LECTURE THREE:
The inner Life of the
Folk Spirits. Formation of the Races.
[ Study Guide: Souls of the Nations — Third Lecture ]
In the course of these
lectures we shall undertake investigations that will readily strike a
responsive chord in all of you because they will stimulate your
immediate and lively interest. But since the picture would otherwise
be incomplete we must first embark upon such inquiries as are
necessary in order to ensure a full and complete understanding and
which you will find rather more difficult to grasp than the central
theme of our lectures. Today, for instance, we shall be obliged to
turn our attention to the inner life of the normal Folk Spirits,
those Archangelic Beings of whom we have spoken in the two preceding
lectures.
We
have already described them in their external aspect as Beings two
stages beyond man, Beings who, at the present time, are engaged in
transmuting their etheric bodies into Buddhi or Life Spirit. Now man
is also involved in this activity. In so far as he is involved in the
progressive evolution of these Archangelic Beings, this Folk Spirit
is reflected in the human individuality itself as the
folk-characteristic of the individual human being.
We
must now look a little more closely into the inner life of the Folk
Soul. If we wish to throw light upon the inner being of man today, we
must picture it as composed of three members:
the Sentient Soul which is the lowest member,
the Intellectual Soul or Mind-Soul, the central member, and
the Spiritual Soul or Consciousness-Soul, the highest member, in which
the human ego first becomes conscious.
Self-consciousness
is first developed in the Spiritual Soul. Nevertheless the ‘I’
of man is active in all three members of his inner life, in the
Sentient Soul, in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul and in the Spiritual
Soul (Consciousness-Soul).
In
the Sentient Soul man is hardly aware of his ego and in consequence
is the victim of his passions and desires. The ‘I’ stirs
feebly in the Sentient Soul, struggles to free itself, emerges for
the first time in the Intellectual Soul and only becomes fully
conscious in the Spiritual Soul. If we wish to examine these three
members of the inner being of man independently of each other, we
must regard them as three modifications, as three members of the
astral body. These modifications prepare the transformation of the
astral body itself, of the etheric body and of the physical body.
These transformations, however, are not to be confused with the real
inner being of man. The psychic life, the inner being of man,
consists of three modifications of the astral body. The three
modifications can manifest themselves only through the agency of the
lower bodies — the Sentient Soul through the astral body, the
Intellectual Soul through the etheric body and the Spiritual Soul
through the physical body. We can thus distinguish the inner being of
man from his outer sheath or envelope. Man's inner being
therefore consists of three modifications of the astral body.
Just
as man's inner life which is the field of ego-activity is
manifested in these three modifications of the astral body, so the
true inner life of the Folk Spirits, or that which corresponds to the
inner life of man, is manifested in three members, three
modifications of the etheric body. In man we distinguish Sentient
Soul, Intellectual Soul, Spiritual Soul; in the Archangelic Beings,
the normal Folk Spirits, we distinguish three modifications of the
etheric body and since these three modifications are situated not in
the astral, but in the etheric body, they differ fundamentally from
the three modifications in the soul-life of man. Therefore, you must
think of the form of consciousness, of the entire soul-life of these
Folk Spirits, as different from that of man. Let us now, turn aside
from an external description to look more closely into the inner life
of these Folk Spirits. That will not be very easy, but we must be
prepared to make the endeavour. We must take our starting-point from
some familiar conception, a conception that bears a close relation to
the inner life of the Folk Spirits. In the normal life of man such
conceptions are few and far between; man's consciousness has
very little in common with that of the Folk Spirits. It may help you
towards an understanding of the consciousness of the Folk Spirits if
you will bear with me in the following observation.
Now
you have all learnt at school
that the sum of the three angles of a triangle is equal to two right
angles. You know that this axiom could not in any way be demonstrated
from external experience. Picture, for example, the wooden or
metallic triangles in your box of geometrical instruments. If you
measure the three angles of a triangle with the aid of a protractor
you will never discover from external experience alone that the sum
of these three angles is equal to 180 degrees. But, irrespective of
whether you construct a triangle or merely imagine it, you will know
at once from inner experience that the sum of the three angles is 180
degrees. This must be an inner experience, it must spring from the
inner power of your own soul. In order to realize this one need only
reconstruct mentally the following. (The diagram is intended only as
a symbolic representation of the thought.)
| Diagram 1 Click image for large view | |
This
figure shows conclusively that the sum of the three angles is equal
to two right angles. You need only visualize this figure and it will
confirm this axiom for all triangles. You can hold this figure in
your mind's eye without the need to draw it. You thus perform
an operation in pure thought by the power of your own inner activity;
there is no need to go outside yourself. You can imagine for a moment
that the world of sensation and the world of sense-impressions no
longer exist. Imagine the external world as non-existent and space a
creation of thought; then, in this space, the sum-total of the angles
of every triangle would amount to 180 degrees. In order to arrive at
geometrical and mathematical knowledge sense-data are superfluous;
inner experience, what takes place in consciousness itself, suffice.
I
selected this example because it is the simplest and most practical
and confirms what people have learnt at school. I could also give you
the example of Hegelian logic, which would also provide you with a
number of inner concepts. But here you would find much with which you
are unfamiliar, since Hegelian logic is only known to the few. From
this it is evident that man can arrive at knowledge purely from
within, without the stimulus of external motivation.
If
you can imagine that which can only be arrived at externally through
the logic of mathematics you will have some idea of how the
consciousness of the Archangels works. They do not perceive the
external world of colours and tones, such as the ordinary man
experiences. These sensations are unknown to a Being of this kind; it
is impossible for him to receive tactile impressions of objects. Such
experiences are foreign to him. But his experiences can be expressed
in these words: ‘Something is now streaming into me from the
world of inspiration and this inspiration permeates my consciousness
and takes full possession of it’.
Now
the Archangels are not Beings who are limited to mathematical
concepts only; rather is it the consequence of man's
limitations that he can only conceive of the activity of the
Archangels in terms of abstractions, such as the truths of
mathematics. These truths are the normal experiences both of man and
the Folk Spirits. From this you may infer that the Archangels are not
interested in the phenomenal world perceived through the senses. The
external world as experienced by man, and his sense-derived knowledge
of that world, is a world unknown to the Archangels. If you exclude,
therefore, from your picture of the world all sensations and
perceptions of the physical world, then you exclude precisely that
which does not concern the Archangels. The question then is: what
facet of consciousness is still common to man and the Archangels, to
the Folk Spirits? All experiences of the Sentient Soul, the normal
joys or sorrows of life, all colours and sounds, in fact all sensory
perceptions of the external world — none of this concerns these
Beings. Eliminate therefore the entire contents of the Sentient Soul
of man and remember that the world-picture which is the product of
the Sentient Soul is of no importance to the Archangels; they cannot
participate in it.
Even
one part of the Intellectual Soul that is stimulated by external
sensations has no significance for the Archangels. That which is
triggered off by external motivation, man's intellectual
preoccupations and emotional experiences, these too do not concern
the Archangels. But in the Intellectual Soul of man there are,
however, certain things which he experiences in common with the
Archangels. We are fully aware of this when we see, for example, how
our moral ideals are born within us. There would be no moral ideals
if our sentient responses, our joys and sorrows and our thought-life
were dependent upon our sense perceptions of the external world. In
that event no doubt we might delight in the flowers of the field or
in a beautiful landscape, but our hearts could never be fired with
enthusiasm for an ideal that may illumine us from beyond the external
world, an ideal that we can inscribe in our hearts and to which we
arc passionately devoted. But we must not only glow with enthusiasm
and respond with sensibility in the Sentient Soul; we must also learn
to reflect. The person who only feels and does not think may well be
an enthusiast, but he is never a practical man. We must not receive
ideals into our Sentient Soul from outside; we must allow them to
stream into us from out of the spiritual world and we must work upon
them in the intellectual or Mind-Soul. Artistic and architectural
ideals and so on are present in the Intellectual Soul and in the
Spiritual Soul. They are related to that which man cannot perceive
externally, but which pervades and illumines his inner being so that
it becomes a part of his life.
As
we follow the life of peoples from epoch to epoch we note how new
ideas have continually arisen and how new sources of hidden knowledge
have been revealed from time to time. From what source could the
Greeks have taken their conceptions of Zeus and Athene if they had
relied solely upon external perception? Everything that is included
in the traditional wisdom, in the mythologies, religions and sciences
of peoples was born of inner spiritual experience. Thus one half of
our inner life, that of our Intellectual Soul and of our Spiritual
Soul is nourished from within. Indeed to the extent to which man is
inwardly permeated with what I have just described, to that extent
the Archangels can penetrate into the inner being of man and this
defines the extent of their actual participation. You must therefore
exclude from the inner life that which the Sentient Soul receives
from outside and which the Intellectual Soul elaborates. Then we come
to the ‘Ego’ which to us is the highest member of our
being. What we introduce into our moral consciousness are ideals,
moral and aesthetic ideals. Whilst man's perception of the
inner world is screened from him, he is able through the medium of
the senses to perceive the external world of colours, sounds, cold
and warmth. At the same time he is aware that behind these colours,
sounds, warmth and cold there exists a fundamental reality, namely,
the Beings of the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms. And so man can
think of the world in the way I have indicated as having continuity
in higher realms. The vision of these higher realms is denied the
ordinary person and it is this loss of vision that accounts for the
growth of materialism. If man could have a clear view over the realm
extending beyond the Intellectual Soul and Spiritual Soul, then it
would be as foolish to doubt the existence of the spiritual world as
it would be foolish today to doubt the existence of the animal, plant
and mineral kingdoms.
You
will recall how man's ‘I’, his highest member,
embraces the Sentient, Intellectual and spiritual Souls. Now the
soul-life of the Archangel first begins with the existence of its
soul-life in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul; it then rises into the
‘I’ which embraces a world of higher realms, a realm of
spiritual realities in which it dwells, as man dwells in the kingdom
of the animals, plants and minerals. We must realize therefore that
the soul-life of this Archangelic Being may possess what we call
human ‘I’; nevertheless the ego of the Archangel is not
of the same nature, it is not identical with the human ‘I’.
The ‘I’ of the Archangel is, in fact, two stages higher,
so that the Archangel and his ‘I’ are rooted in a higher
world. Just as man sees colours and hears sounds by means of his
sense-perception, so the Archangel looks down upon the world that
embraces the ‘I’ as objective truth; but around this ‘I’
is still gathered some of that part of the astral nature which we
human beings call the Intellectual or Mind Soul. Think of these
Beings as gazing into a world which does not extend to minerals,
plants and animals. Instead of this, imagine their spiritual gaze to
be directed towards their world-picture and that they perceive
therein centres or focal points. These centres are the human egos
around which again is gathered something that appears as a kind of
aura. This picture illustrates how the Archangelic Being looks down
upon those personalities of the folk belonging to him and who
constitute his particular people. His world consists of an astral
field of perception in which there are certain centres; these
centres, these focal points, are the individual human personalities,
the individual human egos. Just as to us colours, sounds, warmth and
cold lie within our field of perception and constitute a world of
reality, so to the Archangelic Beings, to the Folk Spirits, we
ourselves with a part of our inner life are their field of
perception; and just as we set out to conquer nature and transform it
to serve our purposes, so we, in our turn, in so far as we belong to
a particular Folk Spirit, are the raw material to be moulded by the
Archangels or Folk Spirits.
Thus
we gain insight, strange as it may appear, into a higher epistemology
of the Archangels. This is entirely different from the epistemology
of man; the Archangels start from a datum of a different order. For
man the datum is everything appertaining to spatial extension and
which we know through sensory apprehension as colour, sound, warmth,
cold, hardness and softness. The datum for Archangels is what appears
in the field of human consciousness; to them that is an aggregate of
centres or focal points round which the inner experiences of man are
grouped, in so far as these experiences take place in the
Intellectual or Mind-Soul. Their activity is, by comparison, of a
higher order.
What
are the specific characteristics of the world of the Archangels or
Folk Spirits? The world of man is characterized by the fact that he
feels an object to be warm or cold when he takes hold of it. The
Archangel experiences something similar when he meets with human
individualities. He meets with some who respond more actively to the
quickening powers of the soul, men with a richer inner life; these
make a deeper impression on him. Others he finds casual, lethargic,
and psychically empty. He feels them as warm or cold respectively,
just as the human soul responds to impressions of warmth and cold.
Such are the characteristics of the world of the Archangel who,
according to circumstances, can make use of the individual men and
work on their behalf by weaving out of his own being that which has
to guide the whole people. But there is another way in which the life
of this Archangel is related to the life of the particular people he
is leading. Just as the graph of man's life shows an ascending
an descending curve, the springtime of youth and the winter of old
age, so the Archangel experiences his youth and old age in, the rise
and fall of a people's culture.
We
must now look again into the inner life of such an Archangel. From
what I have said you will have observed no doubt that what man
receives from without, the Archangel receives from within; hence when
the Archangel experiences the individuals members of a people as
centres within him, he feels that this, experience does, in effect,
originate in his consciousness, but nevertheless is alien to him. It
resembles the sudden ideas that flash into our consciousness —
its influence upon him is in inverse proportion to the influence of
youth and age upon man. In youth man feels his limbs to be young and
supple, to be growing) and developing. In old age they become flaccid
and atrophy That is something which man feels to be an expression of
his organic life. Now the Archangel, it is true, feels everything to
be an expression of his inner life, but the rise and fall of a nation
nevertheless seems something foreign to him. It is something which he
feels to be independent of him and for which he is not directly
responsible, but which gives him the occasion to incarnate in a
particular people at a definite time. When the opportunity for
incarnation occurs, when a people can be found in the full vigour of
youth, in the creative period of its life, then the Archangel
incarnates in that people just as man incarnates after passing
through the period between death and rebirth. Equally the Archangel
senses his impending death, feels the need to withdraw from the
people in question when he perceives the individual centres beginning
to be less productive, less active and to lose their inner vitality.
Then comes the time when he withdraws from the particular national
community, enters into his Devachan, the life between death and
rebirth, in order on a later occasion to seek out another community.
Thus the springtime of a people, its youthful vigour and vitality
testifies to the youth of the Folk Spirit, which he experiences as a
living, vitalizing force within him. He experiences the decline of
the life of a people as the withering of the centres in his inner
field of perception. This should give to some extent an insight into
the inner being of a particular Folk Soul.
In
the light of this information we may say that in certain respects a
Folk Soul is rather far removed from the individual human being, for
man's Sentient Soul and the lower part of his Intellectual Soul
are beyond the immediate perception of the Folk Spirit or Archangel.
For man, however, it is something very real, something that he feels
to be intimately associated with the very core of his own life. In a
certain respect the Archangel Being, the guiding Spirit of a nation,
is something which hovers above the individual members. Man's
personal experiences which derive from his sense perceptions are
wholly foreign to the Archangel who is guiding the people. But there
are intermediaries, and it is important that we should realize that
such intermediaries exist. They are the Beings we call Angels and
they mediate between Archangels and man. You must understand quite
literally, that Folk Spirits are Archangels, Spirits who have
completed the transformation of their astral bodies into Spirit Self
or Manas and are now in process of transmuting their etheric body
into Life Spirit. Intermediate between those Beings and man are the
Angels. These are Beings who are engaged in transmuting their astral
body into Spirit Self or Manas, but have not yet completed their
task. At the present time man stands at the initial stage of this
task; the Angels are nearing the end of this task but are by no means
finished with it. Therefore these Beings are more closely related to
the life and activities of man; with their whole soul-nature they
feel more drawn to the astral body. Hence they have the fullest
understanding for the joys and sorrows of man. But because they
possess a higher Ego than the human ego, because they are able to
reach up into the higher worlds, their consciousness extends into
those spheres where the consciousness of the Archangels is active.
They are therefore the true intermediaries between the Archangels and
the individual human being. They transmit the behests of the Folk
Spirits to the individual souls and thereby help to determine what
the individual can do, not only for his own evolution, but also for
his whole people.
In
the life of man these two streams flow side by side. The one stream
carries him forward from incarnation to incarnation — it is
concerned with his personal destiny, which he has to fulfil in order
to discharge that duty which is to him the most solemn and sacred
because it is peculiarly his own. He cannot afford to stand still
because his latent capacities would otherwise lie fallow if he failed
to cultivate them. Such is his individual destiny by virtue of which
he progresses from incarnation to incarnation.
But
his contribution to his own people, all that touches upon the affairs
of his immediate community, stems from the inspiration of the Angel
who transmits the behests of the Archangel to the individual.
We
can easily picture therefore a people in inhabiting a certain
territory; over this people extends the etheric aura of the people
into which the forces of the Folk Spirit work, modifying the etheric
body of man in accordance with the three types of force. In this
Folk-aura the Archangel is at work. We must think of him as a higher
Being, two stages higher than man in evolution, hovering over the
whole people, issuing directives concerning what this people as a
whole has to fulfil. The Archangel knows what steps must be
undertaken during the creative period of a people when its youthful
vigour and vitality are strongest. He knows what aims must be pursued
by a people during the period of transition from youth to age in
order that his directives may function in the right way.
This
grandiose plan is the work of the Archangels. Here on the physical
plane the individual human being must ensure that these great aims
are realized. Between the individual and the Archangels are the
Angels who mediate between them. The Angels impel him towards the
locality ordained for him, so that the feelings of the people should
concur in the great ordinances of the Archangels. We shall see this
in the proper perspective if we take what I have been describing not
simply as an allegory, but as a close approximation to reality.
Now
the whole pattern of events woven by the Archangels is subject to the
influence of the abnormal Archangels, the Spirits of language, as I
described yesterday. We have also described how the abnormal Spirits
of Personality, the Archai, exercise their influence. We can now turn
our attention to the domain in which the Archangels issue their
directives, in which they apportion the various tasks which are then
transmitted by the Angels to the separate individuals. But the
Archangels are also able to work into the sphere of the abnormal
Spirits of Personality, and in the mutual cooperation of the
Archangels with the abnormal Spirits of Personality — since the
latter are pursuing totally different aims — it is possible
that the plans of the Archangels are in certain respects frustrated.
When this occurs, when these abnormal Spirits of Personality thwart
the designs of the Archangels, groups with specially appointed tasks
arise within the nation itself. Under these circumstances the
activity of the Spirits of Personality is visible externally. This
may last for centuries. In Germany, for example, where there is an
urgent need today for anthroposophical work, you have seen for
centuries this interplay of the Archangel of the Germans and the
sometimes opposing separate Spirits of Personality. The fragmentation
of the one German nation into the many smaller ethnic groups
illustrates the interplay of the abnormal Spirits of Personality with
the Archangel.
Nations
like this are little centralized; they look more to the development
of individuality. In some ways this is good, for a variety of shades
within the national character can thereby find expression.
One
may also take the other case where not the abnormal Spirit of
Personality, but the normal, Spirit of Personality expressing himself
in the Spirit of the Age, assumes for a certain time greater
importance than would normally follow from the ordinary course of
events.
In
studying a people we regard the Archangel as its guiding principle.
Then follows the influence of the Spirit of the Age who gives his
directives to the Archangel of the different nations and these in
turn give them to the Angels who transmit them to the separate
individuals. Because, as a rule, we see only what is obvious, so in
this concerted action the activity of the Archangels is seen to be
the most important element. Circumstances, however, may arise when
the Spirit of the Age has to issue more important, more momentous
directives, when he is compelled, so to speak, to take over some of
the authority of the Archangel, because he must detach a portion of
the people in order that the task of the Age, the mission of the
Spirit of the Age may be fulfilled. In such a case national groups
split off from the rest; the Spirit of the Age visibly gains the
upper hand over the influence of the Archangel. A case in point
occurred when the Dutch people severed its connection with the
kindred German people. Holland and Germany shared originally an
Archangel in common; the separation occurred because the Spirit of
the Age detached a portion of the people at a given moment and then
transferred to this portion what have become the vital interests of
the modern Spirit of the Age. Dutch history is simply a reflection of
this inner process — in reality all history is only an external
expression, a Maya, of an inner process. In the present case we see
the separation of the Dutch people from the common Teutonic
stocktaking place externally. But the inner reality is that the
Spirit of the Age required an instrument with which to fulfil his
mission overseas. The entire mission of the Dutch people was in the
hands of the Spirit of the Age. The purpose of the separation was to
enable the Spirit of the Age to enlist this portion of the people in
his service in order to execute important tasks at a specific moment
in history. What the historians describe is only Maya; it conceals
rather than reveals the true facts.
You can
meet with other examples which afford a striking illustration of this
situation, namely, the severance of Portugal from Spain, where a
portion of the people had to separate from the main body of the
people. You may look in vain for other explanations; you will find
that in this case it is simply a question of a victory of the Spirit
of the Age over the Archangel. If you analyse the events individually
you will find that the opportunity was taken — and such
opportunities were few and far between — to form a special
people. The Spanish people formed with the Portuguese a homogeneous
group. The external reason for this severance was perhaps that the
rivers were only navigable up to the Portuguese frontiers. There is
no other geographical explanation. The inner reason, on the other
hand, was that the specific tasks which had to be fulfilled by the
Portuguese were different from those of the united Spanish people.
Here we see the Spirits of the Age developing a more intense activity
than they normally display. The harmony which had prevailed hitherto
is replaced by a new relationship. Instead of giving his directives
to the Archangel, the Spirit of the Age intervenes directly in the
history of the people, and other Spirits seize this opportunity to
incarnate. When such a people is detached from its racial group,
then, in that initial enthusiasm which overtakes the individual
members of that people, the Spirit of the Age discharges for a time
the functions of the Archangel so completely that scarcely any
evidence of the severance survives save an atmosphere of bustling
excitement and ferment in this people. This vigour and vitality, this
spirit of objectivity, stem from the mission of the Spirit of the
Age. Then a normal and abnormal Archangel have the opportunity to
incarnate in that section of the people which has broken away. Thus
we see the growth of the Dutch and Portuguese peoples who are now
under the guidance of their own normal and abnormal Archangels. And
the influence of these spiritual Beings is seen in the difference in
temperament which is reflected in the individual personalities of
these two peoples. The work of these spiritual Beings is quite
remarkable, and we now recognize that the external events of history
are simply an expression of their activity.
Gradually
the saying that the external world is Maya or illusion is seen to
have increasing importance. The external events of history are simply
the outer reflection of the super-sensible Beings, just as man is the
outer reflection of the inner man. For this reason I had to insist,
and I must emphasize this again and again, that the saying ‘the
world is Maya’ is so vitally important. It is not sufficient to
emphasize this in an abstract way; we must be in a position to apply
it to every aspect of life.
Now,
as we know, other Spirits and Hierarchies are active in the world. We
have already spoken of the normal and abnormal Archangels. The
abnormal Archangels have shown themselves to be, in reality, Spirits
of Form or Powers who have only renounced in part the attributes of
their evolution. The question that now arises is what is the position
of the normal Spirits of Form? The normal Spirits of Form are four
stages beyond man — we shall have more to say about them in our
next lecture. In the hierarchical order mentioned yesterday the
Spirits of Form do not occupy the highest rank. Above them are the
Spirits of Movement, Dynamis or Mights; beyond these again are the
Spirits of Wisdom, Kyriotetes. I have referred to these different
spiritual Beings in my books,
Cosmic Memory
and
Occult Science — an Outline
Now
you must understand that the law of renunciation, of deferred
development, applies also to the higher Beings, that the Spirits of
Movement who are five stages beyond man may also remain behind with
certain attributes, that certain Spirits of Movement are today bound
up with human evolution as if they were now only Spirits of Form or
Powers. In respect of certain attributes they are really Spirits of
Movement, whereas in respect of other attributes which they have
sacrificed, they are Spirits of Form. Thus there are normal Spirits
of Form four stages beyond man and other Beings working in the same
sphere as the Spirits of Form, but who are really Spirits of
Movement. Just as there is a sphere in which the normal and abnormal
Archangels cooperate so we have here a sphere in which the normal and
abnormal Spirits of Form, the abnormal Spirits of Movement,
cooperate. Through this interplay are formed the races of mankind.
Race must not be confused with nation.
If
we approach the matter in this light we shall avoid confusion and our
ideas will be more elastic. A nation is not a race. The concept of
nation has nothing to do with that of race. A race may be divided
into many different nations; races are different from folk
communities. We rightly speak of a German, Dutch or Norwegian nation;
at the same time we speak of a Germanic race. Now what lies behind
the concept of race? Those Beings whom we describe as normal Spirits
of Form work in conjunction with those Beings whom we have come to
know as the abnormal Spirits of Form, but who are Spirits of Movement
in reality, entrusted with the mission of Spirits of Form. This is
the reason why mankind is divided into races. That which gives man
his human stature, which makes every man, irrespective of his race, a
member of the human species — this is the work of the normal
Spirits of Form. That which divides the whole of mankind into races
is the work of the abnormal Spirits of Form who made an act of
renunciation so that instead of a single human family a wide
diversity of types could exist on Earth.
Thus
we gain an insight into the spiritual background from which the
individual peoples emerge and are thus able to follow their evolution
over the whole Earth. We find that, by virtue of the normal Spirits
of Form, one common Humanity should exist on Earth; that the backward
Spirits of Movement enter into the sphere belonging to the Spirits of
Form and as abnormal Spirits of Form are responsible for
differentiating mankind the whole world over into races. When we look
into the purposes of these Spirits, when we inquire closely into the
aims and objects of these normal and abnormal Spirits of Form, then
we shall understand the designs they entertain for the races of
mankind and how through these races a foundation is laid for that
which shall emerge from them. If we take the example of a particular
people and study it, then, in the light of what we have said, we
shall have understood and comprehended this people.
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