I
THE INNER ASPECT OF THE
SATURN-EMBODIMENT OF THE EARTH
If we wish to
pursue the studies we carried on in our lectures last year, it will be
necessary to acquire still other concepts and views than those that
have so far been discussed. We know that what we have to say about
the Gospels and other spiritual documents of humanity would not
suffice if we did not pre-suppose the evolution of our whole cosmic
system, which we describe as the embodiments of our planet itself,
through the Saturn-existence the Sun-existence, the Moon-existence on
to our present Earth-existence. Anyone who recollects how often we
have had to start from these fundamental conceptions will know how
necessary they are for all occult observations of human evolution. If
you now turn to the accounts given, for instance, in my
Occult Science
about Saturn, Sun and Moon evolution, to that of the Earth, you
will admit that nothing but a sketch could be given (indeed even if
it were much more amplified it would still be no more), nothing but a
sketch from one side, from one point of view. For just as the
Earth-existence comprises an infinite wealth of detail, it is quite
obvious that the former embodiments are equally detailed, and that it
would never be possible to give more than a merely rough charcoal
drawing, just an outline of these. It is, however, necessary for us
to describe evolution from yet another side.
If it be asked,
whence arise all the accounts given here, we know that they arise
from the so-called entries in the Akashic Record. We know that what
has once taken place in the course of the world's evolution is
in a sense to be read as though registered in a delicate spiritual
substance, the Akashic substance. There is a register there of
everything that has taken place, by which we can discover how things
once were. Now it is natural that just as the ordinary vision,
contemplating anything of our physical world, sees the details of
objects in its vicinity more or less clearly, and that the further
away they are the less clear do they appear, so we may also admit
that those things that are near us in time, belonging to the
Earth or the Moon evolutions can be more minutely observed; while on
the other hand those further removed from us in time take on more or
less indistinct outlines — as for instance when we look back
clairvoyantly into the Saturn or Sun existence.
Why do we
do this at all, why do we set value on following up an age so far behind
our own? It might well be objected: for what reason do students of
Spiritual Science bring up such primeval subjects for discussion at
the present day? We really do not need to trouble ourselves about
these ancient matters, we have quite enough to do with what is going
on now in the world!
It would be
wrong to speak in this way. For what has once happened is fulfilling itself
continuously even at the present day. What occurred in the time of
Saturn did not only take place then — it goes on even to-day;
only it is covered over and made invisible by what to-day surrounds
man on the physical plane. And the ancient Saturn-existence which
played its part so long ago, has been made utterly invisible to us;
but it still somewhat concerns man even now, this old
Saturn-existence. And in order that we may form a conception of how
it concerns us to-day, let us place the following before our souls.
We know that the
innermost core of our being meets us in what we call our Ego. This
ego, the innermost core of our being, is, in reality, for people of
the present day an absolutely super-sensible and imponderable
entity. This can be seen in the fact that there are to-day teachings
regarding the soul, so-called official psychologies which no longer
have the slightest inkling that such an ego is to be alluded to. I
have often drawn your attention to the fact that in the German
psychology of the nineteenth century the following expression has
come into use: “Soul-teaching without soul.” In the
celebrated School of Wundt, which is considered decisive not only in
German countries, but everywhere where psychology is discussed, it is
mentioned with great respect. This school was well known for the
“soul-teaching without soul” although it did not coin the
expression. This teaching insisted, without taking an independent
soul-being into consideration, that all the qualities of the
soul are gathered into a sort of focus — into the ego. It would
be impossible to think of greater nonsense, yet the psychology of the
present day is absolutely under the influence of this nonsense. This
“soul-teaching without soul” is to-day famous throughout
the world. Future writers on the history of civilisation will have
much to do to make it appear plausible to our successors that in the
nineteenth century and well on into the twentieth it was possible
that such a thought could have arisen as the greatest production of
the psychological field. This is only mentioned to point out how
vague is official psychology respecting what we designate as the
central point of the human being.
If we could have a
clear grasp of the ego and place it before us like the external
physical body; if we could look for the environment upon which
the ego depends in the same way as the physical body is dependent
upon what is seen by the eyes and perceived by the senses — if
we could look for the environment of the ego in the same way as we do
for that of the physical realm, in the clouds, mountains, etc., or,
in the same way as the physical body does for its means of
nourishment, we should come even to-day to an expression of the
cosmos, to a cosmic tableau in which, as it were, our environment is
imprinted invisibly and which is similar to the cosmic tableau of
ancient Saturn. This means that a man who wishes to learn to know the
ego in its own world must represent to himself a world such as
ancient Saturn. This world is hidden; to man it is a super-sensible
world. At the present stage of his evolution man could not possibly
bear the perception of it. It is veiled by the Guardian of the
Threshold Who conceals it from him. And it requires a certain grade
of spiritual development to support such a vision. It is indeed a
vision to which we must first become accustomed. And above all you
must form a conception of what is necessary, to be able to feel such
a cosmic tableau as reality. You must think away everything that can
be perceived by the senses, you must even think away your own inner
world, in so far as this consists of the wonted working of the mind.
Further you must think away from everything that is in the world, all
the concepts you have within you. Thus you must remove from the
external world all that the senses can perceive, and from the inner
world all the workings of the mind, all conceptions. And now, if you
wish to form an idea of that soul-disposition which a man must have
if he really holds the thought that everything is taken away and man
alone remains, we cannot say otherwise than that he must learn to
feel dread and fear of the infinite emptiness yawning around us. He
must be able to feel, as it were, his environment tinged and
saturated with that which inspires dread and fear wherever he turns,
and at the same time he must be able to overcome this fear by inner
firmness and certainty.
Without these two
frames of mind — dread and fear of the infinite emptiness of
existence and the overcoming of this fear — it is impossible to
have the faintest conception of the ancient Saturn-existence
underlying our own world. Neither of these feelings is much
cultivated by people in themselves. Hence, even in literature we find
but few descriptions of this condition. It is naturally known to
those who in course of time endeavour to seek the origin of things by
means of clairvoyant forces. In external literature, however, whether
written or printed, you will find but few indications of man having
felt anything like the dread of the infinite emptiness or the
overcoming of this. In order to obtain a sort of insight into this, I
have tried to investigate some of the more modern literature where
the consciousness of this dread of the immeasurable emptiness might
be found. The philosophers are as a rule extremely clever and
speak in clear concepts — they avoid speaking of the mighty,
awe-inspiring impressions; it will not be easy to find anything of
the sort in their writings. Now I shall not speak of those in which I
have found nothing. But I once found one small echo of these
feelings, and this was in the diary of Karl Rosenkrantz, the writer
on Hegel, in which he sometimes describes intimate feelings produced
in him by engrossing himself in the Hegel philosophy. I came
upon a remarkable passage, which is simply expressed and noted
in his diary. It had become clear to Karl Rosenkrantz that this
philosophy proceeds from pure being. This “pure being “of
Hegel is much discussed in philosophical literature of the nineteenth
century — but we must say that it was very little understood.
We might almost say (though, of course, this can only be said in the
most intimate circles) that the philosophy of the second half of the
nineteenth century understood just as little of the “pure being
“of Hegel as the ox understands of Sunday, when he has eaten
grass all the week. This concept of the “pure being” of
Hegel is one that has been sifted again and again (not existing but
Absolute Being); it is a concept which indeed is not quite what I
have described as the dreadful emptiness into which flows fear. But
all space in Hegel's sense is tinged with the quality
containing nothing that can be experienced by man; it is infinity
filled with “being.” Karl Rosenkrantz once felt this to
be as a dreadful shuddering recoil from a coldness, tinged with
nothing but “being.”
In order to
understand what underlies the world it does not suffice to speak of
it in concepts, or to form concepts and ideas on it; it is far more
necessary to call up an impression of the feeling aroused by the
infinite emptiness of the ancient Saturn-existence. A feeling of
horror accompanies the mere hint of it. If we wish to ascend
clairvoyantly to the state of Saturn, we must prepare ourselves by
acquiring a feeling, more or less known to everyone, that may be
compared to the giddiness experienced on a mountain, when a man
stands at the edge of an abyss and feels that he has no sure footing
under him, that he cannot retain it in any place and wants to give
way to forces over which he has no longer any control. But that is
only the most elementary of these apprehensive feelings. For he
loses not only the ground beneath him, but also what eyes can see,
ears hear and hands grasp; in fact all spatial environment. And he
can do no other than lose every thought that may come to him, in a
sort of condition of dimness or sleep; and then he can arrive at
having no perception at all. He may be so deeply absorbed in this
impression that he can do no other than come to the condition of
dread, which often is like a giddiness not to be overcome.
Man of to-day
has two possibilities. The first is that he may have understood the Gospels,
or the Mystery of Golgotha. Anyone who has really understood these in
their full depths — naturally not as modern theologians speak
of them, but in such a way that he has drawn from them the deepest
that can be expressed in them — will take something with him
into that emptiness, which seems to expand from a given point and
fills emptiness with something similar to courage. It is a feeling of
courage, of protection through being united with that Being Who
accomplished the sacrifice on Golgotha. The other way is to penetrate
into the spiritual worlds without the Gospels through a genuine true
Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy. This is also possible. (You know
that we emphasise the fact that we do not start from the Gospels when
we consider the Mystery of Golgotha, but that we should arrive at it
even if there were no Gospels at all.) That would not have been
possible before the Mystery of Golgotha took place; but it is the
case to-day, because something entered the world through the Mystery
of Golgotha which enables a man to understand the impressions of the
spiritual world directly through his own impressions. This is what we
call the ruling of the Holy Spirit in the world, the ruling of cosmic
thought in the world. Whether we take one or the other of these with
us, we cannot lose ourselves and we cannot, so to say, fall into the
bottomless abyss when we stand before the dreadful emptiness. If we
now approach this dreadful emptiness with the other
preparations given us by the various methods, for instance,
those in my book,
The Knowledge of Higher Worlds,
etc., and other
methods dependent on these — and enter a world born from that
which can shake our minds, which can seize upon our conceptions, when
we live into that world, when we place ourselves, so to say, in the
Saturn-existence, then we learn to know Beings — not in the
least similar to those we perceive in the animal, plant or mineral
kingdoms but Beings. This is a world where there are no clouds, no
light, where it is quite devoid of sound, but we become acquainted
with Beings — indeed those Beings called in our
terminology Spirits of Will or Thrones. We learn so to know
them that it becomes a true objective reality for us — a
surging sea of courage.
What at first can
only be pictured in thought, becomes through clairvoyance, objective
reality. Think of yourself as immersed in this sea — but now
immersed as a spiritual being, feeling one with the Christ-Being,
carried by the Christ-Being, swimming — though not in a sea of
water but in a sea filling infinite space, a sea (there is no other
description for it) of flowing courage, flowing energy. This is not
simply a uniform and undifferentiated sea, but we meet here with all
the possibilities and diversities of what we call a feeling of
courage. We become acquainted with beings who, to be sure, consist of
courage, but although they consist of courage alone, we meet them as
really concrete beings. Naturally it may appear strange to say that
we meet beings just as real as man who is made of flesh, and yet they
are not of flesh but consist of courage. Yet such is the case. Of
such a nature are the Spirits of Will. To begin with, we shall only
designate as Saturn-existence what the Spirits of Will, consisting of
courage, represent — and nothing else. This, in the first place
is “Saturn.” It is a world of which we cannot say that it
is spherical, hexagonal or square. None of these definitions of space
applies to it, for there is no possibility of any end being
discoverable. If we revert to the simile of swimming, we may say it
is not a sea in which one would come to any surface, but on all sides
and in all directions are to be found Spirits of Courage or Will.
In later lectures
I shall describe how we do not at once come to this: for the present I
will keep to the same order as formerly: Saturn — Sun —
Moon; though it is much better to keep to the reverse direction, from
Earth to Saturn. I am now describing the other way round, but it is
of no importance.
When we have
lifted ourselves to this vision, something meets us of which it is extremely
difficult to form an idea, except for one who has taken the trouble,
slowly and gradually to attain to such conceptions. For something
ceases, which is more intimately connected with our ordinary human
ideas than anything else: space ceases! It no longer has any meaning
to say — we swim “up or “down,”
“forward “or “backward,” “right or
left,” these have no longer any meaning. In this respect it is
everywhere the same. But the important thing is when we reach these
first ages of the Saturn-existence time, too, ceases; there is no
longer “earlier “or “later.” It is naturally
very difficult for man to imagine this to-day, because his ideas
themselves flow in time. On Saturn no thought is before or after
another. This again can only be described by a feeling that time
ceases. This feeling is certainly not pleasant. Imagine that your
concepts are benumbed, that everything that you can remember,
everything which you undertake is benumbed into a rigid rod, so that
you feel yourself held in your conceptions and are no longer able to
move, then you will no longer be able to say that what you formerly
experienced you experienced “formerly”; you are fastened
to it; it is there, but it is benumbed: time ceases to be of
significance, it is absolutely no longer there. On this account it is
rather foolish for anyone to say: “you describe the
Saturn-existence, the Sun existence, etc., now tell us what was
before Saturn.” “Before” has no longer any meaning
because time ceases to exist; we must also cease all definitions of
time. In the old Saturn-existence, speaking very comparatively
— the world is really boarded up, inasmuch as thought must
stand absolutely still. It is the same with clairvoyance, ordinary
thoughts must be left behind, they do not extend so far. By way of a
comparison and expressing it in image, we must say that our brain is
frozen. And when we realise this condition of rigidity, we shall have
a comparative conception of the consciousness no longer enclosed in time.
Now when we
have got as far as this we become aware of a remarkable alteration in the
whole picture. It can now be observed that out of this rigidity, this
timeless character of the infinite sea of courage with its Beings
whom we call the Spirits of Will, come the Beings of other
Hierarchies, as though striking into it and playing into it. We can
only notice that other Beings here play into it when we become aware
of the cessation of time. We notice an indefinite experience of which
we cannot say that we ourselves experience it, but that it is there.
We can only say that it is within the whole infinite sea of courage.
We observe something passing through this like a flashing-up, like a
becoming lighter, but not a real illumination, more like a glimmer.
This glimmer does not give the impression of a glimmering light, but
as we must understand these things in various ways and we desire to
make this comprehensible, we must imagine the following: Suppose a
man says something to you and you think, “how clever he
is!” and as he talks on further, this feeling increases and the
thought comes: “he is really wise, he must have had endless
experience, to say such wise things.” ... Besides this feeling,
the person makes an impression upon you like a breath of
enchantment. Imagine this breath of enchantment enormously
enhanced — and within it clouds, which do not flash up but
glimmer; if you take this altogether you will have a conception of
how Beings consisting entirely of Wisdom interact with the hierarchy
of the Spirits of Will. Their Wisdom is not Wisdom alone, but streams
which are actively radiant. In short, you then obtain clairvoyantly
the conception of what the Cherubim are. The Cherubim play into it.
Now imagine
yourself surrounded by nothing but what I have described. I have already
said, and have laid certain stress upon it, that we cannot say of it:
“we have it around us,” we can only say, “it is
there.” We must think ourselves into this. And concerning the
conception that something is there flashing up, I said it was not a
flash but a glimmering. It is not as though something arose and
vanished again; everything is simultaneous. Now, however, the feeling
comes that there is some connection between these Spirits of Will and
the Cherubim. The feeling comes to us that they have established a
relationship to one another; we become conscious of this. And indeed
we become conscious that the Spirits of Will or Thrones sacrifice
their own being to the Cherubim. That is the last conception to which
we can attain when we approach Saturn in retrospect, that of the
sacrificing Spirits of Will offering their sacrifice to the Cherubim.
There the world is ‘boarded up’. And inasmuch as we can
experience the sacrifice that the Spirits of Will make to the
Cherubim, something looses itself from our being. This we can express
by saying: through the sacrifice made by the Spirits of Will to the
Cherubim, time is born. But “time” here is not the
abstract time of which we usually speak, but independent being. We
can now first speak of something that begins. Time begins with the
birth of time-beings--whose nature is pure time. Beings are born
consisting only of time. These are the Spirits of Personality, known
to us as Archai in the hierarchy of spiritual beings. In the
Saturn-existence they are nothing but time. We have also described
them as Time-Spirits, as Spirits who rule time. But there they are
born as spirits, they are really beings consisting of nothing but time.
To take part
in this sacrifice of the Spirits of Will to the Cherubim, and in the birth
of time is something of extraordinary importance. For it is only now,
when time is born, that something else appears — something that
makes it possible for us to speak of the Saturn condition as having
anything in the least similar to our environment. What we call the
element of warmth in Saturn is, as it were, the sacrificial smoke of
the Thrones giving birth to time. Hence I have always said, in
describing the Saturn-condition, that it was one of warmth. Of all
the elements we have around us now, the only one we can speak of as
being on ancient Saturn is warmth. And this warmth arises as
sacrificial heat offered by the Spirits of Will to the Cherubim. This
should give us an indication of how we should really look upon fire.
Where-ever we see fire, wherever we feel warmth, we should not think
in so materialistic a fashion as is natural and usual to the man of
to-day. But wherever we see and feel warmth appear we should feel
that what is at the spiritual foundation of our life is present,
though it is still invisible, namely the sacrifice of the Spirits of
Will to the Cherubim. The world only acquires its truth when we know
that behind every development of heat, there is sacrifice.
In
Occult Science,
in order not to shock people outside unduly, I have begun by describing
the more external condition of ancient Saturn. They are quite shocked
enough by this, and people who can only think in accordance with
modern science look upon the book as pure nonsense. Just think what
it would mean if we were to say, “Ancient Saturn has in its
innermost being — in its very foundation — this fact,
that the beings belonging to the Spirits of Will offered sacrifice to
the Cherubim, that in the smoke of their sacrifice time came to birth
as the sacrifice they brought to the Cherubim, and that from this
have proceeded the Archai, the Time-Spirits, and that external heat
is nothing but a maya as compared with the sacrifice of the Spirits
of Will!” But so it is. Externally heat is really only a maya.
And if we wish to speak truly we must say that wherever there is heat
we have in reality sacrifice, sacrifice of the Thrones to the Cherubim.
And now an
excellent “imagination” is the following: In
Knowledge of Higher Worlds
and elsewhere it is frequently said that the second stage of
Rosicrucian initiation is the forming of imagination. The
Anthroposophist must build up these imaginations from the right
conceptions of the world. Thus we can think of what we have discussed
to-day as transformed into an “imagination “: we can
imagine the Thrones, the Spirits of Will, kneeling in absolute
devotion before the Cherubim, but so that their devotion does not
proceed from a feeling of littleness but from a consciousness that
they have something to offer. Imagine the Thrones, with this desire
of sacrifice founded upon their strength and courage as kneeling
before the Cherubim and sending up their sacrifice to them. ... And
they send up this sacrifice as foaming heat, so that the sacrificial
smoke ascends to the winged Cherubim. So might we picture it. And
proceeding from this sacrifice (just as though a word of ours spoken
into the air became time — in this case it is time-beings) and
emerging from this whole proceeding the Spirits of Time —
Archai. This sending forth of the Archai gives a grand and powerful
picture. And this picture placed before our souls is extremely
impressive for certain imaginations, which can then lead us further
and further into the realm of occult knowledge.
This is precisely
what we have to attain; we must be able to transform the ideas we
receive into imaginations, into pictures. Even if the pictures are
clumsily formed, even if they are anthropomorphic, even if the
beings appear as winged angels, etc., that does not signify. The rest
will be given to us later; and what they ought not to have will fall
away. When we yield ourselves to these pictures we penetrate into
imaginative perception.
If you take
what I have just endeavoured to describe you will see that the soul will
soon have recourse to all kinds of pictures unconnected with
intellectual ideas. These latter owe their existence to a much later
period, so that we should not at first take such things
intellectually. And you must comprehend what is meant when some minds
describe things differently from the intellectualists; the
intellectualist will never be able to understand such minds. I will
give a hint to anyone who wishes for instruction on this point: take
out of the public library a book — which is quite a good one
— the so-called “Old Schwegler,” formerly much used
by students for examinations, but now no longer applicable since the
“soul” is dethroned; although this book has been mutilated by
way of improvement, it is not quite spoilt. You can take old Schwegler's
History of Philosophy
and you will have quite a
good book. If you read there about the philosophy of Hegel you will
find everything splendidly described. But now read the short chapter
on Jacob Boehme, and try to obtain a correct idea of how helpless a
man is who writes an intellectual philosophy when confronted with a
spirit such as Jacob Boehme! Paracelsus — thank goodness
— he left out entirely; for concerning him he would have
written completely unjustifiable things. But just read what he says
about Jacob Boehme. Here Schwegler comes to a spirit to whom there
objectively appeared — not the Saturn picture — but the
recapitulation of the Saturn picture taking place in the Earth
period; this he can only do in words and concepts that cannot be
approached by the intellect. To the intellectual man all
comprehension here ceases. It is not as though these things were
impossible of comprehension, but they cannot be understood if the
standpoint of the dry philosophic intellect is insisted upon.
You see,
precisely the most important thing for us is that we lift ourselves to
what the ordinary intellect is unable to grasp. Even though the ordinary
intellect produces something as excellent as
The History of Philosophy
by Schwegler (for I have expressly called this a good book), it is still
an example by which we must see how a splendid intellect is completely
at a standstill before a spirit such as Jacob Boehme.
Thus to-day we
have endeavoured in our consideration of ancient Saturn to penetrate more
inwardly, so to say, into this old planetary embodiment of our Earth.
We shall presently do the same with the Sun- and the Moon-existence.
And in doing so we shall see that there too we come to ideas which
perhaps may not appear less impressive than the glimpse afforded us
when we look back to the old Saturn condition, and to the Thrones
sacrificing to the Cherubim and resulting in the creation of the
Beings of Time. For time is a result of sacrifice, and first arises
as living time, as a creation of sacrifice. Then we shall see how all
these things are transformed on the Sun, and other glorious events of
the cosmic existence will confront us, when we pass from Saturn to
the Sun, and then to the Moon-existence.
|