The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture IV

[ 1 ] We have spoken of the consciousness of the various kingdoms of nature. The human organs possess an organ consciousness; this consciousness is found in an abnormal form in idiots. It is the astral consciousness, which is also possessed by nocturnal insects, ants, spiders, and so on. We find a completely different kind of consciousness in bees. Let us use the example of bees to show how one arrives at such truths and then uses them for orientation in the world.

[ 2 ] Occult training is something entirely different from our ordinary schooling; unlike the latter, it does not aim to cram a great deal of material into the student. In rigorous occult training, the student receives no material at all, but rather a pithy sentence imbued with inner power. This was also the case in earlier times. The student had to meditate on this sentence in a state of complete inner stillness. This had the effect of eventually filling the student’s inner being with light, making it completely radiant. Once a person has reached the point of seeing through themselves, they can immerse their consciousness into other beings. To do this, one must have precisely grasped the point directly behind the center of the eyes, and then guide the consciousness down from there into the heart. Then one can project their consciousness into other things; for example, one can then fathom what lives in an “anthill.”

[ 3 ] Then one can also perceive life within a beehive. In doing so, however, a phenomenon arises that one does not otherwise experience on Earth. Amid the hustle and bustle of the beehive, one experiences something that transcends our earthly existence—something that does not exist anywhere else on Earth. What goes on on other planets is beyond our imagination. For example, one cannot know what happens on the Sun or on Venus unless one can immerse oneself in the life and activities of a bee colony. The bee has not undergone the entire evolutionary path that we have. In its early stages, it is not linked to the same evolutionary chain as other animals and humans. The consciousness of the beehive—not that of the individual bees—is incredibly high. Humanity will only attain the wisdom of this consciousness in its Venusian existence. Then humans will possess the consciousness necessary to build from within themselves using a substance they generate from within. Ants construct their anthills from all sorts of materials, but they do not yet build cells. Cell-building on the higher planes is something entirely different. By transferring one’s consciousness into the beehive—by adopting the Venusian consciousness, which is entirely different from what is usual on Earth—one learns to anticipate something that will occur in our Venusian existence: the absolute withdrawal of the sexual. Among bees, sexuality is reserved solely for the queen. The kamic-sexual aspect is almost completely eliminated; the drones are killed. What will actually take place in later humanity has been prefigured here, and work is the highest principle. One can only be enabled to immerse oneself in the bee colony through the impulse of the spirit.

[ 4 ] To move forward, we will now explore the true concept of alchemy. Even in the 18th century, articles on alchemy could still be found in the German *Reichsanzeiger*. Kortum, the author of the *Jobsiade*, was one of the most significant alchemists of the 18th century. Some articles from that time mention the so-called “primordial matter,” which is associated with the Philosopher’s Stone. Kortum, who was deeply versed in the subject, said at the time: “Seeking the Philosopher’s Stone is very difficult, but it is everywhere, for you encounter it every day, know it very well, hold it in your hand every day, yet do not realize that this is the Philosopher’s Stone.” - This is an apt description.

[ 5 ] In nature, everything is arranged with infinite wisdom, operating according to an infinitely wise system. All beings that live on kamic energy—animals and humans—and all beings that live on pranic energy—plants—are interconnected. We inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Animals do the same. If this were to simply continue indefinitely, the air would soon be completely filled with carbon dioxide. But plants assimilate carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. Animals and humans cannot live without plants. Carbon dioxide consists of carbon and oxygen. Plants retain the carbon and exhale the oxygen. Humans, on the other hand, take in oxygen and, through their life processes, convert it into carbon dioxide by combining it with carbon. Plants use the carbon they retain to build their bodies.

[ 6 ] In earlier times, the Earth looked different than it does now. Back then, forests of giant ferns and horsetails grew even in these parts. These have since disappeared. First, the Earth became covered with a layer of peat left behind by the remains of these plants; then, the former forests of ferns and horsetails transformed into the Earth’s vast coal deposits. The Earth’s rocks thus gradually formed from the plant kingdom or the animal kingdom. When you look at a piece of coal, you can tell yourself that it was once a plant. If one were to go even further back in time, one could also find the plants from which rock crystal, malachite, and so on were formed. The central belt of the Alps was formed from ancient plants that predate bituminous coal. A diamond is exactly the same as bituminous coal. Nature created the diamond from a form of coal even older than the one we have today. Rock crystal, too, originated from plants.

[ 7 ] Limestone is derived from animals. The Jurassic period, for example, is such a limestone formation. It was once covered by the sea and was formed from marine animals, specifically their shed shells and exoskeletons. Thus, the more recent limestone formations originated from animals, while the primordial rock originated from plants. The plant kingdom gradually transitions into the mineral kingdom. Everything solid on Earth has been formed from plant matter. This process of mineralization can be studied in the formation of coal from plants.

[ 8 ] The mineral kingdom, as it is currently distinguished, exists only during the fourth round. After that, the entire mineral kingdom will be spiritualized by humankind. Humankind will transform it with its spirit. Everything humans do today—all of industry—is a transformation of the mineral kingdom. Whether someone quarries a rock to use the stones in building a house, or builds a cathedral, it is all a transformation of the mineral kingdom. In the fourth round, humans will be able to artificially process the mineral kingdom. With the plant kingdom, on the other hand, humans cannot do anything at present. Humans will work through the entire mineral kingdom. To a large extent, this is accomplished through oscillating electricity, which no longer requires wires. This allows work to be done right down to the level of molecules and atoms. By the end of the fourth round, humanity will have worked through the entire mineral kingdom.

[ 9 ] Starting in the fifth round, human beings will do the same with the plant kingdom. They will be able to consciously undergo the process that plants are currently undergoing. Just as the plant absorbs carbon dioxide and builds its body from carbon, so too will humans in the fifth round create their own bodies from the substances in their environment. In the fifth round, sexuality will have ceased. Human beings will then have to work on their own bodies themselves, creating them on their own. The same process of processing carbon that plants now undergo unconsciously, human beings will then carry out consciously. They will transform matter just as plants today transform air into carbon. That is true alchemy. Coal is the philosopher’s stone. The man who alluded to this in the 18th century was pointing to the process of transformation that plants are now carrying out and that humans will later carry out.

[ 10 ] If one studies consciousness on the higher planes—specifically, how it functions within a beehive—one learns how human beings will themselves produce matter in the future. In the future, the human body will also be composed of carbon; it will then be like a soft diamond. One will then no longer inhabit the body from within, but will have it before oneself as an external body. This is how the planets are structured today by the planetary spirits. From a being that needs a body created by others, one transforms into an emanating, revealing being. Humanity will then be a being with three limbs: the human of the evening, who walks on three, as the Sphinx says. The original four organs have differentiated. At first, the hands were also organs of movement. Then they became organs for the spiritual. Later, only three organs will remain: the heart as the organ of the Buddha, the two-petaled lotus flower in the center of the eyes, and the left hand as an organ of movement. Blavatsky’s statement [about a second spine] also refers to this future. The pineal gland and the mucous gland organize a second spine, which will later merge with the other one. The second spine will extend downward from the front of the head.

[ 11 ] To receive such guidance, one must bring consciousness into a being that stands at a higher level than we do at present in our ordinary earthly course of development.

[ 12 ] All of this was taught in the secret schools and, in a certain sense, put into practice. One must get used to directing one’s thinking in this direction. Then one will develop a sense of not finding anything worthless, but rather of recognizing the value in every single thing. There is nothing in all of nature that we could conceive of removing without destroying all of nature itself.

[ 13 ] Even an anthill possesses a much higher level of consciousness than modern humans. The consciousness of an anthill is located in the upper regions of the mental plane. The consciousness of bees, on the other hand, is located in the upper regions of the Buddha plane. How, then, did ant consciousness enter our Earth? This occurred through beings who stand higher than we do, who had already undergone the process of creating their own bodies. Males, females, and workers—the three members of the ant colony—constitute the body of a higher spiritual being. The human spirit, too, gradually comes to divide itself into three parts. Will, feeling, and thought become separated in the initiate. The brain molecules separate into three groups. The initiate must then, of his own accord, connect a specific feeling with a mental image. When he sees misery, he must consciously add this feeling in order to feel compassion. At the front of the head lies the part for thinking, at the top the part for feeling, and at the back of the head the part for willing. The initiate learns to consciously connect these parts. Later, these three parts separate completely. He must then direct the three parts just as an anthill directs the males, females, and workers.

[ 14 ] One might ask why higher beings would manifest themselves in an anthill. But if formic acid were not produced, the entire Earth would be different. The foresight of higher intelligences included anticipating the moment when formic acid had to enter the Earth.

[ 15 ] In this way, one can encompass the entire Earth with one’s consciousness, so that one knows and recognizes what lives and exists within it. This was the case with Paracelsus, who based his ideas on how things could be used as remedies on his understanding of their relationships to human beings and their organs. Indeed, Digitalis purpurea is connected to the heart and can therefore still rightly be used for that purpose. Today, new remedies are sought through experimentation by testing their effects on a number of people. Back then, remedies were sought through intuition because one observed the inner connections. The remedies found in this way always retain their efficacy, whereas the others usually reveal drawbacks over time that had escaped the experimenter’s notice during the initial observation.