Lecture 3
20th August, 1911
N
this course of lectures I hope to be able to give you a survey of some
important truths of Spiritual Science from one particular aspect. It is
perhaps only towards the end of the course that you will be able to see
how the threads all hang together. In the two lectures just given I dwelt
a good deal upon the Mystery of Eleusis and upon Greek mythology, and
I shall still often have occasion to refer to the performances we
have seen. But I also have another purpose, which you will recognise
at the end of the course. I want this evening to bring home to you
from another direction how Spiritual Science in our day is aspiring
towards that mighty archetypal wisdom of which we have caught a
glimpse, how it throws light upon those great figures and images and
upon the tidings of the Mysteries which have come down to us from
ancient Greece. If we are to grasp the whole mission of Spiritual
Science today we shall have to recognise that many concepts and ideas
which obtain today have to be changed. Contemporary humanity is often
very short-sighted, it scarcely gives a thought to anything beyond
the immediate future. To evoke a feeling that we must change our very
manner of thinking if we are to enter deeply into the mission of
Spiritual Science — that is why I draw attention to the
completely different view of the world and of life, and of the
relation of man to the spiritual world, held by the Greeks. For in
all this the Greek attitude of heart and soul was very different from
that of modern man.
Let me begin today by
mentioning just one thing. There is a concept, an idea, very familiar
to you all, an idea which not only finds common expression in the
vocabulary of all languages, but which has also tended to take on a
certain scientific connotation. It is the word NATURE. When the word
‘nature’ is used in any context it at once arouses in
modern man a whole number of ideas. We think of nature as the
opposite of soul or spirit. Now what the man of today means by
‘nature’ simply did not exist for Greek thought. You have
to eliminate altogether what you mean today by the term
‘nature’ if you wish to enter into the thought of ancient
Greece. The contrast between nature and spirit which we today
experience was unknown to the Greeks. When the Greek directed his eye
to the processes which took place in wood and meadow, in sun and
moon, in the world of the stars, he did not yet experience a natural
existence devoid of spirit, but everything which happened in the
world was as much the deed of spiritual Beings as for us a movement
of our hand is an expression of our own soul-activity. When we move
our hand from left to right, we know that a mental activity lies
behind this movement, and we do not talk of an opposition between the
mere movement of the hand and our will, but we know that the movement
of the hand and our will, as an impulse of movement, constitute a
unity. We still feel the unity when we make a gesture which our mind
directs. But when we direct our gaze upon the course of sun and moon,
when we become aware of the currents of air in the wind, then we no
longer see in these things, as the Greeks did, the outer gestures,
the moving hand so to say, of divine-spiritual Beings, but we see
something outside us which we study according to abstract laws,
mathematical-mechanical laws. Such a nature — a nature which is
calculated according to purely external mathematical-mechanical
laws, a nature which is not simply the physiognomy of
divine-spiritual activity — was unknown to the Greeks. We shall
hear how the concept ‘nature’ as understood by modern man
gradually came to birth.
Thus in those ancient
times Spirit and Nature were in full harmony with one another.
Consequently what we today call a wonder, a miracle, did not bear its
present interpretation. Putting aside all finer shades of difference,
today we should call it a miracle if we were to perceive an event in
the outer world which could not be explained by natural laws already
known or of the same kind as those already known, but which
presupposed a direct intervention of the spirit. If a man were to
perceive directly a spiritual event which he could not understand and
could not explain according to the strict laws of mathematics and
mechanics, he would say it was miraculous. The ancient Greek could
not use the term ‘miraculous’ in this sense, for to him
it was obvious that everything which takes place in Nature is
effected by Spirit; he did not discriminate between the daily
happenings in the ordering of Nature and rarer events. The one kind
occurred only rarely, the other kind was habitual, but for him
spiritual creation, divine-spiritual activity, entered into every
natural event. You see how these concepts have changed. For the
intervention of the spirit in events on the physical plane to be
regarded as miraculous is essentially a feature of our own time. It
is peculiar to our modern way of looking at things to draw a sharp
line between what we believe to be governed by natural law and what
we have to recognise as a direct intervention of spiritual
worlds.
I have spoken to you
of the harmonising of two streams of culture which I may call the
Demeter-Persephone stream and the Agamemnon-Iphigenia stream. It is
the mission of Spiritual Science to unite these two streams. We
cannot emphasise too strongly how necessary it is for humanity to
learn to feel again that the spiritual is active in everyday events
as well as in rarer occurrences. But this requires a clear
recognition that there are two currents in human experience. Men must
be quite clear that there are things which form part of a system of
nature, things which follow the laws accepted today by the physicist,
the chemist, the physiologist, the biologist, while on the other hand
there are also other occurrences which can be accepted as facts, just
as the facts which follow the physicalmathematical-chemical laws, but
which cannot be explained unless one recognises the reality of a
spiritual movement and life behind the physical plane.
The whole conflict
caused in the human soul by this opposition between Nature and
Spirit, and at the same time the longing to resolve it, is discharged
in my Rosicrucian Drama
The Portal of Initiation
in the soul of Strader. There we see how such an event as Theodora's
vision, an event outside the ordinary processes of nature, affects
someone who is accustomed only to accept as valid phenomena which can
be explained by the laws of physics and chemistry ...
Strader's character and his inner experiences illustrate how
such an event acts upon the heart as an ordeal of the soul. This
scene epitomises the sense of conflict which finds expression in
countless modern souls. People like Strader are very numerous today.
To such people it is a necessity to inquire into the characteristics
of the regular, normal course of natural events, events which can be
explained by physical, chemical or biological laws; on the other hand
it is also necessary that such souls should be brought to recognise
other events, events which also take place on the physical plane, but
which are classed as miracles by the purely materialistic mind, and
hence brushed aside as impossibilities and not recognised for what
they are.
Thus we can say that
today there is a longing to reconcile the opposition between nature
and spirit, an opposition which did not yet exist in ancient Greece.
And the fact that attempts are made, that societies are established,
to examine the activity and nature of laws in the physical world
other than purely chemical, physiological, biological laws, is proof
that the longing to resolve this opposition is very widely felt. It
is part of the mission of our own Spiritual Science to resolve this
opposition between spirit and nature. We must set to work out of new
sources of spiritual-scientific insight; we must fit ourselves to see
again in what is all around us more than meets the eye of the
physicist or the chemist or the anatomist or the physiologist. To do
this we must start with man himself, who so emphatically demands not
only that the chemical and physical laws active in his physical body
should be studied, but also that the connection between physical,
psychic and spiritual, which for anyone who will look attentively can
become visible in an unobtrusive way even to physical eyes, should be
investigated.
The man of today no
longer experiences what I have so far only been able to put before
you as the working of the Demeter or the Persephone forces in the
human organism. He no longer experiences the important fact that what
is diffused over the whole universe without is also in us. The Greek
did experience this. Even if he could not express it in modern terms,
he experienced a truth, for example, of which modern theology will
only slowly become convinced again — a truth which I will try
to bring home to you in the following way. Today you look upwards to
the rainbow. So long as it cannot be explained it is as much a wonder
of Nature, a wonder of the world, a miracle, as anything else. Amid
all that is familiar in everyday life there stands before our eyes
the marvellous bow with its seven colours ... we will ignore all
the explanations of the physicist, for the physics of the future will
have quite different things to say about the rainbow too. We say to
ourselves: ‘Our gaze falls upon the rainbow which emerges as
if out of the bosom of the surrounding universe; in looking at it we
look into the macrocosm, into the great world; the macrocosm gives
birth to the rainbow.’ Now let us turn our gaze inwards; within
ourselves we can observe that out of a vague, unthinking brooding,
there emerge specific thoughts relating to something or other —
in other words, thought flashes up within our souls. It is an
everyday experience, we have only to see it in the right light. Let
us take these two things, the macrocosm which gives birth to the
rainbow out of the bosom of the universe, and the other thing, that
in ourselves thought is born out of the rest of our soul-life. Those
are the two facts of which the wise men of ancient Greece already
knew something and which men will come to know again through
Spiritual Science. The same forces which cause thoughts to light up
in our microcosm call forth the outward rainbow from the bosom of the
universe. Just as the Demeter forces from without enter into man and
become active within, so outside us in the cosmos those forces are
active which form the rainbow out of the ingredients of Nature; there
they work spread out in space; within, in the microcosmic world of
man, they cause thought to flash up out of the indefinite. Of course
ordinary physics has not yet come anywhere near such truths,
nevertheless, that is the truth.
Everything that is
outside in space is also within us. Today man does not yet recognise
the complete harmony which exists between the mysterious forces at
work in himself, and the forces active outside in the macrocosm;
indeed he probably regards that as a fantastic daydream. The ancient
Greek could not say what I say today about these things, because he
could not penetrate the matter with intellect, but it lived in his
subconscious, he saw it, or felt it clairvoyantly. If today we wish
to express in up-to-date phraseology what the Greek felt, we must say
that he felt working within him the forces which caused thought to
flash up, and felt that they were the same forces which organised the
rainbow without. That is what he experienced. And he said to himself:
‘If there are psychic forces within me which cause thought to
flash up, what is it that is without? What is the spiritual force in
the widths of space, above and below, right and left, before and
behind? What is it outspread there in space which causes the rainbow
to flash up, causes the sunrise and the sunset, causes the glimmer
and the glory of the clouds, just as within me the forces of the soul
bring forth thought?’ For the ancient Greek it was a spiritual
Being who gave birth out of the universal ether to all these
phenomena — to the roseate tints of sunrise and sunset, to the
rainbow, to the glimmer and the glory of the clouds, to thunder and
lightning. And out of this feeling, which, as I said before, had not
become intellectual knowledge, but was elemental feeling, there arose
the intuitive perception, ‘That is Zeus!’ One does not
get any idea, still less any sense of what the Greek soul experienced
as Zeus, if one does not approach this experience and this feeling by
way of the spiritual-scientific outlook. Zeus was a Being with a
clearly defined form, but one could not get an idea of him without
the feeling that the forces which cause thought to light up in us are
also at work in what flashes up externally, such as the rainbow and
so on. But today in anthroposophical circles, when we look into the
human being and try to learn something of the forces which call forth
in us thoughts, ideas — the forces which call forth all that
flashes up in our consciousness — we say that all this
constitutes what we call the astral body. In this way, having the
microcosmic substance, the astral body, we can give an answer in
terms of Spiritual Science to the question we have just put in a more
pictorial way, and we can say that as a microcosm we have in us the
astral body ... we can then ask ourselves what corresponds without
in the widths of space to the astral body — what fills all
space right and left, behind and before, above and below? Just as the
astral body extends throughout our microcosm, so is the universal
ether, so are the wide expanses of space, permeated with the
macrocosmic counterpart of our astral body, and we can also say that
what the ancient Greek pictured to himself as Zeus is the macrocosmic
counterpart of our astral body. In us we have the astral body, it
causes the phenomena of consciousness to light up; without extends
the astrality from which, as from the cosmic womb, is born the
rainbow, the sunrise, the sunset, thunder and lightning, clouds and
snow. The man of today can find no word to cover what the Greek
thought of as Zeus, and which is the cosmic counterpart of our astral
body.
To continue: Besides
what lights up in us momentarily or for a short time as thought, as
idea, as feeling, we have our enduring life of soul, with its
emotions and passions, with its fluctuating life of feeling,
something which is abiding and subject to habit and memory. It is by
their permanent soul-life that we recognise individuals. Here we see
a man of wild passions, impetuously laying hold of everything in his
path; here another who has no interest in the world. That is
something quite different from the momentary thought, that is what
constitutes the permanent configuration of our inner life, the basis
of our happiness, of our destiny. The man of fiery temperament, of
strong passions, sympathies and antipathies, may in certain
circumstances commit some action which causes him happiness or
unhappiness. The forces in us which represent the more enduring
qualities, the qualities which turn into memory and habit, must be
distinguished from the forces of the astral body — the former
are rooted in our ether bodies. You know that from other
lectures.
Now if we were to put
the matter as a Greek would do, we should ask once more whether there
is anything outside in the cosmos which has the same forces as we
bear in our habits our passions, our enduring emotive attitudes. And
once more the Greek felt the answer, was conscious of the answer
without undergoing any intellectual process. He felt that in the ebb
and flow of the ocean, in the storms and hurricanes which rage over
the earth, the same forces are active as are active in us when
lasting emotions, when passion and habit pulsate through our memory.
When we are speaking microcosmically they are the forces in us which
we cover by the term ‘ether body’, and which bring about
our lasting emotions. Macrocosmically speaking they are forces more
closely bound up with the earth than the forces of Zeus in the widths
of space, they are the forces which determine wind and weather, storm
and calm, untroubled and raging seas. In all these phenomena, in
storm and tempest, in tumultuous or untroubled seas, in hurricane or
doldrums, the modern man sees merely ‘nature’, and
present-day meteorology is a purely physical science. For the Greeks
there was as yet no such thing as a purely physical science
comparable to what we have today in meteorology. To talk of
meteorology in such terms he would have thought as senseless as it
would be for us to investigate the physical forces which move our
muscles when we laugh, if we did not know that in these movements of
our muscles psychic forces are involved. To the Greeks all these
things were gestures without and around us, gestures of the same
spiritual activity that is revealed in us, in the microcosm, as
lasting emotion, passion, memory. The ancient Greek was still
conscious of a figure who could be reached by clairvoyance, he was
still conscious of the ruler, the centre of all these forces in the
macrocosm, and spoke of him as Poseidon.
Today we will go on
to speak of the physical body, the densest part of the human being.
Microcosmically speaking we have to look upon the physical body as
composed of all those characteristics of the human being which have
not been mentioned as belonging to the other two bodies. Everything
in the nature of transitory thought and idea, thought which arises in
us and then disappears, belongs to the astral body; every habitual,
lasting attitude of mind, everything which is not merely
thought in the sense that it leads its own isolated thought-existence
in the soul, belongs to the ether body. And for everything which is
not merely a sentiment, an attitude of mind, but which passes over
into the sphere of will, for everything which results in an impulse
to do something, man needs in this life between birth and death the
physical body. The physical body is what serves to raise the mere
thought or the mere sentiment to an impulse of will, it is the prime
mover behind the deed in the physical world. The will-impulses, the
soul-forces which lie behind the will, find their expression in the
whole outward aspect of the physical body. The physical body is the
expression of will-impulses as the astral body is the expression of
mere thoughts, and the ether body of enduring sentiments and habits.
In order that will can act through man here in the physical world he
must have the physical body. In the higher worlds, activity of will
is something quite different from what it is in the physical world.
Thus, as microcosms, we have in us above all those forces of soul
which bring about our will-impulses, impulses which are needed to
make good the claim that the ego is the central governing power of
the human soul. For without his will man would never attain to an
ego-consciousness. Now when the Greek asked himself what it was,
outspread in the macrocosm, that corresponded to the forces in us
which call forth the will-impulse — the whole world of will
— what did he answer? He gave it the name of Pluto. Pluto, as
the central ruling power outspread in macrocosmic space, but closely
associated with the solid mass of the planet, was for the Greeks the
macrocosmic counterpart of the impulses of will which forced the life
of Persephone into the depths of the soul.
Anyone who has
clairvoyant consciousness, who can see into the real spiritual world,
has a self-knowledge which can properly distinguish this threefold
nature of his being into astral, etheric and physical bodies. The
ancient Greek was really not in a position to examine the microcosm
with the precision we apply to it today. Actually it was not until
the beginning of our fifth post-Atlantean culture-epoch that
man's attention was turned to the microcosm. The ancient Greek
was far more conscious of the Pluto, Poseidon and Zeus forces outside
him and took it for granted that those forces worked into him.
He lived far more in
the macrocosm than in the microcosm. Therein lies the difference
between ancient and modern times, that the Greek felt mainly the
macrocosm and consequently peopled the world with the gods who were
for him its central ruling powers; whereas the modern man thinks more
about the microcosm, about man himself, the centre of our own world,
and thus seeks more within his own being for the distinguishing
features of this threefold world.
We begin to see how
it was that, just at the beginning of our fifth post-Atlantean
culture-epoch, there arose in all sorts of ways in western
esotericism an awareness of the inner activity of the soul-forces, so
that physical, etheric and astral bodies were distinguished. Now that
occult investigation in this direction is being pursued with greater
intensity, many things to which particular individuals in modern
times have borne testimony can be confirmed today. For instance, it
has been possible recently to confirm experiences which occurred in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as to the
‘clear-tasting’ of one's own being. Just as one can
speak of clairvoyance, or clairaudience, so one may speak of
clairsipience. This clairsipience can apply to the threefold human
being, and I can describe to you the difference between external
sensations of taste and the various sensations of taste which a man
can have in connection with his own threefold being.
Try to imagine
vividly the taste you have when you eat a very tart fruit such as the
sloe, which contracts the palate; imagine this wry sensation enhanced
so that you are completely permeated by the sensation of bitterness,
of astringency, of downright pain; try to imagine yourself from top
to bottom, right down to the finger-tips and in every limb, permeated
by this astringent taste, then you have the self-knowledge which the
occultist calls the self-knowledge of the physical body through the
occult sense of taste, the spiritual sense of taste. When
self-knowledge works in such a way that man feels himself completely
permeated by this astringent taste, the occultist knows that he is
experiencing knowledge of his own physical body through the occult
sense of taste, for he knows that the astral body and the etheric
body are bound to taste quite different, if I may so express it. As
astral and etheric man, one has a different taste from what one has
as physical man. These things are not said out of the blue, but out
of concrete knowledge; they are known to occultists in the same way
as the laws of the outside world are familiar to physicists and
chemists.
Now take — not
exactly the taste you get from sugar or from a sweet—but the
delicate etheric sensation of taste, which most men do not
experience, but which nevertheless can be experienced in
physical life when, for example, you enter into an atmosphere which
you enjoy very much — let us say into an avenue of trees or
into a wood, where you feel, ‘Ah, how delicious it is here, I
should like to be one with the scent of the trees!’ Imagine
this kind of experience, which can really grow into a kind of taste,
a taste which you can have when you can forget yourself in your own
inwardness, when you can feel yourself so united with your
surroundings that you would like to taste yourself into those
surroundings ... imagine the experience transferred into the
spiritual, then you have the clairsipience which the occultist knows
when he seeks the self-knowledge which is possible in respect of the
human ether body. It comes if one says, ‘I am now eliminating
my physical body, I am shutting off everything connected with the
will-impulses, I am suppressing the flashing-up of thought, and
surrendering myself entirely to my permanent habits, to my sympathies
and antipathies.’ When the occultist acquires the taste of
this, when as a practising occultist he feels himself in this etheric
body of his, then there comes to him a spiritualised form of taste
rather like what I have just described as regards the physical world.
Thus there is a clear distinction between self-knowledge in respect
of the physical and of the etheric bodies.
The astral body can
also be recognised by the occultist who has developed these higher
faculties. But in this case one can no longer properly speak of a
sense of taste. In the case of the astral body the sense of taste is
lacking, just as it is in the case of certain physical substances.
Knowledge of one's own astral body has to be described in quite
different terms. But it is also possible for the practising occultist
to eliminate his physical body, to eliminate his ether body, and to
relate his self-knowledge solely to his astral body — that is
to say, to pay attention only to what his astral body is. The normal
man does not do that. The normal man experiences the interworking of
physical, etheric and astral. He never has the astral body alone, he
cannot experience it because he is incapable of shutting out the
physical and etheric bodies. When this does happen to the practising
occultist, he certainly gets at first a very unpleasant sensation ...
it can only be compared with the sensation which overcomes us in
the physical world when there is not enough air, when we have a
feeling of breathlessness. When the etheric and physical bodies are
suppressed, and self-knowledge is concentrated upon the astral body,
there comes a feeling of oppression rather like breathlessness. Hence
knowledge of a man's own astral body is first and formost
accompanied by fear and anxiety, more so than in the other cases,
because it consists basically in being filled through and through
with a sense of oppression. It is impossible to perceive the astral
body in isolation without becoming filled with dread. That in
ordinary life we are not aware of this fear, which is there all the
time, arises from the fact that the normal man, when aware of
himself, feels a mixture, a harmonious or inharmonious working
together of physical, etheric and astral, and not the isolated,
separate members of the human being.
Now that you have
heard what are the main experiences of the soul in self-knowledge as
regards the physical body, which represents the Pluto forces in us,
as regards the ether body, which represents the Poseidon forces, and
as regards the astral body, which represents the Zeus forces, you may
want to know how these forces work together; what is the relationship
between the three kinds of force? Well, how do we express
relationship between things and events in the physical world? It is
very simple. If anyone were to give you a dish containing peas and
beans and perhaps lentils all jumbled up together, that would be a
mixture. If the quantities of each were not equal, you would have to
separate peas, beans and lentils from one another to get the ratio
between their quantities. You could say, for example, that their
quantities were in the ratio of 1:3:5; in short, when you are dealing
with a mixture of things, you have to find out the proportions of the
component parts of the mixture. In the same way we can ask what is
the ratio of the strength of the forces of the physical body to those
of the etheric body, to those of the astral body? How can we express
the relative magnitudes of physical, etheric and astral bodies? Is
there a numerical formula, or any other formula, which can express
their relative strengths? The question of this relationship will
enable us to acquire a profound insight, first into the wonders of
the world, and then into the ordeals of the soul and into the
revelations of the spirit. We will begin to speak about it today; we
shall be led further and further into the subject.
The proportions
can be expressed. There is something which shows quite
exactly the quantities and the strengths of our inner forces in
physical, etheric and astral bodies respectively, and the
corresponding relationships between them. Let me make a diagram of it
for you. For these relationships can only be expressed by means of a
geometrical figure. If we ponder deeply this figure we find that it
contains — like an occult sign on which we can
meditate—all the proportions of size and strength of the forces
of physical, etheric and astral bodies respectively. You see that
what I am drawing is a pentagram.
| Diagram 2 Click image for large view | |
If we look at this
pentagram, to begin with, taken at its face value, it is a symbol for
the etheric body. But I have already said that the ether body also
contains the central forces of both astral and physical bodies; it is
from the ether body that all the forces, the ageing and the
youth-giving forces emanate. Because the ether body is the centre for
all these forces it is possible to show, in this diagram, in this
sign and seal of the ether body, what in the human body is the ratio
between the strength of the forces of the physical body, the strength
of the forces of the etheric body, and the strength of the forces of
the astral body respectively.
One arrives at the
precise magnitude of these relationships in this way; within the
pentagram there is an upside-down pentagon. I will fill it in
completely with chalk. That gives us to start with one of the
component parts of the pentagram. You get another part of the
pentagram if you look at the triangles based on the sides of the
pentagon. These I am shading with horizontal lines. Thus the
pentagram has been reduced to a central pentagon with its point
downwards (blocked out in chalk) and five triangles which I have
shaded by means of horizontal lines. If you compare the size of the
pentagon with the size of the sum of the five triangles, you can say,
‘as the size of this pentagon is to the size of the sum of the
five triangles, so are the forces of the physical body in man to the
forces of his etheric body.’ Note well that just as one can say
in the case of a mixture of peas, beans and lentils that the quantity
of lentils is to the quantity of beans let us say — as three to
five, so we can say, ‘the ratio of the strength of the forces
in the physical body is to the strength of the forces in the etheric
body as the area of the pentagon in the pentagram is to the sum of
the areas of the triangles which I have shaded horizontally.’
Now I will draw a pentagon with the point upwards, by circumscribing
the pentagram. In this case you must not take only the triangles
which complete the figure, but the whole pentagon, including the area
of the pentagram — that is to say, including all that I have
shaded vertically. Now consider this vertically shaded pentagon
around the pentagram.
As is the area of
this small downward-pointing pentagon to the area of this vertically
shaded upward-pointing pentagon, so is the strength of the forces of
the physical body in man to the strength of the forces of his astral
body. In short, in this figure you find expressed the reciprocal
relationships of the forces of physical, etheric and astral forces in
man. It does not all come into human consciousness. The
upward-pointing pentagon comprises all the astral forces in man,
including those of which he is not yet aware, and which will be
perfected as the ego transforms the astral body more and more into
Spirit-Self or Manas.
Now you may wonder
how these three sheaths are related to the ego. You see, normally
developed man today knows very little of the real ego, which I have
called the baby, and which is the least developed of the human
members. But all the forces of the ego are already in man. If you
want to consider the total forces of the ego in relation to the
forces of physical, etheric and astral bodies, you need only describe
a circle around the whole figure. I don't want to make the
diagram too confusing, but if I were to shade the whole area of the
circle, the ratio of the size of its area to the size of the area of
the upward-pointed pentagon, to the sum of the areas of the
horizontally-shaded triangles, to the small downward-pointed pentagon
which I have filled in with chalk ... would give the ratio of the
forces of the entire ego (represented by the area of the circle) to
the forces of the astral body (represented by the area of the large
pentagon), to the forces of the ether body (represented by the sum of
the horizontally shaded triangles around the small pentagon), to the
forces of the physical body (represented by the area of the pentagon
filled in with chalk). If you give yourself in meditation to this
occult sign and acquire a certain feeling for the proportional
relationships of these four different areas, you get an impression of
the mutual ratios of physical, etheric, astral and ego. Thus, you
must think with the same attentiveness of the large circle and try to
grasp it in meditation. Next you must place before you the upward-
pointing pentagon, and because it is somewhat smaller than the circle
— to the extent of these segments of the circle here — it
makes a weaker impression upon you than the circle. And to the extent
to which the impression of the pentagon is weaker than the impression
of the circle, so are the forces of the astral body weaker than the
forces of the ego. And if as a third exercise you place before you
the five horizontally shaded triangles (without the middle pentagon)
you have a still weaker impression if you are thinking with the same
degree of attentiveness. And to the extent to which this impression
is weaker than the impression made by the two previous figures, so
are the forces of the etheric body weaker than the forces of the
astral body or the forces of the ego. And if you place before you the
small pentagon, assuming the same degree of attentiveness, you get
the weakest impression. If you can acquire a feeling of the relative
strengths of these four impressions and can retain them, as we hold
together in our thought the notes of a melody — if you can
think these four impressions together in proportion to their
strengths, then you have the measure of harmony which exists between
the forces of ego, astral, ether and physical bodies
respectively.
What I have shown you
is an occult sign; one can meditate on such signs; I have described
more or less how it is done. By thinking of the relative sizes of
these areas with an equal attentiveness, one gains an impression of
their difference in strength. Then one receives a corresponding
impression of the relative strengths of the forces of the four
members of the human being. These things are symbols of the true
occult script, emanating from the nature of things. To meditate on
this script means to read the signs of the great world-wonders, which
guide us into the great world-secrets. Thereby we gradually acquire a
complete understanding of what is at work in the cosmos as wonders of
the world, an understanding of the fact that the spirit pours itself
into matter in accordance with definite ratios. I have at the same
time evoked in you something of what was really the most elementary
exercise of the old Pythagorean schools. A man begins by meditating
on the occult signs, makes them real to himself, and then finds that
he has seen the truth of the world with its wonders; then he begins
to perceive with his spiritual hearing the harmonies and the melodies
of the forces of the world. Tomorrow we will go further into this. My
main object today has been to place before your souls this occult
sign, which will lead us a step further into the nature of man.
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