Lecture X
Dornach, August 28, 1920
I have often
had to mention here that the science of initiation is
required for the forces that are to bring about a
reconstruction of declining civilization; that it is
necessary to know what can be gained from beyond the
threshold of the super-sensible world. One can say that the
spiritual evolution of humanity has proceeded from a
knowledge and corresponding attitude, feeling and will that
were drawn from beyond this threshold. Everything that is
discovered when we go back to mankind's primordial treasures
of wisdom becomes intelligible when we can trace this
original wisdom to the revelations derived from mystery
knowledge; when we can assume that, to begin with, sources of
knowledge, of feeling and will, were accessible to humanity
in its earth evolution that are not accessible by means of
the purely human forces known to people today. As evolution
progressed, human beings increasingly had to depend an what
can be derived from the human being himself. This then is
essentially the content of the forces that have been active
during recent centuries in the development of
civilization.
These forces
that have emerged out of man himself up to now have produced
a condition of civilization which, if left to its own
devices, would inevitably lead to its own downfall. The
majority of people today do not believe this as yet. They
continue to talk and act automatically in the same old way,
rejecting what is drawn from the same spiritual sources from
which the ancient mystery wisdom was drawn, but now in a new
way, directly through the forces of man himself. We must go
quite concretely into what can be disclosed to present-day
humanity as a sort of basis for all that is needed in the
immediate future in the way of natural science; a knowledge
that comprises human ethics, moral philosophy, but also
social will. We must therefore go into certain matters that
have been discussed here in the past few weeks from any
number of viewpoints; today, I shall refer to them again from
yet a different point of view.
When we are
awake, we are, in the first place, surrounded by the outer
sense world, by what produces the impressions made on our
eyes, ears, organs of warmth, and on our senses as a whole.
The external sense world is spread out around us, and the
inner life of most people mainly consists of a further
elaboration of the outer impressions. From the other side of
the threshold this outer world presents an appearance that
differs from the one it exhibits on this side. You know, of
course, what humanity has come to in these last centuries by
confming itself basically to viewing the world from this side
of the threshold. To put it in a word, I would say that
mankind has reached the point of looking at itself, so to
speak. What man himself beholds we call the threefold man,
the head man, the rhythmic man and the limb and metabolic
man. Here, we shall indicate diagrammatically the tapestry
that spreads round about us (see sketch on p. 3), which in
the main constitutes the content of the sensory world. From
this side of the threshold people now speculate on what is
behind this sense tapestry. They say that behind it
molecules, atoms and substances perform all sorts of dances.
They give these dances any number of names, but they are
convinced that when the human being looks out through his
eyes, listens to the outside through his ears, in short,
perceives outwardly through his senses, that some sort of
material world lies behind it.
From the other
side of the threshold, no such world of substance is
disclosed. If a person penetrates only a little way into the
region beyond the threshold, it is immediately obvious that a
certain region of the spiritual world lies behind the
tapestry of the senses; meaning, we are essentially dealing
with a world of spirit which is located behind this sensory
world.
When we take
into consideration that the human being consists of the ego,
the astral, etheric, and physical bodies, we have to say that
when man is awake, meaning, when he is immersed in his
organism with his ego and astral body, he has no share in the
spirit region behind the tapestry of the senses. In sleep, on
the other hand, having drawn his ego and astral body out of
his physical organism, man dwells within this (upper) region
of the spirit world with his ego and astral body. From the
time he falls asleep until he awakens, man participates in
the region lying, as it were, behind nature in a
spirit-nature world. One could also say that it is the world
to which man belongs for this period; a certain part of the
spiritual realm is in fact allotted to him for this state of
sleep.
Now man also
has insight into himself only to a certain degree. He can
brood about himself to some extent and then, referring to his
soul nature, he speaks of thoughts, feelings and will
impulses, but in most instances in a very vague manner. From
this inner nature, which remains quite undefined to him, he
draws the thoughts that represent memories, but he does not
see behind his inner being. Thus, we can say that just as a
sort of barrier stands between ourselves and a certain region
of the external world, so, too, a barrier can be drawn
through which the gaze, turned inward, does not penetrate. If
the human being would, however, penetrate into this region
that lies in a sense on yonder side of the mirror which
reflects his memories, he would not discover what many
mystics, affected by illusions, believe. For they assume that
all one has to do is brood over one's inner being and the
loftiest spiritual insight can be attained. Instead, man
discovers there the mysteries of his organization, the
secrets of the wondrous structure expressed in the human
organism. Were man really to penetrate the barrier, he would
not behold the images of a Mechthild of Magdeburg, Meister
Eckhdidt or St. Theresa; he would perceive the human
organization, something that would appear thoroughly prosaic
to certain illusion-prone mystics, but does not seem prosaic
to one who possesses the right feeling for the actual mystery
of the universe. One is indeed justified in saying that far
more wonderful than the images of St. Theresa, Mechthild of
Magdeburg, or Johannes Tauler; far more remarkable than these
reminiscences forged by the reflections that exist as
memories are those saturated with impulses of sensations
radiating up from liver, stomach, spieen, and so on; far more
wonderful than all that — yes, more remarkable, too, than
what has been depicted in archetypal pictures of mankind's
evolution through myths, legends and such like — is what
establishes itself in the prosaic organs of the human
interior. Strange as this sounds, the truth must be grasped
at this point. What establishes itself there is, first of
all, actual earthly substance, the element, in fact, that
constitutes earthly matter. We do not find earthly matter in
the outer world; it is found within the human skin. Again,
this whole inner structure of man's organs is none other than
something that is being pressed in a sense out of another
spirit region. It is a spirit region that in a manner of
speaking sweats out of itself what is present as organs in
the human organism. When man looks into his inner being upon
penetrating the tapestry of memories customarily radiating
towards him, this organic structure is first discovered,
although mystically embellished on occasion. Just as he can
penetrate from beyond the threshold through the tapestry of
the outer senses, when he looks through this memory tapestry,
he then beholds behind this organic structure the other
region of the spirit to which he belongs from the time he
falls asleep until he awakens. It is a spirit region that man
pays no attention to, but it is the one that bestows on him
the forces expressed in his limbs.
When we
contemplate our senses, we find that forces dwell in them
that are mainly those lying behind the tapestry of the
senses. Yet they penetrate us through the openings of our
senses (see sketch) unbeknown to us, when we observe the
world purely from this side of the threshold.
In our organs,
too, forces are present that come from that spiritual region
(Steiner here referred to the previous diagram), and the
forces we possess in our arms and legs are really those that
come from that other region of the spirit. Thus, the moment
man is observed from the other side of the threshold, he is
perceived as the confluence of two spirit domains. What
confronts us when we contemplate the human being here in the
earthly world is basically only an apparent unity. In fact,
man is not a unity at all. He is the confluence of the
spiritually active forces from the two regions I have
indicated to you. The forces that live in our eyes or in our
ears, for example, are of quite another origin than those
that develop when we put one foot before the other, or move
our arms. One cannot harbor such a concept without realizing
that man is embedded, as it were, in the whole cosmos, that
owing to his senses he belongs to one particular spirit
region of the cosmos and through his limbs to another. Only
what lives approximately in the middle — the rhythmic
man, the system of the lungs and the heart and all that is
connected with it — is actually of earthly origin; it is
woven, as it were, out of a kind of world in the middle.
Thus, man himself is a threefold being. Without understanding
this threefoldness, we cannot comprehend man. I said that
this is how the human being appears when we view him from
beyond the threshold. We learn to see him as a member of the
whole cosmos. One becomes aware through spiritual science how
man lives in the whole cosmos and is fashioned out of it. One
is then no longer ignorant of the truth that must be
perceived, namely, that man's task is not merely comprised of
what he accomplishes here on earth; he has tasks to fulfill
in the whole of cosmic evolution. He represents an essential
factor, to be reckoned with in the whole spiritual cosmic
evolution.
Thus, one can
say that spiritual science opens our eyes to what man
represents as a member of the cosmos. Compared to this, just
picture how liliputian the ideas appear that people today
think up concerning the human being. Nowadays matters have
reached the point where a person will only accept as
knowledge something derived from this side of the threshold.
He only looks at what is revealed to him between awakening
and falling asleep, between birth and death. Moreover, he
would like to construe all the tasks that the human being can
accomplish here on earth from the concepts and ideas derived
from this liliputian comprehension of man. We make no
progress this way. We move closer and closer towards total
decline precisely because our intellectuals will not venture
to construe the tasks in this world by utilizing ideas other
than those gained from waking life, from what lies between
birth and death. What man accomplishes, however, is of an
essentially much vaster scope. This can only be understood
when the insights gained by ordinary observation of life are
illumined and fructified with those that can be known by
means of viewing the world from beyond the threshold. There
can be absolutely no improvement in the development of
civilization in the world if we do not accept what can be
attained for human knowledge, feeling and will from beyond
the threshold.
One is moved to
say that it is especially painful when one finds that
programs concerning life are drawn up today out of all the
truncated knowledge, curtailed on all sides, which has been
amassed by humanity in the last three to four hundred years.
One is really in a strange position in regard to these
programs. Religious denominations exist today which, at least
textually, trace their faith to earlier ages, to times when
ancient mystery knowledge was still alive. Their creed is no
longer understood in these religious groups. It is only
textual tradition, everything else has been squeezed out like
a dry lemon. It is in fact no longer there, though in a
certain sense one or the other person can penetrate to an
understanding of it, particularly if he presses forward to
what is usually prohibited by his church. Then a person can
acquire a good deal from the traditional knowledge of the
confessions. For instance, if, independent of what is
prescribed for him, a Catholic reflects upon the Trinity and
the Incarnation, he can arrive at significant insights.
Indeed, it would be more sensible in many respects to reflect
upon the Trinity or the Creed than to patronize all the
movements that emerge today and forge a new creed and
knowledge out of the modern truncated torso of learning. For
what mankind has accumulated in recent centuries and utilizes
today in order to launch into movements that introduce
apparent improvements in the world is far short of what has
remained from antiquity in tradition, even though it has been
deformed by the confessions. It is lamentable to see how all
sorts of scholastic or women's movements, fabricated out of
the truncated knowledge of the last few centuries, believe
that they can stir the world, whereas they only talk around
the real questions.
It must be said
that all this rests on a certain invincible pride of modern
humanity, an arrogance that will learn absolutely nothing. If
a person has grown up in a movement, in some party, he
generally feels that this party has not yet reached just that
particular insight which he, based on his viewpoint in life,
has attained on his own, and so he sets about reforming it.
It is the regrettable fact of the present day that so much
immature nonsense appears as reformatory ideas. Truly
fruitful things can only be accomplished if these movements
that hope to Shake the world will allow the influx of all
that can be investigated beyond the threshold of the sense
world. For, you see, there is a certain domain of the spirit
out there beyond the tapestry of the sensory world. What
purpose does it serve? Just think, this spirit region is the
very wörld we are in when we are awake, albeit not
consciously, but in reality we are in it with our whole
organism; for, as we stand, as we walk, we are within this
world, we just do not see it. We continually move through
this world, we are in it; we accomplish our actions in it.
And when men engage in politics in it, for example, in
Bolshevism, then what Bolshevists do not perceive strikes
back at mankind. The Bolshevists only wish to construct a
world out of what they see, but they are not in the world
that they see — they are in the world that lies beyond
the tapestry of the sense world. When women's movements
appear today and make all sorts of demands, they do this
based on what they see, but they make these demands for the
world that they do not perceive. It therefore always
backfires out of the world we are in, which in reality is
there, but is not present in the demands that are raised,
because people stand firm against receiving anything from the
spiritual world.
This world we
live in, this region, naturally has its significance in the
great universe. To what purpose then is it there? You see,
the world we live in between death and a new birth is a
different world from the one existing here behind the sense
tapestry. The world we enter between death and a new birth is
another domain of the spiritual world. It is mainly the
spiritual region where those beings dwell whom we refer to
when speaking of the hierarchies of the Angeloi, Archangeloi,
and so on. Yet this world of the nine hierarchies can only
subsist when, through the physical human beingand it can only
happen through him — it enters into a certain mutual
intercourse with the world that I have described here as the
spirit region beyond the domain of the senses.
When you live
in a house and wish to have contact with the outer world
without actually stepping outside, you must look out of the
window. When the gods of the nine hierarchies wish to
communicate with this world, they must do so through man.
They cannot do it directly, they must do it through man. It
is a region of the world that can be contemplated by the gods
only by means of human beings. Man must enter the physical
world from the world he inhabits between death and rebirth in
order to bring about a reciprocal intercourse for the gods
with the world evolving here (see sketch below). And for what
purpose does this world, developing beyond the sense
tapestry, exist? If this world were not there, the physical
world would disperse in all directions. It is the world that
would be reduced to dust, for it is the world in which only
forces of antipathy hold sway. The world beyond the sense
tapestry (circle) holds this physical world together. In the
physical world, the tendency exists to expand and spread out
constantly; this world (circle) holds it together.
The gods, too,
however, only come into contact with this centripetally
working world through the human being. The reason man has
entered the cosmos is so that the world of the gods can come
into a relationship, into a perceptive relation and
intercourse, with this centripetal world.
Viewed from
beyond the threshold, this centripetal world is cold and icy.
To experience it is to be affected by something rigidifying,
calcifying; yet it is filled with wisdom. It is woven, as it
were, out of wisdom-filled thoughts, but it is cold, rigid,
evoking chills. This cold, rigid world of forces holds the
other (physical) world together. The human being is not
organized so that he can sense this centripetal world
directly. The person who enters the realm beyond the
threshold feels this chill, this cold contraction. This
coldness is the sign that one is actually entering with one's
ego and astral body into the world which man enters each
night, but without consciousness, not experiencing it. It is
a sign that you enter consciously when you come into a world
that makes you freeze, pervades you luminously with infmitely
intensive wisdom, yet makes you freeze. Without this
experience of freezing and stiffening to begin with, you
cannot sense yourself an the other side of the threshold with
your ego and astral body.
This is an
experience that can be had and it is, in fact, one that can
be gained only through actual experience. Indeed, in
accordance with the explanations that you find in my books
—
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds,
and
Occult Science,
which are sufficient to have these
experiences if they are consistently pursued — the region
beyond the threshold has to be entered. For it is a region
that is as real as the sense realm.
However, if one
is familiar with it, when one comprehends that this region
(beyond the sensory realm) existsfor one cannot truly
understand the physical world without knowledge of the other
one — then one realizes something else, namely, why one
does go about in it. True, is it not, one cannot go about
perpetually freezing and feeling chilled; this is why a
boundary has been set up for his ordinary consciousness. One
would really pass bad nights if one were consciously to
experience the time between falling asleep and waking up.
Then why does one go about in it — for, after all, one
also goes about in the same world when one is awake —
why does one? Man brings into this world of centripetal
forces cosmic forces that dwell within his inner being. When
we grasp clearly in our mind's eye what it is that lives as
forces in man's inner being — we shall speak of it in
more detail in the next lecture — it is an element that
we can call love, warmth, warmth of soul; the human being
carries this soul warmth into the cold domain. This is
preeminently his cosmic task. He is the source of warmth for
this sphere. If I may so express myself, inasmuch as the gods
have created man — to put the matter trivially —
they have created the opening for just this region that must
hold together for them the world that would otherwise
disperse in dust.
This is only
one example. Tomorrow we shall hear of others, and
particularly those that have to do with the social field so
we may realize what mission men's social life on earth has
for the whole cosmos. However, this is just one example of
how, from beyond the threshold, man is seen to have a task
that is not exhausted by what is normally viewed as his task
within this (physical) world, but how he has a cosmic
mission, how he exists for something, so to speak, that lies
within the scope of the great universal plan of the divine
spirits. And just as one must realize that man's existence is
in fact there in order for something to take place in the
universe, so must one be able to see that in everything, even
in regard to the most minute achievements of humanity, man is
a member of the cosmos. One must realize that everything he
does signifies something that surpasses what he can first
perceive with his consciousness, and that all he does
signifies something in relation to the whole cosmos. By
expanding ordinary, small human perceptions, they can be
transformed . into cosmic world perceptions. This is of
primary importance in spiritual science, and it is what
humanity 'needs today.
In the last
three to four centuries, the whole of civilized mankind has
fallen in a way out of its celestial sphere. It has occupied
itself merely with what happens from birth to death and
between waking up and falling asleep. The whole of modern
life is composed only of this. This life, however,
is doomed to death; this life is a gradually dying life.
Place into it as many socialistic theories as you like as
well as their metamorphoses into so-called actions; they will
only hasten the decline. Bring any number of women's
movements into this life and do not allow them to be
fructified by a new spiritual science, and it will be less
and less possible to attain what is actually instinctively
desired by means of such feminist movements and the like.
What has to be
fructified today must always be grasped at the right end.
Oswald Spengler, who wrote a book about the decline of the
West, has calculated correctly from actual scientific
hypotheses that the decline of the West must definitely take
place — that is, if one can only take into
consideration the means at Spengler's disposal. In some
measure, Oswald Spengler is right. This decline will
certainly be forthcoming if an impulse does not come from
spiritual science. Of course, he does not admit to such an
impulse and therefore, from his standpoint, he is quite
correct to write only of the West's decline. Out of this
feeling of decline, Spenglerthis theorist of decline —
can, nevertheless, make many significant statements. He makes
quite pertinent remarks at one point, for instance, about
recent philistine, middle-class philosophies, mysticisms, or
whatever one wishes to call them, such as vegetarianism, the
manner in which discussions about food are ordinarily carried
on, especially in those philistine magazines that are usually
displayed in vegetarian restaurants. It is a commonplace
philistine philosophy, the most philistine imaginable. But
why is that? Is it so in the absolute sense? Yes, what is
discussed there is naturally philistine in the absolute
sense; for during the last three or four centuries people did
not perceive the spirit concealed behind these things. People
do not talk of the spirit today. Vegetarianism,
anti-alcoholism and other fine subjects are all debated from
the standpoint of pure materialism. The spirit concealed
behind them is not seen. Thus, the (negative) things have
actually triumphed. Philistinism has arisen because the
people who would like to begin to be spiritual are often
really the worst materialists. They absorb the concepts of
other materialists and, in some fashion, frame a spiritual
system from them.
Now, in this
regard, even theoretical constructions are extraordinarily
interesting. As most of you know, a certain Leadbeater is
active in the Theosophical Society. This Leadbeater has
written all sorts of books, and a great number of people were
particularly charmed when he wrote something like an occult
chemistry; I even met scholars who were most delighted by
this occult chemistry. What really happened? This Mr.
Leadbeater has become acquainted with the materialistic
chemistry of the present with its molecules and atoms. This
materialistic chemistry of today with its molecules and atoms
describes oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, fron oxide, sodium
acetate, and so on, building them up from these molecules and
atoms. Out of such atoms, Leadbeater builds up the spiritual
worlds, the Spirits and the angels. He creates a spiritualism
out of materialism I have seen people who went about nearly
enchanted when, among many things, the so-called "permanent
atom" once swam around like a drop of fat on the soup of the
Theosophical Society — such drops of fat sometimes did
swim about, didn't they? This permanent atom — a
remarkable thing! The human being dies; returns to earth
again. What is it that has here endured? Of course, people
could not imagine that the human organism is constituted of
forces. It would be an actual impossibility for them to
picture how the human limb system organizes itself from' one
life to the next, how the head is structured out of the
previous incarnation. For in regard to the head and the
limbs, these people only conceive of something grossly
material which is naturally placed into the grave. They
cannot imagine that forces are contained within, and that one
is actually referring to these forces when speaking in this
way. After all, something must pass over from one life into
the next! There is one atom among the millions and billions
of atoms; this one atom passes through the spiritual world,
then the atoms of the subsequent organism group themselves
around this one atom, the permanent atom. It was the delight
of theosophical folk to see how this drop of fat, the
permanent atom, floated on the water soup of the Theosophical
Society — the spiritual water soup, that is.
Truly, these
matters were only mentioned in order to show how everything
at the present, even something wishing to strive for the
spirit, is corroded by the materialistic conceptions of the
last three to four centuries; to stress how one must leave
these ideas behind in order to arrive at any kind of
constructive new direction. It is, however, as I pointed out
yesterday: At the present time, there exist forces that are
absolutely unwilling to allow anything to arise that can aid
humanity in an upward reorganization.
You may ask:
Then does humanity desire its downfall? One really cannot
assume that people wish the downfall of the whole of
civilization. Yet, observation shows that they do, for they
continue to live automatically in the old established manner.
I will explain to you why they wish that. I need only
indicate a single phenomenon and this will give you an
explanation. Have you never seen insects flying about in a
room where a light was burning and saw how they dived into
the flame? Consider such a phenomenon, and then you will have
a picture of the mood of modern humanity. One must simply
take the phenomena of nature for what they are —
symptoms of the activities of forces in the universe. We
shall speak more about these things tomorrow as we seek to
fmd the bridge to a certain form of social thinking.
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