Lecture 13
The Prophetic Nature of
Dreams: Moon, Sun and Saturn Man
Berlin, June 22, 1915
Dear friends, once again let us first
of all remember those who are out there at the front, in
the great arena of present-day events:
Spirits of your souls, guardian
guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.
And for those who because of those
events have already gone through the gate of death:
Spirits of your souls, guardian
guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.
May the
spirit we are seeking as we work towards spiritual
knowledge, the spirit who has gone through the Mystery of
Golgotha for the good of the earth, for the freedom and
progress of man, be With you and the hard duties you have
to perform.
Today it will be my task to sum up
some of the things we may know already, though it is good
to review them again and again, for they may serve as
guide-lines for our work in spiritual science.
Above all
we must every now and again return to the thought that
our present life on earth, between birth and death,
really is an interlude between our many past earth lives
and the many lives we have already lived between death
and rebirth on the one hand and the many earth lives and
lives between death and rebirth that lie ahead in the
future on the other. An interlude is what I have called
this life of ours. We may therefore expect to find
something in our present life that may, as it were, be
considered to have arisen out of what has gone before,
and also something that may be seen to point us towards
the future. Some of the things we shall discuss today
will relate particularly to the latter.
A person
could easily believe, in considering his life, that there
is really nothing in this life to indicate that the
germs, the seeds of our future life are already within
us. Yet that is the case. It really is the case that what
is to happen with us in the future is already in
preparation. We merely have to interpret our lives
correctly and we shall find out that something already
lies hidden within us just as the plant now before us
holds within it the hidden seed of the future plant' for
a plant that is still to come into being.
One element
in our present life which often tends to be
incomprehensible is our dream life, a subject only too
well known to us all. Our dream life does of course have
aspects that we may consider to be to some extent
comprehensible. We dream about things which remind us of
something or other we have gone through in life. It does,
of course, often happen that things we have gone through
the day before or some time ago appear changed in our
dreams, that they have undergone some kind of
transformation. But still, it will often be fairly
obvious that part of the life we have behind us comes up
in what we are dreaming, even if it has changed. On the
other hand I think no one who pays at least some
attention to himself and the world of his dreams can deny
that there are dreams which show us such strange things
that we really cannot say they derive from something or
other we have gone through in our lives. It really is a
fact that a person only needs to reflect a little on his
dreams and he will be perfectly aware that things come up
in his dreams which he could never have thought up, could
never have had an idea of, at least as far as he is aware
from what he remembers.
We shall
understand how all this fits together if we take a closer
look at what really happens when we dream. As you know,
when we are asleep we are outside the physical and ether
bodies with our astral body and ego. The physical and
ether bodies are lying on the couch; with our astral body
and ego we are outside them. Under present conditions on
earth it is not possible for any one to have conscious
awareness of what the astral body and the ego go through
whilst they are asleep — unless they somehow
acquire special faculties. These things are at a
subconscious level. However, clairvoyant perception shows
that what the astral body and ego live through outside
the physical body is just as rich and varied, just as
clearly defined, as what the physical body experiences.
It is just as rich and varied, showing just as great a
variety of form as many of the things we experience here
on the physical plane. Our consciousness cannot take it
in, but it is there and it is experienced. The astral
body and the ego are normally so far away from the
physical and ether bodies during sleep that these are not
aware of anything that goes on in the astral body and the
ego. Dreams arise when the astral body and the ego come
so close to the physical and ether bodies that the ether
body is able to receive impressions of what goes on in
the astral body and the ego. When you wake up knowing
that you have been dreaming, it strictly speaking means
that the contents of your dream have become conscious
because the astral body and the ego were re-entering. And
before the physical body was able to become conscious of
having the astral body and the ego within itself again,
the ether body became conscious of this. The ether body
rapidly took in what the astral body and the ego had
experienced and this gave rise to the dream. A dream
therefore arises through interaction between astral body
and ether body.
As a result
the dream is given a particular colouring. It is given a
kind of coating, one might say. As you know, at death the
human being departs with his astral body, ego and ether
body and the ether body then immediately sees the past
life in retrospect. This vision of the past life is in
fact attached to the ether body and the review comes to
an end when this dissolves. The ether body therefore has
the capacity for carrying the imprint of all the events
in one's life. The ether body really bears the imprint of
everything we have gone through in life.
This ether
body has a very complex structure. If we were able to
dissect it out in such a way that it retained its form,
it would be a mirror of our present life, a picture of
our life going back to the moment, the point in time, to
which our memory extends. As we enter into the ether body
with our astral body and ego and the ether body comes to
meet the incoming astral body, it carries things —
memories of things it has experienced — towards
that which is coming in with the astral body and it uses
its own images for what in the astral body is something
real.
I want to
put it more precisely. Let us assume someone is asleep
and with his astral body and ego out there encounters,
let us say, another individual. The person will know
nothing about this. He experiences the encounter; he
experiences a certain friendly feeling towards the other
and knows that he is about to do something together with
this other individual. Let us assume he experiences this
outside his ether body. This is possible. Yet he'll know
nothing about it. Then the moment of waking comes. The
astral body and the ego return to the ether body,
bringing towards the ether body whatever has been
experienced. The ether body meets the astral body with
all that is inherent within it, with its world of images,
and the sleeper dreams. He dreams of something he
undertook maybe ten, twenty years ago. And the person
will say to himself: ‘Ah yes, I have been dreaming
about something I experienced ten, twenty years
ago.’ But if he reflects carefully he may well find
that the past event has undergone a complete change. It
will still, however, remind him of something he
experienced in the past. Now what did really happen in
this case? If we follow the process carefully, using
clairvoyant perception, we find that the ego and astral
body have experienced something that in fact Will only
take place during the person's next incarnation: an
encounter with an individual, something or other which
has to do with the individual. But the person is not yet
able to take this in with his ether body, for this only
contains, is only able to hold, the images of his present
life. When the astral body enters, the ether body
expresses what really is part of a future life in images
belonging to the present life. This peculiarly
complicated process actually takes place all the time in
the human being when he is dreaming.
Considering
everything you have already heard in spiritual science,
this will not seem strange to you. We must be aware that
in the principles which depart from our physical and
ether bodies, in the astral body and the ego, we have
that which tends towards our next incarnation, which is
preparing in us for our next incarnation. As we gradually
learn to separate our dreams from the images deriving
from our present life, we come to know the prophetic
nature of dreams. The prophetic nature of dreams can
indeed be revealed to us; we merely have to learn to
strip our dreams of the images in which they are clothed.
We need to consider the nature of the experiences in our
dreams rather than the actual experience. We might say to
ourselves for instance: The fact that I dream of an
individual is due to the nature of my ether body, the way
in which my ether body goes out to meet the experiences
gained by the astral body with images relating to the
present. To identify the things which have already been
prepared for our next life, we have to focus our
attention more on the manner or essential nature of the
dream, separating it from the image belonging to the
ether body. Through our dreams we really have prophecies
in us of things that will happen in the future. It is
really most important to pay serious attention to this.
Human life will be more and more revealed the more we
take account of its complex nature. We'd like to have it
simpler, that would be easier, but the fact is that it is
complicated.
You see,
someone who is in the outer, physical world does not
realize that there are all kinds of things within him. We
have just come to see that there is a foreteller of
future lives within us. But there are many other things
in us, and in gaining self-knowledge we come to see more
and more of what there is in us, what is at work within
us, making us happy or unhappy — for all the things
that are in us make us happy or unhappy. People do not
usually realize that prior to this earth life they went
through life on Moon — not they themselves but that
which has made them human beings on earth. We know
something of life on Moon and also of earlier life stages
on Sun and on Saturn. Let us first of all consider life
on Moon. At present we are of course living earth lives,
but life on Moon was essential if earth life was to come
about. Life on Moon was preparatory, producing the causes
of life on earth, and in a certain way this Moon life is
still in us. On Moon man had a dream-like clairvoyance.
He perceived reality through dream images. Today we still
have in us what we once have been on Moon; it is still in
us. Yes, I know Moon man has become earth man, but this
effect still holds its original cause within it, we still
have Moon man in us. Looking upon this Moon man we are
able to say: ‘He is what we call the dreamer in
us.’ Yes, indeed, We all carry a dreamer in us, a
dreamer who actually thinks and feels and uses his will
in a less dense, in a thinner, way, but who is really
also wiser than we earth individuals are. We have a
dreamer in us. We all carry another subtle human being
within us. The way we walk about on earth, thinking,
feeling and using our will, is something we have been
given in the course of earth evolution. What Moon
evolution has left in us is a dreaming human being. We
are however given more in this dreamer than we are able
to have in our thoughts, feelings and will impulses, and
this dreamer is not entirely inactive. We do not take him
into account, but we do many, many things that we are
really only half aware of, things the dreamer in us is
directing and guiding. We arrange things, but the dreamer
in us also does his part, guiding our thoughts in this or
that direction. We may think up a sentence, for example.
The dreamer will make us say that sentence in a specific
way, giving it a point, a particular nuance of feeling.
The dreamer is what is left in us of Moon. Let us refer
to an outstanding individual and show how the dreamer can
be found in him. When people get to know people in life,
or get to know outstanding individuals through their
writings, they usually consider the other as a human
being on this earth and not as a dreamer, a poet. Yet it
is there that he expresses himself more profoundly.
Emerson was
a great writer.
[ Note 78 ]
He had the peculiarity that he always became so
engrossed in whatever subject he was dealing with that it
is easy to show up the occasional contradiction in his
work. The reason is that he was always completely taken
up with the subject he was dealing with at the time,
failing to take into account that what he was
characterizing at the moment was contradictory to the
characterization he had given when involved in another
subject. In the case of Emerson it is always possible to
detect subtle undertones of his Moon being, of the
dreamer, wherever he became completely involved in a
person or an object. Emerson wrote two excellent essays
— one on Shakespeare as the typical poet and one on
Goethe as the typical writer. Now what happens is that
people read this and that in Emerson's essay on
Shakespeare and read this and that in the essay on Goethe
and this satisfies them, they are content. But we can
also take things further and say to ourselves: 'Surely
there is some subtle touch of something unusual in these
works of Emerson?' And We shall discover something very
strange indeed, for Emerson's intention was not to
characterize Shakespeare as Shakespeare, but to make him
the representative, the example, of poets. It is very
strange to see what has come about through Emerson's
becoming engrossed in Shakespeare — if we perceive
the subtle undertones that are present in this work.
You know I
would not say anything derogatory about Shakespeare out
of chauvinism, for nationalistic reasons. Of course I
consider Shakespeare a great poet, certainly one of the
greatest poets of all time. But let me bring out those
subtle undertones that are there in Emerson's
characterization of Shakespeare. He wrote that it was not
originality which made a great man. Characterizing a
great poet one should not demand such a great person to
be original in everything he did.
And you'll
find that in his characterization of Shakespeare Emerson
makes it clear that the poet went to all kinds of
sources, taking anything he liked and using it in his own
poetic works. Emerson was making an effort, as it were,
to excuse Shakespeare for not being original, for
collecting his material from all kinds of sources —
Italian, Spanish, French and German — and of course
also from English history. Oddly enough, Emerson, a man
giving such loving concern to the work of Shakespeare,
characterized Shakespeare in the following words:
‘Great men are more distinguished by range and
extent, than by originality. If we require the
originality which consists in weaving, like a spider,
their web from their own bowels; in finding clay, and
making bricks, and building the house; no great men are
original. Nor does valuable originality consist in
unlikeness to other men.’
He excused
Shakespeare's lack of originality, the fact that he
collected his material from many sources. Indeed, he went
so far as to say that one had to consider the nature of
English audiences at the time, for Shakespeare sought to
be to their taste. Emerson wrote some strange things
about Shakespeare:
‘It
is easy to see that what is best written or done by
genius in the world, was no man's work but came by wide
social labour, when a thousand wrought like one,
sharing the same impulse.’
And the
strangest thing Emerson said about Shakespeare in his
loving characterization, the strangest thing—please
listen to this:
`It has
come to be practically a sort of rule in literature,
that a man, having once shown himself capable of
original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal from
the writings of others at discretion.’
Emerson was
therefore trying to demonstrate Shakespeare's world
renown exactly by showing that great men plagiarize on
each other's works and that the themes he used in his
numerous works were actually taken from the work of
others. That is the subtle undertone to be found
initially in Emerson's Shakespeare characterization.
Let us now
consider his loving appreciation of Goethe. Emerson
characterized Goethe as representative of writers. Yet he
said with reference to Goethe that nature depended on her
wonders being put in words. Every stone, every plant,
every creature in nature was waiting to be uttered in
words by the soul of man. The writer, Emerson said, would
be in immediate contact with nature. It was as though the
creator himself has first made provision for the idea and
then one day the writer would appear. It was strange,
Emerson said with regard to Goethe, how this man owed
none of his gifts to his people, his country, his
environment, for everything bubbled up out of him. Truth
and error, too, was determined by Goethe himself,
everything was his own.
In his
characterization of Goethe, Emerson sought to find his
concepts from all kinds of sources. Characterizing
Shakespeare as a splendid robber he presented Goethe as
someone working out of the centre of the world, as nature
herself. Here are some passages from Emerson's
description of Goethe:
‘The secret of genius is to suffer no fiction to
exist for us; to realize all that we know in the high
refinements of modern life, in arts, in science, in
books, in men, to exact good faith, reality and a
purpose; and first, last, midst, and without end, to
honour every truth by use.’
Elsewhere
he said:
‘I
find a provision, in the constitution of the world, for
the writer.’
He
characterized Shakespeare as being the way his audiences
wanted him, Goethe as a man who had been envisaged from
the very beginning of the world.
‘He
is not a debtor to his position, but was born with a
free and controlling genius.’
And
again:
‘He
sees at every pore, and has a certain gravitation
towards truth. He will realize what you say. He hates
to be trifled with, and to be made to say over again
some old wife's fable, that has had possession of men's
faith these thousand years.’
Those words
were used to characterize Goethe. In his characterization
of Shakespeare, Emerson said that he could never do
enough to collect material from all kinds of sources,
particularly written sources. I would say that in his
characterizations of Shakespeare and of Goethe Emerson
succeeded marvellously well in bringing out the
difference between Shakespeare and Goethe. Out of what we
feel about this we are then able to discover what the
dreamer has contributed in either case, that is how
Emerson came to characterize Shakespeare as a great
robber and Goethe as the great ally of the truth. This is
extremely interesting, for there was no conscious
intention; yet there is this particular tinge to both
essays.
You see,
there is another way of reading than just picking up a
book and going through it. In fact we do not find out the
most important aspects of things if we just take them by
themselves, but only by comparing them, by letting one
thing act on us side by side with another.
It has been
possible for me to give this example because in the case
of Emerson it is often the dreamer who is speaking. It is
absolutely possible to be aware of two persons speaking
in his voice. Emerson was of course aware of the
contradictions which your run-of-the-mill reader finds in
his works. After all, some of the contradictions In
Emerson are so glaringly obvious you really cannot miss
them. On the one hand he calls the English the greatest
nation on earth, on the other he puts the Germans above
them. One thing is said out of surface consciousness, the
other out of the dreamer. It is particularly interesting
to read the two conclusions to the essays on Shakespeare
and Goethe one after the other, taking them simply as
conclusions. In the essay on Shakespeare, Emerson wrote
that none has as yet attained to what the poet
represented in the world: 'The world still awaits the
poet-priest.' Something of a feeling of resignation is
apparent in the conclusion of the Shakespeare essay. At
the end of the Goethe essay we find the exact opposite:
that we are spurred by him to revere all truth by not
merely giving it recognition but also making it the
guide-line for our actions. The Shakespeare essay ends in
words of resignation, the Goethe essay in words of
confidence and hope.
We are
living in an age when it is important to consider these
things to some extent, to realize them to some extent. We
shall find that in all human beings there is a dreamer
who makes himself known through their actions.
Clairvoyant awareness is able to perceive him directly;
in ordinary life we can recognize him by studying people.
That is something we can do in the case of Emerson.
Studying Emerson is of definite interest.
The dreamer
is the principle in us which is influenced by everything
that is supposed to influence us from the spiritual world
without our being aware of it. In the experiences we gain
as human beings on earth we form thoughts and will
impulses. The things we know In the ordinary way are the
things we discover in the course of life. Into our dreams
however come the Inspirations of the angels, of the
entities known as the Angeloi. These in turn are inspired
by entities from higher hierarchies. Into our dreams
enter things — more so in some and less in others
— that are more sensible than anything we have
gained from everyday life, anything we encompass in
everyday life as we think, feel and use our will. The
element that guides us, the element which is more than
earth-dwelling man is or ever was, enters into the
dreamer in us.
You see,
this dreamer is capable of evoking many things that at
present are unconscious in us. Oh yes, everything
influencing us from the higher world by way of the
entities belonging to the hierarchy of the Angeloi
influences the dreamer; but all Ahrimanic, all Luciferic
influences also influence the dreamer, they really act on
the dreamer. A great deal of what people put
forward—not entirely from their consciousness, I'd
say, but at an instinctive level — is due to
influence brought to bear on the dreamer from the
spiritual world.
Again I
would like to give you an example. I would like to take
this example from contemporary history on a somewhat
wider scale. I have told you on several occasions that we
come to know the European peoples by understanding the
way the folk soul speaks through the sentient soul to the
Italian, through the intellectual or mind soul to the
French, through the spiritual soul to the English,
through the ego to the Germans, through the spirit self
to the Russians. This communication through the spirit
self in the case of the Russians takes the form of
instincts today that will only develop further in the
future. What the Russian folk soul has to say will only
become apparent in the distant future, once the human
soul has developed as far as the spirit self. This is why
everything that emerges to the east of us is still only
germinal. Those peoples to the east of us are, however,
instinctively aware that they belong to a different
cultural stream. They feel that they must wait. Yet no
one likes to wait in reflecting on his awareness of the
present. The point is that they are supposed to wait and
consciously absorb European culture. Yet there is an
instinct in them that they ought to lead and to guide,
that they cannot put Europe to death quickly enough. The
natural course of events, however, is that in Central
Europe there develops whatever can develop in the
dialogue between the folk soul and the ego.
As for the
Russian folk soul, it must learn its lessons from Central
Europe. Once it has worked through what is already being
worked through in advance in Central Europe, it will be
able to make its own Contribution to European culture.
Instead, wild, chaotic instincts are giving rise to
something very strange so that we are able to see that
these instincts are brought to life in the dreamer out of
all kinds of Ahrimanic and Luciferic impulses. It is due
to these Ahrimanic and Luciferic impulses that the East
of Europe has now turned against Germany in such a
horrific way.
One mind in
whose utterances the dreamer is apparent is that of Yushakov
[ Note 79 ]
He gave his views in 1885 on the relationship between
Russian and English culture. I suggest you consider his
ideas, for it seems most desirable that as many people as
possible today ideas like those which not all that long
ago arose in the mind of a Russian who then wrote them
down. We should consider these ideas not so much for
their content but rather as symptoms of something to be
found in all Russian peoples. develop
Yushakov
said that the West had grown decadent and was ripe for
decline — everything in the West had outlived its
time and had to disintegrate. Russia would have to come
in at this point. But Russia should not merely cultivate
the West, redeem the West from its barbarism; Russian
would have to redeem the whole world and Particularly
Asia. The way Yushakov envisaged this redemption of Asia
for the sake of the soul is as follows.
Let us
consider Asia. Asiatic culture really originated from
Iran. Iranian culture based on Ormazd.
[ Note 80 ]
The Iranians had
realized that there was conflict between Ormazd and
Ahriman and it has always been possible to see how the
Iranians did everything in their power to spread the
beneficial influence of Ormazd in Iran. Then, however,
the Turanian peoples appeared on the scene. They were
independent of Ahriman and constantly harried, fought and
overcame the Ormazd culture. First Ormazd was in conflict
with Ahriman in Iran. But If we look at the way the
peoples of Europe behaved towards this Ormazd culture we
find that this lovely culture had spread in the areas
which were then predominantly colonized by the English.
The English were absolute barbarians when it came to the
Ormazd culture. Russia will have to make up for many
crimes committed by the English in Asia. The English went
there, took possession of large parts of Asia and
exploited the Ormazd culture, sucking it dry. What did
the English have in mind? Those Englishmen believed the
Ormazd culture to exist for their benefit; those
Englishmen said that all those parts of Asia existed only
to wear English fabrics, fight among themselves with
English weapons, work with English tools, eat from
English dishes and play with English trinkets. Asian
culture, they felt, existed for no other purpose. The
whole of Asia was to their mind booty won by England.
Yushakov put it very precisely:
‘England is exploiting millions of Hindus, and
her whole existence depends on the obedience of the
various peoples inhabiting that rich peninsula. I
desire nothing of this kind for my own country —
I can only rejoice that it is sufficiently far removed
from this brilliant yet at the same time also
lamentable situation.’
That was written in Russian by
Yushakov in 1885. And what did the Russians do? Yushakov
asked. They had not been able to emulate the Western
European nations, the English, and without legal
justification attack and arrogate for themselves the
Ormazd culture which existed in Asia. They only went to
the places where the Ahriman culture had spread, holding
back the peoples in whom Ahriman was at work, so that
they could do no further harm to all that Ormazd had
achieved for Asia. Once the Russians had liberated the
peoples of Asia from the evil of Ahriman they would have
to liberate them from the evils due to the sins the
English had committed against the Ormazd culture in those
areas. To prepare for their future mission in Asia,
following the liberation of Asia from Ahriman, they would
also have to make good the harm European peoples, and
above all the English, had done to the Ormazd culture.
Asked why those peoples were unable to carry on with the
Ormazd culture, Yushakov's reply was that they had become
slaves to industrialism and individualism, that they
always thought of themselves first whilst the Russians
always thought of themselves last. Such people were of no
use. Having blended industrialism into their
individualism they had become bloodsuckers in Asia.
Russia, he said, would forge different links; a link
between the Cossacks, with their brilliant military
skills, and the country people who were working with
nature. Out of this would come the people who were to
liberate the people of Asia. The individual who was to
liberate human evolution would come from Asia. That was
Yushakov's ideal — that the one to liberate the
world would come out of the union between the Cossacks
and the country people tilling the soil.
Dear
friends, you see an ideal set up here that surely makes
it clear beyond doubt that something of the Ahrimanic
spirit entered into Yushakov's own mind, into the
dreamer. This influence on the dreamer has gradually
created a mood in a whole nation — the mood we now
perceive in the people who are to the east of us. We are
dealing here with a popular mood, a mood brought to
expression in Yushakov's words.
You see, I
also wanted to show how spiritual science lets us enter
more and more closely, giving us deeper insights, into
what people say and dream. We all have the dreamer in us,
the dreamer is in all of us. Both good and evil powers
influence the dreamer.
We have the
dreamer in us who has brought Moon nature into us, and we
also have a Sun man in us from Sun evolution. This Sun
man, however, is no longer able to dream. His conscious
awareness if of the same kind as that of the plants. We
have within us a plant or Sun man, who is asleep. And
then we have in us a Saturn man who is completely dead,
as dead as a stone. We have the Sun man in us who is
asleep and also Saturn man who is at an even lower level
of consciousness, below the level of consciousness we
have in sleep. Saturn man I'd say, is our oldest cause,
the innermost core in us. All the knowledge man gains at
the present time in external life or in science is gained
because the external world influences the Saturn man in
us. We are not aware of being influenced in this way, but
we are nevertheless influenced. Everything we think, feel
and will penetrates to Saturn man. And Saturn man is what
finally remains of us on this earth, irrespective of
whether we are cremated as far as our physical body is
concerned or whether we decompose.
The
principle we call the dreamer does not endure; the Sun
man does not endure. Saturn man becomes part of the
elemental realm of the earth in form of very, very fine
dust particles. This endures. The earth will always
contain a trace of what there has been in us. If you
investigate the elemental world today you can find in it
the remains of Abraham, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle,
though in the form of very very fine dust particles. You
can find the part of them that was their Saturn man. The
part of man that was his Saturn man is given to the
earth, remains with the earth, remains in the earth with
our permanent essential character.
It was not
like this in earlier times. It has been like this since
the 15th and 16th centuries. Previously, the whole of the
human being dissolved; only those who had been well ahead
of their time, like Abraham, Plato and Socrates, left
their remains to the earth. By now, or course, it has
gradually come to be like this for all people. For this
is what is so strange: everything presently achieved by
following the path of external science is imprinted in
this Saturn man and becomes part of the earth when he
does.
Everything
else there is to man will be lost, dissolving into the
universe once the earth has reached its goal. The
minerals, plants and animals around us will pass away.
Only the Saturn man you have been remains, in the form of
fine dust particles. It will go over from earth to
Jupiter existence, forming the solid skeleton of Jupiter.
Those are real atoms for Jupiter. People studying
external science today, people thinking in an external
way, influence their Saturn man to the effect that they
produce atoms for Jupiter in their Saturn man. That is
how Jupiter get its atoms. If that, however, were the
only thing to happen, the whole of Jupiter would be
merely a mineral or mineral-like sphere. Jupiter would
merely be a mineral-like sphere without plant growth.
What we are able to take across to Jupiter through the
Saturn man in us merely causes Jupiter to be a mineral
sphere. Plants could not grow on it. If plants are to
grow on Jupiter the Sun man in us must also be given
something. This Sun man in us only receives something
from now on and into the future if men and women absorb
concepts developed in spiritual science; for the concepts
we absorb outside, from external science, enter into
Saturn man. What we absorb by way of thoughts engendered
through spiritual science enters into the Sun man. This
is why spiritual science calls for greater activity. Its
thoughts differ from those of external science in that
they are active. They have to be grasped in a living way
and it is impossible to remain passive towards thinking
activity the way we do in the external world. In
spiritual science everything has to be actively thought
out, we have to be inwardly active. This has an effect on
the Sun man in us. And if there were no Sun principle in
man, the Jupiter of the future would be entirely mineral,
with no plant world. People going through spiritual
development take something across that will give rise to
a plant world on Jupiter. Through the Sun principle in us
we take across the future plant world. All we have to do
to make Jupiter barren is reject spiritual science. We
can establish spiritual science now in order that there
shall be vegetation on Jupiter.
Unlike
others, we spiritual scientists do not talk of the
marvellous progress we have made. Just listen to a modern
physician, one who is very much taking the present-day
point of view, or to a modern philosopher and so on. They
say: ‘We need not go far back to find people who
amounted to nothing at all. Someone like Paracelsus
really was in idiot, and a grammar school teacher today
is cleverer than Plato every was.’ Plato's philosophy
was thoroughly picked to pieces by Hebbel. The latter put
down in his diary, as an idea for a play, that a grammar
school teacher had a reincarnated Plato in his class.
[ Note 81 ]
He intended to make a dramatic figure of him, showing the
schoolmaster to be dealing with his reincarnated Plato
who was quite incapable of grasping anything his teacher
was saying about Plato. Hebbel intended to make a play of
this. It really is a pity he did not do so, for it really
is a very good idea.
But we do
not consider ourselves to have made marvellous progress.
We hold a different point of view. What people consider
philosophy today holds the ego-boosting view that
anything going back ten years is already out of date. We
know that we have to present spiritual science today the
way we do. We also know, however, that a time must come
when everything we now present as spiritual science will
be a nonsense in a future where quite different work will
have to be done within mankind. What we have to present
as spiritual science today has the form appropriate for
the moment, seeking out from eternity what will be for
the benefit of the present age. A time will come,
however, when it will be necessary for us to try and
influence the dreamer in us just as we influence the Sun
man, and the whole of our external science influences
Saturn man. Jupiter as mineral mass will be based on what
external science makes of Saturn man. Its vegetation will
be based on what spiritual science makes of Sun man.
Animal life on Jupiter will arise from something that is
going to follow on after spiritual science. It will be
based on the spiritual science of the future. Then
something else will follow which will influence man on
Jupiter, something which is still to come. It will
provide the basis for Jupiter culture in the real
sense.
At present,
therefore, we are in a period in life where we prepare
the mineral nucleus of Jupiter through external science
and where spiritual science influences its plant life,
providing the basis for vegetation on Jupiter. The future
will bring the principle that influences the dreamer, and
this will provide the basis for animal life on Jupiter.
Only after this will come the principle which corresponds
to what man is today producing in his thinking, feeling
and will activity. This is guided by higher wisdom to the
effect that when earth evolution has come to an end man
will be able to take himself, as man, across to
Jupiter.
This is how
we are involved in the evolution of the earth, and we
perceive, out of our very own human nature, that we are
part of the great world, of the macrocosm. We know that
everything we do is of account. We know that in joining
in the pursuit of spiritual science we contribute to
vegetative life for Jupiter and that through the things
we put in words we create what will be given to the
future at the Jupiter stage of the world.
Just think,
dear friends, as I have told you, everything belonging to
the mineral kingdom will disperse in the world;
everything belonging to the plant kingdom will disperse;
everything belonging to the animal kingdom will disperse.
Nothing will continue on from the earth except for the
mineral atoms coming from man, from the Saturn parts of
human beings. Nothing of the mineral, plant and animal
worlds passes across to Jupiter. The only thing which
will continue is the Saturn man now within us. This will
be the mineral kingdom on Jupiter.
I do not
know if some of our friends still remember how we first
started many years ago in Berlin. We were a small band in
those days — some who shared in the experience are
still with us — and we started to consider these
things.
Let us
imagine ourselves on the Jupiter of the future. What are
the atoms of Jupiter? They are the Saturn parts of
present-day man. It is a nonsense to talk of atoms of the
kind modern physicists speak of. Everything man gains
from the whole of the earth enters into Saturn man and
later becomes Jupiter atoms. It is pure nonsense to say
that our minerals, animals and plants contain what
physicists are looking for in them. Our present earth
atoms were prepared during Moon existence and are what
will prepare us to be Sun men, just as we are now
preparing the Saturn man in us. I have previously spoken
of the way the atom is prepared our of the whole cosmos.
You'll find this in the lectures given at the very
beginning of our work in Berlin.
[ Note 82 ]
Today I'll have to be brief, also taking into account what
we have gone through in the meantime.
Our stars,
too — the external physical stars, the physical
sun, the physical moon we see out there in the universe
— that, too, is not the way physicists see it.
Physicists would be most surprised if they managed to get
up to the sun, for they would find nothing at all of what
they have construed. They'd be most surprised at what
they saw there. What we would find if we ever could
travel up there — in accord with the times it would
have to be in a balloon that is still to be invented, in
an ether balloon — we'd find the unexpected. We
would not find what the physicists have construed; we'd
find nothing at all by way of a physical body. It merely
looks like that. The sun, moon and stars are part of a
whole that arose at some point after Moon evolution.
After Moon evolution it was not only the Moon which
perished but everything that is part of the visible
universe entered into night. And everything there is in
the universe today really belongs to the earth, so that
the end of the earth will not only mean the plant and
animal kingdoms perishing with it but everything out
there in the cosmos perishing as well. The stars in their
present form will perish into night. And then the future
Jupiter world will emerge. Its atoms will be the Saturn
parts of present man. Its environment will look very
different from our earth environment.
A person
considering all this today might ask: 'What will remain
of the present world when earth evolution has come to an
end?' Mineral, plant and animal kingdoms — all that
disperses and passes away. What man gains today by virtue
of being man, the external power of discernment he is
acquiring, will pass over into the mineral kingdom of
Jupiter. The spiritual science he gains will pass over as
Sun man and establish the vegetation. What we say —
the words we speak — will pass over. Anything moral
that happens will pass over.
Was not the
One who was to give meaning and direction to the whole of
earth evolution able to say some very special words? Was
he not able to say: ‘Heaven and earth shall pass
away, but my words shall not pass away’?
[ Note 83 ]
Are we not now beginning
to grasp the utter profundity of the words Christ spoke:
‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words
shall not pass away’? Is that not literally true?
Words
coming from external science influence Saturn man and
become the atoms of Jupiter. Words coming from spiritual
science and influencing Sun man pass across to form the
vegetation on Jupiter. That which acts on the dreamer
passes across to form the animal kingdom on Jupiter. The
moral progress made by man and what he gains through
words of the spiritual science of the future — that
will be man on Jupiter. It will be words, wisdom of
thoughts. This shall endure. Everything all around us in
the cosmos will perish. ‘Heaven and earth shall
pass away, but my words shall not pass away.’
So we
gradually come to see words of profound wisdom flowing
from this central place of activity we call Golgotha.
They flow from that point. As I once said, the whole
earth evolution to follow exists so that gradually men
shall come to understand the words spoken by the One who
went through the Mystery of Golgotha. Today I have tried
to explain to you, out of the whole of spiritual science
as we know it so far, Christ's words: ‘Heaven and
earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass
away.’ Again and again in the future there will be
people who know how to explain other words spoken by
Christ out of spiritual science. There will have to be
many of them before the full meaning of Christ's words
can be understood, for they are words of guidance, words
given out of the spirit, yet it will only be in the
course of time that they can be understood out of what
human beings are able to summon up out of the science of
the spirit.
We need to
enter into this with our feelings if we are to get a
feeling for the utter uniqueness of the Mystery of
Golgotha. Through perception directed upwards to the
infinite we shall gain the marvellous insight into the
one thing that has given the earth meaning from the
world's beginning to its very end—the Mystery of
Golgotha.
Dear
friends, it will be another few weeks until we can talk
again. And so it has been my task today to speak of
something we are able to take into our hearts and minds
and meditate on a great deal in the weeks to come. I
wanted to put some ideas into your hearts and minds which
you could then develop further. It always has been our
summer task in spiritual science to develop further what
has entered into our hearts and minds so that our souls
shall grow more alive and mature. We do not progress in
spiritual science by absorbing it as something
theoretical, by merely absorbing ideas, but rather by
transforming those thoughts into our whole inner life,
letting them become living experience. If we let this
thought of how man is part of the whole macrocosm act on
our souls, we will come to feel part of it all as human
beings. Faintheartedness, hesitation, lack of hope will
have to vanish before the magnitude of this thought. We
must then at last come to feel ourselves human beings in
all humility. And all we have been able to absorb of
spiritual science, all that can and shall come alive in
us out of spiritual science — as has always been
our principle until now—needs to be given emphasis
in the present day. Again and again we have to remember,
as we consider things today, that the great events
happening in our time are a warning. We must remember
those who are leaving their ether bodies behind for us
while still young, ether bodies that will be a great help
to us in letting the spirit enter into the culture of the
future. If the spirit is to come in there must be souls
that understand something of these spiritual things,
souls that look up into that world and know that up there
is not only what, in abstract terms, is called
attraction, but up there are the living dead, up there is
what they have given to mankind on earth of their own
life — their unused ether bodies. Souls that have
some understanding of these things will have to work
together, souls whose thoughts reach upwards to meet what
is streaming down from the unused ether bodies of those
who have died before their time.
We must
fill our souls with this image of the spiritual streaming
down to join the earthly. Above all, we must look up to
the spiritual realm with all our thoughts, with the part
of us that is already spiritual. This I have always
summed up in conclusion in the words that shall also be
our conclusion today:
Out of courage shown in
battle,
Out of the blood shed in war,
Out of the grief of those who are left,
Out of the people's deeds of sacrifice
Spirit fruits will come to grow
If souls with knowledge of the spirit
Turn their mind to spirit realms.
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