III
Now, I
wish to approach the problem we are dealing with in these
reflections from another point of departure. In spiritual
science we must proceed so that we encircle the problem, in a
sense, and approach it from various points and directions. When
we observe a life such as Goethe's, one thing must strike us
that may become a profound riddle in the evolution of humanity.
This is so even when we take into consideration repeated lives
on earth and include them in our deliberation of the molding of
a human life. The problem is this: What is the reason that
individuals such as Goethe are capable of creating something so
significant out of their inner nature, as he did especially
through his Faust, and through this exert so important
an influence on the rest of humanity? How does it happen that
certain individuals are separated from the rest of humanity and
are summoned by cosmic destiny to do something of such
significance? We compare such an important life and work with
that of each individual and ask ourselves: What conclusion can
be drawn from the difference between these individual lives and
the lives of these preeminent persons?
This
question can be answered only when we observe life somewhat
more thoroughly with the tools provided by spiritual science.
To begin with, all that a person can know, especially in our
time, is intended to conceal and disguise certain things and to
keep unprejudiced reflections out of touch with them. This
often makes it necessary in the sphere of spiritual science to
adapt what we say to what can be understood by others.
Now,
the description we generally give in spiritual science is that
man consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and
ego. In explaining the alternation between waking and sleeping,
we say that in the waking state the ego and astral body are
within the physical and etheric bodies but, during sleep, the
ego and astral body are outside. This is adequate for a primary
understanding, and it corresponds exactly with the spiritual
scientific facts. But the truth is that we give only a part of
the full reality in this description. We can never encompass
the full reality in just one description, and thus we exhaust
only part of anything we describe. We always need to seek light
from other sources in order to properly illumine the part of
reality already described. Here it must be stated that,
speaking generally, sleeping and waking are really a sort of
cyclic movement. Strictly speaking, the ego and astral body are
outside the physical and etheric bodies in sleep only in being
outside the head. Because the ego and astral body in sleep are
outside the physical and etheric head, they bring about a more
vivid activity in the rest of the human organization. It is,
indeed, during sleep, when the ego and astral body are working
from without upon the human being, that everything in him that
does not belong to the head but to other parts of his
organization is subjected to a far stronger influence of the
ego and astral body than when he is awake. It may even be said
that the action that the ego and astral body bring to bear upon
the head in the waking state is exerted upon the rest of the
organism during sleep. We can, therefore, rightly compare the
ego with the sun, which illumines our environment during the
day but during the night, it not only is outside of us but
lights the other side of the earth. So, likewise, is it day in
the rest of our organism when it is night for our sensory
perception, which is primarily connected with the head;
reciprocally, it is night for the rest of our organism when it
is day for our head; that is, the rest of our organism is more
or less withdrawn from the ego and astral body when we are
awake. If we wish to understand the entire human being, this is
something that must also be added to illumine the full
reality.
Now,
it is important to grasp correctly the connection of the
psychic with the physical in man if we wish to understand
properly what I have just told you. I have often stressed the
fact that the nervous system of the physical organism is a
unified organization, and it is really sheer nonsense,
impossible to prove anatomically, to classify the nerves as
sensory and motor. They are organized as a unity and all have
one function. The so-called motor nerves are distinguished from
the so-called sensory only to the extent that the sensory
nerves are arranged to serve our perception of the outer world
whereas the motor nerves serve for the perception of our
organism. It is not the function of a motor nerve to cause my
hand to move, for example; this is sheer nonsense. It exists
for the purpose of perceiving my hand's movement from within.
The sensory nerves, however, serve in the perception of the
outer world. This is their sole distinction. As you know, our
nervous system is divided into three branches: those nerves
whose main center is the brain, centered in the head, the
nerves that are centered in the spinal cord, and the nerves
that belong to the ganglionic system [autonomic nervous
system]. These are, in essence, the three kinds of nerves, and
the important point is to know how they are related to the
spiritual members of our organism.
Which
is the finest and most advanced member of the nervous system
and which the least? Quite obviously, those who adhere to the
ordinary scientific world conception will answer that the
nervous system of the brain is naturally the noblest because it
distinguishes man from the animal. But such is not the case.
This nervous system of the brain is really connected with the
entire organization of the etheric body. Obviously, additional
relationships exist everywhere so that our brain system is
naturally related to the astral body or the ego. But these are
secondary relationships. Those between our nervous system of
the brain and our etheric body are the primary, original ones.
This has nothing to do with the view I once presented in which
I explained that the entire nervous system has been brought
into existence with the help of the astral body. This is
something quite different and must be kept quite distinct. In
its original potentiality, the nervous system was brought into
existence during the Moon period. It has evolved further,
however, and other relationships have been introduced since its
first formation, so that our brain system really has its most
intimate and important relationship with our etheric body. The
spinal cord system has its most intimate and primary
relationships with our present astral body, and the ganglionic
system is related with the actual ego. These are the primary
relationships as they now exist.
Considering all this, we shall readily see that an especially
active relationship exists during the state of sleep between
our ego and ganglionic system, which extends throughout the
trunk of the body, ensheathing the spinal cord, etc. But these
relationships are lessened during the waking life of day. They
are more intimate during sleep, as are the relationships
between the astral body and spinal cord nerves. We may say,
then, that during sleep especially intimate relationships
obtain between our astral body and the nerves of the spinal
cord, and between our ego and ganglionic system. To a greater
or lesser degree, we live during sleep, as regards our ego, in
a strong connection with our ganglionic system. Someday,
through a thorough study of the puzzling world of dreams,
people will come to know what I am here pointing out on the
basis of spiritual scientific investigation.
Taking
this into consideration, you will arrive at a transition to
another essential, important thought. Something significant for
our life must be due to the rhythmical alternation that occurs
in the living union between the ego and the ganglionic system,
and between the astral body and the spinal cord system. This
rhythmical alternation is identical with the alternation of
sleeping and waking. Thus, you will not be surprised when the
statement is made that, just because the ego is really so truly
in the ganglionic system and the astral body is so truly in the
spinal cord system, man wakes in relation to the ganglionic and
spinal cord systems during sleep, and sleeps in this
relationship while awake. Here we can only ask how it comes
about that so little is known of that vivid state of waking
that must really be developed during sleep. Well, when you
consider how man has come to be, that his ego has taken its
place in him only during earthly existence and is, therefore,
really the baby among his human members, it will not then seem
amazing that this ego life cannot yet bring to consciousness
what it experiences in the ganglionic system during sleep,
whereas it can bring into full consciousness what it
experiences when it is in the head, which is primarily the
result of all those impulses that were at work during the Moon,
Sun, etc., periods.
What
the ego can bring to consciousness depends on the instrument it
can use. That used during the night is still comparatively
delicate. As I have pointed out in previous lectures, the rest
of the organism really developed later than the head, has only
been added later, and is an appendage of the fully developed
head organism. When we say that relative to his physical body,
man has passed through longer or shorter stages beginning with
Saturn, we are referring only to his head. What is attached to
his head is in many ways a later formation of the Moon period,
and even of the earth. It is for this reason that the vivid
life that is developed during sleep, and that has its organic
seat to a large extent in the spinal cord and ganglionic
systems, enters consciousness at first only in a small degree.
But it is not because of this a less significantly vivid life.
One can say with equal justification that during sleep the
possibility is offered to man to descend into his ganglionic
system and that in the waking state the possibility is given to
ascend to his senses and brain system. You will surely say,
“How this complicates and confuses everything that we have
acquired!” Man, however, is a complicated being and we do not
learn to understand him when we fail to permit these complex
complications to work upon us.
Now
just suppose that what I have described regarding Goethe
actually happens to someone and his etheric body is loosened.
Then an entirely different relationship comes about during the
waking life between his soul-spiritual and his organic-physical
nature. As I expressed it yesterday, he is put on a sort of
isolated pedestal. But such an effect can never come about
without being followed by another. It is important to bear in
mind that such a relationship does not occur one-sidedly, but
brings about another. If one expresses what I characterized
yesterday somewhat more crudely, we may even say that the
loosening of the etheric body influences the entire waking life
in a certain way, but this cannot happen without also
influencing the sleeping life. The result is simply that the
person comes into looser relationships with his brain
impressions. Because of this, he enters into more intimate
relationships during the waking state with his spinal cord
nerves and ganglionic system. At the time that Goethe fell ill,
he developed, as it were, a looser relationship with his brain
but at the same time he experienced a more intimate
relationship with his ganglionic and spinal cord systems.
What
is actually happening as a result of this experience? What does
it mean to say that a more intimate relationship comes about
with the ganglionic and spinal cord systems? It means that the
individual enters into an entirely different relationship with
the external world. We are, of course, always in the most
intimate relationship with the outer world, but we merely fail
to observe how intimate the relationship is. But I have often
called your attention to the fact that the air that you hold
within you at one moment is, in the next, outside, and then
different air is taken in. Thus, what is outside takes on the
form of the body and unites with it when you inhale. It is only
seemingly true that the organism is distinct from the external
world. It is a member of it and belongs to it. If, therefore,
such a modification in an individual's relationship to the
external world occurs as has been described, it makes itself
felt strongly in his life. Indeed, it may be said that in such
a personality as Goethe's, the lower nature, which we generally
connect with the spinal cord and ganglionic systems, must come
to the fore all the more strongly through this process. As the
forces draw back from the head, the ganglionic and spinal cord
systems take possession of them in larger measure.
An
understanding for what really happens here is acquired only
when we permeate ourselves with the knowledge that what we call
the intellect and reason is not really so closely bound up with
our individuality as is ordinarily assumed. It is clear that
contemporary basic conceptions of these things are completely
wrong; in part, it is in these matters that contemporary views
are least frequently right. This has been especially evident in
the muddle-headed behavior by some people in our age, including
members of the most learned circles, when they tried to
interpret their experiences with so-called dogs, apes, horses,
etc. As you know, reports came out of the blue and were
circulated about educated horses that can speak and do all
sorts of things, about a highly educated dog that made a great
stir in Mannheim, and an educated monkey in the Frankfurt zoo
that had been taught to do arithmetic, as well as other things
that one cannot mention in polite society. The Frankfurt
chimpanzee, in other words, has been trained in certain natural
necessities to behave like humans rather than monkeys. I will
not pursue this further, but all this caused the greatest
astonishment, not only among laymen, but also among
professionals. They were actually enraptured, especially when
the Mannheim dog, after one of its beloved offspring died,
wrote a letter telling how this dear puppy would be together
with the archetypal soul, what it would be like and so on. That
dog wrote a most intelligent letter.
Well,
we need not elaborate on these specially complicated
expressions of intelligence, but what stands out is that all
these various animals performed feats of arithmetic. A great
deal of attention was then given to the investigation of what
such animals can achieve. Something quite unusual came to light
in the case of the Frankfurt ape. It was possible to witness
that when he was given a problem in addition to which he had to
find a definite answer he pointed to the correct number in a
series placed side by side. It was then discovered that this
educated ape had simply formed the habit of being guided by the
direction of the glance of his trainer. Then some of those who
had previously been astonished said, “He has no trace of a
mind; his training is everything!” In other words, the animal
was taking his direction from his trainer and followed nothing
more than a somewhat complicated training procedure. Just as a
dog fetches a stone when it is thrown, so did the ape produce
from the series of numbers the one indicated by the glance of
his trainer.
Upon
more thorough investigation, similar findings will undoubtedly
be obtained in experiments with the other animals. Whatever, we
cannot suppress our astonishment that people are so amazed when
animals perform something that is seemingly human. How much
more objective understanding, how much intellect, is actually
associated with the so-called instinctual behavior in animals.
As a matter of fact, the enormously important achievements and
profoundly significant connections in the animal realm cause us
to admire the wisdom underlying all happenings. We do not have
wisdom merely in our heads; wisdom surrounds us everywhere like
light, working everywhere, even through the animal kingdom. In
the presence of such unusual phenomena as we have mentioned,
only those people are astonished who have not seriously dealt
with scientific developments. To all those who today are
writing such learned tracts on the Mannheim dog and other dogs,
on horses and the Frankfurt ape, along with much else because
these are not unique — to all these I should like to read a
passage from
Comparative Psychology
by Carus
(Note 59)
that was published as early as 1866. Since
they are not here, I will read the passage to you. Carus
writes:
...
When, therefore, the dog, for example, has long been treated
with kindness and affection by his master, the human traits
imprint themselves upon the animal quite objectively, even
though it has no conception of goodness as such; they blend
with the sensory image of this person that the dog has often
seen and cause the animal to recognize him, even apart from the
sense of sight, merely through scent or hearing, as the one
from whom something good once came to him. If, therefore, some
suffering befalls this man, if he is even deprived, perhaps, of
the possibility of continuing his kindness to the dog, the
animal feels this as something evil inflicted upon him and is
moved thereby to rage and revenge; all this occurs without any
abstract thinking whatever, but only through the succession of
one sensory image after another.
It is
certainly true that for the dog sensory image follows sensory
image; however, intelligence and wisdom are at the bottom of
the phenomenon per se. Carus continues as follows:
Yet is
it strange how closely actual thinking is approached and
may be resembled in its results by such a peculiar weaving
together, separating and again joining together of the images
of the inner sense. Thus, I once saw a well-trained white
poodle (this was not the Mannheim dog because this book was
written in 1866) that correctly picked out and placed together
letters for words spoken to him. He also seemed to solve
simple problems in arithmetic by bringing together figures
written, as were the letters, on separate sheets of paper,
seemed to be able to count how many ladies were present
in the company, and did other similar things. Of course, if all
this had depended upon a real understanding of number as
a mathematical concept, it would not have been possible without
actual reflection. It turned out, however, that the dog
had simply been trained to pick up, on a slight gesture or
sound from his master, the paper bearing the required letter or
number from the series of sheets laid before him. Upon another
indication through an equally slight sound, like the clicking
of the thumbnail against the nail of another finger, he would
lay the sheet down in another row, thus performing what seemed
to be a miracle.
(Note 60)
You
see, not only the phenomenon, but also its explanation has long
been known. Only now has this explanation been furnished again
by the scientists because people pay no attention to what has
been accomplished in the past. It is only for this reason that
such things occur, and they bear testimony, not to our advanced
science, but to our advanced ignorance!
On the
other hand, certain objections have rightly been raised. If we
had only these explanations (as we have heard them today) they
might be considered equally naive, because Hermann Bahr
(Note 61)
has quite correctly reminded us of the following. Herr Pfungst
(Note 62)
demonstrated that the
horses reacted to extremely slight cues made unconsciously and
unperceived by their trainers. But Herr Pfungst was able to
perceive these exceedingly slight gestures only after he had
worked for a long time in his physiological laboratory
constructing an apparatus to detect them. Bahr justifiably
raises the objection that it was certainly most peculiar that
only the horse should be clever enough to observe the gestures,
whereas a university instructor had to work for years
constructing an apparatus to do so — I believe it took him ten
or more years. In all such things there is obviously a bit of
truth, but we must simply view them in the right way.
With
the proper perception, one can obviously explain such phenomena
only when one thinks of objective wisdom and understanding as
qualities that, along with instinctive behavior, have been
instilled in things, and when one thinks of an animal as part
of a complete system of interrelated objective wisdom
permeating the world. In other words, they can be explained
only when we are no longer limited to the idea that wisdom has
come into the world through man alone, but recognize that
wisdom is to be found throughout the universe. Man, by reason
of his special organization, is able to perceive more of this
wisdom than other beings, and is thus distinguished from them.
Because of his organization, he can perceive more than they,
but through the wisdom implanted in them, they can perform
wisdom-filled tasks as he can. It is, however, a different kind
of wisdom. The phenomena of these unusual expressions of
wisdoms are really far less important to serious observers of
the world than the phenomena that are always spread out before
their eyes. These are far more important and, if you take this
into consideration, you will no longer find incomprehensible
what I am about to say.
An
animal, far more intensely than man, fits into the universal
wisdom and is quite intimately united with it. Its orders, so
to speak, are far more compulsory than those of man. Human
beings are much freer, and so it is possible for them to
reserve forces for the cognition of interrelationships. The
essential point is that the physical body of an animal —
especially the higher ones — is fitted into the same universal
interrelationships as man's etheric body. Thus, man knows more
of the cosmic relationships, but animals are far more
intimately united with them; they are far closer to, and more
interwoven with, them. Therefore, if you take this objectively
dominant reason into consideration tell yourself this: “We are
surrounded not only by air and light but also by governing
reason; we do not move merely through illumined space but also
through the space of wisdom and governing reason.” You will
then fully understand what it means for a person to be fitted
into the world in regard to the finer relationships of his or
her organs, and not just in an ordinary way. In normal life, a
man, for example, is joined to spiritual cosmic relationship in
such a fashion that the connection between his ego and
ganglionic system, and between his astral body and spinal cord
system, are greatly impaired during the waking life of day. But
because these connections are subdued, he is not too attentive
in ordinary, normal life to what is going on around him. It
would be possible for him to observe this only if he really
should see with his ganglionic system as he otherwise perceives
with his head.
If,
however, as in the special case of Goethe, the astral body is
brought into a more vivid relationship with the spinal cord
system and the ego with the ganglionic, because the ether body
has withdrawn from the head, then far more vivid intercourse
occurs with what is going on in our surroundings. But it is
concealed from us in normal life because it is only while we
are asleep at night that we enter into relationship with our
spiritual environment. Here you arrive at an understanding of
how the things Goethe has written were for him genuine
perceptions, and although these could naturally not have been
so clear as our sensory perceptions of the external world, yet
they are clearer than the perceptions that an ordinary man has
of his spiritual environment. Now, what did Goethe perceive in
this way with special vividness? Let us grasp this point
clearly through a special instance.
Through the complications of his particular karma, Goethe was
destined to enter a life of scholarship and knowledge
differently from an ordinary scholar. What did he experience
through this? You see, for many centuries it has been so that a
man who grows into intimate union with a life of learning has
experienced a significant discord. To be sure, today it is more
concealed than in Goethe's time, but it nevertheless is
experienced because there is an enormous field in science that
has been preserved from the fourth post-Atlantean epoch in the
terminologies and systems of words that we are compelled to
acquire. We trade more than we realize in words. All this has
been obscured somewhat through the experimentation that has
gradually been introduced since the nineteenth century, and a
person now grows into his knowledge so that he sees more than
he did earlier. Such sciences as jurisprudence, for instance,
have descended somewhat from the specially lofty positions they
previously occupied. But when jurisprudence and theology still
occupied their specially lofty stations, the areas of learning
man was trying to penetrate were really comprehensive systems
of words, and the same is true of other things that had to be
taken in as an inheritance from the fourth post-Atlantean
period.
Along
with this, what arises from the needs of the fifth
post-Atlantean period made itself felt in an ever increasing
way; that is, the life that arises from the great achievements
of the new period. This is not realized by anyone who is simply
driven from one lecture to another, but Goethe experienced it
most intensely. I say that a person who is simply driven from
one lecture to another does not sense it, but he passes through
it nonetheless. He really passes through it. Here we touch the
edge of a certain mystery of modern life. We can judge students
who are enrolled in courses according to what they experience
and what they are conscious of. But what they experience is not
the whole story. Their inner nature is something quite
different. If these individuals who are experiencing these
overlapping layers of the fourth and fifth post-Atlantean
epochs really knew what a certain part of their being is going
through unconsciously, they would then have an entirely
different understanding of what Goethe, even in youth,
concealed mysteriously in his Faust. Countless persons
who are finding their way into contemporary education are
unconsciously sharing in this experience.
We
must, therefore, remind ourselves that, by reason of all that
Goethe had acquired because of his special karma, those with
whom he came into close relationship during his youth were
quite different to him than they would have been if he had not
had this special karma. He sensed and felt how the people with
whom he became intimately associated had to stupefy the
Faustian life within them so that they no longer possessed it.
He was able to sense this because what lived mysteriously in
his fellow men made an impression on him such as is made by one
person on another only when an especially intimate
relationship, indeed when love, develops between them. In such
a case of ordinary life, the connection of the ego with the
ganglionic system, and of the astral body with the spinal cord
system is highly active, although this is not consciously
perceived as such. Something very special is activated. But
what is otherwise active only in a love relationship came about
in Goethe vis à vis a far larger number of people, so that
he experienced a tremendous, more or less subconscious,
compassion for the poor fellows — excuse the expression — who
did not know what their inner natures were going through as
they were driven from class to class and from examination to
examination. This was felt by him and it gave him a rich
experience.
Experiences become conceptions. Ordinary experiences become the
conceptions of everyday life, but these particular experiences
become the conceptions, the mental images, that Goethe poured
tumultously into Faust. They were nothing but actual
experiences that he gained from the most extensive environment
because his ganglionic and spinal cord life was stimulated to
more than normal wakefulness. This was the opposite from the
subdued head life, but it was a potentiality in him even in his
boyhood. We can see this from his description of what became
active in him: not only what ordinarily engages people, say in
piano lessons,
(Note 63)
became active in him but also the
entire being. Goethe partook much more in the happenings of
real life as a whole person than others, and we must say,
therefore, that he was more wide-awake during the day than
they. During the time in his youth when he was working on
Faust, he was more awake during the day, and because of
this he also needed what I described yesterday as the time of
sleep — the ten years in Weimar. This dampening was
necessary.
This,
however, is just what happens to a greater or lesser degree in
every human being during the course of life, only in Goethe it
took place more intensely. He was simply drawn somewhat more
consciously than other men into the surrounding wisdom-filled
and purely spiritual influences. He became aware of what lives
and weaves mysteriously within men. What, then, is this really?
When we are put into the world in our ordinary and brutal
waking life together with our ego, we are bound up with the
world through our senses and our ordinary perceptions. But you
will agree that we are now much more closely bound with this
world. Our ego is, indeed, in an especially intimate relation
with our ganglionic system, and the astral body with the spinal
cord system. Through this relationship, we have really a far
more comprehensive connection with our environing world than
through the sensory system of our head.
Now
you must bear in mind that man needs the rhythmic alternation
of his ego and astral body in his head during the waking life
of day, and outside his head during sleep; because they are
outside his head during sleep, they develop an inner active
life in connection with the other systems, as I have indicated.
The ego and the astral body need this alternation of sinking
downward into the head and rising out of it. When man's ego and
astral body are outside his head, he not only develops that
intimate relationship with the rest of his organism through the
ganglionic and spinal cord systems, but he also develops
spiritual relationships with the spiritual world. Thus, we may
say that an especially active, vivid connection with the spinal
cord and ganglionic systems corresponds to an active
psychic-spiritual life with the spiritual world. Since we are
obliged to assume that the soul-spiritual is outside the head
at night, and since this causes the development of an
especially active life in the rest of the organism, we must
then say that during the life of day, when the ego and the
astral body are more within the head, we are in turn
experiencing a spiritual symbiosis with the surrounding
spiritual world. In a certain sense, we submerge ourselves in
an inner spiritual world in sleep, but in a surrounding
spiritual world when we awake.
This
state of being one with the surrounding spiritual world is more
pronounced in Goethe. He is, as it were, dreaming during a
state of wakefulness — just as the ordinary person does not
always fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. It is seldom that
anyone dreams consciously in this way during the life of the
day, but people like Goethe pass into a state of dreaming even
during the waking life. The forces that remain unconscious in
other people become, in a certain sense, dream-forms of life
for people like Goethe.
We now
have an even more exact description which might tempt you to
entertain the arrogant notion that all of you could easily
write a Faust poem since you are experiencing the
Faust dilemma by ranging out into and by living in union
with the surrounding world during your daytime life. The latter
is indeed true. We do experience Faust, but only as the
opposite pole is experienced in the night through the ego and
astral body when we do not dream. But since Goethe not only
experienced this unconsciously, but also dreamed it, he could
express it in Faust. He dreamed this experience and in
people such as Goethe the following takes place: what they
create stands in the same relationship to what the rest of us
experience unconsciously as does the dream to deep sleep on the
other side of our lives. This is an actual reality; the
creation of the great spirits are related to the unconscious
creations of other men as dream to dreamless sleep.
Even
so, much remains obscure. But bear in mind that you are thereby
gaining a glimpse into something that is intimately connected
with human life; it may be described somewhat as follows. We
could really say quite a bit about the connection between our
being and the surrounding world if we could awake just to the
stage of dreaming. If we were able to awaken only to the stage
of dreaming, we would experience tremendous things and would
also be able to describe them. But this would have a grave
consequence. Just think, if all men, to express it trivially,
were so conscious that they could describe everything in their
environment, if they would really describe experiences, for
example, like those of Goethe's as set forth in his
Faust, what would we come to? What would the world then
come to? Strange as it may seem but so it is, the world would
come to a stop and would make no further progress! The moment
everyone were to dream the way Goethe dreamt Faust,
which is an utterly different kind of dreaming — the moment
everyone were to dream his connection with the external world,
then such people would devote all the forces developed in their
inner being to such an activity. They would pour them into such
things and human existence would, in some sense, consume
itself. You can form a faint idea of what would happen if you
just look at the many ruinous effects that are taking place
because many people, although not really dreaming, imagine that
they are and babble or scribble reminiscences they have picked
up elsewhere. This is associated with the fact that there are
entirely too many poets. Where is there anyone today who does
not believe he is a poet or painter or something! The world
could not continue if this were so because all good things have
also their dark side, truly their dark side.
Schiller was also an important poet who dreamed much in the way
I have described. Just imagine, however, that all those who in
their youth were trained like Schiller to become doctors had
given up the practice of medicine as he did and later, thanks
to an extensive patronage, had been appointed “professor of
history” without any real preparation or serious study of
history! As a matter of fact, Schiller did deliver interesting
lectures at the University of Jena, but his students did not
get from them what they needed to learn. He also gradually
stopped giving these university lectures and was happy when he
did not have to give them anymore. Imagine that things would be
the same with every professor of history or every young
physician! Obviously, everything that is good also has its dark
side. The world must be protected, so to speak, from standing
still. It seems trivial to say this, but it is nevertheless a
profound mystery-truth: not all people can dream in this way.
The forces with which they dream must first be applied in the
external world to something different so that through it a
foundation may be created for a further evolution of the earth.
It would come to a standstill were all men to dream as I have
indicated.
Now we
have reached a point where an especially paradoxical fact comes
to light. To what in the world are the aforementioned forces
really applied? If we observe their application in a spiritual
way, they are ultimately applied to deep sleep even though you
may like them to be applied to dreams. More concretely, they
are applied to all that is spread out over human evolution in
the most varied kinds of vocational work.
Vocational work is related to the work that was done in
creating Faust, or in Schiller's Wallenstein, as
deep sleep is related to dreaming. But to say that we sleep
during our vocational work will seem extraordinary to you, and
you will say that here, in this, you are wide awake. The truth
is that there is a grand illusion in this idea that one is
awake during this kind of work because what really comes into
being through vocational work is not something we do in full
waking consciousness. Of course, some of the effects a person's
profession has upon his or her soul do enter one's
consciousness, but such a person really knows nothing whatever
of all that is actually present in the web of vocational labor
that men are continually spinning around the world.
It is,
indeed, surprising how these things are connected. Hans
Sachs
(Note 64)
was a shoemaker and also a poet. Jakob Boehme
(Note 65)
was a shoemaker and a mystical philosopher.
There you have sleeping and waking alternating through a
special constellation that we may also discuss. It is possible
to pass from one state into another.
What,
then, is the significance of this interplay and alternation of
life between vocational labor for such a man as Jakob Boehme —
he really did make shoes for the good people of Görlitz —
and his mystical-philosophical compositions? Many people have
strange opinions of these things. Allow me to review the
experience we once had when we were in Görlitz.
One
evening before a lecture I was to give on Boehme,
(Note 66)
I got into a conversation with a high school teacher, in which
we spoke about Boehme's statue that we had just seen in the
park. The people of Görlitz, as we were often told, called
his monument, the “park cobbler.” We remarked that it was most
beautiful, but the school teacher said he did not think so. He
thought it really looked like Shakespeare and one would not
know from it that Boehme had been a shoemaker. He said that to
represent Boehme it would have to show that he was a shoemaker.
Well, one can disregard such an attitude. As Jakob Boehme was
writing his great mystical-philosophical views, he was working
from the results that could have come about only through the
human being having evolved through the Saturn, Sun, Moon, and
Earth times; that is, through the fact that a broad stream
flows through these ages and finally comes to expression in
these effects. This stream manifests itself in such a
personality only in a way that is the result of special karmic
relationships. But just as all that has traversed the Sun and
Moon periods is necessary to every individual on earth, so it
is also necessary, but in a special way, in order to bring out
what was in Boehme.
But
then, Jakob Boehme also made shoes for the worthy
Görlitzers. How does all this hang together? To be sure,
the fact that a man has been able to develop the skill of a
shoemaker is also connected with this stream. But when the
shoes are finished, they are separated from him and their
function has then nothing more to do with skill but with
protecting and warming feet. They go their own way in
performing their functions and are separated completely from
the one who makes them; what they bring about has its effects
only later. In other words, this is only a beginning.
If the
initial influence leading to the mystical-philosophical
activity of Jakob Boehme were represented graphically, I should
have to indicate the first potential toward shoemaking here at
this point. This then flows on further and in the future Vulcan
evolution will have developed a degree of perfection that has
been reached already by what had flowed into his
mystical-philosophical activity from the Saturn evolution. This
is, in a sense, an end; his shoemaking is a beginning. We say,
of course, that the earth is earth at present, but if we could
trace things from Saturn still further back, we might then say
that, relative to certain things, the earth is already Vulcan.
We should then assume Saturn at this point.
We can
thus take everything in a relative way. We may say that the
earth is Saturn, and that Vulcan is, in a sense, earth. What
happens on the earth in the vocational labor of a man like
Jakob Boehme — not in his free creative work, but what he does
as vocational labor — is the beginning of something that will
be as far advanced on Vulcan as the happenings on Saturn are
already advanced on the earth. For Boehme to write his
mystical-philosophical books on earth, it was necessary for
something to have happened on Saturn that was similar to what
he has done on earth in making shoes. Likewise, Boehme's
shoemaking here on earth has the effect that something may be
done on Vulcan that will be similar to his writing mystical
philosophy here on earth.
There
is something extraordinary in all this. Here is an indication
of how what is often given little value on earth is so little
esteemed because it is the beginning of something that will be
prized in the future. In their being, human beings are, of
course, much more intimately bound up with the past since they
must first familiarize themselves with what is a beginning.
Therefore, they often care much less for something that is a
beginning than for something that has come over to them from
the past. From the scope of what we are yet to be involved in
during the earth period, and so that something special may then
come about when the earth shall have developed further through
Jupiter and Venus to Vulcan — from all this a full
consciousness will develop such as the one that exists for the
philosophy of Jakob Boehme on the earth. It is for this reason
that the real meaning of human external labor is enveloped now
in unconsciousness, just as man was shrouded in unconsciousness
on Saturn; sleep consciousness was developed on the Sun, dream
consciousness on the Moon, and the present condition of waking
consciousness on the earth.
The
human being is thus really living in a profound sleep
consciousness in his involvement with everything of his
vocation. Through his vocation he is really creating, not
through what gives him pleasure in it, but through what is
developing without his being able to enter into it; thus does
he really create future values. When a person makes a nail over
and over again, it certainly does not give him or her any
special pleasure. But the nail becomes detached from its
producer; it has quite definite tasks. As to what then happens
by means of this nail is not of further concern to the worker;
he does not follow up every nail he has made. But what is
enveloped there in his unconscious, profoundest sleep is
destined to come to life again in the future.
We
have thus been able to juxtapose what the ordinary person
accomplishes: first the most insignificant work in a profession
and then that which appears as the highest achievement.
Superior achievements are an end; the most insignificant work
is always a beginning.
I
wanted to place these two concepts side by side because we
cannot reflect upon how the human being is bound through his
karma with his vocation until we first know how his labor,
which is often connected quite externally with him, is related
to the entire evolution of which he is a part. We will soon
develop the real question of karma as it relates to vocation.
But I had first to introduce these matters so we might attain a
universal concept of what flows from a human being into his or
her vocation.
These
things are also exceedingly useful in forming our moral
sentiments in the right way. Our judgments are incorrect
because we do not focus our attention on things in the right
way. A seed often appears quite insignificant beside the
beautiful flower of the future. Using human work as a case in
point, I wanted to show you today how seed and flower are bound
up in the evolution of mankind.
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