Lecture XII
Dornach, September 3, 1920
In our
spiritual-scientific endeavors, it is important to acquaint
ourselves gradually from the most diverse points of view with
what we are supposed to understand. One can say that,
particularly in regard to spiritual-scientific subjects, the
world expects an uncomplicated, facile approach towards
conviction; however, this is not easily provided. For as far
as spiritual-scientific facts are concerned, it is actually
necessary to attain our conviction in a gradually evolving
manner. To begin with, this conviction is still weak. One
becomes acquainted with the same things from ever changing
new viewpoints; thus, conviction increasingly gains in
strength. This is the one premise from which I should like to
start today. The other will relate to various matters that I
have discussed here for weeks; it will relate to what has
been said concerning the differentiation of humanity
throughout the civilized world.
[ Note 84 ]
Let me indicate briefly a
few of the most salient facts that are of some importance to
our considerations in the next three days.
I have pointed
out in what sense the Orient is the source of humanity's
essential spiritual life. I then indicated that in the
central areas, in Greece, Middle Europe and the Roman Empire
— what must be discussed covers vast periods of time
— there primarily exists the predisposition for
developing the legal, political concepts. The West is notably
predisposed to contribute economic concepts to the totality
of human civilization. It has already been mentioned that
when we look across to the Orient, we find that the life of
its civilization is basically decadent today. In order to
evaluate properly what the Orient really signifies for the
whole of human civilization, we have to turn back to more
ancient periods of time. Among the historically accessible
documents which are proof of the Orient's essential nature,
the Vedas, the Vedanta philosophy, stand out above all; they
and others are in turn evidence, however, of what was present
in the Orient in still more ancient epochs. They indicate how
a cultural life was born out of a primeval, wholly spiritual
disposition of Oriental humanity. Subsequently, for the
Orient too, ensued the times of obscuration of this spiritual
life. Yet, a person who is able to contemplate in the right
way what is happening in the Orient at present —
although it is a mere caricature of what was formerly there
— even today will still note the aftereffect of the
ancient spiritual life in the decadent phenomena.
During a
somewhat later period, the essentially legalistic, political
thinking developed throughout the central regions of the
earth. It evolved in ancient Greece and Rome, later on in the
regions spread over Europe from the Middle Ages onward. The
Orient originally possessed no actual political thinking,
particularly not what we today define as juridical thinking.
This is not in contradiction to the existence of codes of law
such as Hammurabi's and others. For if you study the contents
of these codes, you recognize from the whole tone and
attitude that you are dealing with something quite different
from the mode of thinking defined in the Occident as
juridical. It is only in recent times that an actually
economic form of thinking has developed in the West. As I
have already explained, even science as it is practiced now
is assuming those forms that really belong to the economic
life.
As far as the
Oriental spiritual life is concerned, it is interesting to
observe how everything that the Occident has possessed up to
now is basically also a legacy of the Oriental spiritual
life, although in metamorphosed forms. Some time ago, I
pointed out here how considerably this spiritual life of the
Orient has been transformed in Europe. We are confronted by
the fact that the capacities that held sway in the Orient
have yielded up a perception of the immortal human soul, but
in such a manner that this immortality was intrinsically
bound up with prenatal existence before birth. The soul
perception of the Oriental mind had a view, above all else,
of preexistent life, of the soul's life between birth and
death preceding this earthly existence. Everything else
followed in consequence of this in a manner of speaking. From
this view resulted the mighty relationships, only dimly
glimpsed by the Westerner to this day, that one might call
the karmic relationships, which subsequently left a
reflection, albeit only a faint one, in the Greek concept of
destiny. What is it, really, that passed over, that flowed
across into the Occidental version of those concepts, even
those with which an attempt was made to understand the
Mystery of Golgotha? It was something that was strongly
tinged by legalistic thinking. There is a radical contrast
between contemplating the path of the soul in the sense of
the Oriental world conception as descending from a spiritual
world into the physical realm, noting how the karmic
relationships are viewed there from wide perspectives, and
considering the juridical idea of holding court over the soul
that, in the Occident, has invaded these Oriental concepts.
We need only recall Michelangelo's magnificent painting in
the Vatican, in the Sistine Chapel, where the World Judge,
like a cosmic magistrate, adjudicates upon good and evil men.
This is the Oriental world view translated into Occidental
legalism; this is in no way the original Eastern world
conception. This legalistic thinking lies entirely outside
Oriental perception. Indeed, the more advanced the concept of
the spirit became in Central Europe, the more it culminated
in the Roman legalistic element.
Hence, in the
central regions, we are dealing primarily with the element
predisposed for the juridical and political thinking.
Civilization is, however, not only differentiated over the
earth in this manner but in yet another way. If we study the
accomplishments of the East, if we consider the special
nuance of Oriental soul life, in particular where it is at
its greatest, we find that this soul life is most eminently
atavistic and instinctive, notwithstanding the fact that its
fruits are primarily cultural; and all of mankind has
continued to sustain itself on them. This spiritual life
emerges out of unconscious imaginations that are, however,
already muted by a certain ray of consciousness.
Nevertheless, it contains much that is unconscious and
instinctive.
The spiritual
life produced by humanity up until now is indeed brought
forth in a way that points to the highest spheres of which
the human soul can partake, but the lofty heights of these
spheres were reached in a sort of instinctive flight. It does
not suffice to retrace the concepts or images produced by the
Orient. Rather, it is necessary to focus on the singular kind
of spiritual and soul life, by means of which, especially in
its flowering time, the Oriental arrived at these
conceptions. To be sure, we only gain an idea of this
distinctive soul quality that I have already characterized by
relating it with the life of the metabolism, if we want to
have a feeling for the whole original soul structure contained
in the Vedas and other texts. We simply must not overlook the
fact that the Orient has reached its decadence today; for example,
we should in no way confuse the mystic, nebulous manner which,
despite his greatness, distinguishes Rabindranath Tagore,
[ Note 85 ]
from the true essence of Oriental soul life. For, although
Rabindranath Tagore possesses what has been handed down to
this day of the ancient Eastern soul life, he permeates it
with all manner of modern, Western European affectations and
is, above all, an affected individual.
Spiritual
science must indeed lay hold of these matters, step by step,
and in such a way that we do not merely accept some rigidly
set up concepts, but really envision the unique soul nuance
involved here. Thus, we find in the Orient an instinctive
cultural life, permeated through and through with the trend
for the legalistic and political soul life developing in the
central regions. There, we come to the development of the
half instinctive, the half conscious. It is most interesting
to examine how a purely juridical thinking is produced from
the souls of people, say, like Fichte, Goethe, Schelling or
Hegel. It is purely juridical, but it is partly instinctive,
partly a fully conscious thinking; something that is, for
example, the special charm of Hegel's mode of thinking. A
completely conscious element only appears in the Western
soul, where consciousness develops out of the instincts
themselves. The conscious element is still instinctive in the
Western soul, but instinctively the conscious emerges in
Western economic thinking. Here, for the first time, mankind
is called upon to attain to a conscious penetration of even
public, social affairs.
Now we come
across something quite strange. One might actually recommend
that those to whom it matters for one reason or another
should now try to understand the configuration of civilized
humanity's thinking by becoming acquainted with the attempts
of the English thinkers to arrive at a mode of social
thinking, say, the attempts of Spencer, Bentham, particularly
Huxley, and so on. These thinkers are indeed all rooted in
the same atmosphere of thought in which Darwin was rooted;
they all really think as Darwin thought, except that they
try, as does Huxley, to develop a social view out of their
scientific way of thinking. A strange feeling pervades us
when we delve into the attempts by Huxley
[ Note 86 ]
to achieve a social
thinking, for instance, about the state, about the legal
aspects of human relationships. It gives one a strange
feeling. Let us suppose the following: Someone wishes to
acquire a sense, a feeling for what I have here in mind, and
to that end reads Hegel's book on natural rights,
[ Note 87 ]
on political sciences,
Fichte's philosophy of rights,
[ Note 88 ]
or something else by a minor
Middle European mind; afterwards, he reads, possibly,
Huxley's attempts to advance from scientific to political
thinking. He would experience something like the following.
He would say to himself, "I read Hegel and Fichte; the
concepts here are fully developed, they have strong contours
and are precisely drawn. Now I read Huxley or Spencer, and I
find the concepts primitive; it as though one had just begun
to contemplate these questions. Confronted by such things, it
does not do to say, “Well, the one was perfect, the
other imperfect.” This does not suffice at all when one
confronts realities.
Let me present
to you a parallel taken from an entirely different realm. It
can happen that one lectures on some spiritual-scientific
subject, say, the former embodiment of the earth, the Moon
embodiment. A variety of facts are set forth. Someone reads
or listens to this lecture who is clairvoyant in a quite
atavistic manner. It could be an individual who is outwardly
illogical, who in practical life is unable to put five words
together in logical sequence, who is inept in everything and
therefore of no use in ordinary life. Such a person listens
to what is being related about the configuration of some Moon
era. Now, this same person who is quite dull and blundering
in outer life and unable to count up to five properly, yet
who is atavistically clairvoyant, can take in what he has
heard, enlarge upon it, develop it further and discover
additional facts not mentioned earlier. The things that such
a person then adds can be infused with extraordinarily
penetrating logic, a logic that arouses admiration, while, in
everyday life, this person is clumsy and illogical. This is
entirely possible, for if someone is atavistically
clairvoyant, it is not his ego that joins his images
together in a logical manner, although he can discover the
images by himself. The images are joined by various spiritual
beings dwelling within him. We become acquainted with their
logic, not his.
This is why we
cannot simply say that one view is on a higher, the other on
a lower level; in every case we have to go into the specific
character of the matter. This is true here too. The views of
Fichte, Hegel and other less illustrious minds are half
instinctive, only partly fully conscious ones. What arises,
on the other hand, in the West as primitive economic thinking
is indeed fully conscious. The concepts such as those thought
out by Huxley, Spencer and others are impertinently
conscious, but conceived in a primitive way. What had
appeared in former times in instinctive or half instinctive
form emerges here consciously but in quite an elementary way.
I shall illustrate this by means of a concrete example.
Huxley tells
himself that if we observe nature — he naturally looks
at it from the Darwinian standpoint — we find the
struggle for survival. Every creature fights ruthlessly for
self-preservation, and the whole animal kingdom's struggle is
waged so that the naturally strong survive by annihilating
the weak. This theory has penetrated into Huxley's flesh and
blood. This, however, cannot be continued on into humanity.
Freedom such as we must seek in human social life is
nonexistent in nature, for there can be no freedom —
thinks Huxley — in a realm where every creature must
either assert itself ruthlessly or perish. There can be no
equality where the fittest must always eliminate the less
fit. Now Huxley turns from the natural realm to the social
sphere and is compelled to conclude that, indeed, this is
true, but in the social realm goodness should prevail,
freedom should reign. Something should come to pass that as
yet cannot be found in nature.
It is again the
great chasm that I have characterized from so many points of
view. Once, Huxley very aptly calls man “the splendid
rebel,” who, in order to establish a human kingdom,
rebels against all that prevails in nature. Something
therefore ensues here that is not yet found in nature. Now
again, Huxley actually thinks along scientific lines. He is
compelled to search for natural forces in man that constitute
the social life and rebel against nature herself. He looks in
man for something concrete that serves as the basis for the
human social community. The other forces of the kingdoms of
nature cannot establish this social community; in nature, the
struggle for survival holds sway, and there is nothing that
could hold humanity together in a social structure.
Nonetheless, as far as Huxley is concerned, there is nothing
but this natural cohesion. Hence, this “splendid
rebel” must in turn have natural forces which, although
they are forces of nature, rebel against the natural forces
in general. Now, Huxley finds two natural forces that are at
the same time the basic forces of the social life. The first
one is actually worked out wrongly, for it is not yet capable
of establishing a social life, only family egoism. It is what
Huxley calls the family attraction, something that is active
within blood relationships. The second force he lists that
could form a sort of natural foundation for the social life
is something that he calls “the human instinct for
mimicry,” the human talent for imitation.
Now, there is
something that appears in the human being in the sense
referred to by Huxley, namely, the faculty of imitation. It
means that one person follows what the other does. This is
the reason the individual pursues not merely his own
directions, but society as a whole, the social life, runs
along the same lines, as it were, because one person imitates
the other. This is as far as Huxley goes. It is very
interesting, because you know that in describing the human
being we list the following: The element of imitation from
the first to the seventh year; from the seventh to the
fourteenth year, the element of authority; the one of
independent judgment from the fourteenth to the twenty-first
year. All three, of course, participate in the social
development. Huxley, however, stops short at the first; he is
only laboring to emerge from the primitive level. He has
taken hold of nothing but the force that is active in the
human being only until his seventh year. We are confronted
with nothing less than the fact that if the social community
as envisioned by Huxley were actually to exist, it would have
to consist entirely of children; human beings would have to
remain children perpetually. Thus, in envisioning the social
life, Western society has, in fact, only advanced to the
stage applicable to children. The social science striven for
in full consciousness has progressed no further than this
That is most interesting.
Here, you can
detect the primitive aspect in connection with a particular
element. The West works its way out of the
scientific-economic thinking and attains something in a
conscious manner that has been reached in the central regions
in a half conscious, half instinctive way on a higher level.
We can actually follow up these things in detail and they can
thus become most interesting. All matters brought to light by
spiritual science can invariably be followed up by means of
details. It only requires a sufficiently large number of
people to develop enough diligence to pursue all details of
spiritual-scientific matters.
Is it not
actually rubbed into us in this instance that something else
must be present that cooperates in the social development of
existence? For, certainly, social structures cannot be
established in which only forces of imitation hold sway.
Otherwise, they could only contain children; human beings
would have to remain children forever, if the social life
would originate only through mutual imitation. In order to
arrive at something that can throw light on the primitive
attempts, and can also bring together East, Middle and West,
we must proceed from initiation science. This means that we
have to link the train of thought that we tried to connect
with the above to what initiation science can offer to
humanity, so that mankind may be capable of developing a
social life truly structured in conformity with the
Spirit.
People fail to
observe how the environment of the human being is pervaded
with quite clearly differentiated forces. Modern science has
reached the point where it states that we are surrounded by
air, for we inhale and exhale it; but there is something that
is even more obvious in our life than “the air around
us,” something that people fail to notice. Take the
following simple fact that no one today takes into
consideration, yet is something that could be understood by
anybody. An animal kingdom is spread out around our human
kingdom. This animal kingdom includes creatures of every
imaginable form. Let us picture to ourselves this whole
manifold animal kingdom around us. In the case of a table,
everybody knows that there are forces present that gave this
table its shape. In regard to the animal kingdom surrounding
us, we ought, naturally, to assume the same, namely, that
just as air is present, so, in the environment, the forces
are contained that bestow form upon the creatures of the
animal kingdom. We all dwell within the same realm. The dog,
the horse, the oxen and donkey do not move about in a
different world from the one which we also inhabit. And the
forces that bestow the donkey shape on the donkey affect us
human beings too; yet — forgive me for speaking so
bluntly — we do not acquire the form of a donkey. There
are also elephants in our environment, but we do not assume
the shape of elephants. Yet all the forces fashioning these
shapes surround us everywhere. Why is it that we do not take
on the forms of, say, a donkey or an elephant? We possess
other forces that counteract them. We would indeed acquire
these shapes if we did not have these other opposing forces.
It is a fact that if we as human beings confront a donkey,
our etheric body constantly has the tendency to assume the
shape of a donkey. We restrain our etheric body from doing so
only because we have a physical body possessing a solid form.
Again, if we face an elephant, our etheric body endeavors to
assume the elephant shape and is prevented from doing so only
because of the physical body's solid shape. Whether it be
elephant, stag-beetle or dirt-beetle, the etheric body tries
to assume the shapes of any and all creatures. Potentially,
all the forms are present in our etheric body, and we
comprehend these forms only when we retrace them inwardly, as
it were. Our physical body merely prevents us from turning
into all these shapes. Therefore, we can say that we carry
the entire animal kingdom within our etheric body. We are
human only in our physical body. In our etheric body, we bear
with us the whole animal kingdom.
Again, there
flows all around us the same complex of forces that creates
the plant forms. Just as our etheric body is predisposed to
assume all animal shapes, our astral body is inclined to
reproduce all the plant forms. Here it is already more
pleasant to make comparisons, for, while the etheric body is
imbued with the tendency to become a donkey when it sees one,
the astral body wishes merely to become the thistle on which
the donkey feeds. But this astral body is definately ensouled
with the tendency to accommodate itself to those forces that
find their external expression in the plant forms. Thus we
may say that the astral body reacts to the complex of forces
that shapes the plant kingdom.
The mineral
kingdom is again a force complex that develops the various
shapes of this specific realm. This acts within our ego. It
is quite evident in the case of the ego, for you only think
in terms of the mineral realm. After all, it has been
reiterated time and again that the intellect can only grasp
the inanimate. Hence, what is contained in the human ego
understands the lifeless. Consequently, our ego dwells in the
complex of forces that creates the mineral kingdom. The
physical body, as such, lives in none of these realms; it
has, as you know, a realm of its own. In my
Occult Science, an Outline,
the mineral, plant and animal
kingdoms are dealt with separately; this signifies that the
physical body possesses a domain of its own. The animal
kingdom, on the other hand, is actually found in the etheric
body; as far as this viewpoint is concerned, the plant
kingdom is found in the astral body, and the mineral kingdom
in the ego. From my various books, however, you are familiar
with something else. You know that during earthly life these
various bodies are worked upon. I have described how the ego,
the astral body, the etheric body and even the physical body
are worked on. I initially outlined it there, I might say,
from the human, the humanistic intention. Now let us try to
depict it from another point of view.
Take the
mineral concepts that the human being acquires. He
experiences the external world, after all, by experiencing it
in mineral concepts and forms. Only enlightened minds like
Goethe work their way up to the pictorial forms, to the
morphology of plants, to metamorphosis. Here, the shapes are
transformed. The ordinary view, still prevailing today, on
the other hand, only dwells in the solid, mineral forms. If,
now, the ego works on these forms and develops them, what is
the result? Then, the result is the conscious cultural life,
one of the domains of the threefold social organism. The ego
creates the cultural life while working inwardly upon itself.
All cultural life is, in fact, inner formative development of
the ego. What the ego acquires from the mineral realm and in
turn transforms into art, religion, science, and so forth,
that is the cultural sphere, the transformed mineral kingdom,
the spiritual realm.
What results
from the tendency of the astral body, residing in the
subconscious depths of most human beings, to assume every
plant form possible? When you transform this tendency
indwelling the astral body, when it radiates up into
consciousness in half instinctive, half conscious form, what
comes about then? The domain of rights, of the state, comes
about.
Now, if you
comprehend what holds sway in the relationships between human
beings, namely, what is now, within external life,
transformed from man's experiences of animality in the ether
body, then you arrive at the third domain of the threefold
social organism. Were we to stop at the etheric body as it
comes to us from birth, we would only have the tendency in
this etheric body to turn now into a donkey, now into an
oxen, now into a cow, now into a Butterfly. We would
reproduce the entire animal kingdom. As human beings we do
not merely do this, however, we also transform the ether
body. We accomplish this within the social life by living
together with others. When we face a donkey, our etheric body
wishes to become a donkey. When we confront another human
being, we certainly cannot say without uttering a real insult
that now, too, we wish to turn into a donkey. This is not
possible, at least not in ordinary life; here we must change
in another way. I should like to say that, here, the
transformation becomes visible; here, those forces come into
play that are effective in the economic life. These are the
forces that assert themselves when a human being confronts
his fellowman in brotherliness. In this way, in the brotherly
confrontation, those forces are active that represent the
work on the etheric body; thus, through the work on this
body, the third realm, the economic sphere, comes into
being.
Animal Kingdom: Etheric
Body Economic Realm
Plant Kingdom: Astral
Body Realm of Rights, of
State
Mineral Kingdom:
Ego
Cultural, Spiritual Realm
Thus, just as
man is connected on the one side with the animal kingdom
through his etheric body, he is related on the other side in
the external environment with the economic sphere of the
social organism. We could say that if man is viewed inwardly,
spiritually, from the physical body towards the etheric, we
find the animal kingdom within man. Outwardly, in his
surroundings, we find the economic life.
When we
penetrate into the human being and search out what he
represents by virtue of his astral body, we find the plant
kingdom. Outwardly, in the social configuration, the life of
rights corresponds to the plant kingdom. Again, penetrating
the human being, we discover the mineral kingdom
corresponding to the ego. Outside, in the environment,
corresponding to the mineral kingdom, we have the cultural
life. Thus, through his constitution, man is linked to the
three kingdoms of nature. By working on his whole being, he
becomes a social being.
You see that we
can never arrive at a comprehension of the social life if we
are not in a position to ascend to the etheric body, astral
body and ego. For we do not understand man's relationship to
the social order if we don't ascend like that. If one
proceeds merely from natural science, one stops short at the
“human instinct for mimicry,” the faculty of
imitation; one cannot progress. In thoughts, one makes the
whole world puerile, for it is the child that still retains
most of the natural forces. If one wishes to advance further,
one needs the insight into initiation science. We need the
insight into the fact that the human being is bound up with
his etheric body through the animal kingdom, with the astral
body through the plant world, and with the ego through the
mineral realm. We need to know that owing to his observation
of the mineral world man attains to his cultural life; that
due to the transformation of the deep instincts harbored by
him and owing to his kinship with the surrounding plant world
he attains to the life of rights, of the state. We realize
that these deep instincts correspond to the sphere of rights
and the state. This is why, at first, the life of the state
contains so much of the instinctive element if it is not
infused with the cultural element of jurisprudence. Finally,
we have the economic sphere which basically represents the
metamorphosis of those inner experiences gained in the
etheric body.
Now, these
experiences are not brought to the surface from within by the
science of initiation, for Huxley is not motivated in any
sense by initiation science to explore the connection between
man and the economic life. He observes the exterior, the
conditions economically present outside. The whole complex of
relations between the economic sphere, the etheric body and
the animal kingdom is unclear to him. He looks at what is
outwardly present. Consequently, he can certainly not advance
beyond the most primitive, elementary level, the faculty of
imitation.
From this we
realize that if people would wish to continue extracting
social thinking from modern science, they would remain caught
up in absurdities and something quite dreadful would have to
ensue. Over the whole earth, a social life would have to
arise that would bring about the most primitive conditions;
it would lead humanity back to a puerile social life.
Gradually, untruth and lying would become a matter of course
simply because people could not do otherwise even if they
wanted to. They would be thirty, forty, fifty or even older,
yet they would have to behave like children, if, with their
consciousness, they only wanted to comprehend what is derived
from science. People would only be able to develop the
instincts of imitation. Even today we frequently have the
feeling that only these instincts of imitation are being
developed. We watch the appearance, somewhere, of yet another
reform movement of a radical nature. It really only contains
the instincts of imitation derived from some university
philistine. Much of what, today, looks most illustrious when
given the polish derived from the customary falsehoods would
appear very different in the light of initiation science.
Modern comprehension of the world, however, is limited to
what can be seen in the light of the concept of imitation
unless one is willing to advance from ordinary, official
science to the science of initiation, the science that draws
its substance from the inner impulses of existence.
Thus I have
tried to show you how the aspects that are lacking in the
present, the very. aspects through which it becomes evident
where the present age must remain stuck because of its
inability to penetrate reality, can be fructified and
illuminated by the science of initiation.
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