THE BEING OF MAN
LECTURE 1
Prague, 20th March, 1911.
THIS
lecture-cycle deals with a subject which
concerns Man very closely, namely, the exact nature and life of Man
himself. Although so close to man, because it concerns himself; the
subject is a difficult one to approach. For if we turn our attention
to the challenge ”Know thyself!”, a challenge that has
forced itself upon man through all the ages, as we may say, from
mystic, occult heights, we see at once that a real, true
self-knowledge is very hard of attainment. This applies not only to
individual, personal self-knowledge, but above all to knowledge of
the human being as such. Indeed it is precisely because man is so far
from knowing his own being and has such a long way to go in order to
know himself, that the subject we are about to discuss in the course
of these few days will be in a certain respect something alien to us,
something for which much preparation is necessary. Moreover it is not
without reason that I myself have only reached the point where I can
at last speak upon this theme as the result of mature reflection
covering a long period of time. For it is a theme which cannot be
approached with any prospect of arriving at a true and honest
observation unless a certain attitude, often left out of account in
ordinary scientific observation, be adopted. This attitude is one of
reverence in the presence of the essential nature and Being of
Man. It is, then, of vital importance that we maintain this
attitude as a fundamental condition underlying the following
reflections.
How can one truly
maintain this reverence? In no other way, than by first disregarding
what he appears to be in everyday life, whether it be oneself or
another is of no consequence, and then by uplifting ourselves to the
conception: Man, with all that he has evolved into, is not here for
his own sake; he is here as revelation of the Divine Spirit, of the
whole World. He is a revelation of the Godhead of the World! And,
when a man speaks of aspiring after self-knowledge, of aspiring to
become ever more and more perfect, in the spiritual-scientific sense
which has just been indicated, this should not be due to the fact
that he desires merely from curiosity, or from a mere craving or
knowledge, to know what man is; but rather that he feels it to be his
duty to fashion ever more and more perfectly this representation,
this revelation, of the World Spirit through Man, so that he may find
some meaning in the words, “to remain unknowing is to sin
against Divine destiny!” For the World Spirit has implanted in
us the power to have knowledge; and, when we do not will to
acquire knowledge, we refuse what we really ought not to refuse,
namely, to be a revelation of the World Spirit; and we represent more
and more, not a revelation of the World Spirit, but a caricature, a
distorted image of it. It is our duty to strive to become ever
increasingly an image of the World Spirit. Only when we can give
meaning to these words, “to become an image of the World
Spirit”; only when it becomes significant for us in this sense
to say, “We must learn to know, it is our duty to learn to
know,” only then can we sense aright that feeling of reverence
we have just demanded, in the presence of the Being of Man. And for
one who wishes to reflect, in the occult sense, upon the life of man,
upon the essential quality of man's being, this reverence
before the nature of man is an absolute necessity, for the simple
reason that it is the only thing capable of awakening our spiritual
sight, our entire spiritual faculty for seeing and beholding the
things of the spirit, of awakening those forces which permit us to
penetrate into the spiritual foundation of man's nature. Anyone
who, as seer and investigator of the Spirit, is unable to have the
very highest degree of reverence in the presence of the nature of
man, who cannot permeate himself to the very fibres of his soul with
the feeling of reverence before man's nature, must remain with
closed eyes (however open they may be for this or that spiritual
secret of the world) to all that concerns what is really deepest in
the Being of Man. There may be many clairvoyants who can behold this
or that in the spiritual environment of our existence; yet, if this
reverence is lacking, they lack also the capacity to see into the
depths of man's nature, and they will not know how to say
anything rightly with regard to what constitutes the Being of
Man.
In the external sense
the teaching about life is called physiology. This teaching should
not here be regarded in the same way as in external science but as it
presents itself to the spiritual eye; so that we may look
beyond the forms of the outer man, beyond the form and functions of
his physical organs into the spiritual, super-sensible foundation of
the organs, of the life-forms and life processes. And since it is not
our intention here to pursue this “occult physiology,” as
it may be called, in any unreal way, it will be necessary in several
cases to refer with entire candour to things which from the very
beginning will sound rather improbable to anyone who is more or less
uninitiated. At the same time, it may be stated that this cycle of
lectures, even more than some others I have delivered, forms a
whole, and that no single part of any one lecture,
especially the earlier ones — for much that is to find
expression in the course of this cycle will have to be affirmed
without restraint — should be torn from its context and judged
separately. On the contrary, only after having heard the concluding
lectures will it be possible to form a judgment with regard to what
really has been said. For this reason, therefore, it will be
necessary to proceed in a somewhat different way, in this occult
physiology, from that of external physiology. The foundations for our
introductory statements will be confirmed by what meets us at the
conclusion. We shall not be called upon to draw a straight line, as
it were, from the beginning to the end; but we shall proceed in a
circle so that we shall return again, at the end, to the point from
which we started.
It is an examination,
a study, of Man, that is to be presented here. At first he appears
before our external senses in his outer form. We know, of course,
that to what in the first place the layman with his purely external
observation can know concerning man, there is to-day a very great
deal which science has added through research. Therefore, when
considering what we are able to know of the human being at the
present time through external experience and observation, we must of
necessity combine what the layman is in a position to observe in
himself and others with what science has to say, including those
branches of scientific observation which come to their results
through methods and instruments worthy of our admiration.
If we bear in mind
first, purely as regards external man, all that a layman may observe
in him (or may perhaps have learned from some sort of popular
description of the nature of man), then it will perhaps not seem
incomprehensible if, from the very beginning, attention is called to
the fact that even the outer shape of man, as it meets us in the
outside world, really consists of a duality. And for anyone who
wishes to penetrate into the depths of human nature, it is absolutely
necessary that he becomes conscious of the fact, that even external
man, as regards his form and stature, presents fundamentally a
duality.
| Diagram 1 Click image for large view | |
One part of man,
which we can clearly distinguish, consists of everything that is to
be found enclosed in organs affording the greatest protection against
the outside world: that is, all that we may include within the region
of the brain and the spinal cord. Everything belonging in this
connection to the nature of man, to the brain and spinal
cord, is firmly enclosed in a secure protective bony structure.
Taking a side view, we observe that what belongs to these two systems
may be illustrated in the following way. If a in this
diagram represents all the super-imposed vertebrae along the whole
length of the spinal cord, and b the cranium and the bones
of the skull, then inside the canal which is formed by these
super-imposed vertebrae, as well as by the bones of the skull, is
enclosed everything belonging to the sphere of the brain and the
spinal cord. One cannot observe the human being without becoming
conscious of the fact that everything pertaining to this region forms
a totality complete within itself; and that the rest of man (which we
might group physiologically in the most varied ways, as the neck, the
trunk, the limb-structure) keeps its connection with all that we
reckon as brain and spinal cord by means of more or less thread-like
or ribbon-shaped formations, pictorially speaking, which must first
break through this protective sheath, in order that a connection may
be brought about between the portion enclosed within this bony
structure and the portion attached to it as exterior nature of man.
Thus we may say that, even to a superficial observation, everything
constituting man proves itself to be a duality, the one portion lying
within the bony structure we have described, the firm and secure
protective sheath, and the other portion without.
At this point we must
cast a purely superficial glance at that which lies within this bony
structure. Here again we can quite easily distinguish between the
large mass embedded within the skull-bones in the form of a brain,
and that other portion which is appended to it like a stalk or cord
and which, while organically connected with the brain, extends in
this thread-like outgrowth of the brain into the spinal canal. If we
differentiate between these two structures we must at once call
attention to something which external science does not need to
consider, something of which occult science, however, since its task
is to penetrate into the depths of the being of things, must indeed
take note. We must call attention to the fact that everything which
we consider as the basis of a study of man refers, in the first
place, only to Man. For the moment we enter into the deeper
fundaments of the separate organs, we become aware (and we shall see
in the course of these lectures that this is true) that any one of
these organs, through its deeper significance in the case of man, may
have an entirely different task from that of the corresponding organ
in the animal world. Or, to put it more exactly, anyone who looks
upon such things with the help of ordinary external science will say:
“What you have been telling us here may be just as truly
affirmed with reference to the animals.” That which is said
here, however, with reference to the essential nature of the organs
in the case of the human being, cannot be said in the same way with
regard to the animal. On the contrary the occult task is to consider
the animal by itself, and to investigate whether that which we are in
a position to state regarding man with reference to the spine and the
brain, is valid also for animals. For the fact that the animals
closely related to man also have a spine and a brain does not prove
that these organs, in their deeper significance, have the same task
in both man and animal; just as the fact that a man holds a knife in
his hand does not indicate whether it is for the purpose of carving a
piece of veal or in order to erase something. In both cases we have
to do with a knife; and he who considers only the form of the knife,
that is, the knife as knife, will believe that in both cases it
amounts to the same thing. In both cases, he who stands on the basis
of a science that is not occult will say that we have to do with a
spinal cord and a brain; and he will believe, since the same organs
are to be found in man and animal, that these organs must therefore
have the same function. But this is not true. It is something that
has become a habit of thought in external science, and has led to
certain inaccuracies; and it can be corrected only if external
science will accustom itself gradually to enter into what can be
stated from out of the depths of super-sensible research regarding the
different living beings.
Now, when we consider
the spinal cord on the one hand, and the brain on the other, we can
easily see that there is a certain element of truth in something
already pointed out more than a hundred years ago by thoughtful
students of nature. There is a certain rightness in the statement
that when one observes the brain carefully it looks, so to speak,
like a transformed spinal cord. This becomes all the more
intelligible when we remember that Goethe, Oken, and other similarly
reflective observers of nature, turned their attention primarily to
the fact that the skull-bones bear certain resemblances of form to
the vertebrae of the spine. Goethe, for example, was impressed very
early in his reflections by the fact that when one imagines a single
vertebra of the spinal column transformed, levelled and distended
there may appear through such a reshaping of the vertebrae the bones
of the head, the skull-bones; thus, if one should take a single
vertebra and distend it on all sides so that it has elevations here
and there, and at the same time is smooth and uniform in its
expansions, the form of the skull might in this way be gradually
derived from a single vertebra. Thus we may in a certain respect call
the skull-bones reshaped vertebrae.
Now, just as we can
look upon the skull-bones which enclose the brain as transformed
vertebrae, as the transformation of such bones as enclose the spinal
cord, so we may also think of the mass of the spinal cord distended
in a different way, differentiated, more complex, till we obtain out
of the spinal cord, so to speak, through this alteration, the brain.
We might likewise, for instance, think how out of a plant, which at
first has only green foliage, there grows forth the blossom. And so
we might imagine that through the reshaping of a spinal cord, through
its elevation to higher stages, the entire brain could be formed.
(Later on, it will become clear how this matter is to be considered
scientifically.) We may accordingly imagine our brain as a
differentiated spinal cord.
Let us now look at
both of these organs from this standpoint. Which of the two must we
naturally look upon as the younger? Certainly not that one which
shows the derived form, but rather the one which shows the original
form. The spinal cord is at the first stage, it is younger; and the
brain is at the second stage, it has gone through the stage of a
spinal cord, is a transformed spinal cord, and is therefore to be
considered as the older organ. In other words, if we fix our
attention upon this new duality which meets us in man as brain and
spinal cord, we may say that all the latent tendencies, all the
forces, which lead to the building of a brain must be older forces in
man; for they must first, at an earlier stage, have formed the
tendency to a spinal cord, and must then have worked further toward
the re-forming of this beginning of a spinal cord into a brain. A
second start, as it were, must therefore have been made, in which our
spinal cord did not progress far enough to reach the second stage but
remained at the stage of the spinal cord. We have, accordingly, in
this spine and nerve system (if we wish to express ourselves with
pedantic exactness) a spine of the first order; and in our
brain a spinal cord of the second order, a re-formed spinal
cord which has become older — a spinal cord which once was
there as such, but which has been transformed into a brain.
Thus we have, in the
first place, shown with absolute accuracy just what we need to
consider when we fix our attention objectively upon the organic mass
enclosed; within this protective bony sheath. Here, however,
something else must be taken into account, namely, something which
really can confront us only in the field of occultism. A question may
suggest itself, when for instance we speak as we have just been doing
about the brain and the spinal cord, taking perhaps the following
form: when such a re-formation as this takes place, from the plan of
an organ at a first stage to the plan of an organ at a second stage,
the evolutionary process may be progressive, or it may be
retrogressive. That is, the process before us may either be one which
leads to higher stages of perfection of the organ, or one which
causes the organ to degenerate and gradually to die. We might say
therefore, when we consider an organ like our spinal cord as it is
to-day, that it seems to us to be at the present time a relatively
young organ since it has not yet succeeded in becoming a brain. We
may think about this spinal cord in two different ways. First, we may
consider that it has in itself the forces through which it may also
one day become a brain. In that case, it would be in a position to
pass through a progressive evolution, and to become what our brain is
to-day; or secondly, we may consider that it has not at all the
latent tendency to attain to this second stage. In that case its
evolution would be leading toward extinction; it would pass into
decadence and be destined to suggest the first stage and not to
arrive at the second. Now, if we reflect that the groundwork of our
present brain is what was once the plan or beginning of a spinal
cord, we see that that former spinal cord undoubtedly had in it the
forces of a progressive evolution, since it actually did become a
brain. If, on the other hand, we consider at this point our present
spinal cord, the occult method of observation reveals that what
to-day is our spinal cord has not within itself, as a matter
of fact, the latent tendency to a forward-directed evolution, but is
rather preparing to conclude its evolution at this present stage.
If I may express
myself grotesquely, the human being is not called upon to believe
that one day his spinal cord, which now has the form of a slender
string, will be puffed out as the brain is puffed out. We shall see
later what underlies the occult view, so as to enable us to say this.
Yet, through this simple comparison of the form of this organ in man
and in the lower animals, where it first appears, you will find an
external intimation of what has just been stated. In the snake, for
example, the spine adds on to itself a series of innumerable rings
behind the head and is filled out with the spinal cord, and this
spinal column extends both forward and backward indefinitely. In the
case of man the spinal cord, as it extends downward from the point
where it is joined to the brain, actually tends more and more to a
conclusion, showing less and less clearly that formation which it
exhibits in its upper portions. Thus, even through external
observation, one may notice that what in the case of the snake
continues its natural evolution rearward, is here hastening toward a
conclusion, toward a sort of degeneration. This is a method of
observation through external comparison, and we shall see how the
occult view affects it.
To summarise, then,
we may say that within the bony structure of the skull we have a
spinal cord which through a progressive development has become a
brain, and is now at a second stage of its evolution; and in our
spinal cord we have, as it were, the attempt once again to form such
a brain, an attempt, however, which is destined to fail and cannot
reach its full growth into a real brain.
Let us now proceed
from this reflection to that which can be known even from an
external, layman's observation, to the functions of the brain
and the spinal cord. It is more or less known to everyone that the
instrument of the so-called higher soul-activities, is in a certain
respect, in the brain, that these higher soul-activities are directed
by the organs of the brain. Furthermore, it is recognised that the
more unconscious soul-activities are directed from the spinal cord. I
mean those soul-activities in which very little deliberation
interposes itself between the reception of the external impression
and the action which follows it. Consider for a moment how you jerk
back your hand when it is stung. Not very much deliberation
intervenes between the sting and the drawing back. Such
soul-activities as these are in fact, and with a certain
justification, even regarded by natural science in such a way as to
attribute to them the spinal cord as their instrument.
We have other
soul-activities in which a more mature reflection interposes itself
between the external impression and that which finally leads to
action. Take, for example, an artist who observes external nature,
straining every sense and gathering countless impressions. A long
time passes, during which he works over these impressions in an inner
activity of soul. He then proceeds to establish after a long interval
through outward action what has grown, in long-continued
soul-activity, out of the external impressions. Here there
intervenes, between the outer impression and that which the man
produces as a result of the outer impression, a richer activity of
soul. This is also true of the scientific investigator; and, indeed,
of anyone who reflects about the things that he wishes to do, and
does not rush wildly at every external impression, who does not as it
were, in reflex action fly into a passion like a bull when he sees
the colour red, but thinks about what he wishes to do. In every
instance where reflection intervenes, we encounter the brain as an
instrument of soul-activity.
If we go still deeper
into this matter we may say to ourselves: True, but how then does
this soul-activity of ours, in which we use the brain, manifest
itself? We perceive, to begin with, that it is of two different
kinds, one of which takes place in our ordinary waking
day-consciousness. In this consciousness we accumulate, through the
senses, external impressions; and these we work over by means of the
brain in rational reflection. To express it in popular language
— we shall have to go into this still more accurately —
we must picture to ourselves that these outer impressions
find their way inside us through the doors of the senses, and
stimulate certain processes in the brain. If we should wish, purely
in connection with the external organisation, to follow what there
takes place, we should see that the brain is set into activity
through the stream of external impressions flowing into it; and that
what this stream becomes, as a result of reflection, that is the
deeds, the actions, which we ascribe to the instrumentality of the
spinal cord.
Then, there also
mingles in human life as it is to-day, between the wide-awake life of
day and the unconscious life of sleep, the picture-life of dreams.
This dream-life is a remarkable intermingling of the wide-awake life
of day, which lays full claim to the instrument of our brain, and the
unconscious life of sleep. Merely in outline, in a way that the lay
thinker may observe for himself, we will now say something about this
life of dreams.
We see that the whole
of the dream-life has a strange similarity, from one aspect, to that
subordinate soul-activity which we associate with the spinal cord.
For, when dream-pictures emerge in our soul they do not appear as
representations resulting from reflection, but rather by reason of a
certain necessity, as, for instance, a movement of the hand results
when a fly settles on the eye. In this latter case an action takes
place as an immediate, necessary movement of defense. In dream-life
something different appears, yet likewise because of an immediate
necessity. It is not an action which here appears but rather a
picture upon the horizon of the soul. Yet, just as we have
no deliberate influence upon the movement of the hand in the
wide-awake life of day, but make this movement of necessity, even so
do we have no influence over the way that dream-pictures shape
themselves, as they come and go in the chaotic world of dreams. We
might say, therefore, that if we look at a man during his
wide-awake life of day, and see something of what goes on
within him in the form of reflex movements of all sorts, when he does
things without reflecting, in response to external impressions; if we
observe the sum-total of gestures and physiognomic expressions which
he accomplishes without reflection, we then have a sum of actions
which through necessity become a part of this man as soul-actions. If
we now consider a dreaming man we have a sum of pictures, in
this case something possessing the character not of action but of
pictures, which work into and act upon his being. We may say,
therefore, that just as in the wakeful life of day those human
actions are carried out which arise and take shape without
reflection, so do the dream-conceptions, chaotically flowing
together, come about within a world of pictures.
Now, if we look back
again at our brain, and wished to consider it as being in a certain
way the instrument also of the dream-consciousness, what should we
have to do? We should have to suppose that there is in some way or
other something inside the brain which behaves in a way similar to
the spinal cord that guides the unconscious actions. Thus, we have,
as it were, to look upon the brain as primarily the instrument of the
wide-awake soul-life, during which we create our concepts through
deliberation, and underlying it a mysterious spinal cord which does
not express itself; however, as a complete spinal cord but remains
compressed inside the brain, and does not attain to actions.
Whereas our spinal cord does attain to actions, even though these are
not brought about through deliberation; the brain in this case
induces merely pictures. It stops midway, this mysterious thing which
lies there like the groundwork of a brain. Might we not say,
therefore, that the dream-world enables us in a most remarkable way
to point, as in a mystery, to that spinal cord lying there at the
basis of the brain?
| Diagram 2 Click image for large view | |
If we consider the
brain, in its present fully-developed state, as the instrument of our
wide-awake life of day, its appearance for us is that which it has
when removed from the cavity of the skull. Yet there must be
something there, within, when the wakeful life of day is blotted out.
And here occult observation shows us that there actually is, inside
the brain, a mysterious spinal cord which calls forth dreams. If we
should wish to make a drawing of it, we could represent it in such a
way that, within the brain which is connected with the world of ideas
of the life of day, we should have an ancient mysterious spinal cord,
invisible to external perception, in some way or other secreted
inside it. I shall first state quite hypothetically that this spinal
cord becomes active when man sleeps and dreams, and is active at that
time in a manner characteristic of a spinal cord, namely, that it
calls forth its effects through necessity. But, because it is
compressed within the brain, it does not lead to actions, but only to
pictures and picture-actions; for in dreams we act, as we know, only
in pictures. So that because of this peculiar, strange, chaotic life
that we carry on in dreams, we should have to point to the fact that
underlying the brain, which we quite properly consider to be the
instrument of our wide-awake life of day, is a mysterious organ which
perhaps represents an earlier form of the brain — which has
evolved itself to its present state out of this earlier form —
and that this mysterious organ is active to-day only when the new
form is inactive. It then reveals what the brain once was. This
ancient spinal cord conjures up what is possible, considering the way
it is enclosed, and induces, not completed actions, but only
pictures.
Thus the observation
of life leads us, of itself, to separate the brain into two stages.
The very fact that we dream indicates that the brain has passed
through two stages and has evolved to the wide-awake life of day.
When, however, this wakeful day-time life is stilled, the ancient
organ again exerts itself in the life of dreams. Thus we have first
made types out of what external observation of the world
furnishes us, which shows us that even observation of the soul-life
adds meaning to what a consideration of the outer form can give us,
namely, that the wide-awake life of day is related to dream-life in
the same way as the perfected brain at the second stage of its
evolution is related to its groundwork, to the ancient spinal cord
which is at the first stage of its evolution. In a remarkable way,
which we shall justify in the following lectures, occult, clairvoyant
vision can serve us as a basis for a comprehensive observation of
human nature, as it expresses itself in those organs enclosed within
the bony mass of the skull and vertebrae.
In this connection
you already know, from spiritual-scientific observations, that
man's visible body is only one part of the whole human being,
and that in the moment the seer's eye is opened the physical
body reveals itself as enclosed, embedded, in a super-sensible
organism, in what, roughly speaking, is called the “human
aura.” For the present this may be here affirmed as a fact, and
later we shall return to it to see how far the statement is
justified. This human aura, within which physical man is simply
enclosed like a kernel, shows itself to the seer's eye as
having different colours. At the same time, we must not imagine that
we could ever make a picture of this aura, for the colours are in
continual movement; and every picture of it, therefore, that we
sketch with pigment can be only an approximate likeness, somewhat in
the same way that it is impossible to portray lightning, since one
would always end by painting it only as a stiff rod, a rigid image.
Just as it is never possible to paint lightning, so is it even less
possible to do this in the case of the aura, because of the added
fact that the auric colours are in themselves extraordinary unstable
and mobile. We cannot, therefore, express it otherwise than to say
that at best we are representing it symbolically.
Now, these auric
colours show themselves as differing very remarkably, depending upon
the fundamental character of the whole human organism. And it is
interesting to call attention to the auric picture which presents
itself to the clairvoyant eye, if we imagine the cranium and the
spine observed from the rear. There we find that the appearance of
that portion of the aura belonging to this region is such that we can
only describe the whole man as embedded in the aura. Although we must
remember that the auric colours are in a state of movement within the
aura, yet it is evident that one of the colours is especially
distinct, namely around the lower parts of the spine. We may call
this greenish. And again we may mention another distinct colour,
which does not in any other part of the body appear so beautiful as
here, around the region of the brain; and this in its ground-tone is
a sort of lilac-blue. You can get the best conception of this
lilac-blue if you imagine the colour of the peach-blossom; yet even
this is only approximate. Between this lilac-blue of the upper
portion of the brain, and the green of the lower parts of the spine,
we have other colour nuances surrounding the human being which are
hard to describe, since they do not often appear among the ordinary
colours present in the surrounding world of the senses. Thus, for
instance, adjoining the green is a colour which is neither green,
blue, nor yellow, but a mixture of all three. In short, there appear
to us, in this intermediate space, colours which actually do not
exist in the physical world of sense. Even though it is difficult to
describe what is here within the aura, one thing may nevertheless be
stated positively: beginning above with the puffed-out spinal cord,
we have lilac-blue colour and then, coming down to the end of the
spine, we have a more distinctly greenish shade.
| Diagram 3 Click image for large view | |
This I wish to state
as a fact, along with what has been said to-day in connection with a
purely external observation of the human form and of human conduct.
Following this, we shall endeavour to observe also that other part of
the human being which is attached to the portion we have discussed
to-day, in the form of neck, trunk, limbs, etc., as constituting the
second part of the human duality, to the end that we may then be able
to proceed to a consideration of what is presented to us in the
complete interaction of this human duality.
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