LECTURE NINE
If you recall
what was said in the lecture yesterday, it will be clear to
you that, fundamentally speaking, the appearance of
materialism — I do not say the materialistic conception
of the world, but materialism itself—has its very good
sides. The harm occurs when materialism is made the basis of
a conception of the world. As a method for investigating the
external phenomena of the physical world, materialism is
good; it is a good instrument for investigating the mineral
world in Earth-evolution. Again it is of importance that man
is embodied in this mineral world, for thereby he develops
those faculties which can be acquired only in the
physical-mineral body. Intelligence and free will must be
acquired to a certain degree during the Earth-period. In the
Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan periods, man will possess these
faculties, but a being of soul such as he is, can acquire
them only by being incarnated during the Earth-period in a
mineralised body.
A
counterbalance to this evolution in mineralised earthly
bodies is created by the fact that man passes ever and again,
without a mineralised body, through the life of soul between
death and a new birth. It can be said that man must undergo
very much on the Earth, on account of the fact that between
birth and death he has a mineralised body. But what he
undergoes, as it were to his cosmic disadvantage, by being
embodied in a mineralised body, is balanced out by what he
lives through between death and a new birth, when he is not a
corporeal being but entirely a being of soul— using the
word in its right sense.
To examine
into the mineral element contained in stones, plants, animals
and men is the task of materialism and its method; in
practising this method in the course of the centuries man
acquires that which, fundamentally speaking, he must acquire
during the Earth-period. The modes of investigation preceding
those of materialism were all still influenced by the
clairvoyance inherited by man from his previous evolutionary
states. And when, after our fifth postAtlantean, and the
post-Atlantean epoch as a whole, he has passed through his
mineral evolution and enters a different form of evolution,
the closeness of his relationship to the spiritual world will
depend upon whether he has already acquired, during the
Earth-period, the intelligence and the measure of free will
foreordained for him; otherwise he will not have fulfilled
the purpose of his evolution.
Viewed in
this light, the method of materialism assumes great
significance; but it must remain “method”, a
method for investigating the physical, material world. It is
there that, even in the higher sense, it has its truly great
significance. In that man observes and also investigates the
purely mineral world, is active in the mineral world, he
gradually unfolds his free will. For while he stands
in the mineral world, what really underlies this world is
veiled from him.
We have heard
during recent weeks what is the outcome if man limits himself
to theoretical speculation within the perimeter of physical
sense-perceptions. The outcome is atomism, and as we have
also heard, atomism is nothing else than a
subjective delusion. But if a man who allows himself to be
thus deluded were to go out into the world where he looks for
the atoms, he would find Ahriman and his beings. For through
those spiritual beings of whom I spoke yesterday and whom man
encounters when he breaks through the veil of nature, he will
be led to develop forces of destruction. These beings, too,
it must be remembered, are cosmic beings.
Thus we can
understand what has to be said about materialistic methods.
They provide man with illusion, maya. But this illusion is
actually advantageous to man, for when he sees through it, he
enters, to begin with, into the kingdom of Ahriman and his
spiritual hosts — beings who are out for destruction
and death and who cause him to develop certain subtly
destructive forces in his own human nature. Intellect in
particular, purely external cleverness, is developed in him
by the powers into whose realm he enters, so that he becomes
crafty, astute in a subtle way. If his earthly intelligence
is not sufficiently developed to see through these things, he
becomes unconsciously, but subtly cunning and crafty. It may
therefore be said that materialistic philosophy represents a
period during which man can mature and thus be able, later
on, to enter this realm of Ahriman without danger.
So it is
evident that materialistic natural scientists or philosophers
follow a certain justifiable instinct. The custodians of the
ancient symbols had not dared to make esotericism public and
so hand over the secrets to men. The natural scientists said
to themselves — not literally, of course, but one can
put it in this way — ‘we do great good if we lead
men only so far as the veil and not behind it.’
Naturally they do this instinctively, but they do it,
nevertheless. Fundamentally speaking, they render humanity
good service, for if the natural scientists were to succeed
in piercing the veil, they would make man acquainted with the
forces of those destructive beings of whom I spoke yesterday,
beings who are in the service of Ahriman. And the consequence
would be that men still unprepared would come into possession
of the forces proceeding from that realm and would be able to
bring about very much by their means — but it would all
tend towards destruction, towards extermination of the good.
Thus even the ignorance in which man is left through the
natural scientific view of the world has in a certain sense
something good about it. That is one side of the matter. But
the other side is this.—
Man has been
living, already for a number of centuries, in this world of
illusions into which, instinctively, he is placed by the
scientists. Yes — but this has not been without its
effects on human nature! When a man is living in illusion he
is not living in the world of reality. This illusion does not
affect his forces of soul as strongly as reality would affect
them, and the consequence is that doubt upon doubt heaps up
in the soul — doubts which make themselves felt even in
the domain of science. Natural scientists of great eminence
have declared: Ignorabimus — we shall never
know. The second half of the nineteenth century did
everything to cause men to be beset by doubt upon doubt. But
the truth is that we are facing the approach of an era
brought about by the fact that man is living more and more in
illusion, while believing he has reality. He steeps himself
more and more deeply in the materialistic view of the world,
but doubts about its validity constantly increase, and it
would not take long for every human being to be living in a
condition of unalloyed doubt as the outcome of scientific
philosophy. People would then no longer be able to hold fast
to anything; doubt would inevitably arise over every problem,
every task. Scepticism would become a vast ocean in which the
human soul would inevitably be engulfed.
It is the
task of Spiritual Science to make men realise that a great
ocean of scepticism and doubt threatens to break in and
engulf the human soul. And the further task of Spiritual
Science is to erect dams which will hold back this flood of
scepticism and doubt. We are here facing a vista of something
that will inevitably befall man if natural scientific
doctrine continues as a view of the world.
What I am now
saying is connected with a deep secret: the secret that
everything in the outer, material world lives itself out in
duality. Two is the number of manifestation; two is
the number which governs all material manifestation —
but material manifestation only. The world of material
manifestation always passes through a certain process of
evolution. — Let us think of the evolution of the maya
presented by nature — nature-maya. Reaching its zenith
in the nineteenth century, this nature-maya gradually emerged
together with the natural scientific view of the world. But
the consequence of man's living in maya is that
underneath this view of the world, something else takes
place, namely, the preparation for a different view, the
preparation for penetrating into reality. This preparation is
going on in the sub-consciousness; but timely care must be
taken that the next phase of evolution is steered into
reality — otherwise nature-maya will assert itself as
scepticism, as the most terrible doubt which will engulf the
human soul. Thus we are approaching a time of which it may be
said that without Spiritual Science, man will fall more and
more deeply into scepticism; but if Spiritual Science is
accepted, then in the place of the doubt that would engulf
the soul, there will come what men truly need.
There is
duality, as you see. Nature-maya continues, but underneath it
is the budding life, the preparation for Spiritual Science.
In the material world, duality prevails everywhere. Therefore
the occultist says: Two is the number of material
manifestation. Directly one passes from the material world
into another world, the number Two no longer has this
significance, and it is entirely erroneous to characterise
higher worlds as if duality also prevailed there. It is only
the basic law of the material-physical world that can be so
characterised. In the higher world, if we are to start from
number, we must, for example, start from Three; this
governs everything in that world, just as the material world
is governed by duality. In the material world, duality
prevails; in the spiritual world, threefoldness.
There are
circumstances when it is by no means unimportant to
understand that if someone says that there is white magic and
black magic, this implies duality. But duality can have
meaning only in the material world; such a person therefore
immediately shows that he has no notion of the fundamental
laws of the spiritual world, for in the spiritual world
duality can never be a basic principle. True as it is that
duality lies at the basis of the physical-material world, it
is also true that in the super-sensible world we never have to
do with duality.
Now the human
being is related to the whole Cosmos; as earthly man he is a
microcosm, and in order to understand certain matters it is
necessary to learn more about this relationship.
We have heard
that when man breaks through the veil of nature and
penetrates into the world lying behind nature, he encounters
Ahrimanic beings, beings intent upon destruction. In the
World Order these beings are bitter enemies of man's
earthly nature, so that if, through weakness, he allies
himself with them — and this is possible, as I have
indicated — he is allying himself with the enemies of
man on Earth. That is a fact, and a certain relationship
existing between the human being and the Cosmos does much to
promote such an alliance.
These beings
behind the veil of nature are highly intelligent. I have
spoken of human intelligence, but these beings have their own
kind of thinking and intelligence; they have feeling,
although it is different from human feeling; they also have
will, although it, too, is different from human will. They
perform certain deeds which come to expression outwardly in
manifestations of nature, but the essential substantiality of
which lies behind the veil. Now there is a remarkable
affinity between something in man and the highest faculties
of these beings. I will make this clear in the following way.
When man crosses the Threshold of the spiritual world and
approaches these beings, it may seem to him as if he were
entering a veritable inferno, or whatever he conceives it to
be. What matters is that he shall understand the experience
aright. What will strike him most forcibly is the remarkable
intelligence of these beings. For they are extraordinarily
clever, extraordinarily wise. Their faculties of soul come to
expression in this cleverness. But the soul-forces, the
higher forces of these beings are all related to the forces
of man's lower nature. Sensuous urges in man
are, in these beings, the very forces which strike one as so
significant. Thus there is a relationship between the
lowest forces of man and the highest forces
of these spiritual beings. That is why they strive to
identify themselves with the lower forces in man. When a man
enters this other world, instincts of destruction or hatred,
or the like, arise in him, because these beings draw up what
constitutes man's lower nature to their own higher
nature, and with their higher forces work through man's
lower forces. Nobody can ally himself with these beings
without debasing his own nature, without greatly enhancing
the strength of certain sensuous urges and impulses.
This is a
fact of which special account must be taken, for it shows us
unambiguously how we must picture our relation to the Cosmos.
In our own human nature there are lower urges and impulses.
But these lower urges are forces which represent lower
impulses only in us, as human beings. These same urges are,
in these spiritual beings, higher forces. But these beings
are working all the time within us. They are always there
within our nature. Our progress in Spiritual Science depends
essentially upon our recognising them, knowing that they are
there. This enables us to say: we have our higher forces and
we have our lower forces, and, in addition, those forces
which in us are lower forces but in these spiritual beings
are higher forces. — This expands the duality of our
higher and lower forces into a triad. We are already at the
border of the Threshold of the spiritual world when, instead
of the duality of our higher and lower forces, we recognise
the triad.
Now as I
said, in our age it is impossible to adopt the method
employed by Father Antonius in dealing with Paul the
Simpleton; it is also impossible to do many things in the way
certain Orders have been wont to do them. — It amounts
to this: the knowledge in its old form cannot be used. For if
it were thus presented to men, it would bring about exactly
what I have been speaking about. It would without any doubt
arouse lower instincts in them.
For example,
there actually exists in the world an Order which leads men
to knowledge of these mysterious beings without any
preparation. In all such men, instincts of destruction are
aroused, so that this Order is actually responsible for
sending human beings with destructive instincts out into the
world. In a passage in one of his writings
Nietzsche
hinted at the existence of this Order without knowing the
actual circumstances.
[note 1]
That is the
one side which I have felt it essential to bring to your
attention. Here (drawing on the blackboard) is a veil
covering the secrets behind nature. The veil represents
everything that can be acquired by materialistic methods. The
real world lies behind, and to enter this world is verily no
simple matter. Let us hold this firmly in our minds.
The other
side is that of our life of soul, with its activities of
thinking, feeling and willing. But in the form in which this
life of soul appears to us inwardly as we actually experience
it, it is maya, just as external nature is maya. The true
form of our inner life is not that which appears to
our own soul as thinking, feeling and willing; the true
reality lies behind this thinking, feeling and
willing.
Just as the
learned scientists today instinctively develop the view that
nature herself presents the reality, but ultimately arrive at
atomism, so are the representatives of certain religious
bodies at pains to indicate that the thinking, feeling and
willing of which the soul is aware in the ordinary way are
the reality, and continue in human beings after their death.
Just as the scientists describe naturemaya, so do the
representatives of certain religious bodies describe the maya
of the life of soul, and in so doing, again instinctively,
bring a certain trend into the evolution of mankind.
You know that
already from the early Middle Ages onwards, trichotomy, as it
was called — the division of man into body, soul and
spirit—began to be a heresy in historical Christianity.
As you know, a comparatively early Council abolished the
Spirit and decreed that man was to be regarded as a being
consisting only of body and soul. And since that time this
has become customary in the West. In the Middle Ages it was a
most terrible thing to speak of Spirit, of a trichotomy; it
was deemed the worst of all heresies, because Spirit had been
abolished and body and soul established as a duality. This is
evidence of the endeavour to look, even in number as applied
to the human being, for what has significance only for this
earthly world. The tendency is to keep man within a world
that is in truth only maya, because he stops short at the
thinking, feeling and willing which are themselves of the
same character. Attention is limited to those effects of the
present incarnation which last only through the first period
between death and a new birth. What is elaborated in
man's being in order subsequently to come forth in the
next incarnation is left entirely out of account.
I may perhaps
indicate this diagrammatically in the following way (see
diagram). Here is the body (red) and here what lies behind it
— which is not visible and could be perceived only by
penetrating through the nerve endings. If atoms were not
accepted as forming the basis of the world but one were to go
out of the body with vision, one would come to the realm
where the beings of destruction seize hold of the whole man.
And now, within this, I draw the life of soul unfolded by man
in the physical world (blue). Thus the red and the
blue represent what man is aware of here, namely,
his bodily nature and his life of soul. But while we are
living between birth and death, the imperceptible
(yellow) develops, and remains wholly imperceptible
to us. When we die, our thinking, feeling and willing do not
continue; they are exhausted, and in the process the
yellow is elaborated (the imperceptible). This
increases in power between death and a new birth and in so
doing becomes the foundation of the new incarnation. We are
reincarnated with new thinking, new feeling, new will, and a
new bodily nature. Thus when we speak of what is revealed to
our soul here on Earth, we are speaking of something that
comes to an end, does not go with us into the next
incarnation. Of the soul itself, the representatives of
certain religious bodies say: the human being dies, goes
either to heaven or to hell, and we concern ourselves no more
with him. According to certain representatives of religion,
this is enough; what passes on to the next incarnation is not
important. The aim is to conceal the fact that the spirit in
man passes into the spiritual world and lives on until the
next incarnation. It can be said that representatives of
certain religious bodies are intent upon not allowing man to
become aware of the yellow (diagram) in his nature,
upon preventing him from knowing anything of it. Here again,
they are really obeying a certain sound instinct, but one
which shows even more clearly than the instinct prompting the
learned naturalists, that in our time it has really lost its
value.
The efforts
of the representatives of various religious communities all
tend quite decisively in the direction of concealing the fact
that there is a spiritual world to which belongs the inmost
core of our being, which is destined to appear in repeated
Earth-lives, and in the intervals between them to pass
through an entirely spiritual form of existence; they try to
conceal this by offering men the consolation that the life of
soul which comes to expression in thinking, feeling and
willing is, after all, sufficiently immortal.
In their
actions and trend of thinking these pastors of souls
instinctively prevent men from coming into contact with
certain beings. Man can never penetrate into the world of his
true and innermost being without coming into contact with
certain beings — just as in the way described he comes
into contact with different beings if he desires or is
actually able to break through the veil of nature. But the
beings with whom he is related in this other world
are of a Luciferic order.
If, as the
result of certain teachings having been imparted to him
without the requisite caution, a man comes into contact with
certain destructive beings behind the veil of nature, he will
become one who values nothing in the world, and it will soon
be apparent that he takes actual pleasure in
destruction—which need not necessarily be destruction
of external things. Many men to whom this has happened have
shown that they take pleasure in tormenting and oppressing
other souls. These are the characteristics which come into
evidence. But it can never be said that men who have such
traits owing to their alliance with Ahrimanic elementary
beings, are invariably egotistic. They need not be and indeed
usually are not, egotists. They act out of an urge quite
different from that of egotism. They act out of a lust for
destruction, and they destroy without the slightest benefit
accruing to themselves. The beings into whose sphere a man
enters are essentially beings of destruction, and they tempt
him, lure him, to destroy.
The other
beings into whose sphere man comes when he penetrates behind
the veil of the life of soul have a quite different
character. They have no particular lust for destruction. In
point of fact, what we know as destruction does not enter
their ken. They have a veritable passion for creating, for
bringing something into being — a tremendous urge for
activity, for productivity. And they too have certain higher
faculties which are less closely related to our thinking than
to our feeling, and especially to our will. We enter here
into a sphere of beings preeminently related to our will, but
— curiously enough — to the noblest sides of our
will.
Thus if we
enter this world without knowing anything of what the
Initiate knows, namely, that behind the world of nature and
also behind the world of soul there is a spiritual world,
when we fill our will with ideals, when we unfold noble,
spiritualised will, this will becomes allied precisely with
the lower attributes of these beings into whose
sphere we have entered. There is a mysterious bond of
attraction between the noble side of our will and the lower
urges and desires of these beings.
And now think
of it. — If a man's spiritual pastor gives him
the consolation of immortality, laying stress on the dignity
of the human soul, the majesty of the Divine and the like, it
may happen that through some slight incitement, particularly
if he was a noble character, he breaks through the membrane
of his soul-activity at some point and penetrates behind the
secrets of his thinking, feeling and willing. But he then
comes into the region of these beings of will, and the
consequence is that the idealistic side of his will actually
begins to assume a sensuous character. And now, with this in
mind, please read the descriptions given by certain mystics
of either sex. As you read the biographies of these mystics,
notice the sultry, voluptuous atmosphere which pervades them.
The most sublime ideals assume a sensuous character. I would
remind you of the rapture experienced by mystics in
connection with their “soul-bride” or
“soul-bridegroom”; in women mystics the mystical
union is like a sensuous union with the Saviour, and in male
mystics like an actual bond with the bride of the soul, with
the Virgin Mary.
It is the
endeavour of these beings of will to pour into man's
thinking, into his ideals, what he otherwise knows as
sensuousness. This is a hard saying. These beings into whose
regions a man there enters, strive—and from their own
standpoint it is a justified striving — to pour their
sensuous instincts into his idealised will. And then the
willing that goes out from the head, which otherwise has a
certain quality of cool detachment about it, is pervaded by a
sultry, voluptuous experience of the spiritual world, which
often seems to have the character of fevered mysticism. The
representatives of the various religious bodies have an
infinite dread of this, and their greatest fear of all is
aroused by those among their believers who come forward as
mystics.
Verily, we
have here Scylla and Charybdis. If we desire to pierce
through the veil of nature, we come to Scylla, to the
Ahrimanic beings who wish to endow us abundantly with
destructive forces of intelligence. If we desire to pierce
through the veil of the life of soul, we come to Charybdis,
to the Luciferic beings of will, who would fain pervade us
with the fumes of spiritual ecstasy, spiritual rapture,
spiritual instincts.
Priestly
Orders intent upon the cultivation of the religious life were
therefore in a certain sense right to take care that when
mystics appeared among them, at least the shadow-side of
mysticism should not come to the fore. Hence in a certain
sense they erected barriers against the entrance into the
spiritual worlds. Just think how certain religious Orders
— I am speaking, not of occult but of religious Orders
— were associated with manual work, with labour that
allows delight in nature, delight in what lives in the world
around, to arise in the soul; just think how such Orders, if
the right principles were understood, insisted upon outer,
manual work. Those who founded such Orders said to
themselves: “The worst thing we could do would be to
isolate men and allow the mystic life to develop in them as
the outcome of inertia and idleness.” Read the monastic
rules originating in better times and in the better Orders,
and you will everywhere see that full account was taken of
what I have just mentioned, how mystic rapture and fevered
ecstasy were counteracted by manual labour. — And now
you will also understand why Father Antonius caused Paul the
Simpleton to work, even if it served no useful purpose. Had
he allowed him to cultivate idleness for years, Paul the
Simpleton would have become a senuous, ecstatic mystic.
We have, as
you see, to do with a duality: with objective
occultism which, if it is simply handed over to
unprepared men, makes them destroyers; and with
subjective mysticism, which if it is cultivated or
suddenly appears in idealistic natures, makes men egotists
— egotists such as are to be met with in numbers of
mystics who have developed merely a subtle form of egotism, a
subtle mania for fostering their own souls. If you read the
biographies of the mystics, you will often be appalled by the
egotism they display.
The region of
Scylla is that of the spirits who serve Ahriman. We come into
their sphere if we cultivate, not egotism but the will for
destruction. If we cultivate the subjective mysticism
connected with the Luciferic spirits of will into whose
sphere we enter, then Charybdis approaches us from the other
side; for these spirits do everything to foster egotism, so
that our own inner nature forms the world for us. This is the
duality in the material world: objective occultism —
subjective mysticism. In both realms there may be
aberrations.
Fundamentally
speaking, in what has been developing for centuries there is
present, on the one side, objective occultism, guarded in the
Secret Societies and Orders but no longer effectively
protected owing to the insistent trend towards publicity. We
have heard of the efforts that were made to find a way out of
the dilemma. And on the other side there is subjective
mysticism.
It follows
from this that when we wanted to lay the foundations of
Spiritual Science, it behoved us not to allow ourselves to be
enticed either by Scylla or Charybdis, but to steer between
them; it behoved us neither to cultivate the old, traditional
occultism, nor the old, traditional mysticism. And now you
have a deeper conception of what gives our Movement its
direction. Both objective occultism and subjective mysticism
in the old sense had to be avoided. Our Spiritual Science had
to be of a character ensuring that Scylla as well as
Charybdis are avoided.
I have still
to speak to you about the fundamental character which our
Spiritual Science must bear in order that it may steer clear
of both these dangers. But it obviously cannot be avoided
that at the present time, out of mistaken notions, certain
people come to us because some of them are looking for an
old, objective occultism, while others are hankering after
old, subjective mysticism. It is hardly likely that either
the one type or the other will find among us what they are
looking for. But they believe they find it by simply
interpreting our teaching to suit their own liking. The form
which our teaching must take, and what our attitude to it
must be if our ship is to be steered between Scylla and
Charybdis — of this I must speak again tomorrow.
NOTE BY
TRANSLATOR
Dr. Steiner
may have been referring to a passage in
The Genealogy of Morals,
Section XXIV, page 287 in the translation
(together with
The Birth of Tragedy)
by Francis
Golffing. (Doubleday Anchor Books, New York). “When the
Christian Crusaders in the East happened upon the invincible
Society of Assassins, that order of free spirits par
excellence, whose lower ranks observed an obedience
stricter than that of any monastic order, they must have got
some hint of the slogan reserved for the highest ranks, which
ran, ‘Nothing is true, everything is permitted.’
” See also Dr. Steiner's own work, Friedrich
Nietzsche.
Ein Kampfer gegen seine Zeit,
page 25 in the
Gesamtausgabe
1963 volume. (Bibl. No. 5).
|