The Rudolf Steiner Archive

43. Blood Is a Very Special Fluid

[ 1 ] You are all surely aware that the central theme of today’s lecture, “Blood is a very special sap,” is taken from Goethe’s *Faust*. You know that Faust, the representative of aspiring humanity, is confronted by Mephistopheles, the messenger and prince of Hell; Mephistopheles demands that Faust sign a contract in which he pledges himself to the forces of evil, and demands that the signature be in blood. Faust considers this a grimace, a quirk, whereupon Mephistopheles remarks: “Blood is a very special fluid.”

[ 2 ] There are entire libraries devoted to explaining *Faust*, and this statement, too, has been interpreted in countless ways. One of the latter is the highly peculiar interpretation by Professor Minor of Vienna, which goes as follows: Mephisto, the messenger of Hell, cannot stand blood; he hates it, which is why he demands a signature in blood. There may be scholarship in this explanation, but there is no reason to it. Mephistopheles would not demand a signature in a substance he detests. On the contrary, Mephistopheles attaches particular importance to blood. This substance has already undergone a long evolution in legend. As early as the sixteenth [seventeenth] century, we find in Pfitzer’s *Faust* that Faust pledges himself to the devil with blood, and in earlier versions of this legend, it is described in detail how the vein on the left hand is opened, the blood flows out, coagulates, and as it coagulates, forms the letters: “Oh man, flee!”

[ 3 ] Blood also appears in other legends and always carries special significance. It is precisely in these that we see events unfolding that were significant for the past few centuries. Fairy tales and myths all find their theosophical basis, and anyone who engages with theosophical wisdom will see that they contain figurative expressions of the spiritual—of the deepest truths. One such expression is the Faust legend, and in particular this version, which Goethe based on theosophical wisdom.

[ 4 ] We want to highlight the full significance of blood in the world and for humanity, and we will see that the statement must be taken literally. If we try to make sense of it rationally, we might say: He will gain particular control over Faust if his signature contains his blood. — The question now is: Do you really have a special connection to a being if you have some of its blood?

[ 5 ] Theosophy aims to shed light on the future—on how colonization will take place and how humanity will intermingle. To understand what blood means, one must explain it from the perspective of Theosophy.

[ 6 ] To find the way in, one must place the ancient saying at the forefront—the hermetic principle: As above, so below; as below, so above. - At first incomprehensible, it contains an entire worldview. All who take this as their guiding principle say: Everything physical, everything material, is the expression of something spiritual. — To those who look more deeply, it appears like ice and water. If someone tells you, “But ice isn’t water,” tell them they simply don’t understand the connection. Just as ice is nothing other than condensed water, so matter is nothing other than condensed spirit. In all material things, we can find the spirit that underlies them. The true spiritual researcher calls the higher aspect “spirit” and the material aspect, so to speak, the physiognomic expression—the lower aspect. When you look into a face, you can infer from its expression what is going on in the soul behind it—whether joy or sadness. To the true spiritual researcher, everything in the world—the whole of nature—is an expression of the spirit. To the researcher, for example, one flower is an expression of the joy of the Earth spirit, while another is an expression of its pain.

[ 7 ] Thus, the spirit expresses itself in everything. There is no matter that does not express the spirit, and no spirit that does not express itself somewhere within matter. One understands why a face smiles or why it weeps when one knows the pain and joy that lie behind it; one understands the lower when one knows the higher. Thus, we will understand what corresponds to blood in the spiritual realm when we understand the significance of blood in the physical world.

[ 8 ] To do this, we must consider the fourfold nature of the human being. To the spiritual observer, the physical body is merely one part of the human being. It consists of the same substances as the external natural world. However, the physical body cannot, on its own, move, grow, digest, or reproduce; for this, it needs the etheric body, which it shares with plants. The third member, the astral body—the bearer of pain, joy, pleasure, displeasure, passions, and base thoughts—is not present in plants; rather, human beings share it with animals. — The fourth element, through which human beings become the crown of creation, is their ability to say “I” to themselves. This is what underlies all religions. In the “I,” God speaks to the human soul, and a shudder ran through the ranks of the Jews in the temple when the priest uttered the name of the unpronounceable God, “Yahweh.”

[ 9 ] We need not concern ourselves today with the higher members that make up the human spiritual structure. You know that we can perceive only the physical body through our senses; the other, supersensory parts are therefore called the “higher” members. And each of these higher elements has an instrument in the physical body, the parts of which are all of different kinds and not equivalent. We will understand this connection if we imagine that the physical body contains the same substances as the inanimate products of the external world. Imagine a crystal. It is just a stone, but when you look at it more closely, you say to yourself: This stone could not be this way if everything in the world were not as it is. Every individual thing is a mirror of the whole. It acquires this form through the forces of the external world and could not exist in this way on another planet with different forces.

[ 10 ] The brilliant Frenchman Cuvier says: “Give me a human bone, and I will determine the entire form from it.” - For the entire form determines the individual bone. The same is true of the Earth. Likewise, a human being with only a physical body would be a mirror of the universe, but without consciousness; he could express nothing through it.

[ 11 ] But let us not merely consider the physical being, but the being that lives. You cannot find anything that does not grow and, in a certain way, moves its sap—that is, individualizes itself. You see growth, reproduction, and so on in the plant as a physiognomic expression of the etheric body, so that there are two parts: first, that which consists solely of chemical processes; second, the activity of the etheric body, which brings about movement.

[ 12 ] Now let us move on to the animal. It not only sets substances in motion but also has the capacity to reflect pleasure and suffering within itself. When a plant curls its leaves upon being touched, this is a reaction to a stimulus, not a sensation; it becomes a sensation only when an internal process follows the external one. This requires a nervous system; the astral body provides this, so that when you have a human being before you, you say: First of all, this human being has what the purely physical part works with—the sense organs; although they are animated by the etheric body, they are not built up by it. Its actual instrument is growth, and so on. The astral body’s instrument is the nervous system, from the solar plexus to the finest nerves of the spine.

[ 13 ] A being with a nervous system will indeed reflect the outside world within itself, but without the fourth element will never know the expression of its “I.” Blood serves as the instrument for this. It is because a being has blood that it can feel pleasure and suffering arising from its innermost individuality, its very essence. I must first relate these perceptions to myself through the blood; only then does the pain become my pain, and the joy my joy. Hence the connection between inner processes and the blood circulation. Blushing and turning pale are matters of the soul.

[ 14 ] People speak of “blood kinship.” The term is not entirely accurate. The story of Anzengruber and Rosegger, which I recently told you, illustrates the underlying concept. Anzengruber’s ancestors were farmers, which is why he can portray them. As figurative as this may seem, it is nonetheless the factual truth. Blood itself is not inherited; it is constantly being renewed. Blood and all its organs are the very last things to form in the embryo of both animals and humans. What is inherited is what lies behind the blood—the forms, the structure, for example, of the nose, even the brain, and so on. We connect what is inherited to our innermost self by allowing it to act upon the blood; in this way, it becomes our own. Thus, the blood pulses through entire generations, even though it is always new blood.

[ 15 ] Certain things in the Bible are impossible to understand without understanding the significance of blood. Right at the beginning of the Old Testament, you’ll find that Adam, Abraham, and others lived to be 800 or 900 years old. Back then, there was simply a different way of naming people, a different meaning to the word.

[ 16 ] I must mention a fact that was a significant milestone in human development: the transition from endogamy to exogamy. Among all peoples, there comes a point when this ancient law is broken. Whenever that happens, something significant occurs in spiritual development. In endogamous marriage, ancestors lived on in memory to a much greater extent. Everyone retained the memory of what previous generations had done. The moment exogamous marriage emerges, memory is limited to the time between birth and death. In the past, you’ll find a great ancestor cult centered on a progenitor to whom the entire clan traces its lineage. As long as blood is mixed with blood, the individual remembers, and as long as that happens, the same name remains. As long as the memory of Adam endures, his name remains. Thus you see that blood is like a tablet; what is inherited is the inner structure of the body, which is inscribed in the blood. The same self remains wherever the same is inscribed in the blood.

[ 17 ] We speak of the group soul in this context, and we also speak of such a thing in relation to animals. Therefore, we do not refer to the individual lion as an “I”; and the further back we go in human history, the more we encounter the group soul.

[ 18 ] It is only through intermarriage across distances that the individual self develops. The farther apart the people who intermarry are, the more old ways of thinking are dispelled and the outside world flows in; the former sense of identifying with one’s ancestors is pushed into the background. The more that flows in from the outside, the more differences in personality develop; for the outside world is different everywhere. You can see this, for example, in different countries.

[ 19 ] Whatever determines a person above all else must affect his blood. What you say to a person will only make an impression if his blood is stirred. You do not need to reach his intellect or his nervous system; you must make his blood pulse, for then you will touch his ego, since the blood is precisely the instrument of the ego.

[ 20 ] All ancient training consists not in theory, but in influencing the “I” itself. This is also how Faust is to be understood. The moment one takes possession of a being’s blood, one forges a bond with it. Whoever wishes to assert their power unjustly does so; whoever wishes to exert a positive influence on a being may do only as much as is necessary for that being to retain its independence at all times—and must not give it anything that the other is not prepared to receive.

[ 21 ] It is clear that wherever one wishes to cultivate and foster a spiritual life, one must work through the blood.

[ 22 ] With regard to colonization, cultures can only develop where the intermingling of peoples creates a harmonious blend. Where this is not the case—where the intermingling of peoples is incompatible—the culture that already exists is destroyed. To those who look into this, the introduction of European culture into distant lands often appears to be mere illusion and deception. In the future, a culture will emerge that will take this law into account. Then colonization will no longer be based on blind approximation, but on the theosophical significance for the life of the spirit.

[ 23 ] Here you can see that Mephistopheles truly gains control of Faust through the blood, and that the demand for a signature in blood is not a quirk or a monstrosity.