Lecture II
March 7, 1916 Dornach
Today I would
like to return to much of that which I said in previous
lectures and I would like to amplify, in the first place,
certain ideas about the inner being of man, about the soul
spiritual nature of man. You know that we speak in the first
place of that particular member of the inner human being
which we designate with an abstract expression as the ether
body. Whereas the physical body of man is perceptible for the
external senses to external science which is bound to the
intellect and its observation, we know that the ether body is
something of a super-sensible nature. Furthermore, we speak of
the next member of human nature as the so-called astral body.
We remember how often we have emphasized the fact that one
cannot say that the inner being of man is completely unknown
to us. Indeed, man perceives within his bodily existence in
the physical world, he perceives his thinking, his feeling
and his willing. He experiences it inwardly and he
experiences this thinking, feeling and willing as being
radiated through by his “I”. One can say that man
inwardly perceives this thinking, feeling and willing.
However one cannot say that you can actually perceive your
astral body. Also one cannot say that you really perceive
your “I”, because this “I” —
and we have brought this to your attention in the course of
these lectures — this “I” of which man
speaks falls back into unconsciousness with every sleep and
is actually only a reflection of the real “I”.
Therefore, in a certain sense, it can he concluded also that
this “I” with this thinking, feeling and willing,
is in a similar way only an expression, a manifestation of
the actual inner being of man, just as with the physical body
what you have is a manifestation, an expression of the
spiritual nature of that which we designate as the etheric
body.
Now, man is
obviously happy when, in reference to any given domain of
knowledge, he has such a very tightly fit division which he
can neatly preserve. Therefore people are so happy when they
know that man consists of physical body, ether body, astral
body and ego. However, in the man — and I want to
emphasize this — all you have with these four
expressions are just four words, nothing more than four
expressions. And when you advance to real contemplation, then
you must, in a certain sense, always pass beyond the borders
which are so easily established by these expressions. you
speak in a general way, to be sure you may say: Thinking,
feeling and willing proceed in the astral body. However that
is really only a one-sided abstract way in which the fact of
thinking exhausts itself. Just as we as human beings stand in
the first place within the physical world, so, to be sure,
the impulse to the thinking which exist in the astral body is
that impulse which proceeds from the “I”.
However, the thinking develops itself as a thought only
through the fact that we have the mobile ether body. Our
whole thinking would remain unconscious to us as physical
human beings if the astral body did not send its impulses
into the ether body and the ether body in its mobility would
be unable to take up the thought impulses of the astral body.
And every thought again would simply just pass over in a
transitory way without having the possibility of a memory if
we did not have a physical body. You cannot say the physical
body is the carrier of the memory. No. The carrier of the
memory is the ether body. However, for us human beings, if
our thinking were to merely flow along just as dreams flow
along and if it were not possible to have it engraved in the
physical materiality of the physical body, then our thoughts
here in the physical body can assert themselves through the
fact that we have this physical body. Thus you see how this
thinking is actually a very complicated process. It has its
impulses in the astral body, actually already in the
“I”. These impulses continue themselves as forces
in the ether body, call forth the thoughts, and the thoughts
in their turn engrave their tracks into the physical body.
And through the fact that they are imprinted, you can always
fetch them out of the memory again during the physical
life.
Now, just
consider — and we have often spoken about this
situation — what the memory actually represents for man
here in the physical body. As you know, man has experiences.
He works these experiences over; then he goes away from these
experiences. There comes a time when such experiences relate
themselves to the human being as if we knew nothing about
them, as if we no longer stood in relationship to them.
However, there again comes the time when we are able to fetch
the thought experiences out of our inner being. That which we
have already experienced is present for us again in in the
form of memory. Now, in the first place, man must believe the
following. This process of memory belongs to him; it belongs
to his soul. When we as human beings walk through the streets
and associate in society, someone outside of us with external
physical sense organs cannot really know what is hidden
within us as our memories, that is, he cannot know what sort
of experiences we have had. We carry these in our soul. I
might say the sheaths of the physical body are so arranged
that they cover over our soul for us. It is as if true
physical body is a mantle which hides our soul and in which
we can preserve these memories. They belong to us and they
work in us through our whole life. We make the outside world
into our own inner world. Then we carry this external world
in the form of memories with us through existence. We carry
these memories as our own possession.
Now, it would
be a great mistake if one were to believe that this carrying
of the memories through life really comprises the whole
process. This is not the case. Darwin, for example, had the
correct idea when he investigated to see if rain worms had a
special task, and he discovered that rain worms are not there
just to merely enjoy their existence but have the very
important task of making the soil fruitful as they crawl
through it. These are things which natural science certainly
admits and this is a ground upon which natural science
believes itself secure. Now, natural science, in so far as it
does that, should not be criticized because it is really good
when they enter into certain single details. However, the
problem is that one builds world views upon such details.
Obviously you must consider the saying about a man who digs
for treasure and is happy when he finds rain worms. However,
from the spiritual point of view one can ask the following:
Was this activity through which man forms thoughts during his
whole life and preserves them in his memory, has that any
significance for the whole cosmos? Is this process of
memorization only a process which occurs in ourselves? Now,
the materialist says that obviously that is a process which
only occurs in us. With death we put our physical body in the
grave and then that which we have preserved in us as memory
is obviously something which is rarely an extinguished thing.
We are not going to enter into such a materialistic reply. We
want to ask the question: Is our thinking process and memory
process something quite different from that which occurs in
our memory?
So it is. While
we think, while we form thoughts and out of our experiences
preserve these memories, during this time we occupy ourselves
not only with our thoughts, but the whole world of the Third
Hierarchy occupies themselves with our thoughts, the
Hierarchies of the Angels, Archangels and Archai. When we
think, we think not only for ourselves, we think and we
preserve our thoughts in our inner being in order that a
field of activity should be created for Angels, Archangels
and Archai. Whereas we believe that our thoughts live only in
us, actually the three spiritual Hierarchies occupy
themselves with our thoughts. The very smallest of that which
we propose with our thoughts is something which concerns us.
Even when we have forgotten the thoughts, they are in us and
we again call these thoughts out of our memory. Just as we as
human beings occupy ourselves on earth with our machines or
with eating and drinking, so do the Angels, Archangels and
Archai occupy themselves with a web which is formed from our
thoughts; they work continuously on our thoughts. It is thus
only the side of the activity of the thoughts which is turned
toward us that we know about. There is in addition another
side and this other side of our thoughts so appears for
spiritual perception that we can say the following. While our
thoughts which we have in our inner being occupy themselves
from outside, the above mentioned spiritual beings weave
these thoughts so that we, when we achieve this knowledge,
can say the following of ourselves. Our thought process is
acutely not something unnecessary for the world. Our thought
process is something not only for ourselves, but it stands
within the whole world development and contributes to it so
that something new can continuously be woven into the world
development. If we were not born as single individuals, if we
had no thoughts, if we had not preserved memories in us, then
at our death, that portion which would have been able to be
woven out of our thoughts, that which we ourselves do not
weave, that would be lost for world development. And when we
pass through the portal of death — the elementary
process I have often described — we put aside our
physical body and this is given over to the elements of the
earth in various ways. Our ether body remains with for a
short time. It represents itself to our inner being as a
great life tableau which is in front of us. Everything of
that which we otherwise remember, that which has gone on in a
time continuum becomes as a mighty panorama all at once, a
mighty life tableau placed around us. Then, however, our
etheric being is separated from us. It is, as it were, drawn
out of us.
Now, who does
that? Indeed, that is done by the beings of the three
Hierarchies we mentioned and they weave it gradually into the
cosmic ether so that after our death this web of the cosmic
ether consists of that which we during our life between birth
and death have added to it, also that which was worked over
by the beings of these next three Hierarchies. The new
webbing is taken away from us and is interwoven with the
whole cosmic all. Every human being has a knowledge of this
when he passes through the portal of death, since, for the
human being after he has passed the portal of death,
something enters which can be described in no other way than
as follows. Now, you must see that the ether body is
separated from him; his etheric web has been interwoven into
the universal cosmic ether. That which he has carried in
himself all through his life is now outside, it is external.
And that is important. That person who knows these things
indicates it with a short phrase which one should call forth
before the soul in a meditative way. It can be described
through a very essential process by saying the following. The
inner being becomes the external, which means that which we
always have felt as our thought life becomes external world.
Just as here we are surrounded by rivers, mountains, trees,
clouds, stones and stars, so after our death something occurs
which one can characterize in following way. That which
during our physical life has lived in in us now has become a
portion of the external world so that it can now be perceived
by us.
In addition to
this ether body, we have the world of our astral body. This
world of our astral body comes to our consciousness, in the
first place, so that we feel it as thinking; we feel the
world of the astral body as thinking. However, the thinking I
have precisely characterized, indeed, sends its impulses down
into the ether body so that the thinking itself cannot be
conscious in the astral body. You can only become aware of
feeling and willing in your astral body. You cannot be
conscious of your thinking there, but you become aware of
your thoughts in the ether body. It is very important that
feeling and willing can become conscious for us, it has to go
down into the ether body. Throughout our whole life we feel
and we will, we foster feelings about certain experiences.
These are processes in our astral body. That again is a very
characteristic weaving, but now not just a web in thoughts as
I have formerly described it but a web of perception, feeling
and impulses toward willing. Higher beings also work in that
which we have throughout our whole life as feeling and will
impulses. Just as in our thinking beings of the Third
Hierarchy work, so there work in our feeling and our will
impulses the beings of the Second Hierarchy including the
Thrones.
Just imagine
how we stand in the world when we know these things how we
feel ourselves inserted into the spiritual world. On the one
side we say to ourselves: Man, you go through the world
thinking, but your thinking in so far as it is turned to its
inner side is only the one side of thinking. That which you
think is substance for the work of the Angels, the
Archangels, the Archai. In so far as we feel and will, we
create substance for the Spirits of Form, the Spirits of
Movement, the Spirits of Wisdom, the Thrones, or the Spirits
of Will. Just as the human being cultivates the earth and
works it over, he does not know that while he is working over
the earth that it is only one side which is worked over, but
on the other side actual processes are occurring which he
does not know of with his normal consciousness. In a similar
way, man believes that his feelings and his will impulses
merely belong to him, but they are a field for the work of
the indicated beings of the hierarchies.We are truly not
merely physical body that only stands in connection with our
environment, but we are also there as soul spiritual beings
so this soul spiritual man can stand in connection with the
environment. Normally one does not think about how our
physical body belongs to our whole environment. But this is
easy to work out.
In any given
moment when you visualize yourself in a bodily way, you
possess not only bones, blood, muscles and so on, but you
also have a certain stream of air in yourself which you have
breathed in and which you will soon breathe out. This belongs
to you while you have breathed in; that was out of you in the
previous moment, in the next moment it is again outside you.
Just think of yourself without this stream of air. It is
impossible to think in this way without realizing that you
have this stream of air within you. It belongs to us, it is
nonsense to think of the physical body as if it were only
enclosed within the skin; whereas you are pointed to the fact
that you live with the whole atmosphere environment. However,
just as we through our physical body live with the
atmosphere environment, with the warmth environment, so do we
live with the environment of the Hierarchy of the Third Order
through our thoughts and we live through our feelings and
will impulses with the Beings of the Hierarchies of the
Second Order and with the Spirits of Will. This is how we
stand within the cosmic all.
Let us now turn
our attention to passing through of the portal of death. We
can then say the following. When man passes through the
portal of death, we know that when his ether body is taken
away from him, when the interweaving into the universal
cosmic ether begins, then he has to live backwards three
times as fast as he experienced during physical life between
birth and death, in so far as during that period he perceives
the effects of his experiences between birth and death. Thus,
that which we have experienced in us during our physical life
we do not perceive them just because we have perceived it
here in physical life. We will perceive the feeling out of
which we have executed an injury to someone else, not our
feeling but that of the other person, that which we have
lived through here in the physical life stands as a causative
factor there and carries in itself the karma. We have not
experienced the impression that our injury has made upon the
other person's soul. We experience here, in the main, not
that which our deeds, our actions, our thoughts have resulted
in effects in the external world, we do not experience that
here in the physical life, but we do experience that when we
go through our backward vision in the time between death and
a new birth. There we live through everything that is
outside, not in the way it was experienced by us but in the
way in which it was experienced by the external world with
which we were in contact. Really everything which other human
beings have perceived, have felt through our thoughts,
through our words, we live through and because of this the
external must become the inner in our new state of post
mortem. Through this experience the effects of our thoughts,
the effects of our deeds in life, the external effects now
become inner which means something which we inwardly
experience, something which is experienced by the spirit
human being after death, because now he must live himself
into that world in which he lived unconsciously during the
time of his life.
In so far as he
has an astral body, and the Spirits of the Second Hierarchy
have worked upon his astral body, he must now live into that
world in which his astral body gradually dissolves itself
into the external, but now he experiences the external in an
inward way, he really lives through it inwardly. He must
learn between death and a new birth to work in that sphere in
which the Spirits of the Second Hierarchy work, in which they
prepare that which again can lead into a new incarnation.
And, indeed, then we know that after the astral body has
dissolved into the external world and man lives on further
with his actual inner being in the time between death and a
new birth.
When we want to
understand something of this life between death and a new
birth, we must make many points of view valid for ourselves.
Our goal is not to be one-sided but to make various
viewpoints valid so that gradually a comprehensive
understanding of these processes can open themselves to us.
Thus you must keep the following in view. Just as man through
birth enters natural processes which around him in the
mineral world, in the plant world, in the animal world, so he
enters into a world where things are happening around him
with the beings of the Hierarchies which we have mentioned.
He is, as it were, enfolded into their activities and that
which he has brought with him for them, they weave together
so that it can become the foundation for his next
incarnation.
You must
realize that in this it is, I might say, very difficult to
give our present age the correct concepts and ideas for
reasons which I have often presented. The present age works
precisely with the most reversed concepts in this realm. When
a human being enters through birth into physical existence,
he enters with certain characteristics. The present time
speaks purely of heredity, and means physical heredity, and
one speaks of this physical heredity in the following way. A
man shows this or that characteristic. Therefore to find out
where those characteristics come from, you must look for its
ancestors. For example, there is a very industriously worked
over book about Goethe, in which Goethe's characteristics are
so presented that it has looked for one thing in this
ancestor, another in that, one characteristic from a
great-great grandmother, another from a great-great
grandfather, and so on, as if everything that Goethe had had
came to him through heredity. I have often said the
following: When you say that the child has the qualities of
his parents, it is just as wise a saying as a human being is
wet when he falls into water and is then drawn out of it.
Naturally he is wet from the water when he is taken out. In
the same way he has the properties of his ancestors in him,
because they have been led through his soul. There is no
greater wisdom there either. Therefore to go back to causes
is, for the logical aspect ultimately the most logical,
because one can say the following: One wants to prove that
the soul-spiritual properties come through heredity in so far
as one shows that a genius like Goethe has the same
characteristics which his ancestors had, but as we have said,
it is no cleverer than the assertion that the man is wet
after he has fallen into water.
Now, if you
really want to prove that the properties of genius are
concerned with heredity, then you would have to show how the
descendents of a genius show the properties of the genius. In
other words, if you have to prove that genius can be
transmitted by heredity, that would be a proof. Look at
Goethe's son. See if he has Goethe's genius. Now, behind all
this there is a much deeper process. Just imagine this
hypothesis, for example, just imagine that there are beings
who are not able to see human beings and just imagine that
one of these beings who cannot see the activity of man goes
to Berlin and sees how watches are being produced everywhere.
This being obviously has to say to himself: These watches
produce themselves. And that is no wiser than people who say
that you do not need any additional explanations about how
human beings come into the world; that that occurs quite of
itself in the course of propagation in the generations. These
ideas can only be held by people who cannot see human beings,
who cannot see that that which occurs here in the physical
world is only the external expression of an activity which
continuously flows down out of the spiritual world just as
the activity of the watchmakers flow into the watches.
Therefore that which precisely occurs here upon the earth, of
which human beings in their foolishness believe that they
occur completely for themselves, that is only an external
physical process which is directed just as the activity of
making watches is a directing activity, so the moment which I
have called the Midnight Hour of Existence in my mystery
dramas, from that moment on which lies within the middle
between death and a new birth, there already begins that
activity of the spiritual world, as it were, of inclining
itself into the physical in order after centuries to lead the
human being into physical existence. When man goes through
the portal of death, there is the activity of a working over
of that which the human being experienced in his last life
which is exercised in the spiritual world. All this occurs in
the first half of the life between death and a new birth.
However, in the second half of the life between death and a
new birth,
the preparation for the next incarnation begins. And now the
following can be said about the situation.
That person who
is born has ancestors; ancestors again have ancestors; these
ancestors have ancestors. Just see how far this goes when you
go through 30 generations. However, if you go through 30
generations, you will find that in many people, as it were,
there already is the tendency which ultimately leads to the
fact that man A is brought together with woman B and then
they bring another human being into existence. And if the
whole thing did not so occur through 30 generations, if the
people had not married, A not coming together with B,
therefore that human being who descends into a physical
incarnation would not have ultimately been produced. From the
whole working together of many people which finally peaks
into two, the single individuality of the human being has
been a participation in the spiritual world. Thus when we see
that the son has the characteristic of his father, of his
mother and then again the father's and mother's
characteristics are led back to grandfathers and grandmothers
and great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers and so on, that
is because there has previously been an influence exerted on
these great-great-grandparents through 30 generations by that
individuality who then later on after many centuries wants to
be born and this has all been determined according to the
plan to find himself as a human being through the
generations. All that is a participating activity and the
fact that you have similar inherited characteristics emanates
from the fact that through the generations that power works
down through the spiritual world which finally comes to
appearance in a certain human being. This individuality
already works in a father, a mother, a grandfather, a
grandmother, a great-grandfather, a great-grandmother, and
ultimately one gets the qualities which come to expression.
It is not the physical stream which makes the inheritance,
but the physical stream is inserted in this way through
inheritance. Therefore, precisely the reverse of that which
the so-called natural scientific view maintains, is true. In
order that Goethe ultimately comes to appearance through
Johann Casper Goethe and his Frau Eiya, Beings of the Second
Hierarchy have worked through 30 generations in such a way
that Goethe could ultimately be produced. Naturally this
applies not only for genius but for eveiy single human
being.
Now, you can
say that this is difficult to imagine, and you could also ask
yourself how is this compatable with human freedom when we
have already been determined 30 generations before we
descend. I know it is very complicated, but you must remember
that this is complicated for the normal consciousness which
has been apportioned to you during your earth existence. You
will remember that what we are dealing with is not only the
individual himself, but the individual in community with the
Spirits of Form, with the Spirits of Motion, and so on, and
so it is worked out in such a way that freedom is not
influenced. Naturally this works in such a way that it
corresponds to the working of these Higher Hierarchies. The
situation is just like that.
There is worked
together that which we are able to give over as thoughts to
the cosmic ether with that which we express during our earth
existence in our feeling life and in our will life. Therefore
Spiritual Science is not supposed to be a totality of
knowledge, but above all it should be capable of bringing
forth a certain soul mood. I have attempted to indicate this
soul mood in the first part of my second mystery play, in the
meeting between Capaius and Benedictus, when the goal is that
man as a complete human being lives here upon the earth. In
order that that can happen, Gods and Gods, Spirits and
Spirits work together so that the human being is a goal for
Gods and Gods, Spirits and Spirits. This feeling, I might
say, the thankfulness, the gratitude to the spiritual
universe, this feeling to know ourselves in the spiritual
universe must flow into our souls through spiritual science.
This must become as natural for us as it is natural for us to
know about the connections with the physical world.
Science today
has advanced so far that everyone is aware of the fact that
man cannot just live on his own resources but needs the
atmosphere, that he is a menber of the whole environment.
When he is hungry or thirsty, then he notices that the
external world is necessary in a physical way for his
existence, that he stands within the external world, within a
universal process. However, man also stands in a universal
process in the spiritual world. When he thinks he stands
within Angels, Archangels, Archai, and in so far as he feels
and he wills, he then stands in a spiritual connection with
the next higher Hierarchy. Just as the air stretches itself
into man's physical body in so far as his physical nature is
concerned, so the spiritual aspect of the activity of the
so-called Hierarchies works in his soul.
Quite often you
get a materialist raising the objection: Indeed, it may be
true that a spiritual world does exist, but it does not help
us to know anything about this spiritual world even when you
tell us that thinking, feeling and willing stand in
connection with the Higher Hierarchies. It does not matter,
because in order to think we do not need to know about these
Higher Hierarchies. We already think in the world without
knowing anything about them. Man believes, thank God. If he
had to wait until he knew about the breathing process in a
theoretical way before breathing, then he also would not be
able to think unless he knew about the breathing process. You
think without knowing anything about these Higher
Hierarchies. However, let us present a counter question. Can
you really think without one having that? At the present time
you see that people work with the inheritance of the ancient
times; they work with that which they have inherited and they
are still inventing machines from that. All this is an
inheritance of an earlier age. Much of what we accomplish
today is a result of what we have inherited in the past.
Recently we
were in Hamburg and saw a picture done in the 13th, 14th
century by Master Bertram and I want to tell you something
about this picture. Let us go back to the biblical story of
the fall into sin which we in spiritual science call
Luciferic temptation. When a painter in our modern age paints
the fall into sin, so he would paint Adam and Eve on either
side of the tree and then, naturally, a serpent on the tree.
According to whether he is an Impressionist, Cubist,
Expressionist or any other ‘ist’, he would more
or less paint this; he would paint it beautifully. But he
will paint a serpent looking like any serpent which crawls in
the grass; that is realism. But is it realism? Is it actually
not realism? I cannot imagine any simple woman being deceived
by such a serpent. We know from spiritual science that
Lucifer is a being who had remained behind at the Moon
development. Lucifer, during the Moon evolution, could not be
seen with physical eyes such as we have upon earth, so the
serpent could not be something which could be seen with the
physical eye, not the serpent referred to in the Garden of
Eden. Lucifer had to be seen inwardly. When you study the
human being more accurately, you can see in every skeleton
that it consists of two portions. You have the skull and the
spinal column attached to it with the brain inside the skull
and the spinal fluid in the spinal column, and the rest of
the human being is attached to it. You can consider the human
being only as being attached to it. You have the head like a
small cosmic sphere attached to the whole thing. You can also
say: Thank God that man through his own wisdom cannot
contribute to this head coming into existence through his
birth. It would look very strange if the anatomists and
physiologists could contribute anything to produce this
wonderful structure of the human head. This human head comes
into existence between death and a new birth as in a large
sphere which we could compare with our blue heavenly sphere,
that in which our karma is woven and is an organization which
as it goes towards incarnation, becomes smaller and smaller
and then unites itself with the mother. That which then
becomes our head is woven through by countless beings of
the Hierarchies out of the whole cosmic all. It is a wisdom of
the most immense magnitude, a wisdom which has embodied in it
all the experiences. Our head is an inheritance of the
Saturn, Sun and Moon incarnations. The earth with all its
forces could not have been able to produce this head. It is
only possible to bring into existence that which is added to
the head, not the head with all its forces. The other part of
the human being, not the head with the spinal column, but
that which is attached to it actually is earth man. Now, how
would a person with inner vision try to represent Lucifer
actually as a Moon being? One would represent a human head
and would attach something like a boned up spinal column to
it, something like a serpent; and that is how Master Bertram
in the 13th, 14th century presents Lucifer there on the tree
between Adam and Even. In the Hamburg Museum you can see the
picture represented just like that. So you see that the
painter who painted this picture has the living knowledge
of the configuration of Lucifer within him. You can also see
that it was not so very long ago that we still had the
ancient atavistic clairvoyance which has now been lost.
I would like to
present the situation from another side in order that you
will see the assertion of the materialist who says that you
do not need to know anything that comes out of the spiritual
world, that all you need to do is use your thinking and
feeling just as we breathe in the atmosphere and take in food
for our hunger and thirst. I have often talked about the very
significant criminal anthropologist, Benedict. He was the
first to investigate the brains of criminals, naturally,
after their death. He analyzed these brains in order to see
if he could find some connections between the structure of
the brain and criminal qualities. Benedict found that they
all have a common characteristic, namely, their rear head
lobes were too short and did not completely cover up the
small brain. Just imagine this: the common qulaities of the
criminal brain is to have a too short rear head lobe just as
the apes also have it, something which does not cover the
small brain. Obviously this actually is a property of the
physical body and so from that you can conclude that there
are two types of people being born, those having a correct
rear head lobe and those with too short lobes. Those who have
a correct rear head lobe do not become criminals and those
with too short rear head lobes must become criminals. From
the standpoint of the materialistic world conception you
cannot raise any objection against this knowledge, but then
all talk about morality is nonsense. Can we really punish
people when we have to say that they have to be criminals
because they have too short rear head lobes. You can see how
materialism and all that can come about from it can gradually
degenerate. You must extinguish all sorts of spiritual
aspects from the social, ethical and juristic life, otherwise
we are living in a complete lie, because there can be no
objection against the facts which have just been
presented.
Now, let us see
how we approach the situation. To be sure, there are those
who have correct rear head lobes and those with too short
rear head lobes. However, there is an ether body there which
can be developed in a quite different way and is much more
mobile than the physical body. Behind the rear head lobes of
the physical body there are the rear head lobes of the ether
body and the human beings of the future will have to learn to
distinguish between children who have too short rear head
lobes and those who have longer rear head lobes. The
educators will have to know in what characteristics a short
hind head lobe manifests itself in the earliest years of
childhood. These children will have to be educated in such a
way that the ether lobes can be correspondingly developed and
so form a counter weight. Then through the fact that you have
developed the ether lobes strongly, they will prevent the
damage which the physical lobes can produce when they are too
short. So we can see that if spiritual science does not enter
into our civilization, then as a result of materialism, all
morality, all ethics, all justice would be meaningless. The
spiritual would be extinguished from mankind's
experience.
Recently in my
public lectues I spoke about a forgotten thinker, Karl
Christian Plunk. I do not intend to defend everything which
Karl Christian Plunk has written in a dogmatic way. However,
I have showed you how he worked out of a very deep spiritual
consciousness and that he had a certain spiritual world
conception. He died in 1880. Very few people bothered about
his books. In 1912 the book entitled
A TESTAMENT OF A GERMAN
by Karl Christian Plunk appeared,a wonderful
book. Since he died in 1880, this book had to be written
before that. In the first edition of my
RIDDLES OF PHILOSOPHY which was entitled
WORLD AND LIFE VIEW OF THE 19TH CENTURY,
I had already pointed in the year 1900
to Karl Christian Plunk. Plunk actually was an Idealist; he
really was a man who lived in the spiritual world and wanted
to bring into existence that which inserts itself in the
world from the spiritual. I could mention many other
examples, however, I am just pointing to Karl Christian
Plunk. (An extract from Plunk's book
TESTAMENT OF A GERMAN
written in 1880 is given in which he spoke of the
present war ‘1914–1918’) In this book he
refers to the fact that in the future war, Germany will have
to defend herself in the West and the South; how on all sides
the enemy has national jealousy against the Center. The
people will be jealous of the success and growth of the
culture of Germany. How many people who had a materialistic
concept could have thought like that? Very few of them. Yet,
these are the very people who call the people who have a
spiritual feeling, idealists.
When a
spiritual researcher says: Today people are alright, they can
still continue to think, because they have an inheritance of
the ancient type of thinking and are able to invent machines.
However, human beings will come to a standstill before 50
years is over. They will not be able to discover anything
more unless they decide to take spiritual influences up into
their thinking. They will reach a dead end. They will have to
go to the next stage which will be a development of a
spiritual scientific point of view, then they will be able to
have new discoveries. Today we have machines only because we
have inherited the ancient thinking in our consciousness. We
see that the time demands that we allow ourselves to become
fructified from the spiritual world. And only this
fructification will make it possible to be able to understand
the spiritual facts as anthroposophical spiritual science
gives us. And unless this happens, the great world tasks will
not be solved. I have often mentioned the fact that we are
living in a time when the second appearance of Christ will
occur shortly, the Etheric Christ Being, that second
appearance of Christ upon earth. However, it is necessary to
have a preparation in order that this event does not go by
unnoticed.
Just recently
when I gave a lecture, two people came to me after the
lecture and said that they are very surprised about what I
was saying and they thought that they would not expect a
Theosophist to speak the same way that I spoke. They thought
Theosophists would speak differently, because they were
pacifists. They forgot the fact that ever since pacifism
arose, we have had the bloodiest wars. We talked about
illnesses and I tried to explain that illness is the reaction
of nature in order to make man healthy, that before the
appearance of illness there are unnatural relationships and
illness is an attempt to compensate for these unnatural
relationships. The illness is necessary, because the
unnatural relationships were there. You must see that in all
circles of materialism, it leads to the unfruitfulness of
thinking.
Spiritual
scientific truths must work in our feeling, in our soul mood
in a fructifying way and there must be a number of people in
our age who can hold them true out of an inner conviction to
that which is a necessity for world evolution, that which
comes out of spiritual science. Then there will be what
should be, then the Christ when He appears in His new form
will find those people whom He needs; and that must be. When
he appears in His etheric figure, and when someone says that
he has experienced the Etheric Christ, then he must not be
grasped as being an idiot. It is very necessary today to give
mankind a strong push forward, a push which is able to
overcome the materialism and its consequences, and this
century needs it, needs it in order to take up a new form.
And we have as the signs of fire for this goal of mankind
today the significant bloody events all around us. We take up
spiritual science so that the sacrifice of all those people
who have died as a result of this will not have died in vain.
If we take up spiritual science, then all that which has gone
an around us as a sacrifice of these souls in this war, will
be some sort of compensation for it and that will contribute
towards the elevation of mankind. that must be, that is why
we have to express this invocation again and again.
From the Courage of the fighters,
From the blood on fields of battle,
From the grief of the bereaved,
From the people's sacrifice:
There will ripen fruit of Spirit,
If souls will turn in consciousness
Towards the realm of Spirit.
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