ROM our Studies of such an impulse in human
life as is contained in man's calling or vocation and in all
that is connected with it, you will have seen how difficult it
is to make these matters clear. For in effect, so many things
are here involved. We must bear in mind that all that is
introduced into our life through the law of Destiny or Karma
depends on countless factors. To this, indeed, the manifold
nature of human life is due. In describing certain human
aspects of our life's destiny by the word ‘calling’ or
‘vocation’ one remark must perhaps be made, namely this:
We ought not to confuse what we may describe as man's calling
or vocation with what is commonly spoken of as his office or
position in the widest sense of the term. For it goes without
saying, much confusion would arise, if, having in mind what one
man or another represents in his official position, we
applied to this the points of view which have here been brought
to bear on the vocational life. Frequently, though by no means
always, man has to pursue his vocation in some official
position, and many an extraneous factor comes into play at this
point in human life, mingling other Karmic threads with that
one which we may call the ‘Karma of vocation.’ We are
living in a time which is slowly undergoing a certain transformation.
Nevertheless, in our time, the aspects we are here
outlining for the ‘Karma of vocation’ are by no means
exclusively predominant in placing a man into this or that
position in life. As you are well aware, the Karma of vocation
is still cut across in many ways by the Karma of classes,
social castes, etc. Within such groupings, ambitions, vanities,
the prejudices of himself and other people, and many other
factors too, help to determine how a man is placed in his
official post. All these things, entering into the Karma of
vocation as extraneous factors, make it possible for Ahrimanic
influences constantly to interfere with the true course of
human activity. A man who has been placed at a certain post in
life — who has become a Cabinet Minister for instance,
or a Privy Councillor or the like (through circumstances which
are well enough known, and need not be gone into here) —
such a man need not by any means have the corresponding vocation.
He can occupy a high position and yet his vocation may only be
that of a ‘pen-pusher’ — perhaps
not even that. Nor must you imagine that the position then
remains unoccupied. That is just the peculiarity of our time.
In its materialistic interpretation of the just foundations of
Darwinism, it has evolved such a theory of life as the
‘Selection of the Fittest,’ which is now being criticised
so vehemently by Haeckel's pupil, Oskar Hertwig. (Our standpoint
need not be that of the pessimist who adversely judges his own
time and constantly refers back to the ‘good old days.’
We simply take our stand on the real facts.) While on the one hand
the people of this age pride themselves on the ‘Selection of
the Fittest,’ this age in its reality is dominated by the
very opposite tendency — that of selecting the worst, the
un-fittest, for the very posts in life which one would think
the most important. Bitter as it may be for our time to hear
it, this truth would be admitted, were it not for the fact that
our time is impressed with a far-reaching belief in authority,
combined with the greatest possible opportunism and slackness.
I say again, it is a bitter truth, which would be recognised
were it not for the prevalence of what is called ‘public
opinion.’ (Public opinions, according to a 19th century
philosopher, are private stupidities.) We should
recognise the fact to which I here refer, were we not so
much impressed by the public opinions with which we are fed
to-day from such unclean sources. On this we must be clear, our
age needs above all to be educated to a more intense grasp of
life. The prevalent one-sidedness — the selection of
the un-fittest — must be recognised for
what it is, albeit these ‘un-fittest’ are overwhelmed
with adulation by the aforesaid ‘public opinion.’
The
offices are occupied, in fact, only too frequently by
Ahriman-Mephistopheles. And you may well see from the further
course of Goethe's Faust how Mephistopheles fulfils his
office. Not until the end of his life does it become possible
for Faust to free himself from Mephistopheles. Faust comes to
the imperial court. He even makes an invention — most
important for the last few centuries. He invents
paper-money. Mephistopheles is the real inventor. Afterwards,
Faust is conducted into the world of classical antiquity by
Homunculus. Homunculus himself, once more, is brought into
being with Mephistopheles' assistance. Faust even
becomes a military commander and conducts wars. But from
Goethe's manner of description in this act especially, we see
that it is really Mephistopheles who conducts them. Only at the
very end do we see Faust gradually free himself from
Mephistopheles.
Though Faust is roaming through the world without any definite
position — having vacated his professorship —
nevertheless, we must admit, the whole way in which Mephistopheles
stands at his side is not unlike the way the Mephistophelean
forces frequently play into the life of mankind to-day.
That is the one thing which must be borne in mind, but there is
another thing as well. It is by no means easy rightly to
discover in human nature what it is that really works in Karmic
evolution. Here, too, the development of natural science has
reached a point, which must be attained once more by
spiritual-scientific study.
Notably when it tries to enter into the life of the soul, the
natural-scientific way of thought makes the most ghastly
errors. Witness the rise to-day of a mistaken school of
science, which ventures to approach the human life of soul,
studying it in the spirit of mere natural science. This school
of thought admits that the life of the soul does not merely
take its course as it appears to man's present consciousness.
It admits that much is there beneath the threshold of
consciousness — or as they say, in the unconscious
or subconscious — beating-up into the conscious life.
In
former lectures we have mentioned specific things which
are truly there in the subconscious, and surge up into
consciousness like the clouds of smoke which arise in the
Solfatara country when one sets a light to a piece of
paper. Much indeed is present down below in depths of
consciousness.
So
we may say: There are those today, who, wishing to pursue
a science of the soul, already divine the fact that dark
unconscious faculties of soul — and failings of soul
— must be included for any true explanation. But as these
schools will not yet admit a comprehensive
spiritual-scientific world-conception, they can only
bring to light mistaken notions. Those who take this standpoint
of a purely natural-scientific psychology, observe a human
life, — how it has evolved. They have indeed departed
from the belief that what a soul feels and wills, wherewith it
is happy or unhappy, filled with joy or grief, depends only on
what the soul itself has preserved in the immediate
consciousness. So now they try to catechise the soul. Somehow
they try to get out of human souls the joys and pains, the
disappointments of life which they have some time undergone and
in their every-day power of thought have forgotten. What is
forgotten, so these theorists declare, has not therefore
vanished. It is still burrowing on in the subconsciousness.
Cravings, above all, are burrowing in the subconsciousness
— cravings which at some earlier time of life
remained unsatisfied or were repressed. Take a concrete
instance — it is a woman in her 30th year. At the age of
16 she fell in love. She evolved a strongly erotic craving (so
says this school of science), but this craving, if she had
given herself up to it — if it had been fulfilled —
would have led into some bye-way of life. Influenced by
education, by the exhortation of her parents, she repressed it.
To put it tritely, she ‘swallowed it down’ in her soul's
life. Then she lived on. Fourteen years have passed. Perhaps
she has married meantime according to her station. For her
daily thoughts and feelings it is long forgotten. But the
forgotten has by no means disappeared. The soul is not
exhaustively contained in what it knows. In the underlying
levels of consciousness the thing is still there, and presently
it finds expression. For though the lady in her outer life is
happy, she suffers from an indefinable, pessimistic leaning,
a partial weariness of life or something similar. She is, as
they say, ‘nervous,’ neurasthenic, or the like.
Now
they seek to introduce this kind of psychology into medical
science. They try to cure such souls by catechising them.
Such experiences, they say, abiding in the hidden depths of the
soul's life and for the surface consciousness apparently
forgotten, must be drawn forth. If this be done — if
under the influence of a good catechiser (who must of course,
after the prevailing notions of to-day, be a physician)
the patient gets to grips with the thing — then it will
all grow better.
Cures are indeed effected in this manner. Often indeed they are
more or less real cures, though in the majority of cases they
will prove to be only semblances of cures. (We can explain how
this is on some other occasion.)
That is one kind of thing they seek for, down in the depths of
the soul's life. Here is another: It is a man of 35 or 40,
suffering from a certain weariness of life, a morbid
indecision. He does not know why, and the people around him do
not know why. He knows it least of all. One who busies himself
with the aforesaid ‘science of the soul,’ will try
in this case too, to rummage in the forgotten though not vanished
depths of the inner life, and will elicit the fact that in his 15th,
16th or 17th year, may be, the man had this or that plan in life,
which plan fell through. He was obliged to turn to another plan
of life — not according to the one he cherished. In all
that he daily feels and thinks and wills, he has apparently
been reconciled to the change. But what a man consciously feels
and thinks and wills is not the entire life of the soul. In hidden
depths the disappointed plan lives on as a real force.
Once more, these people believe that they can effect a cure by
catechising and bringing the disappointment to the surface,
giving the man an opportunity to discuss the whole matter
with his catechiser.
But
there are many other things besides, which they believe are
resting there in the soul's depths without man's consciousness
being aware of it. In short, they have perceived the fact that
consciousness is a small circle and the soul's life a far
larger circle of which the consciousness comprises only a
little part. Not only so, they also look in the very depths of
the soul's life for something else which is not of the soul
— which, it appears, a theologian recently described
— with questionable taste — as ‘the animal slime
at the bottom of the soul.’ Thus they find disappointments,
suppressed craving's, broken plans of life and finally the
‘animal slime at the very bottom of the soul,’ which
means: all that is rooted in life, coming, so to speak, from flesh
and blood, from the hidden animal nature, and rising from the
soul's foundation in an unconscious way (for the consciousness
would naturally rebel against it and does indeed rebel).
There is of course some truth in this theory of the ‘animal
slime.’ We often see it happening in life: —
Consciousness says to itself, ‘I want nothing more;
I want to discover this or that. Therefore I turn to this or
that person.’ But the ‘animal slime’ is really
at work, for it may well be animal cravings which are only camouflaged
and masked by what the consciousness declares.
Moreover this school of science (‘science,’ I say,
with a grain of salt) has conjectured that in these same unconscious
regions we shall also find what comes from the individual's
connection with race and nation, with all manner of
historic residues which play their part in the human soul
unconsciously, while consciousness behaves quite
differently. In view of what is now surging through the world,
we cannot even deny that these things are apparently confirmed
by multitudinous examples. For who will fail to see how many a
man declares by word of mouth lofty ideals of ‘right and
freedom for the nations,’ while in his soul's reality
that alone is active, which, stirring the slime in the soul's
depths, arises out of such connections as the Psycho-analyst
would analyse — or pretend to analyse — in the
above directions.
Moreover, the theologians among the Psycho-analysts especially,
include in the subconscious regions of the soul's life the
‘demonic’ element which, they allege, arises from still more
hidden depths — from the mysterious depth of the
‘irrational.’ I am unaware how the natural scientists and the
theologians among Psycho-analysts come to terms with one
another. But the latter class too undoubtedly exists, and they
especially are fond of saying that unknown demons are at work
in the subconscious in the human soul, so as to make men
Gnostics for example, or Theosophists. ‘Psycho-analyse the soul
and penetrate to the foundations where the primeval slime
resides and you will find it. Gnosis is a demonic teaching,
likewise Psycho-analysis’ ... no, I beg your pardon, not
Psycho-analysis. Psychoanalysis, according to these men
and women (for ladies, too, are taking part in these things)
Psycho-analysis is not included in the black list, but
Theosophy and other things.
I
do not wish to enter now into any detailed criticism of
Psycho-analysis. I only wish to have pointed out that in the
Psycho-analytic school we have the evidence, how modern
research is driven to observe what works and weaves beneath the
conscious portions of the soul. But the prevailing
scientific prejudices can only result in the most wrong
conclusions on these matters. Meanwhile these people are quite
unwilling to consider the investigations of Spiritual
Science. Consequently they will not discover how
impossible it is truly to analyse what they find in the
soul's life, so long as they are unaware that man's existence
takes its course in repeated lives on Earth. For in their
Psycho-analysis they try to explain, what is there at the
bottom of the soul, out of one Earth-life only. No wonder they
are then obliged to place it frequently in a distorted light.
For
example, suppose we find disappointed plans of life, deep
down within the soul. We ought first to consider what kind of
meaning this wrecking of a plan in life may have for the human
being's existence as a whole, which goes on through repeated
lives on Earth. Then perhaps we shall discover that there are
also working in the man's subconsciousness certain
aspects of his life, which, by a true working of destiny, have
prevented the fulfilment of his plan. And then we shall
observe that the disappointed plan, which is still there
in the soul's depths, is not merely destined to make the man
ill in this incarnation, but to be carried through the gate of
death when this life is at an end, and to become a potent force
in the life between death and new birth. For only in the next
life will it play its proper part. It may indeed be necessary
for such a broken plan of life to be preserved and nurtured to
begin with, in the depths of the soul, so that it may be
strengthened and enhanced. Then between death and a new
birth it will be able to rise to its true stature, till in the
next life on Earth it assumes its predestined form, which, on
account of other qualities within the soul, it was not able to
assume in this life.
Then as to the so-called ‘animal slime at the bottom of the
soul's life’ (though, as I said, the expression is by no means
in good taste), undoubtedly such a thing is there. But I
beg you to remember what I have explained, of the relation
between the head of man and the remainder of his organism. The
latter is in many respects connected with man's earthly life,
his present incarnation, while the head is the result of former
planes of evolution of the Earth itself, and is, moreover,
related to the man's former incarnations. If you consider this,
then you will understand how many things are working upward
from the remainder of the organism (by virtue of the part it
plays in the whole karmic connection) — things which are
at a different stage of maturity than that which comes from the
human head and from the nervous system. But the Psycho-analyst,
who to begin with only ‘analyses’ the ‘slime,’
will go completely wrong. Analysing this ‘animal slime,’
as they call it, he is like a man who wants to know what kind of
corn will grow on a given soil. He analyses the soil. He digs and
finds a certain manure, with which the field was manured. He says,
Now I know the manure, and out of this the corn will presently
spring forth. But the corn does not grow from the manure,
albeit the manure is necessary. The point is, what is
imbedded in the basic slime; for that which is imbedded
in it is generally destined to work on through the gate of
death, into the next evolution on the Earth. It is not a
question of investigating the animal slime itself. The point
is, what is imbedded in it as a real ‘seed of the soul.’
Psycho-Analysis, so called, gives ample opportunity to observe
how perilous are the prejudices of the present time.
True, it is entering a realm to which the thought of our time
is tending. For the soul can no longer rest satisfied with what
the surface experience of consciousness provides. So do the men
of our time find themselves driven to the very quarters
where they should indeed investigate; but as they cannot
understand spiritual science they have no guiding lines for
such investigation. Therefore they rummage about in the most
clumsy way in these realms which are assigned to them by
their profession, or by their own agitations. They put
everything in the wrong place, not knowing how to put in it the
right. For this they could only do, if they were able to follow
up the real Karmic threads as I have tried to indicate them
now, in the one case and in the other. Above all when
Psychoanalysis begins to burrow in the elemental
realms, it proves itself appallingly unsound.
Nevertheless, the desire to pursue the continuous thread of
destiny into its finer and more intimate ramifications is
important. That which goes on in the conscious life of a man's
soul, from the time he awakens until he falls asleep again,
reveals very little of the Karmic stream which works on and on
through his incarnations. What we experience consciously in
waking life largely belongs to the present incarnation,
and it is good so. For in the present incarnation man should be
healthy and efficient. On the other hand, much of what is
carried through the gate of death — as a seed which grows
out of our experiences and trials and faculties acquired during
the present life — plays a great part in our life
from our falling asleep to our awakening, and very largely
finds its way into our dreams. We must only be able to estimate
the dream-formations truly. We say, Dreams are
reminiscences, — and so they often are. But in the stream
of our Karma they do not work in a simple and straightforward
way. In their inherent forces they often signify the opposite
of what appears upon the surface. Let me give you an example
from literature to explain what I now mean.
Vischer, the aestheticist, tells a pretty little story in his book,
Auch Einer.
I quote it here because I am now speaking in a wider sense of the
vocational life and all that is connected with it. Vischer relates
a conversation between a father and his son. They are going
for a walk together, and after the father has asked him many
things the boy tells the following story: ‘Teacher told
us one should always find out what kind of a job a man has. A
man should have a proper occupation. By that you can recognise
whether he is a sound and good man altogether.’ ‘Oh,’
said the father. ‘Yes, and after teacher had told us that in
school, I dreamt I was walking past yonder lake, and in the
dream I asked the lake what kind of a job it had. And the lake
said: My job is to be wet.’ ‘Hm,’ said the father.
A
witty story, revealing some knowledge of life in him who thought
it out. The father said ‘Hm’ because he did not wish
to spoil the boy. He did not wish to tell him what nonsense his
teacher had been talking. No doubt he kept his thoughts to
himself. He should have enlightened his son more wisely than
the teacher. He should have said, One must not pass
judgments in such a superficial way, for it may well be
that one's judgment of what constitutes a ‘decent and proper
occupation’ is mistaken, and one will thus be led to misjudge
one's fellow-men. Or again, the man's career might somehow have
been marred. In short, the father should have instructed
the son. But in this case he did not need to do so. For in the
young human being the dream can still work helpfully. The
dream, which in this instance came to the boy's consciousness,
is there as a real inner force, in place of such
instruction. In the sub-consciousness the dream is
working. And it works in such a way as to expunge from the soul
the nonsense which the teacher created by his foolish teaching.
This explains the forming of the dream in the boy's
sub-consciousness, which is wiser than the surface
consciousness. It spreads an atmosphere of laughable absurdity
over the teacher's foolish exhortations. The lake says, ‘It is
my job to be wet.’ That will work wholesomely. It will
drive away the noxious effects to which such teaching
might otherwise give rise.
In
this case the dream is indeed a reminiscence; it follows in the
very next night. But at the same time it is a corrector of
life. Indeed the life of the astral body frequently works in
this way. Beside the relics of what is there in the soul from
the experiences of life, we should frequently find this
factor. Especially where a mistaken education is at work,
we can frequently detect in the sub-conscious forces of
the soul this ‘corrector,’ who often works even in the same
incarnation, especially in young human beings. But above
all, this corrector is carried through the gate of death and
there works on. There is really a kind of self-corrector in the
human being. This must be borne in mind.
With all these things I only want to point out how much there
is in the soul of man, pressing on from one incarnation
to another. There is a whole complex of forces, working
across from one incarnation to another. We must now consider
what is the relation between this complex of forces and
the human being of the present, inasmuch as his life continues
between birth and death.
In
this respect man is really a four-stringed instrument, on which
the above-named ‘complex of Karmic forces’ plays. Physical
body, etheric body, astral body and Ego are the four strings,
and Karma plays on them. According as the one or the other
string is played on more or less intensely by the bow of
Karma (if we may retain this analogy of the violin which also
has four strings), so does the individual life arise. It may be
more the etheric body or the astral body, or the etheric and
the astral together, or the physical and the astral
together, or the physical body and the Ego. In the most
manifold ways, the four strings of human life can play
together. Therefore it is so difficult if we desire to speak
not in general and vague abstractions but in reality. It is so
hard to decipher the several melodies of a man's life, for we
can only decipher them if we are able to behold how the
fiddle-bow of Karma plays on the four strings of Man.
Consider the human being in those years of life when the
physical body and especially the etheric body are
developing (as indicated in my little book
‘Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy,’)
— from the seventh to the fourteenth year — all
these things are approximate. During this time we shall
find certain peculiarities emerging, which distinguish
this period of life especially. Certain things, we shall
observe, are in a way consolidated during this time. True, many
of these things already emerge in the first seven years of life
— for all these things merge into one another. But it is
only between the seventh and about the fourteenth year that we
can observe it deeply and accurately. Certain inner
characteristics become consolidated in the growing human being,
expressing themselves through the corporeality, through the
whole conduct and appearance as it expresses itself in
the tenure of the body, in the gestures, in the behaviour as a
whole. What is thus consolidated (not all, but a great part of
it) causing the human being to be short and thickset, or
to have shorter or longer fingers, or to tread in a certain way
— with a firm step in one case, tripping it lightly in
another (to describe the radical contrasts) — in short,
all that is connected with the bodily aspect of deportment, is
here intended. As I said, not all, but a great part of what
thus appears in the growing human being comes from his Karma.
It is the effect of his vocation in the former life on Earth.
People who do not observe what I have now said, often
make a great mistake, especially when they try to be clever,
observing the child's behaviour, and wishing somehow to
determine his occupation in this life from the way he deports
himself. In this way it is easy to make the mistake of
wishing to place him into a similar vocation to what he had in
his preceding life on Earth. And that would not be wholesome
for him. What we observe in this period of life are the effects
of the former incarnation; and when this period is at an
end, or even before (as I said, these things merge into one
another), the astral body emerges in a very peculiar way, and
reacts on what has been developing hitherto. Once we are
aware of these facts as derived from spiritual science, we can
observe them even outwardly on the physical plane. The
astral body reacts. According to quite other Karmic forces, it
transmutes that which resulted from the pure ‘Karma of
vocation’ between the seventh and fourteenth year. Thus there
are two forces in the human being in conflict with one another.
The one set of forces mould and form him; these arise more from
the etheric body. The others, counteracting and partly
paralysing the former, come more from the astral body. Through
these latter forces, man is impelled to transform what was
stamped upon him by his vocational Karma of the former
incarnation. We may say therefore: The working of the
etheric body is formative. (All that appears as
gesture, posture and deportment in the physical body
comes from the etheric.) The working of the astral body is
transformative. And in the interplay of the two
forces, which are very decidedly in conflict with one another,
much of the working of the Karma of vocation finds expression.
This, however, is woven together with other Karmic streams. For
we must also bear in mind the physical body. As to the physical
body, it is especially important to observe in the first epoch
of life how the human being places himself through his Karma
into the world. The kind of physical body we have depends on
this. For by our Karma we place ourselves into a certain
family, belonging to a certain nation and so forth. Thus we get
quite a definite kind of body. But not only so. Think how much
the course of our life depends on the situation into which we
place ourselves, in that we enter a certain family. This already
gives the starting-point of infinitely much in our life.
In
effect, notably in the first seven years of life, when the
physical body is developing, forces are working in (or rather,
about) the physical body — forces which come not
from the vocational aspect of our former incarnation, but
from the way in which we lived with other human beings. In our
former incarnation we stood in this or that relation to
this or that human being. (I mean now, not in a
particular part of our life — for that
belongs to a different chapter — but throughout our
life.) All this we assimilate. We carry it through the
gate of death, and through these forces we bring ourselves once
more into a certain family, a certain situation or set of
circumstances. Thus we may say: That which places our physical
body into life and works on through our physical body — that
is what shapes the situations of our life. (It goes on working, of
course, through our succeeding lives.) And now it receives a
counter-force through the Ego. The Ego works so to annul the
given situations of our life. It battles against all that
determines our circumstances. Thus we may say: The physical
body works so to create life's situation; and the Ego
works to re-create it. In the working together of these
two-battling one with another — another stream of Karma
enters our life. For? there is always present in man on the one
hand what strives to maintain him in a certain situation, and
on the other, what strives to lift him out of it. Thus I would
say, primitively speaking, 1 and 4, and 2 and 3, work upon one
another. (See the diagram at the end.) And in manifold other
ways the four strings play together. The way we come into
connection with fresh human beings in a given life
according to our Karma, depends on 1 and 4 and their
connections. And this leads back in turn to our relationships
of life in former lives. The way we find our connections in
calling, work and occupation depends on 2 and 3 and on their
mutual interplay.
To
begin with I beg you to consider these things well. We shall
then continue in the next lecture.
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