V
Human Faculties and Their Connections with Elemental Beings.
Dornach, December 16, 1922
THE faculties needed by man in order that he may be able
to confront the world and work in it during earthly life are
connected, as I have shown, with his activities in the
spiritual world between death and rebirth. This means, however,
that here on Earth man lives in certain spheres which on the
Earth itself have no inherent reality, which manifest their
reality only when observed in the supersensible realm.
We
will turn our attention today to the three domains which
actually comprise all human activity on Earth: to the thoughts
through which man endeavors to assimilate Truth in the
world; to feelings, in so far as in and through his world of
feeling, man endeavors to assimilate the Beautiful; to
his will-nature, in so far as he is meant to bring the
Good to fulfilment through it.
When we speak of thoughts, we mean that domain through which
Truth can be assimilated. But thoughts in themselves cannot be
real. Precisely when we are clear that through our
thoughts we have to inform ourselves about the truth of what is
real, then it must also be admitted that thoughts, as such,
cannot be anything real. Just imagine for a moment that you
were to be fixed as firmly in your thoughts as you are in your
brain or your heart; if that were the case, these thoughts
would indeed be something real in themselves. We should not be
able to assimilate reality through them. Nor could we ever
express through human speech what human speech is intended to
express if it contained full reality in the ordinary earthly
sense. If every time we uttered a sentence we were obliged to
work something heavy out of the mouth, we should be unable to
express anything; it would rather be a matter of
producing something. In this sense, what is spoken is
not a reality in itself, but ‘signifies’ a reality, just as
thoughts are not themselves a reality but merely signify a
reality. And if we consider the Good, then we shall find that
what is formed through physical reality can never be called the
Good. We must bring up from the depths of our being the impulse
to Goodness, at first as something entirely unreal, and then
make it a reality. If the impulse to Goodness were to arise
like hunger, as an external reality, Goodness is just what it
could not be. Again, when you are looking at a statue it
does not occur to you to think that you can converse with it.
It is merely semblance; and in the semblance something is made
manifest, namely: Beauty. So that in Truth, reality is
certainly indicated; but Truth itself moves in an element of
unreality; and it is the same with Beauty, the same with
Goodness.
It
is therefore necessary for man that his thoughts are not, in
themselves, real. Just imagine — if thoughts were to
wander around in the head like leaden figures, then, to be
sure, you would be aware of a reality, but these leaden
thoughts would not be able to signify anything to you, they
would be something real themselves. As truly as Thoughts, as
the Beautiful and the Good too cannot be directly real, so it
is also true that reality is necessary in this physical-earthly
world in order that we can have Thoughts, make the Beautiful
manifest in the world through art, and also bring the Good to
fulfilment.
In
speaking of this I come today to a domain of Spiritual Science
which can lead us very deeply into the spirituality that is
around us here on Earth and is essential for earthly existence,
but completely withdrawn from the observation possible to the
senses and hence cannot be grasped by the ordinary
consciousness which depends, as you know, entirely upon
physical perception. The fact is that we are surrounded
everywhere by spiritual beings of the greatest possible
variety, only the ordinary consciousness does not perceive
them. Their existence is necessary in order that as human
beings we may be able to unfold our faculties, to have thoughts
in their chimerical lightness and evanescence, so that they are
not present in our heads like leaden weights, are not something
real in themselves, but can ‘signify’ reality.
For
this it is necessary that there should be beings in the world
who prevent our thoughts with their non-reality from
immediately vanishing from us again. We men are really too
cumbersome, too ponderous, to be able without more ado to hold
fast our thoughts with the ordinary consciousness. Elemental
beings must be there, beings who help us ever and again to hold
fast our thoughts. Such elemental beings are indeed present,
only they are extraordinarily hard to discover because they
always conceal themselves. When we ask: How does it really come
about that we can hold fast a thought when it has no reality at
all? Who is helping us to do this? — even then it is very
easy to be deceived, precisely when the matter is considered in
the light of Spiritual Science. For at the very moment we begin
to ask ourselves the question: by whom are thoughts held fast
for men? — through this very desire to know about the
spirit-entities who hold thoughts fast, we are driven into the
realm of the Ahrimanic beings; we plunge into the realm of
these beings and very soon begin to believe — although it
is of course a deceptive belief — that man must be
supported by the Ahrimanic spirits in order to hold fast the
thoughts, so that they shall not vanish the moment he grasps
them. On this account, most people are — unconsciously
— even grateful to the Ahrimanic beings for supporting
them in their thinking. But it is misplaced gratitude, for
there is a whole kingdom of beings who support us in our
thought-world particularly, and who are by no means
Ahrimanic.
These beings are difficult to find in the spiritual world, even
for well-trained vision. One finds them sometimes by observing
a very clever man at work; if one watches such a man one can
perceive that he actually has a volatile, fleeting band of
followers. He does not go about alone but has a fugitive
following of spiritual beings who do not belong to the
Ahrimanic kingdom, but who have an altogether remarkable
character. One first really learns to know these beings when
one can observe those other beings who belong to the
Ahrimanic realm, to the elemental kingdoms, and therefore are
not perceptible to the eyes of the senses, who are at work when
forms in Nature, crystal forms, for example, arise. The
activity of these beings underlies all form; you find them
described in my Mystery Plays as beings who chisel and hammer
out solid forms. If you think of the gnome-like beings in one
of the Mystery Plays* you
have there the beings who produce forms. Now these beings are
sly and crafty — as you can see from the way I have
presented them in the Play — and they mock at the scanty
intelligence possessed by men. Call to mind those scenes from
the Mystery Play if they are known to you.
Now
if we observe a really clever man and perceive how he may have
a retinue consisting of a whole host of such beings as I have
described, we find that these beings are despised by the
gnome-spirits of the elemental world because they are clumsy
and, above all, because they are terribly foolish. Foolishness
is their main characteristic! And so it can be said that
precisely the very cleverest people in the world, when we can
observe them from this aspect, are followed by whole troops of
‘spirit-fools.’ It is as if these foolish spirits wanted to
belong to someone. And they are greatly disdained by the beings
who fashion and shape forms in Nature in the way described in
the Mystery Plays. We can therefore say: among the worlds
unknown to begin with to ordinary consciousness, there is one
that is peopled by a spirit-folk of ‘fools,’ fools who throng
towards human wisdom and cleverness. In the present age these
beings have actually no life of their own. They achieve a life
by using the life of those who are dying, who are dying from
illness but in whom life-forces are still present. These beings
can only make use of a life that is past. Thus there are
spirit-fools who use the life that remains over from men; they
sate themselves with the life that lingers in cemeteries and
such places.
It
is when we penetrate into worlds like this that we realize how
densely populated is the realm lying behind the world that is
perceptible to the senses, how manifold are the classes of
spirit-beings, and how closely connected these spirit-beings
are with our faculties. A clever man pursuing his activities,
who is merely clever and not clairvoyant, can hold fast his
thoughts precisely through the fact that he is followed by this
troop of spirit-fools. These spirit-fools rivet themselves to
his thoughts, drag at them and give them weight, so that they
remain with him, whereas otherwise they would quickly vanish
from him.
These beings are, as I said, bitterly scoffed at by the
gnome-like beings. The gnome-like beings will not tolerate them
in their realm although they belong to it. The gnome-like
beings drive the others away continually and there is a hard
fight between the gnome-folk and this folk of spirit-fools
through whom alone wisdom is made possible for man; otherwise
the wisdom would be fugitive, would pass away the moment it
came into existence, could not remain. As has been said, these
beings are hard to discover because it is so easy to fall into
the Ahrimanic sphere directly questions are asked about them.
But one can find them on occasions such as I have just
indicated, by observing very clever men who are followed by a
whole troop of such beings. Apart from that, however, when
there are not enough clever thoughts fastening on to men, these
beings are to be found lingering, for example, in libraries
— when the books contain clever material. When the
contents of books are stupid these beings are not to be found;
they are to be found only where there is cleverness. On that
they rivet themselves.
This gives us some insight into a realm that surrounds us
everywhere, that is present just as the Nature-kingdoms are
present, that has something to do with our faculties, but is
very difficult to assess. If we wish to do that we must rely
upon those gnome-like beings and set some store by their
judgment — and they, in fact, consider the other beings
stupid and impudent.
But
these other beings have yet another characteristic. When they
are too severely persecuted by the gnome-like beings they
escape into human heads, and whereas outside in Nature they are
almost giants — of an enormous size — they become
quite tiny when they are inside men's heads. One could say that
they are an abnormal species of Nature-spirits, who are,
however, intimately connected with the whole of human evolution
on the Earth.
Beings of another kind live chiefly in the watery and airy
elements, just as do those beings described in the Mystery
Plays as the sylph-like beings. The beings to whom I am now
referring have chiefly to do with the world of ‘beautiful
semblance.’ They attach themselves less to men who are clever
in the ordinary sense than to those who are genuinely artistic
in nature. But these beings too are very hard to discover as
they can so easily conceal themselves. They are to be found
where there are genuine works of art, where, for instance, the
human form or forms of Nature and so forth are portrayed in
semblance. There they are to be found.
These beings too, as I said, can only be discovered with
difficulty. When, for instance, we ask: How is it that
beautiful semblance interests us, that there are occasions when
we derive greater pleasure from a beautiful statue than from a
living person (true, it is a different kind of pleasure, but
for all that, greater), or that we are edified and delighted by
melodies or harmonies? When we ask ourselves this we very
easily fall into a different realm, into the realm of the
Luciferic beings. It is not only the Luciferic beings who
promote enthusiasm for art, but again there is a kingdom of
elemental beings by whom interest in art is stimulated and kept
alive in man. Without such beings, man would never be disposed
to take an interest in beautiful semblance, simply because it
is unreal.
Now
the reason why it is so difficult to discover these beings is
because they can conceal themselves even more easily than the
spirit-fools, for they are actually only present where beauty
makes its power felt. And when we are wrapt in enjoyment of the
beautiful, then we certainly do not see these beings. Why is
this?
In
order to get a sight of them in a normal way, we must endeavor,
while given up in some way to artistic impressions, to direct
clairvoyant vision to the beings who are depicted in the same
scene in the Mystery Play as nymph- or sylph-like beings; these
beings too belong to the elemental Nature-kingdoms, and we must
project ourselves into them. We must, as it were, look
with these air- and water-beings at the others who are
present whenever joy is taken in beauty. And as this is
difficult, we must turn to other means of help. Now fortunately
it is easy to discover these beings when we are listening to
someone who speaks beautifully and whose language we do not
properly understand; when we hear only the sounds without
understanding the meaning. If we then abandon ourselves to the
experience of this beautiful speaking — but it must be
really beautiful speaking, genuine oratory, and we must
not be able to understand it properly — then we can
acquire the faculty, intimate and delicate as it is, of seeing
these beings.
Thus we must try, as it were, to acquire the talent of the
sylphs and to strengthen it through the talent that unfolds
when we listen to beautiful speech without endeavoring to
understand the meaning but having ears only for its beauty.
Then we discover the beings who are present wherever beauty is
and lend their support so that man can have a true interest in
it.
And
then follows the disillusionment, the great and terrible
surprise. For these beings are in fact hideously ugly, the very
ugliest that can be imagined; they are ghastly creatures, the
very archetypes of ugliness. And if we have developed the
requisite spiritual vision and visit some studio where artistic
work is being done, we find that it is these beings who are
present on Earth, like spiders on the ground of
world-existence, in order that men may take interest in beauty.
It is through these frightful spider-creatures of an elemental
order that interest in beauty really awakens. Man simply could
not have the right interest in beauty if in his life of soul he
were not entangled in a world of hideously ugly spider-like
beings.
When they are going through a Gallery, people have no inkling
— for what I have said refers only to discovering the
form of these beings, who are always present when anyone
is delighting in beauty — people have no inkling of how
they are strengthened in the interest they take in beautiful
pictures by having these hideous spider-like creatures creeping
in and out of their ears and nostrils.
Man's enthusiasm for what is beautiful arises on the foundation
of ugliness. That is a cosmic secret, my dear friends. The spur
of ugliness is needed in order that the beautiful may be made
manifest. And the greatest artists were men who because of
their strong bodily constitution could endure the invasions of
these spidery beings in order to produce, let us say, a Sistine
Madonna, or the like. Whatever beauty is brought forth in the
world has been lifted out of a sea of ugliness through the
enthusiasm in the human soul.
Let
it not be thought that behind the veil of the material world,
in the region beyond the threshold, we come into a realm of
pure beauty. Do not imagine that anyone who is cognizant of
these things speaks lightheartedly when he says that if men are
not properly prepared they must be held back at the threshold
of the spiritual world. For it is essential first of all to
know the thoroughly unedifying foundations of all that in front
of the curtain as it were, is uplifting and edifying.
Therefore if with spiritual sight we move about the elemental
world belonging to air and water, again we see the great battle
waging between the fleeting sylphs and undines and these
archetypes of ugliness. Although I spoke of the latter as
spidery creatures, the tissues of which they are formed are not
like those of spiders as we know them, but they are composed of
the elements of water and watery vapor. They are volatile
air-formations, the ugliness of which is enhanced inasmuch as
every second they have a different ugliness; each succeeding
ugliness gives the impression of being even worse than its
predecessor. This world is present in air and water together
with everything that is delightful there.
And
now in order that man may unfold enthusiasm for the Good,
something else takes place. It can be said of the other beings
that they are more or less actually there, but in the case of
the beings of whom I am now going to speak it must really be
said that they are continually coming into existence, whenever,
in fact, a man has within him warmth of feeling for Goodness.
It is in this warmth that these beings develop; their nature
itself is warm and fiery; they live in the present but their
inherent nature is similar to what I have described in the book
Occult Science in connection with the Saturn-existence
of man.
As
man was in the Old Saturn-existence, so are these beings today.
Their form is not the same but their nature is similar. It
cannot be said of them that they are beautiful or ugly, or
anything of that kind; they must be judged in comparison with
the ordinary elemental warmth-beings who, as you know, also
exist. All spiritual research in this sphere is extraordinarily
difficult. It is very difficult to approach the beings who live
entirely in warmth, that is to say, in ‘fire’ in the old sense,
and when one does come upon them it is not very pleasant. One
comes upon them, for instance, when lying in a high fever, but
then as a rule one is not a really objective observer.
Otherwise it is a matter of developing the requisite faculty
for perceiving these warmth-beings by elaborating the methods
indicated in my books. These warmth-beings have a certain
relationship with the beings who appear, for instance, when a
man has warm enthusiasm for the Good, but the relationship is
of a very peculiar kind. I will assume hypothetically —
for only in that way can I describe these things — that
warmth-beings of the normal kind are present, originating in
man's physical warmth, which as you know is greater than the
warmth of the environment. Man has his own warmth, hence these
particular beings are near him. And now, in a man who has
enthusiasm for the Good these other beings make
themselves manifest; they too are warmth-beings, but of a
different kind. When they are in the neighbourhood of the
normal fire-beings they immediately draw back from them and
slip into the inmost recesses of man's nature. If one then
makes great efforts to discover their essential characteristics
in contrast to those of the normal warmth-beings, one finds
that they have an inner, but very pronounced, bashfulness. They
refuse absolutely to be observed by other beings of the
spiritual world, and flee from them because they are ashamed of
being seen; they flee first and foremost into the inmost nature
of man. Hence they are hard to discover. Actually they are only
to be discovered if we observe ourselves in certain moments
that it is really not so very easy to bring about at will. Just
suppose that in spite of not being in the least sentimental we
are moved to tears simply by reading a scene in a book that
grips us deeply and dramatically. Some great and good action is
described, let us say, in a novel. If we have the power of
self-observation we can discover how whole hosts of such beings
(who have such delicate sensibility that they do not want to be
seen by any other beings of the spiritual world) flee into our
heart, into our breast, how they come to us, how they seek
protection from the other warmth-beings and in fact from any
other beings of the elemental spiritual worlds.
There is a significant force of repulsion between the normal
warmth-beings and these other warmth beings with their intense
bashfulness who live only in the sphere of man's moral life and
who flee from contact with other spirit-beings. These beings
are present in far greater numbers than is usually imagined and
it is they who imbue man with enthusiasm for the morally good.
Man would not readily acquire this enthusiasm for the morally
good if these beings did not come to his aid; and when a man
loves the moral, he has a real bond, an unconscious bond, with
these beings.
Certain of their characteristics are such as may lead us to
misunderstand this whole kingdom. For after all, why do these
beings feel bashful and ashamed? It is actually because all the
other beings in the elemental kingdoms of the spiritual world
in which they live, disdain them, will have nothing to do with
them. They are aware of this and the disdain to which they are
subjected causes them to stimulate enthusiasm for the Good.
These beings have certain other characteristics of which I do
not care to speak, for the human soul is so obviously upset at
any mention of such hideous spidery creatures. I therefore
prefer not to refer to certain of their peculiarities. But at
any rate we have heard how what unfolds in the realm of the
senses as the True, the Beautiful, the Good, unfolds from
foundations which need the three spiritual kingdoms I have
described, just as we on Earth need the ground on which we
walk. These beings do not create the True, the Beautiful or the
Good. But the thoughts which express the True, signify the
True, need the spirit-dunderheads, so that they may move on
their shoulders. The Beautiful that man produces needs the ugly
water- and air-spiders so that it can raise itself out of this
ocean of ugliness. And the Good needs a kingdom of beings who
cannot show themselves at all among the other normal
warmth-beings, who must always fight shy of them, and for this
very reason evoke enthusiasm for the Good.
If
these beings did not exist, then instead of thoughts in our
heads we should have, if not exactly leaden soldiers, at least
heavy vapors and nothing clever could possibly result. In order
to produce the Beautiful we should need to have the gift of
imbuing it with actual life in order that men's interest might
be aroused. In order that here, in the world of the senses,
there may be at hand what we need for the activity of thought,
for the sense of beauty, for the will to arouse enthusiasm for
the good — for this, three such elemental kingdoms are
necessary.
The
normal elemental kingdoms — that is, the kingdoms of the
gnomes, sylphs, undines and salamanders, to use
folk-terminology — are still at the stage of striving to
become something in the world. They are on the way to having
forms resembling those in our sense-world; the forms will not
be the same, but one day they will become perceptible to the
senses possessed by men today, whereas now, in their elementary
existence, these beings are not perceptible to the ordinary
senses.
The
beings I have now described to you have in fact already
by-passed the stage at which men and animals and plants are
today. So that if, for example, we were able to go back to the
Old Moon-existence which preceded the Earth, we should there
encounter the beings found on Earth today as the bashful beings
connected with moral impulses in man. On the Old Moon they
would have been perceptible as a real animal world, spinning as
it were from tree to tree. But you must call to mind the Old
Moon-existence as I have described it in the book Occult
Science. Everything in this Moon-existence was pliable and
fluid and metamorphosis has continually taken place. Among the
beings there, spinning in and out, were those hideous beings I
have described, those spidery creatures permeating the Old Moon
and visible there. And there were also present the beings who
as spirit-fools accompany the wise on the Earth today. They
were a factor in bringing about the destruction of the Old
Moon, so that the Earth could arise. And even now, during
Earth-existence, these beings have no pleasure in the formation
of crystals, but rather in the breaking up of everything
mineral.
Thus while we can say of the normal elemental beings that they
will one day become visible to the senses, we must say of these
other beings: once upon a time they were visible to the senses
and have now sprung over into the spiritual — admittedly
through their Luciferic and Ahrimanic natures. Thus there are
two kinds of elemental beings — ascending and descending.
We can say: on the ‘dung’ of Old Moon ugliness — which
was there in profusion during the Old Moon-existence — on
the ‘dung’ of Old Moon ugliness, our world of beauty springs
forth.
You
have an analogy in Nature when you carry manure to the fields
and beautiful plants spring from it. There you have an analogy
in Nature except that the dung, the manure, is also perceptible
to the senses. So it is when the half-reality of the world of
beauty is observed clairvoyantly. Try to envisage this
half-real world of beauty, quite apart from the teeming life in
the three kingdoms of Nature on the Earth; picture all the
beautiful after-effects springing from the Earth. Just as
lovely flowers spring up in a meadow, you must spiritually
picture underneath it all the Moon-dung which contains the ugly
spidery creatures I have described. Just as cabbage does not
grow unless it is manured, as little can beauty blossom on the
Earth unless the Gods manure the Earth with ugliness. That is
the inner necessity of life. And this inner necessity of life
must be known to us, for such knowledge alone can give us the
power to confront with understanding what actually surrounds us
in Nature.
Anyone who believes that beauty in art can be produced on Earth
without the foundation of this ugliness is like a man who is
horrified that people use manure, insisting that it would be
far better to let beautiful things grow without it. — In
point of fact it is not possible for beauty to be produced
without the foundation of ugliness. And if people do not want
to give themselves up to illusion about the world, that is, if
they genuinely desire to know the essential and not the
illusory, then they must acquire knowledge of these things.
Whoever believes that there is art in the world without
ugliness does not know what art is. And why not? Simply for the
reason that only he who has an inkling of what I have described
to you today will enjoy works of art in the right way, for he
knows at what cost they are purchased in world-existence.
Whoever wants to enjoy works of art without this consciousness
is like a man who would prefer to do away with manure on the
fields. Such a man has no real knowledge of what grows in
Nature; he has, in fact, merely an illusion before him —
plants of papier-maché, although real plants are
actually there. Whoever does not feel ugliness as the
foundation has not the right kind of delight in beauty.
Such is the world-order and men must acquire knowledge of it if
they do not want to go on wandering about like earthworms,
keeping to their own element and not looking upwards to what is
real. Men can only develop the talents latent within them if
they confront reality fairly and squarely. Reality, however, is
not attained merely by talking time and time again of spirit,
spirit, spirit, but by really coming to know the spiritual. But
the fact has also to be faced that in certain regions of the
spiritual world something like I have been describing to you
today will be encountered.
* The
Soul's Awakening. Scene 2.
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