The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] Following on from what was said yesterday, a few additional remarks may be made. For we have seen that in order to ascend into the actual spiritual realm with clairvoyant consciousness and to cross the threshold of the spiritual world in the appropriate manner, it is necessary to leave behind everything that constitutes perceptions of the physical world—everything that can be undertaken through ordinary thinking, feeling, and willing in the physical world. One must be prepared to face events and beings with characteristics that have nothing in common with what can be observed and experienced in the sensory world. For this, however, it is necessary first to strengthen the soul, to first enhance the soul’s capacities. And these enhanced, strengthened capacities of the soul must be carried upward. One must bring something with oneself when crossing the threshold into the spiritual realm. And we have pointed out that everything the sensory world can give us, and the mental images and feelings we gain within the sensory world, are images of what can be sensed. Everything one can gain in this way cannot help one in the spiritual world. But that which is not a reflection of the sensory world, which initially has no significance for the sensory world, yet which can be stimulated within the sensory world and developed in free, inner soul experience, must be carried up into the supersensory worlds. And so we have pointed out how one can acquire mental images of a trinity as a numerical relationship, of a balanced interplay of opposites—in which we have particularly taken into account the Luciferic and Ahrimanic elements—of a middle state, and so on. Such mental images do not initially have any immediate significance in the physical world. One can, of course, get by in the physical world without these concepts, but one must form them already in the physical world if one wishes to carry them up into the spiritual worlds. And that is why, drawing on the teachings of Benedictus, we sought to draw attention to how, within the physical plane in the development of human culture, the Luciferic, the Ahrimanic, and the middle state are at work in the trinity of thought, word, and writing.

[ 2 ] In connection with this, I would simply like to note that there are various factors to consider which, if properly taken into account, can indeed become immensely necessary for understanding human life—an understanding that people will have to acquire from the present moment if culture is to continue in the right way. It will soon become clear that we will no longer be able to make do with the concepts formed from the conditions under which today’s complacent humanity seeks to construct its concepts for understanding peoples and time. Within European culture, we have peoples who differ in terms of language, and peoples who differ in terms of writing systems. The Western peoples of Europe write with the so-called Latin letters, but there are also European peoples who write with entirely different letter forms. And within Europe, we have the fact that the so-called cursive script, the Gothic script, is added to the Latin letters, and that both exist side by side. This is a significant phenomenon for the assessment of European culture. Such things are seemingly minor symptoms, but they are symptoms driven to the surface that point to deep, primordial foundations of existence. Peoples who use different writing systems will only achieve true mutual understanding when they take into account that this understanding must be brought about through the shared grasping of a spiritual element. For peoples who write different characters and thereby provide the Ahrimanic impulse with particular points of attack, mutual understanding under the mere conditions of the physical plane is not sufficient; rather, the spiritual element must be grasped by both peoples, and harmony must be sought within this spiritual element. For peoples who write characters such as the Latin alphabet, it is necessary that, in order to understand one another, they develop the spiritual element to such an extent that understanding also arises with regard to the facts of the physical plane. Anyone who understands such things as have now been discussed can recognize this in relation to the mutual relationships of European national life. And it is deeply significant that in Central Europe, as it were to express the peculiar relationship between the Ahrimanic and Luciferic elements, the two scripts are used side by side. This is because here a middle state can be attained only with great difficulty, so that the Latin alphabet, which is more exposed to the Ahrimanic element, must be set in a certain contrast to the Gothic alphabet, which is more exposed to the Luciferic element. And it is characteristic that some people must mix Kurrent and Latin script in their writing. Such a mixing is immensely significant, pointing to what lies deep in the depths of the soul, because it points to the significant fact of the particular way in which such a personality must grapple with the Luciferic and Ahrimanic elements. And so it is crucial that some people must make an immense effort, when writing in German, not to slip into Kurrent script; when they wish to write in Latin, not to slip into Latin script; and when they wish to write in Kurrent, not to slip into Latin script. To view life in such a subtle way that one observes the symptoms which bring to the surface what is taking place in the occult depths will become ever more necessary in the future. Through this, one will learn to acquire within the physical-sensory world such mental images, sensations, and concepts that one can then carry across the threshold into the spiritual realm in a favorable manner.

[ 3 ] One must, however, come to realize what an immense talent, what a genius for superficiality exists in contemporary culture when compared to what is expressed in the world as the spiritual. And so one must already acquire, within the physical world, the concepts for what shines and radiates from the spiritual world into the physical-sensory world. Therefore, let us demonstrate in one area how the Luciferic and Ahrimanic elements operate within the physical world. Let us first discuss this in the realm of art. It remains entirely true, as has always been emphasized, that the Luciferic impulse plays a role in all of humanity’s artistic development, and that the Luciferic element, as I have shown, is present to a great extent in humanity’s artistic development. But there is something else to consider. When one looks at the arts as they appear to us in the physical world, one essentially has five such arts: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry. There are arts that blend or combine the various elements found in the arts mentioned above; for example, the art of dance, which combines many different elements. If one understands them correctly, one understands them from what is the fundamental condition in the various arts; these can, of course, certainly be combined again. Of the five arts, architecture and sculpture are particularly subject to the Ahrimanic impulse; the Ahrimanic impulses play a role in architecture and sculpture. There one is dealing with forms. If one wishes to achieve something in architecture or sculpture, one must immerse oneself in the element of form. This element of form reigns particularly on the physical plane. Here the true rulers are the spirits of form. One must plunge into their spiritual element if one wishes to become acquainted with them, as I have expressed in the image of sticking one’s head into an anthill. And everyone who has anything to do with the sculptural element must thus stick their head into the living element of the spirits of form. In the realm of the physical world, the spirits of form now have to deal jointly with the Ahrimanic element.

[ 4 ] Especially on such an occasion, one sees how necessary it is not to simply say, in a superficial and external way, that one must guard against the Ahrimanic element. One must always bear in mind that what is at stake here is that spiritual beings such as the Luciferic and Ahrimanic ones have their own specific realm in which they normally act out and exert their influence, and that their evil influence arises only when they overstep their bounds. The Ahrimanic impulses have a thoroughly legitimate sphere in architecture and sculpture. If we take, on the other hand, the musical and poetic elements, these are the arts in which, in the narrower sense, the Luciferic impulses are at work. In a certain sense, one can almost call poetry and music the arts influenced by Lucifer, and architecture and sculpture those influenced by Ahriman. Just as thought, in a certain way, takes place in the solitude of the soul and thereby separates itself from the collective, so too do the experiences of music and poetry have something that belongs to the innermost part of the soul, where it encounters the Luciferic impulse directly. Even though we must take national boundaries into account in architecture and the built environment—because wherever Ahriman is present, Lucifer also plays a role—and even though these arts are thus, in a certain sense, shaped by national characters, one can still say that this element remains, in a certain sense, neutral. Poetry is essentially bound to that Luciferic element which finds expression in the differentiation of national characters. In music, little attention is paid to the fact that there is something in it as well that leads, in a certain sense, to differentiation, more so than in architecture and sculpture.

[ 5 ] But it is precisely in such a field that one sees, once again, that one cannot get by with the conceptual frameworks for the higher worlds in the convenient way that some would like. It is quite correct to say that the Ahrimanic element is at work in architecture and sculpture, while the Luciferic element is at work more in music and poetry. Yet it must be said that as soon as one deals with concepts that are valid even in the higher worlds, it is not so simple that one can simply answer when someone asks: Well, does Ahriman or Lucifer have a greater influence in sculpture? — Certainly, on the physical plane, one can easily provide an answer when someone asks: What color is Cichorium officinale? One will say: It is blue. — One would like it to be just as easy for the higher worlds. But it is a mistaken view to think that one can obtain such straightforward answers there as well. Yet the following is also entirely true, even though everything I have just said remains valid. In architecture, it will essentially be the case that the Ahrimanic element provides the most significant impulses. But in sculpture, the Luciferic counterforce can be so strong that there can be sculptural works in which Lucifer reigns more than Ahriman. Nevertheless, what was said earlier is correct. For in the spiritual world there is not only the capacity for transformation, but one can say that everything is everywhere. Every spiritual element, in essence, seeks to permeate everything. Thus, there can be Luciferic sculpture, even though it is true that the Ahrimanic impulse predominantly influences sculpture. One must therefore say: While poetry will essentially be subject to the Luciferic influence, the Ahrimanic impulse can act upon music to a high degree, so that there can be musical works in which there is much more Ahrimanic than Luciferic, even though it remains true that music is primarily subject to the Luciferic impulse.

[ 6 ] Painting lies on the middle path between the Ahrimanic in architecture and sculpture and the Luciferic in poetry and music. In a certain sense, it is a neutral territory, but not one in which one can settle comfortably and say to oneself: “All right, now I’ll just start painting; neither Lucifer nor Ahriman can get to me here!” — but rather in the sense that it is precisely in this middle line that one finds oneself in a situation where the Luciferic and Ahrimanic attacks come all the more strongly from both sides, and that one must hold one’s ground against both at every moment, so that in the field of painting, in the most eminent sense, one can fall under the influence of one or the other. The middle path is always the one where, in the most eminent sense, one must bring about a harmonious balance between the polarities, between the opposites, through human will and human action.

[ 7 ] So when one looks at these areas, as we have just done—and the same could just as easily apply to other areas—one acquires certain concepts, concepts without which one can, of course, manage on the physical plane. For if one wishes to remain shallow and superficial, anyone can get by on the physical plane, provided, of course, that one does not find the music Luciferic or the architecture Ahrimanic. But if one wishes to manage without this, then one cannot form concepts, mental images, and feelings here on the physical plane that strengthen the soul so that it can cross the threshold to the spiritual world in a favorable way and ascend into the actual spiritual realm; rather, one must then remain down here in the physical-sensory world. So one must acquire concepts, feelings, and mental images for the spiritual realm if one truly wishes to cross the threshold—mental images that are inspired by the physical but go beyond the physical-sensory realm. When one then steps over the threshold of the spiritual world with a soul thus strengthened, one comes to know the world in which what has been characterized as the spiritual conversation of the beings of thought takes place. One enters into a world with the strengthened soul, which then reveals itself in such a way that within it exist beings composed of thought substance—and indeed composed of thought substance in such a way that they are more alive, more personal, more individual, and far more real within it than human beings on Earth. Just as human beings on the physical plane are real within flesh and blood, so are these entities real within their thought substance. One lives one’s way into that world where, in a certain sense, a mental conversation takes place from being to being, where the soul is compelled to engage in mental conversations if it is to establish a relationship with the thought-beings that inhabit these worlds. I have hinted at this in the book now before you, *The Threshold of the Spiritual World*. Here, various additions can still be made. With all the responsibility that such an undertaking demands, I have tried in this book to avoid a systematic presentation, but rather to express certain things in aphoristic form, which may be useful even if one has already taken in what has been presented in the past cycles and books.

[ 8 ] As a being of thought, one must find oneself in the spiritual realm where it can be said: Here, in this place, words are deeds, and other deeds must follow them. — Whereas in the physical world, as a human being, one performs deeds through the movement of one’s hand, thoughts that live in the world of the word in the sense described are immediate deeds. What is spoken is done. That is what matters in the spiritual world. In spiritual conversation lies both what one being does to another and what a being does in relation to the spiritual external world surrounding it. What is spoken is an act everywhere. One must therefore raise oneself up into the spiritual realm, and then one finds oneself as a being of thought among other beings of thought. One must behave in such a way—that is, let words become deeds within oneself—as other beings of thought behave—if one may use the mundane term. What does one find there? One no longer finds there, even for one’s own self, what one has down below in the physical and also in the elemental world. This self, which the human being carries through the physical and elemental worlds, is a sum of experiences composed of the impressions of the physical world and of what springs from the thinking, feeling, and willing that the soul develops on the physical plane. But neither the impressions nor the thinking, feeling, and willing, in the form in which they appear to us on the physical plane, have any significance for the spiritual world. One therefore finds something different in the spiritual world for the so-called human self of the physical plane and the elemental world. There one finds, so to speak, that which is always present in the depths of the soul, but which the ordinary consciousness of the physical plane within the human being itself cannot know. One finds one’s other self as a second being; one finds one’s other self in the spiritual world.

[ 9 ] At the conclusion of these lectures—as I also did in the final chapter of the book “The Threshold of the Spiritual World”—for those who might be looking for contradictions—I will point out how the terms used here relate to the terminology and nomenclature I employed in my “Theosophy” and “Outline of Esoteric Science.”

[ 10 ] Here, however, it can be said: Human beings live in their physical bodies within the physical environment. When they leave their physical bodies behind, when they experience the world outside the physical body, they experience it in their etheric bodies, and their environment is the elemental world. When they leave that behind as well, they experience the spiritual realm in their astral bodies. In contrast to this experience, this feeling in the astral body, an encounter takes place that one has in the spiritual world—the encounter with the other self, with that second self of which Johannes Thomasius speaks at the end of *The Guardian of the Threshold*, which, as it were, runs through the entire process of “The Awakening of the Soul,” standing alongside the first self in Johannes Thomasius and evoking the experiences. We will yet discuss the principle of this other self. It is that which the human being comes to know when, in the spiritual world within his astral body, he learns to feel, perceive, and experience. It is that which passes from earthly life to earthly life, from incarnation to incarnation. What passes from one earthly life to the next weaves itself into the human being in such a mysterious way between death and birth that physical consciousness usually cannot perceive this other self, for this other self is in the spiritual world, even though it is simultaneously connected to the human being’s physical being.

[ 11 ] How does this other self function? Well, it has just been said that this other self belongs to the spiritual world in the realm of the spirit; it is a being of thought among beings of thought. For them, words are deeds, and what they accomplish, they accomplish through what might be called, in a word, inspiration. The second self works inspiringly upon human nature. What does it inspire? It inspires what we call our karma, our destiny. And here we have the mysterious process: whatever we experience—be it painful or joyful—whatever takes place in our lives, is inspired by our other self from the spiritual world. Go out onto the street, experience something that seems to you to be a coincidence—it is inspired from the spiritual world by your other self. — So, there is such a thing as inspiration in the spiritual world, and this inspiration manifests itself on the physical plane and brings about the events that constitute your destiny, in both small and great matters. Human destiny is inspired by the other self from the spiritual realm. When the clairvoyant soul enters this spiritual realm, it experiences in the spiritual conversation a revelation of what can be described as: words are deeds. — But everything that happens in the spiritual world leaves its mark on the physical world. Whether you look at a stone, a plant, a cloud, or a flash of lightning, behind all of this stand spiritual beings and spiritual processes. Spiritual beings and processes also stand behind the physical events of your destiny. What kind of spiritual beings and processes? Inspirations! Events of a spiritual conversation in the spiritual world. The World Word acts as the inspirer of human destiny. This is something significant in spiritual insight when one encounters one’s other self. Then one ceases to think of one’s human personality only within the limits within which one usually thinks of it. One expands one’s self—into which one must include the other self—to encompass one’s entire destiny. And only then is one truly human, when—just as one counts one’s finger as part of oneself and says: “It belongs to the ‘I’ on the physical plane”—one likewise says: “It belongs to me” if, for example, I inflict a bloody wound upon myself, or if I fall—and so on. For all of this is inspired by the other self.

[ 12 ] But one must consider how one encounters this other self when one crosses the threshold into the spiritual realm. Time and again, one must confront one’s soul with the fact that, through what one has learned, observed, and experienced in the physical world and also in the elemental world, one possesses nothing in all of this that could correspond to the characteristics of the spiritual world, where thoughts are living beings. If one were to enter with only what one can experience in the physical and also in the elemental world, one would face nothingness in the spiritual realm. What, then, can one bring into this spiritual realm? Let us consider this carefully. The soul must accustom itself to the fact that in the spiritual realm it must not perceive, think, feel, or will in the same way as it does in the physical and also in the elemental world. It must leave that behind. But it must remember what it has experienced, conceived, felt, and willed in the physical world. Just as one carries over memories of earlier periods into later stages of life, so must one carry over from the physical plane into the spiritual realm that which has been strengthened and consolidated within the soul. Thus, one must enter the spiritual world with a soul that remembers the physical world. And then one must endure something specific. What one must endure there can be described in the following way. Imagine a moment could occur in your ordinary earthly life in which all your perception would cease. You would no longer be able to see, hear, think, feel, or will anything new. Your entire previous way of life would cease, and you would know only what you can remember. This is precisely the situation you find yourself in when you ascend into the spiritual world with clairvoyant consciousness. There is nothing there that you could experience as new at first. You understand only through your memories; your existence lies in what has remained in your memories. The soul experiences itself in such a way that it can say of itself: You are now only what you have been; your existence consists in your past being; the present and future have no meaning for you at first; your being consists in your past being. — This is something that may be easy to say under certain circumstances. But to view oneself in such a way that one is only memory, that one cannot experience the present, that one can speak of one’s being as a past existence, is a profound experience.

[ 13 ] And when a person goes through this experience, when the clairvoyant soul reaches through to them, only then does one begin to have a true understanding of the figure whose name has now been spoken so often—of Lucifer. For the human soul extends itself into the spiritual realm in such a way that it experiences a moment: You are merely a being of the past. — Lucifer is a being who, within the world order, has come to be nothing but such a being of the past, nothing but a past, nothing but what past Earth epochs have given, what past world epochs have brought to the soul of Lucifer. And Lucifer’s life consists in fighting to make his past into his present and future, while the other divine-spiritual beings, who are situated in the very course of Earth’s development, have condemned him to the past. Thus does Lucifer stand before the clairvoyant gaze, preserving in his being the divine-spiritual essence of the world’s origins, bearing all the glories of the world in his soul, and condemned to say of them only: they have been within you. And now begins his eternal struggle to win the present and the future for this past within the world order. There, by experiencing the likeness of Lucifer—the macrocosmic likeness of Lucifer to the microcosmic being of the human soul at the threshold between the elemental and spiritual worlds—one experiences the full, profound tragedy of this figure of Lucifer. And one begins to sense something of the great mysteries of the world that lie in the deep bosom of existence, where not only one being struggles with another, but where ages, becoming beings, lie in conflict with one another. A true vision of the world begins to emerge, where profound seriousness and deep dignity pour over the soul, and where one senses something of what might be called the breath of eternal necessities, experienced in the midnight of the world when flashes of lightning streak across existence, which in their radiance also illuminate something like the figure of a Lucifer, but which die in recognition and, dying, take shape as signs of destiny, so that they continue to work in the human soul as a form of inner tragic karma. The human soul itself, as it lives its way up into these spiritual worlds, has a moment when it is merely what has been, when it stands before nothingness, when it is like a point in the universe and experiences itself only as a point.

[ 14 ] But this point now becomes a spectator, a spectator in relation to something else. There are two other things here, to which the human soul—now reduced to a point—belongs as the third; this soul initially contains nothing within itself, just as the point contains nothing. The one thing that is added is that which one remembers, which is like an external world one looks back upon, of which one can say: This is your past existence. — When one stands, without actually knowing oneself at first, beside this being of one’s own, which is a past existence, but which one has brought across the threshold into the spiritual world and endowed with the life of thought, and when one then has the mood of soulful peace, then what one has carried up into the spiritual world as one’s past existence begins a spiritual conversation with the surrounding world of thought-beings. And like an objective bystander, who is, however, as it were, a focal point, one sees the other two begin the conversation. One’s own past of thought and the life of thought speak to one another. That which one has carried up oneself, made into thought, unfolds a spiritual conversation in the world-word with the spiritual thought-life of the spiritual realm. One listens there to what one’s own past speaks with the spiritual life-presence in the spiritual realm. There, one is at first like nothingness. But as such nothingness, one is born by listening to the conversation between one’s own past and the spiritual beings of the spiritual realm. And by listening, one fills oneself with new content. One now learns to recognize oneself by being a point and feeling oneself as a point, while listening to the conversation between one’s own past and the spiritual life-presence in the spiritual realm. And the more one takes in from this spiritual conversation of one’s own past with the future, the more one becomes oneself, one becomes a spiritual being. This is the process in which one stands within a trinity in the spiritual world. One member of this triad is one’s own past existence, which one has brought up into the spiritual world, which one has conquered in the way it reveals itself as spiritual already in the sensory world and then, beyond the threshold, is perceived as past existence. The second is the entire spiritual environment, and the third member is oneself. Thus the triad stands in the spiritual world, and within the triad the third element—the middle one, which is merely a point—develops through the contrast between one’s past existence and the spiritual life-force in the spiritual realm; this point becomes ever fuller and fuller through listening to the spiritual dialogue between one’s past existence and the spiritual world, becoming a developing being within the spiritual world. Thus one becomes oneself in clairvoyant consciousness within the spiritual world.

[ 15 ] This is what I have tried to describe to you in words which, of course, since they must be borrowed from the language of the physical realm, can never be more than a partial representation. But one does try, as best one can, to characterize these sublime and profound conditions using the words of the physical plane. For these relationships are the only ones capable of acquainting human beings with their true nature, which, as I said, they perceive in the spiritual world through the other two. It is through lectures such as those given here in this lecture series that we attempt to introduce people to this true nature of the human being.