Lecture VII
13th January 1918.
We have seen that we approach certain riddles of the universe I and
of mankind when we begin to observe man himself, seeing in his
two-fold form something of the solution of the world-riddle. In
meditating over all these things one can gain great help by thinking
more deeply of the formula: The world as totality is a riddle, and
man himself, again as totality, is its solution. We must not expect,
however, to solve the world-riddle in a moment; human life itself in
its completeness, what we experience between birth and death and
again between death and a new birth that is actually the
solution of the world-riddle. So this is a very serviceable formula:
The world is a riddle and Man is its solution.
We have seen that when
we regard man's external physical form, we can distinguish in it the
head-part and the remaining part. We can consider the head-part in
its spherical form as an image of the whole cosmos, not only as a
comparison but as an actuality. We can truly say that the whole
starry heaven is at work to bring about the form, the shaping, the
inner forces of the human head. Of course, it is also true
speaking lightly that everyone has his own head. Man
certainly has that. For as you know, the configuration of the starry
heaven always differs, according to the special spot on earth and the
special time at which one observes the stars. So that by taking the
starry heavens, not in general, but in their configuration at the
place and at the time in which the person is born, this must result
in each person's having his special head according to the position of
the stars in the heavens. Let us keep in mind that it is not the
star-heaven in general that builds up our head, but its special
configuration. And from the various studies we have pursued we
can realize that a considerable part of man's task between death and
rebirth consists in his becoming familiar with the mysteries, the
spiritual secrets of the stars. One can even say in a certain sense,
that the head is not merely given us quite passively but that we make
it ourselves. Between death and a new birth we come to know all the
laws that prevail in wide cosmic spaces. In fact, when we think of it
spiritually, the wide universe is our home between death and a new
birth. And just as here on the earth we learn to know the laws by
which houses and other things are constructed, so in the time between
death and rebirth we become familiar with the laws of the cosmos. And
we ourselves take part in working in the cosmos. And from the
cosmos, together with the purely spiritual beings who dwell there, we
work chiefly upon the head. So that when the human head appears here
in the physical world, it is only apparently determined by mere
heredity from one's ancestors. I have said repeatedly that everyone
acknowledges that the magnetic needle does not turn by itself to the
North and the other pole to the South, but that cosmic forces are at
work, namely, that the earth is working there. In the case of the
magnet, people own that the universe plays a part, it is only when
one comes to the origin of a living being that they are not yet
willing to see that the whole universe participates in it. In the
case of man, it is with the formation of his head that the whole
universe is concerned. The head has not merely come about through
heredity, from father, mother, grandparents, etc. but forces from the
whole universe are at work within it. It is principally from man's
limbs and members that the configuration of cosmic forces acts upon
what is in his head. On the other hand, we actually receive the rest
of our organism, in so far as it is physical, through a kind of
hereditary transmission from the generations of ancestors.
Modern natural science,
my dear friends, is moreover very close to the discovery of this from
its own standpoint. In fact the natural science of today only
struggles against those parts of the truth that are suggestive of
Spiritual Science. Natural science is very near at many points to a
meeting with spiritual science. I said in other lectures and have
indicated the same thing here, that natural science is very near to a
discovery of something that has met with opposition even in spiritual
science. People who read my
Theosophy
often find themselves
repelled by the chapter where I speak of the human aura and how man's
forces of soul and spirit are expressed for clairvoyance in a
colour aura that sparkles round him. Now Professor Moritz Benedict,
whom I have often mentioned in other connections, has recently
made experiments in Vienna with persons who have a gift for using the
divining-rod. Professor Benedict did not make clairvoyant
experiments; as he is very unwilling to acknowledge clairvoyance, but
he made experiments in a dark chamber with those gifted for using the
divining-rod, which has played such a great role in this war. You
probably know that it has played a very special role in this war.
Since water was needed for the soldiers, persons able to use the
divining-rod were posted to various army-groups in order to discover
springs of water for the men. This went on very largely in the
southern areas of the fighting. Driven by necessity, of course, one
had to do such things. Now in the camera obscura and with the method
of natural science Professor Benedict has examined people who can
find water or metals under the earth by means of the divining-rod. In
the case of a woman who was quite small, he discovered that she
showed under treatment in the camera obscura, an immense aura, so
that she looked like a giant. He could even describe the right side
as bluish, the left side as yellowish-red. This can all be read today
as scientific findings, since Professor Benedict has published the
whole matter in his book on the divining-rod. What has been observed
by Professor Benedict through these methods is the aura, as I have
mentioned on earlier occasions. It is not the aura of which we speak;
we mean much more spiritual elements in man than this lowest, almost
physical aura which Professor Benedict is able to find by natural
means in the camera obscura. Still there is a connection. Precisely
that part of my book
Theosophy
which has met with the most
opposition and abuse, has thus shown its point of contact with
ordinary science. Things will move quickly, and it will be the same
with regard to what I have just touched upon. At no distant time, and
purely from researches of natural science it will be possible to
establish that what a man bears within him as inherited from
ancestors is not the form of the head nor its inner forces, and that
the head in fact is produced by forces of the cosmos. We should never
be nationalistic, my dear friends, if we were to follow our head
alone. The head is not in the least adapted to be nationalistic, for
it is derived from the heavens, and the heavens are not
nationalistic. All the dividing of men into groups that finds a place
in our thoughts does not come from the head; it comes from that
element through which we are connected with the hereditary
stream of humanity. This of course plays into the head when man is
living here between birth and death, for the rest of the organism
continuously exchanges its nerve-forces and blood-forces with the
head.
When we speak of
heredity, however, and that the part of man which excludes the head
received its forces from ancestors, we must only refer to the
physical, for as regards the spiritual part of the remaining
organism, it is another matter. And therefore it is very important
for us now to consider a fact which can only be brought to light
through spiritual science. Thus natural science will discover, as it
has discovered the aura, the fact that the head is only influenced
through heredity by being added to the rest of the organism. That man
is only related to his ancestors in respect of the rest of the
organism this will be discovered even by natural science. But
we touch upon another field which natural science cannot of course
enter forthwith. Inasmuch as we are born we bear in our head the
forces of the universe; they shape our head. A little, to be sure,
can be outwardly substantiated. One who observes children in
their development will perhaps know that in the very early days it
can often be asked whom does the child really resemble? And
the likeness often only comes out strongly in later childhood
some at least of you will have already noticed that. It rests on the
fact that the head is mainly neutral as regards earthly conditions;
the rest of the organism must first affect the head (it can do so of
course even in the embryonic stage) and then the features and so on
can show a likeness to the ancestors. If one has a feeling for such
things, one can see for oneself externally the truth that lies in
this domain.
But the matter goes
deeper. Between the spiritual universe for the universe is
filled with spirit and spirit-beings and the earth on which
we dwell there is an intermediary which is never at rest. A fine
substance, which cannot be produced in the chemical laboratory since
it does not belong to the chemical elements, streams in continuously
on to the earth out of the wide universe. If one wants to draw it
schematically, one can say: if the earth is here in universal space
(see diagram), from all sides universal matter continuously streams
in upon the earth, a fine universal substance (arrows inwards), and
this fine substance penetrates a little below the earth's
surface. So that this continually takes place substances from
the whole of cosmic space sink down towards the earth. It is not
physical substance, not a chemical element, but actually spiritual,
auric substance that sinks down below the surface of the earth. When
we come down to earth from the spiritual world, to find a place in a
human body, we use the forces that lie in this substance.
Now it is significant
that this substance which streams into the earth and again streams
out, is made use of by man when he
dies.
He finds in the out-streaming substance, forces which take him into
the spiritual world. This substance, which I have shown coming
inwards towards the earth, enters the surface to a certain depth and
then streams away again (arrows pointing outwards). So that one can
continually perceive a sort of inbreathing of ether or auric
substance into the earth, and again an out-breathing.
This is an observation
which is not so very easy to make. But if it has once been made, if
one has once realized that the earth actually inhales and exhales
spiritual substance continuously, then one knows how to apply it to
all circumstances and, above all, to human life in the way I have
just described. Thus we come into our bodily nature with what I have
indicated as inwardly directed arrows, and with those pointing
outwards, we pass out again in death.
In this case I will
relate how I came upon this fact years ago. The forces that play
here, the in-streaming and out-streaming forces, are not solely
concerned with human life, but with every possible kind of earthly
condition. Now a special problem for me was how matters stood with
the cockchafers yes, cockchafers. Cockchafers are in fact
extraordinarily interesting because, as you probably know, when
there are a great many cockchafers in a year then in three to five
years there are very many grubs (their larvae). These grubs
affect the potato crop very seriously, one gets very bad crops if
there are many grubs. And a man who has anything to do with potato
culture knows that there will be a bad crop three to five years after
a year in which there are great numbers of cockchafers. Now I had
looked on that as an interesting fact, and then I discovered that the
life of the cockchafer is connected with the in-streaming substance
and the life of the grubs with the out-streaming substance. I
will only stress this as a matter by which you can see how one comes
upon such things from quite a different side. One comes to such
things with the most certainty when one does not observe them on the
direct object but on a relatively indifferent object, to which
one can most easily maintain a neutral attitude. You see, however,
from this that the substances of which I have spoken, penetrate under
the earth and remain there for a time. The substance that in a
certain year streams in, only streams out again after several years.
This is also connected with the fact that the out-streaming substance
is on the whole heavier than the instreaming substance. This latter
is more active, streams in quicker, the out-streaming substance is
heavier and streams out more slowly.
When one makes
intensive observation of human life one can see how man makes use of
the forces in the instreaming substance when he comes out of the
universe to birth. Then in later years he loses connection with them.
You will realize from what has been said that it is the head which is
chiefly concerned with this instreaming substance. But the human head
is a hard globe. It is indeed a hard globe, and among all the organs
it is the most ossified. And thus, relatively early not in
childhood, but relatively early it loses connection with
the instreaming forces. Hence its formation and development are
finished early. Man continues in his childhood his union with these
instreaming forces and then they cease to influence him, at least
this is so in our time-cycle. It was not always so on earth I
will speak of this presently but it is so in our time. Now
while man lives here on earth, the rest of his organism, apart from
the head, takes possession of the out-streaming substances and their
forces. This remaining organism imbues itself with them, and it is
these forces which can rejuvenate the organism from without, as I
indicated yesterday. They are the rejuvenating forces which act upon
the etheric body, and which, while we are growing old physically,
make it more and more chubby-faced. Thus the human being, as etheric
man becomes chubby. In this process undergone by the etheric body
that is connected with the remaining organism there work the
forces streaming out of the earth. And it is these too which we use
when we go through the portal of death to return to the cosmos, to
the spiritual world.
The earth, as you see,
has a share in our life, is inwardly interested in it. And
something is connected with what I have now said that can very easily
be brought into a formula, into an essentially important formula. For
a long time we live as souls between death and rebirth before we
enter physical life through birth, and again we live as souls when we
have passed through the gate of death, even up to our next
incarnation. The dead live a spiritual life, and this life is
connected with the stars as here on earth we are connected with
physical matter. Since our head has been formed and shaped by the
forces which we have lived through between death and a new birth,
since we build up our head, as it were, out of cosmic forces, our own
real being of soul and spirit fairly early finds its spiritual grave
in our head. We possess the head-forces that we have here on earth
because our head is actually the grave of our soul-life as we led it
before birth, or before conception. Our head is the grave of our
spiritual existence. But inasmuch as we have come down to the
earth, the rest of our organism is adapted to make us resurrect, for
it takes up the forces which stream from the earth into universal
space, in order to form its spiritual element. And whilst our
physical organism falls away from us, our spiritual part with our
forces that stream out from the earth passes through cosmic space
into spirit existence.
This is the wonderful
polarity that prevails in the universe in regard to man. We become
physical out of the spirit, burying our spirit nature in the head, in
the head is the end of our spiritual existence before birth. Here
upon earth it is reversed. We leave the physical behind; the physical
goes to pieces gradually during our life and the spiritual arises. We
can say therefore: Birth denotes the resurrection of the physical,
the spiritual being changed into the physical; death denotes the
birth of the spiritual, the physical being given over to the
earth, just as the spiritual is given over to the universe through
our birth. We give our spiritual element to the universe by reason of
our being born, and by reason of our dying we give over to the
universe our physical element. By giving our spiritual part to the
universe through our birth, we are physical human beings. By giving
our physical part to the earth through death we are spiritual human
beings in the period between death and a new birth. That is the
polarity. [See: ‘Prayers
for mothers and children’ and ‘Earthly Death &
Cosmic Life’.] And our life here consists in developing
our spirit organism. But we can only develop it in the right way for
our present earthly cycle when what I said yesterday is taken into
consideration. That is to say, when one reaches the point where both
members of human nature enter into a real correspondence, when
head-life and heart-life enter into correspondence with one another,
and the shorter head-life really lives itself into the whole man.
Thus the whole man can then be rejuvenated during the lifetime to be
lived through, when in fact the head has long since lost its
mobility, its power of inner development.
It will be the special
task of a future educational science to make anthroposophical
spiritual science so fruitful that the human being comes to feel how
he is built up out of the cosmos, how he actually ‘shells
himself’ from the cosmos and how he gives back to the cosmos
what he has won for himself upon earth. This education must be given
through all sorts of narratives, all sorts of things which are
adapted moreover to youth but so adapted that one can keep
one's interest in them through every age of life. I only beg of you,
my dear friends I will not say to think-through something,
for that is not of much use to feel-through, thoroughly to
feel-through something. Here too, you see, is a point where modern
natural science is already concerning itself with what can be
investigated through spiritual science. I have mentioned how
intelligent geologists have expressed their view that the earth is
already in a dying-out condition. The earth has overstepped the
point where as earth-being she was actually in the middle of her
life. In the excellent book by Eduard Suess, The Countenance of
the Earth, you can read how the purely materialistic geologist
Suess states that when one walks over fields today and looks at the
clods of earth, one has to do with something dying out that once was
different. It is dying out. The earth is dying. We know this from
Spiritual-Science, since we know that the Earth will be transformed
into another planetary existence which we call the Jupiter existence.
Thus the earth as such is dying away. But man, that is the human-race
as sum of spiritual beings, does not die with the earth; humanity
lives beyond the earth, as it lived before the earth was Earth,
in the way I have described in my
Occult Science.
And so one can permeate oneself not in thought as I said, but in
feeling and experience with the conception: ‘I stand here on
this earthly soil, but this ground on which I stand, in which I shall
find my grave, has but a transitory appearance in the cosmos.’
How then does a next earth, a new planet, arise out of this earth, on
which the humanity of the future can dwell? Through what does it
arise? It arises through the fact that we ourselves carry piece by
piece what is to form this new planetary existence. We human beings
the animal kingdom is also to some extent involved inasmuch
as we always carry within us something belonging to the next life,
are already here during our physical life preparing the next planet
that will follow the earth's existence. In the forces that go back
again lies what is to be the future of the earth. We do not live
merely in the present, we live in the future of the earth, but we
have to keep returning into incarnation since we have many things
still to fulfil on earth as long as earth exists. But we are involved
in the future life of the earth. We have said that the earth breathes
spirit-substance in and out. In the in-breathed substance we carry
the past and the laws of the past, the forces of the past. In what is
breathed out, given back again by the earth we bear in us what
belongs to the future. In the human race itself rests the future of
the earth's existence.
Think of all this made
really fruitful with feeling and warmth, instead of all the stupid
things that are imparted to the young nowadays: think of this made
alive in hundreds and hundreds of vivid narrations and parables and
brought to youth! Then think what a feeling towards the universe
would be aroused what there is to do! What there is to be
done if our civilization is to go forwards what there is to
do concretely! This is very important to consider. And it can be
considered all the more since it is connected with what I have called
the rejuvenation of man. That present-day humanity has come to such
calamities is connected with the fact that it has lost the secret of
changing head-life into heart-life. We have hardly any real
heart-life. What people generally speak of is the life of instincts
and desires, merely that, not the spiritual element of which we have
spoken. Today men let what streams out into the universe just
peacefully stream out, and they do not bother themselves about it.
They pay no attention to it.
Some individuals
instinctively take it into account. I have recently given an example
of how individuals take it into account, in which case however they
differ very much from others. I have related the difference between
Zeller and Michelet, the two Berlin Professors. I have said that I
spoke with Eduard von Hartmann about the two men, just when Zeller
had obtained his pension, since at seventy-two he no longer felt
able to hold his lectures at the University. But Michelet was
ninety-three years old. And Hartmann related how Michelet had just
been there and had said to him ‘I don't understand Zeller, who
is only seventy-two years old saying he cannot go on lecturing. I am
ready to lecture for another ten years!’ And with that he
skipped about the room and rejoiced over what he would lecture upon
next year and could not imagine how that lad Zeller, the
seventy-two-year-old Zeller, put in a claim to be pensioned off
no more to address the students!
This keeping young is
connected with a proper mutual action taking place between head and
heart. This can of course happen in the case of single individuals,
but on the whole it can only occur rightly even in single
individuals, when it passes over into our civilization, when our
whole cultural life becomes imbued with the principle that it should
not have mere head-life but heart-life as well. But you see, to
acquire heart-life needs more patience. In spite of the fact that it
is more fruitful, more youth-giving to life, yet for heart-life more
patience is required than for head-life. Head-life ... well, you see,
one sits down and crams. When we are young we prefer to stick to our
cramming in spite of all the talk of the pedagogues. For, my dear
friends, certain customs have remained from earlier times, when
things were still known atavistically, but people no longer attach a
right meaning to such customs. I will remind you of one.
Everything that has
been preserved from relatively not very early times, before
materialism had become general, has a deeper meaning. In recent
decades the habit has already been lost, but when I was young
it is some time since there was an arrangement in the
Grammar School in the Lower School in the second Class
to have Ancient History, and then in the fifth Class one had Ancient
History again. Those who planned such regulations at that time no
longer knew why it was so, and the teachers who dealt with these
matters did not act as if they were aware of the reason. For anyone
who had been aware of it, would have said to himself. ‘When I
give history to a boy in the second Class, he crams it, but what he
takes in needs a few years for it to become at home in his organism.
Therefore it is a good thing to give the same again in the fifth
Class, for only then does the knowledge that entered this poor head
three or four years ago, bear its good fruits.’ The whole
structure of the old grammar school was really built up on these
things. The monastic schools of the Middle Ages had still many
traditions derived from ancient wisdom, a wisdom that is not ours,
but one that preserved atavistically from olden times
arranged such things logically.
In fact it needs the
principle of patience if life of the head is to pass over into life
of the heart. For the head-life quickly unites with us, the
heart-life goes more slowly, it is less active so that we
must wait. And today people want to understand everything all at
once. Just imagine if a modern man had the idea of learning
something and then had to wait a few years in order fully to
understand it. Such a principle is scarcely to be associated with the
frame of mind of modern men. The feelings of modern men lie along
very different lines.
One can find examples
of this and it is well to point them out. Two plays have lately been
produced in Zurich by people connected with The Anthroposophical
Society, in fact it has been widely pointed out that the two people
are connected with the building in Dornach, with Spiritual Science
and so on. In this case, to be quite just, it must be owned that
these two Zurich performances by Pulver and Reinhart have really
been very well received in Switzerland. But one can find remarkable
things in the correspondence that has gone out from Switzerland.
The foreign correspondents have shown themselves, well, less
interested, shall we say, than in this case the Swiss audience
themselves. Thus I have had a newspaper given me in which these two
Swiss first performances by Pulver and Reinhart were discussed, where
the correspondent cannot forego pointing out that the two authors are
connected with our Movement and have drawn a good deal from it. Today
people are not only afraid of the wrong teaching of the Gnosis, as I
related yesterday, but they are afraid of anything concerning
the life of spirit. If something about world-conception creeps into
anything Oh, that is dreadful! And this actually rests on the
fact that there is no feeling for this relation of head-life and
heart-life. All life to be found in mankind today outside the head is
purely life of instinct and desire; it is not spiritual. And so the
life of instinct and desire is irritated with the mere head-life.
Head-life is very spiritual, very intellectual today, but more and
more will it become can one say ‘un-purified’
by the instinct and desire life. Hence thoughts come forth in a very
curious way. And this correspondent of whom I speak you can
perhaps best judge of the confusion of his head through his instincts
if I read you a characteristic sentence showing his fear that
questions concerning world-conception play into these plays of the
two authors. Just think, the man goes as far as writing the
following:
‘But Pulver's belief in Christ ought to grow out of depths of
sorrow and doubt if from the stage he wished to win disciples.
The star flower plucked by Reinhart's seeker after Paradise at his
studio window in the very first scene ought to bloom only at the end
and from a bleeding heart.’
And
now comes the sentence which I mean:
‘Both poets had their world conception already complete in
their head as they began to write; it would have been better for the
dramas if they had had to wrestle for their religion as they wrote.’
Now just think of that:
nowadays one manages to make it a serious fault for anyone with a
world conception to write! One is supposed to sit down as a perfect
fool in face of the world to scribble away, and then in the
scribbling, at the end, a world-conception is supposed to spring
forth. Then the thing is produced at the theatre, and this is
supposed to please the audience! Just imagine such stupid nonsense
being actually spread abroad in the world today; and many people do
not notice that such rubbish is being circulated.
Such things simply
depend on the fact that the life of the head is not worked on by the
whole man. For of course the journalist who wrote that was a very
‘clever man’. That should not be disputed.
He is very clever. But
it is of no possible use to be clever, if the cleverness is mere
head-life. That is the important thing to keep in mind; that is
extraordinarily important.
Here we touch upon
something fundamental, very necessary to our present civilization.
One can make such observations in fact at every turn. Logical slips
are not made today because people have no logic, but because it is
not enough to have logic. One can be wonderfully logical, pass
examinations splendidly, be a brilliant University Professor of
National Economy, or any other subject, and in spite of being so
clever and having any amount of logic in one's head, one can
nevertheless go off the rails again and again. One can accomplish
nothing connected with real life, if one has not the patience to lead
over into the whole man what is grasped by the head, when one has not
patience to call on the rejuvenating forces in human nature. That is
the point in question. Anyone having to do with true science, such as
spiritual science, knows that he would be ashamed to give a lecture
tomorrow on what he had found out or learnt today because he
knows that that would be absolutely valueless. It would only
have value years afterwards. The conscientious spiritual
investigator cannot lecture by giving out what he has only recently
learnt; but he must keep the things continually present in his soul
so that they may ripen. If he brings forward what he has only just
acquired he must at least make special reference to the fact, so that
his audience may make note of it. One will only be really able to see
what the present time needs if one bears in mind these demands on
human nature. For what is necessary for the present age does not lie
where today it is mostly sought; it lies in finer structures that
nevertheless are everywhere spread abroad. One really need not touch
on politics in calling attention to the following:
There are numbers of
people today more than is good for the world at any rate
who are of opinion that this war must continue as long as
possible so that, from it, general peace may arise. If one ends it
too quickly, one does peace no service. In the last few days
in what I say now I am passing no judgment on the value or lack of
value of the so-called peace negotiations between the Central
Powers and Russia, but it has been interesting all the same in the
last few days to see what a curious sort of logic it is possible to
work out. I have been given an article that is really extraordinarily
interesting in this sense. The gentleman in question (his name is of
no consequence here) argues against a so-called separate peace
because he considers that through it universal peace would not be
furthered. A direct way of thinking but one perhaps that has
gone a little deeper might rather say to itself ‘Well,
we may make a certain amount of progress if at least in one spot on
earth we leave off mowing each other down’. That would perhaps
be a straightforward, direct mode of thinking. But a thinking that is
not so direct might be thus expressed: ‘No, one really dare not
leave off in one place, for in that way universal peace
would not be promoted.’ And now the gentleman in question gives
interesting explanations that is, explanations interesting to
himself as to how people quarrel over words. It is his
opinion that those people who say ‘One must be enthusiastic
about any peace, even if it is only a separate peace’, are only
hypnotized by words. But one must not be dependent on words; one must
go to the core of the matter, and the matter is just this
that a separate peace is harmful to the general peace of the world.
Among the various arguments that the gentleman adduces is one of the
following sentence, an interesting sentence, a most characteristic
one for the present day where is one to begin, not to reduce
matters too much to the personal? Well ‘Whoever
is honest must admit that this is the motive of many’ (not
all!) ‘among us who so delight in a separate peace
and in Lenin and Trotsky’, (he means that enthusiasm for the
word ‘peace’ is the motive) ‘while at the same time
they shout tirelessly against anti-militarists and show little
appreciation for our Lenins and Trotskys’. (He is speaking of
Switzerland.)
‘We, however, who are not dupes of any word, but want to get at
the matter itself, we do not want simply German peace, but peace, we
want general peace. For us the word separate is a
contradiction to the word peace.’
(If
one goes into it seriously, one must carefully distinguish between
peace and peace! Moreover the article is headed ‘Peace and
Peace’.)
... ‘We too who do not want German peace, but peace, we want
general peace. For us the word separate stands in
contradiction to the word peace.’
Thus
the gentleman who inveighs throughout the whole article against the
worship of a word, then writes the following:
‘... For us the word separate stands in
contradiction to the word peace. Separation is the
principle of strife, not the principle of peace. After this World-War
we need a World-Peace in which all nations come at the same time to a
great mutual agreement. What we see in Brest-Litowsk, this game of a
select circle of diplomats, imbued with all the subtleties of
diplomacy, with the naiveté, the idealism, (also the
dogmatism) of the representatives of a new order, is a spectacle that
can please no one who wishes the ideal to remain pure. It is to be
feared that we may get a Devil's peace, which will only produce more
frightful war, instead of God's peace which finally leads to an end
to all war.’
Well,
my dear friends, this is certainly logic, for the article is written
with ingenuity; it is brilliantly ingenious. This article ‘Peace
and Peace’ is even boldly and courageously written in face of
the prejudice of countless people, but its logic is devoid of any
connection with reality. For the connection with reality is only
found through that of which we have spoken, through the maturing
of knowledge; what the head can experience must be reflected upon in
the rest of man and this must mature. It may be said that what the
very clever men of today lack most of all is this becoming ripe. It
is something that is connected with the deepest needs and deepest
impulses of the present. You see, the present day has no inclination
at all to go in for the study of these things. Naturally I do not
mean that every single person can go in for such study, but men whose
métier is study, ought to occupy themselves with such things,
and then that would pass over into the common consciousness of
mankind. For do we not find that journalists with all respect
be it spoken write what they find accepted as general
opinion.
If instead of
Wilsonianism or some such thing, Mohammedanism were to be represented
as the accepted common opinion, European journalists would write away
about something Mohammedan. And if spiritual science had already
grown into a habit in human souls, then the same journalists who
today grumble at Spiritual Science would, of course, write very
finely in the sense of Spiritual Science. But nowadays there is a
disinclination to go into such things among the very people
whose task it should be.
You see, as man stands
here on the earth, he is really connected with the whole cosmos. And
I have said before that what holds good today on earth has naturally
not always held good. That we may be informed at least about the most
important things, we shall speak now principally of the period of
time since the great Atlantean deluge, the Flood. Geology calls it
the Ice Age. We know that changes took place in mankind at that time,
but there was a humanity upon earth even before this, although in a
different form. (You can read in
Occult Science
how mankind lived then.) The Atlantean evolution preceded the present
evolution. In that part of the earth, for instance, where the Atlantic Ocean
is today as we have often said there was land. A great
part of present-day Europe was then under the sea conditions
on earth were quite different during the age of this Atlantean
humanity. The ancient Atlantean civilization went down. The
Post-Atlantean has taken its place. But the Atlantean followed the
so-called Lemurian civilization, which again had several epochs.
Thus we can say that we are in the post-Atlantean civilization in the
fifth epoch, following the first, second, third and fourth epochs.
Before this was the Atlantean civilization with its seven epochs (see
diagram), before this again was the Lemurian civilization with its
seven epochs. Let us turn our attention to the seventh epoch of the
Lemurian civilization. It lies approximately 25,900 years before our
epoch. It was about 25,000-26,000 years ago that this seventh epoch
of the Lemurian age came to an end on earth. However remarkable it
may sound, there is a certain resemblance between this seventh
Lemurian epoch and our own epoch. Similarities are as we know always
to be found between successive periods, similarities of the most
diverse kinds. We have found a close similarity between our age and
the Egypto-Chaldean. We will now speak of one which is more distant;
there is also externally, cosmically, a resemblance. You know that
our epoch which begins in about the 15th century of the Christian era
is connected with the cosmos through the fact that since that time
the sun has its Vernal Point in Pisces, in the constellation of
Pisces, the Fishes. The sun had previously been for 2,160 years in
the constellation of Aries, the Ram, at the Vernal Equinox. Here in
this seventh Lemurian epoch (left) there were similar conditions.
Twelve epochs ago the sun was in the same position. So that towards
the end of the Lemurian age there were conditions similar to ours.
This similarity
contains, however, an important difference. You see, what we acquire
today of inner force of spirit and head-experience, as we have
described it in these studies, was also experienced by the Lemurian
human being of that time, though in a different manner. The Lemurian
man was constituted in quite a different way from the man of
today, as you may read in my
Occult Science.
What could enter into him out of the universe, really entered right in. So
that the Lemurian man received practically the same wisdom as the man of
today gains I through his head, but it streamed into him out of the
universe, I and only in this sense was it different. His head was
still open, his head was still susceptible to the conditions of the
cosmos. Hence powers of clairvoyance existed in ancient times. Man
did not explain things to himself logically, he did not learn them,
but he beheld them, since they entered his head out of the cosmos,
whereas today they can do so no longer. For what comes in ceases in
relatively early youth. As I have said, the head no longer stands in
such intimate relation to the cosmos. That is so in the present
epoch, at that time it was not so; at that time the head of man still
stood in much more inward relation to the universe; at that time the
human being still received world-wisdom. This did not lack that logic
which is nevertheless lacking in what man gains for himself today.
That original wisdom was an actually inspired wisdom, one that came
to man from without, arising from divine worlds. Present-day man
is unwilling to consider this; for modern man believes (forgive me if
again I express myself somewhat drastically) that ever since he has
been on earth he has had a skull as hard as it is today. This,
however, is not true. The human head has only closed in relatively
recent times. In ancient times it was responsive to cosmic
in-streamings. Only an atavistic remainder is still there. Everyone
knows that when he observes a child's head (a really young child's
head) there is still one place that is soft. This is the last relic
of that openness to the cosmos, where in ancient times cosmic forces
worked in a certain way into the head and gave man cosmic wisdom. Man
at that time still had no need of that correspondence with the
heart, for he had a small heart in the head that has become shriveled
and rudimentary today. Thus does the human being change. But
conditions alter over the earth and man must grasp this and change
too adapt himself to other conditions. We should have been
perpetually tied to the apron-strings of the cosmos, if our head had
not ossified. We are shut off in this way from the cosmos and can
develop an independent ego within us. It is important that we bear
this in mind. We can develop an independent ego by reason of having
acquired physically this hard skull. And we may ask when mankind
actually lost the last remnant of the memories, the living memories
of the ancient archetypal wisdom? This remnant really only faded away
in the epoch that preceded ours, the fourth post-Atlantean epoch,
during the Greco-Roman civilization. Human beings had then, of
course, long since possessed closed skulls, but in the Mysteries
there still existed original wisdom preserved from quite ancient
times, from the epoch that preceded the Lemurian Pisces-age, from the
Lemurian Aries-age.
As much as man could
have of his ego in the Lemurian times was also revealed to him from
the cosmos; his inmost soul-force was manifested to him from the
cosmos. This came to an end in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, the
Greco-Latin time. The heavens closed their last door to man. But
instead they sent down their greatest Messenger precisely at that
time, so that man can find on earth what he formerly received from
heaven the CHRIST. The Mystery of Golgotha is indeed a cosmic
fact, inasmuch as there would have ceased for man what had been
revealed to him from the heavens, cosmically revealed, from Lemurian
times. Then there appears the Impulse which can reveal it to him from
the earth. Only man must gradually develop what has been
revealed to him from the earth in the Christ Impulse, and develop it,
precisely by that process of rejuvenation of which we have been
speaking.
Now, it is a result of
this human development that we bear something within us today that is
so to speak quite wonderful. I have already
mentioned in yesterday's lecture that the knowledge of our time is
the most spiritual it is possible to have; man however does not
remark it because he does not let it mature. What can be known today
about nature is far more spiritual than what was formerly known. What
man formerly knew brought down certain realities out of the cosmos.
In the stars, as I mentioned yesterday, the Scholastics of the Middle
Ages still saw angelic Intelligences. Modern Astronomy does not of
course see any angelic Intelligences, but something that one can
calculate by mathematics or mechanics. But what was formerly
seen has been thoroughly passed through a sieve; it is there, but
sifted to the last vestige of spirituality. It belonged to the quite
lovable genius of Novalis to see rightly in this point. In the
Aphorisms of Novalis you find the beautiful expression I have
often quoted it ‘Mathematics is in truth a great poem’.
But in order to see how mathematics, by which one also calculates the
worlds of the stars and their courses, is a great poem, one must be
oneself a poet, not as the modern natural scientists are perhaps,
but such a poet as Novalis. Then one stands in wonder before the
poetry of mathematics. For mathematics is phantasy. Mathematics is
nothing observed through the senses, it is phantasy. It is,
however, the final product of phantasy that has still a connection
with the immediate external reality. Mathematics in fact is Maya
thoroughly passed through a sieve. And if one learns to know it, not
merely in the schoolmaster sense that prevails in the world today,
but learns to know mathematics in its substance, learns to know
it in what it can reveal, then one learns indeed to know something in
it that has as much reality as an image that we see of ourselves in a
mirror, but which nevertheless tells us something, in certain
circumstances tells us a good deal. But to be sure, if one considers
the mirror image as a final reality, one is a fool. And if one even
begins to want to hold conversation with the reflection because one
confuses it with reality, one is not really looking for reality at
the right spot. Just as little can reality be found in the
mathematical calculations in Astronomy. But the reality is certainly
there. As a mirror reflection is not there without the reality, so
the whole spiritual existence, that is calculated purely
mathematically, is there; it is only passed completely through a
sieve, and must force its way back to reality.
Precisely because our
age has become so abstract, has been formed so purely by the head, it
has such an immense spiritual content. And there is actually nothing
that is so purely spiritual as our present science; it is only that
men do not know nor value this. At any rate it is almost ridiculous
to be materialistic with modern science! For it is a funny way of
going through life if one takes modern science materialistically, and
yet almost all learned men do take it thus. If one asserts, with the
ideas that modern science can develop, that there is only a material
existence, it is actually comic; for if there were only a
material existence, one could never assert that there was a material
existence. Merely by making the statement ‘there is a
material existence’ this action of the soul is in fact
the finest spiritual element possible, it is a proof in itself that
there is not solely a material existence. For no person could assert
that there was a material existence if there were only a material
existence. One can assert all sorts of other things, but one can
never assert that there is a material existence, if one only accepts
a material existence. By asserting that there is only a material
existence one actually proves that one is talking nonsense. For if it
were true what one asserts, if there were only a material existence,
nothing could ever arise from this material existence which became
somewhere or other in a person the asserting which is a
purely spiritual process ‘There is a material
existence’.
You see from this that
nowhere has such a logical proof been put forward that the world is
of the spirit, as by the science of our time which does not believe
in it that is to say, does not believe in itself and
by our whole age, which does not believe in itself. Only because
mankind has spiritualized itself increasingly from epoch to
epoch and has arrived at having such sharply refined concepts as we
have today, only because of this has mankind reached the point of now
seeing solely the quite ‘sieved’ concepts and can of its
own volition connect them with the heart forces. This is shown very
plainly now in external life, it is shown too in the great
catastrophic events.
For, my dear friends,
if one really studies history, there is a great difference between
what is now called the present world-war which is really no
war at all, but something else and earlier wars. People today
are not yet attentive to these things, but in all that is going on
this distinction is shown. One could refer to many proofs of the fact
that this is shown. But you see, there are many men who speak from
the standpoint of a quite particular ingeniousness in such an unclear
way as the man from whose article I read you a sentence. For this
modern acuteness gets to the point of again and again defending the
peculiar sentence ‘One must prolong this war as long as
possible so that the best possible peace may be established’.
No one would have spoken like that about earlier wars. In many other
respects too they would not have spoken as is spoken today. People do
not yet notice that, as I said, but nevertheless it is so. If you
take all earlier wars you will always find that fundamentally in
some way or other men could say why they were waging war. (I will
bring forward two things to illustrate this, though hundreds might be
brought forward.) They wanted something definite, clearly to be
outlined, to be described. Can the men of today do this? Above all,
do they do it? A great part of those who are heavily involved in the
war, do not do it. No one knows what really lies behind things. And
if someone says that he wants this or that, it is generally so
formulated that the other has no real idea of what he wants.
That was certainly not
the case in earlier wars. One can go through the whole of world
history and not find it. You can take such grievous events in earlier
times as, for instance, the invasions into Europe of the Tartars, the
Mongols, and you will always find that they were quite definite
things, that could be sharply defined, that could be understood, and
from which one could understand what actually happened. Where is
there today a really clear definition of what is actually going on, a
really clear description?
That is one thing. But
now, my dear friends, let me say something else what was
generally the actual result of wars in earlier times? Look wherever
you will and you will find that it was certain territorial changes,
which people then accepted. How do people face these things today?
They all explain that there must be no territorial changes. Then one
asks oneself again ‘What is the whole thing for?’
Compared with former things this is really how the matter lies:
people cannot in any case fight for what they always fought before,
because that simply cannot be done. The moment that is somehow
supposed to happen there is an instant declaration ‘That simply
cannot be done’. Thus according to the impulses that prevail
there can really never be a peace; for if one were to leave
everything as it was before, there was no need to begin. But since
one has begun and nevertheless wants to leave everything as it was
before, one can naturally not leave off, for otherwise there would
have been no need to begin!
These things are
abstract, paradoxical, but they correspond to profound realities;
they really correspond to conditions that ought to be kept in mind at
the present time. One must in fact say that what is discussed here as
the lack of correspondence between head-man and heart-man is today
world-historical fact. And, on the other hand, one can say: men stand
today in a quite particular period of development; they cannot
control their thoughts in a human way. That is the most significant
characteristic of our time; men cannot humanly control their
thoughts. All has become different, and people are not yet willing to
notice that all has become different.
Thus, one is not merely
concerned with something that has a significance in questions
concerning world-conceptions, but with something that very deeply
affects the most wide-spread event of our time, the most crushing
event for humanity. Men no longer find from out their soul the
connection with their own thoughts. And this can show us how not only
the individual but humanity too in a certain way has forgotten how to
call upon the rejuvenating forces. Humanity will not easily be
able to extricate itself from this condition. It can only do so when
there is a belief in the rejuvenating forces, when we get rid of much
of what cannot be rejuvenated. Whether we look at individual persons
or consider what is going on around us, we find the same thing
everywhere. We find a sifted and sieved head-wisdom, head-experience,
without the will to let things ripen through the heart-experience.
This is, however, so deeply linked with the needs of the common
evolution of mankind, that man should turn his closest attention to
it for the present and the immediate future. We have indeed often
spoken of it before from the most varied aspects. It is precisely
this state of things that shows how necessary it is for
spiritual science to enter the world today even, one might
say, as something abstract. But it is fruitful, it can remould the
world because above all it can send its impulse into actual, concrete
conditions of life. Man would face sad times if he should continue no
longer to have faith in the becoming older, if he wanted to stop
short at what the short-lived head can experience. For I have said
already that the utmost extreme of what the short-lived head can
acquire is abstract Socialism, which does not proceed from concrete
conditions. Yet this is really solely and alone what people believe
in. The philosopher constantly asserts today that there is only
matter on account of his refined spirituality. But he ought
to give up this judgment at once, for it is nonsense. But the
mainspring of the present so-called war is to be found in the general
world-condition from which there is no way out just as there
is no way out from the sentence ‘There is only matter’.
For the present time is in fact spiritual! And this that is spiritual
needs condensing, needs strengthening, so that it may grasp reality;
otherwise it remains mere mirror-image. In the way humanity works
today it is as if one did not wish to work in a workshop with actual
men, but as if one thought one could work in a workshop with
mirror-pictures.
And so it is in the
most extreme form of head-concept-socialism, which on this account is
so plausible for great masses since it is logical head-experience,
purely logical head-experience. But when this logical head-experience
cannot meet the spirit element of the other man, with what then can
it meet? That is what we have often spoken of, in fact, even today.
It then unites with blind desires and instincts. Then there results
an impure mixture between the head-experience, which is really quite
spiritual, and the blindest instincts and desires. That is what they
are now trying to join together in the East, in a world historical
way! A socialistic theory, pure head-experience, has nothing whatever
to do with the actual concrete conditions of the East;
what is devised by men
like Lenin and Trotsky has nothing to do with what is developing as
concrete necessities in the East. For if Lenin and Trotsky, through
some peculiar chain of circumstance, had landed up in Australia
instead of Russia, they would have thought they could introduce the
same conditions that they wished to introduce into Russia. They fit
Australia, South America, just as much, or just as little, as Russia;
they would fit just as well on the Moon, since they fit no real
concrete conditions at all. And why? Because they come from the
head, and the head is not of the earth. Perhaps they would really fit
better on the Moon, since they are purely from the head. The head is
not of the earth. That they are intelligible, comes from the fact
that they are closely related to the head. But here on earth such
things must be established as are related to the earth; a
spirituality must also be found which is connected with the earth's
future, in the way we described yesterday.
That leads into quite
deep and significant things. And when one considers them, one will
see how little inclined the man of today really is, to go into these
things. And they are as necessary as our daily bread. For otherwise,
if the path to rejuvenation is not found, the evolution of mankind
will either get into a pit or a blind alley.
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