The Rudolf Steiner Archive

11. The Different Forms of Animation in the World Around Us

[ 1 ] As I mentioned yesterday in my introductory remarks, this series of lectures is intended to provide an overview of the theosophical worldview. In doing so, it will be necessary to mention many things that are already familiar to most of those present. But only by coming to know these truths from their very foundations will it be possible for us to ascend to higher realms in the later lectures. Before I begin the actual presentation, I would first like to address a question of extraordinary importance: Why, in fact, must we concern ourselves with theosophical ideas and theories before we ourselves can experience anything in the spiritual world? Some will say: We are told the results of clairvoyant research; but I myself cannot yet see into that world. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate, then, if instead of being told the results of clairvoyant research, we were told first and foremost how I myself can develop into a clairvoyant? Then everyone could undergo further development on their own afterward. - Those who are outside the realm of occult research may believe that it would be better if such things and facts were not discussed beforehand. But there is a very specific law in the spiritual world, the full significance of which we will illustrate with an example. Suppose, for instance, that in some year a randomly chosen, properly trained clairvoyant had perceived this or that in the spiritual world. Now imagine that ten or twenty years later, another equally trained clairvoyant were to perceive the same thing, even if he had known nothing at all about the first clairvoyant’s findings. If you were to believe that, you would be greatly mistaken, for in truth, a fact of the spiritual world that has once been discovered by a clairvoyant or an occult school cannot be investigated a second time unless the one who wishes to investigate it has first been informed that it has already been investigated. So if a clairvoyant investigated a fact in 1900, and another is ready in 1950 to perceive the same fact, he can do so only after he has first learned and come to know that someone has already discovered and investigated it. Thus, even facts already known in the spiritual world can be perceived only if one resolves to receive them through ordinary channels and to become acquainted with them. This is the law that establishes universal brotherhood in the spiritual world for all time. It is impossible to enter any realm without first connecting with what has already been researched and perceived by the elder brothers of humanity. In the spiritual world, it is ensured that no one can become a so-called loner and say: “I do not care about what already exists; I research on my own.” - All the facts communicated today in Theosophy would be invisible even to the most highly educated and advanced individuals if they had not first been made known. Because this is so—because one must connect with what has already been explored—the Theosophical Movement had to be founded in this form.

[ 2 ] In a relatively short time, there will be many people who will be clairvoyant; however, they would only be able to perceive formless things in the spiritual world, not the truth, because they would not be able to see what is essential—that which has already been explored in the spiritual world. One must first learn these truths, as presented by Theosophy; only then can one perceive them. Thus, even the clairvoyant must first learn what has already been researched, and then, through conscientious training, he can see the facts for himself. One might say: The divine beings fertilize a human soul only once, for an initial vision; and once this singular, virgin fertilization has taken place, it is necessary for others to first direct their gaze toward what this first human soul has attained, in order to have the right to attain the same and to perceive it. — This law is the very foundation of universal brotherhood, a true brotherhood of humankind. From epoch to epoch, the treasure of wisdom has thus been passed down through the occult schools and faithfully preserved by the Masters. And we, too, must help carry this treasure and maintain brotherhood with those who have already achieved something, if we wish to advance into the higher realms of the spiritual world. What is strived for as a moral law on the physical plane is, therefore, a natural law of the spiritual world.

[ 3 ] Theosophy teaches us that everything physical and sensory is born from the spiritual realm. But in our time, we must not be content with merely this awareness of a spiritual world. The idea that the essential reality is that behind everything sensory and physical there lies a spiritual realm is an abstract conception of the spirit. It is necessary to acquire specific concepts and ideas of what the spiritual realm looks like in its various domains. Today, the only way to guide someone toward this understanding is to have them conscientiously take all the steps from the outer world into the spiritual world.

[ 4 ] The first thing we observe in the physical realms around us is the mineral kingdom, the world of rocks. Anyone who views it solely with the senses will say: The mineral kingdom differs from the human kingdom, for example, in that a human being knows that if he strikes another person hard, that person will feel pain. Outwardly, it does not appear that a mineral feels pain when struck. From this, the conclusion is drawn: humans possess a soul that feels pleasure and suffering, whereas minerals do not. — We do not wish to assert from the outset that minerals also have a soul; no, we must examine the findings of clairvoyant research more closely. The stone, as it lies before us at first glance, has nothing soul-like about it. But what matters in a spiritual worldview is that one begins one’s observation at the right point and not at the wrong one. Imagine a small animal that were to observe a human being and were only able to see the person’s fingernails. It would say that these are objects in and of themselves, for the little animal cannot grasp that the fingernails belong to an organism. Only when it grasps this—when it rises to view the whole—can it arrive at a correct understanding. So it is for the spiritual researcher with the world of rocks. If you regard the stone as something in and of itself, you are in the same position as the little animal that regards fingernails or teeth as the whole human being, as an independent being. Take the rocks of the Earth: they are inconceivable without having grown out of the whole organism. But where, then, is the being of which all these are parts, to which all this belongs? There are spiritual beings to which our entire world of rocks belongs. They experience joy and pain, pleasure and suffering just as the human soul does, so that we can indeed speak of a mineral soul. However, you must not judge this based on mere analogies; otherwise, you might think that when a stone is broken, the mineral soul feels pain. That is not the case. On the contrary: a human being feels pain when a finger is injured, whereas the mineral soul feels joy and pleasure in a similar situation. The greatest pleasure for the being that belongs to the mineral is when the stones are broken; conversely, it causes the mineral pain when the stones—its individual parts—are put back together again. Since everything in the external world proceeds in such a way that mineral parts are constantly being broken down and reassembled, there is—as you will understand—a constant alternation of pleasure and suffering in the souls of the beings belonging to the mineral kingdom. Imagine we have some salt here and a glass of warm water. What happens when we sprinkle the salt into the water? Upon clairvoyant observation, not only do the salt particles dissolve in the water, but feelings of pleasure arise; true pleasure can be seen as they gradually permeate the entire glass. Then, when the water cools again and a cube of salt crystallizes out of it, this occurs amid pain and suffering for the mineral soul. This is what took place in the mountains, where the rocks were formed. And when crystals form within the earth, this is accompanied by suffering and a sense of pain for the beings underlying the mineral.

[ 5 ] When a planet comes into being, coalesces, and condenses, this occurs amid the pain and suffering experienced by the corresponding spiritual beings. A planet such as our Earth comes into being amid suffering and pain. Now you might ask me: Where are the beings that the eye cannot see, who endure suffering and pain, and who experience pleasure and joy, for example, when workers are breaking stones in a quarry? Where are these beings?—In a relatively very high spiritual world. What the eye sees as a mineral is actually only a shadow image of them. Those beings exist in the world we call the world of formlessness. Spiritual beings inhabit our entire mineral world, and according to occult research, they reside in the world of formlessness. Why do we call this world that? You will understand this immediately when we ascend to the world of plants. The plant, too, is the expression of certain soul beings. Here, too, let us consider the findings of clairvoyant research. This research reports that when, for example, the grain is harvested in the fall and the scythe cuts through the stalks in the fields, the souls—whose bodies are the plants—feel no suffering. Oh no, you must not believe in suffering here; whole streams of joy and bliss flow over them. Likewise, when an animal grazes in a meadow and eats the grass: this is bliss for the plant soul, not pain. One can compare it to the feeling a mammal experiences when its young suckles milk from its mother; it is a certain sense of bliss. What our planet yields on its surface as nourishment for its inhabitants is, as it were, the milk of the beings that belong to the planet and who actually dwell at the center of the Earth. You may ask me: “Yes, but is there really enough room for all of them there?”—Certainly, they all get along well there, by virtue of the law of interpenetration and permeability. It is this self-surrender, once a certain state of maturity has been reached, that constitutes bliss for the plant soul. For the plant soul, pain means everything that is torn from the ground. You might now say: “But when useless boys and girls tear off the flowers needlessly, how can that be a source of joy for the plant soul?” Wouldn’t it be much better, then, to carefully pull them out? How can that cause it pain? — From a perspective appropriate to the physical world, you are probably right. But we must not forget that these perspectives are not always the decisive ones for the spiritual worlds. Someone may indeed look better when they pluck out their first gray hairs, but it still hurts them. It all depends on the perspective, and we cannot fight against the laws of the occult world with moral objections. Plants, too, contain beings—souls—to whom the plant world provides a body. Let us now try to imagine how pleasure and suffering unfold in the world of plants.

[ 6 ] The plant world is a reflection of the spiritual world. Where, then, are the beings that belong to it? In the world of form. They are also known by other names. Thus, the spiritual beings of the mineral kingdom live in a spiritual realm—the realm of formlessness—while those of the plant kingdom live in the realm of form.

[ 7 ] The Realm of Formlessness, Arupa, or Upper Devachan.

[ 8 ] The Realm of Form, Rupa, or Lower Devachan.

[ 9 ] The souls of the mineral kingdom belong to a specific realm of the spiritual world—namely, its upper regions. This should come as no surprise, for the more souls conceal themselves and the less they are able to express themselves, the higher the realm in which they are to be found. Why is one realm called a realm of formlessness and the other a realm of form?

[ 10 ] When a crystal is shattered, only its form is destroyed; however, this form can just as easily reform elsewhere, independent of the destroyed one. When a salt crystal forms in nature, it is not necessary for it to arise from another crystal. It can also arise solely from the substance of the salt and disappear again as a form: this is the characteristic of formless substance. In the case of a plant, the form cannot arise in the same way from the substance, from the formless. It must—and this is the defining characteristic of the plant—develop from a parent plant. The form must be passed on from the parent to the offspring. Where we find the souls of beings in the realm of form, reproduction occurs through the transmission of form. Only the form, and nothing else, is contained within the seed.

[ 11 ] It is a superficial view of science to believe that there is no significant difference between plant seeds and animal seeds. In animal seeds, it is the form and the life that are passed down from the ancestor to the offspring: life is transmitted. In a lily seed, nothing but the form is preserved, and that is transferred to the new lily. In the case of minerals, the forces arise from the upper Devachan that, so to speak, shape the form. In the case of a crystal, formlessness, so to speak, springs into form before our very eyes. We must therefore realize that the entire planet on which plant life unfolds is surrounded by a collective life, within which lies the impulse that enables the plant’s life to arise from it, and from the seed arises only the plant’s form. Nothing of the life of the old lily passes over into the flowerbed or the flowerpot in which the seed rests. The fact that the new lily is brought to life stems from the seed having been absorbed into the universal life of our Earth.

[ 12 ] This already marks the transition to the animal kingdom. Only the form is inherited through the seed; life enters because the seed has been absorbed into the universal life of our Earth. The presence of a soul in animals is evident; it is therefore natural that we speak of pleasure and suffering, joy and pain in animals. If we wish to understand what pleasure and suffering mean in the plant kingdom, we must turn our attention to other entities. For pleasure and suffering are experienced outside the individual plants; the entire organism of the Earth experiences them within our earthly sphere in exactly the same way as when you cut your finger—it does not actually hurt in the finger itself: the pain arises because it is transmitted to the entire organism. If you want to understand a plant’s pain, you must turn to the Earth as a whole in order to grasp the plant’s soul there. The essential point is the following distinction: When you injure an animal, the pain is located within the animal’s skin—just as it is for humans with regard to their animal nature. Here we are approaching individualization more and more: the higher the development of the natural kingdoms ascends, the more we encounter beings whose center lies within themselves, who experience pleasure and suffering within themselves. We can only view the plant correctly when we consider it in connection with the entire Earth. The animal has a soul and does indeed experience pleasure and suffering within its skin. You cannot see this soul; it resides in the realm we call the astral. Beings that have their center within themselves—their souls live in the astral realm. You can see that we also have a certain hierarchy in our conception of the worlds: the mineral conceals its soul deeply, the plant less so, and the animal even less; it has its center within itself—that is, where the invisible resides. We must seek the souls of animals in a world other than the physical one.

[ 13 ] We thus distinguish four realms. First: the realm of the visible—minerals, plants, and animals; the physical world. Second: the realm of the invisible aspects of animals—the astral realm. Third: the realm of plants, whose souls are hidden in the lower Devachan. Fourth: the realm whose souls are hidden in the upper Devachan.

[ 14 ] This distinction becomes clear to us simply by observing the external world. Now let us turn to the findings of clairvoyant research. Within the space occupied by the mineral itself, there is nothing of a spiritual nature. Spiritually, this space is empty, black; but around it, a glow begins to appear, and a little further away, this glow becomes even stronger. What is this? It is the mineral’s etheric body, which exists in the cosmos; where the mineral itself is not present, it has carved out a portion of the ether. And the soul-cosmic forces of the mineral experience pleasure and pain in that space where the mineral’s etheric body has created a void: there it begins to ache, or joy, for example, shoots forth from the splinter of stone from the quarry like a spiritual ray of light. The mineral’s etheric body is what surrounds the physical body. Where the mineral is, one might say, the etheric body has condensed to such an extent that it has become physical. The difference between a mineral and a plant arises from the fact that the etheric body is inside the plant, that all its parts are permeated by it, that it penetrates it entirely. Everything that permeates the plant as green is precisely the substance we previously described as the etheric body of the mineral, existing outside of it.

[ 15 ] But if the plant were merely permeated by the etheric body, it would not bloom but would always produce only green leaves. When the plant begins to bloom, the clairvoyant consciousness perceives something spreading out above the plant and washing over it: this is the astral life, which brings about this crowning achievement of growth. The green plant grows, and at the end of this process, something new spreads over it—the astral—which, however, never enters into it.

[ 16 ] Spiritually speaking, the animal contains within itself that which surrounds the plant. If what surrounds the plant is inside its skin, then it is an animal. That which hovers above the plant—the astral—surrounds the entire Earth. This is the Earth’s total astral nature, which hovers like smoke over the plant as it begins to bloom. Inside the plant itself, there is no pleasure or suffering; rather, these are felt by the Earth. The animal itself contains pleasure and suffering within; that which is spread out within the animal as its astral body weaves through our Earth’s total astral realm. The mineral kingdom is as if embedded in an etheric world, with its etheric body surrounding it. The plant is permeated by the etheric body, and because the plant world is embedded in an astral body that corresponds to the Earth’s entire astrality, pleasure and pain lie outside the plant. And the being that is not only surrounded by the astral but can also take it into itself—that is the animal.

[ 17 ] In this way, we have gained an overview of the three realms of the world around us in their connection to the higher worlds.

[ 18 ] Human beings are, in a sense, a small world unto themselves. We must build them up from everything that surrounds them. What we have discovered today, we will then use tomorrow to understand the structure of the human being.