The Plant-World and the Elemental
Nature-Spirits
The World-Word is not some combination of syllables gathered from here or there, but the World-Word is the harmony of what sounds forth from countless beings.
To the outwardly perceptible, visible world there belongs the
invisible world, and these, taken together, form a whole. The marked
degree to which this is the case first appears in its full clarity
when we turn our attention away from the animals to the plants.
Plant-life, as it sprouts and springs forth from the earth,
immediately arouses our delight, but it also provides access to
something which we must feel as full of mystery. In the case of the
animal, though certainly its will and whole inner activity have
something of the mysterious, we nevertheless recognize that this will
is actually there, and is the cause of the animal's form and outer
characteristics. But in the case of the plants, which appear on the
face of the earth in such magnificent variety of form, which develop
in such a mysterious way out of the seed with the help of the earth
and the encircling air — in the case of the plant we feel that
some other factor must be present in order that this plant-world may
arise in the form it does.
When spiritual vision is directed to the plant-world, we are
immediately led to a whole host of beings, which were known and
recognized in the old times of instinctive clairvoyance, but which
were afterwards forgotten and today remain only as names used by the
poet, names to which modern man ascribes no reality. To the same
degree, however, in which we deny reality to the beings which whirl
and weave around the plants, to that degree do we lose the
understanding of the plant-world. This understanding of the
plant-world, which, for instance, would be so necessary for the art of
healing, has been entirely lost to present-day humanity.
We have already recognized a very significant connection between the
world of the plants and the world of the butterflies; but this too
will only come rightly before our souls when we look yet more deeply
into the whole weaving and working of plant-life.
Plants send down their roots into the ground. Anyone who can observe
what they really send down and can perceive the roots with spiritual
vision (for this he must have) sees how the root-nature is everywhere
surrounded, woven around, by elemental nature spirits. And these
elemental spirits, with an old clairvoyant perception designated as
gnomes and which we may call the root-spirits, can actually be studied
by an imaginative and inspirational world-conception, just as human
life and animal life can be studied in the sphere of the physical. We
can look into the soul-nature of these elemental spirits, into this
world of the spirits of the roots.
These root-spirits, are, so to say, a quite special earth-folk,
invisible at first to outer view, but in their effects so much the
more visible; for no root could develop if it were not for what is
mediated between the root and the earth-realm by these remarkable
root-spirits, which bring the mineral element of the earth into flux
in order to conduct it to the roots of the plants. Naturally I refer
to the underlying spiritual process.
These root-spirits, which are everywhere present in the earth, get a
quite particular sense of well-being from rocks and from ores (which
may be more or less transparent). But they enjoy their greatest sense
of well-being, because here they are really at home, when they are
conveying what is mineral to the roots of the plants. And they are
completely enfilled with an inner element of spirituality which we can
only compare with the inner element of spirituality in the human eye,
in the human ear. For these root-spirits are in their spirit-nature
entirely sense. Apart from this they are nothing at all; they
consist only of sense. They are entirely sense, and it is a sense
which is at the same time understanding, which does not only
see and hear, but immediately understands what is seen and heard,
which in receiving impressions, receives also ideas.
We can even indicate the way in which these root-spirits receive their
ideas. We see a plant sprouting out of the earth. The plant comes, as
I shall presently show you, into connection with the extraterrestrial
universe; and, particularly at certain seasons of the year,
spirit-currents flow from above, from the blossom and the fruit of the
plant down into the roots below, streaming into the earth. And just as
we turn our eyes towards the light and see, so do the root-spirits
turn their faculty of perception towards what seeps downwards from
above, through the plant into the earth. What seeps down towards the
root-spirits, that is something which the light has sent into the
blossoms, which the sun's warmth has sent into the plants, which the
air has produced in the leaves, which the distant stars have brought
about in the plant's structures. The plant gathers the secrets of the
universe, sinks them into the ground, and the gnomes take these
secrets into themselves from what seeps down spiritually to them
through the plants. And because the gnomes, particularly from autumn
on and through the winter, in their wanderings through ore and rock
bear with them what has filtered down to them through the plants, they
become those beings within the earth which, as they wander, carry the
ideas of the whole universe streaming throughout the earth. We look
forth into the wide world. The world is built from universal spirit;
it is an embodiment of universal ideas, of universal spirit. The
gnomes receive through the plants, which to them are the same as rays
of light are to us, the ideas of the universe, and within the earth
carry them in full consciousness from metal to metal, from rock to
rock.
We gaze down into the depths of the earth not to seek there below for
abstract ideas about some kind of mechanical laws of nature, but to
behold the roving, wandering gnomes, which are the light-filled
preservers of world-understanding within the earth.
Because these gnomes have immediate understanding of what they see,
their knowledge is actually of a similar nature to that of man. They
are the compendium of understanding, they are entirely understanding.
Everything about them is understanding, an understanding however,
which is universal, and which really looks down upon human
understanding as something incomplete. The gnomes laugh us to scorn on
account of the groping, struggling understanding with which we manage
to grasp one thing or another, whereas they have no need at all to
make use of thought. They have direct perception of what is
comprehensible in the world; and they are particularly ironical when
they notice the efforts people have to make to come to this or that
conclusion. Why should they do this? say the gnomes — why ever
should people give themselves so much trouble to think things over? We
know everything we look at. People are so stupid — say the gnomes
— for they must first think things over.
And I must say that the gnomes become ironical to the point of ill
manners if one speaks to them of logic. For why ever should people
need such a superfluous thing — a training in thinking? The
thoughts are already there. The ideas flow through the plants. Why
don't people stick their noses as deep into the earth as the plant's
roots, and let what the sun says to the plants trickle down into their
noses? Then they would know something! But with logic — so say
the gnomes — there one can only have odd bits and pieces of
knowledge.
Thus the gnomes, inside the earth, are actually the bearers of the
ideas of the universe, of the world-all. But for the earth itself they
have no liking at all. They bustle about in the earth with ideas of
the universe, but they actually hate what is earthly. This is
something from which the gnomes would best like to tear themselves
free. Nevertheless they remain with the earthly — you will soon
see why this is — but they hate it, for the earthly threatens
them with a continual danger. The earth continually holds over them
the threat of forcing them to take on a particular form, the form of
those creatures I described to you in the last lecture, the
amphibians, and in particular of the frogs and the toads. The feeling
of the gnomes within the earth is really this: If we grow too strongly
together with the earth, we shall assume the form of frogs or toads.
They are continually on the alert to avoid being caught in a too
strong connection with the earth, to avoid taking on earthly form.
They are always on the defensive against this earthly form, which
threatens them as it does because of the element in which they exist.
They have their home in the earthly-moist element; there they live
under the constant threat of being forced into amphibian forms. From
this they continually tear themselves free, by filling themselves
entirely with ideas of the extra-terrestrial universe. The gnomes are
really that element within the earth which represents the
extra-terrestrial, because they must continually reject a growing
together with the earthly; otherwise, as single beings, they would
take on the forms of the amphibian world. And it is just from what I
may call this feeling of hatred, this feeling of antipathy towards the
earthly, that the gnomes gain the power of driving the plants up out
of the earth. With the fundamental force of their being they
unceasingly thrust away the earthly, and it is this thrusting that
determines the upward direction of the plant's growth; they push the
plants up with them. It accords with the nature of the gnomes in
regard to the earthly to allow the plant to have only its roots in the
earth, and then to grow upwards out of the earth-sphere; so that it is
actually out of the force of their own original nature that the gnomes
push the plants out of the earth and make them grow upwards.
Once the plant has grown upwards, once it has left the domain of the
gnomes and has passed out of the sphere of the moist-earthly element
into the sphere of the moist-airy, the plant develops what comes to
outer physical formation in the leaves. But in all that is now active
in the leaves other beings are at work, water-spirits, elemental
spirits of the watery element, to which an earlier instinctive
clairvoyance gave among others the name of undines. Just as we find
the roots busied about, woven-about by the gnome-beings in the
vicinity of the ground, and observe with pleasure the upward-striving
direction which they give, we now see these water-beings, these
elemental beings of the water, these undines in their connection with
the leaves.
These undine beings differ in their inner nature from the gnomes. They
cannot turn like a spiritual sense-organ outwards towards the
universe. They can only yield themselves up to the weaving and working
of the whole cosmos in the airy-moist element, and therefore they are
not beings of such clarity as the gnomes. They dream incessantly,
these undines, but their dream is at the same time their own form.
They do not hate the earth as intensely as do the gnomes, but they
have a sensitivity to what is earthly. They live in the etheric
element of water, swimming and swaying through it, and in a very
sensitive way they recoil from everything in the nature of a fish; for
the fish-form is a threat to them, even if they do assume it from time
to time, though only to forsake it immediately in order to take on
another metamorphosis. They dream their own existence. And in dreaming
their own existence they bind and release, they bind and disperse the
substances of the air, which in a mysterious way they introduce into
the leaves, as these are pushed upwards by the gnomes. For at this
point the plants would wither if it were not for the undines, who
approach from all sides, and show themselves, as they weave around the
plants in their dream-like existence, to be what we can only call the
world-chemists. The undines dream the uniting and dispersing of
substances. And this dream, in which the plant has its existence, into
which it grows when, developing upwards, it forsakes the ground, this
undine-dream is the world-chemist which brings about in the
plant-world the mysterious combining and separation of the substances
which emanate from the leaf. We can therefore say that the undines are
the chemists of plant-life. They dream of chemistry. They possess an
exceptionally delicate spirituality which is really in its element
just where water and air come into contact with each other. The
undines live entirely in the element of moisture, but they develop
their actual inner function when they come to the surface of something
watery, be it only to the surface of a water-drop or something else of
a watery nature. For their whole endeavour lies in preserving
themselves from getting the form of a fish, the permanent form of a
fish. They wish to remain in a condition of metamorphosis, in a
condition of eternal, endlessly changing transformation. But in this
state of transformation in which they dream of the stars and of the
sun, of light and of warmth, they become the chemists who now,
starting from the leaf, carry the plant further in its formation,
after it has been pushed upwards by the power of the gnomes. So the
plant develops its leaf-growth, and this mystery is now revealed as
the dream of the undines into which the plants grow.
To the same degree, however, in which the plant grows into the dream
of the undines, does it now come into another domain, into the domain
of those spirits which live in the airy-warmth element, just as the
gnomes live in the moist-earthly, and the undines in the moist-airy
element. Thus it is in the element which is of the nature of air and
warmth that those beings live which an earlier clairvoyant art
designated as the sylphs. Because air is everywhere imbued with light,
these sylphs, which live in the airy-warmth element, press towards the
light, relate themselves to it. They are particularly susceptible to
the finer but larger movements within the atmosphere.
When in spring or autumn you see a flock of swallows, which produce as
they fly vibrations in a body of air, setting an air-current in
motion, then this moving air-current — and this holds good for
every bird — is for the sylphs something audible. Cosmic music
sounds from it to the sylphs. If, let us say, you are travelling
somewhere by ship and the seagulls are flying around it, then in what
is set in motion by the seagulls' flight there is a spiritual
sounding, a spiritual music which accompanies the ship.
Again it is the sylphs which unfold and develop their being within
this sounding music, finding their dwelling-place in the moving
current of air. It is in this spiritually sounding, moving element of
air that they find themselves at home; and at the same time they
absorb what the power of light sends into these vibrations of the
air. Because of this the sylphs, which experience their existence more
or less in a state of sleep, feel most in their element, most at home,
where birds are winging through the air. If a sylph is obliged to move
and weave through air devoid of birds, it feels as though it had lost
itself. But at the sight of a bird in the air something quite special
comes over the sylph. I have often had to describe a certain event in
man's life, that event which leads the human soul to address itself as
“I”. And I have always drawn attention to a saying of Jean
Paul, that, when for the first time a human being arrives at the
conception of his “I”, it is as though he looks into the
most deeply veiled Holy of Holies of his soul. A sylph does not look
into any such veiled Holy of Holies of its own soul, but when it sees
a bird an ego-feeling comes over it. It is in what the bird sets in
motion as it flies through the air that the sylph feels its ego. And
because this is so, because its ego is kindled in it from outside, the
sylph becomes the bearer of cosmic love through the atmosphere. It is
because the sylph embodies something like a human wish, but does not
have its ego within itself but in the bird-kingdom, that it is at the
same time the bearer of wishes of love through the universe.
Thus we behold the deepest sympathy between the sylphs and the
bird-world. Whereas the gnome hates the amphibian world, whereas the
undine is unpleasantly sensitive to fishes, is unwilling to approach
them, tries to avoid them, feels a kind of horror for them, the sylph,
on the other hand, is attracted towards birds, and has a sense of
well-being when it can waft towards their plumage the swaying,
love-filled waves of the air. And were you to ask a bird from whom it
learns to sing, you would hear that its inspirer is the sylph. Sylphs
feel a sense of pleasure in the bird's form. They are, however,
prevented by the cosmic ordering from becoming birds, for they have
another task. Their task is lovingly to convey light to the plant. And
just as the undine is the chemist for the plant, so is the sylph the
light-bearer. The sylph imbues the plant with light; it bears light
into the plant.
Through the fact that the sylphs bear light into the plant, something
quite remarkable is brought about in it. You see, the sylph is
continually carrying light into the plant. The light, that is to say
the power of the sylphs in the plant, works upon the chemical forces
which were induced into the plant by the undines. Here occurs the
inter-working of sylph-light and undine-chemistry. This is a
remarkable plastic activity. With the help of the upstreaming
substances which are worked upon by the undines, the sylphs weave out
of the light an ideal plant-form. They actually weave the Archetypal
Plant within the plant from light, and from the chemical working of
the undines. And when towards autumn the plant withers and everything
of physical substance disintegrates, then these plant-forms begin to
seep downwards, and now the gnomes perceive them, perceive what the
world — the sun through the sylphs, the air through the undines
— has brought to pass in the plant. This the gnomes perceive, so
that throughout the entire winter they are engaged in perceiving below
what has seeped into the ground through the plants. Down there they
grasp world-ideas in the plant-forms which have been plastically
developed with the help of the sylphs, and which now in their
spiritual ideal form enter into the ground.
Naturally those people who regard the plant as something purely
material know nothing of this spiritual ideal form. Thus at this point
something appears which in the materialistic observation of the plant
gives rise to what is nothing other than a colossal error, a terrible
error. I will sketch this error for you.
Everywhere you will find that materialistic science describes matters
as follows: The plant takes root in the ground, above the ground it
develops its leaves, finally unfolding its blossoms, within the
blossoms the stamens, then the seed-bud. Now — usually from
another plant — the pollen from the anthers, from the pollen
vessels, is carried over to the germ which is then fructified, and
through this the seed of the new plant is produced. The germ is
regarded as the female element and what comes from the stamens as the
male — indeed matters cannot be regarded otherwise as long as
people remain fixed in materialism, for then this process really does
look like a fructification. This, however, it is not. In order to gain
insight into the process of fructification, that is to say the process
of reproduction, in the plant-world, we must be conscious that in the
first place it is from what the great chemists, the undines, bring
about in the plants, and from what the sylphs bring about, that the
plant-form arises, the ideal plant-form which sinks into the ground
and is preserved by the gnomes. It is there below, this plant-form.
And there within the earth it is now guarded by the gnomes after they
have seen it, after they have looked upon it. The earth becomes the
mother-womb for what thus seeps downwards. This is something quite
different from what is described by materialistic science.
After it has passed through the sphere of the sylphs, the plant comes
into the sphere of the elemental fire-spirits. These fire-spirits are
the inhabitants of the warmth-light element. When the warmth of the
earth is at its height, or is otherwise suitable, they gather the
warmth together. Just as the sylphs gather up the light, so do the
fire-spirits gather up the warmth and carry it into the blossoms of
the plants.
Undines carry the action of the chemical ether into the plants, sylphs
the action of the light-ether into the plant's blossoms. And the
pollen now provides what may be called little air-ships, to enable the
fire-spirits to carry the warmth into the seed. Everywhere warmth is
collected with the help of the stamens, and is carried by means of the
pollen from the anthers to the seeds and the seed vessels. And what is
formed here in the seed-bud is entirely the male element which comes
from the cosmos. It is not a case of the seed-vessel being female and
the anthers of the stamens being male. In no way does fructification
occur in the blossom, but only the pre-forming of the male seed. The
fructifying force is what the fire-spirits in the blossom take from
the warmth of the world-all as the cosmic male seed, which is united
with the female element. This element, drawn from the forming of the
plant has, as I told you, already earlier seeped down into the ground
as ideal form, and is resting there below. For plants the earth is
the mother, the heavens the father. And all that takes place
outside the domain of the earth is not the mother-womb for the plant.
It is a colossal error to believe that the mother-principle of the
plant is in the seed-bud. The fact is that this is the male-principle,
which is drawn forth from the universe with the aid of the
fire-spirits. The mother comes from the cambium, which spreads from
the bark to the wood, and is carried down from above as ideal form.
And what now results from the combined working of gnome-activity and
fire-spirit activity — this is fructification. The gnomes are, in
fact, the spiritual midwives of plant-reproduction. Fructification
takes place below in the earth during the winter, when the seed comes
into the earth and meets with the forms which the gnomes have received
from the activities of the sylphs and undines and now carry to where
these forms can meet with the fructifying seeds.
You see, because people do not recognize what is spiritual, do not
know how gnomes, undines, sylphs and fire-spirits — which were
formerly called salamanders — weave and live together with
plant-growth, there is complete lack of clarity about the process of
fructification in the plant world. There, outside the earth nothing of
fructification takes place, but the earth is the mother of the
plant-world, the heavens the father. This is the case in a quite
literal sense. Plant-fructification takes place through the fact that
the gnomes take from the fire-spirits what the fire-spirits have
carried into the seed bud as concentrated cosmic warmth on the little
airships of the anther-pollen. Thus the fire-spirits are the bearers
of warmth.
And now you will easily gain insight into the whole process of
plant-growth. First, with the help of what comes from the
fire-spirits, the gnomes down below instill life into the plant and
push it upwards. They are the fosterers of life. They carry the
life-ether to the root — the same life-ether in which they
themselves live. The undines foster the chemical ether, the sylphs the
light-ether, the fire-spirits the warmth ether. And then the fruit of
the warmth-ether again unites with what is present below as life. Thus
the plants can only be understood when they are considered in
connection with all that is circling, weaving and living around them.
And one only reaches the right interpretation of the most important
process in the plant when one penetrates into these things in a
spiritual way.
When once this has been understood, it is interesting to look again at
that memorandum of Goethe's where, referring to another botanist, he
is so terribly annoyed because people speak of the eternal marriage in
the case of the plants above the earth. Goethe is affronted by the
idea that marriages should be taking place over every meadow. This
seemed to him something unnatural. In this Goethe had an instinctive
but very true feeling. He could not as yet know the real facts of the
matter, nevertheless he instinctively felt that fructification should
not take place above in the blossom. Only he did not as yet know what
goes on down below under the ground, he did not know that the earth is
the mother-womb of the plants. But, that the process which takes place
above in the blossom is not what all botanists hold it to be, this is
something which Goethe instinctively felt.
You are now aware of the inner connection between plant and earth. But
there is something else which you must take into account.
You see, when up above the fire-spirits are circling around the plant
and transmitting the anther-pollen, then they have only one feeling,
which they have in an enhanced degree, compared to the feeling of the
sylphs. The sylphs experience their self, their ego, when they see the
birds flying about. The fire-spirits have this experience, but to an
intensified degree, in regard to the butterfly-world, and indeed the
insect-world as a whole. And it is these fire-spirits which take the
utmost delight in following in the tracks of the insects' flight so
that they may bring about the distribution of warmth for the seed
buds. In order to carry the concentrated warmth, which must descend
into the earth so that it may be united with the ideal form, in order
to do this the fire-spirits feel themselves inwardly related to the
butterfly-world, and to the insect-creation in general. Everywhere
they follow in the tracks of the insects as they buzz from blossom to
blossom. And so one really has the feeling, when following the flight
of insects, that each of these insects as it buzzes from blossom to
blossom, has a quite special aura which cannot be entirely explained
from the insect itself. Particularly the luminous, wonderfully
radiant, shimmering, aura of bees, as they buzz from blossom to
blossom, is unusually difficult to explain. And why? It is because the
bee is everywhere accompanied by a fire-spirit which feels so closely
related to it that, for spiritual vision, the bee is surrounded by an
aura which is actually a fire-spirit. When a bee flies through the air
from plant to plant, from tree to tree, it flies with an aura which is
actually given to it by a fire-spirit. The fire-spirit does not only
gain a feeling of its ego in the presence of the insect, but it wishes
to be completely united with the insect.
Through this, however, insects also obtain that power about which I
have spoken to you, and which shows itself in a shimmering forth of
light into the cosmos. They obtain the power completely to
spiritualize the physical matter which unites itself with them, and to
allow the spiritualized physical substance to ray out into cosmic
space. But just as with a flame it is the warmth in the first place
which causes the light to shine, so, above the surface of the earth,
when the insects shimmer forth into cosmic space what attracts the
human being to descend again into physical incarnation, it is the fire
spirits which inspire the insects to this activity, the fire-spirits
which are circling and weaving around them. But if the fire-spirits
are active in promoting the outstreaming of spiritualized matter into
the cosmos, they are no less actively engaged in seeing to it that the
concentrated fiery element, the concentrated warmth, goes into the
interior of the earth, so that, with the help of the gnomes, the
spirit-form, which sylphs and undines cause to seep down into the
earth, may be awakened.
This, you see, is the spiritual process of plant-growth. And it is
because the subconscious in man divines something of a special nature
in the blossoming, sprouting plant that he experiences the being of
the plant as full of mystery. The wonder is not spoiled, the magic is
not brushed from the dust on the butterfly's wing. Rather is the
instinctive delight in the plant raised to a higher level when not
only the physical plant is seen, but also that wonderful working of
the gnome-world below, with its immediate understanding and formative
intelligence, the gnome-world which first pushes the plant upwards.
Thus, just as human understanding is not subjected to gravity, just as
the head is carried without our feeling its weight, so the gnomes with
their light-imbued intellectuality overcome what is of the earth and
push the plant upwards. Down below they prepare the life. But the life
would die away were it not formed by chemical activity. This is
brought to it by the undines. And this again must be imbued with
light. And so we picture, from below upwards, in bluish, blackish
shades the force of gravity, to which the impulse upwards is given by
the gnomes; and weaving around the plant — indicated by the
leaves — the undine-force blending and dispersing substances as
the plant grows upwards. From above downwards, from the sylphs, light
falls into the plants and shapes an idealized plastic form which
descends, and is taken up by the mother-womb of the earth; moreover
this form is circled around by the fire-spirits which concentrate the
cosmic warmth into the tiny seed-points. This warmth is also sent
downwards to the gnomes, so that from out of fire and life, they can
cause the plants to arise.
And further we now see that essentially the earth is indebted for its
power of resistance and its density to the antipathy of the gnomes and
undines towards amphibians and fishes. If the earth is dense, this
density is due to the antipathy by means of which the gnomes and
undines maintain their form. When light and warmth sink down on to the
earth, this is first due to that power of sympathy, that sustaining
power of sylph-love, which is carried through the air, and then to the
sustaining sacrificial power of the fire-spirits, which causes them to
incline downwards to what is below themselves. So we may say that,
over the face of the earth, earth-density, earth-magnetism and
earth-gravity, in their upward-striving aspect, unite with the
downward-striving power of love and sacrifice. And in this
inter-working of the downwards streaming force of love and sacrifice
and the upwards streaming force of density, gravity and magnetism, in
this inter-working, where the two streams meet, plant-life develops
over the earth's surface. Plant-life is an outer expression of the
inter-working of world-love and world-sacrifice with world-gravity and
world-magnetism.
From this you have seen with what we have to do when we direct our
gaze to the plant-world, which so enchants, uplifts and inspires us.
Here real insight can only be gained when our vision embraces the
spiritual, the super-sensible, as well as what is accessible to the
physical senses. This enables us to correct the capital error of
materialistic botany, that fructification occurs above the earth. What
occurs there is not the process of fructification, but the preparation
of the male heavenly seed for what is being made ready as the future
Plant in the mother-womb of the earth.
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