The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Blood Is a Very Special Fluid

[ 1 ] Each of you undoubtedly recalls that today’s lecture, as its title suggests, draws on a line from Goethe’s Faust. You all know that this poem depicts how Faust, the embodiment of the highest human aspirations, enters into a pact with the forces of evil, which in turn are represented in the poem by Mephistopheles, the emissary of Hell. You all know that Faust is to conclude a contract with Mephistopheles, and that the document is then to be signed by Faust with his own blood. At first, Faust considers this a farce; but Mephistopheles utters the line that Goethe undoubtedly intended to be serious at this point: “Blood is a very special fluid.”

[ 2 ] Something strange has happened to the so-called Goethe commentators regarding this passage from Goethe’s Faust. As you know, there is such an extensive body of literature on Goethe’s Faust that it could fill entire libraries. Of course, it cannot be my task to elaborate further on what these various Goethe interpreters say specifically about this passage from Faust; but they reveal little more than what is exemplified in the Faust commentary by University Professor Minor, which is one of the most recent. He, like other commentators, treats this sentence as something Mephistopheles is supposed to have uttered as a kind of ironic remark, and Minor makes the strange—indeed, highly strange—remark—listen carefully to what he says, so that you, too, might be amazed at what a Goethe scholar can come up with—the remark: “The devil is the enemy of blood,” and in doing so he points out that blood is what actually elevates and sustains human life, and that therefore the devil, the enemy of the human race, can only be the enemy of blood. He rightly points out that even in the oldest version of the Faust legend—as well as in legends in general—this blood plays the same role.

[ 3 ] An old book on Faust clearly describes how Faust must slightly cut his left hand with a small penknife, how he then collects the flowing blood on the nib and writes his name beneath the pact, and how the blood then coagulates on his left hand, forming the words: “O man, flee.” All of this is correct. But now consider the remark that the Devil is an enemy of blood and therefore demands a signature in blood, precisely because he is an enemy of blood. I would like to ask you whether anyone can imagine desiring precisely that which is repugnant to him. Reasonably, one can only assume that what Goethe meant here—and that not only Goethe, but also the main narrative and the earlier Faust poem could have meant nothing other than this—is that the Devil attaches special importance to blood and that it matters to him whether the pact is signed with ordinary, neutral ink or with blood. One can assume nothing else here than that the representative of the evil powers believes—indeed, is convinced—that he will have Faust particularly firmly in his grasp precisely because he will have obtained at least a single drop of his blood. This is entirely self-evident, and no one can interpret this passage any other way than to say that Faust is not to sign with blood because the Devil is an enemy of blood, but because the Devil wishes to take possession of the blood.

[ 4 ] This is based on a strange notion—the notion that whoever takes possession of a person’s blood has dominion over that person, and that blood is therefore a very special fluid because it is, so to speak, the very thing that must actually be fought over when the battle for humanity is waged in terms of good and evil.

[ 5 ] All those elements that have come down to us from the legends and myths of the people and that relate to human life will, in our time, undergo a special transformation with regard to our entire view and understanding of humanity. The era in which legends, fairy tales, and myths were viewed as if they were merely expressions of a childlike folk imagination is now behind us. Indeed, even the time is behind us when people spoke, in a childishly pedantic manner, of the “poetic folk soul” finding expression in legend. The “poetic folk soul” is nothing more than a product of the ivory tower, for there is such a thing as an ivory tower just as there is a bureaucratic desk. Anyone who has taken a look into the folk soul knows very well that the folk are not concerned with fabrications and the like, but with something much deeper, which finds expression in their legends and fairy tales of wondrous powers and wondrous events.

[ 6 ] When we delve once more into legends and myths from the new perspective of spiritual research, when we allow those magnificent and powerful images that have come down to us from primeval times to take effect upon us—now that we are equipped with the research methods of spiritual science—these myths and legends appear to us as expressions of a profound primordial wisdom.

[ 7 ] It is true that one initially wonders how it is that—since we are originally dealing with primitive stages of human development and primitive folk beliefs—the naive person was able to visualize the mysteries of the world through these legends and fairy tales, and that when we immerse ourselves in these legends and fairy tales today, we see in the imagery precisely what spiritual research clearly reveals to us today. At first, this must arouse our astonishment. But for anyone who delves deeper and deeper into the way these fairy tales and myths came into being, all astonishment and doubt will fade, and they will find in these legends and fairy tales not only what is called a “naive worldview,” but will recognize the wise expression of an ancient, true wisdom-based view of the world. One can learn more—much more, in fact—by actively investigating the foundations of these myths and legends than by absorbing today’s science based on reason and experience. Of course, one must approach these matters equipped with the research methods of spiritual science. Everything one finds in the legends and ancient worldviews concerning blood tends to be significant, because in those ancient times people possessed a wisdom that understood blood—that special life-giving fluid which is the very flow of human life itself—and its significance for the world.

[ 8 ] We will not concern ourselves today with the question of where that wisdom came from in ancient times, although the conclusion of this lecture will inevitably have to allude to it. A thorough examination of this subject will be reserved for later lectures. But today, let us take a look at blood itself, in terms of its significance for humanity and the process of human cultural development. The aim here is not to offer a physiological or purely scientific analysis, but rather an examination grounded in a spiritual worldview. And we can best penetrate the essence of any matter by first becoming aware of the meaning of an ancient saying—a saying connected to the primordial culture of ancient Egypt, where the priestly wisdom of Hermes prevailed; a saying that serves as the fundamental principle of all spiritual science, known as the Hermetic Principle, which states: “As above, so below.” ”

[ 9 ] You can find some amateurish explanations of this statement. However, the explanation that concerns us here today is the following. All spiritual science is clear on the fact that the world initially accessible to human beings through their five senses does not represent the whole world, but is merely an expression of a deeper world hidden behind it—the spiritual world. In accordance with this Hermetic principle, this spiritual world is called the upper world, and the sensory world that surrounds us—which we can perceive with our senses and explore with our intellect—is regarded as the lower world, as the expression of the spiritual world. Thus, the spiritual researcher does not view this sensory world as the ultimate reality, but rather as a kind of physiognomy that reveals to him a spiritual and soul-world lying behind it, just as when one observes the human face, one must not stop at the forms of the face and the gestures, but is naturally led from the gestures and the physiognomy to that which is expressed in them psychologically and spiritually.

[ 10 ] What every person naively does when faced with an animated being is what the occultist or spiritual researcher does when faced with the entire world. “As above, so below,” when applied to human beings, would mean: The impulses lying within one’s soul are expressed in one’s face—the coarseness of the soul in a harsh, rough countenance; inner joy in a smile; and the sufferings of the soul in tears.

[ 11 ] Let me use the question of what wisdom actually is to illustrate the Hermetic principle. In spiritual science, it has always been said that human wisdom has something to do with experience—specifically, with painful experience. The person who is directly immersed in pain and suffering may, within that pain and suffering, reveal something that constitutes inner disharmony. But the person who has overcome pain and suffering and bears their fruit within will tell you time and again that through this they have gained a measure of wisdom. The joys and pleasures of life—the satisfactions that life has offered me—I accept with gratitude; but I would be willing to give up my past pains and sufferings for even less than all of that: I owe my wisdom to my pains and sufferings. Thus, spiritual research has always viewed wisdom as something like crystallized pain that has been overcome and transformed into its opposite.

[ 12 ] It is interesting to note that contemporary, more materialistic research has, in a peculiar way, come back to this very point. A fine book has recently been published on the facial expressions of thought—a book well worth reading. The book was not written by a theosophist, but by a researcher of nature and the soul. He attempts to show how a person’s inner life—their way of imagining—is expressed in their physiognomy, and this researcher also points out that a thinker always has something in their facial expression that is reminiscent of absorbed pain.

[ 13 ] As you can see, this is a beautiful confirmation of an ancient principle of spiritual science—a principle that is reemerging within the more materialistic worldview of our time. You will come to understand this more and more deeply, and you will discover how, step by step, what constitutes ancient wisdom is once again becoming accessible to modern science.

[ 14 ] The essence of spiritual research lies in the fact that everything that surrounds us in the world—the mineral framework, the plant cover, and the animal world of our Earth—is regarded as the physiognomic expression or the lower aspect of a higher, underlying spiritual life. From the occult or spiritual-scientific standpoint, what is given to us in the sensory world is only truly understood when one knows the higher aspect—the spiritual archetype, the primordial spiritual beings—from which all of this has emerged. So today we shall consider what lies hidden behind the phenomenon of blood—that which has created a physiognomic expression for itself here in the sensory world through blood. Once we have this spiritual background of blood, we will also come to see how such an insight must have a reciprocal effect on our entire spiritual cultural life.

[ 15 ] Major questions are pressing upon people in our time: questions of education—not only of young people, but of entire nations—and also the great question of education that the future will pose to humanity. Everyone must recognize this when they turn their gaze to the great social upheavals of our time, to the social demands that are arising everywhere—whether embodied in the women’s issue, the social issue, the peace issue, and so on. All of this presents itself to our concerned souls. All these questions become clear and distinct when we understand what lies behind the blood as a spiritual entity.

[ 16 ] Who would deny that this issue is also linked to the racial question, which, significantly, is reemerging in our own time? However, we can only understand the racial question if we understand the mysterious workings of blood and the mixing of blood among peoples. Finally, there is another question connected to this that will become increasingly relevant the more we extricate ourselves from a merely aimless approach to this matter and resolve to adopt a unified approach in this area. The question alluded to here is the question of colonization—the question that arises when people from civilized nations come into contact with uncivilized peoples: To what extent can uncivilized peoples assimilate new cultures? How can a Black person, how can a barbaric savage, be civilized; how should one behave toward them? This involves not merely the sentiments of a shadowy morality, but great, serious, and significant questions of life and existence. Anyone who does not know the conditions under which a people lives—whether it is on an ascending or descending trajectory of development, whether this or that is determined by its blood—cannot find the right way to introduce any culture to another people. All of this comes to the fore when this significant question of blood is raised.

[ 17 ] You are all surely familiar with what blood is, as described in conventional science. You know, when you observe human beings and higher animals, that this blood is truly the flowing life. You know that through the blood, the human interior is opened to the outside, and as this happens, the human being takes in the life-giving air—oxygen—through the blood. Through this absorption of oxygen, the blood is renewed. The blood that the human interior, as it were, offers up to the inflowing oxygen is a kind of toxin for the organism, a kind of destroyer and corrupter. This blue-red blood is transformed—through the absorption of oxygen, through a kind of combustion process—into red, life-giving blood. This blood, which penetrates all parts of the body and deposits nutrients in all parts of the body, has the task of directly absorbing substances from the external world and using them by the shortest route to nourish the being. Humans and higher animals must first transfer these nutrients into the blood, form the blood, absorb oxygen from the air into the blood, and build up and sustain the body through the blood.

[ 18 ] A witty connoisseur of the human soul once said, quite rightly: “Blood, with its movement, is like a second human being, which relates to the other human being—composed of bones, muscles, and nervous tissue—as a kind of external world.” And indeed, the whole human being continually draws its sustaining forces from the blood and, on the other hand, releases into the blood what it has not used. Thus, there is a true double of the human being present in the blood—one that continually accompanies him, from which he continually draws his new strength, and to which he releases what he no longer needs. It is therefore entirely justified to call blood “flowing human life” and to attribute to it a significance similar to that of cell substance for lower organisms. What cell substance is to the lower organism, the much-transformed “special sap”—blood—is to the human being.

[ 19 ] A prominent researcher, Ernst Haeckel, has looked deeply into the workings of nature and, in his popular works, has rightly pointed out that blood is actually the last thing to develop in the organism. If one traces the development of the human embryo in the womb, one finds that the structures for bone and muscle formation are already fully developed long before the structures for blood formation emerge. Only very late do the structures for blood formation—and with them the vascular system—become visible in humans; only very late do they emerge. From this, natural science rightly concludes that blood formation itself did not occur until late in the world’s development; that, so to speak, other forces that were already present were first raised to the level of blood in order to bring about at that level what is to be brought about within the human being. When the human being, as a human embryo, passes through the earlier stages of human development—repeating them once more—he first assimilates what existed in the world prior to the formation of blood, in order then to crown the process of evolution by transforming and elevating all that came before into this special fluid, blood.

[ 20 ] If we now wish to study the mysterious laws of the spiritual universe that govern the blood, we must first familiarize ourselves a little with the most basic concepts of spiritual science. These elementary concepts of spiritual science have often been discussed here. You will see that these elementary concepts of spiritual science represent the higher realm, and that once we have come to know this higher realm, it expresses itself in the meaningful laws of blood—as well as in those of the rest of life—just as in a physiognomy. Those of you who have long been familiar with these fundamental laws of spiritual science will surely allow me to briefly review them for those who are here for the first time. In doing so, these laws will also become clearer and clearer to you as you learn to apply them again and again in specific new cases. Of course, for those who know nothing yet about spiritual science, who have not yet become familiar with the view of life and the world that is at issue here, what I am about to say is more or less just a collection of words that mean nothing to them. But it is not always the lack of a concept behind the word that is to blame when someone cannot make sense of a word. Here, a remark made by the witty Lichtenberg can be adapted slightly: If a head and a book collide and it sounds hollow, the book is not always to blame. The same is true of our contemporaries’ assessment of the truths of spiritual science. If these truths often sound to people like mere words and they cannot make sense of them, it is not always the fault of spiritual science. But those who immerse themselves in these matters will see that behind the terms and references to higher beings there truly lie such beings that cannot be found in our sensory world.

[ 21 ] In the spiritual-scientific worldview, we see that the human being—insofar as he appears to us in the external world through our senses, insofar as he is form and shape—constitutes only a part of the human being, and that there are many other beings even behind the physical body. Human beings share this physical body with all the mineral, so-called lifeless things surrounding them. Beyond that, however, the human being possesses the so-called etheric or life body. “Ether” is not understood here in the sense that physical science uses the term. This etheric or life body is a principle that, for the spiritual scientist, is not merely something imagined or speculated upon, but something that is just as truly present to his open spiritual senses as the external sensory colors are to the physical eye. For the clairvoyant, this etheric or life body is what is truly seen. It is that which calls inorganic substances to life, raising them up from lifelessness to thread them onto the thread of life. Do not believe that this life body is, for the occult researcher, merely something he imagines onto the inanimate. That is what natural scientists attempt to do. They try to supplement what they can see in things through the microscope and so on by conceiving of something they then call the life principle. Spiritual scientific research does not take this standpoint; it follows a specific principle. It does not say to itself: Here I stand as a researcher, just as I am. What exists in the world must conform to my current point of view. What I cannot perceive does not exist. — That is about as sensible as a blind person saying that colors are a figment of the imagination. It is not for the one who knows nothing about a matter to decide on it, but for the one who has experienced something of it. Human beings are in the process of development. That is why spiritual science says: If you remain as you are, you cannot perceive anything of the etheric body, and you can indeed speak of “limits of knowledge” and “ignorabismus”; but if you become a different person and acquire the necessary abilities to perceive spiritual things, then there can be no talk of limits of knowledge. These “limits” exist only as long as human beings have not opened their inner senses. That is why agnosticism, too, is nothing but a crushing burden on our culture. It asserts: Human beings are this way or that way, and if they are this way or that way, then they can perceive only this or that. To this one must reply: If they are this way or that way today, then they must simply become different, and then they will also perceive other things.

[ 22 ] The second member of the human being is thus the etheric body, which humans share with the plant kingdom.

[ 23 ] The third member is the so-called astral body—a very beautiful and meaningful name—and it will be shown here again later that this astral body is rightly so called. Theosophists who would prefer to choose a different name for it have no idea what is actually being referred to here. It is the astral body’s task, in both humans and animals, to summon the living essence to the substance of sensation, so that within the living being it is not merely fluids that move, but rather that which is expressed as pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow. In doing so, you have essentially also indicated the difference between plants and animals, although there are transitions.

[ 24 ] A new group of scientific researchers has believed that they should also attribute sensation to plants in the literal sense. But this is merely a play on words. It goes without saying that certain plants experience states of arousal when something comes near them or when something acts upon them. But this is not sensation. An image must arise within the creature as a reflection of the stimulation. Even if certain plants exhibit a reaction to an external impression, this is still no proof that the plant elevates such a stimulus to a sensation internally, that it experiences it inwardly. That which is experienced internally has its seat in the astral body. Thus we see that what has developed up to the level of the animal consists of the physical body, the etheric or life body, and the astral body.

[ 25 ] Human beings now rise above animals through something quite special, and thoughtful people have always sensed what it is that sets them apart from animals. This is indicated by what Jean Paul himself says about himself in his autobiography: he recalls very clearly how, as a small child in the courtyard of his parents’ home, the thought flashed through his soul: “You are, after all, an ‘I’; you are, after all, a being who can say ‘I’ to yourself inwardly.” This made a profound impression on him.

[ 26 ] All so-called external psychology overlooks the most important point at issue here. Please follow me for a few minutes into a subtle line of thought that will show you what this is all about. Throughout the entire German-speaking world, there is a single little word that differs fundamentally from all other words. For every object here in this hall, each of you can name that object.

[ 27 ] Anyone can call a table a table, and a chair a chair. But there is one word, one name, that you cannot utter except for that to which this name belongs: that is the little word “I.” No one can say “I” to another. The “I” must resound from the innermost soul itself; it is the name that only the soul itself can bestow upon itself. Everyone else is a “you” to me, and I myself am a “you” to everyone else.

[ 28 ] All religions perceived this “I” as the expression of that essence within the soul through which the soul is able to give voice to its fundamental being, its divine nature, within itself. That is where that which can never penetrate through the external senses begins—that which can never be named from the outside in terms of its meaning, but must resound from the innermost depths. That is where that monologue begins, that inner dialogue of the soul, through which the divine Self in the soul makes itself known when the path is cleared for the Spirit to enter the soul.

[ 29 ] In the older cultural religions, even in ancient Hebrew, this name was called “the unpronounceable name of God,” and whatever modern philology may translate it as, the ancient Jewish name for God means nothing other than what is expressed today by the German word “Ich.” A stir would run through the ranks of the listeners when the name of the “unknown God” was spoken by the initiate, when they sensed what was expressed by this word, when the “I Am Who I Am” resounded in the temple. This word expresses the fourth element of human being-hood, which the human being possesses for himself alone within the sphere of his earthly existence. This “I,” in turn, encompasses and develops within itself the seeds of higher stages of humanity. It suffices to point out what this fourth element will bring into being in human development in the future; it suffices to point out that the human being consists of the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I”—or the actual inner life— and that within this inner life lie the seeds of three further stages of development that will arise from the blood, namely Manas, Buddhi, and Atma—or, to put it in German terms: Manas = the spiritual self in contrast to the physical self, Buddhi = the life spirit, Atma = the spiritual human being—the true, authentic spiritual human being who today exists for humanity only as an ideal, who is predisposed as a small seed within and will attain his full perfection in the distant future.

[ 30 ] Just as there are seven colors in the rainbow and seven notes in the musical scale, so too in the realm of atoms there are seven levels of atomic weight, and the seven-level scale of human existence, which is further divided into four lower and three upper levels.

[ 31 ] Now let us try to gain a clear understanding of how this higher, spiritual aspect finds a physiognomic expression in the lower realm, as it appears to us in the sensory world. First, consider that which crystallizes within the human being into his physical body. He shares this with what is called inanimate nature. When we speak of this physical body in the context of spiritual science, we are not even referring to what the eye sees, but rather to the interplay of forces that have constructed the physical body—to what lies behind the physical body as a force-nature.

[ 32 ] Let us consider the plant as the being that already possesses the etheric body, which brings physical substances to life—that is, transforms what is sensory matter into life juices. What is it that transforms these so-called lifeless forces into life juices? We call it the etheric body, and this etheric body does the same thing in animals and in human beings; it calls what is merely sensory into living configuration, into living form. This etheric body is in turn permeated by the astral body. And what does this astral body do? It calls upon the dynamic substance to inwardly participate in the cycle of the material flow of fluids, so that the external movement is reflected in inner experiences.

[ 33 ] We have thus come to the point where we can understand human beings insofar as they are situated within the animal kingdom. All the substances of which human beings are composed can also be found in the inanimate natural world: oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and so on. If what has been transformed by the etheric body into living substance is to be called upon for inner perception—for the creation of inner reflections of what is happening externally—then the etheric body must be permeated by what we call the astral body. The astral body gives rise to sensation. But now, at this stage, the astral body evokes sensation in a very special way. The etheric body transforms inorganic substance into life-forces; the astral body transforms this living substance into sentient substance. But—and I ask you to pay particular attention to this—what does a being that is endowed only with these three bodies perceive? It perceives only itself, only its own life processes; it leads a life closed in upon itself. This is a highly interesting fact of extraordinary importance, worthy of being noted. Consider a lower animal. What has it developed? It has transformed inanimate substance into living substance, and living, mobile substance into sentient substance. And sentient substance exists only where there is at least the potential for what later appears in the developed nervous system. So we have inanimate substance, living substance, and substance permeated by nerves capable of sensation. When you look at a crystal, you must first imagine in this crystalline form an expression of certain laws of nature that prevail in the so-called inanimate realm outside. No crystal could come into being without the entire natural world surrounding it. You cannot tear a single element out of the cosmos and set it aside on its own, any more than you can tear a human being out of his entire environment—a human being who, if raised just a few miles above the Earth, would surely die. Just as a human being is conceivable only in the place where he is, where the corresponding forces come together within him and must live within him, so it is with the crystal; and whoever looks at the crystal correctly will see in it the whole of nature, the entire cosmos, in a single imprint. Cuvier was quite right when he said that a skilled anatomist can determine from a single bone to which animal it belonged, because every animal must have its own very specific bone structures.

[ 34 ] Thus, the entire cosmos also lives within the form of the crystal. And in the same way, the entire cosmos is expressed in the living substance of a single being. The flowing vital fluids of a being are already a small world, an imprint of the great world. And when the substance is called upon to feel, what then lives within the sensations of the simplest being? The cosmic laws are reflected in these sensations, so that the individual living being perceives the entire macrocosm within itself on a microcosmic level. The sensory life of a simple being is thus an imprint of the cosmos, just as a crystal is an imprint of its form. In such a simple living being, we are dealing with a dull consciousness. But what this consciousness lacks in sharpness, it compensates for on the other hand through its greater scope. The entire cosmos shines forth within this dull consciousness, within the inner being of the living creature. Yet in human beings, there is nothing other than a more complex development of those three bodies found in the simplest sentient living being. Consider the human being and set aside the question of blood; regard him as a being formed from the substance of the surrounding physical world, who, just like a plant, contains sap within himself that he transforms into living substance, and into which a nervous system is integrated. This first nervous system is the so-called sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system in humans extends on both sides along the spine, has a series of ganglia on each side, branches out, and sends its fibers to the various organs: the lungs, the digestive organs, and so on. It is connected to the spinal cord by lateral strands.

[ 35 ] First of all, this sympathetic nervous system represents the life of sensation that has just been described to you. However, human consciousness cannot reach down to what is reflected by these nerves from the processes of the world. These nerves are means of expression. And just as human life is structured from the surrounding cosmic world, so too is this cosmic world reflected in the sympathetic nervous system. These nerves lead a subdued inner life. If a person could immerse themselves in this sympathetic nervous system—by putting their higher nervous system to sleep—they would see the great laws of the cosmos reigning and at work, as if in a world of light. Ancient humans possessed a form of clairvoyance—now lost—that can be recognized when, through specific processes, the activity of the higher nervous system is suspended, thereby freeing the lower consciousness. Then the human being lives in a peculiar way within the nervous system, which becomes a mirror for the world around them. Certain lower animals, however, have retained this stage of consciousness and still possess it today. It is, therefore, a dull, twilight-like consciousness, but it is far more comprehensive than present-day human consciousness. As a dull inner life, it reflects a more far-reaching world, not merely the small fragment that modern humans perceive.

[ 36 ] For human beings, however, something else occurs. While the cosmos found a reflection in the development leading up to the sympathetic nervous system, at this stage of development the being opens up to the outside world once more: the spinal cord becomes integrated into the sympathetic system. The spinal cord and brain system then leads to the organs that establish a connection with the outside world. When this formation has reached this stage in the human being, he is no longer called upon merely to reflect the original laws of cosmic formation within himself; rather, the reflection itself enters into a relationship with the environment. Once the sympathetic nervous system has integrated with the higher parts of the nervous system, this is an expression of the transformation of the astral body that has taken place. The astral body then no longer merely participates in cosmic life through a dull consciousness, but adds its own unique inner life to it. Through the sympathetic nervous system, a being perceives what is happening outside of itself; through the higher nervous system, it perceives what is happening within itself. And through the highest form of the nervous system, which is currently emerging in the general development of humanity, material is once again drawn from the more highly structured astral body to create images of the external world—concepts. Human beings have thus lost the ability to experience the original, dull images of the external world; they perceive their inner life and, on the basis of this inner life at a higher level, construct a new world of images for themselves, which, while reflecting only a smaller part of the external world, does so in a clearer and more perfect way.

[ 37 ] At a higher stage of development, this transformation goes hand in hand with another. The transformation of the astral body extends to the etheric body. Just as the transformation of the etheric body gives rise to the astral body—just as the spinal cord and brain systems are added to the sympathetic nervous system—so too does that which has grown out of the etheric body and become free after absorbing the lower fluid circulation bring about the transformation of the lower fluids into what we call blood. Blood is just as much an expression of the individualized etheric body as the brain and spinal cord are expressions of the individualized astral body. And through this individualization, what unfolds in the “I” comes into being.

[ 38 ] If we have traced human development from this perspective thus far, we see that we initially have a five-part chain that comes together as follows: first, the physical body; second, the etheric body; third, the astral body; or, first, the inorganic, neutral, physical forces; second, the life juices, which are also found in plants; third, the lower or sympathetic nervous system; fourth, the higher astral body, which is distinguished from the lower astral body and finds its expression in the spinal cord and brain; and fifth, the principle that individualizes the etheric body.

[ 39 ] Just as these two principles have been individualized, so too is the first principle individualized in human beings, through which inanimate substances penetrate from the outside and build up the human body. In modern humans, this transformation is present only in its initial stage.

[ 40 ] We see how the formless substances from the outside flow into the human body, how the etheric body transforms these substances into living forms, and how images of the external world are then formed through the astral body; how this reflection of the external world further unfolds into inner experiences, and how this inner life then generates images of the external world from within itself.

[ 41 ] When this transformation extends to the etheric body, blood is formed. The circulatory system, together with the heart, is an expression of the transformed etheric body, just as the spinal cord and brain system is an expression of the transformed astral body. Just as the external world is internalized through the brain, so this inner world is transformed into an external expression within the human body through the blood. I must speak in parables if I am to describe the complex processes under consideration here. The blood takes in the images of the external world internalized by the brain, transforms them into living formative forces, and through them shapes the present human body. The blood is thus the substance that builds up the human body. Here we see a process in which the blood absorbs the highest substance it can draw from the environment—oxygen—namely, that which constantly renews the blood and supplies it with new life. This causes the blood to open itself to the external world. We have thus traced the path from the external world to the inner world and back again from the inner to the outer. Now, two possibilities exist. We see that the formation of blood occurs where the human being, as an independent being, confronts the external world; where, from the sensations into which the external world has been transformed, the human being independently creates forms and images; where the human being becomes creative; and where, therefore, the “I”—the individual will—can come to life. No being in whom this process has not yet taken place could say “I” of its own accord. The principle for the development of the “I” lies in the blood. An “I” can only come to expression where a being is able to shape within itself the images it generates from the external world. A being with an “I” must be capable of taking in the external world and recreating it within itself. If a human being had only a brain, he could only generate images of the external world within himself and experience them there; he would then be able to say to himself only: “The external world is repeated within me as a mirror image.” But if he can build up this repetition of the external world into a new form, then this form is no longer merely the external world: it is “I.” A being with only a sympathetic nervous system mirrors the external world; thus, it does not yet perceive this external world as itself, nor as an inner life. A being with a spinal cord and a brain perceives this reflection as an inner life. A being with blood, however, experiences its inner life as its own form. Through the blood, and with the help of oxygen from the external world, the body is shaped according to the images of the inner life. This shaping is expressed as self-perception. The self points in two directions, and the blood is the outward expression of this pointing. The gaze of the self is directed inward; the will of the self is directed outward. The forces of the blood are directed inward; they build up the inner self; outwardly, they are directed toward the oxygen of the external world. Therefore, when a person falls asleep, they sink into the unconscious; they sink into that which consciousness can experience in the blood. But when a person opens their eyes to the external world, the blood absorbs the images produced by the brain and the senses into its formative powers. The blood thus stands at the center between the inner world of images and the living, formative world of the external. This role will become clear to us when we consider two phenomena. One phenomenon is lineage—the kinship of conscious beings—and the other is the experience of the world of external events. Lineage places us where we stand, as it is commonly said, through the blood. A human being is born into a context—a race, a tribe, a line of ancestors—and that which is inherited from these ancestors finds its expression in the blood. The blood, as it were, encapsulates what has emerged from the human being’s material past. But the blood also prefigures what is being prepared for the human being’s future.

[ 42 ] When a person therefore suppresses his higher consciousness—whether through hypnosis, somnambulism, or atavistic clairvoyance—he plunges into a much deeper state of consciousness and perceives the great laws of the universe in a dreamlike form, only much more clearly and vividly than in the brightest dreams of ordinary sleep. The person has then suppressed the activity of the brain, and in the deepest somnambulism, also that of the spinal cord; he experiences the activity of his sympathetic nervous system—that is, in a dull, twilight-like form, life throughout the entire cosmos. In such a case, the blood no longer expresses the images of inner life mediated by the brain, but rather what the external world has imprinted upon him. Now, however, the forces of his ancestors have shaped him. Just as he has inherited the shape of his nose from an ancestor, so too has he inherited the shape of his entire body. With his consciousness subdued, he thus perceives his ancestors within himself, just as he perceives the images of the external world produced by the senses when his consciousness is awake. That is to say: his ancestors stir within his blood. He then continues to live out the lives of his ancestors in a dull manner.

[ 43 ] Everything in the world is in a state of development, including human consciousness. The kind of consciousness that humans possess today was not always theirs. If we go back in time to our distant ancestors, we find a different kind of consciousness. At present, in their waking daily life, human beings perceive external things through their senses and transform them into mental images. These mental images of the external world affect their blood. Thus, everything they have received through their external sensory experiences lives and works within their blood. Memory is now filled with these experiences, with the sensory impressions. In contrast, modern human beings remain unaware of what has been passed down to them through heredity from their ancestors in their physical inner life. They know nothing of the forms of their internal organs. This was not the case in ancient times. Back then, what lived in the blood was not only what the senses had received from the outside, but also what was present in the physical form. And because this physical form was inherited from the ancestors, human beings sensed within themselves the life of their ancestors. If one imagines such a life of consciousness heightened, one gains a sense of how it also finds expression in a corresponding memory. A person who experiences only what he perceives through his senses remembers only what he has experienced through external sensory perception. He can have consciousness only of what he has experienced in this way since childhood. It was different for people in ancient times. They experienced what was within them, and since this “inner life” is a result of heredity, they relived the experiences of their ancestors in their imaginations. They remembered not only their own childhood but also the experiences of their ancestors. The lives of their ancestors were present in the images received through their blood. As incredible as it may seem to today’s materialistic way of thinking, it is nevertheless true that there was once a form of consciousness through which people regarded not only their sensory perceptions as their own experiences, but also the experiences of their ancestors. Back then, they would say, “I have experienced it,” not only in reference to what they themselves had experienced, but also to what their ancestors had experienced; they remembered it. Admittedly, this earlier form of human consciousness was hazy compared to today’s waking, daytime consciousness—more like a vividly intensified dream—but it was, in turn, more comprehensive. It extended beyond the experiences of their ancestors. The son felt connected to his father and grandfather in a single “I,” because he relived their experiences as his own.

[ 44 ] Because humans possessed this awareness—because they did not live merely in their personal world, but because within them the consciousness of their preceding generation came to life—they did not merely designate their own person with a name, but an entire line of generations. The son, the grandson, and so on designated the common thread that ran through them all with a single name. Human beings perceived themselves as a link in the entire generational chain. This was a genuine and true perception. And what transformed this form of consciousness into another? It was transformed by an event well known to the history of esoteric science. If you look back through history, you will find that for all peoples of the world there is a moment that can be pinpointed with precision for each individual people. This is the moment when a people enters a new cultural phase in which it ceases to uphold old traditions, ceases to possess primordial wisdom—that wisdom which has flowed through the blood of generations. The peoples are aware of this, and we find this awareness expressed in the ancient legends of the peoples. For in earlier times, the tribes remained self-contained, and the individual members of families married among themselves. You find this originally among all races and peoples. And a pivotal moment for humanity is when this principle is broken, when foreign blood mixes with foreign blood, and close-kin marriage gives way to marriage with those from outside the clan. Close-kin marriage preserves the blood of the generations; it allows the same blood—which has flowed through the tribe and the nation for generations—to flow through its individual members. Marriage between distant relatives infuses new blood into the human race, and this breach of the tribal principle—this mixing of blood, which is found among all peoples and occurs sooner or later—signifies the birth of external reason, the birth of the intellect.

[ 45 ] That is precisely the important point: that in ancient times a kind of twilight clairvoyance existed, and that myths and legends arose from this clairvoyant faculty, which can find expression in kinship ties just as present-day consciousness does in mixed bloodlines. The advent of long-distance marriage coincides with the birth of logical thinking, the birth of the intellect. As surprising as this is, it is true. It is a realization that will be confirmed more and more by external research. The first steps have already been taken. The mixing of blood that occurs with long-distance marriage is, at the same time, what initially extinguishes the clairvoyance of earlier times in order to elevate humanity to a higher stage of development. Just as one who undergoes occult development revives this clairvoyance and transforms it into a new form, so, conversely, our present waking daytime consciousness has developed out of an ancient, twilight-like form of clairvoyance.

[ 46 ] At present, the entire environment to which a person surrenders is expressed in the blood, and this environment therefore shapes the inner self according to the outer world. In primitive man, the physical inner self was expressed more fully in the blood. In primeval times, along with the memory of their ancestors’ experiences, their inclinations toward this or that good or evil were also passed down. The effects of the ancestors’ inclinations could be felt in the blood of their descendants. When the blood was then mixed through intermarriage, this connection with the ancestors was also severed. Human beings transitioned to a life of personal autonomy. They learned to guide their moral inclinations according to what they had experienced in their own lives. Thus, in unmixed blood, the power of ancestral life is expressed; in mixed blood, the power of one’s own experiences. This is what the legends and myths of the peoples tell us. They tell us: Whatever has power over your blood has power over you. The power of folk traditions ceased when they could no longer act upon the blood—when the blood’s receptivity to such ancestral power was extinguished by the admixture of foreign blood. And this statement holds true in the broadest sense. Whatever power seeks to take hold of a human being must act upon them in such a way that this effect is expressed in the blood. Thus, if an evil power wishes to gain influence over a human being, it must have dominion over their blood. This is the profound and spiritual essence of the aforementioned line from Faust. That is why the representative of the evil principle says: “Sign the pact with your name in blood.” Once I have written your name with your blood, I have seized you by that through which a human being can be seized at all; I have drawn you over to me. To whom the blood belongs, to that person also belongs the human being—or the human being’s “I.”

[ 47 ] When two groups of people come into contact, as is often the case during colonization, those who understand evolution will be able to determine whether a foreign culture can be assimilated or not. Take a people that has grown out of its environment—a people whose very blood has been shaped by that environment—and try to graft a foreign culture onto it. It is impossible. That is also the reason why certain indigenous peoples were doomed to perish when colonists arrived in certain regions. This issue must be assessed from this perspective, and then one will no longer believe that anything can be imposed on anyone. One must only expect the blood to tolerate what it can still bear.

[ 48 ] The discovery by modern science that when the blood of one animal is mixed with that of an unrelated animal, one blood kills the other, is an ancient occult insight. If you mix human blood with the blood of lower apes, destruction ensues because they are too far apart. If you mix human blood with the blood of higher apes, they do not kill each other. Just as the mixing of blood from animal species that are too distantly related brings about actual death, so too did it kill the ancient clairvoyance of primitive man when his blood was mixed with that of a non-kin. The entire spiritual life of today is nothing other than the result of blood mixing, and in the not-too-distant future it will also be possible to study the influence of blood mixing and trace it back in human life, if research is conducted again from this perspective. Thus: Blood mixed with blood from animal species that are far apart in their evolution kills; blood mixed with blood from related animal species does not kill. The human physical organism is preserved even when foreign blood is mixed with foreign blood, but the clairvoyant power dies under the influence of blood mixing or intermarriage.

[ 49 ] Human beings are designed in such a way that when blood mixes with blood—and this mixture does not originate from a source that is too far behind in its development—the intellect is born. As a result, the clairvoyant power that originally stemmed from the animal realm is destroyed, and a new consciousness is born in the course of development.

[ 50 ] Thus, at a higher stage of human development, there is something similar to what exists at a lower stage in the animal kingdom. In the animal kingdom, foreign blood kills foreign blood. In the human world, foreign blood kills that which is connected to kinship blood: the dull, twilight-like clairvoyance. The waking daytime consciousness of modern humans is thus the result of a process of elimination. In the course of evolution, the spiritual life of close kinship has been eliminated, but in its place, the new—the intellect, the waking daytime consciousness—has been born from distant kinship.

[ 51 ] Whatever can live in human blood, therefore, lives in the “I.” Just as the physical body is the expression of the physical principle, the etheric body of the vital fluids and their systems, and the astral body of the nervous system, so blood is the expression of the “I.” The physical principle, the etheric body, and the astral body constitute the upper realm; the state of the blood and the “I” constitute the middle realm; and the physical body, the life system, and the nervous system constitute the lower realm. Therefore, whatever seeks to take control of a human being must first take control of their blood. This must be taken into account if one wishes to make progress in practical life. For example, one can destroy a foreign people’s distinct character by imposing upon their blood—through colonization—what that blood cannot endure. For the “I” expresses itself in the blood. Only then do beauty and truth belong to a person when they possess his blood. Mephistopheles seizes Faust’s blood because he wants his “I.” The sentence that forms the leitmotif of this lecture is therefore drawn from the depths of insight. Yes, blood is a very special sap.