The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture Four

[ 1 ] Every thinking person must be interested in a phenomenon that conventional science cannot explain: the life of dreams. What is a dream, from an occult perspective? It is the remnant of a state that dates back to a prehistoric period. To gain an understanding of this, let us consider a few other phenomena: organs that are no longer strictly necessary for physical life, that are rudimentary in nature, and whose purpose is unknown to natural science.

[ 2 ] These include, on the one hand, a muscle in the outer ear that has greatly atrophied in humans, and, on the other hand, the so-called nictitating membrane, a kind of third eyelid. Furthermore, there is the so-called appendix of the cecum, which not only serves no purpose but can also lead to disease. Occultists are particularly interested in the pineal gland, which is located in the brain and has the shape of a small pine cone. Natural science holds that these organs once had a function and then degenerated. This is true in a certain sense, but we must not simply view it in a Darwinian light. The pineal gland is the remnant of an organ that was of the utmost importance to pre-human beings—a sensory organ. It was a kind of external brain that also served as an antenna for the eye and ear. This organ existed in pre-human beings during an earlier period, at a time when the Earth was still half-liquid, half-vaporous, and connected to the Moon. In this partly liquid, partly gaseous element, humankind swam like a fish and navigated with the help of that organ. Their perceptions had a clairvoyant, pictorial character. The warm currents evoked in them an impression of bright red and a powerful, melodious sound. The cold currents evoked green and blue colors, as well as silvery, shimmering, and fluid sounds.

[ 3 ] The pineal gland thus played a crucial role in early humans. But as the Earth became more mineralized, other sensory organs emerged, and in humans today, the pineal gland no longer serves any apparent purpose.

[ 4 ] Let us compare this organ to the phenomenon of dreaming. Dreaming is a rudimentary function of our lives, seemingly without use or purpose; but in reality, it is a function in decline—a function that once enabled us to perceive the world in an entirely different way.

[ 5 ] Before the Earth became mineralized, it was perceptible only through astral clairvoyance. All perception is relative and is merely a symbol. The central truth is perceptible to the divine human being, but it is inexpressible. It is that which Goethe so wonderfully expressed in the words: “Everything transitory is but a parable.”

[ 6 ] The astral vision—and this is still the dream of today—is both an allegory and a symbol.

[ 7 ] Let's look at some examples of dreams caused by physical and bodily factors:

[ 8 ] A student dreams that a classmate shoved him as he was entering the dorm, that a duel ensued, and that he was hit by a bullet. He wakes up and realizes that the cause of the dream was an overturned chair.

[ 9 ] In a dream, one hears the hoofbeats of a trotting horse—an auditory perception caused by the ticking of a clock.

[ 10 ] A woman dreams of a pastor who is preaching and has wings—it is a rooster crowing and saying “cock-a-doodle-doo.”

[ 11 ] Just as there are dream perceptions that originate in the body, there are also others that come from the astral and spiritual worlds. Such perceptions are the source of myths.

[ 12 ] Scholars today attribute the origin of myths to the poetic reinterpretation of natural phenomena. But anyone who studies the origin of myths among the people will see that they did not arise in this way. Myths and legends are all originally astral images that tradition distorts, reshapes, and develops further.

[ 13 ] Here is an example: the legend of the Noon Woman. When the peasants working in the fields do not go home at noon in the oppressive summer heat and instead sleep on the ground to rest, a woman appears to them and poses a series of riddles. If the sleeper—whether man or woman—can solve them, they awaken free; if not, the woman kills them, cutting them to pieces with a sickle. The legend adds that the phantom can be summoned by reciting the Lord’s Prayer backward.

[ 14 ] Esoteric science teaches us that this “Noon Woman” is an astral form, a kind of incubus that appears during sleep and oppresses people. The Lord’s Prayer recited backward is a reflection of the fact that in the astral world, everything is reflected in reverse order, as in a mirror. In his book The Riddle of the Sphinx, Ludwig Laistner notes that the legend of the Sphinx was originally found among all peoples. He also proves that all these legends stem from a kind of lucid dreaming that perceives realities, and that the Sphinx is, in fact, a demon.

[ 15 ] The dream state, or the perception of the real world as an astral image—that is the origin of all myths. Myths are the astral world, viewed through symbolic visions.

[ 16 ] Historically speaking, the creation of myths disappears as logical and intellectual life unfolds. People today live solely through their senses and through their intellect, which processes sensory perceptions. People of the future will live through an intellect awakened to full waking consciousness, and at the same time in the astral and spiritual worlds. Therefore, Rosicrucianism teaches: First, you must be a clear-thinking person whose lucid daytime consciousness remains fully intact; only then can you acquire astral consciousness. With this, we stand at the threshold of a great and significant future for humanity.

[ 17 ] The trance of the hypnotized person and the medium is merely an atavistic phenomenon, linked to the dimming of consciousness. The clairvoyant, the initiate, is not someone with a mental imbalance, nor a visionary; he already possesses the level of consciousness of the people of the future; he is just as firmly anchored to the earth as the level-headed earthly human, and his reason is just as clear and just as certain. But his gaze extends into two worlds.

[ 18 ] It is a law of evolution that certain organs must die off so that new organs can develop. This was also the case with the pineal gland. It is connected to the lymphatic system. It was once an external sensory organ, traces of which can still be found as an opening in the embryo in the womb, and in the newborn child, the soft spot at the top of the skull is a reminder of the former human constitution.

[ 19 ] Dreams play a role in our modern consciousness analogous to that of the pineal gland in the physiology of the human body. They are the last remnant of a form of clairvoyance that has become rudimentary.

[ 20 ] Another problem brought to the attention of the neophyte in the occult brotherhoods arises from the question of why there is, in the first place, an ascending and a descending evolution in the world. Why does evil exist? This is a difficult question that neither science nor religion has truly resolved. Yet the entire problem of education also depends on its resolution. Evil is not an absolute; it is a means for the development of individual essence and freedom.

[ 21 ] The materialist does not admit that the ideas we form about nature are already contained within it. He believes that we impose them upon it.

[ 22 ] The Rosicrucians of the Middle Ages placed a glass of water before the neophyte and said to him: “For this water to be in the glass, someone must have put it there.” The same is true, however, of the ideas we find in nature. They must have been placed there by the divine spirits, the helpers of the Logos.

[ 23 ] The thoughts we draw from the world are, in truth, found within it. Everything we create is necessarily contained within it.

[ 24 ] It is a misconception held by some mystics to downplay the value of the physical body. It has the same value as the astral body; it is meant to become the temple of the soul.

[ 25 ] Let us consider the marvelous structure of the femur, the bone that supports the entire body and whose surfaces are interconnected in such a way that they achieve the greatest possible strength with the least possible mass. No engineer could create such a marvel. Compared to the physical body, the astral body—the source of our passions—is crude and unformed.

[ 26 ] The physical world is the expression of incarnated wisdom, divine wisdom.

[ 27 ] The Rosicrucians teach that the Earth was once a planet of wisdom, whereas today’s Earth could be called the planet of love. It is humanity’s task to do for that which is still imperfect within itself what divine wisdom, for its part, has done for the physical body. Humanity must ennoble its astral body and its environment.

[ 28 ] Involution is that which has been drawn into us without our consciousness and without our will, under the influence of divine wisdom. Evolution is everything that we are meant to bring forth from it into the outer world through our consciousness and our will.

[ 29 ] Why do humans strive to reshape nature? The gods created the rocks; humans created the pyramids. The pyramid will crumble over the centuries, but the idea that gave rise to the pyramid will continue to evolve. What is today a cathedral will likewise take on a different form. The ground on which Raphael painted will crumble to dust; but Raphael’s soul and the ideas represented in his paintings will always be living, ever-evolving forces. Today’s art will be tomorrow’s nature and will blossom anew within it. Thus, involution becomes evolution.

[ 30 ] Here lies the intersection of the divine and the human, and the dual power that leads God to humankind and allows humankind to ascend to God.