The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] Regarding yesterday’s lecture—I would like to note this so that no misunderstanding arises — was not intended to prove anything in any particular direction at this stage, but rather to suggest, in conclusion, that based on certain observations, the spiritual researchers of past eras felt compelled to use equivalent terms to describe certain phenomena and objects in outer space or our solar system, and to use the same terms for other phenomena in our own daily and nocturnal experiences. The lecture was thus intended, so to speak, to establish the concepts we will need for our subsequent presentations. In general, the lectures given in this series must be viewed as a whole, and the first lectures are, to the greatest extent possible, actually intended to lay the groundwork—in terms of ideas and concepts—for the insights into the spiritual worlds that will then be presented in the following lectures. Today, too, we will, in a certain sense, build upon familiar ground in order to gradually ascend to more distant spiritual realms.

[ 2 ] In the first lectures of this series, we have seen—and were already able to glean quite a bit from the two public lectures—that, in terms of their inner being, that is, in terms of what we have distinguished as the true “I” and the astral body, lives in a spiritual world during sleep and, upon waking, returns to what remains in bed during sleep—namely, the physical body and the etheric or Life-Body. Now, it will soon become clear to anyone who observes life that this transition from the sleeping to the waking state actually involves a complete change in experience. What we experience in the waking state is by no means a perception or insight gained from the two aspects of human nature into which we immerse ourselves upon waking. We immerse ourselves in our etheric or Life-Body and in our physical body, but during the waking state we do not come to know them in such a way that we view them from within, so to speak. What does the human being in ordinary life know about what his etheric or Life-Body and his physical body look like when viewed from within? This is precisely the essential aspect of waking experiences: that we observe our own being—as it exists within the physical world—from the outside and not from the inside. We view our own physical body from the outside with the same eyes with which we view the rest of the physical world. We never observe our own being from the inside during the waking state, but always only from the outside. So, fundamentally, we come to know ourselves as human beings only from the outside, through observation, as beings of the sensory world. If we take a close look at the state that can be characterized as the transitional state from sleep to wakefulness, we must ask: What would it be like if, as we sink into the etheric or Life-Body and into the physical body, we were to observe ourselves from the inside? — We would then have to see something entirely different. What we would then see would be the intimate experiences that the mystic seeks and to which we have already alluded a little. The mystic seeks to divert attention from the external world, seeks to silence everything that intrudes upon his eye, seeks to truly descend into his inner being. But if we set aside these experiences of the mystic for the moment, we can say: In life, we are protected from looking into our inner being, for the very moment we wake up, our gaze is diverted to the external world. — So waking up can be described as follows: Instead of looking at ourselves from within, at the moment of waking our gaze is diverted to the external world, to the tapestry of sensory impressions around us, and our own physical body, after all, belongs to this external tapestry of sensory impressions when we observe it while awake. — Thus, in the waking state, we lose the ability to observe ourselves from within. It is as if we were being carried along by a stream: when we sleep, we are on this side of the stream; when we are awake, we are on the other side of the stream. If we could perceive something on this side of the stream, then—as we shall see later—we would perceive our astral body and our “I.” But we are protected from perceiving our inner self while asleep, for when we fall asleep, the ability to perceive ceases, and consciousness fades.

[ 3 ] Thus, a sharp boundary is indeed drawn between our inner and outer worlds. We cross this boundary when we fall asleep and when we wake up, but we cannot cross it without something actually being taken from us. When we cross the boundary as we fall asleep, our consciousness ceases, and we can no longer observe the spiritual world. Upon waking, our consciousness is immediately diverted to the outer world, and we can no longer observe the spiritual realm that underlies our very being, for our consciousness is occupied by external experiences. That which we cross over—that which obscures the spiritual realm for us at the moment we wake up, that which allows us to perceive this spiritual realm only as through a veil—is nothing other than something that interposes itself between our soul of sensation, our etheric or Life-Body, and our physical body. What veils the latter two members, what covers them from us upon waking, we call the sensory body. This is the reason we see the outer tapestry of sensory impressions. At the moment we wake up, the sensory body is completely occupied by the outer sensory tapestry, and we cannot look within ourselves. Thus, this sensory body stands as a boundary between what spiritually underlies the outer sensory world and our inner experience.

[ 4 ] We will see that this is necessary for human life, for what a person would see if he were to consciously pass through this stream is something he must not see at first in the normal course of his life, because he could not bear it—he must first prepare himself to see it. And mystical development does not consist in forcibly penetrating the inner world of our etheric or Life-Body and our physical body, but rather in first preparing oneself, in first ripening oneself to see what one can then see when one consciously passes through this stream. What would happen to a person who, unprepared, wanted to plunge into his inner self—that is, who, upon waking, did not want to see the outer world but wanted to penetrate his own inner world, that which spiritually underlies our etheric or Life-Body and our physical body? Well, such a person would experience in their soul a feeling of immense intensity, one that is known in ordinary life only in a very diluted form. A feeling that is known only faintly in ordinary life would overwhelm such a person if, upon waking, they could descend into their inner self with full attention. Through a kind of comparison—and again, the aim is not to prove anything, but merely to arrive at concepts—you will be able to grasp the concept of this feeling.

[ 5 ] There is something within human beings that is called a sense of shame. This sense of shame consists in the fact that when a person feels ashamed of something in his soul, he wants to divert the attention of others away from the thing or quality in question of which he is ashamed. This sense of shame for something within a person that they do not wish to reveal is a faint hint of that feeling which would grow to immense strength if, upon awakening, a person could consciously look into their own inner self. This feeling would take hold of the human soul with such force that the person would feel it pouring out over everything that stands in their way. They would have an experience comparable to the feeling of being consumed by fire. This sense of shame would affect them like a kind of burning. Why would it have such an effect on a person? This sense of shame would have such an effect because, at that moment, a person would realize just how perfect their physical body and their etheric or Life-Body actually are in relation to what they are as a soul being. One can already form a concept of how the physical body and the etheric or Life-Body are perfect in relation to what a human being is as a soul being through ordinary logic alone. Anyone who, purely from the outside, through the physical sciences, penetrates the marvelous structure—let us say, of the human heart or the human brain—in all its details; indeed, anyone who, for my sake, merely penetrates a single part of the human skeletal system with its marvelous structure, will already be able to sense how infinitely wise and perfect this human body is constructed. If one takes just a single piece of bone—for example, the femur—and observes how infinitely wisely and perfectly the beams are joined together in a fine network so that, with the least amount of matter, the greatest strength and load-bearing capacity is generated to support the human torso; or if one considers the marvelous structure of the human heart and brain, then one can already gain a glimpse of what one would experience if one could see the whole from within, how it has sprung forth from the depths of wisdom. If one compares this with what a human being is as a spiritual being—what he is in terms of his pleasures, passions, and desires—one sees how human beings are actually bent on ruining the marvelous structure of the physical body. Throughout his entire life, he gives free rein to his desires, impulses, and passions and, in essence, sets out to ruin the marvelous structure of the physical heart and brain. What one can observe in everyday life—how human beings ruin their hearts and brains by indulging in this or that stimulant—is, so to speak, merely the trivial beginning of a destructive process directed against the marvelous structure of the human body. All of this would stand vividly before the human soul if it were to consciously descend into its etheric or Life-Body and into its physical body. And it would have an immensely devastating, even annihilating effect on a person if they could compare the imperfection of the human soul with the marvelous structure of the body—if they could see what is within their soul and compare it to how the wise guidance of the universe has fashioned their physical and etheric bodies, into which they descend every morning upon waking. That is why he is protected from consciously descending into his own inner being; he is distracted by what unfolds before his senses throughout the day as a tapestry of external sensory impressions. He cannot look into his inner being.

[ 6 ] A comparison between the human soul and that which spiritually underlies the physical body and the etheric or Life-Body would evoke a sense of shame, and this feeling is prepared for by all those soul experiences that the mystic undergoes before he becomes worthy of descending into his inner self. It is specifically the mystic’s experiences that evoke in his soul the strongest possible resolve to perceive his own soul as insignificant, as weak, and as having an infinitely long path of perfection ahead of it. Therefore, the mystic must, in particular, awaken within his soul the feelings of humility and the longing for perfection, so that they may prepare him to endure this comparison; otherwise, he would burn with shame as if in fire. The mystic prepares himself for this through the following thoughts: Certainly, when I look at what I am and compare it with what the wise providence of the world has made of me, I must realize how small, how bad, how lowly I still am. — And the sense of shame, which outwardly produces a blush, would grow so intense that it could truly become a scorching, burning fire, were it not for the mystic’s ability to say to himself: Yes, right now I feel as insignificant as possible in comparison to what I can become, but I will try to develop the powerful forces within me that will enable me to live up to—spiritually as well—what the wise cosmic guidance has built into my physical being. — The spiritual teacher makes it clear to the mystic who wishes to descend into his inner self that he must first feel a sense of humility that extends, so to speak, into infinity. This feeling can be described something like this. One can say to the aspiring mystic: Look at the plant. The plant is rooted in the soil. The soil offers it a realm that is lower than the plant kingdom. Yet the plant cannot live without this realm, which must initially be regarded as inferior. When the plant bends down toward the mineral kingdom, it can say: “To this lower realm, from which I have grown, I owe my existence.” It would have to bow in humility toward the lower kingdom and say: “It is to you that I owe my existence.” Likewise, the animal owes its existence to the plant kingdom. If it were to become aware of its place in the structure of the world, it would have to bow in humility toward the lower kingdom. And the human being, looking around at the world, would have to say: In truth, I could not have reached this level if everything below me had not developed in the appropriate way. — When a person develops such feelings in their soul, a mood arises within them that they actually have reason not only to look up in gratitude toward what is above them, but also to look with gratitude upon what is below them. When what might be called the cultivation of humility truly takes root in the soul, the soul is permeated and filled with this sense of humility—the realization that one still has an infinitely long path ahead to become perfect.

[ 7 ] Everything that has been said so far cannot be fully expressed through concepts and ideas. If that were possible, the mystic would soon be done. But it cannot be fully expressed through concepts and ideas; rather, it can only be experienced. Only the one who experiences such feelings again and again can imbue his soul with the fundamental disposition necessary for the mystic. If a person wishes to mature and descend into his inner self, he must develop the feeling that enables him to endure whatever may stand in his way as he strives to become more and more perfect. They must develop a sense of resignation toward what they are to endure in order to approach a certain level of perfection. Over long, long periods of time, the mystic must cultivate within themselves the feeling that it is only by overcoming suffering that one develops the strong forces needed to lift the soul out of that state in which it feels weak in the face of whatever stands in its way. The soul must allow itself to be moved by that feeling through which it repeatedly tells itself: No matter how much pain may befall me, I will stand firm in the face of it; I will not waver; for if I were to enjoy only the happiness that life brings me, I would never be able to develop the strong power that the human soul needs. Strength is gained through resistance, through overcoming obstacles, not by simply accepting a situation. Strength is tempered only by exerting it to overcome obstacles, by being willing to endure suffering and pain with resignation. This is something the mystic cultivates within his soul when he seeks to prepare himself to descend into his own inner self without being consumed by shame.

[ 8 ] Of course, a person does not have to go through all of this in everyday life, and no one should believe that Spiritual Science would expect ordinary people to undergo such exercises. What is described here is not intended to make demands, but rather to recount what those who voluntarily take upon themselves a series of such experiences can accomplish with their souls, and what the mystic strives for; he enables his soul to descend into this inner human realm. In the normal course of life, however, the human sensory body interposes itself between what one can experience inwardly as a mystic and what one experiences in the outer world, protecting the person from descending unprepared into their inner being and, so to speak, being consumed by a sense of shame. Of course, in the normal course of life, a person cannot experience what it is that protects them from descending unprepared into their inner being, for there they are already approaching the boundary of the spiritual world. The spiritual researcher who wishes to explore the human inner being must, however, cross this boundary. The spiritual researcher must therefore pass through the current that diverts ordinary, normal human consciousness from the inner world to the outer world. This ordinary, normal human consciousness is protected from entering the human inner world in an immature state; it is protected from burning up in the fire of its own shame. The power that protects a person every morning upon waking from entering their own inner self is invisible to the person. It is the first spiritual being that the genuine, true spiritual researcher encounters on the path leading into their inner self. He must pass by that being which, in normal consciousness, protects him from inner burning, from inner conflagration. He must pass by the being that diverts his inward gaze toward the outer world, toward the tapestry of external sensory impressions. Normal consciousness perceives the effect of this being. Human beings cannot see it, for it is already the first spiritual entity we must pass by if we wish to enter the spiritual world. And this spiritual entity, which stands beside a person every morning and protects them from spiritually beholding their own inner being while still immature, is called in Spiritual Science the Little Guardian of the Threshold. The path into the spiritual world leads past this Little Guardian of the Threshold.

[ 9 ] Thus, we have first directed our consciousness toward the most obvious experiences of the day, up to the point where we can sense what the spiritual researcher sees as the little guardian of the threshold. We will describe this little guardian of the threshold later, for we wish to start from the familiar and gradually approach the unknown. This already suggests, then, that we do not actually see our true nature at all in our daily consciousness, in the waking state. And if we call our own being the microcosm—the little world—in the sense of the last two lectures, then we can say: We never actually see the microcosm in its true spiritual form, but we see only what it reveals of itself in the normal state—only the outer appearance. It is, therefore, truly something that can be compared to a kind of mirror image. Just as when we look in a mirror we see our image and not ourselves, so too, when we are in our waking consciousness, we do not see the microcosm—the true essence of the human being—itself, but only its mirror image; we see the microcosm as a mirror image.

[ 10 ] Do we, then, perceive the macrocosm as it truly is? Let us once again bring to mind some very familiar everyday experiences. What does a person experience in the course of twenty-four hours in the external sensory world? In the external sensory world, a person also experiences a transition between day and night, just as in the microcosm—only now this transition occurs in the external world. They experience the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening. They experience how sunlight first illuminates all the objects around them. What, then, is it that a person sees from sunrise to sunset? Essentially, they do not see the objects at all, but rather the sunlight that these objects reflect back to them. We do not see an object in the dark. A person cannot see an object when it is unlit. What applies to the eye also applies to the other senses, but let us stick with the eye for now. When one looks directly at the sun, the eyes are blinded. Therefore, one can never truly perceive the sun itself. Essentially, a person perceives the sun’s rays that the external world reflects back to him. He does not perceive the objects themselves, but rather the reflected sun’s rays. This happens from morning until evening. But humans see only in a very imperfect way the very thing that enables them to see external objects, for the very thing to which you owe your ability to perceive an external sensory world during the day at all is what blinds you. This is an image, a parable. Just as we relate to the external sensory world, so do we relate within our own inner being. We never see the cause of why we perceive things. We perceive things, but we cannot rise to that which makes them perceptible to us. This blinds us just as the sun does when we try to perceive it as the reason for the visibility of objects. Thus, our experience with the external sun during the day is very similar to our experience with our own inner self upon waking. We live within our own inner being. The forces within our own inner being enable us to live and perceive the external world, but they also prevent us from perceiving ourselves. It is just as it is with the sun; it enables us to perceive things, but it blinds us when we try to perceive it ourselves.

[ 11 ] But we also cannot perceive anything during the day that is connected to the sun in some way—that which otherwise belongs to the sun. We perceive only what our Earth reveals to us in the reflected sunlight. When we look out into outer space, we do not see even what belongs to our solar system. Our solar system includes not only the Sun but also the planets. We are unable to see them during the day. The Sun, therefore, not only blinds us by its own light during the day but also to such an extent that we cannot see the planets by day. We look out into space and know: even though the planets that belong to our solar system are out there, they are hidden from our view. We can therefore say: Just as our own inner being eludes us during the day, and just as the spiritual world eludes us at night when we are in the ordinary state of sleep, so too do the causes of our sensory perception elude us during the day when we direct our gaze outward and survey the tapestry of sensory impressions. That which actually underlies the Sun, that which connects the Sun to the other bodies of the solar system—to the beings we see in their outer manifestations, in what we call Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and so on—that living interplay between the Sun and these bodies eludes us during the day. What we perceive is an effect of sunlight. And if we now compare this state with the state of the sensory world around us at night—from sunset to sunrise—we can then, in a certain sense, perceive what belongs to our solar system. We can cast our gaze out into the wonderfully starry sky, where the planets present themselves to our view. But while we can see the planets belonging to our solar system in the night sky, the Sun itself eludes us; the Sun is invisible to us. So we must say: That which makes our sensory world visible to us by day deprives us of the ability to observe it by night. It eludes us; at night it shrouds our entire sensory world in imperceptibility, and we perceive only what belongs to our Sun—we see only the planetary world.

[ 12 ] Is there a way, so to speak, to create something similar for the nocturnal state—much like the mystic’s state for descending into the inner world, as we have described it? Is there something similar? People today are not very aware of this kind of state, but it does exist. It consists in the fact that a person, like the mystic, develops certain qualities of humility and devotion, as well as certain other qualities, which we can understand by first bringing the simplest of these qualities to mind. Let us again start with a very simple quality. People possess this quality in ordinary life as well, but only faintly—just like the sense of shame. When a person magnifies this feeling—which they possess only faintly in ordinary life and which we will characterize shortly—to immense proportions, they are in fact preparing themselves to experience something entirely different at night than in their normal state of consciousness. And this feeling that a person must develop within themselves is the following. You all know that we can feel differently in the spring than in the fall. A healthy soul will feel differently in the spring than in the fall. A healthy soul will feel differently when, in the spring, the buds sprout on the trees and give us, so to speak, the promise of the beauty and splendor of summer. It is something that pours into our soul—a sense of awakening hope—when we see spring approaching. This feeling is only faintly developed in the ordinary, average person, but it is present nonetheless. And when we then move into autumn, this feeling—which is present in spring as hope for summer— which feels like an awakening of the soul, transform into a sense of melancholy as we watch the trees shed their leaves, as we see bare shrubs and broom-like forms increasingly take the place of the trees and flowers that offered us such a wonderful sight throughout the summer. That is when our inner life changes; it becomes permeated by what we might call the melancholy of the heart. Thus, in the course of the year, as we go along with the phenomena of outer life, we can experience a cycle of the soul throughout the year. And since in human beings these feelings—the spring and autumn feelings just described—are only weakly developed in normal life, people do not feel the intensification of the spring feeling as summer approaches to the corresponding degree, nor do they feel the transformation of autumn’s melancholy into yet another feeling that goes beyond it, when the earth spreads out completely around us in its winter garb.

[ 13 ] But it was in such sentiments that the spiritual students were raised—and are still raised today—who wish to follow the path opposite to that of the mystic. While the mystic is led inward, the one who wishes to follow the opposite path is led out into the cycle of the great natural world and is thus trained to experience the events of the great natural world firsthand. His soul is treated in such a way that he learns to feel, to a much greater degree, what is only faintly sensed in ordinary life during spring, so that he learns to empathize with the entire sprouting of vegetation in spring. If he is able to immerse himself completely in this, to forget himself, and to experience spring’s nature alongside it, then this experience becomes something quite special as summer approaches. It evolves from the awakening hope of spring into a complete inner exultation in summer. This is how one who is, so to speak, a “reverse mystic,” is educated. And again, when a person has reached the point where, in self-forgetfulness elevated to its highest degree, he has learned to experience the melancholy of autumn, then he may also become capable of experiencing the intensification of feeling from the melancholy of autumn to a shared sense of the death of all nature in the middle of winter.

[ 14 ] Among others, this was how those students were educated who participated in the lessons on sensation in the ancient Nordic mysteries, which today are known to the outside world only through tradition and in a purely superficial way. There, the students were educated in such a way that, through special methods, they learned to participate in the annual cycle of nature through their feelings, in their souls. And everything the student experienced in the summer at the time of St. John’s Night signified a shared rejoicing with all of nature. The fires of St. John’s Night were something like a hint of the intensification of the feeling of hope in spring into a shared exultation with nature in summer, when one experienced the breath of life permeating the entire cosmos. And at the winter solstice, the student felt, in the depths of his soul, the dying of nature, with the melancholy of autumn intensifying infinitely until it became a shared experience of death.

[ 15 ] Such were the sensory experiences, which, in fact, can hardly be experienced by people today with the same intensity. For, as a result of the advances in intellectual life over the past few centuries, modern people are essentially incapable of those great, powerful experiences that the souls of the original indigenous peoples of the European continent—particularly those of the northern and central regions of Europe—went through. But once such an experience had been undergone, something very peculiar did indeed manifest itself for those people who had thus heightened their inner soul experiences. They acquired a certain ability. Just as the mystic has the ability to descend into his own inner being, so they acquired the ability—as strange as that may sound, it is indeed the case; I am merely describing things that countless people have experienced and can still experience— they acquired the ability to see through matter; that is to say, they could not merely see what is perceived as the surface, but they could see through it; above all, during the time from sunset to sunrise, they were able to see through our Earth, and through the transparent Earth the Sun shone vividly upon them. In the ancient mysteries, this was called “beholding the sun at midnight.” However, the sun could be beheld in its greatest fullness and glory only when, during the winter solstice, one had approached with one’s soul that state in which the entire outer tapestry of the senses had died away. Then one had attained the ability to behold the sun—not now as a blinding entity, as it appears by day, but with all the sun’s dazzling qualities softened; one no longer saw the sun as a physical entity outside, but as a spiritual entity. One beheld the spirit of the sun. What had acted as a physical effect—such as glare—had been extinguished by the matter of the Earth. This matter had become transparent, allowing only the spiritual aspect of the sun to pass through. But something fundamentally different was connected with this beholding of the sun; with this beholding of the sun, something most remarkable now revealed itself. For what we alluded to yesterday in an abstract way now revealed itself in its truth: that there is in fact a living interaction between everything that belongs to our solar system—the planets—and the Sun itself, through the constant flow of currents from the planets to the Sun and from the Sun to the planets. In short, something spiritual revealed itself out there that can be compared to something in life that everyone knows: namely, the circulation of blood in the human body.

[ 16 ] Everything that a person learns to experience by enhancing their capacity for sensation, as has just been described, eludes ordinary daytime perception as the spiritual aspect of the universe. It is also hidden from the night vision. For what does a person see at night with their ordinary faculties when they look up into the heavens? In essence, they see only the outer aspect of it, just as they do of their own inner being, so that what we see in the starry sky is the body of a spiritual entity that underlies it. Just as we, when we look at our own bodies with our eyes, see the outward expression of the spiritual within us, so too does a person, when looking up at the starry sky at night, see a wondrous structure—but this is the material body of the cosmic spirit, which expresses itself through this body in all its movements that we perceive externally. And once again, it is the case that, so to speak, a veil is drawn over ordinary human consciousness; a veil spreads out before everything that a person would see if they were to perceive spiritually, as has now been described, what presents itself to them in space. Just as we are shielded from our own inner being, so in ordinary life we are shielded from perceiving the spiritual reality that underlies the outer material world. When we are living our ordinary lives, what we call the “veil of the senses” spreads out before what underlies it spiritually.

[ 17 ] Why does this happen? There is a feeling that would arise immediately if people could see the spiritual realm so easily. If a person were to see the spiritual realm immediately, without the preparation and maturity gained through experiencing natural processes, they would experience a feeling that could only be expressed with the words: bewildering terror, or the most terrifying confusion. For the phenomena are so magnificent and awe-inspiring that the human concepts we acquire in ordinary life—no matter how much we learn—are truly insufficient to endure this bewildering sight; a person would be seized by a feeling of terrifying confusion, by an immense intensification of fear and dread. Just as a person would burn with shame if he were to descend into his own inner being without preparation, so too, if he were to look into the spiritual realm of the outer world without preparation, he would literally freeze in fear, because he would feel as though he had been led into a labyrinth. Only when the soul prepares itself through such concepts and mental images that lead it beyond ordinary experience can it gradually accustom itself to looking beyond the sensory world. Today, as has already been indicated, intellectual life makes it impossible for a person to undergo what people experienced back then in the Nordic Mysteries. Through their intellectual life, people can no longer experience this intensification of spring and autumn sensations. Today, people think very, very differently than they did back then. Thinking was not yet so developed in those days. Intellectuality developed only gradually. And with the development of intellectuality, people also lost the ability to go through such experiences. But in a certain sense, people can experience it indirectly, as a mirror image, not by experiencing these sensations in the external natural phenomena themselves, but through the depictions and descriptions of the spiritual world and its interrelationships that are given to them through spiritual vision.

[ 18 ] That is why, in our present time, such descriptions must gradually be provided for people, as they are, for example—and I say this not out of immodesty, but because it is necessary—in my recently published book The Secret Science. It describes aspects of the world that cannot be perceived externally, and it does so from a foundation—as we shall yet see—from which such things can be described; it describes what lies spiritually at the foundation of the world, and what can be seen by those who have prepared themselves in the manner just described. Such a book should not be read like any other book—that is not its purpose—but rather it should be read in such a way that the concepts and ideas contained within it evoke feelings, so that one truly feels in the soul, with full intensity, what is presented there in concepts and ideas. If one reads it in such a way that one undergoes the most intense emotional experiences in the soul, then these emotional experiences are similar to those that were experienced in the Nordic mysteries of Europe.

[ 19 ] In this book we find a description of all the earlier incarnations of our Earth; we find descriptions of a Saturn, a Sun, and a Moon state. If you do not read the descriptions found there as one would read a theoretical text, but instead go along with what is described, paying close attention to how it is described, you will notice a difference in style between the description of the ancient Saturn state, the description of the Sun state, and that of the Moon state. If you allow what is said about Saturn to sink in, you can rediscover something of the springtime mood of the Nordic mystery student, and in the description of the Sun you will find something akin to the feeling that seized the mystery student as he rejoiced on St. John’s Night. It is no coincidence that this book has been so long in coming, for great care has been taken to ensure that the descriptions are capable of evoking in us feelings similar to the moods of the students in the Nordic mysteries. And when we come to the description of the Earth’s evolution and take into account how the entire style is shaped there, we will experience a mood such as it should be as winter approaches, toward December 21, the winter solstice. It evokes a melancholy associated with death, which then transitions into the Christmas spirit. This can be offered today in place of what people can no longer experience, because they have risen from a life of feeling to intellectuality, to thinking. Therefore, feeling and sensation—which were originally kindled by nature itself—must be reawakened today through the mirror of thought. Thus, writings on Spiritual Science must be composed today in such a way that their mood corresponds to the annual cycle of the world’s becoming. If one describes things merely theoretically, it is completely pointless; it leads to nothing more than acquiring spiritual matters as one would the recipes in a cookbook. The difference between Spiritual Science books and other books does not lie in the fact that they describe different things, but mainly in the “how”—in the way in which things are presented. From this you will see what must underlie books on Spiritual Science: that things are drawn from certain depths; that—as is the task of our time—they must contain what, through the circuitous path of thought, can once again kindle the feelings.

[ 20 ] What, then, must we keep in mind today in order to find something that can lead us out of the confusion into which the human soul falls when it enters the labyrinth of spiritual cosmic events? Well, when a person enters this labyrinth, they need a guide. This is something to which the Greek people—who were the first to lay the groundwork for thinking—already pointed us prophetically. Among the northern, elemental, primordial peoples, the abilities to read the great scripture of nature remained for a long time, at a time when the Greeks had already developed to a higher level of intellectuality. And the Greeks had to prepare the ground for what we must now develop to a greater degree. Although such a “secret science” could not yet have been written in Greece, the Greeks did, in another way, provide a picture to those who ventured into the labyrinth of the spiritual, cosmic world—a picture of the possibility of having a thread by which one can find one’s way back out of the confusion of the labyrinth. This is hinted at in the legend of Theseus, who enters the labyrinth with Ariadne’s thread. For our time, this thread of Ariadne is nothing other than a metaphor for the concepts we are to develop in our souls regarding the supersensible world. It is the spiritual knowledge offered to us by Spiritual Science so that we may enter with confidence into this labyrinth of the spiritual world of the macrocosm. Thus, what is given to us today in Spiritual Science—which at first speaks only to reason—is meant to be Ariadne’s thread, helping us to navigate past all the confusion we might encounter if we were to enter the spiritual world of the macrocosm unprepared.

[ 21 ] Thus we see that, in fact, if a person wishes to find the spirit in the external world, they must traverse a realm that they pass through unconsciously in ordinary life; they must consciously traverse that stream which robs them of consciousness. When a person then allows themselves to be influenced either by what we have described as sensations kindled by the very process of nature’s becoming, or by the concepts and ideas we have just characterized—when a person develops in this way—they gradually acquire the ability to approach fearlessly that spiritual power which would otherwise instill fear and dread in them. It is the great Guardian of the Threshold who stands before the great spiritual world, imperceptible to ordinary consciousness. He becomes perceptible only to those who have prepared themselves in the proper manner. Thus, the one who has prepared himself to step out into the great spiritual world, into the spiritual macrocosm—fearless in the face of any confusion that might befall him—passes by the great Guardian of the Threshold, who also shows us how insignificant we still are and how we must develop new faculties if we wish to grow into this great world, into the spiritual macrocosm. A person would stand there disheartened and despondent if they approached this great Guardian of the Threshold unprepared.

[ 22 ] We have now described how human beings are, so to speak, enclosed within two boundaries. We already drew attention to this in the last lecture; today we have described in greater detail how human beings are enclosed between these two gates. Before one stands the little guardian of the threshold, and before the other, the great guardian of the threshold. One gate leads into the human inner being, into the spirit of the microcosm; the other leads into the spirit of the macrocosm. But we must also be clear that from this very same macrocosm—into which we are thus led—come the forces that build us up. Where, then, is the material taken from for our physical body and for our etheric or Life-Body? That which builds up our physical body, that which builds up our etheric body—all the forces that flow together to build up that which is so full of wisdom—all of this truly meets us, spread out before us, in the great world. There, once we have passed by the great Keeper of the Threshold, it is not merely knowledge of the macrocosm that meets us. Knowledge can be acquired. But even after acquiring knowledge of the great world, one has not yet found entry into the world of effects and forces. For our body cannot be built up from knowledge alone; it must be built up from forces. Thus, once we have passed the great Guardian of the Threshold—this wondrous, mysterious spiritual being—we enter a world of unknown effects and forces. It must be said of this world that human beings initially know nothing of it, because the veil of the sensory world spreads out before it. Yet these are the forces that flow into us, from which our physical body and our etheric or Life-Body are formed. This entire interplay—the interactions between the great world and the small world, the effects between what lies within and what lies without and is hidden by the veil of the senses—is contained within this bewildering labyrinth. There we enter into a living life. This living reality is what we must first describe, and tomorrow we will begin by gaining our first insight into that which the human being cannot perceive, yet which manifests within him as effects—as we have seen—when he passes through one gate or the other, when he passes by the little guardian of the threshold and the great guardian of the threshold.