LECTURE
IV.
THE
EPHESIAN MYSTERIES OF ARTEMIS
Dornach, 30th November, 1923.
THE continuation of the
studies we made here on the last occasion leads us today first of all
to something which will furnish a preparation for the next two
lectures. It leads us to glance at the connection of man, and indeed
of the whole man, with our earth. I have often said in various
connections that man is subject to a kind of deception if he ascribes
to himself a totally separate existence, if he ascribes to himself,
as a physical human being, an independent separate existence. He is
indeed independent and individual as a psychic and spiritual being;
but as physical earth man he belongs to the earth in its organic
entirety, and this applies in a certain sense to his etheric body
also.
I will describe to you today how this connection of man
with earthly existence can appear to super-sensible vision, and I will
do so in a more narrative form by way of preparation for the next two
lectures. Let us suppose that someone possessing Imaginative
consciousness — which I have often described — takes a
journey through the primeval Alps, among those rocks and stones which
consist chiefly in quartz, i.e. in rocks containing silicates and
other similar minerals. When we come into this primeval mountainous
region we walk upon the hardest rocks on earth, which, when they
appear in their own characteristic form have something virgin in
them, one might say, something which is untouched by the ordinary
everyday life of earth. We can indeed understand Goethe quite well
when, in one of the beautiful utterances we have often quoted here,
he speaks of his experience among these primeval mountains. He speaks
of the solitude he felt when sitting among these granite mountains
receiving impressions from those hard and stern rocks towering up from
the earth. Goethe addresses the granite as “the everlasting son
of the earth,” the granite which consists in quartz, i.e. in
silicates, in mica and in feldspar.
Now when a man approaches these primeval rocks with his
ordinary consciousness he may of course admire them from outside. He
is struck by their forms, by the perfectly wonderful primitive
plastic art which is, however, extraordinarily eloquent. When
however, with Imaginative consciousness he approaches these rocks,
the hardest on the earth, he penetrates by their means directly into
the depths of the mineral kingdom. He is then able to grow together
as it were in thought with the rock. One might say that his
soul-being extends everywhere down into the depths of the rock, and
he actually enters in spirit as into a holy palace of the gods. The
inner nature of these rocks reveals itself as permeable to
Imaginative cognition, while the outer surfaces appear as the walls
of this palace of the gods. But at the same time he has the knowledge
that within this rock there lives an inner reflection of all that is
in the cosmos. Once more the world of the stars stands before the
man’s soul reflected in this hard rock. Finally he receives the
impression that in everyone of these quartz rocks something is
present like an eye of the earth itself for the whole cosmos.
One is reminded of the eyes of insects, those
many-faceted eyes which divide all that approaches them from outside
into very many separate parts. One would like to imagine, and indeed
one cannot help doing so, that there are countless quartz and similar
formations on the surface of the earth that are just so many eyes of
the earth, in order that the cosmic environment may be reflected and
the earth can inwardly perceive it. Gradually one acquires the
knowledge that each crystal form existing within the earth is a
cosmic sense-organ of the earth.
This is the marvelous, the majestic fact about the
covering of snow, and even more about the falling snow-flakes, that
in each single one of these snow-flakes there is a reflection of a
great part of the cosmos, that with this crystallized water
everywhere reflections fall to the earth of parts of the starry
heavens.
I need not mention that the stars are also there during
the day only that the sunlight is of course too strong for us to
perceive them. The stars do not appear by day, but if you have at any
time the opportunity of going down into a deep cellar over which
there is a tower open at the top, then, because you are looking out
of the darkness and the sunlight does not confuse you, you can see
the stars even by day. There is a certain tower in Jena, for
instance, from which one can see the stars during the day. I only
mention this by the way to make clear to you that this reflection of
the stars in the snowflakes and generally in all crystals is of
course present also during the day. And it is not a physical but a
spiritual reflection. The impression one receives of this must be
communicated inwardly.
But this is not all. Out of the spiritual
sense-impression which is thus received there arises in the soul the
feeling that just as we live imaginatively into the crystal covering
of the earth so do we grow together with everything which the earth
experiences of the cosmos in this crystal covering.
In this way we extend our own being out into the cosmos.
We feel ourselves one with the cosmos. And above all else it now
becomes a truth, a deep truth to the imaginative observer, that what
we call our earth-body with all its various parts was once in the
course of time born out of the cosmos; for the relationship of the
earth with the cosmos then appears most intensely before the eyes of
the soul. Thus, through this experience of living ourselves into the
millions of crystal eyes of the earth we are prepared to feel the
whole inner relationship of the earth with the cosmos, to experience
it in the Feeling-Soul.
Thereby, however, we feel ourselves as Man once again
united with the earth — I shall explain this point specially
later on. For this process of the earth being born out of the cosmos
took place when Man himself was still a primitive being, not a
physical but a spiritual being. But the process which the earth then
went through after it had been born out of the cosmos Man himself
went through in his own being together with the earth. It is really
the case that the earth once upon a time had the same inner
relationship with the neighbouring cosmos surrounding it as the human
embryo has to the body of its mother before it is born. Later,
however, the child begins to be independent. Similarly the earth
itself developed independence, whereas in the first Saturn period it
was more united with the cosmos. This process of becoming independent
was shared by man in such a way that he has learnt to say: The finger
which I carry about on me is a finger only as long as it is a part of
my organism; the moment I cut it off from my organism it is no longer
a finger, it decays. In the same way, if we think of man as a
physical being separated by a few miles from the body of the earth he
would decay just as a finger does if it is cut off from the man's
body. The delusion of man that as a physical being he is independent
of the earth arises only from the fact that he can move about freely
on the surface of the earth, whereas the finger cannot move about on
the rest of his organism. If the finger could walk about on the rest
of the body it would have the same delusion concerning man as he, as
a physical being, has concerning the earth. It is just through the
higher cognition that the intimate belonging-together of the physical
man with the earth is made clear.
That is the first acquaintance which man makes by means
of Imaginative cognition when it is applied to the hardest part of
the earth's surface.
We can make further progress in this knowledge if we go
somewhat deeper into the earth and learn to know all that is in the
interior of the earth, in veins or lodes of metal, or anything of a
metallic nature generally. Here we penetrate under the surface of the
earth; but here, when we meet what is metallic we come to something
quite special, to an existence separate from the rest of the earth.
Metals have something of an independent nature in them, they can be
experienced as something independent; and this experience has much,
very much to do with man.
Even one who has already attained a certain higher
knowledge by Imaginative vision is not yet quite at home when he
experiences the quartz and other rocks of the primeval mountains in
such a way that by becoming one with the million eyes of the earth he
himself lives, feels and projects himself in experience into the
whole cosmos. When, however, such a man approaches the interior of
the earth there come to him the first impulses which accompany such a
wonderful and deep experience as he may have in the stimulus to be
had in a mine. Once, however, these impulses have come to him he only
requires spiritual vision to be able everywhere to enter into
relationship with that which is metallic, even if he does not go down
into the borings of the mine.
But the first feeling of which I am speaking may be
acquired with special intensity in metal mines. Even metal miners
(though this is not so much the case as it was a few decades ago) who
have inwardly grown up with their calling show something of what we
may call a deep sense of the spiritual element in metals; for the
metals not only perceive the environment of the cosmos but they
speak, they speak spiritually. They relate things, they speak to us.
And they speak in such a way that this language which they utter is
very like that which one receives as an impression in another domain
also.
When we succeed in setting up a psychic connection with
human beings who are going through the development between death and
re-birth (I have often mentioned this point before) we require for
this a special language. The utterances of spiritualists are indeed
childish in this domain for the reason that the dead do not speak the
language of earthly man. Spiritualists believe that the dead speak in
such a way that one can write down what they say, just as one may
receive a letter from a contemporary, living here on the earth. For
the most part it is high-flown matter that comes from spiritualist
sittings, but even among our living contemporaries on the earth
high-flown things are also written. But that is not the question
here. The first necessity is to find the right approach to the
language which the dead speak, which has no resemblance to any
language on earth. It certainly has a vocal-consonantal character but
not like that of earthly speech. This language which can only be
perceived by the spiritual ears is spoken also by the metals in the
interior of the earth. And this language through which man can
approach those souls who are living between death and re-birth
relates to us the memories of the earth, the things that the earth
has experienced in its passage through Saturn, Sun and Moon. We must
let the metals relate to us what were the experiences of the earth.
The experiences of the whole planetary system (I have already spoken
of this) are told us by that which Saturn has to communicate to the
planetary cosmic system in which we live. What the earth has
undergone in the process, of this the metals of the earth speak.
The language spoken by
the metals of the earth can assume two different forms. When this
language has the ordinary form, so to speak, there appears before us
what the earth has gone through in its evolution beginning in the
Saturn period. What you find in my
Outline of Occult Science
regarding this evolution originated for the most part, in the way
I have often described, through direct spiritual perception of the
events. That is a mode of acquiring knowledge of these earth
processes which is somewhat different from the mode to which I am now
referring. For the metals speak more — if I may express myself
thus; it is of course somewhat oddly expressed — the metals
speak more of the personal experiences of the earth. They speak of
what the earth has experienced as a cosmic personality. Thus, if I
were to take into account the narratives of the metals, to which one
can listen by penetrating spiritually into the inner part of the
earth, I should have to add many details to what I have written about
the Saturn, Sun and Moon periods, etc.
The first thing, for
example, would be that those forms of Saturn which you will find
described in my
Outline of Occult Science
as forms which
consist in differentiations of heat would appear as powerful gigantic
beings consisting in heat; beings of heat who, even as early as the
ancient Saturn period, had reached a certain density. If such a thing
could be (of course it is impossible, but let us suppose it could
happen) that an earthly man were to meet these beings, he could
become aware of them, he would be able to lay hold of them. At a
certain time, about the middle of this Saturn period these beings
were not merely spiritual beings but they also displayed a physical
existence; if a man had touched them he would have been blistered.
It would however, be a mistake to suppose that these beings had a
temperature of millions of degrees of heat. That is not the case, but
they had inwardly such a temperature that if one could have grasped
them the contact would have caused blisters.
As regards the Sun
period we should have to relate how in these formations described in my
Occult Science
as present in the Sun period other beings
appear, displaying wonderful transformations, wonderful
metamorphoses. From gazing at, from observing these self-transforming
beings one receives the impression, for instance, that the
metamorphoses described by classical authors such as Ovid have
something to do with these communications imparted to us, naturally
indirectly, by the metals. Ovid was certainly not himself capable of
directly understanding the language of the metals, and what he
describes in his
Metamorphoses
does not perfectly correspond
with the impression which one receives; but in a certain sense the
correspondence is conveyed.
Paracelsus again was a personality who lived much later
than those to whom I have just referred. The most important things
Paracelsus wanted to learn he did not learn at the University. I
cannot say that Paracelsus did not attend the University, for he did,
and I will not bring forward any objections against going to the
University, but Paracelsus did not go there to learn the most
important things he wanted to know. He went everywhere where men
could tell him more important things; he went to such men as
metal-miners, for instance, and in this way he acquired a great part
of his knowledge.
Now anyone acquainted with the right way of gaining
knowledge for oneself knows how extremely illuminating for instance,
the simple remarks of a farmer may be, a man who has to do sowing and
reaping and all that is connected with work of that kind. You will
say, yes, but he does not understand the import of what he is saying.
It does not matter to you whether the speaker understands or not, so
long as you yourself understand when you listen to him. That is the
important thing. Certainly in very few cases will the man himself
understand what he says; he speaks from instinct. And even more
fundamental things can be experienced in the case of those beings who
understand nothing of what they say to us — from the beetles
and butterflies, from the birds, and so on.
What could be learned in
the mines in Asia Minor through the language of the metals was
studied very deeply by Pythagoras, for example, on his wanderings,
and from thence much penetrated into what became the Greek and Roman
civilization. Then it appears in weakened form in such writings as
Ovid's
Metamorphoses.
That then is one form of the language of
the metals in the interior of the earth.
The other form — grotesque as it sounds, it is
nevertheless true — the other form is that in which this speech
of the metals begins to develop cosmic poesy, when it passes over
into poetic form. There actually appears in the language of the
metals cosmic fantasy. Then there resounds out of this cosmic poetry
that which constitutes the most intimate relations between the metals
and man. Such intimate relations between man and metals indeed exist.
The coarse relationships of which physiology is aware relate only to
a few metals. It is known, for instance, that iron plays a great part
in human blood; but iron is the only metal of this kind that does
this. A certain number of other metals such as potassium, calcium,
sodium, magnesium, also play a certain role, but a larger number of
important metals, important for the structure and functioning of the
earth, apparently play no part in the human organism, according to
coarse external observation. But this is only apparently the case.
When we go down into the earth and there learn to know the colour of
the metals we also learn that metals are by no means confined to the
interior of the earth, but are everywhere in the surroundings of the
earth, though certainly in an exceedingly diluted form — I must
here use the expression — in a super-homeopathic dilution they
are distributed everywhere in the environment of the earth.
Roughly speaking, we can have no lead in us, but
speaking more accurately, we cannot exist without lead. What would
become of man if lead did not work upon him from the cosmos, from the
atmosphere; if in an infinitely finely divided state lead itself did
not penetrate through his eye with the nerve-sense ray; if lead did
not penetrate into the body through the breathing and in an endlessly
finely-divided state enter into us through food? What would man be if
lead did not work in him?
Man would indeed have sense-perceptions without lead. He
would perceive colours, he would perceive sounds; but in his
perceptions of colours and sounds it would be as if, with every
perception he became slightly unconscious. He would never be able to
withdraw from his perceptions and reflect in thought, or form
concepts of what he had perceived. If we did not take lead, as I have
said, in super-homeopathic dilution into our nervous system and most
of all into our brain we should be given up entirely to our
sense-perceptions as to something outside of us. We should not be
able to think about our sense-perceptions, nor should we be able to
preserve the memory of them. This capacity is given us by the finely
divided lead in our brain.
If lead be introduced into the human body in large
quantities it results in the terrible lead-poisoning. But he who
knows the connection can see from this lead-poisoning that, while
lead when introduced into man's body in large quantities works
excessive harm, in this fine super-homeopathic dilution it is
something which causes as much to die off in man each moment as is
necessary in order that he may become a conscious being, and not
suffer unconsciousness through continual sprouting, budding, growing.
For in sprouting and budding, in the over pressure of the pure forces
of growth man becomes powerless.
It is thus that man is connected with all the metals,
even with those concerning which our coarse physiology does not
speak. The knowledge of these connections is the basis for a positive
genuine true therapy; but instruction concerning these connections
between the metals and man can only be given in that language which
is the poetic speech of the metals in the earth. Thus it may be said
that concerning the past experiences of the earth itself the ordinary
language of the metals instructs man; but the metals instruct man
concerning their curative properties when they become poetic, when
their language becomes poetry.
This is indeed a noteworthy connection. From the cosmic
aspect, medicine is cosmic poetry; indicating how many secrets of the
world are contained in the fact that something which on one niveau of
the world is harmful and brings about disease, on another niveau is
most beneficent, most perfect, most beautiful. This is shown us when
Inspired cognition penetrates to the veins of metal in the earth, and
to all that is metallic in the earth.
We may enter into another relationship with the metals,
that relationship which becomes apparent when they are subjected to
the forces of nature, for instance, to, fire or similar natural
forces. Observe the remarkable form assumed in the earth by antimony,
a metal. It is composed of single spikes, which shows that when it is
being formed it follows certain directions of force which are
operative in the cosmos. This grey antimony has also the property
that if it is heated and spread on glass it forms a mirror. Antimony
has also other characteristics, for instance, that of exploding if it
is treated electrically in a certain way and then brought to the
cathode (the negative pole).
All these characteristics of antimony show the relation
of such a metallic substance to the forces of the earth and its
environment. This however, can be noticed in the case of all metals.
We can observe all metals when they are subjected to fire, and we see
how, if ever a higher temperature is developed they pass over into
that super-homeopathic condition and at this high temperature take
quite a different form. In this respect the ideas of our modern
physicists are the most limited one can imagine. For example, they
imagine that when they melt lead it becomes softer and softer, and of
course that is quite correct as far as it goes. It does become softer
as the temperature grows higher; the lead becomes hotter and hotter.
It becomes more fluid until it gives off lead fumes. But all the time
something is being thrown off that does not go beyond a certain
temperature. This they do not know. It is just this finest, this
super-homeopathic part of the lead which passes over continually into
what I may call universal invisible life, and this is something which
acts upon man.
The matter may be presented thus. In the earth down
below you have the various metals, but these metals exist also in a
finely-divided state everywhere above. I might say that these metals
vapourize. Down below in the earth we have the metals with their
sharp contours, with their rigid forms, and still further down they
would certainly be in a fiery fluid condition. But in the environment
of the earth they exist in this finely-divided state; there they
reveal themselves in continual radiations so that a constant
radiation goes out into the cosmos. The metals ray forth into space;
but there is a certain elasticity in this cosmic space, and the
forces which go forth in this way do not radiate without limit into
space as the physicists imagine to be the case with light rays. They
proceed to a certain boundary and then return. One can observe this
radiating back of the metals returning in all directions from the
periphery of the cosmos as if they came from everywhere. One notices
that these back-raying forces are active in that sphere of human life
which is really the most wonderful and beautiful, that is, when, in
the first years of its life a child learns to walk, speak, and think.
The way in which a child raises itself from the crawling position to
get its bearings in the world is really the most wonderful thing we
can observe in earthly life — this realization of itself as a
human being. Inwardly, in these forces which I have so often
described work the backward-raying forces of the metals. While the
child learns to raise itself upright from its horizontal crawling
position it is permeated by these metallic forces which are being
reflected back. It is these forces which really raise the child up.
If one can inwardly perceive and understand this connection, then at
the same time one has another experience. One learns in his actions
and in his being the connection of man as he lives here on the earth
with his former earth lives.
It
requires the same capacity to perceive the workings of metals in the
cosmos as it does to perceive the karmic connection of successive
earth lives. These capacities are the same, the one arises with the
other, and the one does not exist without the other. For this reason
I said in a different connection that in the power of orientation, in
the raising itself of the child from crawling to standing upright and
walking, in learning to speak and in learning to think lies that
which comes over from former earthly lives. Anyone who has a feeling
for these things can see in the way a child makes its first steps, in
the way it walks, whether it has the inclination to press more on the
toes or the heel, whether it bends the knees more or less strongly —
in all this anyone who has an eye for these things can see a karmic
tendency from a former earth life. This reveals itself primarily in
the gait and it can now be perceived because the capacity to see the
backward-raying forces of the metals and the power to observe the
connection of man with his former earth lives belong together.
When people say Anthroposophy cannot be proved that
assertion is really without foundation. People are accustomed to
prove things in such a way that sense perception is always brought
forward as proof. That is just as if someone were to say: If you tell
me that the earth moves in cosmic space without support that is
impossible; the earth must have something to rest on, otherwise it
would fall. Now cosmic bodies do mutually support one another, and
only with regard to things of the earth can one say that everything
must have something to rest on. For the truths which concern everyday
consciousness we demand proofs. The truths which relate to the spirit
mutually support one another. But one must be able to trace this
mutual support.
Some weeks ago I told you how, by observing the way a
child or a man walks — whether he first raises his toes or his
heel, whether he treads lightly or firmly, whether he bends the knees
or holds them stiffly, etc. — that in all these things one can
see the realization of his karma as the result of his former earth
life. Today I have shown you how the reflected forces of the metals
enable one to recognize how the several lives on earth are connected
together.
Here we perceive two truths that mutually support each
other. It is always the case that we must first hear a truth, then
other things intervene, and then we hear the same truth again from a
different point of view, then perhaps a third time. Thus do the
truths of Anthroposophy support one another, as the heavenly bodies
in the cosmos uphold and support each other. This must be so when we
ascend from the truths which are valid for ordinary consciousness to
those truths which are self-subsisting in the cosmos. And
self-subsisting in the cosmos is that Which is to be grasped through
the knowledge given by Anthroposophy.
So we must really bring together all the truths which
have been given out at different times, truths which really support
one another, attract one another, and sometimes also repel one
another, in this way showing the inner life of anthroposophical
knowledge; for anthroposophical knowledge lives on its own
inspiration. Other systems which obtain today depend upon the
supports on which they rest, but anthroposophical knowledge is
self-supporting.
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