These lectures deal with the inner connection between appearance and
reality in the world, and you have already seen that there are many
things of which those whose vision is limited to the world of
appearance have no idea. We have seen how every species of being
— this was shown by a number of examples — has its task in
the whole nexus of cosmic existence. Now today, as a kind of
recapitulation, we will again consider what I said recently about the
nature of several beings and in the first place of the butterfly. In
my description of this butterfly nature, as contrasted with that of
the plants, we found that the butterfly is essentially a being
belonging to the light — to the light in so far as it is modified by the
forces of the outer planets, of Mars, of Jupiter, and of Saturn. Hence,
if we wish to understand the butterfly in its true nature, we must in
fact look up into the higher regions of the cosmos, and must say to
ourselves: These higher cosmic regions endow and bless the earth, with
the world of the butterflies.
The bestowal of this blessing upon the earth has an even deeper
significance. Let us recall how we had to say that the butterfly does
not participate in what is directly connected with earthly existence,
but only indirectly, in so far as the sun, with its power of warmth
and light, is active in this earthly existence. Actually a butterfly
lays its eggs only where they do not become separated from sun
activity, so that the butterfly does not entrust its egg to the earth,
but only to the sun. Then out creeps the caterpillar, which is under
the influence of Mars-activity, though naturally the sun influence
always remains present. Then the chrysalis is formed, and
this is under the influence of Jupiter-activity. Out of the chrysalis
emerges the butterfly, which can now in its iridescent colours
reproduce in the earth's environment the luminous Sun-power of the
earth united with the power of Saturn.
Thus in the manifold colours of the butterfly world we see, in the
environment of earth-existence, the direct working of Saturn-activity
within the sphere of the earthly. But let us bear in mind that the
substances necessary for earth-existence are in fact of two kinds. We
have the purely material substances of the earth, and we have the
spiritual substances; and I told you that the remarkable thing about
this is that in the case of man the underlying substance of his
metabolic and limb system is spiritual whereas that of the head is
physical. Moreover in man's lower nature spiritual substance is
permeated with the activity of physical forces, with the action of
gravity, with the action of the other earthly forces. In the head, the
earthly substance, conjured up into it by the whole digestive process,
the circulation, nerve-activity and the like, is permeated by
super-sensible spiritual forces, which are reflected in our thinking,
in our power of forming mental pictures. Thus in the human head we
have spiritualized physical matter, and in the metabolic-limb-system
we have earthized — if I may coin a word — earthized
spiritual substantiality.
Now it is this spiritualized matter that we find to the greatest
degree in the butterfly. Because a butterfly always remains in the
sphere of sun-existence, it only takes to itself earthly matter —
naturally I am still speaking pictorially — as though in the form
of the finest dust. It also derives its nourishment from those earthly
substances which are worked upon by the sun. It unites with its own
being only what is sun-imbued; and it takes from earthly substance
only what is finest, and works on it until it is entirely
spiritualized. When we look at a butterfly's wing we actually have
before us earthly matter in its most spiritualized form. Through the
fact that the matter of the butterfly's wing is imbued with colour,
it is the most spiritualized of all earthly substances.
The butterfly is the creature which lives entirely in spiritualized
earth-matter. And one can even see spiritually how in a certain way a
butterfly despises the body which it carries between its coloured
wings, because its whole attention, its whole group-soul being, is
centred on its joyous delight in the colours of its wings.
And just as we marvel at its shimmering colours as we follow it, so
also can we marvel at its own fluttering joy in these colours. This is
something which it is of fundamental importance to cultivate in
children, this joy in the spirituality fluttering about in the air,
which is in fact fluttering joy, joy in the play of colours. The
nuances of butterfly-nature reflect all this in a wonderful way: and
something else lies in the background as well.
We were able to say of the bird — which we regarded as
represented by the eagle — that at its death it can carry
spiritualized earth-substance into the spiritual world, and that
thereby, as bird, it has the task in cosmic existence of
spiritualizing earthly matter, thus being able to accomplish what
cannot be done by man. The human being also possesses in his head
earth-matter which has been to a certain degree spiritualized, but he
cannot take this earthly matter into the world in which he lives
between death and a new birth, for he would continually have to endure
unspeakable, unbearable, devastating pain, if he were to carry this
spiritualized earth-matter of his head into the spiritual world.
The bird-world, represented by the eagle, can do this, so that thereby
a connection is actually created between what is earthly and what is
extra-earthly. Earthly matter is, as it were, gradually converted into
spirit, and the bird-creation has the task of giving over this
spiritualized earthly matter to the universe. One can actually say
that, when the earth has reached the end of its existence, this
earth-matter will have been spiritualized, and that the bird-creation
had its place in the whole economy of earthly existence for the
purpose of carrying back this spiritualized earth-matter into
spirit-land.
It is somewhat different with butterflies. The butterfly spiritualizes
earthly matter to an even greater degree than the bird. The bird after
all comes into much closer contact with the earth than does the
butterfly. I will explain this in detail later. Because the butterfly
never actually leaves the region of the sun, it is in a position to
spiritualize its matter to such a degree that it does not, like the
bird, have to await its death, but already during its life it is
continually restoring spiritualized matter to the environment of the
earth, to the cosmic environment of the earth.
Only think of the magnificence of all this in the whole cosmic
economy! Only picture the earth with the world of the butterflies
fluttering around it in its infinite variety, continually sending out
into world-space the spiritualized earthly matter which this
butterfly-world yields up to the cosmos! Then, with such knowledge, we
can contemplate the region of the world, of the butterflies encircling
the earth with totally different feelings.
We can look into this fluttering world and say: From you, O fluttering
creatures, there streams out something still better than sunlight; you
radiate spirit-light into the cosmos! Our materialistic science pays
but little heed to things of the spirit. And so this materialistic
science is absolutely unequipped with any means of grasping at these
things, which are, nevertheless, part of the whole cosmic economy.
They are there, just as the effects of physical activities are there,
and they are even more real. For what thus streams out into
spirit-land will work on further when the earth has long passed away,
whereas what is taught by the modern chemist and physicist will reach
its end with the conclusion of the earth's existence. So that if some
observer or other were to sit outside in the cosmos, with a long
period of time for observation, he would see something like a
continual outstreaming into spirit-land of matter which has become
spiritualized, as the earth radiates its own being out into cosmic
space; and he would see — like scintillating sparks, sparks which
ever and again flash up into light — what the bird-kingdom, what
every bird after its death sends forth as glittering light, streaming
out into the universe in the form of rays: a shimmering of the
spirit-light of the butterflies, and a sparkling of the spirit-light
of the birds.
Such things as these should also make us realize that, when we look up
to the rest of the starry world, we should not think that from there,
too, there only streams down what is shown by the spectroscope, or
rather what is conjured into the spectroscope by the fantasy of the
expert in optics. What streams down to earth from other worlds of the
stars is just as much the product of living beings in other worlds, as
what streams out from the earth into world-space is the product of
living beings. People look at a star, and with the modern physicist
picture it as something in the nature of a kindled inorganic flame
— or the like. This, of course, is absolute nonsense. For what we
behold there is entirely the product of something imbued with life,
imbued with soul, imbued with spirit.
And now let us pass inwards from this girdle of butterflies — if
I may call it so — which encircles the earth, and return to the
kingdom of the birds. If we call to mind something which is already
known to us, we must picture three regions adjoining each other. There
are other regions above these, and again other regions below them. We
have the light-ether and we have the warmth-ether, which, however,
actually consists of two parts, of two layers, the one being the layer
of earthly warmth, the other that of cosmic warmth, and these
continually play one into the other. Thus we have not only one, but
two kinds of warmth, the one which is of earthly, tellurian origin, and
the other of a kind which is of cosmic origin. These are always
playing one into the other. Then, bordering on the warmth-ether, there
is the air. Below this would come water and earth, and above would
come chemical ether and light-ether.
The world of the butterflies belongs more particularly to the
light-ether; it is the light-ether itself which is the means whereby
the power of the light draws forth the caterpillar from the
butterfly's egg. Essentially it is the power of the light which draws
the caterpillar forth.
This is not the case with the bird-kingdom. The birds lay their eggs.
These must now be hatched out by warmth. The butterfly's egg is simply
given over to what is of the nature of the sun; the bird's egg comes
into the region of warmth. It is in the region of the warmth-ether
that the bird has its being, and it overcomes what is purely of the
air.
The butterfly, too, flies in the air, but fundamentally it is
entirely a creature of the light. And in that the air is permeated
with light, in this light-air existence, the butterfly chooses not air
existence but light existence. For the butterfly the air is only what
sustains it — the waves, as it were, upon which it floats; but
the butterfly's element is the light. The bird flies in the air, but
its element is the warmth, the various differentiations of warmth in
the air, and to a certain degree it overcomes the air. Certainly the
bird is also an air-being inwardly and to a high degree. The bones of
the mammals, the bones of the human being are filled with marrow. (We
shall speak later as to why this is the case.) The bones of a bird are
hollow and are filled only with air. We consist, in so far as the
content of our bones is concerned, of what is of the nature of marrow;
a bird consists of air. And what is of the nature of marrow in us for
the bird is simply air. If you take the lungs of a bird, you will find
a whole quantity of pockets which project from the lungs; these are
air-pockets. When the bird inhales it does not only breathe air into
its lungs, but it breathes the air into these air-pockets, and from
thence it passes into the hollow bones. So that, if one could remove from
the bird all its flesh and all its feathers and also take away the
bones, one would still get a creature composed of air, having the form
of what inwardly fills out the lungs, and what inwardly fills out all
the bones. Picturing this in accordance with its form, you would
really get the form of the bird. Within the eagle of flesh and bone
dwells an eagle of air. This is not only because within the eagle
there is also an eagle of air. The bird breathes and through its
breathing it produces warmth. This warmth the bird imparts to the air,
and draws it into its entire limb system. Thus arises the difference
of temperature as compared to its outer environment. The bird has its
inner warmth, as against the outer warmth. In this difference of
degree between the warmth of the outer air and the warmth which the
bird imparts to its own air within itself — it is really in this
that the bird lives and has its being. And if you were to ask a bird
how matters are with its body — supposing you understood bird
language — the bird's reply would make you realize that it
regards its solid material bones, and other material adjuncts, rather
as you would luggage if you were loaded, left and right, on the back
and on the head. You would not call this luggage your body. In the
same way the bird, in speaking of itself, would only speak of the
warmth-imbued air, and of everything else as the luggage which it
bears about with it in earthly existence. These bones, which envelop
the real body of the bird, these are its luggage. We are therefore,
speaking in an absolute sense when we say that fundamentally the bird
lives only and entirely in the element of warmth, and the butterfly
in the element of light. For the butterfly everything of the nature of
physical substance, which it spiritualizes, is, before this
spiritualizing, not even personal luggage but more like furniture. It
is even more remote from its real being.
When we thus ascend to the creatures of these regions, we come to
something which cannot be judged in a physical way. If we do so, it is
rather as if we were to draw a person with his hair growing out of the
bundle on his head, boxes growing together with his arms, and a
rucksack growing out of his back, making him appear a perfect
hunch-back. If one were to draw a person in this way, it would
actually correspond to the materialist's view of the bird. That is not
the bird; it is the bird's luggage. The bird really feels encumbered
by having to drag his luggage about, for it would like best to pursue
its way through the world, free and unencumbered, as a creature of
warm air. For the bird all else is a burden. And the bird pays tribute
to world-existence by spiritualizing this burden for it, sending it
out when it dies into spirit-land; a tribute which the butterfly
already pays during its lifetime.
You see, the bird breathes, and makes use of the air in the way I told
you. It is otherwise with the butterfly. The butterfly does not in any
way breathe by means of an apparatus such as the so-called higher
animals possess — though these in fact are only the more bulky,
not in reality the higher animals. The butterfly breathes in fact only
through tubes which proceed inwards from its outer casing, and, these
being somewhat dilated, it can accumulate air during flight, so that
it is not inconvenienced by always needing to breathe.
The butterfly always breathes through tubes which pass into its
interior. Because this is so, it can take up into its whole body,
together with the air which it inhales, the light which is in the air.
Here, too, a great difference is to be found.
Let us represent this in a diagram. Picture to yourselves one of the
higher animals, one with lungs. Into the lungs comes oxygen, and there
it unites with the blood in its course through the heart. In the case
of these bulky animals, and also with man, the blood must flow into
the heart and lungs in order to come into contact with oxygen.
In the case of the butterfly I must draw the diagram quite
differently. Here I must draw it in this way: If this is the
butterfly, the tubes everywhere pass inwards; they then branch out
more widely. And now the oxygen enters in everywhere, and spreads
itself out through the tubes; so that the air penetrates into the
whole body.
With us, and with the so-called higher animals, the air comes as far
as the lungs as air only; in the case of the butterfly the
outer air, with its content of light, is dispersed into the
whole interior of the body. The bird diffuses the air right into its
hollow bones; the butterfly is not only a creature of light outwardly,
but it diffuses the light which is carried by the air into every part
of its entire body, so that inwardly too the butterfly is composed of
light. Just as I could characterize the bird as warmed air, so in fact
is the butterfly composed entirely of light. Its body also consists of
light; and for the butterfly warmth is actually a burden, is luggage.
It flutters about only and entirely in the light, and it is light only
that it builds into its body. When we see the butterflies fluttering
in the air, what we must really see is only fluttering beings of
light, beings of light rejoicing in their play of colours. All else is
garment, is luggage. We must gain an understanding of what the beings
around earth really consist, for outward appearance is deceptive.
Those who today have learned, in some superficial manner, this or that
out of oriental wisdom speak about the world as Maya. But to say that
the world is Maya really implies nothing. One must have insight into
the details of why it is Maya. We understand Maya when we know that
the real nature of the bird in no way accords with what is to be seen
outwardly, but that it is a being of warm air. The butterfly is not at
all what it appears to be, but what is seen fluttering about is a
being of light, a being which actually consists of joy in the play of
colours, in that play of colours which arises on the butterfly's wings
through the earthly dust-substance being imbued with the element of
colour, and thus entering on the first stage of its spiritualisation
on the way out into the spiritual universe, into the spiritual cosmos.
You see, we have here, as it were, two levels: the butterfly, the
inhabitant of the light-ether in an earth environment, and the bird,
the inhabitant of the warmth-ether. And now comes the third level.
When we descend into the air, we arrive at those beings which, at a
certain period of our earth-evolution, could not yet have been there
at all; for instance at the time when the moon had not yet separated
from the earth but was still with it. Here we come to beings which are
certainly also air-beings, living in the air, but which are in fact
already strongly influenced by what is peculiar to the earth, gravity.
The butterfly is completely untouched by earth-gravity. It flutters
joyfully in the light-ether, and feels itself to be a creation of that
ether. The bird overcomes gravity by imbuing the air within it with
warmth, thereby becoming a being of warm air — and warm air is
upborne by cold air. Earth-gravity is also overcome by the bird.
Those creatures which by reason of their origin must still live in the
air but which are unable to overcome earth-gravity, because they have
not hollow bones but bones filled with marrow, and also because they
have not air-sacs like the birds — these creatures are the bats.
The bats are a quite remarkable order of animal-life. In no way do
they overcome the gravity of earth through what is inside their
bodies. They do not, like the butterflies, possess the lightness of light, or,
like the bird, the lightness of warmth; they are subject to
earth-gravity, and they experience themselves in their flesh and bone.
Hence that element of which the butterfly consists, which is its whole
sphere of life — the element of light — this is disagreeable
to bats. They like the dusk. Bats have to make use of the air, but
they like the air best when it is not the bearer of light. They yield
themselves up to the dusk. They are veritable creatures of the dusk.
And bats can only maintain themselves in the air because they possess
their somewhat caricature-like bat-wings, which are not wings at all
in the true sense, but stretched membrane, membrane stretched between
their elongated fingers, a kind of parachute. By means of these they
maintain themselves in the air. They overcome gravity — as a
counter-weight — by opposing it with something which itself is
related to gravity. Through this, however, they are completely yoked
into the domain of earth-forces. One could never construct the flight
of a butterfly solely according to physical, mechanical laws, neither
could one the flight of a bird. Things would never come out absolutely
right. In their case we must introduce something containing other laws
of construction. But the bat's flight, that you can certainly
construct according to earthly dynamics and mechanics.
The bat does not like the light, the light-imbued air, but at the most
only twilight air. And the bat also differs from the bird through the
fact that the bird, when it looks about it, always has in view what is
in the air. Even the vulture, when it steals a lamb, perceives it as
it sees it from above, as though it were at the end of the light
sphere, like something painted onto the earth. And quite apart from
this, it is no mere act of seeing; it is a craving. What you would
perceive if you actually saw the flight of the vulture towards the
lamb is a veritable dynamic of intention, of volition, of craving.
A butterfly sees what is on the earth as though in a mirror; for the
butterfly the earth is a mirror. It sees what is in the cosmos. When
you see a butterfly fluttering about, you must picture to yourselves
that it disregards the earth, that for it the earth is just a mirror
for what is in the cosmos. A bird does not see what belongs to the
earth, but it sees what is in the air. The bat only perceives what it
flies through, or flies past. And because it does not like the light,
it is unpleasantly affected by everything it sees. It can certainly be
said that the butterfly and the bird see in a very spiritual way. The
first creature — descending from above downwards — which
must see in an earthly way, is disagreeably affected by this seeing. A
bat dislikes seeing, and in consequence it has a kind of embodied fear
of what it sees, but does not want to see. And so it would like to
slip past everything. It is obliged to see, yet is unwilling to do so
— and thus it everywhere tries just to skirt past. And it is
because it desires just to slip past everything, that it is so
wonderfully intent on listening. The bat is actually a creature which
is continually listening to its own flight, lest this flight should be
in any way endangered.
Only look at the bat's ears. You can see from them that they are
attuned to world-fear. So they are — these bats' ears. They are
quite remarkable structures, attuned to evading the world, to
world-fear. All this, you see, is only to be understood when the bat
is studied in the framework into which we have just placed it.
Here we must add something further. The butterfly continually imparts
spiritualized matter to the cosmos. It is the darling of the Saturn
influences. Now call to mind how I described Saturn as the great
bearer of the memory of our planetary system. The butterfly is closely
connected with what makes provision for memory in our planet. It is
memory-thoughts which live in the butterfly. The bird — this,
too, I have already described — is entirely a head, and as it
flies through the warmth-imbued air in world-space it is actually the
living, flying thought. What we have within us as thoughts — and
this also is connected with the warmth-ether — is bird-nature,
eagle-nature, in us. The bird is the flying thought. But the bat is
the flying dream; the flying dream-picture of the cosmos. So we can
say: The earth is surrounded by a web of butterflies — this is
cosmic memory; and by the kingdom of the birds — this is cosmic
thinking; and by the bats — they are the cosmic dream, cosmic
dreaming. It is actually the flying dreams of the cosmos which sough
through space as the bats. And as dreams love the twilight, so, too,
does the cosmos love the twilight when it sends the bat through space.
The enduring thoughts of memory, these we see embodied in the girdle
of butterflies encircling the earth; thoughts of the moment we see in
the bird-girdle of the earth; and dreams in the environment of the
earth fly about embodied as bats. And you will surely feel, if we
penetrate deeply into their form, how much affinity there is between
this appearance of the bat and dreaming! One simply cannot look at a
bat without the thought arising: I must be dreaming; that is really
something which should not be there, something which is as much
outside the other creations of nature as dreams are outside ordinary
physical reality.
To sum up we can say: The butterfly sends spiritualized substance into
spirit-land during its lifetime; the bird sends it out after its
death. Now what does the bat do? During its lifetime the bat gives off
spiritualized substance, especially that spiritualized substance which
exists in the stretched membrane between its separate fingers. But it
does not give this over to the cosmos; it sheds it into the atmosphere
of the earth. Thereby beads of spirit, so to say, are continually
arising in the atmosphere.
Thus we find the earth to be surrounded by the continual glimmer of
out-streaming spirit-matter from the butterflies and sparkling into
this what comes from the dying birds; but also, streaming back towards
the earth, we find peculiar segregations of air where the bats give
off what they spiritualize. Those are the spiritual formations which
are always to be observed when one sees a bat in flight. In fact a bat
always has a kind of tail behind it, like a comet. The bat gives off
spirit-matter; but instead of sending it outwards, it thrusts it back
into the physical substance of the earth. It thrusts it back into the
air. And just as one sees with the physical eye physical bats
fluttering about, one can also see these corresponding
spirit-formations which emanate from the bats fluttering through the
air; they sough through the spaces of the air. We know that air
consists of oxygen, nitrogen and other constituents, but this is not
all; it also consists of the spirit-emanations of bats.
Strange and paradoxical as it may sound, this dream-order of the bats
sends little spectres out into the air, which then unite into a
general mass. In geology the matter below the earth, which is a
rock-mass of a soft consistency like porridge, is called magma. We
might also speak of a spirit-magma in the air, which comes from the
emanations of bats.
In ancient times when an instinctive clairvoyance prevailed, people
were very susceptible to this spirit magma, just as today many people
are very susceptible to what is of a material nature, for instance,
bad smelling air. This might certainly be regarded as somewhat vulgar,
whereas in the ancient instinctive time of clairvoyance people were
susceptible to the bat-residue which is present in the air.
They protected themselves against this. And in many Mysteries there
were special formulas whereby people could inwardly arm themselves, so
that this bat-residue might have no power over them. For as human
beings we do not only inhale oxygen and nitrogen with the air, we also
inhale these emanations of the bats. Modern people, however, are not
interested in letting themselves be protected against these
bat-remains, but whereas in certain conditions they are highly
sensitive, let us say, to bad smells, they are highly insensitive to
the emanations of the bats. It can really be said that they swallow
them down without feeling the least trace of repulsion. It is quite
extraordinary that people who are otherwise really prudish just
swallow down what contains the stuff of which I have spoken.
Nevertheless this too enters into the human being. Certainly it does
not enter into the physical or etheric body, but it enters into the
astral body.
Yes, you see, we here find remarkable connections. Initiation science
everywhere leads into the inner aspect of relationships; this
bat-residue is the most craved-for nutriment of what I have described
in lectures here as the Dragon. But this bat-residue must first be
breathed into the human being. The Dragon finds his surest foothold in
human nature when man allows his instincts to be imbued with these
emanations of the bats. There they seethe. And the dragon feeds on
them and grows — in a spiritual sense, of course — gaining
power over people, gaining power in the most manifold ways. This is
something against which modern man must again protect himself: and the
protection should come from what has been described here as the new
form of Michael's fight with the Dragon. The increase in inner
strength which man gains when he takes up into himself the Michael
impulse as it has been described here, this is his safeguard against
the nutriment which the Dragon desires; this is his protection against
the unjustified bat-emanations in the atmosphere.
If one has the will to penetrate into these inner world-connections,
one must not shrink back from facing the truths contained in them. For
today the generally accepted form of the search for truth does not in
any way lead to actuality, but at most to something even less actual
than a dream, to Maya. Reality must of necessity be sought in the
domain where all physical existence is regarded as interwoven with
spiritual existence. We can only find our way to reality, when this
reality is studied and observed, as has been done here in the present
lectures.
In everything good and in everything evil, in some way or other beings
are present. Everything in world-connections is so ordered that its
relation to other beings can be recognized. For the materialistically
minded, butterflies flutter, birds fly, bats flit. But this can really
be compared to what often happens with a not very artistic person, who
adorns the walls of his room with all manner of pictures which do not
belong to each other, which have no inner connection. Thus for the
ordinary observer of nature, what flies through the world also has no
inner connection; because he sees none. But everything in the cosmos
has its own place, because just from this very place it has a relation
to the cosmos in its totality. Be it butterfly, bird, or bat,
everything has its own meaning within the world-order.
As to those who today wish to scoff, let them scoff. People already
have other things to their credit in the sphere of ridicule.
Celebrated scholars have declared that meteor-stones cannot exist,
because iron cannot fall from heaven, and so on. Why then should
people not also scoff at the functions of the bats, about which I have
spoken today? Such things, however, should not divert us from the task
of imbuing our civilization with a knowledge of spiritual truths.
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