The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] In general, the relationship between the human waking state and the sleeping state has already been touched upon, and it has been said that out of the sleeping state, the human being draws the forces he needs during the waking state to build up his soul life. Now, these matters are actually much more complicated than is generally thought, and today we will discuss in greater detail the difference between the human waking and sleeping states from the perspective of spiritual science. I would just like to note, as it were, in passing—as a sort of aside—that we can refrain here from addressing or listing all the more or less interesting hypotheses that contemporary physiology has put forward to explain the difference between the states of sleep and wakefulness. That could easily be done, but it would only distract us from the actual examination of these states by Spiritual Science. It suffices to say that ordinary modern science, when it observes a person in the sleeping state, actually considers only that which of the human being remains in the physical world—what we characterized yesterday as the physical body and the etheric or Life-Body of the human being. This is completely foreign to physical science—and one need not therefore condemn it, it has a certain right to assert its point of view in a one-sided manner—what can only be a reality for spiritual research, for the open gaze of the seer: namely, that which, upon falling asleep, emerges from the human etheric or Life-Body and the physical body, and which we were able to characterize yesterday as the human “I” and the astral body. This human “I” and the astral body are thus, while the human being sleeps, in a spiritual world, whereas when the human being is awake, they are in the physical world, as it were, submerged within the physical body and the etheric or Life-Body.

[ 2 ] Now let us take a look at this sleeping person. It is, of course, quite natural that, for normal human consciousness, the state of sleep is something uniform that one does not examine further. After all, in everyday life, one does not ask whether, when a person is in the spiritual world at night, multiple influences or forces act upon their body-less soul, or whether it is just a single, unified force. When a person is in the spiritual world, are they exposed only to a single force that permeates the entire spiritual world, or can we distinguish between different forces to which the person is exposed during sleep? — Yes, we can now quite precisely distinguish between the various influences that act upon a person while they sleep—mind you, not primarily referring to what remains in bed, but to that which has emerged from this outer human being who remains in bed as the person’s true soul, as their astral body and their “I.”

[ 3 ] Now let us allow ourselves to be guided by familiar experiences and facts to the various influences that act upon the sleeping person. One need only observe more closely what a person experiences when falling asleep to notice that, as it were, that inner activity—every action through which one moves one’s limbs while awake during the day, through which one performs all that we might call setting the body in motion with the help of the soul—begins to subside. Anyone who engages in a little self-observation at the moment of falling asleep will notice that something like the following sensation arises: “I can no longer exercise that control over my own limbs.”—A kind of powerlessness begins to take hold of the external activities. At first, a person will feel unable to direct the movement of their limbs through their will, and at the moment of falling asleep, they will be unable to exercise any control over what we call speech. Indeed, the first thing a person feels after this state of being, as it were, powerless to move their limbs is that they feel unable to exercise control over speech. Then, little by little, the person also feels the possibility of establishing any connection with the outside world at all slipping away. All the impressions of the day then gradually fade away. Then, little by little, the sensory faculties of taste and smell cease, and, last of all, the faculty of hearing. In this gradual fading of inner soul activity, a person senses themselves stepping out of their physical shell.

[ 4 ] With this, however, we have already characterized a first influence that acts upon human beings during the state of sleep—the influence that, in a sense, drives them out of their bodies. Those who practice self-observation will sense how this is a power that comes over them, for in the ordinary, normal state of life, a person does not command themselves: “You shall now fall asleep; you shall now stop speaking, tasting, smelling, and hearing”—rather, it is like a power that asserts itself within the person. This is the first influence from that world into which a person descends in the evening; it is the influence that, so to speak, drives them out of their physical body and their etheric or Life-Body. But if this influence alone were to assert itself during sleep, what would happen to the person? Then, under normal circumstances, the person would always fall into a completely peaceful sleep, undisturbed by anything. But we know, of course, that in ordinary, normal life, this normal, undisturbed sleep is by no means the only form of sleep; rather, there are two possibilities for this sleep to manifest itself in a different form. We are all familiar with a state we call the dream state, in which more or less chaotic or more or less distinct images—dream images—force their way into our sleep life. If only the first influence were at work on human sleep—the one that seems to snatch a person out of their consciousness and into a spiritual world—then there could only ever be what we call sleep undisturbed by any dream. Thus, we can distinguish between the influence that simply extinguishes consciousness by driving us out of our outer physical shell, and the influence that, in this bodiless state, conjures up the dream world before our soul—the influence that forces the world of dreams into our sleep life.

[ 5 ] But that is not the only way in which normal sleep can take on a different form in humans. There is a third type as well. This third type, however, occurs only in a small number of people, but everyone knows that it does exist in a certain number of people: this third type is when a person begins, without being aware of it, to speak or perform certain actions while asleep. Usually, the person has no recollection during the day of the impulses that led them to such actions while asleep. Such behavior during sleep can escalate to what is commonly called sleepwalking. In some cases, a person may also have incorporated certain dreams into their sleep state while sleepwalking, but in the majority of cases this is not the case at all; rather, the sleepwalker acts and speaks without having any dreams in their inner life. They then act, in a certain sense, like an automaton, driven by obscure impulses of which they need not even be consciously aware, even in a dreamlike state. These actions, in which the person, as it were, comes into contact with the outside world from within sleep just as during waking life—only that during waking life it is conscious and during the night it is unconscious—are subject to a third influence that acts upon the person during sleep.

[ 6 ] Thus, with regard to the state of sleep, we can identify three clearly distinguishable influences on the inner human being, who is separated from the outer self during sleep. These three influences, to which the human being is exposed during sleep, are always present, and Spiritual Science can—through methods we will learn about in the course of these lectures—truly investigate and confirm that they exist in every human being. However, in the vast majority of people, the first influence predominates to such an extent that they spend the greater part of their sleep time in dreamless, peaceful sleep. Then, for almost all people, the second influence does occur from time to time, such that the dream state intrudes into their sleep consciousness. But these two states are so powerful for the vast majority of people that speaking and acting while asleep are rare occurrences. Yet the third influence, which occurs in the sleepwalker, is present in every human being. It is just that in the sleepwalker, the third influence is so strong that it drowns out the other two and gains dominance over the two weaker influences, whereas in other people, the other two influences are so strong that the third influence does not come into play at all and does not drive the person to any actions. But it is present in every person. Every person is predisposed to be subject to these three influences.

[ 7 ] In Spiritual Science, these three influences have always been distinguished from one another, and we must assume that there are three spheres within the human soul, such that one sphere may be more subject to the first influence, the second sphere more to the second, and the third more to the third. The human soul is thus a tripartite being, for it can be subject to three kinds of influences. In Spiritual Science, the part of the human soul that is subject to the first influence described—the one that drives the human soul out of its physical shell in the first place—is called the feeling soul. The part of the soul upon which the influence characterized second exerts its effect—the influence that brings dream images into the human soul life during the night—is referred to as the intellectual or emotional soul. And the part of the human soul that, for most people, does not at all reveal its distinctive nature in the life of sleep—because the other two influences predominate—is referred to as the soul of consciousness. Thus, during a person’s sleep, we must distinguish three influences, and the three aspects of soul life that are subject to these three influences are distinguished as the soul of sensation, the soul of reason or emotion, and the soul of consciousness. Thus, when a person is lulled into dreamless, peaceful sleep by the power we have described, an influence from the world into which they enter acts upon their sensory soul. When a person’s sleep is permeated by the images of the dream world, an influence is exerted on their intellectual or emotional soul; and when they even begin to speak at night or act while asleep, an influence is exerted on their conscious soul.

[ 8 ] But so far we have described only one aspect of human soul life during sleep. We must also describe the other aspect of this sleep life, which consists of the opposite. We have described the person falling asleep; let us now consider the person waking up, who returns from the life of sleep back into the physical world. What actually happens to the person who, upon waking in the morning, returns once more to the physical world? In the evening, a certain power drove him out of his physical body and his Life-Body. This force is able to drive the person out in the evening because the person is initially subject to it. In later stages of sleep, the person is subject to the other two influences: those acting upon the intellectual or emotional soul and upon the conscious soul. But once these influences have taken place, the person is different from what he or she was before. A person changes during the sleep life, and this change is evident simply in that in the evening the person is tired and must leave their physical body, and in the morning they are no longer tired and have the ability to return. What has happened to them during sleep gives them the ability to return once more to their physical life. The same influence that manifests itself in certain abnormal states in our dream world also acts upon the human being throughout the entire sleep period, even when there are no dreams; and the third influence is always present as well—the one that comes to the fore in the sleepwalker but does not fully manifest itself in other people. All these influences are at work during sleep. When the latter two influences—the one acting on the intellectual or emotional soul and the one acting on the conscious soul—have taken effect, the person is strengthened and invigorated; they have drawn from the spiritual world the forces they need in the coming day to once again perceive and enjoy the external physical world. It is primarily the influence on the intellectual or emotional soul and on the conscious soul that strengthens a person during the night. But then, once they are strengthened, it is the same influence that drove them out of their physical life—only now it operates in the opposite way—that leads them back into their physical and etheric bodies upon waking in the morning. The same power that drove the person out in the evening brings them back in the morning; it is the influence on the feeling soul. Everything we must describe as the content of the feeling soul was weary and tired in the evening. How do we feel in our sensory soul in the evening? We can easily create a mental image of this: When we step fresh into daily life, we are interested in the impressions of the physical world—the impressions of color, light, and all the objects around us—which fill us with sympathy and antipathy and bring us joy, pleasure, and pain. We are absorbed in the outer world.

[ 9 ] If we want to draw a diagram of this, we can do so as follows. I want to emphasize that this is meant to be a schematic diagram. I want to indicate the moment of falling asleep—the moment when a person is driven into unconsciousness—by placing a dot here; the descent into the state of sleep by drawing a line upward; and waking up in the morning as a return from the state in which a person is during the night. I would then represent the course of life during the day with this lower line and the return to the state of sleep with this line, so that with this looping line we would have characterized first the state of wakefulness, then the state of sleep. The upper part is meant to represent the state of sleep, the lower part the state of wakefulness. Then, when we consider the moment of falling asleep, we can say that a force is acting here from the spiritual world, drawing us in; let us denote this with the first third of this line. When we fall into dreams, let us denote the influence then exerted on our intellectual or emotional soul with the second third of the line. That state in which a force would act upon the conscious soul—this third influence—we would designate as the third part of the quarter of the entire line. We would then, as it were, have the same force in the morning that drew us in here, but now as a force propelling us out of the life of sleep and leading us into daily life. This would correspond to the same force that acts upon the feeling soul. And in the same way, we would have here that force which acts upon the intellectual or emotional soul. And here the entire space—both the first and the second part—would signify the influence on the conscious soul. So that during the night, a person goes through, so to speak, a kind of cycle. As he moves from falling asleep, as it were, into the middle of that state that lies between falling asleep and waking up, he moves toward that influence where the force acts most strongly on his conscious soul. From that point on, he moves again toward the force that in turn acts on his sensory soul and brings him back to the waking state.

[ 10 ] So we have three forces that act upon the human being during sleep. These three forces have had very specific names in Spiritual Science since ancient times, and I ask you now not to think of anything else when you hear these names, other than what has just been described. Of course, you are familiar with these names, but I ask you to think of nothing other than the names given to the forces in question, which act upon these three parts of the human soul during the night. For in fact, it is true that if you were to go back to ancient times, these three names were given to these three forces, and if they are now used for other things, they are not original but borrowed. Originally, these names were given to these three forces. The force that acts upon the sensory soul during falling asleep and waking up was designated by a name that, in ancient languages, would correspond to the word Mars. (In the following explanation, the names Mars, Jupiter, etc., will be added to the diagram on page 69; see diagram on page 75.) Mars is nothing other than a name for the force that acts upon the sensory soul, which in the evening drives the human being out of his physical body and in the morning sends him back into it. The force that acts upon the intellectual or emotional soul after falling asleep and before waking up is the very force that drives the world of dreams into the intellectual or emotional soul—this force bears the name that would correspond to the word Jupiter. And the force that, under certain circumstances, would cause a person to sleepwalk—that is, the force that acts upon the human consciousness soul during sleep—is called Saturn in the sense of ancient Spiritual Science. Thus, one is speaking in the sense of Spiritual Science when one says that Mars has lulled a person to sleep, Jupiter has sent dreams into a person’s sleep, and the dark, gloomy Saturn is the cause that stirs a person—who cannot resist its influence—in their sleep and drives them to unconscious actions. When considering these names, you must not think of what they mean in the context of ordinary astronomy. For now, let us take their original meanings, which denote forces that are entirely of a spiritual nature and that act upon a person when he is in the spiritual world outside his physical body and his etheric or Life-Body while he sleeps.

[ 11 ] Well, when a person wakes up in the morning—I’ve highlighted this moment of waking up precisely because, upon waking, a person does indeed enter a completely different world—what happens when a person wakes up? They are transported into a world that the average person today regards as their own, a world in which impressions from the outside world strike their senses. These sensory impressions are such that they cannot see beyond them. They are simply there; when they wake up in the morning, they appear before their soul. When a person wakes up, the entire tapestry of the sensory world is spread out before them. But there is something else as well: namely, that a person does not merely perceive this external world with their senses, but that whenever they perceive this or that aspect of this external world, they always experience a feeling along with it. Even if the joyful feeling accompanying the perception of any given color is ever so slight, it is an inner psychological process; a certain feeling is present. For everyone will realize that the color violet affects them differently than red, and blue differently than green. All external sensory impressions work in such a way that they evoke inner states. Everything that these external sensory impressions evoke in the form of sensations belongs to the feeling soul, whereas we call the cause within the human being that enables him to receive these sensory impressions the feeling body. The feeling body is what causes a person to see yellow or red. The sensory soul is responsible for the fact that the person feels this or that in response to this yellow or red. We must make a very precise distinction: that which is conjured up before our soul from the outside is caused by the sensory body; that which we experience inwardly in the process—pleasure and pain or any nuance of the impression the color makes on us—belongs to the sensory soul. In the morning, the soul of sensation begins to be open to the impressions of the sensory body—we could also say, to the impressions of the external world that it takes in through the powers of the sensory body. So the very same thing that was exposed to the influence of Mars during the night while we slept—the soul of sensation—is, upon waking in the morning, exposed to the impressions of the external world; it is surrendered to the sensory world. Now, in the context of Spiritual Science, we designate the entire sensory world—insofar as it evokes certain sensations of pleasure and suffering, joy and pain in our soul—with a special name: Venus. Again, I ask that you understand this to mean nothing other than what has just been characterized—that is, that which exerts an influence on our soul of feeling from the outer tapestry of the sensory world, which does not leave us indifferent and cold, but fills us with certain feelings. This influence on our sentient soul, which makes itself felt from the morning onward, is referred to as the power of Venus. Thus, just as we have referred to the influence on the sentient soul after falling asleep as Mars, we refer to this influence after waking up as the power of Venus.

[ 12 ] Similarly, however, influences from the physical world act upon our intellectual or emotional soul while it is immersed in the physical body during the day; this is the influence through which we are able to withdraw from the external impressions of the sensory world and process them. Note that there is a difference between experience in the feeling soul and experience in the intellectual or emotional soul; the feeling soul experiences something only as long as the person is engaged with the external world; it simply perceives the impressions of the external world. But when, during waking hours, a person pays no attention at all to the impressions of the external world for a while, but instead allows the external impressions to fade and processes them within his soul, then the person is absorbed in his intellectual soul. This soul is thus somewhat more independent of the sensory soul. Now, those influences that make it possible for a person, during the course of the day, not merely to stand there, so to speak, with eyes open, staring at the tapestry of external sensory impressions, but to turn their attention away from all of that and form thoughts through which they can combine the impressions of the external world and become independent of it—we designate these influences as the power of Mercury. So we can say: Just as the influences of Jupiter make themselves felt on our intellectual or emotional soul at night, so the influences of Mercury make themselves felt on our intellectual or emotional soul during the day. — Note that there is a certain correspondence between the influences of Jupiter and those of Mercury. In today’s average person, the influences of Jupiter enter their soul life as dream images, whereas the corresponding influences during the day—the influences of Mercury—act as their thoughts, as their inner experiences. However, with the influences of Jupiter in dreams, the person does not know where these things actually come from, whereas during waking consciousness, with the influences of Mercury, they do know. These are also inner processes that take place in the soul as inner images. This is the correspondence between the influences of Jupiter and Mercury.

[ 13 ] But there are also influences that act upon the conscious soul during the day. What, then, is actually the difference between the sensory soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the conscious soul? Well, the sensory soul comes to the fore when we simply stare at things in the external world. If we withdraw for a while from the impressions of the external world, pay no attention to them, and process them, then we are devoted to our intellectual or emotional soul. When we then take what we have processed and turn our attention back to the external world, relating to it by moving on to action, we are then devoted to our soul of consciousness. For example, if you have this bouquet of flowers before your eyes: as long as you are merely looking at it and the white of the rose evokes feelings within you, you are devoted to your soul of sensation. But if I now turn my gaze away and no longer see the bouquet at all, but instead reflect on it, then I am immersed in my intellectual or emotional soul; there I process the impressions I have received through synthesis. If, because I liked the bouquet and have processed the impressions it made on me, I say to myself, I would like to bring joy to someone with it, and when I then take it and thus move to action, I step out of the intellectual or emotional soul; I then enter the consciousness soul, where I once again relate to the external world. And this is a third force that asserts itself in the human being, enabling him not only to process the impressions of the external world within himself, but also to re-establish a relationship with the external world.

[ 14 ] Note that there is, once again, a connection between the activity of the consciousness soul during wakefulness and the activity of the consciousness soul during sleep. We have said that when such an influence is present during sleep, the person begins to sleepwalk; they speak and act in their sleep. However, when a person sleepwalks, they are driven by the power of dark Saturn; during the day, they are present with their “I” and act consciously. We refer to that which acts upon the human consciousness soul during waking life—enabling it to attain independence from ordinary life—as the power of the Moon. For now, set aside the mental image you have of this term; you will yet understand why these things are precisely as they are. For the time being, let us retain these names as designations.

[ 15 ] We have thus traced the life of the human soul through the states of sleep and wakefulness. We have found that it is divided into three distinct parts and is subject to three kinds of influences. When a person is immersed at night in that world which we must call the spiritual world, they are then subject to the forces referred to in Spiritual Science as the forces of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. When, during the waking hours of the day, a person unfolds their soul life through the feeling soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the conscious soul, they are subject to the forces referred to in Spiritual Science as the Venus, Mercury, and Moon forces.

[ 16 ] We have thus described a person’s daily journey—the path they travel within twenty-four hours. Now, without attaching any particular significance to it for the time being, let us already juxtapose another series of phenomena today—a series of phenomena that is not usually considered from the perspective we wish to adopt today. But I do ask that you view this lecture series in such a way that its individual lectures belong together, and that some things said at the beginning will only be properly illuminated later on. So I will now have to present something alongside this series of phenomena that belongs to an entirely different field and that we are placing alongside this series for certain reasons. We are presenting it for reasons that will become clear in the course of the lectures.

[ 17 ] You are all familiar with the Earth’s orbit around the Sun from conventional astronomy, and we will now take a look—just in very general terms—at the Earth’s orbit around the Sun and everything associated with it. If we view the Earth’s orbit around the Sun—and also the orbits of the other planets that belong to the solar system—as they are usually viewed in conventional modern science, then this perspective is merely the very, very beginning for Spiritual Science. For Spiritual Science, what takes place in the outer physical world is a parable, an outer image of inner spiritual processes, and what we learn from ordinary elementary astronomy—what we have grown accustomed to learning from childhood onward about our planetary system—can be compared, in relation to what actually underlies it, to what a child learns when it becomes familiar with how a clock works. If you want to make the workings of the clock understandable to a child, explain to them that there are twelve numbers and two hands on the dial, that one of them moves slowly and the other more quickly. You explain to the child what the twelve numbers and the two hands conventionally signify, and you make clear to the child what has been conventionally established, so that the child learns to tell you that when one hand is over this number and the other over that one, it is, for example, 12:00 o’clock. But that wouldn’t mean much if the child only knew how to describe the clock in this way. The child must learn more; the child must learn, for example, that when one hand is at 6 and the other at 12 in the morning, this signifies, at a certain time of year, that the sun is rising. The child must learn to relate what is shown on the clock’s face to other major events. That is to say, the child must learn to view the conditions of the world as what truly matters, and to see what the clock shows as, so to speak, merely a parable, an image of the conditions of the world. In this way, when a person is still a child in relation to the vast world, they learn that the Sun is at the center of our solar system; that the first thing to orbit it is what is called the planet Mercury, followed by what is called Venus; and that next come the Earth with the Moon, then Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Let us leave the others aside for now. So, what one learns in this way in general astronomy—what you can read, for example, further on in the calendar (if you have one that lists the individual celestial phenomena)—is that in certain months, Saturn or Mars and so on can be found here and there. If you know the paths of the individual planets and their relative positions to one another at certain times of the year, then you have learned as much about the heavens as a child who knows that when the hands of the clock point to certain numbers, it is half past ten.

[ 18 ] Now, one can learn even more about all of this. Just as a child can learn to understand which aspects of life correspond to the markings on a clock face, so too can we now learn to regard those cosmic forces—which, as invisible forces, act into our space from the powers of the macrocosm—as what lies behind the great cosmic clock; and our solar system, with the various positions of the planets in relation to one another, expresses—in a similar way—what one might attribute to a mighty cosmic clock. From this clock of our planetary system, one can move on to the great spiritual cosmic relationships. Then every position of the planets in our solar system will become an expression of something that one can assume lies behind it. One will be able to say: So there are reasons why, for example, Venus is in one particular relationship to Jupiter at one time and in another at a different time. There are reasons to say: These things are arranged by divine-spiritual powers lying behind them, just as there are reasons why the clock is constructed in a certain way. — Thus our understanding of the movements of the planets in the solar system expands into a meaningful whole. The planetary system becomes for us a kind of cosmic clock. If there were nothing behind the planetary system, it would be comparable to someone building a clock just for fun, without any purpose. We can therefore say that the planetary system becomes for us a kind of cosmic clock, a means of expressing what truly lies behind the movements and individual bodies of our solar system.

[ 19 ] Now let us first consider this world clock on its own; let us examine it so that we are not criticized too harshly by conventional science—though we could also view it differently—in the manner customary in conventional elementary science.

[ 20 ] Before that, I’d like to say that the idea that this planetary system formed on its own is very easy to refute. You’ve all learned in school how the planetary system came into being. You were probably told something like this: Once upon a time, a gigantic cosmic nebula began to rotate, and then the Sun formed in the center, with the planets forming all around it. — How could anyone possibly doubt that history unfolded exactly as it is taught in schools, since the process is demonstrated experimentally? It’s such a nice demonstration, isn’t it, when you take a small droplet of some substance; you cut a small piece of paper that can be inserted through the equatorial plane of the droplet, then insert a pin from above and place the whole thing in a liquid where it floats, and use the pin to set it spinning. You can even show how the outer droplets break away as a result of the rotation, how a larger droplet remains in the center, and how the smaller ones rotate around it. Of course, it’s very easy to point out: Well, there we have the whole thing on a small scale; we’ve depicted a planetary system! — How could anyone doubt that this is how it happened on a grand scale? However, someone who were, so to speak, a bit of a scoundrel might say: “But dear teacher, you’ve forgotten something—you’ve forgotten something that’s usually quite nice to forget, but in this case it just won’t do: you’ve forgotten yourself.” Fine, you did set it spinning up there! — Logically speaking, one shouldn’t forget the very most important thing. One would at least have to assume that a gigantic teacher is sitting out in outer space and has set the entire solar system in motion. For, logically, when applying this analogy, one must not omit anything that is essential to the occurrence of the phenomenon. That is quite clear. So the experiment points to something that lies outside the phenomenon itself. From this we can already conclude that behind what is rotating out there in outer space—behind what is happening to the external eye—there is something else. Just as the teacher stands behind the rotating drop of oil in the experiment, so too do forces and powers stand behind the entire cosmic structure that we have before us in our solar system.

[ 21 ] And now let’s take a look at this solar system from the outside, so to speak. All we need to do is draw the Sun in the center. First, let’s have the Earth rotate around the Sun. I’ll leave out the details. We know that the Earth performs this motion around the Sun over the course of a year. But we also know that at a certain time of year, for example, the Earth is here, and at another certain time, it’s here. We know, then, that the Moon orbits the Earth. So I’ll draw the Moon here. We also know that rotating closer to the Sun is the body commonly referred to as Mercury, followed by the one referred to as Venus. We further know that, beyond our Earth, rotate the bodies referred to as Mars—the proportions are, of course, not accurate, but that is not important here—as well as Jupiter and Saturn (see drawing). For now, let’s leave the other planets out of consideration. And now let’s assume a position of the Earth—as is, of course, very rarely the case—where, in its orbit around the Sun, the Earth is positioned such that the Sun is here and the Earth is here, with Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn located farther away from both the Earth and the Sun. If we now assume that our Earth is positioned such that it lies between Mars and the Sun, then we must consider that the space between the Earth and the Sun contains what is commonly called Venus and what is called Mercury. I would like to expressly emphasize that, over time, a change has taken place regarding the names of these two planets. What is called Mercury today was formerly called Venus, and what is called Venus today was formerly called Mercury. Therefore, you must think of these names in reverse, so that they no longer correspond to today’s designations. One must designate the one closer to the Sun as Venus and the one farther from it as Mercury. Then comes the Moon. But if you were to imagine the other configuration—with the Earth on the opposite side of the Sun (as shown in Figure D)—then, moving from the Earth toward the Sun, you would first encounter the Moon, then what was formerly called Mercury, then—according to the old nomenclature—Venus, and then, beyond the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. And if you were to consider this sequence while omitting the Earth, starting from the Sun, you would have Venus, Mercury, and the Moon on one side, and Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn on the other. If you were to connect these various celestial bodies so that the Sun marks the intersection point, you would obtain the same looping line that I previously described as the schematic representation of a human being’s daily experiences. This means there is a possible configuration in the solar system where the various planets are arranged in such a way that they form a spatial pattern corresponding exactly to the schema of a person’s daily cycle, if one defines the moment of waking and falling asleep as the intersection point.

[ 22 ] Strangely enough, we can thus map out in our planetary system the very same relationships that we could schematically illustrate in the course of a human day. And this gives you, for the time being, a perspective that the arrangement of our planetary system may be based on immense forces—we can say “may” for now—which regulate the entire vast system, this great cosmic clock, in space just as our personal lives are regulated in time over the course of twenty-four hours. And then the idea will no longer seem absurd to you that, in the macrocosm, immense, great forces are truly analogous to the forces that make us fall asleep and wake up, that guide us during the day and the night. And from such a thought arose, in ancient science, the practice of naming the planets after the forces that act upon us, as they said: The force that drives Mars around the sun out there in the macrocosm, in the great world, bears a resemblance to—and is of a kindred nature with—the force that makes us fall asleep. The force that drives Jupiter is similar to the force that sends dreams into the intellectual soul. The force that drives Venus around out there in the macrocosm is akin to the force that governs our sensory soul during the day. Saturn, which is far away and therefore exerts only a weak influence, manifests itself in its effect within the solar system in a manner similar to that weak force which only comes into play in special cases on the conscious soul—a force that is active only in the sleepwalker. And the Moon, which is very close to the Earth, is driven around our Earth by a force similar to the force that governs us in our conscious actions of daily life—actions that are, in fact, the ones closest to us. Here you already have external indications that spatial distances have significance, which is expressed in our own human lives as stronger and weaker effects. We will delve into much deeper relationships regarding these matters; today, however, the aim is merely to draw attention to them. But if you consider only superficially that Saturn is the farthest planet and has the least effect on our Earth, you can compare this to how the dark forces of Saturn have only a weak effect on the sleeping human being. And the force that drives Jupiter around the Sun is something that, in terms of its distance from the Sun, can also be compared to that which enters our lives relatively rarely: the world of dreams. Here you have a remarkable correspondence between what human life is—what daily human life is—and what takes place out there in space within the great cosmic clock, which acts as a force driving the individual planets in their orbits around the Sun. We have a correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm.

[ 23 ] You can see from this that the world is, in fact, much more complicated than is generally believed, and that when we look within ourselves as human beings, we can truly come to terms with ourselves—and understand our humanity—only when we take into account everything in our humanity that is connected to the wider world. And for this very reason—because they knew this—spiritual researchers of all ages have chosen appropriate terms for the phenomena and individual things of the greater world, as well as for what takes place within ourselves, in our seemingly so small world, in the physicality of the human being enclosed within the skin.

[ 24 ] Today, I was able to point out to you, so to speak, only from a distance, a certain correspondence between the microcosm—the human being—and the macrocosm, namely our solar system. Using a schematic line that can be drawn both in human daily life and in the solar system, I was able to illustrate to you that such a correspondence exists. We have, as it were, only alluded very remotely to beings who permeate our space and who, through their own powers, regulate the movements of the world system in a clockwork-like manner, just as the movement of the hands of our ordinary pocket or wall clock is regulated. We have cast a glance as far as the boundaries of those realms where we can hope that entire spiritual worlds will open up to us. In the coming lectures, we will have the task of coming to know the planets, as it were, as the world hands of the great world clock, and we will have the opportunity to point to the beings themselves who set the entire course of the solar system in motion, who move the planets around the Sun, and who reveal a kinship with what takes place within human beings themselves. And so we will come to understand how the human being, as a microcosm, as a small world, is born out of the macrocosm, out of the great world.