The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Thirteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] Let us consider that human beings have been formed through a long and complex process of evolution, encompassing the Saturn, Sun, and Moon stages, as well as the Earth stages that have unfolded up to the present. We have emphasized that the first rudiments of human sense organs already existed in the ancient Saturn era, that these sense organs were, of course, not capable in that ancient time of perceive in the manner of today’s human perceptions, but that they existed during the Saturn era as still-lifeless organ rudiments, which then underwent transformation and actually only became capable of perception through the various processes that acted upon human beings from the cosmos.

[ 2 ] The first thing, however, that becomes particularly clear to us when we consider the entire course of human development is that these sense organs, as such, are involved in what we might call physical effects. On ancient Saturn, the first rudiments of the sense organs had already emerged as a purely physical structure, and time and again the development of the human sense organs proceeds through the integration of physical processes into what otherwise develops in human beings; so that, in essence, the sense organs as they are today are physical organs. It will not be difficult for you to see that the eyes are physical organs, that the ears are physical organs, and so on. Certainly, the lower senses are like chemical organs, but nevertheless, all of this has to do with the physical-chemical realm.

[ 3 ] We must therefore understand the matter in such a way that, as it were, at the very outer end of his developmental stages, the human being projects into the world what might be called his physical aspect. This physical nature of the sense organs is also evident from the fact that during sleep, the ears are, of course, affected in exactly the same way as during wakefulness, except that the ego and the astral body are not concerned with it. If we were to keep our eyes open during sleep, exactly the same thing would, of course, happen in our eyes as during wakefulness.

[ 4 ] To summarize, we can say the following: Human beings extend their external powers of perception toward the world.

[ 5 ] What I have drawn here schematically should be understood as the integration of all the sensory organs into our organism. And it is indeed the case that when I now introduce the etheric body, it naturally permeates the sensory organs to a certain extent—otherwise they would not be life-organisms—but some elements remain outside the etheric realm as something that is entirely physical. Thus, the relationship must be depicted in such a way that something remains outside the etheric body.

[ 6 ] In a similar way, I would then have to draw the relationship between the astral body and its effects on the other organs. I would have to draw it like this:

[ 7 ] And if I were to insert the “I” here, I would have to do so schematically in the following manner. This “I” would then open itself up to the vastness of the entire macrocosm.

[ 8 ] Of course, this is a schematic drawing, and we must be clear that if we were to draw not a schematic but a real picture of a human being, it would look much more complicated.

[ 9 ] Now, however, you can infer from this that, in a sense, a thin zone—a thin outer zone—emerging from the physical realm is what constitutes the sense; from that which appears as the external world. You can compare this to a physical process: the eye can be regarded as a darkroom, where objects from the outside produce their images inside it, just as in a camera; and what is produced there is first received by the etheric body, the astral body, and the ego. We therefore have a physical interaction with the external world that takes place at our periphery. And it is upon this interaction with the external world that we first build our soul process, insofar as this process consists of the perception of the external world and the processing of that perception within the soul.

[ 10 ] As I have just described it, this is how things would be with human beings if they had developed purely in the way the divine-spiritual beings had intended. But we know that Luciferic-Ahrimanic beings have asserted themselves. And here, at this point, we can clearly and distinctly discern the Ahrimanic and Luciferic spirits—discern them correctly, I would say.

[ 11 ] I was only allowed to draw the etheric body up to this point (drawing below, p. 265). This is the etheric body as it has formed, beginning with the solar stage and continuing through the lunar and earthly stages. Thus, outside this etheric body—which has developed steadily through the solar, lunar, and terrestrial stages—the physical sensory zone remains, as it were, on the outside. But if this were truly the case with human beings (as shown in the drawing)—if they had really developed only in this way—then human beings would, so to speak, always have to wait and see how the physical processes arise in their eyes and ears, and they would perceive these physical processes with their astral body and their I. They would always have a mental image: there is a color in my eye, a sound in my ear, and so on; they would not have their senses open to the outside world; they would perceive only what is within them; they would have the sensation: within me is a zone that is entirely permeated by the effects of the macrocosm, and I perceive it.

[ 12 ] It is interesting that in the early years of childhood, the child—albeit in a faint and dreamlike way—truly possesses this awareness. The child pays no attention to the outside world but focuses on what it perceives within itself. This gradually ceases more and more as the child grows older. Children are primarily interested in their own bodies; they pay no attention to the outside world but instead have a dreamlike consciousness, so that they are enclosed within it as if in a sphere that truly brings the effects of the outside world into them as images. The child truly feels the skin as a kind of covering and pays attention to what takes place inside it in the form of images and sounds.

[ 13 ] We might now ask: Why doesn’t this remain the same throughout one’s entire life? — Because the Luciferic influence has taken place, and because it fills precisely that which has formed in the etheric body as a legitimate continuation from the old Sun. That is to say, the Luciferic spirits extend their influence from the outside inward. (Drawing $. 268.) While the etheric body acts outward from the human being toward the inner periphery, Lucifer acts inward in this way. And it is also true that something like etheric feelers from Lucifer extend into the physical apparatus of the eyes, as well as into the apparatus of the ears, and so on. Everywhere, Lucifer thrusts his arms—which he extends from the outside—into the senses. And within our senses lies the encounter between our own etheric activity—that is, life activity—and that of Lucifer, who extends his arms into them. So that we can say: A child’s innocence ceases simply because Lucifer gradually penetrates the senses; he takes possession of the physical aspect of our senses, opens the eyes, opens the ears, so that we no longer perceive images as the effect of what the gods have given us, but rather our senses are opened to the outside world, and we see the world for ourselves.

[ 14 ] It is extremely important to bear this in mind. For only when science has truly become a Spiritual Science, and what has just been said is understood, only then will the time have come when people will also realize that Lucifer was quite audacious when he extended his influence even beyond the senses. Where the nerves enter the brain, the Luciferic influence encounters the divine-spiritual influence that also travels along the nerve pathways. In fact, if one were to draw the course of a nerve from the outside in, one would have to depict Lucifer reaching in, encountering, and entangling himself with the normal divine-spiritual forces. Thus, the direction of Lucifer’s influence radiates inward from the outside.

[ 15 ] You can see from this that it was part of the original divine-spiritual intention to give human beings to themselves in such a way that—by looking within themselves—they would have processed the world inwardly. Lucifer caused humanity to be torn away from itself in this regard, so that it now looks at and perceives the world around it. That is to say, Lucifer gave humanity to the world; he placed it within earthly existence; he led it out of itself. The biblical words are deeply, deeply significant: “You will be like gods; your senses will be opened”—for it was not intended to open them, but to leave them such that human beings, in their thinking, would look back to the old lunar existence and, in this thinking, grasp what the macrocosm brings about at its periphery—that which was given there by the gods.

[ 16 ] But human beings, as ethical and moral beings, are also placed in the world in this way; for we would be unable to experience many things as human beings if we did not have this projection of Lucifer’s influence within us. For example, we would never be angry or fearful; we would not hate, would not feel persecuted, and would not develop antipathy toward another person: we would be incapable of all of that. Human beings would never have succeeded in incorporating into language any kind of insult or word harmful to another person if Lucifer had not paved the way for them. It is only through the effects of Lucifer that it is possible for us to be angry or fearful, to develop hatred or hostile feelings toward another person, or to insult them, and so on.

[ 17 ] And one must certainly not entertain the slightest illusion in this regard. Anyone who believes that hating others is just may say so, and it may indeed be just, but Lucifer stands aside from it. There is no other cause for anger, hatred, and antipathy than the Luciferic influence.

[ 18 ] And because this has become possible, something else has in turn become possible. For example, it is only because Lucifer extends his tentacles from the outside that the normally progressing gods have allowed Ahriman to enter from the other side, so that he intervenes from there. He permeates not only language but also thought, and out of this mixture arises what has become hypocrisy—deliberate or unintentional deceit. We must never flatter ourselves that, when we are hypocritical toward anyone, it comes from anywhere other than the alliance between Lucifer and Ahriman.

[ 19 ] One is, however, inclined to gloss over such things. For how often do people say: “I do this or that not for my own sake, but in the service of the world.” I have often told the anecdote about the “Society for Selflessness.” It had an esoteric section, and in that section, everyone was supposed to think only completely objectively, never in relation to themselves. The result was that once a member approached another member and said: “I’m not allowed to speak of myself, because that would be personal and against the rules of our society.” “But I am allowed to speak about the others; after all, I am being completely selfless when I tell you what the others are like and all the evil things they do!” — And then he launched into a tirade against the others. Because the members of this society were not allowed to speak about themselves, they always spoke about the others and what the others were doing to them. This did not make them any more selfless.

[ 20 ] What I mean to say is that it doesn’t matter what one believes. One may believe that one is using every means to escape Lucifer and Ahriman; but through this endeavor, one is only capable of being somewhat more untruthful than one was before this endeavor. At least before, one did not say out loud that one wanted the best and so on. Afterward, one says it out loud as well, but in doing so, one deceives oneself about the true situation in which one finds oneself.

[ 21 ] One becomes aware of all these things when one faces the true state of affairs, when one is fully aware that Lucifer and Ahriman are necessary in our earthly existence, and that one cannot escape them, but can only come to master them properly—truly master them.

[ 22 ] It must be clear that, with regard to the interplay between Lucifer and Ahriman—especially as one advances in Spiritual Science—the most diverse complications are possible. A very common scenario is the following. Someone harbors antipathy toward another person. It may be that the anger toward this person, which lies in the unconscious, pushes its way up into the conscious mind and manifests outwardly; and the result is that, while one has an unrecognized reason for one’s antipathy—and only the anger comes to consciousness—the hatred or antipathy pushes outward, surging up into the sphere of Lucifer; and there, in the sphere of Lucifer, the most vivid visions and imaginings arise of all sorts of things that the person in question is supposedly doing to one. And now, in the subconscious, the anger can push its way out, giving rise to all sorts of fantasized scenarios that might originate from the hated person. And one hides the true reasons for the antipathy behind what one thus claims to have experienced.

[ 23 ] It goes without saying that, in the face of such facts about the spiritual world, one might ask: How does one guard against such things? — The answer would be simply to direct the person in question toward gradually working their way out of the illusions of life, in which they are all too deeply entrenched. One may harbor all the reasons for self-deception most of all within oneself when one believes one is not deceiving oneself at all, but merely paying attention to the facts. So, this good will—truly thinking about one’s self-improvement from this perspective—is the only thing that helps one overcome these things. One thing is necessary above all else, my dear friends: to understand how the impulses of Spiritual Science work when we strive for self-improvement, and how much we are inclined to attribute far more selflessness to ourselves than we are actually capable of. In this regard, I would like to offer a golden rule.

[ 24 ] Above all, we must be absolutely clear that as we progress in our self-education in Spiritual Science, we must first detach ourselves from our connection to the external world. Lucifer has placed us in the outer world. We will not make progress by allowing Ahriman to transform us into what we otherwise desire—by saying, “We now want to carry out missions” and so on. The next step we must take is to turn the world away from us, which means we face the danger of actually becoming more selfish than we were before. This danger is not insignificant. Of course, one should not allow this to deter one from entering the path into the spiritual world, but the temptation toward selfishness is there. And we should not be so quick to be haughty toward those who—it must be said—unfortunately cannot yet see that the Spiritual Science worldview is necessary for our time, and who, standing on the outside, say: “These Spiritual Scientists certainly do not come across as loving”—and we really should not always brush aside this objection, but rather recognize its validity, its relative validity.

[ 25 ] I do not know, my dear friends, whether the person who recently claimed the following was right: it even happens that—due to this rise in selfishness within a Spiritual Science movement—it can be observed as a fact that there are people in Spiritual Science societies who, after having been members for some time, argue even more than they did before. There are, after all, subtle indications that the disagreements in such societies are by no means likely to cease so easily! If it were truly the case that everyone spoke only well of one another, then the picture that would present itself would be that... outside the ring surrounding this circle, Lucifer and his host were lying in wait, but could not quite break in!

[ 26 ] Thus, when a person is in their ordinary waking state, the etheric aspect of their own being and the etheric aspect of the Luciferic being meet at the periphery of their senses. This is what underlies the words: “Your eyes will be opened.” — All occult schools have always placed particular emphasis on this principle.

[ 27 ] Insight is, on the one hand, what is meant to make us fully aware of what is right before us, and on the other hand, what is meant to guide us to accept things as they are. As long as we cannot incorporate these things into our thoughts, they remain in the realm of sympathy and antipathy, where they continue to stir things up. It is not that they are not there when we are unaware of them: they are always there. And especially at this time, humanity has reached the point in its development where such things must be brought into consciousness.

[ 28 ] In this way, we have gained a more precise understanding of the periphery of our senses. Yesterday we spoke of this periphery of the senses in terms of how desire intermingles with sensory perception. Now you have the real reason for this. For Lucifer intervenes and does not allow sensory perceptions to reach us as neutral, objective events, but rather intermingles his own nature with them.

[ 29 ] And as we move inward from the periphery of the senses, we arrive at thinking, the life of the imagination. We know that this life of imagination, through Lucifer’s influence, appears to us as something that belongs to us, whereas in reality we must perceive what we think as belonging to the sphere of the old Moon, which is eternal. With this, we have grasped the full meaning of the separation of the old Moon from the Sun-Earth existence. For the very fact that human beings today have ever been able to bring thought into the soul at all is connected with the separation of the old Moon from the Sun. So we can say: Thought, as we human beings are able to grasp it, arises from the fact that something has separated itself as the old Moon from the continuing existence of Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon. But what of what happened there, of what separated itself?

[ 30 ] We humans, as beings incarnated in the physical world, can only grasp this through Spiritual Science. The question is how these thoughts affect what has separated itself—the non-mental realm. Our mental activity is stimulated by our astral body, but it acts downward into the etheric body. Now one can observe the following: If one directs the trained spiritual eye toward a part of one’s etheric body, and then stimulates thoughts in the astral body, one finds that these thoughts then, as it were, flow downward into the etheric body—they pour into the etheric body. — You must not create a mental image of this in spatial terms, but rather as forces; then you will see that these thoughts evoke movements and activity in the etheric body. The thoughts dissolve, as it were, and movement arises in the etheric body. The thought, as it were, flows from the astral body into the etheric substance and evokes movements in the etheric body.

[ 31 ] Let’s suppose someone says, “I want to leave now”—the clairvoyant would first see the thought: “I want to leave now!” But he would perceive how the thought flows into the etheric body and causes movements—inner movements—within the etheric body, only such movements at first—(illustration below, p. 274). Through this, the etheric body can in turn affect the physical body. And this effect on the physical body is now such that (gap in the stenographic record). Now, imagine that this movement here becomes more and more vigorous, and as a result, the etheric substance, so to speak, is drawn away from the surroundings; it contracts; that which is moving strongly is being drawn out of the surrounding ether.

[ 32 ] The thought thus flows in, causing movement in the etheric substance, and the etheric substance in turn creates a void in its surroundings. For whatever the etheric substance needs there, it takes from its surroundings, and cavities are formed. And these cavities arise when a human being thinks, or when the higher beings—Angels and Archangels—allow their thoughts to enter him, which happens continuously.

[ 33 ] That is to say, we stand there, we see the ether moving through the effect of thought, and there are voids in between. And these voids are, in essence, the physical body. It is indeed true that the Real is everywhere where the physical is not, and the physical—that is nothing at all; it is a void in the world.

[ 34 ] What the ordinary materialistic physiologist studies in our head is, of course, not the mental aspect of the astral body, nor the movement of thought in the etheric body, but is in truth the empty space. And the only reason one cannot enter these cavities is that one can only penetrate as far as reality allows, and here one encounters the cavity. Thus, one cannot enter the cavities. It is just as if you were to have a mental image of a column of Seltzer water containing empty air bubbles. What is more ethereal appears terribly hard to a being living in a denser element. So we, too, cannot enter the actual cavities, but only because there is nothing there—because they are hollow. So that, in fact, if one were to draw the human head from an occult perspective, one would not have to draw it this way (Drawing I), but rather in negative form; and what remains hollow inside would be the human being (Drawing II). This means that where the painter usually applies the colors, thinking he is painting the human being, he should actually leave that area blank: then one would be painting in a spiritually realistic manner, for otherwise one paints where there is nothing and leaves blank where there is something.

[ 35 ] But this is already what happens in ordinary human sensory perception, for human sensory perception does not proceed in any other way.

[ 36 ] You can see how we must redefine our terms if we want to get to the heart of reality.

[ 37 ] Now, one final point. Yesterday I pointed out that today’s human views can be characterized as a “worm philosophy,” which links only causes and effects. That is how human “worms” operate. For example, you can find a wealth of literature on the alternation of waking and sleeping, where the cause of what happens during sleep is sought in the physical body: fatigue-inducing substances and the like. No attention is paid to the fact that there is something spiritual up there that wants to come out and, upon waking, wants to go back in—something that lives in a regular cycle, just as the sun alternately brings about day and night. Read what Fritz Mauthner wrote about this in his dictionary. In it, there is nothing to be found about sleep, dreaming, or the “I”—nothing about all these things that people must know in order to know anything at all about human beings.