reality in it. Yet your tears flow abundantly; you do not stop to
consider whether it is true or not, but you take that which is
described into your thought and your perception, so that it works like
a reality, and draws forth a flood of tears. Anyone who has had this
experience has a faint conception of what is meant when it is said:
One is inspired by something spiritual, concerning which one has
no opportunity of asking whether it is based on a physical reality;
one is inspired to an impression about which one wants to know
nothing, but which grieves one and throws one back upon oneself. It
fills one inwardly, one is filled as by some normal act of perception
of one's normal consciousness. We must speak of such an
impression if we are to describe the condition which overcomes us when
we compare the impressions which clairvoyant consciousness receives
from the individual planets. Everything we thus experience works
through our inner being alone, like a soul-impression; we gain a quite
definite idea of what an inspiration really is, when we know things
for which the impulse of knowledge can only come from within. For
instance, no one really understands the content of the Gospels unless
he can compare the impressions they made on him with such an
impression as has just been described. For the Gospels were written
from inspiration, only one must go back to their original text. Even
greater and more powerful is the impression received in the manner
described through a comparison of the impressions made by the
individual planets. This is the first thing I should like to say about
this impression. The second thing is that we cannot gain this
impression undisturbed and unchecked unless we are capable, at least
for a few moments in our present cycle of time scarcely anyone
is capable of this for longer of wholeheartedly feeling nothing
but sympathy and love; of driving egotism utterly and completely out
of the soul; for the smallest degree of egotism united with this
impression immediately works deadeningly; and in place of what I have
described, we immediately reach a kind of stupefaction, a deadening of
the consciousness. Our consciousness is then immediately darkened. It
is therefore one of the most blessed experiences to have such an
impression.
If we are fortunate enough to have it, something very peculiar occurs.
The sun, as such, no longer exists for our consciousness, no matter
what we may do. Just as surely as the sun exists in our other
conditions of consciousness, so it no longer exists in this. The sun
ceases to be something apart from ourselves; but when we begin to find
our way about, we gain the impression: We have before us a
condition in which a separate sun no longer has any meaning. For
we can only again have the whole which appears before our occult
vision if we look away from our present-day planetary system, and only
focus our occult gaze upon our present-day sun; that is, when
we extinguish the physical impression of the sun. We can best do this
if we try to have the occult impression of the sun, not by day, but by
night. Naturally the fact that at night the physical earth stands
before the sun is no reason for the occult vision to have no
impression of it, for though the physical earth is impenetrable by
physical eyes, it is not so for occult sight. On the contrary, if we
try in clear daylight to direct our occult vision to the sun, the
disturbances are so great that we can scarcely succeed, without
physical harm, in gaining a good occult impression of it. Hence in the
ancient Mysteries it was never attempted to allow the scholars to gain
an occult impression of the sun by day; they were taught that they
might learn to know the sun in its peculiar nature when it is least
visible to physical eyes, namely, at midnight. The pupils were taught
to direct their occult vision to the sun, through the physical earth,
precisely at midnight. Hence among the many descriptions of the
ancient Mysteries, you find among other things, which for the most
part are no longer understood today the sentence in the
Egyptian Mysteries, for instance: The pupil must see the sun at
midnight.
What has not been brought forward by dilettantism, to explain by all
sorts of nice, neat symbols, what is meant by seeing the sun at
midnight? People as a rule have no idea that the things imparted
in occult writings are most correctly understood if no endeavor is
made to explain them by means of symbols, but are taken as literally
as possible. The modern man, as a rule, only feels himself drawn to
symbolic interpretations because the consciousness of to-day is no
longer rightly organized for the understanding of these old facts. To
those who reflect more closely it should be clear that in ancient
writings it was the custom to speak accurately. I should like (in
parenthesis as it were) to draw your attention to one thing which
might have been added to the public lecture given yesterday, with
reference to
Kriemhilde.
It was stated that after Siegfried was dead, she took for herself the
treasure of the Nibelung and did a great deal of good with it; but
Hagen took it from her and threw it into the Rhine. When later on, in
the kingdom of King Etzel she demanded it again of Hagen he did not
disclose to her the place where it lay. You see, this passage is given
circumstantially in the Nibelung Saga, in order to throw light on
certain things. In the symbolical explanations of the Saga I have
found intellectual and very brilliant interpretations supposed to
elucidate what it all signifies. The treasure of the Nibelungs has a
quite different meaning in them all. I admit that the intellectual
labor brought to bear on such explanations is sometimes overwhelming;
the treasure of the Nibelungs is generally explained as being
the symbol for something spiritual. But, in the first place, it is
very difficult to heal the sick with mere symbols. In the second place
one cannot conceal a symbol from any one, even from Kriemhilde, by
throwing it into the Rhine; at least I cannot very well imagine a
symbol of the sort many expounders allege this to be, being sunk in
the Rhine. Altogether it is very difficult for me to imagine how a
thing which is only to be symbolically explained, could be taken away
from someone externally. Everyone who understands these things knows
it was a question of something very special, something we should now
call a talisman an entirely physical talisman, which was
compounded in such a way that it was entirely composed of gold. This
gold was, however, only to be extracted from alluvial deposit left by
the water in an estuary, and the whole power of this alluvial gold was
compressed into the form (and now comes the symbol) into
the form of this talisman, the effect of which on Kriemhilde produced
in her the forces by which she could heal the sick, and so on. Hagen
could actually conceal this talisman from her, and later, refuse to
reveal the hiding place. Thus one has really to do with a physical
thing, with a quite real thing; in which occult powers existed only
through the special nature of its composition. I have given this as an
example, to show you how one must often understand things in the old
writings.
So we must take the expression seeing the sun at midnight,
quite literally. Thus we can best acquire an occult impression of the
sun if we are not disturbed by physical impressions; that is, if we
see nothing of the sunlight at all but, observe the sun at night. We
then gain an impression of the present-day sun, which to a very great
extent resembles what is obtained by the impression previously
described. Through all that I have described to you, there results an
impression of a still earlier condition of our planetary system, to
which our earth too belongs, a condition when the sun was not yet
separated, but when the whole planetary system was, in a sense, Sun,
and contained within it the substance of our earth. This condition,
which at the same time was that of our earth, is therefore designated
as the Sun-condition. So that we say. Before our earth became earth it
was in a Moon-condition; before it was Moon it was in a Sun-condition.
An approximate repression of a yet earlier condition of our
earth-planet can be obtained if we try to gain an occult impression of
that category of heavenly bodies of which we spoke at the end of our
last lecture the comets. To describe this more accurately would absorb
too much of our time, but in method it is very like what has been
already described. If we now compare what we gain through the occult
perception of cometary life with the concept (it is now a
question of having to form a certain concept, for we cannot well
compare the memory-concept thus obtained with anything at the present
time) we receive an immediate impression beyond this one cannot
go of having reached a condition lying still further back than
the Sun-condition, which for certain reasons is called the Saturn
condition. Thus you see that the inner experiences we may have about
the planetary system, are decisive for the occultist for the concepts
he forms concerning it.
We will now for a little while, leave the planetary system. Everything
which I have till now brought forward, has been mentioned with the aim
and object of culminating in a general description of the modes of
action of the spiritual beings in the heavenly bodies. As, however,
the heavenly bodies are, as it were, built up from the kingdoms of
nature, we must also create, at least approximately, an idea from the
standpoint of the occultist, of the immediate facts revealed to occult
vision when we allow the separate kingdoms of nature to work upon us.
Let us proceed to the consideration of the kingdoms of nature,
beginning with man.
You know that when we observe man we find that he consists of physical
body, etheric body, astral body, and what we call the
Ego-nature, the I itself. Where is this
four-membered human being to be found, according to anthroposophical
observation? Well, this four-membered human being is in the physical
world; for everything which has now been related of man takes place in
the physical world. We will now pass over to the animal world. If we
consider the animal, it is quite certain that we find the physical
body of the animal in our ordinary sense-world, as we do that of man.
Of that there can be no doubt. We must, however, also ascribe an
astral and an etheric body to the animal; for we ascribe an etheric
body to man in the physical world because it would not be possible for
his physical body to exist alone in the physical world. This is
evident directly a man passes through the gates of death. His physical
body is then left alone in the physical world and falls to pieces; it
is given over to its own forces. As long as man lives, there must be a
combatant present to carry on a perpetual battle against the crumbling
away of the physical body, and this combatant is the etheric body,
which is really only visible to occult consciousness. The same
circumstances also prevail in the animal, so that we must ascribe to
it an etheric body in the physical world. Now because it is clear to
us that facts and things not only affect man but mirror themselves in
him, calling up something which we may call an inner reflection, we
therefore ascribe to man an astral body; which is visible to occult
vision. It is exactly the same in the case of the animal. Whereas the
plant utters no cry when an external impression is made on it, the
animal expresses itself in a cry, that is, an external impression
produces an inner experience. Occult vision teaches us that this inner
experience is only possible when an astral body is present.
Yet to speak of an ego in the animal, as a phenomenon of
the physical world, has no meaning except to certain modern
natural-philosophers, who live entirely according to analogy. If one
judged merely from analogy one can maintain all sorts of things. There
are even certain theosophists today who were filled with respect when
a certain well-known student of nature, Raoul France, ascribed a soul
to plants, and did not differentiate between what we call a soul in
the animal and in the plants. For instance he considered, and this is
quite correct, that there are certain plants which, when a little
insect comes near them, fold their leaves together so that they draw
it in and devour it. This external observer then says to himself:
Wherever facts appear in nature externally, analogous to the
taking in of nourishment and consuming it, there must be something
resembling the beings which, from something of an inner soul-nature,
take in such things and consume them. Now I know something which
also attracts little creatures, but to this the modern
natural-philosopher would certainly not ascribe a soul; I mean a
mouse-trap, baited with bacon. This also attracts little creatures,
and if we proceed according to the methods of these
nature-philosophers, then, just as they attribute a soul to the plant
called Venus's fly-trap so must we attribute a soul to the
mouse-trap, for it attracts mice when well baited with bacon.
All these investigators, who do not merely judge by the external,
ought not to lose the longing which exists in many spiritually minded
people, and he content if very little is said of the spirit.
In this connection, in German literature as many say
much of beauty has been brought to light; but, as the occultist would
say; A great deal of nonsense has been talked. just as
little as we can speak of a soul-nature resembling the animal soul
dwelling in the Venus's fly-trap or any other plant, can
one with unbiased vision say of any animal, that it has an
ego. The animal has no ego in that which meets us on the
physical plane. Occult investigation could alone lead us to the ego of
the animals; for this is not to be found in the same region as the ego
of the human being. The animal ego is only to be found apart from the
physical body; so that we actually become acquainted with a completely
different world, when with occult vision, we ascend to the animal ego.
If we do not care to make all kinds of diagrammatic divisions, and to
begin by saying: The world consists of physical plane, astral plant,
mental plane, etc., because there is not much to be gained by such
verbal designations, we must then proceed in other ways. I have found
even in theosophical books, a great deal said about the expression
Logos; but I have not found any clear concept called forth
of what the Logos really is. As a rule I found that the
writers of these books only knew that this word Logos
consists of five letters; but as soon as one tried to arrive at real
definite concepts on which one could fix one's mind, the concepts
disappeared in smoke. For by relating all sorts of things, such as
that the Logos spins, etc., a consciousness desiring to be
concrete does not know what to make of it. Whatever the
Logos may be, a spider he certainly is not; neither can
his activity be described as a web.
Thus, it is, not good to begin with abstractions, to call up concepts
in speaking of things extending beyond the physical sphere of man. It
is somewhat different when occult vision seeks in the animal, for that
which in man reveals itself in the physical world in all the actions
and proceedings of man, namely, the ego. If he seeks that for the
animal, he will find it, not in the world in which are the physical,
etheric, and astral bodies of the animal but in a super-sensible world,
which appears nearest to the sense-world as soon as one draws aside
the veil of the ordinary world. So that we can say: In a world of a
super-sensible nature we can find the ego of the animals. There it
appears as a reality; but in the physical world this animal ego does
not appear to us as an individuality; we can only understand it here
if we direct our attention to a group of animals a group of
wolves or of lambs, etc. Just as a single soul belongs to our two
hands, our ten fingers, and our feet a soul which has within it
its own ego; so does a group of animals of one species possess such an
ego as we do not find in our physical world; it only reveals and
manifests itself in the physical world. The ordinary abstract
materialist of the day says: That alone is a reality in the animal
which we see with physical eyes and if we form a concept of a
wolf or of a lamb, these are just ideas and nothing more. For the
occultist that is not so; these are not mere ideas which live within
us, they are reflected pictures of something real which is not,
however, on the physical plane, but in a super-sensible world. Now,
with a little reflection, it is evident that even on the physical
plane, beyond what can be perceived by the senses there still exists
something which cannot be perceived in the physical world but yet has
a meaning for the inner relations of the forces of animals. I should
like those people who, for instance, take the concept of wolf as an
idea which does not correspond to any reality, to attend to the
following experiment. Suppose we take a number of lambs the
wolf is known to feed upon lamb and feed a wolf with them long
enough according to what Natural Science has ascertained, for the
whole physical matter to be transformed so that the wolf,
during the time in which his physical corporeality is being replaced,
has been fed only upon lamb, that the wolf has nothing but lamb within
it. All you then see as physical matter in the wolf proceeds from
nothing but lamb; now try to find out whether the wolf has become a
lamb. If it has not, you have no right to say that the concept which
you have of the wolf is limited to that which can be perceived
physically, for there is something super-sensible in it. This cannot be
met with until we enter the super-sensible world; there it becomes
evident that, just as our ten fingers belong to the one soul, so do
all wolves belong to a group-ego. The world in which we find the
group-egos of the animals, we designate concretely as the astral
world.
Now as regards the plants, a similar observation shows that in the
physical world we find nothing of the plant but its physical and
etheric bodies. Just because the plants have only their physical and
etheric bodies in the physical world they do not cry out when we
injure them. We must therefore say; only the physical and etheric
bodies of the plant exist in the physical world. If with occult vision
we investigate, which we do by simply transplanting ourselves into
that world in which is the group-ego of the animals, we find something
very characteristic with regard to the plant-kingdom: we find that
there is pain even in the plant world; this is certainly felt when we
tear plants out of the ground by the roots. The collective
earth-organism feels pain resembling that which we feel when a hair is
pulled out of our body. Other life also, conscious life, is connected
with the growth of plants. Try to imagine the sprouting forth I
have already touched upon this question during these lectures
pushing forth of the shoots of the plants from the earth in spring;
this springing forth corresponds to a feeling in certain spiritual
beings, beings belonging to the earth and participating in its
spiritual atmosphere.
To describe this feeling we may compare it with the perception one has
at the moment of passing at night from the waking-condition to that of
sleep. Just as the consciousness then gradually dies down, so do
certain spirits of the earth feel, when the plants spring forth in
spring. Again in the gradual fading and dying of the plant-world,
certain spiritual beings connected with the spiritual atmosphere of
the earth have the same feeling as man has when he awakens in the
morning. Thus we can say: There are certain beings connected with the
organism of our earth who have the same feelings as our own astral
body has in falling asleep and waking. Only one must not compare these
abstractly. It would, of course, seem much more actual to compare the
springing forth of nature in the spring, with the waking and
the dying down of the plant-world in autumn with falling asleep; but
the reverse is correct: namely the beings we are now considering, feel
a sort of awakening in autumn, but a sort of falling asleep at the
springing forth of the plants in the spring. Now these beings are none
other than the astral bodies of the plants; and we find them in the
same region as the group-souls of the animals. The astral bodies of
the plants are to be found on the so-called astral plane.
Now we must also speak of an ego of the plants, when we observe them
occultly. We find this ego of the plants again in like manner as a
group-ego, as something belonging to a whole group or species of
plants, just like the group-egos of the animals; but in vain should we
look for the group-egos of the plants in the same sphere as the astral
bodies of the plants and the group-egos of the animals. We must pass
into a still higher super-sensible world; we must raise ourselves from
the astral plane into a world which we perceive as still higher. Only
in such a world can we find the group-egos of the plants. In
investigating this world we may again give it a name. To us it is
first of all characterised by the fact that the group-egos of the
plants are there, although there is much in it besides these. We,
designate it though names have nothing to do with the matter
as the Devachanic world.
Now it is easy to see in the physical world that we have only the
physical body of the minerals. Hence the mineral appears to us as
inorganic, devoid of life; on the other hand, we have its etheric body
in the same world in which are the group-egos of the animals, and the
astral bodies of the plants. But even here we can find nothing of the
mineral nature which reveals sensation. Yet even the mineral reveals
itself as living. We learn to know the long-enduring life of the
mineral, its growth, and the self-development, so to speak, of
the ores and the like; in short, on the astral plane we become
acquainted with the various forms of mineral life on our planet. When
we come across an individual mineral, we learn to recognize that it is
not very different from our own mineral-like bones which yet are
connected with our life. Thus everything mineral is also connected
with a living being, but that living being is only to be found on the
astral plane. The etheric body of the mineral, therefore, is to be
found on the astral plane. Now if we halt occultly, as it were, in
that world in which are the group-egos of the plants, we observe that
the mineral kingdom is also connected with something in which feeling
is possible, something astral. When stones are broken in a quarry, no
perception of this is noticed on the astral plane; but on the
Devachanic plane it is immediately evident that when stones are
pulverized and the parts fly asunder something like a feeling of
well-being, a sort of enjoyment actually appears. That is also a
feeling; but it is in contradiction to the feeling which animals and
men would have in such a case. Were they to be smashed to pieces, they
would suffer pain; with the mineral the reverse is the case. When it
is crushed it is conscious of a feeling of well-being. If we dissolve
cooking salt in a glass of water, and follow with vision directed to
the Devachanic world how the salt forms into crystals, we see that
this causes pain: we feel that there is pain at the point of union.
This is everywhere the case in mineral life when fluids, through
crystallization, form into solids. This in fact is what happened to
our earth, which was at one time in a softer, more liquid condition.
Solid matter has gradually been formed out of the fluid, and we now
walk about on solid ground and drive our ploughs into it. In so doing
we do not give the earth pain; it feels it to be good. But it did not
please the beings connected with the earth, and which as astral
kingdom belong to the planet, that they had to be compactly welded
together in order that human life might become possible on the planet.
The beings which as astral bodies stand behind the rocks had to endure
pain upon pain. In the mineral kingdom the beings, the creation,
suffer as the earth progresses. It gives one a very strange feeling
when, after recognizing this from occult investigation, one turns
again to the celebrated passage, written by an Initiate: All
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together, waiting for the
Redemption; waiting for the adoption of the state of childhood.
Such passages as this, in the writings based on occult vision, are as
a rule read carelessly, but when one reads them with occult vision,
then, for the first time, one knows that though they yield a great
deal to even the simplest mind, they give still more to those who can
perceive all, or at least a great deal, of what is contained in them.
The sighing and groaning of the mineral kingdom has to be, because the
process of the civilisation of our earth needs solid ground under its
feet; that is what St. Paul represents when he speaks of the sighing
of creation.
All this takes place in those beings which lie behind the mineral
kingdom as its astral body, and which we find in the Devachanic world.
The actual ego, the real group-ego of the mineral kingdom is to be
sought in a higher world, which we will call the higher Devachanic
world. Here only do we find the group-egos of the mineral kingdom. You
must emancipate yourselves entirely from the conception of identifying
what we call the astral body of a being with the astral world. With
regard to the minerals, their astral body is to be sought for in
Devachan; on the other hand their etheric body is in the astral world.
The group-egos of the animals are on the astral plane and the astral
body of the animal on the physical plane. We must say of the world, as
we know it: We must not identify what we recognize as the
individual principles of beings, with the corresponding worlds, but
must accustom ourselves to presuppose differentiations among the
various beings. A more accurate occult discernment makes this quite
clear. Thus provisionally we have to find only the group-souls of the
minerals in a higher Devachanic region.
We have now spoken of the different beings of the various kingdoms of
nature in their relation to the higher worlds, and this alone can give
us a foundation for seeking the relations of these various kingdoms of
nature to the creative beings of the hierarchies, who are active and
working in the world, as we have now learnt to know them.
Public lecture given at Helsingfors, 9th April, 1912. The Nature
of National Epics, with special reference to the Kalevala.
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