CO-OPERATION
IN THE HUMAN DUALITY
LECTURE 3
22th March, 1911.
THESE
first three lectures, including
to-day's, are intended to orient us in a general way in regard
to what must be considered in connection with the life of man, with
his true being. For this reason some of the more important concepts
first given out are, in a sense, left hanging in the air, since the
more detailed exposition of these will naturally have to follow
later. But it is better to make a general survey of the whole method
of occult observation of the human being and afterwards to build into
our study, which for the present we accept only as hypothetical, that
which will then appear to us as its deeper foundations.
I have already dwelt
upon one matter, at the close of yesterday's lecture. I there
endeavoured to show that, by means of certain soul-exercises, by
means of strict concentration of thought and feeling, the human being
can call forth a state of life different from the ordinary one. The
ordinary state expresses itself as it does because in our fully
waking day consciousness, we have a normal connection between the
nerves and the blood. That which happens by way of the nerves
inscribes itself upon the tablet of the blood. By means of
soul-exercises, a man may reach the point where he can so completely
control the nerve that it does not extend its activity as far as the
blood. This activity is thrown back into the nerve itself. But now,
because the blood is the instrument of the ego, a person who does
this, who has freed his nerve-system from the course of the blood
through strict concentration of feeling and thought, feels as if he
were estranged from his own accustomed being, lifted out of it. He
feels as if he now stood facing himself, with the result that he can
no longer say to this familiar being of his, “This is I”;
he must say, “That is you.” Thus he stands facing his own
Self just as he might face any unfamiliar person living in the
physical world.
A man like this, who
has become in a certain sense clairvoyant, feels as if a higher order
of being were towering up in his soul-life. This is an entirely
different feeling from that which a man has when he confronts the
ordinary world. When he confronts the external world, he feels that
he stands as a stranger facing the things and beings of this external
world, the animals, the plants, etc. — as a being who stands
beside them or outside them. He knows quite definitely when he has a
flower before him: “The flower is there, and I am here.”
It is otherwise when, as a result of the liberation from his
nerve-system, he ascends into the spiritual world, when he lifts
himself out of his ego. He does not any longer feel in that case:
“There is the plant-being that faces me, and here am I,”
but rather as if the other being entered completely into him, and as
if he felt himself one with it. Thus we may say that the clairvoyant
human being learns, through advanced power of observation, to know
the spiritual world — that spiritual world with which man is,
indeed, united and which to a certain extent, comes to meet him by
way of the nerve-system, even though in normal life this occurs by
the indirect road of the sense-impressions. It is the spiritual
world, therefore, about which the human being in his ordinary
consciousness at first knows nothing, and it is this same spiritual
world which, nevertheless, actually inscribes itself upon the tablet
of our blood, hence upon our ego. In other words, we may say that
underlying everything that surrounds us externally in the world of
sense there lies a spiritual world, so that we see as though through
a veil woven by the sense-impressions. In our normal consciousness,
which is compassed by the horizon of our ordinary ego, we do not see
the spiritual world lying behind this veil. The moment, however, that
we free ourselves of the ego, the ordinary sense-impressions
disappear also. We then begin to live in a spiritual world above us,
that same world that exists in reality behind the sense-impressions,
and with which we become one when we lift our nerve-system out of our
ordinary blood-system.
We have now followed
in a manner the process of human life, how it is stimulated from the
external world and how it carries on its work through the nerves and
the blood. At the same time, we have called attention to the fact
that we can see in the purely organic, physical inner life of man a
kind of “compressed outside world”; and we have pointed
in particular to the fact that such an outside world, condensed into
organs, is present in our liver, our gall-bladder, and our spleen. We
may say, therefore, that just as the blood in the one direction, in
the upper extremity of our organism, courses through the brain in
order there to come into contact with the outside world (this takes
place by reason of the fact that the external sense-impressions work
upon the brain) just so, as it circulates through the body, does it
come into relationship with the inner organs among which we have
first considered the liver, the gall-bladder, and the spleen. The
blood does not in these organs come into contact with any sort of
outside world because they do not open outward as do the organs of
sense, but are enclosed within the organism, are covered on all sides
and consequently develop only an inner life. Moreover, these organs
can act upon the blood only in accordance with their own nature as
liver, gall-bladder, spleen. They do not, like the eye or the ear,
receive outside impressions, and they cannot, therefore, pass on to
the blood influences stimulated from outside, but can simply express
their own particular natures through whatever effect these may have
upon the blood. When we observe this inner world into which the
outside world is condensed, as it were, we may state that here an
outer world which has become an inner world acts upon the human blood
where it can act at all.
| Diagram 10 Click image for large view | |
If we draw a sketch
of this, and represent the tablet of the blood by the line A B, we
have to represent everything which comes from outside as now directed
in a certain sense inward, and pressing from the one direction
against the tablet of the blood, while being, as it were, inscribed
upon one side of the tablet, whereas everything coming from the
inside we have to think of as approaching from the other direction
and inscribing itself on the other side of the tablet. Or doing it
less schematically, we might then take the human head and observe the
blood as it courses through this in such a way that we say: “It
is being written upon from outside through the sense-organs; and the
brain, in performing its task, has the same sort of transforming
influence upon the blood as the inner organs have.” For these
three organs, the liver, the gall-bladder and the spleen, work, as we
know, from the opposite direction, from the other side, upon the
blood flowing into them. Thus it would seem that the blood may be
able to receive radiations and influences from the inner organs, and
by this means, supposing this to be possible, it can, as the
instrument of the ego, bring to expression in this ego the inner life
of these organs, just as everything which surrounds us in the world
outside finds expression in the life of our brain.
| Diagram 11 Click image for large view | |
At this point we must
understand clearly, that something else very definite must happen to
make possible the action of these organs upon the blood. Let us
remember that we had to assert that only through the reciprocal
activity, through the connection between the nerve and the course of
the blood, can there be any possibility whatever that anything will
be inscribed upon the blood, that any influence can be exercised upon
it. If therefore from the other direction, from the inner side,
influences are to be exercised upon the blood, if the inner organs,
or what we may call man's inner cosmic system, are to work upon
the blood, there must be inserted between these organs and the blood
something similar to a nerve-system. The “inner world”
must first be able to act upon a nerve-system if it is to carry its
activity over to the blood. Thus we see, by simply comparing the
lower portion of the human being with the upper, that we are forced
to presuppose that something in the nature of a nerve-system must be
inserted between the circulating blood and our inner organs —
among which we have here these three representative ones, the liver,
the gallbladder, and the spleen.
External observation
shows us that this really is the case, that in all these organs is
inserted what is called the “sympathetic nervous system”
which extends throughout the bodily cavity of man, and which stands
in a relationship to his inner world and to the course of the blood
similar to that in which the nervous system of the spinal cord stands
to the great outside world and to the life of man, to the circulation
of his blood. This sympathetic nervous system passes first along the
spine and, going out from there, traverses the most widely separated
parts of the organism and branches out, spreading into reticular
forms, especially in the abdominal cavity, where one part of it goes
by the popular name of the “solar plexus.” We may expect
to find a certain variation of this system from the other
nerve-system. It is always interesting, even if it should not serve
as any proof, to ask ourselves: What would be the relation between
this nerve-system and the nerve-system of the spinal cord if those
conditions should be fulfilled which we have for the present asserted
hypothetically? It would be obvious that, just as the nerve-system of
the spinal cord must open itself to surrounding space, so would this
sympathetic nerve-system have to incline toward what is compressed
into the inner organisation. Thus the nerve-system of the spinal cord
is related to the sympathetic nerve-system, that is, if the facts
agree with our presuppositions, somewhat as lines radiating outward
in all directions from the circumference of a circle (a) would be
related to those radii that we might direct away from the centre of
the circle toward its circumference (b). In a certain sense,
therefore, there would have to be an antithesis between the
sympathetic nerve-system and the nerve-system of the brain and spinal
cord. This antithesis actually does exist. We see here that it may be
of great value to us to be able to point to the fact that, if our
assumptions are correct, experience and observation will in a manner
confirm them. And, when we turn our attention again to what we have
been observing, it is evident that external observation does confirm
the suppositions we have formed. We find that, whereas in the case of
the sympathetic nerve-system the essential thing is that ganglia of a
certain kind form themselves which are strong and large, while the
connecting filaments radiating out from these are relatively small
and of little account in contrast to these ganglia, exactly the
reverse is true in the case of the nerve-system of the brain and
spinal cord. There the connecting threads are the important thing,
whereas the ganglia have a subordinate significance.
| Diagram 12 Click image for large view | |
Thus our observation
does, in fact, confirm what we accepted as a supposition, and we can
now make the following assertion. If the function of the sympathetic
nerve-system must consist in carrying over to the blood the inner
life of the human organism, which expresses itself in the nourishing
and the warming through of the organism, and which pours itself into
the sympathetic nerves, in exactly the same way in which the outer
impressions are carried over to the tablet of the blood by means of
the nerve-system of the brain and spinal cord, in that case we obtain
through the instrument of the ego, which is the blood, by the
roundabout way of the sympathetic nerve-system, the impressions of
our own inner body. Since however this inner body of ours, like
everything physical, is built up out of the spirit, we therefore take
up into our ego, by the roundabout road of the sympathetic
nerve-system, what has been condensed as spiritual world into the
corresponding organs of the inner world of man.
Thus we see here
also, strangely enough, how that duality in the human being with
which we began our studies is expressed in even greater exactness. We
see the world at one moment outside; at another moment we see it
inside. Both times we see this world working in such a way that it
uses a nerve-system as the instrument of its work. We see that in the
centre, between the outside world and the inside world, is placed our
blood-system which exposes its two sides, to be written upon like a
tablet, sometimes from outside, sometimes from inside.
We said yesterday and
repeat to-day for the sake of clarity, that the human being is in
position to free his nerves, in so far as these lead to the outside
world, from their action upon the blood-system. We must now put the
question, whether something similar is possible also in the other
direction. And we shall see later that it is possible, as a matter of
fact, to practise also other exercises of the soul that are capable
of producing in the other direction the same effect as that of which
we have spoken. There is one difference, however, in connection with
the effect produced in this other direction. Whereas we are able
through concentration of thought, concentration of feeling, and
occult exercises, to set free from the blood the nerves of our brain
and spinal cord, we are able, on the other hand, by means of such
concentrations as go right down into our inner life, our inner world
— by which is meant in particular that sort of concentration
included under the term “the mystical life,” — to
penetrate so deep down within ourselves that in doing so we most
certainly do not ignore our ego, nor therefore its instrument the
blood. The mystical immersion, concerning which we know that by its
means a man plunges down, so to speak, into his own divine being,
into his own spirituality in so far as this is alive in him, this
mystical immersion is not primarily a lifting of oneself out of the
ego. It is rather a positive plunging of oneself down into the ego, a
strengthening or energising of the ego-feeling. We can convince
ourselves of this if we set aside what the mystics of the present day
may say, and consider to some extent the earlier mystics.
These earlier
mystics, whether they had for their foundation more of reality or
less matters not, endeavoured, above all things, to penetrate into
their own ego and to look away from everything which the outside
world could offer, in order to be free from all external impressions
and to plunge down completely into themselves. This inward
self-communion, this diving down into one's own ego, is
primarily a concentration or drawing down of the entire force and
energy of the ego into one's own organism. This now works
further upon the entire organisation of the human being; and we may
say that this inward immersion, which may be called in the true sense
of the term the “mystic path,” is in direct contrast to
that other path leading out into the macrocosm, so that we do not
draw the instrument of the ego, which is the blood, away from the
nerve, but on the contrary thrust it more than ever against the
sympathetic nerve-system. Whereas, therefore, we loosen by means of
the process described yesterday the connection between the nerve and
the blood, we here strengthen the connection between the blood and
the sympathetic nerve-system by means of true mystic immersion.
This is the
physiological counterpart: that the blood is here pressed in more
than ever against the sympathetic nerve-system whereas, when the wish
is to reach the spiritual world in the other way, the blood is pushed
away from the nerve. Thus we see that what can take place in the
mystic immersion is primarily an impressing of the blood upon this
inner, sympathetic nerve-system.
Now, let us suppose
that we might disregard what happens when a man thus enters into his
inner being, when he does not free himself from his ego, but presses
down, on the contrary, into the ego, and takes with him at the same
time all his less desirable qualities. For when a man frees himself
from his ego he leaves the ego behind with all these less desirable
qualities; but when he immerses himself into his ego it is not at all
certain, to begin with, that he does not at the same time press down
all his undesirable characteristics into this energised ego of his:
in other words, that everything contained in his passionate blood is
not pressed down with the blood into the sympathetic nerve-system.
But let us suppose that we might for the time being disregard all
this, and assume that the mystic has taken care, before coming to any
such mystic immersion, that his less desirable qualities shall have
disappeared more and more and that, in place of these egoistic
qualities, selfless, altruistic feelings have appeared; that he has
prepared himself by endeavouring to bring to life within himself a
feeling of compassion for all things possessed of being to the end
that, by means of the selfless qualities that have thus been called
forth for all beings, he may paralyse these other qualities that take
account only of the ego. Let us suppose, then, that the man has
prepared himself sufficiently for this immersion within his own inner
being. He carries his ego in that case by means of the instrument of
his blood down into his own inner world. It then comes to pass that
his inner nerve-system, the sympathetic nerve-system, about which the
human being in his normal consciousness knows nothing, presses its
way into the ego-consciousness, so that he begins to know: “I
have within me something which can mediate to me the inner world in
the same way that the other nerve-system mediates to me the outer
world.”
Thus man descends
into his own being and becomes aware, so to speak, of his sympathetic
nerve-system. And just as he can know, by means of the outer
nerve-system of the brain and spinal cord, the outside world that
forms his environment, so there now comes to meet him that inner
world which has built itself up within him. Moreover, just as we do
not see the nerves, since no one sees the optic nerve, but rather
that which is to be seen by means of the nerve, the external world
that penetrates into our consciousness, just so also in the case of
the mystic immersion it is not, to begin with, the inner nerves that
penetrate the consciousness, for the human being is aware only that
he has in these an instrument through which he can behold what is
within him. It is indeed, something quite different that appears. Now
that he has brought his faculty of cognition to an inward
clairvoyance, his inner world appears before him. Just as the
outward-directed look discloses to us the outer world, and our nerves
do not in the process come into our consciousness, so likewise it is
not our sympathetic nerve-system that comes into our consciousness,
but obviously that which confronts us as “inner world.”
Only, this inner world which here comes into our consciousness is
really our own Self as physical man.
Perhaps it is not so
much to the point here, but I should feel inclined to suggest that a
thinker who is the least materialistic might, indeed, sense a feeling
of horror rising up within him if he were to say to himself:
“In that case I can see my own organism inside me!” And
what he might mean, perhaps, would be: “How wonderful, to
become clairvoyant by means of my sympathetic nerve-system and to be
able to see my own liver, gall-bladder, and spleen!” As I
remarked, this is not necessarily to the point, yet someone might say
such a thing. But the facts are otherwise. For, in making an
objection like this, such a person would fail to take into account
that what the human being ordinarily calls in external life his
liver, his gall-bladder, and his spleen is viewed from outside, just
like all other external objects. In ordinary life we are obliged to
view the human organism through the external senses, the outer
nerves. What we may learn to know in anatomy, in the usual
physiology, as liver, gall-bladder, and spleen constitutes these
organs as seen from outside by means of the nerve-system of the
brain and spinal cord. There they are viewed in exactly the same way
in which one views anything externally. The position is entirely
different, however, when a man can see clairvoyantly inside himself
by means of the sympathetic nerve-system. He does not in that case
see at all the same things that one sees when looking from outside;
rather, he now sees something which caused the seers throughout the
ages to choose such strange names as those I cited in the second
lecture.
He is now aware that
in reality, to external sight which uses the brain and the spinal
cord, these organs appear in Maya, in external illusion, because the
aspect they offer outwardly does not show them in their inner
essential significance. He sees, in fact, something entirely
different when he is able to observe this his inner world from the
opposite direction, but now with the use of an inwardly clairvoyant
eye. He now gradually realises why the seers of all times connected
the activity of the spleen with the action of Saturn, the activity of
the liver with the action of Jupiter, and the activity of the
gallbladder with the action of Mars. For what he thus sees in his own
inner self is, indeed, fundamentally different from what presents
itself to the external view. He becomes aware that he actually has
before him portions of the outside world enclosed within the
boundaries of his inner organs.
And one thing now
becomes particularly clear, which may serve us chiefly as an example
for this method of arriving at knowledge, enabling us to see what
course these ways of attaining knowledge follow in the life of the
organism, in leading us beyond the customary views. In this case we
can convince ourselves especially with regard to one fact, namely,
how very significant an organ the human spleen is. Indeed, this organ
really appears to inner observation as if it did not consist of an
externally visible substance, of fleshly matter, but rather, if the
expression may be permitted, although it approximates only to what
can actually be observed, as if it actually were a luminous cosmic
body in miniature with every possible sort of inner life, and indeed
an inner life highly complicated.
Yesterday I called
your attention to the fact that the spleen, externally observed, may
be described as a plethoric tissue with minute white corpuscles
embedded in it, so that it is legitimate, perhaps, from the point of
view of external observation, to assume that the blood which flows
through the spleen is strained through it as if through a sieve. When
this spleen is observed inwardly, on the other hand, it appears above
all to be an organ which, by means of the manifold inner forces
already mentioned, is brought into a continual rhythmic movement. We
convince ourselves even in connection with such an organ as this that
a very great deal in the world is, as a matter of fact, dependent
upon rhythm. An intimation of the importance of rhythm in the entire
life of the world may be felt when we recognise it also externally in
the pulse-beat of the blood. In that case, however, it is externally
that we recognise it. But we can follow it externally also in the
spleen. For it is possible here to follow it rather exactly, and we
can also look for confirmation of what has been said through external
observation. To inward clairvoyant sight all the differentiations of
the spleen, which take place as if in a luminous body, are there in
order to give this spleen a certain rhythm in life. This rhythm
differs very considerably from other rhythms that we perceive
elsewhere in life. Indeed it is just here, in the case of the spleen,
that it is interesting to observe how very noticeably this rhythm
differs from others: that is, it is far less regular than the other
rhythms of which we shall speak later. This is due to the fact that
the spleen lies near the human nutritive apparatus, and has something
to do with this.
Now, you will be able
to understand me if you consider how amazingly regular the rhythm of
the blood must be in the human being in order that life may be
properly sustained. This must be a very regular rhythm. But there is
another rhythm that is regular only to a very slight degree —
although one could wish that, through self-education of the human
being, it might become more and more regular especially in the life
of the child — namely, the rhythm of eating and drinking. Any
man of moderately regular habits does, to be sure, keep a certain
rhythm in this respect. He takes his breakfast, his midday meal, and
his evening meal at certain times, and by doing so he follows, of
course, a certain rhythm. But we know, alas, how it is with this
rhythm in many another respect, through the humouring of the
fastidiousness of many children who are simply given a thing whenever
they crave it, regardless of all rhythm. Moreover, the fact that
adults also are not very particular in observing a regular rhythm in
connection with eating and drinking — there is not the
slightest intention here of giving pedantic instruction in this
matter, for our modern life does not always allow of rhythm —
the fact that we fill ourselves with external nourishment with such
irregularity, and that in our drinking especially we are so
irregular, is sufficiently well known and need not be criticised but
only mentioned. Yet, on the other hand, that which we supply to our
organism with such imperfect rhythm must gradually be changed in
rhythm so that it will adapt itself to the more regular rhythm of
this organism, it must be adapted, as it were. The grossest
irregularity must be removed, and something like the following must
come about. Let us suppose that, in order to regulate his daily
schedule, a man is compelled to breakfast at eight o'clock in
the morning and to eat again at one or two o'clock and assume
that this has become a habit. Now, suppose that he should go to see a
friend, and that while there he should be invited, through a courtesy
which cannot in general be too highly praised, to take something
between these two meals. In this case he has interrupted his rhythm
to a very decided extent, and thereby a certain positive influence is
exerted upon the rhythm of his external organism.
Now there must be
something able to strengthen correspondingly whatever is regular in
rhythm in the supplying of external nourishment and to weaken the
influence of whatever is irregularly introduced. The worst
irregularities must be counterbalanced. Accordingly somewhere along
the course taken by the food as it goes over into the rhythm of the
blood, there must be inserted an organ that equalises the
irregularity of the process of nourishment in contrast with the
necessary regularity of the rhythm of the blood. This organ is the
spleen. Thus, by observing certain very definite rhythmic processes
brought about by the spleen we are able to get an idea of the fact
that the spleen is really a “transformer.”
[ 1 ]
It is there to counterbalance the irregularities in
the digestive canal in order that they may become regularities in the
circulation of the blood. For it would be fatal, especially in
one's student days but also at other times, if certain
irregularities in the taking of nutritive matter had necessarily to
continue to the full extent of their action into the blood! There is
much to be counterbalanced by means of a “backward
thrust,” as we may call it; only so much is to be conducted
over into the blood as is useful to it. This is the function of the
spleen, that organ inserted in the blood-stream which so radiates its
rhythm-bringing influence over the entire human organism as to
produce the condition that has just been described. To external
observation, all that we have obtained through the insight of an eye
becoming inwardly clairvoyant is evident from the fact that the
spleen does keep to a certain rhythm that actually reminds one, even
if only slightly, of what I have just been stating. For it is
extraordinarily difficult to find out the functions of the spleen by
means of external physiological investigation. Outwardly, the only
thing that shows itself is that the spleen is to a certain extent
inflated for hours at a time after the partaking of a heavy meal; and
that, if another meal does not follow, it contracts again.
Here you have a
certain expanding and contracting of this organ. When it is realised
that the human organism is not what it is often described as being,
namely, a mere sum-total of the organs contained within it, but that
all the organs send their most secret activities to all parts of the
organism, one will then be able also to conceive how the rhythmic
movements of the spleen, although dependent, of course, upon the
outside world, that is, upon the supply of food, radiate throughout
the whole organism and have a counterbalancing influence upon it. Now
this is only one of the ways in which the spleen functions. It is
impossible to explain all of them at once. Yet it would nevertheless,
be extraordinarily interesting, since not everybody is capable of
becoming clairvoyant, if such facts could be accepted by external
physiology, accepted, let us say, as possible ideas, so that people
would say: “I will for once imagine that what is attained by
means of the inner clairvoyant eye is, after all, not such complete
nonsense as it is often supposed to be. On the contrary, I shall
neither believe nor disbelieve this; but I shall let it remain as an
idea presented to me, and shall then investigate what external
physiology can point out, whether, out of all that is asserted by
occultists, anything whatever can be substantiated by showing clearly
that it is actually confirmed by external observation.”
[ 2 ]
In a certain sense,
what I have just said is such a confirmation. For it has become
evident to us that the expansion and contraction of the spleen, due
to the inner structure of the organ, have a certain regularity; but
that, since these movements follow the eating of a meal, they are
dependent also on the supply of external nourishment. Thus we have
here in the spleen an organ which is dependent from the one aspect,
that of the digestive canal, on external, human will; but from the
other aspect, that of the blood, we have in it an organ that sets
aside to a certain extent human choice, rejects it, and leads back to
a rhythm, indeed, we might say, in this way really forms man in
accordance with his being. For, if man is to be fashioned in
accordance with his being, it is then especially necessary that the
central instrument of that being, the blood, should be able to
exercise its activity in the right way, in its own blood-rhythm. The
human being, in so far as he is the carrier of his own blood-stream,
must be set apart, so to speak, within himself, isolated from what
proceeds with irregularity in the outside world, that outside world
which he incorporates within himself when he takes in his nourishment
out of it. Hence this is a process of isolation, a making the human
being independent of the outside world. Every such individualising of
any being, making it independent, is called in occultism saturnine,
something brought about by the Saturn influence. This, as a matter of
fact is the original idea associated with Saturn, that from an
existing world some sort of Being is isolated, individualised, in
such a way that within itself and of itself it can evolve
regularity.
I shall for the
present disregard the fact that the astronomy of our day reckons both
Uranus and Neptune, which are outside the orbit of Saturn, as
belonging to our solar system. For the occultist all those forces
present in our entire solar system are, for the purpose of isolating
them from the rest of the cosmos and individualising them, to be
found in the Saturn forces — in that planet therefore, which is
the most remote one belonging to this system. If, then, we visualise
the entire solar system, we might say: The solar system must be so
placed that it can follow its own laws within the orbit of encircling
Saturn, and can make itself independent by tearing itself loose, as
it were, from the surrounding world and from the formative forces of
this surrounding world. For this reason occultists of all the ages
have seen in the Saturn forces that which secludes our solar system
within itself, thus making it possible for the solar system to
develop a rhythm of its own which is not the same as the rhythm
outside the world of our solar system.
In a certain way the
spleen does something similar within our organism. Certainly we do
not in this organism of ours have to do with a separating from the
entire outside world, but only with a separating from this
surrounding world in so far as it contains the nourishment for our
organism and we ourselves introduce its activities into ourselves.
The spleen is the organ we first meet when we do this, dealing, so to
speak, with everything from outside in the same way as the Saturn
forces deal with everything within our solar system, within the orbit
of Saturn. The forces that are in the spleen isolate the circulation
of our blood from all outside influences, and make of it a regular
rhythm within itself, a system having its own rhythm.
Here we have already
come nearer, although we are not yet really near as we shall see
later, to those reasons, still more or less external, for which such
names as the ones already mentioned are chosen in occultism. They are
chosen because the occultist does not connect with the names borne by
the planets merely what concerns the planets. When these names were
originally created in the occult schools they were never applied
merely to the separate planets; the name Saturn, for
instance, was applied to anything that excluded a world outside from
a system that took on a rhythmic form within itself. There is always
a certain disadvantage for cosmic evolution, as a whole, when one
system shuts itself off and regulates itself within itself, fashions
a rhythm of its own. And the occultists have, consequently, been
somewhat concerned about this disadvantage. We might say, indeed,
that it is quite comprehensible that all activities in the entire
universe have a basic inner relation and are mutually related. If any
one “world,” be it a solar system, or be it the
blood-system of the human being, is completely separated from the
rest of the universe surrounding it, this signifies that it quite
independently violates external laws, makes itself independent of
them, changes itself and creates its own inner laws, its own rhythm.
We shall see later how this may also be true in the case of the human
being although it must be clear to us, in view of the whole
discussion in to-day's lecture, that it is mostly a blessing
that man maintains this inner Saturn-rhythm which the spleen has
created for him. At the same time we shall see that we can apply this
law also in the case of man, namely, that any being, whether it be a
planet or a man, brings itself through seclusion within itself into a
state of contradiction to the world around it. A contradiction is
thus created between that which surrounds and that which is within
the being concerned. This contradiction cannot be compensated for,
after it has once appeared, until the inner rhythm set up has again
adapted itself completely to the outer rhythm. We shall see that this
applies also to the human being; for otherwise, according to what has
been said, he would be compelled to adapt himself to irregularity. We
shall find, however, that such is not the case. The inner rhythm,
although it has established itself, must again strive after doing
this to fashion itself in accordance with the entire outside world,
which means that it must eliminate itself. Thus the being first comes
to have an inner existence of its own; but, because it can now work
independently, it aspires to adapt itself to the outside world and to
become harmonious with it. To put it in other words, everything that
has made itself independent as a result of a saturnine activity is
doomed at the same time, because of this saturnine activity, to
destroy itself again. Saturn, or Kronos, devours his own children, so
the myth tells us. Here you see a deeply significant harmony between
an occult idea, expressed in the name Kronos or
Saturn, and a myth which expresses the same thing in a
picture, a symbol: “Kronos devours his own children!”
We can try, at least,
to let such things work upon us; and, if we allow them to do so in
ever-increasing number, one new fact after another comes to light
till it becomes impossible after a time to say, in the light and easy
manner in which we so often hear a superficial solution proposed:
“Here are some of these visionaries dreaming that the old myths
and sagas contained the pictorial impress of a deeper wisdom!”
If a man hears two or three, or let us say even ten, such
“correspondences” presented, as these so often are
presented in literature in a wholly superficial way, it is of course
quite possible for him to oppose the idea that there is a deeper
wisdom contained in the myths and sagas than in external science;
that mythology leads us deeper into the foundations of things and of
Being than do the methods of natural-scientific study. But if he
allows such examples to work upon him again and again, and then
becomes aware that, throughout the whole extent of the thought and
feeling of men and of peoples, it is verified that in pictorial
conceptions everywhere and always, over all parts of the earth,
anyone with a very accurate observation and devoted interest in sagas
and myths may find the metamorphoses of a deeper wisdom, then he will
be able to understand why certain occultists can with justice say as
they do: “He alone really comprehends the myths and sagas who
has penetrated into human nature with the help of occult
physiology.” And, indeed, more truly than is the case in
external science do even the names in these myths and sagas and other
traditions contain real physiology. When once people begin to fathom
how much physiology was coined, for instance, in such names as
Cain and Abel, and into the names of all their
successors in those olden days when it was customary to coin an inner
meaning into names, when they once see how much physiology, how much
inner understanding for homely human wisdom is contained in those old
names in a truly remarkable way, they will then win a tremendous
respect and the deepest reverence for everything that has been
devised in the course of the historical evolution of man for the
purpose of enabling the soul, where it cannot as yet through its own
wisdom ascend into the spiritual world, to have a conscious inner
experience by means of pictures of its connection with these
spiritual worlds. Then will be completely banished that idea which
plays too large a part at the present time: “What splendid
progress we men of to-day have made!” by which is often also
meant: “How well we have succeeded in getting rid of those old
pictorial expressions belonging to prehistoric
‘wisdom’!” We shall then cast away such feelings,
and immerse ourselves with whole-hearted devotion in the course of
human evolution throughout its successive epochs. For what the
clairvoyant, with his opened inner eye, establishes physiologically
as the inner nature of the human organs, is so expressed in these
ancient pictures that the myths and sagas really contain in them the
truth of the origin of man. To make possible the expression in
pictures of this miraculous process, whereby external worlds have
been compressed into human organs and have condensed and crystallised
themselves in the course of infinitely long periods of time in order
that they might become something which, in the form of a spleen for
example, brings about an inner rhythm within us, or in the form of a
liver or gall-bladder, etc., as we shall see tomorrow — to be
able to express all this in pictures requires a divining of what we,
by means of occult science, can re-establish from the human
organisation. For what we find there has been born out of the worlds,
as a microcosm out of the macrocosm. We look into this whole origin
or beginning with the help of occult science on the one hand; and we
see on the other that intimations of these beginnings are contained
in the myths and sagas, and that those occultists are right who find
a real meaning in them only when they are given a physiological
foundation.
It is our purpose
to-day at least to indicate these facts, if no more; for this can
help us to win that reverence of which we spoke in our first hours
together. If we practise such a method of study as this, quite apart
now from the “pictures” belonging to the different peoples,
by also directly pointing to what presents itself to a deeper investigation
of the spiritual content of the human organs, if we are able to
present this even only to a very limited extent, it will soon become
clear to us what a miraculous structure this human organism is. In
this series of lectures we shall endeavour to throw a little light
upon the inner quality of being of this human organism.
Notes:
1.
Figure taken from the electrical device which transforms the character
of the current.
2.
See in this connection Philo and physikalischer Nachweis der
Wirksamkeit kleinster Entitäten. L. Kolisko. Orient-Occident
Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany.
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