The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday, at the conclusion of our exposition outlining the true, deeper mystical path of the human being, we had to point out the principal danger associated with this mystical path for those who would have walked it in ancient times without guidance—in times when the methods of initiation that exist today, and of which we will speak later, had not yet been developed. To give you an even clearer indication of how great these difficulties were, I would like to mention the following. We have seen that the difficulties stem mainly from the fact that when a person delves into their own inner being, they are almost completely filled by their egoistic nature, by their self-centered “I,” so that this “I” awakens with such intensity that it would place everything a person otherwise perceives—everything they are otherwise capable of recognizing—at the service of the “I,” and would see everything only through the lens colored by this intensified light of the egoistic soul. Precisely for this reason, in the ancient initiation, the strength of the sense of self and self-consciousness had to be completely subdued, and the self had to be, so to speak, transferred to the spiritual guide, as we described yesterday. This attenuation of the “I” was initially achieved in such a way that, through the power emanating from the spiritual guide, the “I”-consciousness of the person to be initiated was reduced to one-third of its usual strength. That is already a great deal, for we can say that our consciousness in the state of sleep—unless we are in a very deep sleep—is reduced to about one-third of its normal level. In the ancient Egyptian mysteries, this dimming was taken even further. That one-third of consciousness was reduced yet again to one-quarter—that is, to one-twelfth of normal consciousness—so that the person in question was ultimately in a state truly resembling death. To an outside observer, he appeared completely like a dead person.

[ 2 ] What I would like to point out, however, is that these eleven-twelfths of consciousness did not simply vanish into nothingness. That was by no means the case. On the contrary, it was only then, through spiritual perception, that one could see how intense human selfishness is, for with every twelfth part of human ego-consciousness, something emerged spiritually from the human being that was a powerful fragment of his selfishness. And as strange as it may sound to you, it was nevertheless true: in order to keep these egoisms flowing out of the human being in check—as it were, to keep the human being in a spiritual state when his ego was subdued—the Guide required twelve assistants. This is one of the mysteries of the higher initiations of antiquity. It is mentioned here only to show what a person finds when he descends into his inner self. If left to his own devices, a person would, without further ado, be led into his inner self and would, in fact, behave in such a way that he would acquire qualities twelve times worse than those he possesses in ordinary life. These human traits, which in ordinary life are suppressed or concealed by convention, customs, habits, or laws, were kept in check during initiation into the ancient Egyptian mysteries by the assistants of the priest of Hermes. As I said, this was meant to be merely a passing remark to reinforce what was mentioned at the end of yesterday’s discussion.

[ 3 ] Today it is up to us to show the other path that a person can take—not by descending into their inner self, that is, not by experiencing the moment of awakening through a look inward, but rather by consciously experiencing the moment of falling asleep and remaining in that state in which a person finds themselves when they are given over to sleep. We have seen in the previous lectures that a person then, as it were, flows out into the macrocosm, whereas during their waking state they are immersed in their own being, in the microcosm. It has also been mentioned that what a person would experience if their “I” were to pour itself out into the macrocosm—into the great world—would be so blinding, so overwhelming, that it must indeed be described as a wise arrangement: that when a person falls asleep, at the very moment when—if their consciousness were to remain awake—they would be blinded by the macrocosm, he forgets everything and himself—that is, his consciousness actually ceases. As for what a human being can experience when a certain degree of consciousness is retained, we have already described this in that merging into the macrocosm which we have called ecstasy. But at the same time, we have shown that this ecstasy is something through which the “I” is, as it were, absorbed—much like a drop of liquid mixed with a large quantity of water. Through ecstasy, a person would enter a state that could be described as being “out of oneself,” existing outside of one’s ordinary being. Thus, this ecstasy can by no means be described as something desirable for a person seeking to enter the world of the macrocosm, for the person would then lose themselves; their “I” would cease to govern them. Nevertheless, in earlier times—particularly in European regions—there was indeed a state comparable to ecstasy into which those who were to be initiated into the mysteries of the macrocosm were brought, a state that was nonetheless similar to ecstasy. Today this is no longer the case, but in earlier times—particularly in the northern and western regions of Europe, including our own region—it was entirely appropriate to the development of the people living in these areas to be introduced to the mysteries of the greater world through a kind of ecstasy. But this also exposed them to what one might call a loss of the self. Yet this state was not so dangerous for the people of that time, because they were endowed with a certain primal, elemental, and healthy strength and were not yet as weakened in terms of their original soul forces as present-day humanity is due to its high degree of intellectuality. As they were, these people were able to experience all these heightened emotions—the hopes of spring, the exultation of summer, the melancholy of autumn, and the shivers of death in winter—and yet retain their sense of self to a certain degree. However, provision had to be made for those who were to become teachers for today’s humanity, so that the initiation—the introduction into the macrocosm—could still take place in a different way. You will be able to understand what is at stake if you create a mental image of what this living out into the macrocosm is like: the loss of the “I” is, in fact, the main point. The “I” becomes weaker and weaker; the human being eventually reaches a state in which he loses himself as a human being.

[ 4 ] What had to happen so that human beings would not lose themselves? They had to be given precisely the power known as the power of the “I.” The power that was growing weaker within their own souls—the power of the “I”—had to be supplied from outside. And this came about because these Nordic mysteries always proceeded in such a way that the one who was to be initiated received support from assistants who aided the spiritual guide conducting the initiation. A spiritual guide had to be present, but there also had to be assistants who supported this spiritual guide. And these assistants came about in the following way. People were specially educated and prepared in such a way that one person, for example, would experience with particular intensity those inner experiences and feelings that one undergoes when surrendering oneself entirely to what might be called the burgeoning nature of spring. It has been said before that the initiate cannot do this to a sufficiently strong degree on their own. For this reason, certain individuals were specially trained to place all their soul forces in the service of these Nordic mysteries to such an extent that they renounced everything else—that is, the experiences associated with autumn, summer, and winter. They were to devote all their soul forces to experiencing, on an emotional level, the unique character of nature as it bursts forth in spring. Others, in turn, were guided to experience the fullness of summer life; still others were guided to experience the fullness of autumn life, and yet others that of winter. Thus, what a single person can experience over the course of a year was distributed among various individuals. As a result, there were people who had tempered and strengthened their “I” in the most diverse ways. Because they had strengthened their “I” in a one-sided manner, they possessed an abundance of “I”-force. And now, according to certain rules, they were brought into contact with the one who was to be initiated in such a way that they bestowed their surplus “I”-force upon him, so that it flowed into him. Thus, the initiate, who was to undergo the course of the year, lived through the year in such a way that he was led up to certain higher insights into the macrocosm, while the “I”-forces of the initiation priest and his assistants flowed into his “I.” What the others could give him poured into the soul of the initiate. If one wishes to understand such a process, one must, of course, be able to grasp the degree of devotion and self-sacrifice with which the work was carried out in those ancient times within the mysteries. Little of that devotion, of that self-sacrifice, can be found in today’s exoteric world. In the past, people willingly devoted themselves to unilaterally strengthen their ego so that they could impart the power of this ego to the one who was to be initiated and then learn from him what he had experienced as he ascended into an ecstasy—which, however, was no longer an ecstasy because foreign ego-forces had flowed into him, but rather a conscious ascent into the macrocosm. Twelve people were necessary—three spring, three summer, three autumn, and three winter types—who sent variously developed “I” forces to the initiate, who thus lived his way up into the higher worlds and who, based on the experiences he had there, could then describe what the higher worlds are like. Such a council of twelve people, who worked together with their powers to bring forth an initiate growing into the macrocosm, existed in the mysteries, and the memory of it still persists in various societies that are today, of course, in a state of decadence, societies which, as a rule, also feature a community of twelve members who perform certain functions. But all of this is now merely a final—and, moreover, misunderstood—reminiscence of what existed during initiation in the ancient Nordic Mysteries.

[ 5 ] When a person, with an ego force artificially sustained within them, immersed themselves in this way into the macrocosm, they did indeed ascend into higher worlds. The first world they had to pass through was the one that would reveal itself to a person if they did not lose consciousness upon falling asleep. To ensure that we understand each other quite precisely in this regard, let us now consider this moment of falling asleep just as we previously considered the moment of waking up. In fact, falling asleep is an ascent into the macrocosm. In ordinary, normal life, certain unusual circumstances can arise that enable a person to maintain a certain awareness of the process of falling asleep. When this happens, the following is roughly what they experience. They feel a kind of bliss. They can distinguish this very clearly from their waking consciousness. It is a lightening of being, a floating upward, as if growing out of oneself. But this moment is accompanied by a certain tormenting feeling of recollection of the faults and weaknesses inherent in one’s character. What emerges there as a tormenting memory of personal faults is a greatly attenuated reflection of the feeling that a person experiences—as we have already described—when he passes by the little guardian of the threshold and perceives how imperfect he is, with his small soul, in the face of the great realities and great beings of the macrocosm. Then a kind of twitch follows. This is the emergence of the true inner human being into the macrocosm. These are rare experiences, but nonetheless ones that some people have when they were more or less conscious at the moment of falling asleep. But the person who possesses only ordinary, normal consciousness loses this consciousness the moment they fall asleep. All the impressions of the day—such as impressions of color, light, sound, and so on—fade from consciousness, and the person is now surrounded by pitch-black darkness instead of all the colors and other impressions of the day. If a person were to maintain consciousness in the same way that a prepared initiate does, then at the moment when the external impressions of the day disappear, they would not see nothing—that is, they would not be surrounded by pitch-black darkness—but rather they would perceive what is called in Spiritual Science the elemental world, the world of the elements.

[ 6 ] This world of the elements is, then, what is initially hidden from the person falling asleep. Just as a person’s inner world is concealed upon waking because the person is immediately distracted by impressions from the outer world, so too, upon falling asleep, the next world to which the person belongs—the first level of the macrocosm, the elemental world—is concealed. A person learns to look into this elemental world when he truly ascends into the macrocosm in the manner described. This elemental world first gives him an awareness that everything in our surroundings—the array of sensory impressions that unfolds there—is in fact an outflow, a revelation of the spiritual, just as the spiritual lies behind the sensory. When a person, as one undergoing initiation, perceives this elemental world—that is, not by slipping into the unconscious—then there is no longer any doubt for them that spiritual beings and spiritual realities lie behind the sensory world. Only as long as a person perceives merely the sensory world does he dream that behind this sensory-physical world there are all manner of further abstract sensory entities—such as swirling atoms or the like. For those who penetrate the elemental world, there can be no further question of such swirling atoms—or, one might say, of material atoms squeezed out of ordinary sensory perceptions. It is not the mental image of matter that materialism conceives of as matter that lies behind color, sound, and so on, but rather something spiritual. However, at this first stage of the spiritual world that is being entered, the spiritual does not yet reveal itself in its form as Spirit itself, but rather in such a way that the human being does not have spiritual impressions before them, but other impressions. What one enters is not yet anything that can be called a true spiritual world, but rather, to a considerable degree, something that must be described as a kind of new veil over spiritual realities and spiritual beings.

[ 7 ] This elemental world presents itself to us in such a way that the terms chosen since time immemorial for the world of the elements are truly applicable to it. One can describe what one sees there by choosing the words: the solid, the liquid, the gaseous, and heat; or earth, water, air, and fire. But let us be clear that these words are taken from the sensory world; they were coined for the sensory world. After all, our language is entirely a means of expression for the sensory world. Whenever we use any word, it signifies this or that in the sensory world. If, then, the person engaged in Spiritual Science is to describe the higher worlds, he must speak in words taken from ordinary language, so that, particularly in these realms we are now entering, he can speak only in relative terms. He can only strive to choose words in such a way that, little by little, a mental image is evoked of what is perceived in spiritual vision. When we wish to describe this elemental world, we must not choose terms based on the finite things that surround us in everyday life, but rather we must choose words based on certain properties that things in everyday life possess—properties that are always common to an entire series of things. Otherwise, we will not be able to make sense of it. And in everyday life, we have certain things that we describe as solid; we have other things that we describe as liquid, still others that we describe as gaseous, and then we also know what we perceive when we sense the surface of things or feel a draft, or warmth. When we perceive our surroundings in daily life, all things—whatever they may otherwise be—appear to us in such states: in a solid state, in a liquid state, in an air- or gas-like state, and as heat. A body, however, can pass through all of these states. Water, for example, can be solid like ice, but it can also be liquid—when the ice melts—and gaseous when it evaporates. All these states are permeated by what we call heat. This is essentially the case with every thing and being in the external sensory world.

[ 8 ] In the elementary world, it is not the case that we have objects there as they appear to us in the sensory world; here, what are merely properties in the sensory world are actually present. We perceive something there that one cannot, so to speak, touch. One could describe it something like this: In the case of “solid,” there is something in front of me—be it a being or a thing—that I cannot penetrate; I can only observe it by walking around it; it still has an interior and an exterior. Such beings and things of the elemental world are called “earthly.” Then there are things and entities in the elemental world that can be described with the word “fluid.” In this case, one can, to a certain degree, see right through them in the elemental world. One penetrates into their interior; one has a sensation similar to the feeling one has in the physical world when one dips one’s hand into water. One can immerse oneself into the interior of these things and beings, whereas with “earth” one encounters something one bumps against, as if it were hard. This is what is referred to as “water” in the elemental world. When books on Spiritual Science speak of earth and water, they mean what I have just described to you, not physical water. Physical water is merely an external metaphor for what one sees once one has reached this stage of development. In the elemental world, water is something that, so to speak, flows freely, something one can pass through—not, of course, with the physical senses, but with the higher senses of the initiate, with the faculty of spiritual perception.

[ 9 ] Then there is something comparable to what in the physical world are gaseous or air-like substances; this is referred to as “air” in the elemental world. And then there is what is called heat or fire. Here, too, when speaking of elemental fire, you must realize that what is referred to in the physical world by the word “fire” is merely a metaphor. What is called fire in the elemental world is actually easier to describe than the other three states. The other three states of the elemental world can really only be described by saying that water, air, and earth are metaphors for these three states. The fire of elemental life is easier to describe, for it is related to what human beings know as inner soul warmth—that peculiar feeling of warmth one perceives, for example, when one is with a loved one. The warmth that pours into the soul—that glow of enthusiasm or joy—must, of course, be distinguished from the ordinary fire that burns one’s fingers when one reaches out to it. Even in everyday life, people sense that physical fire is a kind of metaphor for this fire of the soul. This fire of the soul, which—when it truly takes hold of us—ignites our enthusiasm, is therefore something we already know better than other states. And if you now imagine a kind of comparison between the external fire that burns your fingers and this fire of the soul—something, so to speak, that lies midway between the two—then you will gain a mental image of what is called elemental fire. When a person, as an initiate, ascends into the elemental world, they indeed feel as if something were flowing toward them from certain regions, something that kindles them from within, permeating them with fire; and from another part of the elemental world, they have the impression that it fills them less with fire. He has the feeling that he is immersed in the being in question, the one sending him the fire; he is united with it, and he feels his inner fire as the fire of the elemental being.

[ 10 ] So you see that the human being enters a higher world that provides him with impressions he certainly did not know before in the sensory world. It is this elemental world, so to speak, whose gate closes when one falls asleep in ordinary, normal consciousness. And this must be so because, as we have seen, the human being flows entirely out into this elemental world; he is present in everything within it. But by flowing out into this world, he carries his own being into it. He loses his “I”; it pours itself into this world. Everything that is not the “I”—their astral qualities, their desires or passions, their sense of truth or falsehood, all their soul qualities—the human being carries into this world; they lose their “I.” Yet it is precisely the “I” that restrains us in ordinary life, bringing order and harmony to our astral nature. As the “I” is lost, all manner of disordered drives, desires, and passions that the human being still harbors in the soul assert themselves and now penetrate into those beings the human being encounters in the elemental world. The human being not only imbues himself with everything he experiences out there, but he actually carries from within himself into the beings of the elemental world whatever he himself possesses in his soul. This transfer is a reality; it is not merely a mental image, but rather, if a person has, for example, a bad trait, they truly transfer this bad trait to a corresponding being in the elemental world; it is then present within that being. If, then, a human being has a particular negative trait, he is drawn to a being in the elemental world that is specifically attracted to that very trait. Through the loss of the “I,” the human being would thus, in pushing out into the macrocosm, pour out his entire astral being into such entities that pervade the elemental world as negative entities. And the consequence of this would be that, because the human being comes into contact with these beings but is weaker than they are—for he has, after all, lost his “I,” whereas they possess a strong “I”—he would nourish them with his traits, for which they would “reward” him in a negative sense. He literally feeds them from his astral being, but they give him what is particularly characteristic of his own qualities; and the fact that he has lived within them becomes evident when, upon awakening, his “I” returns, manifesting as a heightened inclination toward the bad, toward evil.

[ 11 ] Thus we see that it is a wise arrangement that a person loses consciousness when entering the elemental world, that he does not enter this world with his “I,” but is protected from doing so during normal sleep. For this reason, anyone who was led into the elemental world in the ancient mysteries had to be carefully prepared beforehand by receiving strength from the initiator’s assistants before entering that world. Preparation for this world took place by subjecting the individual to severe trials beforehand, through which he was specifically enabled to develop the moral strength to overcome them. Particular emphasis was placed on this. Just as the quality of humility was valued in the aspiring mystic, so too was special emphasis placed on the fact that the one who wished to venture out into the macrocosm was strong in the power of inner self-mastery. Therefore, a person who was to be admitted to such a mystery initiation was subjected to trials through which he was to overcome all possible adversities of life even during his physical existence. Severe dangers were placed in his path, and by overcoming these dangers he was to strengthen his will. He was to become a conqueror, one of strong soul, prepared so that when these beings confronted him, he would be strong enough not to experience temptation, to be able to repel them, and not to lose himself to them. He who was to be admitted to such mysteries was raised in fearlessness and the spirit of overcoming.

[ 12 ] Once again, it should be noted here that no one need be alarmed by the description of these mysteries, for the fact is that these practices are no longer followed today, nor are they necessary anymore, since other paths are possible. But we will understand the full significance of the modern method of initiation much better if we first describe what many, many people went through in the past in order to immerse themselves in the macrocosm—to become, in this sense, initiates of the macrocosm.

[ 13 ] Then, when the individual—having had such experiences over a long period of time—had become able to realize that everything he can perceive in the external sensory world—earth, water, air, and fire— are manifestations of spiritual beings that lie behind them—once he had learned to distinguish these things and to find his way in the elemental world—then he could be led a step further, guided to now come to know what lies behind these elements of the elemental world. And there the initiate was then led into the actual spiritual world. In the spiritual world that lies beyond the elemental world—in this spiritual world into which one matures— after one has become acquainted with the elemental world for a time in such a way that one has gained the ability to discern within it—one then experiences—and this, of course, can only be described as a recounting of the initiates’ experiences—that there are indeed beings who stand behind our sensory world and behind the elemental world. But these beings, into whose world one enters, are quite unlike the beings we know as our equals, as human beings. While human beings on Earth live together in social orders and specific social relationships—whether perfect or imperfect—the initiate immerses themselves in a spiritual world inhabited by spiritual beings who, of course, have no physical bodies but are spiritual beings who relate to one another through order and harmony. And now the initiate is shown that he can understand the order and harmony that exist in this spiritual world only if he regards the world of the stars—namely, the movements of the planets in our solar system—as an outward expression of what the spiritual beings do. The way the planets are positioned in relation to the Sun and how they relate to one another in their movements and positions—this is how they express what the beings of the spiritual worlds do.

[ 14 ] In the previous discussion, we said that one could view the world of our solar system as a giant cosmic clock. Just as one can infer from the position of the hands on a clock that something is happening outside the clock—which the hands point to—so too can one infer from the relative positions of the stars that there is something behind them. Anyone who looks at a clock and says it is such-and-such a time is, of course, not interested in the position of the hands, but rather in what the position of the hands indicates—for example, the time of day when something is currently taking place in Vienna, or whether it is time to go to work. The position of the clock’s hands is thus an expression of something that lies behind them. In the same way, we can also see in the solar system—this mighty cosmic clock—the expression of spiritual processes and of the spiritual beings that lie behind them. The initiate now comes to know the spiritual beings and their deeds. This real world of the spirit, which lies behind our sensory world, is best understood when described using terms taken from the order of our solar system, for this provides an external analogy for this spiritual world. For the elemental world, analogies must be drawn from the earthly world—from earthly things that surround us: air, water, and so on. For the world of the spirit, however, other analogies must serve—analogies that we draw down from the starry heavens. And you can see that the comparison with the clock is not at all so foolish, even in a deeper sense. Just as physical water is an analogy, an expression, for what we call “water” in the elemental world, so our solar system is an expression of the activity of spiritual beings, whom we designate by the names of our planets and the constellations of the zodiac. Take the twelve constellations of the zodiac and observe the paths of the seven planets—we will speak of the others as well—how one aligns before this constellation and another before that; then we see in the paths of the planets the deeds of the spiritual beings and in the twelve constellations of the zodiac the spiritual beings themselves. Just as we distinguish in the solar system between the planets, which move, and the constellations, which stand behind them as if at rest, so can we form a mental image of the world of spiritual beings and their deeds as twelve groups of beings whose activity is expressed in the movements of the planets. But we must not view this from an external perspective. When describing the constellations of the zodiac, we must not take the constellations themselves to be the spiritual beings; for then we would still remain on the external level. The constellations themselves are, in turn, merely an expression of the higher worlds and of the high beings active within them. These beings express themselves through the number twelve, and that which pertains to their deeds is expressed through the number seven. However, the names of the twelve zodiacal constellations are not sufficient to denote the spiritual beings behind them. These beings, whose names have varied across different countries and eras, are designated in Christian esotericism as Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, and as Dominions, Powers, Authorities, or Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai. That makes six; then come the primal forces or spirits of personality, the Archai, followed by the archangels and the angels. The tenth level is humanity at its current stage of development. However, humanity will continue to develop and eventually reach levels that other spiritual beings have already attained. These would have to be included, so that we would have twelve levels of spiritual beings. Therefore, if one wishes to describe the spiritual world, one would have to attribute the creation of the world to twelve beings acting in mutual interaction. If one wishes to describe what these spiritual beings do, this would have to be done using terms derived from the spatial relationships of the zodiac constellations and the movements of the planets, for the orbits of the planets signify the actions of these spiritual beings.

[ 15 ] These entities now work together in time. Let us assume that the spirits we call the spirits of the will, or the Thrones, act together with the spirits of the personality; in doing so, they bring about what we call the Old Saturn. Through the interaction of yet other beings, what we call the Old Sun comes into being; through still others, what we call the Old Moon. In this way, we express the deeds of these beings. If we wish to describe this as it appears to one who immerses themselves in the macrocosm, we must first describe the beings of the spiritual world—the hierarchies—and second, their deeds, which are expressed through the movements of the planets, and third, we must add how they reveal themselves in the elemental world, which we have described using terms derived from the physical-sensory world: fire, air, water, earth. This is also called planetary evolution.

[ 16 ] If you open the chapter “The Evolution of the World and Humanity” in my book The Secret Science, you will find this process described in detail. There you will find a description of the beings—the spiritual hierarchies—whose counterparts in space are the signs of the zodiac; using terms associated with the planets, you have described their deeds and their influence on the elemental world. Herein lies the deeper reason why this chapter is written as it is. However, one must not assume that simply by describing a metaphor—for example, by speaking of the zodiac signs instead of the hierarchies—one has thereby accomplished anything. Anyone who truly wishes to describe something must go back to the beings themselves. For merely describing the celestial sphere with its constellations would be the same as describing the exterior of a clock. But to describe what lies behind it as the spiritual world—that is, to translate it into Spiritual Science—means describing it exactly as it has now been characterized for you. In doing so, I have attempted to provide you with a kind of guide for any description of the spiritual world written in the true style, as it is encountered through a genuine journey into the macrocosm.

[ 17 ] However, this expansion into the macrocosm can indeed go even further. For the macrocosm is not yet exhausted by all that has just been described as the spiritual world; one can ascend to even higher worlds. Of course, the higher one ascends, the more difficult it becomes to convey a mental image of these higher worlds; therefore, if we wish to convey a mental image of an even higher world, we must do so in yet another way. You can form a mental image of the even higher world—into which one can ascend once one has transcended the spiritual world—in the following manner. If we describe human beings as they stand before us, we can say: Human beings could only have come into being because these other worlds exist. — Only a fanciful materialist could believe that human beings could ever have assembled themselves from the Kant-Laplacean cosmic nebula. Nothing but a human automaton could have emerged from that. The way human beings are has only become possible because they have developed out of the entire world—not only out of the physical-sensory world, but above all out of the spiritual world. Humanity was born out of the spiritual world. When we consider the worlds around us, we first have our physical-sensory world. Just as we perceive this world, so too do we perceive the physical body of the human being. Yesterday we got to know it from the inside in a certain way. With ordinary consciousness, one perceives it only from the outside. In this sense, the human physical body certainly belongs to the world we see with our eyes, the world we perceive externally with our senses. To which world, then, does that which lies deeper within the human being belong—the invisible aspects of human nature? Everything that constitutes the invisible elements of human nature belongs to the higher worlds. And just as, when one looks at a human being, one sees only the sensory exterior, so too does one see in the vast outer world only the sensory exterior and not those supersensory worlds, two of which—the elemental and the spiritual worlds—have now been described. But human beings are also structured from these worlds through their inner organization. Now, everything that constitutes a human being—including their outward physical form—has become possible only because certain invisible spiritual elements are at work within them. It is not merely an etheric or Life-Body that acts upon the human physical body. If only an etheric body were acting upon him, then the human being would be a plant, for the plant, as we see it, consists of a physical body and an etheric or Life-Body. But since human beings are not plants, they possess not only an etheric or Life-Body and a physical body, but also a third one: the astral body. Yet animals possess this as well. If human beings had only these three components, they would be animals. Because human beings also possess an “I,” they rise above these lower creatures of the three kingdoms of nature—the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms. Yet all the higher aspects of human nature, in turn, influence the human physical body. The human physical body could not be as it is if it did not have these higher aspects. A plant would be a mineral if it did not have an etheric or Life-Body. Human beings would have no nervous system if they did not have an astral body, and they could not be beings who walk upright and possess a thinking brain if they did not have an “I.” If human beings did not possess these invisible constituents of their being from higher worlds, they could not appear before us as the beings they are.

[ 18 ] However, the various parts of the human organism are formed from different spiritual worlds. If we want to understand this, we would do well to recall a beautiful saying by Goethe, born of profound wisdom: “The eye is formed by light for light.” — There is a philosophy today that draws on Schopenhauer, and also on Kant, which seeks to explain the entire world as a mental image of humanity; it specifically emphasizes that without the eye we would not perceive light, that without the eye there would be darkness all around us. Certainly, there is truth to this; but it is not merely a matter of a thing being true, but rather that the truths we encounter in life are always one-sided truths, and if we do not add the other side—which alone makes them a full truth—then it is precisely with our truths that we are sometimes led most astray. For that is not the worst thing—when a person errs, when he says something that is not correct; the world will set him straight on that. But if he regards a one-sided truth as an absolute and clings to it, then he allows himself to be led astray by the truth. Thus, it is a truth—but a one-sided one—that without eyes we cannot see light. But it is equally true that if the world had always been filled with darkness, an eye would never have come into being. For the eye is something that has been drawn forth from a state of undifferentiated physicality. We can see this from the reverse process. In certain animals that had to live in dark caves, the eyes atrophied; the animals lost their sight. On the one hand, it is true that without eyes we cannot see light, but on the other hand, it is equally true that the eye is truly formed by light for the sake of light. With truths, it is always essential not merely to view them from one side, but also from the other. And most philosophies suffer precisely from this flaw—not that they state falsehoods; many cannot be refuted precisely because they speak the truth—but that they state one-sided truths, viewed only from one side and not from the other. If you take the statement in its proper sense—that the eye is formed by light for light—then you will be able to say to yourself: There must therefore be something in light that first brought the eye into being from an organism that did not yet have eyes. Behind light, then, something even higher is hidden; the eye-forming power, so to speak, lies within every ray of sunlight.

[ 19 ] This was said so that we might recognize that hidden within everything around us is, in fact, that which created us. For just as our eyes are made of something that lies within the light, so too are all our organs formed from something that underlies all things—of which we see only the outer surface.

[ 20 ] Now, human beings possess something that can be called reason. Human beings have reason, intelligence. In physical life, they can make use of this intellect, this intelligence, through a tool they possess: the brain. Just as they have eyes for seeing, they have a tool for developing their intellect in the physical world—for being able to think. Mind you, we are now speaking of thinking in the sensory-physical world, not of what becomes of our thinking when we are freed from our physical body at death, but of how we think here on earth through the instrument of the brain. When we wake up in the morning, we see the light through our eyes; behind that light lies something that our eyes have formed. We think through the instrument of the brain; therefore, there must be something in the world that first shaped this brain so that it could become a tool for thinking in the physical world. This is precisely what we want to hold before our souls. The brain is an organ of thought for the physical world, but it first had to become such, through the power that manifests itself externally in our intelligence. Just as the light we perceive with the eye is an eye-forming force, so there is something that forms our brain—something that is a brain-forming force. Our brain is built out of the spiritual world. The initiate comes to understand that if only the elemental and spiritual worlds existed, what the human organ of intelligence is could never have come into being. True, the spiritual world is a high, indeed a remarkably high, world. But from an even higher world, the forces that have formed the human physical organ of thought here in the physical world must flow to the human being, so that what we call reason and intelligence can then manifest itself outwardly in the physical world.

[ 21 ] Spiritual Science has not been wrong to describe the boundaries of the spiritual world—which we have just described as the world of hierarchies—using the metaphor of the “zodiac.” For if only these worlds existed, we would have before us only a human being who is not yet an intelligent being—still, so to speak, at the animal stage. In order for the human being to become this creature who walks upright, thinks with the brain, and develops intelligence, the inflow of higher forces was necessary—forces that lie in a world even higher than the one described as the spiritual world. And there we ascend into a world which, in Spiritual Science, is designated by a word that is completely misused today; but in earlier times—and one need not go very far back—it still had its original meaning. What human beings develop here in the physical world when they think is called intelligence. What exists as forces, as realities, in a world even higher than the spiritual world—what flows down through the spiritual and elemental worlds to shape our brain—has always been called the “world of reason” in Spiritual Science. It is that world in which there are spiritual beings who, through their powerful influence, can work down into the physical world to produce, in the physical world, a shadow image of the spiritual in the intellectual activity of human beings.

[ 22 ] You can see how impoverished our language has become. The word “reason” has been completely misused in this age of materialism. Before that time, no one would have used the word “reason” to refer to thinking in the physical world. Instead, people would have spoken of “intelligence” or “understanding.” The term “reason” was used when the initiates, through the spiritual world, ascended to an even higher world and there directly perceived a higher realm that lies even above the spiritual world. In the German language, “reason” (Vernunft) is related to “perception” (Vernehmen)—that is, to what is directly perceived or “heard” from a world higher than the spiritual world. In this way, we have, in a special sense, risen to a world even higher than the one we could call the spiritual world. With this, we have exhausted what we can still illustrate with a human analogy. We have a very shadowy analogy for the world of reason in the human intellect. We must seek, as it were, the master builders, the architects of our organ of intellect in the world of reason. If we wish to ascend to an even higher world, we can speak of it at all only if we elevate ourselves to an even higher spiritual faculty—a spiritual faculty that transcends the sensory-physical intellect. Just as we have seen that the force coming from the world of reason has built up the organ of the intellect—the brain—within the human being, so we may now ask: We do know, however, that the human being possesses an even higher faculty than the intellect, namely, the capacity for clairvoyant consciousness; must not this capacity, too, be an expression or metaphor for forces that come from corresponding, even higher worlds? In the Spiritual Science method, which we will discuss in greater detail later, the first stage of this consciousness—which can be developed as clairvoyant consciousness—is called imaginative consciousness. It is a kind of pictorial consciousness. This pictorial consciousness—the imaginative consciousness—remains mere imagination, mere fantasy, as long as the organ for this pictorial consciousness, for the imaginative consciousness, has not actually been formed from a higher world, just as the brain, as the organ for human thinking, was formed from the world of reason. The moment we say that clairvoyant consciousness exists in the world, we must also say: Therefore, there must also be a world from which the forces for the clairvoyant organ flow. In Spiritual Science, this world is called the world of archetypes. What can appear before our eyes as imagination is a reflection of the world of archetypes.

[ 23 ] Thus, we have four higher worlds to which we can ascend step by step: the elemental world, the spiritual world, the world of reason, and the world of archetypes. Starting tomorrow, we will describe these higher worlds—namely, the world of reason—and then move on to a description of the method that must be applied in the context of our modern education if the forces from the world of archetypes are truly to be brought down to bring about, within the context of our modern spiritual life, what is called clairvoyant consciousness.