The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Twenty-third Lecture

[ 1 ] Today I will say a few more general things, perhaps in the form of aphoristic reflections, and then on Tuesday I will give a talk on the significance of our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science for the present day and for the evolution of humanity. I would like to present some points that are certainly worth taking to heart—points that, on the one hand, will serve as a kind of retrospective on our work, but on the other hand are also intended to illustrate what may be important to us in our overall assessment of our spiritual science movement and the way we relate to it. It seems to me that at this present moment, it is necessary for us to take such a reflection to heart.

[ 2 ] Today I would like to begin by discussing some of the things that can, in a sense, help us humans feel our place in the universe. People in this materialistic age actually feel—one might say—abandoned and isolated in the universe. You see, human beings, as such, have the feeling that when a finger is cut off or a hand or leg is amputated, something is being taken away from them that is connected to their physical, bodily being; they sense the unity of the part with the whole of their physicality. Now, in earlier times of human evolution, people felt quite differently. They not only felt that the hand, the arm, and the leg were limbs of themselves, but they also felt themselves to be a limb of a greater whole. In those earlier times, one could speak of the “group ego” in a sense quite different from today; tribes and families, stretching back through generations, felt themselves to be a single whole. We have often elaborated on this. But in earlier times of human development, people felt differently with regard to their external physical existence: they felt, as it were, that they were situated within the entire universe, formed out of the entire universe. Just as we now feel that the finger and the hand are parts of the entire organism, so people felt in ancient times: Up there is the sun, following its course; what it is has a direct connection to us. We are a part of the realm that the sun traverses; we are a part of the universe, which is set into a certain rhythm by the moon. — In short, people perceived the universe as a great organism and felt themselves within it, just as a finger today can feel itself as part of the body. The fact that this feeling, this sense, has more or less been lost to humanity is very much connected to the rise of materialism. And it is modern science, in particular, that completely disdains placing any special value on this sense of being at the heart of the cosmos. Science takes human beings as they present themselves as individual physical beings, then examines their individual parts anatomically and physiologically and describes what can be observed there. It is no longer customary in science to regard human beings as a part of the entire organism of the universe, insofar as it is physically visible.

[ 3 ] Now, human thinking—including scientific thinking—will once again have to return to viewing humanity as part of the entire cosmos. Humanity will once again have to feel itself situated within the entire cosmos. It will no longer be able to do so as it did in ancient times; but will have to do so by expanding their science—which is currently abstract and applied to the individual human being—through certain considerations and judgments, of which we wish to cite only one today—as we already pointed out a few weeks ago—to show us the direction in which scientific thinking will move; this thinking will, at the same time, become much more human than today’s scientific thinking once human beings once again find the awareness of being part of the entire cosmos.

[ 4 ] You know that the so-called vernal equinox—that is, the point where the sun rises in the spring—is not always in the same place, but rather that it moves forward along the circle we call the zodiac. We know, of course, that this vernal equinox has been—and has always been, for as long as humanity has been thinking—defined by specifying the location in the zodiac where the vernal equinox lies. Thus, from approximately the 8th century before the Mystery of Golgotha until the 15th century after the Mystery of Golgotha, the sun was seen to rise in the constellation of Aries in the spring, but not always at the same point; rather, the vernal equinox—this point of rising—moved forward. During this time, it passed through the constellation of Aries. Since that time, the vernal equinox has moved into the constellation of Pisces. I would like to expressly note that modern astronomy does not base its calculations on the constellations themselves; therefore, you will still find the vernal equinox listed in calendars as occurring in the constellation of Aries, even though in reality it does not. Astronomy has retained the assumption of the earlier cycle; it simply divides the entire circle into twelve parts and, without any regard for the constellations themselves, calls the twelfth part a sign, and will continue to maintain this division even as it advances. You know, of course, from our calendar how this works. Well, that is not important for us. What is important to us is that this vernal equinox advances—that is, moves through the entire zodiac—so that the point of the sun’s rising is always a little further along. It must therefore pass through the entire zodiac and return to its original position. This takes approximately 25,920 years. These 25,920 years are also called the so-called Platonic year, the cosmic year. So it is a great year, the Platonic Year. The Platonic Year encompasses the time during which the vernal equinox—the point where the sun rises—travels through the zodiac. In other words, the time it takes for the sunrise to return to the same point for spring spans 25,920 years. The figures vary depending on different calculations; what matters here is not the exact numbers, but the rhythm inherent in them. You can imagine that there is a great cosmic rhythm at work here, that, in a sense, this movement—as described above—recurs every 25,920 years.

[ 5 ] We can therefore say: These 25,920 years are very important for the life of the Sun, because during this period the Sun’s life undergoes a unity—a true unity—since the next 25,920 years are a repetition. Thus, we have a rhythmic cycle with a unit of 25,920 years.

[ 6 ] Now that we have considered this great cosmic year, let us turn our attention to something smaller—something intimately connected with our life between birth and death, that is, with life insofar as we are human beings of the physical cosmos. Let us consider this first. There is no doubt about it: one of the most important things for this life in the physical body is a breath—inhaling and exhaling—for our physical life is fundamentally based on this inhaling and exhaling; as soon as breathing were to cease, we would no longer be able to live physically. A breath is indeed something very significant. A breath brings us the air that animates us in the way it is capable of doing so. We, in turn, transform this air through our own organism so that it becomes the air of death—air that would kill us if we were to inhale it again in the state it is in after a single breath.

[ 7 ] On average, a person takes eighteen breaths per minute. They are not all the same—they differ in youth from those in old age—but if we take the average, we arrive at a normal rate of eighteen breaths per minute. In this way, we rhythmically renew our lives eighteen times per minute. Let’s see how often we do this in a day. So, in one hour: 18 times 60 equals 1,080. In twenty-four hours: 1,080 times 24 equals 25,920—that is, 25,920 times!

[ 8 ] You see, the course of this life as it unfolds over the course of a single day has a remarkable rhythm. When we take a single breath—a unit of life—it is something very meaningful to us, for the rhythmic repetition of the breath sustains our life. A day provides us with exactly the same number of such breathing rhythms as the number of years it takes for the sun to return from its point of rising to the same point of setting. That is to say, if we think of a single breath as a year on a small scale, we complete a Platonic year on a small scale—that is, a microcosmic image of the Platonic year—in a single day. This is extraordinarily significant, for from this you can see that our breathing process—that is, something that takes place within our human being—is subject to the same rhythm, albeit with a time lag, as the rhythm that underlies the sun’s course on a grand scale.

[ 9 ] It is important to truly take such a concept to heart. For when we transform what is being said into a feeling, that feeling tells us: We are a reflection of the macrocosm. It is not merely a phrase, not merely empty talk, that human beings are a reflection of the macrocosm; rather, it can be demonstrated in detail. From this, you can also gain a sense of how well-founded all the laws derived from spiritual science are, because they are all based on such an intimate knowledge of the inner connections within the universe; it is just that one cannot always clarify every detail.

[ 10 ] Now, of course, when it comes to such matters, we must above all be clear that human beings are, in a certain sense, partially torn away from the entire universe. On the whole, human beings are embedded in the rhythm of the cosmos, yet in a certain sense they are also free; they alter certain things so that everything does not always fit together exactly, but it is precisely in this lack of exact alignment that the possibility of their freedom lies. In the general alignment, however, lies their being embedded in the cosmic whole.

[ 11 ] I must make these remarks I have just made for a specific reason, so that what I am about to say is not misunderstood. Having considered the breath, let us now turn our attention to a larger, the next-largest element of life: the alternation between sleep and wakefulness. We have just considered the breath as the smallest element of life. Now let us consider the alternation of sleep and wakefulness. In fact, the alternation of sleep and wakefulness can, in a certain sense, be viewed as analogous to breathing.

[ 12 ] As you know, I have often described the process of taking in the astral body and the “I” upon waking, and again the process of letting go of the astral body and the “I” upon falling asleep, as being much like the inhalation and exhalation that take place throughout the day and night. But we can even consider it in a much more materialistic sense. When we inhale air: it goes in, it goes out. That is the inhalation of air, the exhalation of air—in other words, simply a back-and-forth movement of the material: out, in, out, in. In a very similar way, a beautiful rhythm unfolds in the alternating states of sleep and wakefulness. For when we take in our “I” and our astral body as we wake up in the morning, our etheric body is pushed back; it is forced out of the head and into the other parts of the organism. And when we fall asleep again, sending the astral body and the “I” out of ourselves, the etheric body spreads into the head in the same way it is distributed throughout the lower abdomen, so that we experience a continuous rhythm: the etheric body is pushed down—we wake up; it remains down there while we are awake. When we fall asleep, it is once again pushed up into the head. And so it goes up, down, up, down over the course of twenty-four hours, just as the breath flows in and out. Thus, we have a rhythmic movement of the etheric body over the course of twenty-four hours. Of course, there are irregularities in human beings—after all, this is the basis of their capacity for freedom, their degree of freedom—but on the whole, what I have said holds true.

[ 13 ] Now we could say: So something breathes within us—it is now a different kind of breathing, it is now a rising and falling—something breathes within us throughout the day, just as something breathes within us during the eighteenth part of a minute. Well, let’s try to see whether this thing that breathes in this rising and falling of the etheric body also represents something like a circular path, like a return to its starting point. To do that, we would have to examine what 25,920 days actually are. For 25,920 such cycles of rising and falling would then, in relation to this rising and falling, have to correspond to a replica of the Platonic year. Just as one day corresponds to 25,920 cycles, so 25,920 days must also correspond to something in human life. How many years is that? Let’s try to figure it out.

[ 14 ] If we take the average year as 365% days and divide, we get 25,920 : 365.25 = about 71, so let’s say seventy-one years—that is, the average human lifespan. Of course, humans have their freedom and often live much longer, but as you know, the patriarchal age is even given as seventy years. You have the human lifespan: 25,920 days, 25,920 such deep breaths—again, a cycle that wonderfully reflects the macrocosm on a microcosmic level. So we can say: If we live one day, we reflect the Platonic year of the world with 25,920 breaths; if we live seventy-one years, we reflect the Platonic year once again with 25,920 deep breaths—the rising and falling of waking and falling asleep.

[ 15 ] Now we can move on from this to what, if explained in detail, would take us too far afield today, but I want to hint at what can now be perceived in an occult sense. We are surrounded by the air. The air provides us with the next element of life, which unfolds in the rhythm of our breaths. So that which is on Earth—the air—gives us this rhythm. — Who, then, gives us the other rhythm? The Earth itself! For it is governed by the Earth’s rotation around its own axis—in the modern astronomical sense—through the alternation of day and night. So we can say: The air breathes within us with each breath; the Earth, by causing us to wake and fall asleep, breathes and pulses within us through its axial rotation, through its alternation of day and night. And we can now imagine our lifespan in relation to the Earth as a single day in the life of a living being that, instead of taking a breath in an eighteenth of a minute, takes that breath over the course of a day and night. For this being, seventy years are precisely one day, and the alternation of day and night in the ordinary sense is its breath.

[ 16 ] You see, one can feel oneself inside a larger life there, one that simply has a longer breath—namely, the breath that spans twenty-four hours—and a longer day that lasts seventy or seventy-one years. There, one can feel oneself within a living being that has such a much longer pulse and breathing rhythm. So you see: it is entirely correct to speak of the microcosm as the image of the macrocosm, for the entire correspondence can be demonstrated numerically. So when we say: The air breathes within us, exhales within us; the earthly breathes within us—insofar as we belong to the greater living being—we might possibly raise the question: Perhaps we are now connected not only to the air that is on Earth, to the entire Earth with its rhythm of day and night, but also, in a certain sense, to the entire sunrise, as it returns to its starting point in the Platonic year?

[ 17 ] These matters are of the utmost interest, but they pass right by modern science without leaving the slightest impression, because modern science takes no account of them. Once, this contrast between modern science and the science that is yet to come struck me, I might say, in a very tangible way. I may have already told you that in the fall of 1889 I was called upon to collaborate at the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar on the editing of Goethe’s scientific works, which I then edited for the larger Weimar Edition of Goethe’s Works, the so-called “Sophia Edition.” The task involved studying everything that could be gleaned from the documents Goethe left behind regarding his anatomical, physiological, zoological, botanical, mineralogical, geological, and meteorological studies. Goethe conducted an extraordinary amount of research on the weather over the course of a year, particularly in connection with barometric readings, and one could not help but be amazed by the large number of tables Goethe compiled for meteorological purposes. Very little of this has been published; you will find some of these tables reproduced in my edition, but very little of it has been published. Goethe really did, just as we now create fever charts in tabular form, plot the barometric readings of a single location and various other locations in tables; and by recording the barometric reading on a given day at a specific time—then a few hours later, again later, and again later, and so on—he tracked this over the course of months. In this way, he attempted to derive the corresponding curves for the various locations.

[ 18 ] Such barometric pressure curves are something that modern science still does not quite know how to interpret. But Goethe wanted to record these curves, which provided him, as it were, with an analogue for the pulse when it is recorded in a fever curve. In other words, he wanted to record a kind of Earth’s pulse—specifically, the Earth’s regular, steady pulse. What was his purpose in doing this? He wanted to demonstrate that the fluctuations in barometric pressure over the course of the year are not as irregular as conventional meteorology assumes, but that they follow a certain regularity, which is modified only by secondary temporal circumstances. He wanted to demonstrate that the Earth’s gravity represents a process of exhalation and inhalation over the course of a year; he wanted to point precisely to what is also expressed in human exhalation and inhalation. He wanted to find this reflected in barometric pressure. Such scientific investigations will continue to exist in the future, when we once again examine the microcosmic within the macrocosmic. Goethe compiled whole sets of such tables to study the pulsation, the breathing, the exhalation and inhalation of the Earth, as he himself called it.

[ 19 ] As you can see, even in this regard, Goethe is working toward a form of science that only the future can bring. At the same time, one also gets a sense of the immense diligence Goethe applied in order to arrive at the insights he did. With him, nothing is ever merely an assertion, as is so often the case with others. When someone else speaks of the Earth’s pulsation, they often mean merely a figure of speech, a metaphor; to them, it is simply a fleeting insight. Goethe, however, in a remark he summarizes in three or four lines—for example, when he says that the Earth breathes in and out—has a vast body of data on which he bases such a statement. He always has experiential knowledge behind it; whereas most people say: experiential knowledge—nothing but empty words, mere vapor!—That one must have something to back one up when making a statement can be studied particularly in Goethe. —And so, in this way, we would also have come to recognize how the Earth itself breathes as a great being.

[ 20 ] Now let’s try to see if we can also speak of such “breathing” when we consider the entire Platonic solar year. That spans 25,920 years. Let’s treat these 25,920 years, for the sake of argument, as a single year and see how that relates to a day. If we consider the whole as a year and want to find out what corresponds to a day, we must divide by 365 14; then we get one day. If the whole is a year and we divide by 365 14, we have one day. Let’s see what we get when we divide. We’ve already divided once, and that gave us seventy-one years—the human lifespan. That means the human lifespan is one day for the entire Platonic year. The entire Platonic year could thus be understood in relation to human lifespan in such a way that we, as physical beings, as we live out our lives, are ourselves breathed out of what takes place in the entire Platonic year; and then seventy-one years, understood as a single day, would be a single breath of the being that lives through the Platonic year.

[ 21 ] Thus, for one-eighteenth of a minute, we are a link in the life of the air; for one day, we are a link in the life of the earth; and for our entire lifetime, we are as if, at our birth, we were a breath exhaled in a single day and inhaled again from the being that regards 25,920 years as one year. Thus, if we look at our physical body—this physical body that lives through its patriarchal age—we see in it a single breath of the great being that lives so long that 25,920 years constitute one year for it. Then we ourselves, with our patriarchal age, are one day. So, when we consider a being that lives with our Earth, where day and night alternate within twenty-four hours, that is one breath for our etheric body. And one breath for our astral body would be the actual breath lasting one-eighteenth of a minute.

[ 22 ] Here you have an analogy for an ancient assertion, for in ancient times people imagined something they called the “days and nights of Brahma.” Here you have an analogy for that. Imagine a spiritual being for whom our seventy-one years are what a single breath is to the air we breathe: then we are that being’s breath. When we are placed into the world through our birth as a tiny infant, the being exhales us—a being that experiences the Platonic year as a single year, and thus measures its age by it. It exhales us out into the cosmos, and when we die, it inhales us again: exhaled—inhaled. Let us now turn to the Earth: It exhales and inhales us in a single day. And now let us turn to the air, which is a part of the Earth: It exhales and inhales us in one-eighteenth of a minute, and the number 25,920 always marks the return to the starting point. There you have a regular rhythm; there you feel yourself standing within the universe; there you come to know that human life—and a single day of human life—is, for greater, more comprehensive beings, the same as a single breath is in our own lives. And when you take this insight into yourself emotionally, then the idea of resting in the universe takes on extraordinary significance.

[ 23 ] These matters are already well within the realm of scientific inquiry, and all that is needed is the mindset of spiritual science to interpret the figures—which everyone knows and which can be found in any general encyclopedia—in this way. But once these figures are utilized in this way, one will be able to bridge the gap between conventional science and anthroposophically oriented spiritual science.

[ 24 ] Well, in a similar way, one will find everything ordered according to number, as we have seen, but also according to measure. And a statement such as the biblical one—that everything in the universe is ordered according to measure and number—can take on a profound meaning through human science.

[ 25 ] But let’s move on. What is connected to our breath, as it were, like an extension of our breath? Our speech! Physiologically, our speech is connected to our breathing, and not only does speech come from the same organ, but speaking is also linked to breathing—that is, to what is contained within the rhythm of an eighteenth of a minute. This is how we speak, and this is how the person standing next to us on Earth speaks to us. Just as the air is beside us on Earth, surrounding us, so do the people in our surroundings speak in relation to the rhythm of breathing. It would follow from this that speech is also connected to that breathing which is bound to day and night—though now with beings that belong to the organism of the Earth, who, just as human beings belong to the air, belong to the organism of the Earth. What was communicated to people as wisdom by higher beings in earlier, ancient times was not conveyed to them in a way that corresponded to the breathing rhythm of an eighteenth of a minute; rather, it corresponded to the breathing rhythm that had a day as its unit. In those ancient times, they could not learn so quickly; they had to wait so long for words that corresponded to a breath lasting twenty-four hours. And in this way the ancient knowledge arose that today reigns at the very foundation of things and that can be recognized in the various traditions. It was imparted by higher beings who are connected to the Earth just as human beings are to the air, and who draw near to human beings. Those who work their way up to initiations today still sense something of this. For the things communicated from the spiritual world reach human beings much, much more slowly than those conveyed on the wings of our ordinary atmospheric processes.

[ 26 ] That is why it is so important for those who aspire to initiation to learn to feel within themselves the great significance of the transition from falling asleep to waking up. It is in falling asleep and waking up—in this transition—that we most keenly sense how spiritual beings speak to us in mysterious ways; only later does this become somewhat arbitrary. And if you wish to gain access to the world where the dead dwell, then this is also a good path—if you are aware that the dead are most likely to speak at the moment of falling asleep and at the moment of waking up. When falling asleep, however, it is difficult, because when a person falls asleep, they usually slip immediately into unconsciousness and do not become aware of what the dead are saying to them. But upon waking—if one manages to focus clearly on the moment of waking—that is when one is most likely to enter into communication with the dead, precisely as one is waking up. You just have to try to bring the moment of waking into your own will. Bringing it into your will—in other words: you must strive to wake up, but not yet pass into the light of day. As you know, there is a rule—call it superstitious if you like—that says: If you want to retain a dream clearly in your memory, you must not look out the window into the light, otherwise you will easily forget it. This is especially true for the subtle observations that flow from the spiritual world. One must try to wake up, so to speak, in the dark—but in a darkness brought about by one’s own choice—by not listening for sounds, by not opening one’s eyes, consciously but not yet living toward the day. Then one best perceives the arrival of messages from the spiritual world.

[ 27 ] Now you might say: But then you’d receive very few messages over the course of your life! — Because just think how difficult it would be if, in essence, we only had the ability to receive as many messages over the course of our lives as we would otherwise receive in a single day. It is true that this would be sufficient, but we cannot make full use of it, because there is childhood and so on. But now the Earth is involved, and—I ask you to bear this in mind—the Earth receives these messages in its etheric body; and since this is recorded in the Earth’s ether, the message can be studied further. Likewise, even more comprehensive messages conveyed to us by the being whose life element is the Platonic year can be studied in the solar ether, which fills the entire world, in the manner described in various sections of How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and in other books.

[ 28 ] From this you can see how a bridge can be woven from conventional science to spiritual science. However, those who are unfamiliar with spiritual science will hardly be able to make use of what is provided by conventional science in the appropriate way. But for those who share the spirit of spiritual science, there can be no doubt—as they approach these matters—that a time will come when external science and spiritual science will truly be fully united.

[ 29 ] I said: I have shown you only one aspect, namely the rhythmic movement that is integrated into breathing. Now there are many things which, when presented numerically, reveal how the microcosm harmonizes with the macrocosm, and human beings can gain a comprehensive sense of this harmony. Such a comprehensive sense was also imparted to the older students of the Mysteries right up until the 15th century. Before they were to absorb any knowledge at all, an effort was made to teach them a sense of being immersed in the universe. And this, in turn, is a hallmark of the materialistic age: that today one can absorb knowledge without being emotionally prepared for it. I have already drawn attention to this in the introductory remarks to the first chapter of Christianity as a Mystical Fact, where I pointed out how, in the Mysteries, a certain feeling was first developed and only then was the knowledge considered.

[ 30 ] In particular, the sense of correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm will be important if we are to arrive at concrete concepts regarding that for which only abstractions exist today. For what, in today’s abstract, materialistic age, does “a people” often mean? A certain number of people who speak the same language! For the materialistic age, of course, has no concept of the national entity as a distinct individuality—a concept we have often discussed. We speak of the national entity as a distinct individuality, as a genuine, singular individuality. That is how we speak of the national essence. But to materialism, the national essence is nothing more than a number of people who speak the same language. That is an abstraction; the concept does not refer to a concrete entity. But what conclusion do you draw from the fact that when we speak of national character or the national essence, we are not really speaking of an abstraction, but of a concrete entity?

[ 31 ] Well, in anthroposophy we have the opportunity to study the human being, who is also a concrete being: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. If the national entity is also a concrete being, then one could study the national entity in the same way; one could assume a similar structure within the national entity, as you might say.

[ 32 ] Well, that is also possible. And in true occultism, one also studies the other entities that exist besides human beings—entities that are just as concrete as human beings. But one must look for the constituent parts in something other than the human being; otherwise, if it had the same constituent parts, a national soul would be a human being; but a national soul is not a human being—it is simply a different kind of being. The fact is that, when it comes to the national entity, one really must study the individual national souls; only then does one arrive at concepts that are correct. After all, one cannot generalize; otherwise, one ends up with abstractions again, so one can only speak, so to speak, in terms of examples. Let us single out a national soul—the one that today, let us say, governs the Italian people, insofar as a people is governed by a national soul in its individual members. Let us single out a single such national soul and ask ourselves: How can we speak of this particular national soul? — In the case of a human being, we say that the human being has a physical body, and when we speak of the physical body in relation to a human being, we say of it: so many salts, so many other minerals, five percent solids, then the liquid, then the gaseous elements within it, and so on; that is its physical body. When we speak of a national soul such as the Italian one, it does not, of course, have a human body, but it does have something that can at least be regarded by analogy with the physical body. It simply does not have salts, solid components, or liquid components in its physical body—the Italian national soul—by which I do not mean to say that other national souls do not have liquid components, but the Italian one does not—rather, it begins with the gaseous components. It contains no aqueous or other components, and the body of the Italian national soul is woven from air as the densest material substance; everything else within it is finer. So that, just as we say of a human being that he has an earthy element within him, so we must say of the Italian national soul: it has, first and foremost, an airy element. Just as we have the aqueous in the human being, so the Italian national soul has warmth. The human being has the airy, which he breathes in and out; the Italian national soul, in contrast, has light, which corresponds to the human being’s air. The human being has warmth within himself; the Italian national soul, in contrast, has sounds—namely, the sound of the spheres.

[ 33 ] This gives you roughly what corresponds to the physical body, only the ingredients are different. Instead of saying, as we do with human beings—solid, liquid, gaseous, and warm—we must, when we assume something similar—though it is not a physical body in the same sense—as the physical body of the Italian national soul, say: air, warmth, light, sound. — From this, however, you will be able to see that if the Italian national soul truly animates the human being to whom it belongs, it can choose the indirect path through breathing, because its lowest, densest component is air. In fact, the correspondence between the individual human being and the national soul takes place through breathing in the case of the Italian people. This is how the national soul communicates with the individual. This is a genuine, real process. Of course, one breathes through something entirely different, but the national soul slips its influence into the breathing process.

[ 34 ] One might just as well start with what corresponds to the etheric body. That would begin with the life ether; then, instead of the light ether, it would have what is first described in my Theosophy as the “fire of desire”; then the tone ether would correspond to what is described there as a “flowing stimulus,” and so on. You will find the ingredients already listed in my Theosophy; you just need to be able to apply them. And if you were to study further how this correspondence, this communication between the national soul and the individual human being works—if you were to study this further on the basis of what I am presenting here—you would see how all the qualities inherent in the national character are connected to these things. This is something that must be studied thoroughly, studied in concrete terms.

[ 35 ] These are merely examples. Let us say we wanted to study the Russian national soul. There, as the lowest element, we would find nothing material in the sense that solids, liquids, gases, and heat are material; rather, as the lowest element, we would find that which is as characteristic of the Russian national soul as salt is to human beings, and as the solid element, we would find the light ether. And then we would find the tone-ether to be as characteristic of the Russian national soul as that which a human being has within themselves as liquid; the life-ether as characteristic as the air within a human being; and the fervor of desire as characteristic of that which corresponds to the physical body in the Russian national soul as the warmth within a human being. And one might then ask: How, then, does the Russian national soul communicate with the individual Russian person? — This occurs in such a way that the light, as it descends, is reflected in a certain sense from what the earth is. The light exerts certain effects on the earth. It does not merely, I might say, reflect back physically, but specifically from the vegetation, from what the soil bears, the light is reflected back. The light does not act directly upon the individual Russian, but first acts into the earth—not, however, into the coarse, physical earth, but into plants and into everything that grows and flourishes on the earth—and this in turn radiates back. And in what radiates back, there is the medium through which the Russian national soul communicates with the individual Russian. That is why the Russian’s connection to his soil, to everything the earth produces, is much stronger than that of other peoples. This is related to this peculiar behavior of the national soul. And the flowing impulse—this is immensely significant—is the primary etheric ingredient for the Russian national soul; it is something like light for human beings.

[ 36 ] This brings you to the concrete national essence, enabling you to study: How does one spirit speak to another spirit—which, if the first spirit is the human being, is the national soul. This takes place in the subconscious. As the Italian breathes and sustains his life through breathing—that is, consciously wills something entirely different, inhaling and exhaling to sustain his life—the national soul whispers and speaks to him in the subconscious. He does not hear it, but his astral body perceives it and lives within what is exchanged there, beneath the threshold of his consciousness, between the national soul and the individual human being.

[ 37 ] And in that which the Russian soil radiates through its fertilization by the sunlight lie the mysterious runes, the whispering runes, through which the Russian national soul speaks to the individual Russian as he walks upon his land or senses the life that radiates from the light. For do not believe that these things are to be taken in a purely material sense. Of course, you can live in Switzerland as a Russian; the light reflected back from the earth is present there as well. If you are Italian, you will hear your national soul whispering with every breath you take in Switzerland; if you are Russian, you will also feel rising from the Swiss soil that which you, as a Russian, can hear. You must not take these things in a material sense. This is not bound to specific places, although, of course, because human beings are, in a certain way, materially oriented, one’s own place offers more. The Italian air, with its entire climate, naturally facilitates and promotes this way of speaking that I have described; the Russian soil facilitates and promotes the other, but you cannot take this in a materialistic sense—a Russian can, of course, be Russian elsewhere besides Russia, although naturally the Russian soil brings about Russianness in a special way. You see, on the one hand, materialism is taken into account; but on the other hand, it is merely relative, not absolute. For not only is the light that shines over Russian soil contained within the body of the Russian national soul, but light is everywhere, in general; and the Russian national soul does indeed—as you know, I have already described all this—possess the rank of an archangel. But the archangel is not bound to a particular place; he is beyond space.

[ 38 ] Such things, such concrete concepts, must form the basis if one is to speak properly about the relationship between a person and his or her people. Now imagine how far humanity today is from having even the slightest inkling of the concrete reality at stake when the name of a people is spoken. Yet today, global agendas are being bandied about, with the names of peoples constantly being thrown around. You will be able to realize to what extent all that is swarming about in the world is mere rhetoric if you truly consider that the national essence is a concrete entity and that every national essence is, in fact, different. For what is air in the Italian national essence is light in the Russian national essence; and this, in turn, necessitates an entirely different kind of communication between the national essence and the individual human being. Anthropology is a materialistic, external observation; anthroposophy will have to reveal the truth, the real conditions, the realities. Since people today are so far removed from all reality in their materialism, it is no wonder that people speak in such an arbitrary—and therefore deceptive—manner about the things that are now being turned into veritable global agendas.

[ 39 ] So on Tuesday, we will continue our discussion of the nature of our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. In this context, I would also like to discuss some aspects of the present that can truly be understood only from the perspective of spiritual science. For much of the suffering humanity endures today stems precisely from the fact that people do not want any clarity about the things they speak of, that they hurl angry words into the world without having the slightest grasp of the realities behind them. This becomes particularly evident when one comes across something like the brochure Conditions de Paix de l’Allemagne, recently published here in Switzerland by someone who calls himself Hungaricus; one need only read through it to see through all—and I mean all—the shortcomings of today’s convoluted materialistic thinking, provided one has a spiritual-scientific outlook. That is why I would like to say a few words about this brochure on Tuesday—specifically, but only in a methodological sense, with regard to the manner of thinking—because this brochure, Conditions de Paix de l’Allemagne by Hungaricus, is so characteristic of this materialistic, convoluted way of thinking.