The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. The Spiritual and Psychological Nature of Human Beings

[ 1 ] Today, I would like—in part to revisit some topics discussed recently and on previous occasions, and in part to expand on certain points—to begin by making some specific remarks about the inner life of the human being, about the human soul and spirit. As you know, we are speaking first of all of that aspect of the inner human being which we designate, using an abstract term, as the etheric body. And while the physical body of the human being is perceptible to the external senses and accessible to external science—which is bound to the intellect and its observations—we know that the etheric body is a supersensible entity. Furthermore, we speak of the next aspect of the human being as the so-called astral body. We recall how often we have emphasized that one cannot say, as a human being, that the inner life of the human being is completely unknown to the human being: after all, within the physical world and within one’s physical existence, the human being perceives one’s thinking, feeling, and willing. They experience it inwardly, and they experience this thinking, feeling, and willing as permeated and illuminated by the “I.” One can say that human beings perceive this thinking, feeling, and willing inwardly. But one cannot say—as you have gradually come to realize—that human beings truly perceive their astral body. Nor can one even say that he truly perceives his “I.” For this “I”—as we have just pointed out in the course of the last few lectures—of which a human being speaks, and which falls back into unconsciousness every time he falls asleep, is only an image of the true and real “I.” So, in a certain sense, one can already conclude that even with this “I”—with thinking, feeling, and willing—there is, in a similar way, merely an expression, a revelation of the actual inner being of the human being, just as the physical body is a revelation, an expression of the spiritual—of what we call the etheric body. Now, people are of course happy when they have such a neat classification for any field of knowledge—one that they can, so to speak, pack away neatly into mental boxes and store. That is why some are so satisfied when they possess this extraordinarily phenomenal knowledge that the human being consists of the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I.” But when it comes down to it—as has already been emphasized here many times—these four terms are really nothing more than words; they are nothing more than expressions. And when one proceeds to genuine contemplation, one must, in a certain sense, always transcend the boundaries so easily established by these expressions.

[ 2 ] Certainly, speaking in general terms, one can say that thinking, feeling, and willing take place in the astral body. But this only accounts for the fact of thinking in a rather one-sided, rather abstract way. Just as we, as human beings, are initially situated in the physical world, so too is the impulse for our thinking given in the astral body—indeed, in the “I.” But thinking develops as a mental image, as a thought, only because we have the mobile etheric body. Here, as physical human beings, all our thinking would remain unconscious if the astral body did not send its impulses—its thought impulses—into the etheric body, and if the etheric body, in its mobility, did not receive the thought impulses of the astral body. And every thought, in turn, would simply pass by without leaving a memory if we did not have a physical body. One cannot say that the physical body is the bearer of memory; that is, in fact, the etheric body. But for us humans in the physical body, whatever remains in the etheric body from our thinking would fade away, just as dreams fade away, if it could not become embedded in the physical matter of the physical body. Thus, our thoughts here in the physical body are able to persist precisely because we have this physical body.

[ 3 ] So you can see just how complex this process of thinking actually is. It has its impulses in the astral body—in fact, already in the “I.” These impulses continue as forces into the etheric body, where they give rise to thoughts, and the thoughts, in turn, leave their imprints on the physical body. And because they are imprinted there, they can always be retrieved from memory during physical life.

[ 4 ] Now consider once more—we have, after all, spoken of this matter here on several occasions—what memory actually is for a human being here in the physical body. Isn’t it true that a human being has experiences? He processes these experiences. He then moves on from them. There comes a time when such experiences can seem to us as if we knew nothing about them at all, as if they no longer had any connection to us. But then there comes a time again when we bring the mental images of such experiences up from within ourselves. We then objectify what we have experienced in the form of memories.

[ 5 ] Now you see, first of all, a person must rightly believe that this process of memory belongs to them—it belongs to their soul. When we, as human beings, walk through the streets or mingle in society, no one can, at first glance, see with their external, physical senses what memories we hold within us—that is, what experiences we have had. We carry these within our soul. I would say that the physical body acts as a kind of shell: we keep our memories enfolded within our soul, just as within the cloak of the physical body. They belong to us, and throughout our entire life we work on ourselves in this way. We, so to speak, transform the outer world into our inner world. We then carry this outer world with us through life in the form of memories. We carry these memories along as our very own property. Now, it would be a great mistake to believe that this carrying of memories through life truly encompasses the entire process. That is not the case. Darwin, for example, was right to investigate whether animals such as earthworms might have a special purpose, and he found that earthworms are not merely there to enjoy existence, but that they have a very significant role in that they make an essential contribution to the fertility of the soil they burrow through. These are the kinds of things that natural science certainly acknowledges today, and this is ground on which natural science feels secure. Science is by no means to be criticized for this, for it is wonderful when science engages with individual phenomena. Yet worldviews are also built upon such phenomena. Here, of course, one must consider the saying about the man who digs greedily for treasure and is happy when he finds earthworms. But now, turning to the spiritual realm, one might ask: Does this human activity—through which we shape experiences into thoughts and preserve them in memory throughout our entire lives—really have no significance whatsoever for the entire universe? Is this process of memory truly just a process that takes place within us?

[ 6 ] The materialist, of course, is compelled to say: Naturally, this is a process that takes place only within us. When we die, we lay our physical body to rest in the grave, and then what we have preserved as memory is, of course, as finished as something that has been extinguished. We will not go into such a materialistic response now—we have done so often enough—but we want to address something else. We want to raise the question: Is this process of thought and memory of ours not perhaps something quite, quite different from what takes place in our memory? And so it is. While we think, while we form thoughts from our experiences and preserve them as memories—during this time—we are not merely occupied with our own thoughts; rather, the entire world of hierarchies—which we designate as the third hierarchy, the hierarchy of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai—is occupied with our thoughts. We do not merely think for ourselves; we think and preserve our thoughts within ourselves, thereby creating a field of activity for the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai. While we believe our thoughts exist only within us, three spiritual hierarchies are engaged with our thoughts. The very least of what we do with our thoughts is what truly matters in our thinking. Even when we have forgotten the thoughts that we later recall from memory, they remain within us. And just as we, as human beings, engage with our machines on Earth or with eating and drinking, so too do Angels, Archangels, and Archai engage with a fabric that is woven, spun, and formed from our thoughts; they work ceaselessly on these thoughts of ours. Thus, we are aware only of the aspect of thought activity that is turned toward us. There is also an aspect turned away from us, and this aspect, as perceived by spiritual vision, appears to us as follows: While we hold our thoughts within ourselves, the aforementioned spiritual beings engage with our thoughts from the outside and weave them, so that when we gain this insight, we can say to ourselves: Our thought process is truly not something superfluous in the world; our thought process is not something intended solely for ourselves; our thought process is embedded within the entire development of the worlds and contributes to the constant weaving of new elements into that development. If we had not been born as individuals, had not thought, had not preserved memories, then upon our death the part that can be woven from our thoughts—the part we do not weave ourselves—would be lost to the development of the worlds.

[ 7 ] And when we then pass through the gate of death—a process we have described many times—we know that we shed our physical body, which is in some way returned to the elements of the earth. Our etheric body remains with us for a short time. To our inner being, it initially appears as though it is unfurling a vast tableau of our life before us. Everything we would otherwise recall over the course of time is simultaneously arranged around us, as in a vast panorama, within a mighty tableau of our life. But then our etheric being is detached from us; it is, as it were, drawn out of us. Who does this? Indeed, it is the beings of the three hierarchies mentioned who do this, and they gradually weave it into the world ether, so that after our death, this fabric of the world ether consists of what we have added during our life between birth and death and what has been processed by the beings of the three hierarchies immediately above us. What is thus taken from us is what we have woven into that which was not yet there before our birth, and it is woven into the entire universe. Every human being has this insight once they have passed through the gate of death. For when a human being has passed through the gate of death, something now occurs that we can describe only with the following words. — You see, the human being’s etheric body has been separated from him; his etheric tissue has been woven into the general world ether; that which he carried within himself throughout his life is now outside; that is important. And those who understand such things describe this with a brief phrase that one should repeatedly bring to mind in meditation, for it succinctly captures an important and essential process. — One can say: The inner becomes the outer; that is, what we have always felt as the inner—as our life of thought—becomes the outer, becomes the external world. Just as rivers, mountains, trees, clouds, and stars surround us here, so too does something occur after our death that can be characterized as follows: What lived within us during our physical life has now become a part of the external world, so that it can be viewed and contemplated by us.

[ 8 ] But now, in addition to this etheric body, we have the world of our astral body. The world of our astral body first comes to our consciousness in such a way that we experience it as thinking. But I have just characterized thinking as something that sends its impulses down into the etheric body, so that thinking itself cannot become conscious in the astral body. Only feeling and willing can become conscious in the astral body. We, in turn, experience our entire life through feeling and willing. We harbor certain feelings toward certain experiences. These are processes taking place in our astral body. This, too, is its unique weaving—but now not a weaving of thoughts, as I described earlier, but a weaving of impulses of feeling and will, drives toward the will. Higher beings also work on what we feel and experience as impulses of the will throughout our entire lives; this, too, is the field of activity for higher beings. Just as the beings of the third hierarchy work on our thinking, so do the beings of the second hierarchy—including even the Thrones—work on our feeling and our impulses of the will.

[ 9 ] Think about how we stand in the world when we know these things, how we feel transported into the spiritual world. On the one hand, we say to ourselves: You, human being, you walk through the world thinking, but your thinking—insofar as it turns its inner side toward you—is only one side of thinking. What you think is material for the work of the Angeloi, the Archangeloi, and the Archai. And through our feeling and willing, we create material for the spirits of form, the spirits of movement, the spirits of wisdom—the Thrones, or spirits of will. Just as a person tills and works the earth without realizing, while working the earth, that they are working only one side of it—that essential processes are taking place on the other side, which they cannot perceive with ordinary consciousness—so too does a person believe that their feelings and impulses of will are merely their own. But they are a field for the work of the aforementioned beings of the higher hierarchy. We truly exist not merely as a physical body—in such a way that this physical body is connected to the environment—but we also exist as soul-spiritual beings, in such a way that this soul-spiritual being is connected to the environment. People usually do not think about how our physical body, too, belongs to the entire environment. But that is easy to create a mental image of. Isn’t it true that at any given moment, when you create a mental image of yourself, you do not merely have bones, blood, and muscles and so on, but you also have a certain stream of air within you—which you have just inhaled and will exhale again in a moment. While you have inhaled it, it belongs to you. In the previous moment it was outside of you; in the next moment it will be outside of you again. Try to imagine yourself without this stream of air! It is impossible to imagine yourself without it; it is part of us. It is already nonsensical to think of even the physical body as if it were merely enclosed within the skin, when in fact it depends on living in harmony with the entire surrounding atmosphere. But just as we live through our physical body in the atmosphere and the thermal environment, so too do we live through our thoughts in the environment of the third-order hierarchy, and through our feelings and impulses of will, we live with the beings of the second-order hierarchy and with the spirits of will. Thus we stand within the universe.

[ 10 ] If we apply this, in turn, to the passage through the Gate of Death, then we can say: When a person passes through the Gate of Death, we know that once their etheric body has been taken from them, once the interweaving with the general world ether begins, they must then relive their physical life in a span of time that passes three times as quickly as the physical life between birth and death, by perceiving the effects of that life. So what we have already experienced within ourselves during our physical life, we do not perceive then; we have already perceived that here in physical life. If we have inflicted an insult on someone: the feeling from which we committed the insult—we have lived through that here in physical life; it stands there as a cause and is recorded in karma. What we did not experience here in physical life is the impression the insult made on the other soul. Here we do not experience at all the effects our deeds, our actions, and our thoughts have on the external world. We do not experience that here in physical life; we experience it now during the journey backward in time from death to birth. There we relive everything that is out there—not as we experienced it, but as it was experienced by the outside world with which we were connected. Truly, everything that people felt as a result of our thoughts and our words—we relive it all. And this is because now the external must become internal. With our thoughts, we might say, it is the case that the inner becomes the outer. In this present life, however, it is the case that the outer—the effects of our thoughts and our deeds in life—becomes an inner reality, that is, an inner experience, an experience lived by the spiritual human being after death. For he must now acclimate himself to the world in which he lived unconsciously during his earthly life, while possessing an astral body and with the spirits of the second hierarchy working upon his astral body; he must now acclimate himself to the world in which his astral body gradually dissolves into the external world, yet he now experiences the external world inwardly—truly experiences it inwardly. He must learn to work, between death and a new birth, in the sphere where the spirits of the second hierarchy work—the sphere in which they prepare what can then lead him once again to a new incarnation. And then, as we know, after some time the astral body becomes such that it dissipates into the outer world, and the human being continues to live on with his true inner self in the time between death and a new birth.

[ 11 ] Now, if we want to understand something of this life between death and a new birth, we must always consider many different perspectives. That is, after all, our goal: not to be one-sided, but to consider many perspectives, so that a comprehensive understanding of these processes can gradually emerge. So consider this: Just as a human being, through birth, enters into the natural processes taking place around them in the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, so too do they enter into the world unfolding around them through the beings of the aforementioned hierarchies. They are, so to speak, woven into their activity, and what the human being has brought with them, they weave together so that it can become the foundation for their next incarnation.

[ 12 ] You see, in this area it is, I would say, particularly difficult to provide the present day with correct concepts, for reasons that have, after all, already been explained on numerous occasions. The present day operates precisely with the most distorted concepts in this area. When a person enters physical existence through birth, they enter it with certain characteristics. The present day tends to speak only of heredity—meaning physical heredity—and people speak of this physical heredity in such a way that they say: A person exhibits this or that characteristic, so one must look for these characteristics in their ancestors. For example, there is today a very meticulously researched book on Goethe in which Goethe’s characteristics are presented in such a way that, as far back as one can go, one looks for one trait he possessed in these ancestors, another in those ancestors—this one in a great-great-grandmother, that one in a great-great-grandfather—and so everything is said to have been inherited. — I have said many times before: Wisdom is something that can be illustrated figuratively by showing just how easily it can be attained. For it is no more intelligent to say that a child has the characteristics of its parents than it is to say that a person is wet when they have fallen into water and are pulled out. They naturally have water on them when they are pulled out. In the same way, they possess the characteristics of their ancestors because their soul has passed through them. There is no greater wisdom in this. And to reason back to causes in this way, to explain it as logical, is ultimately the most illogical thing one could possibly do: one seeks to prove that spiritual and mental qualities are inherited by showing that a genius like Goethe possessed the same qualities as his ancestors did. But, as I said, that is no more intelligent than claiming that a person is wet when he has fallen into water. To prove that genius and genius-like qualities have something to do with heredity, one would have to identify the genius’s descendants and demonstrate in them how the genius’s qualities have been passed down to them. That would be proof. But one will probably refrain from doing so. One will not, for example, go out of one’s way to show how the genius-like qualities of Goethe’s father were passed down to his son, will one? Certainly, it can sometimes happen that one points to such things quite explicitly. There is currently a statesman in Europe who is the son of a father who was also a statesman. One might say that the statesman’s genius-like qualities have been passed down from father to son. But the explanation could also be that neither of them was a genius!

[ 13 ] There is a much, much deeper process underlying the matter itself. You see, people today are quite unwilling to acknowledge that what happens externally merely reveals the outer aspect of processes that are at the same time internal—processes that flow from the spiritual realm. And let us illustrate what is to be said with the following hypothetical comparison. Let us suppose there were beings who, while possessing a certain degree of intelligence, lacked the ability to see human beings. This is, of course, purely hypothetical, but you can imagine for a moment that there were beings who could see everything except human beings. Such beings would see, for example, clocks. So imagine a being that cannot see humans or observe human activity; it would walk through Berlin and see clocks appearing everywhere. The being would naturally have to say to itself: The clocks come into being all by themselves. — No wiser than such a being, which would conclude that clocks come into being on their own, is the human being who says: There is no need to explain further why human beings physically enter the world; this happens all by itself in the course of reproduction, over the course of generations. — People can only think this way because they fail to see that what happens here in the physical world is merely the outward expression of an activity that continually flows down from the spiritual world, just as the activity of watchmakers flows into the clocks. If, for example, there were a science specifically devoted to moles, they might well come to the conclusion that clocks arise on their own—provided the moles were intelligent enough to regard clocks as something created by intelligence.

[ 14 ] But what takes place here on Earth—which people, in their folly, believe happens entirely of its own accord, as if it were merely an external physical process—is directed from the spiritual world, just as the work of a watchmaker is a directed activity. And indeed, from the moment I referred to in the fourth Mystery Drama as the midnight hour of existence—from that moment, which actually lies right in the middle between death and a new birth—from that point onward, the activity begins whereby the spiritual world, as it were, bends down into the physical world in order to guide the human being back into physical existence after centuries. When a human being passes through the gate of death, the activity carried out in the spiritual world initially consists of processing what the person experienced and worked through here in their last life. This takes place during the first half. But from the midpoint of the life between death and a new birth onward, the preparation for the next incarnation already begins. And now it is truly the case that one can form a mental image: The person who is born has parents; those parents have parents of their own; and those parents have parents of their own as well. Imagine how this extends back through the generations as you go back thirty generations. But if you were to go back through thirty generations in this way, you would find that, in a sense, the tendencies already lie within many people that ultimately lead to man A and woman B being brought together, who then give life to a human being. And if the whole process had not taken place in this way over the course of thirty generations—if people had not always married in such a way that, ultimately, A and B came together—then that very duality would not have developed, which the human being seeking a physical incarnation can then seek out. In this entire interplay of many people, which ultimately culminates in the two of them, the spiritual world is already at work in accordance with what constitutes the individuality of the human being. So when we see that the son has the characteristics of his father and mother, and that the mother and father in turn trace their characteristics back to their grandfather and grandmother, great-great-grandfather, great-great-grandmother, and so on—this is because, as far back as the great-great-great-grandfather and great-great-great-grandmother—thirty generations back—the very individuality that would later, after centuries, seek to be born had already begun to incline toward them, and it has determined the plan according to which people find one another across generations. All of this is already at work. And the fact that there are inherited similarities stems from the fact that, over thirty generations, the force has already been working its way down through the spiritual world, a force that ultimately seeks to manifest itself in a specific human being; it is already at work in the father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, great-grandfather, and great-grandmother. It has always been at work there and ultimately endows a person with the qualities that are to come to the fore. It is not the physical current that determines heredity, but rather heredity is woven into the physical current in this way. The exact opposite is true of what is claimed regarding physical heredity by the external, so-called scientific worldview. In order for Goethe to ultimately emerge through Johann Kaspar Goethe and Mrs. Rat Aja, these individuals had been brought together by the beings of the second hierarchy over the course of thirty generations in such a way that this could ultimately lead to Goethe. Of course, this applies not only to genius, but to every single individual. You may say: That is hard to form a mental image of, and you may also ask, how does this reconcile with human freedom, if as many as thirty generations before we come into being, it is already entirely determined what we are to be like? Yes, but it was the same for our father, and the same for our grandfathers! And if this is too complicated for someone to grasp, then they need only add to their thinking the fact that this line of thought has simply been spared them in their normal consciousness of earthly existence, for it is not entrusted to them alone; rather, it is brought about in communion with the spirits of form, the spirits of movement, and so on, so that freedom is not impaired in the least. Of course, this requires the higher wisdom that corresponds to these hierarchies. But that is how it is.

[ 15 ] And so what we can convey to the world ether as thoughts is woven together with what we experience in our emotional and volitional lives during our physical existence. Indeed, Spiritual Science should not merely stimulate a body of knowledge within us, but above all it should be able to evoke a certain state of mind. I have attempted to hint at this state of mind in the first parts of the second Mystery Play, in the encounter between Capesius and Benediktus—showing how gods and gods, spirits and spirits, truly work together toward the goal that human beings may live here on Earth as whole human beings, and that human beings are a goal for gods and gods, spirits and spirits. This feeling—I would say of gratitude toward the spiritual universe—this feeling of knowing oneself to be within the spiritual universe—must also flow into our souls through Spiritual Science. It must become as natural to us as it is natural for a human being to know that they are connected to the physical world. Usually, they do not pay attention to that. But today science has advanced to the point where everyone is aware that they need air—that is, that they cannot live merely for themselves, but are a part of their entire surroundings. Yet when they are hungry or thirsty, they do realize that the external world is physically necessary for their existence, that they are, in essence, part of a universal process within the external world. In the same way, however, human beings are also part of a universal process within the spiritual world; and because they are capable of thinking, they stand in a spiritual connection with the Angels, Archangels, and Archai; and because they are capable of feeling and willing, they stand in a spiritual connection with the next higher hierarchy. Truly, just as the air and nature flow into his physical body, so do the activities of the aforementioned hierarchies work into his spiritual being and into his soul.

[ 16 ] We have, of course, often discussed the theoretical objections raised by our materialistic present. These theoretical objections can be refuted through epistemological considerations and the like. But then the materialists very often bring up the practical aspect and say: Yes, it may well be true that such a spiritual world exists, but what good does it do us to know anything about this spiritual world, even if you say that thinking, feeling, and willing are connected to the higher hierarchies? After all, we don’t need to know anything about these hierarchies in order to think. We already think in this world without knowing anything about them. After all, people breathe—thank God—because if they had had to wait until they had learned the process of breathing in exact theoretical detail, they still wouldn’t be able to breathe today; for what they know today, physically and physiologically, about the breathing process would not be nearly enough to bring about the act of breathing. But even without having that “eccentric side”—as people will say—one can still think without knowing anything about the hierarchies at work here.

[ 17 ] But we ask the counterquestion: Can one really think without having that? — At present, you see, people are still working with the genetic heritage of the past; they are truly working with what they have inherited, and with that they have been able to invent all sorts of things, even such complicated machines as those currently used to kill people, and so on. But all of that is genetic heritage from an earlier time. Of course, people are naturally reluctant to admit that it is a legacy, because many people—and this is quite strange in this regard—who claim that we have made such magnificent progress actually mean, deep down, only that we have come to realize that all thinking in earlier times was childish, and that people have now become aware of how to think soberly, no longer childishly. Even today, one could really convince oneself—purely from outward appearances, I might say—that this is nonsense, and that people have only held this way of thinking for a few centuries.

[ 18 ] We were in Hamburg the other day and saw a painting from the thirteenth or fourteenth century by Master Bertram. I would like to tell you the following about this painting. Let’s go back to the biblical story of the Fall, which we in Spiritual Science call the Luciferic temptation. If a painter of the Enlightenment were to paint the Fall today, he would depict Adam and Eve on either side of the tree, and then paint a serpent on the tree—a serpent, of course. Depending on whether he is an Impressionist, a Cubist, an Expressionist, or some other “-ist,” he will paint it more or less hideously—or beautifully, I mean! But he will paint a snake just as a snake is, crawling through the grass. Well, that’s realism. But is it really realism? It isn’t actually realism; for how can a realist possibly assume that this snake, slithering around in the grass, managed to seduce Eve—no matter how simple-minded she may have been (which she’s not even supposed to have been)? I don’t think there is any woman so simple-minded that she would allow herself to be seduced by a snake merely slithering through the grass. Isn’t that right? That’s just not possible! So the matter isn’t exactly naturalistic. We know from our Spiritual Science that Lucifer is a being who has remained at the stage of the Lunar evolution. Since, during the Lunar evolution, things were not yet perceived as they are here during the Earth evolution, Lucifer cannot, of course, be seen with the physical eye. It cannot be a snake that is seen with the physical eye. Lucifer must be seen inwardly.

[ 19 ] You see, if we study the human being more closely—you can see this in any skeleton—the skeleton itself is clearly composed of two parts: the skull with the spine attached to it—of course, that’s not the skeleton; it’s the brain inside the skull and the spinal cord within the spine—and the rest of the human being is, as it were, attached to that. It really can hardly be described as anything other than “attached.” The reason for this—and we’ll discuss this in more detail another time—is that what we carry on our heads is truly a very complex structure. It’s a veritable miniature globe. One must also say: Thank God that human beings, through their own wisdom, have nothing to contribute to birth, and that this head can come into being. For it would be quite a sight if, through their present anatomy or physiology, they were to contribute anything to the creation of this marvelous structure of the human head. It comes into being in an entirely different way, it comes about because, during the time between death and a new birth—as if within a vast sphere that we can compare to our blue celestial sphere—what is written in our karma is woven together, and a complete arrangement is made, which then, as it approaches incarnation, becomes smaller and smaller and finally unites with what comes from the mother. From the entire universe, countless beings of many hierarchies weave together what will then become our head—a head that contains a wisdom of immense magnitude and scope, a wisdom built upon all the experiences gained through Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon. And what is attached to it is a product of the Earth. Our head is actually a legacy from Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon. The Earth, with its forces, has been able to bring about only what is attached to it. The other human being—not the head with the spinal cord, but what is attached to it—is actually the earthly human being.

[ 20 ] So how does one go about depicting Lucifer—who, viewed from within, is essentially a lunar being? One must depict a human head with something serpentine hanging from it: the spine, which has not yet ossified. This is how Master Bertram from the thirteenth or fourteenth century depicted Lucifer on the tree between Adam and Eve. You can see the painting depicted this way at the museum in Hamburg. If people today were able to think, they would say to themselves: The painter painted this, so knowledge of the spiritual world was still alive back then. Knowledge of the spiritual world remained alive right up to the knowledge of Lucifer’s form.

[ 21 ] It was only recently that what we call inherited, atavistic clairvoyance was lost to humanity. But thinking—well, that isn’t very widespread today. Authority, after all, is regarded today as something that amounts to nothing; a free person today must not have a sense of authority. Today people think about everything; today everyone has their own opinions. For the most part, however, having one’s own opinion means nothing more than that one has forgotten in which brochure or even in which newspaper one read the opinion in question, doesn’t it? One has forgotten that, and once forgotten, it has become one’s own opinion. But if one were to think—if one were to hold these things together—then from the simple fact that a painter of the thirteenth or fourteenth century depicted Lucifer correctly, one would know what people still knew just a few centuries ago, and how they must once again strive to attain this knowledge.

[ 22 ] I would like to examine this topic from another angle so that we can see how the claim made by materialistically minded people holds up—namely, that we have no need for all that comes to us from the spiritual world and takes such a hold on our thoughts and feelings, just as the air we breathe and the food we eat to satisfy our hunger and thirst. Yes, if one absolutely wants to maintain this claim that we do not need any of this, then one could say: It is precisely under the influence of these views that certain materialistic doctrines have arisen that are entirely irrefutable. I have often cited the eminent criminal anthropologist Benedikt. He was the first to examine the brains of criminals—after death, of course—dissecting them to determine whether there is a connection between brain structure and criminal traits. Benedikt discovered something very important in the brains of criminals; he found that they all share a common characteristic, namely an occipital lobe that is too short and does not completely cover the cerebellum. So create a mental image of the common characteristic of criminals’ brains as an occipital lobe that is too short—as monkeys also have—which does not cover the cerebellum. But this is, of course, a characteristic of the physical body. One must necessarily come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of people by birth. Some have a normal occipital lobe that covers the cerebellum; others have an occipital lobe that is too short. Those who have a normal occipital lobe do not become criminals; those who have an occipital lobe that is too short must become criminals—they cannot help but become criminals.

[ 23 ] In light of this insight—against which there is absolutely nothing to object, for it is entirely correct from the standpoint of the materialist worldview—doesn’t all our talk of morality become a farce, a nonsense? Can we still punish people if we have to tell ourselves: ‘They cannot help but become criminals because their occipital lobe is too small’? You see where materialism must gradually degenerate. It must also eradicate everything spiritual in social, ethical, and legal life, or it will, of course, have to operate within a perpetual lie. For there is no objection to the fact I have cited—that is simply how it is! And for those who do not acknowledge a spiritual worldview, there is nothing but this fact.

[ 24 ] Let us now consider what we have to say. Certainly, people are born in such a way that some have properly formed occipital lobes and others have occipital lobes that are too short. But there is an etheric body that can be developed in a completely different way and is more flexible than the physical body. The occipital lobe of the etheric body corresponds to the occipital lobe of the physical body. People of the future will have to learn to distinguish between children who have an occipital lobe that is too short and those who have a long one, and they will have to educate them accordingly as teachers or educators. They will need to know the characteristics through which an occipital lobe that is too short manifests itself in early childhood. These children will have to be educated in such a way that they are influenced so that the etheric lobe develops strongly enough to form a counterbalance. Then, through the strong development of the etheric lobe, one will prevent the harm that the physical lobe can cause when it is too short.

[ 25 ] We have not yet entered the age in which the old heritage has completely faded away; but that time will come. And if Spiritual Science were unable to penetrate people’s minds, it would inevitably lead to materialism taking hold of all morality, all ethics, and all jurisprudence—to the spiritual being eradicated entirely. For that alone would be the logical consequence. But one can only arrive at what must come if one becomes aware that, just as one breathes in the air, one also needs the cooperation of the spiritual hierarchies in whatever one wishes to think or feel. But of course our contemporaries come along and say: “Yes, we can think quite well—we can think excellently, in fact—and we don’t believe that these hierarchies are at work within us like that! How could we not think well?” — A contemporary natural scientist—who is a very good natural scientist but has the weakness of also writing all sorts of philosophical stuff on the side—commits this peculiar, unconscious act of concluding one of his lectures by saying how we have “come so wonderfully far” and so on, without even looking in Goethe’s Faust to see who says that. People simply have this conviction: they can think quite, quite well and do not need to draw inspiration for their thinking from the spiritual world.

[ 26 ] One would actually have to talk at length if one wanted to discuss this chapter thoroughly. But let me cite just one small—very small—example out of many. I recently drew attention in a public lecture to a forgotten thinker: Karl Christian Planck. I certainly do not intend to dogmatically defend everything Karl Christian Planck wrote. However, I did point out how he truly worked from a deeper spiritual consciousness and how he did manage to develop a certain spiritual worldview. He died in 1880. Basically, no one paid much attention to his books. In 1912, The Testament of a German by Karl Christian Planck was published—a wonderful book. Since he died in 1880, it must have been written before 1880. At that time, the first edition was published by Köstlin in 1881. It was republished in 1912. But people didn’t pay much attention to it, and one can, as I’ve already said, draw attention to such phenomena in one way or another. I had already drawn attention to it in the first edition of The Riddles of Philosophy, in Worldviews and Philosophies of Life in the 19th Century—I had already mentioned Karl Christian Planck as early as 1900. But it’s not easy to gain much by pointing out a spiritual worldview today, because people’s initial reaction is: A spiritual worldview—what do we actually get out of it?—But the other question is this: Doesn’t such a spiritual worldview contain something of those spiritual forces that enrich our thinking? — Yes, of course, people with a materialistic mindset will come along and say: You can see that in all the idealists and spiritualists and people who live in the spiritual world—you can see it in them; they’re impractical people who know nothing about reality, and if you were to get involved with these people in practical life, then that practical life couldn’t go on—practical life requires practical people. — Those who speak this way have had practical wisdom spoon-fed to them, and the fact that they’ve had it spoon-fed—according to their own view—stems specifically from the fact that they don’t listen to these deluded, dreamy, fanciful idealists! Well, Planck was truly an idealist; he was truly a person who lived in a spiritual world and who actually wanted to bring about something that would reach out from the spiritual realm into the world. We could cite many areas, but as I said, I’d like to give you just one small example from this very Karl Christian Planck. I didn’t mention it here in Berlin during the public lecture, one can’t always mention everything, but I have also mentioned it in public lectures elsewhere. Time and again, one could hear from newspaper diplomats, newspaper politicians, perhaps even from so-called real diplomats and real politicians: If one were to give any credence to these idealists and their knowledge of the world—even with regard to external political life—what a pity, what a terrible thing that would be! — Let me read you a passage from Planck’s Testament of a German, written in 1880, where he speaks of the current war—yes, the current war! And there he says the following:

[ 27 ] “No political wisdom, no love of peace on Germany’s part can prevent this hostile clash within the current, purely national order. For the nature of the circumstances is more powerful than all prudence; and even now, despite the friendly stance of Germany and Austria, the hostile sentiment of the Russian East is becoming all the more evident, precisely because it could not be given a free hand in everything, but a specific goal had to be set. And if a conflict should eventually arise, then—no matter how much we must fight it for the good of Europe—Europe will not stand by our side; rather, just as in the East, we will have to defend ourselves simultaneously in the West and in the South; on all sides, hostile national jealousy will rise up against the new empire placed in their midst.”

[ 28 ] Now I ask you: Did any of those “practical” people in 1880 describe the situation of 1914, 1915, and 1916 so succinctly? How many of these “practical” people—indeed, for how long!—have refused to acknowledge that things could turn out this way with regard to the South, for example? This “impractical” idealist—one of those derided as “impractical”—wrote words in 1880 that precisely describe what is happening today. One would have to be willing to listen to such facts. Then one would realize that being immersed in the spiritual world—and knowing that a spiritual world exists, just as there is air for the physical body—means something that enables the mind to judge reality correctly.

[ 29 ] Once I have illustrated this with a small example, you may understand that the spiritual researcher today can rightly say—even if people do not yet believe him: Today, people can still invent machines using the old genetic heritage of thought, but it won’t be fifty years before people will no longer invent anything if they refuse to accept spiritual influences on their thinking. And everything that seeks to introduce something into the physical world that does not originate from the spiritual world will die out. Machines can still be invented today because that old legacy is still present. What is happening in many other fields clearly demonstrates how spiritual capacity is truly diminishing—the ability to incorporate elements from the spiritual world into the physical world—for in many fields today, “being unable to do anything” is, for this very reason, already considered a “higher form of skill.” No longer being able to paint a proper face, but instead just jotting down some lines and smearing all sorts of stuff on it—the painter would have called that, not so long ago—and of course, the real painter still does so today—a daub. But today there are already schools that call such daubs “high art,” and real art is something that is a thing of the past, something that is no longer supposed to exist. It’s like this in every field, in every, every field.

[ 30 ] This is what we must realize: The times demand that we allow ourselves to be inspired by the spiritual world. And the only inspiration that will be possible is that which can come from grasping the spiritual realities as presented by Spiritual Science. And the great tasks facing the world will also be solved only if such inspiration can take hold precisely in this realm. One really does make the most boundlessly sad observations today. Time and again, one must see how our age, fundamentally speaking, is devoid of any connection to the spiritual world. We live in a time that is meant to prepare—as has often been emphasized—for an event that can be described as a second appearance of the Christ on Earth: the etheric Christ Being, that second appearance of the Christ on Earth. But preparation is needed so that this event does not pass us by or so that it is not mocked or ridiculed. And what we are now going through can only be endured in the right way if there is an awareness that the terrible events happening around us are, like a sign sent by God, an indication that a deepening of the human soul is to take place. The most terrible thing would be if, beyond these events that are so thoroughly shaking up the status quo, fundamentally materialistic human thinking were to persist as it often appears to do. That would be the most terrible thing. And those who belong to Spiritual Science must have this written so deeply into their souls as a fundamental truth that they are truly strong enough to face everything that comes rushing at them from today’s world—which still stands in opposition to Spiritual Science and to a spiritual understanding of existence. One will be able to face it only by constantly renewing the thought of the necessity of a spiritual conception of the world.

[ 31 ] It is so difficult to make such things understandable to a wider audience today because—in certain areas—people are downright obsessed with flawed thinking. When I spoke recently in a city about how there is a faded tone in spiritual life—as I gave the lecture that I have also given here on the faded tone in the spiritual life of Central Europe—two people came up to me after the lecture. First, they expressed their surprise that anyone would speak this way about current conditions. They said they hadn’t expected such talk, especially from what they call Theosophy; they had imagined Theosophy to be different, since they were pacifists. That’s all well and good, isn’t it, to be a pacifist—but one must be clear that since the emergence of pacifism, the world’s greatest and bloodiest wars have been waged—a fact I already emphasized a decade ago in the lectures at the Architektenhaus. But I wanted to draw attention to one thing that seems quite obvious. I said: “But don’t all these circumstances—and I don’t mean just the external conditions of war, but this bringing to the surface of such terrible hypocrisy, as it manifests itself in the conflicting voices of the peoples—don’t they strike you as a reduction to absurdity of what has hitherto developed as so-called culture?” Isn’t that like taking something to its absurd conclusion? — “Yes,” said one gentleman, “yes, that is precisely a disease right now, one that must be cured.” — Of course, one can agree with him: All right, it is a disease. But the man is licking his fingers—pardon the trivial expression—for having the right thought: It is a disease! Yet he has no idea that such a “right” thought is of no use, that what matters is not simply being able to come up with “right” thoughts, but rather that one must grasp the right thought—the one that really matters—within a certain context. For example, it never occurred to this man that it might indeed be quite correct to say: “This is an illness.” But what, then, is an illness, and why does it arise?—Because the circumstances were not in order beforehand! The illness is, after all, nature’s very act of rebellion to restore the person to health. The unnatural circumstances themselves precede the illness. Illness is, in fact, already an attempt to bring these unhealthy conditions to light. Illness is, I would say, that which defends itself against the unnaturalness that existed before the illness, and this process of self-defense—that is the illness. So by saying, “That is an illness,” he is pointing out that the illness was necessary because the unnatural conditions existed, and in the broadest sense, what these unnatural conditions are is the materialism that dominates all spheres. Of course, one must then understand materialism in the broader sense. One must understand materialism in such a way that one recognizes it leads to the sterility of thought, that it leads to the trampling and suppression of capable people—who know something about the practicalities of life—by the all-oppressive power of the incompetent, who claim to know what is practical. Of course they know it, but how?

[ 32 ] The truths of Spiritual Science must have a fertilizing effect on our feelings and our inner life. And there must be a number of people in our time who, out of inner conviction, can remain faithful to what follows from Spiritual Science as a necessity for the development of the world. In this way, what is to come will come to pass; then, when Christ wishes to reveal himself in a new form, he will find those whom he needs. And this must be so. When he appears in his etheric form to one person or another, there must not be a time when this appearance of the Christ is regarded as madness, but rather as that which is destined to give humanity a jolt forward—a jolt that consists, above all, in thoroughly overcoming materialism and its consequences. And this century must not pass without human perspectives taking on an entirely different form. And the significant, bloody events we are now witnessing around us must serve as the beacons for this goal of humanity. Then the sacrifices made by those who have passed through the gate of death or endured the experience of bloody wounding will not have been in vain. Then everything that is now taking place around us will be able to contribute to the elevation of humanity. And this must happen. That is why we must hold fast, again and again, to the truth often expressed here:

[ 33 ] From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the suffering of the forsaken,
From the people’s acts of sacrifice
The fruit of the spirit grows
Guiding souls, spiritually aware
Their minds toward the spirit realm.