The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] The reflections we offered here eight days ago culminated in the observation that, while the spiritual researcher is well aware of how, at present, the external world is, in a sense, still dominated by the height, the culmination of materialistic views and attitudes, yet we are spiritually in the early stages of a dematerialization of thoughts and the worlds of the imagination—a process that, over time, must lead to a spiritualization, to a permeation by the spirit of earthly life as such. For that which is to be grasped in the outer life of the physical plane must first be grasped by a few and then by more and more people through spiritual understanding and spiritual comprehension. And spiritual science is meant to be, in this regard, a beginning of this process—that people may elevate themselves in their souls to that which souls can already attain today if they so choose, and of which outer physical life is not yet a reflection, but which it must become if the Earth is not to, so to speak, become mired in the decline of materialistic development. One could describe the situation of modern humanity by saying that, in general, the human soul is actually quite close to the spiritual world; but the ideas—and especially the feelings—that stem from the materialistic worldview and materialistic outlook on life have woven a veil over that which, in essence, stands very close to the human soul today. The connection between physical earthly existence—in which modern human beings, despite various declarations made in other directions, nevertheless stand with their entire being—and the spiritual world can be discovered by human beings if they strive to develop inner, courageous forces, not only to comprehend what can be grasped through nature as it presents itself to the outer senses, but also to comprehend that which remains invisible, that which remains supersensible—yet with which one can unite and experience it—if one stirs the inner power of the soul to such an extent that one realizes that a superhuman spiritual element lives within this inner power of the soul.

[ 2 ] This connection must not be sought in the same way that human connections are sought today and pursued in the coarse, external realm of the senses. For the connection between the human soul and the spiritual world is to be found in the innermost forces of the human soul; in forces that the human soul develops when it cultivates attention—an inner, silent, calm attention—to which the human being must first train themselves anew, after having become accustomed in the materialistic age to directing their attention solely toward that which imposes itself forcefully from the outside, which, so to speak, rushes toward their powers of perception. The spirit that is to be experienced within does not cry out; it makes one wait for it, and one draws near to it when one tries to prepare oneself for this drawing near. While we can say of the things of the external world that present themselves to our senses and impose themselves on our external perception—that they approach us and speak to us—we cannot apply a similar expression to the way in which the spirit, the spiritual world, approaches us. Since modern language, as I have often said, is more or less shaped by the external physical world, it is indeed difficult to find words that are an exact reflection of what stands before the soul in the spiritual world. But one can still attempt, by way of approximation, to show how differently the spiritual approaches human beings than the physical does. One might say that the spiritual is experienced in such a way that, at the very moment one experiences it, one has the feeling: one is indebted to it. Take this phrase to heart: One is indebted to the spiritual world.

[ 3 ] We view the physical world in such a way that we say: Before our senses lies the mineral kingdom, from which emerge the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, and then our own kingdom, the human kingdom. And within the human kingdom, we feel, as it were, that we stand above the rest in the sequence of these outer kingdoms. In relation to the spiritual realms, we feel ourselves to be below, with the other realms rising above us—the realms of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, and so on. And one feels, at every moment, that one is sustained by these realms and, in essence, continually brought to life by them. We owe our existence to these realms. We look up to them, saying: Our own life, the content of our own soul, flows down from the willful thoughts of the beings of these realms and continually shapes us. This sense of indebtedness to the higher realms should be developed just as vividly in human beings as the sense—let us say—of receiving impressions from the outside through physical perception. When these two sensations—that external sensory things act upon us, and that which lives at the center of our being is owed to the higher hierarchies— are equally alive in our soul, then the soul is in that state of balance where it can continually perceive in the right way the interplay of the spiritual and the physical—an interplay that is indeed constantly taking place, but which cannot be perceived without the balance of these two distinct sensations.

[ 4 ] Development into the future must now take place in such a way that, through the presence of these two feelings in the human soul, the Earth’s development is endowed with forces that cannot be acquired in today’s materialistic age. We know, of course, that what is meant here points to something that has changed greatly in the course of human evolution. The connection with the spiritual world existed—albeit in a dimly conscious form—only in the primeval era of human evolution. In the primeval era of their development, human beings did not merely have the two states they possess today—waking and sleeping, with chaotic dreaming in between—but they also had a third state that mediated reality; this was not merely dreaming, but a perception in images, even though consciousness was subdued; a perception in images, but in images that corresponded to a spiritual reality. As we know, for the development of full human consciousness on Earth, this way of perceiving the world had to recede in human beings. Humanity would not have become free if this state had persisted. Humanity would not have become free if it had not been exposed to all the dangers, trials, and temptations of materialism. But humanity must also find its way back to the spiritual world, which it must grasp in full earthly consciousness.

[ 5 ] This is connected to very broad conceptual frameworks that have changed along with everything else in the course of human development—changes that have occurred as we have just indicated. For early humanity, coexisting with souls who had departed from this physical existence was simply a matter of course—something that did not need to be proven—because in that state of consciousness, where people perceived the spiritual world through images, they also lived alongside those who were somehow connected to them through karma in life and had passed through the gate of death into the spiritual world. They simply knew: The dead are present; they are not dead, they live; they merely live in a different form of existence. — What one perceives does not first need to be proven. In the early days of human development, there was no need to ponder immortality, for people experienced the so-called dead. But this coexistence with the dead had far-reaching other effects. The dead found it easier than they do today—I am not saying they do not find it today, but I am saying they found it easier than they do today—to work through human beings, for this is the way in which they can participate here on Earth in what happens on Earth. So that what happens on Earth happened in those primeval times of humanity in such a way that the dead were at work in the impulses of human will, in what people set out to do, and in what they actually did.

[ 6 ] Materialism has truly brought about more than just materialistic ideas—that would be the least of the harm, for materialistic ideas as such cause the least harm of all—; materialism has brought about an entirely different form of interaction with the spiritual world. It has become much less possible for the so-called dead to act here in the evolution of the Earth through the so-called living. Humanity must also return to this connection with the dead. But this will only be possible if humanity, so to speak, learns to understand the language of the dead. And the language through which one can communicate with the dead is none other than the language of spiritual science. Certainly, at first glance it seems as though what spiritual science conveys to us deals with matters that speak more or less merely of intellectual scholarship—world evolution, human evolution, the structure of human nature—which are perhaps things about which some might say they are not interested; they want something else that warms their heart and soul. Certainly, the latter is a valid demand; the question is to what extent one can, within the overall context, satisfy such a demand. We seem to be learning only how the Earth developed in relation to Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon; how the various cultural epochs on Earth have developed; and how the human being is structured. But by immersing ourselves in thoughts of these things—which are only seemingly abstract but in reality very concrete—and by striving to think in such a way that these things truly stand before our souls as images, we learn to move through our thoughts and imaginations in a specific way that we cannot otherwise instill in our souls. If we truly sense how our entire way of imagining is transformed by engaging with such spiritual-scientific matters, then a time will come when we will find it just as absurd to say, “We are not interested in engaging with these things,” as we would find it absurd if a child were to say, “I’m not interested in learning the dry ABCs; I just want to be able to speak!” Compared to what the living language conveys to us, what the child must integrate with its physical existence while learning to speak is just as abstract as the concepts that spiritual science provides—just as abstract as the concepts that arise from thinking, from the soul’s entire process of imagination and feeling, under the influence of these spiritual scientific concepts.

[ 7 ] To do this, however, one must have patience and accept what spiritual science has to offer not in terms of its abstract content, but in terms of its significance for life. This is something that is particularly foreign to people today in relation to what we are now setting out to explore. In another respect, of course, it is naturally close to them as well. For modern people are accustomed to being as satisfied as possible once they have brought a certain thing—a work of art in any field or some scientific content—before their soul. And when the same thing appears before their soul a second time, it is so natural today to say, “I already know that; I’ve dealt with it before.” — That is life in abstraction. In another realm, where one takes life according to its content and its reality, one does not proceed in this way. For one will not easily encounter a person to whom a midday meal is served and who excuses himself by saying he does not wish to eat, since he ate yesterday or the day before. There, the human being performs the same act again and again. Life consists in the repetition of the same. If the spiritual is to become real life—and unless it becomes life, it cannot connect us with the universal spiritual world—then it must, in a sense, be modeled in our soul after the laws of life in the physical world, which, though also formed out of the spirit, has become rigid. And in particular, we become aware that much is happening within our soul when, with a certain rhythmic regularity, we allow impressions to act upon the soul that presuppose a certain freedom of thought, a certain emancipation of thought from the physical world. The very salvation—one might say, if one may use this sentimental word—the very salvation of human spiritual development depends on the human being being willing to refrain from taking the spiritual merely in the sense in which it is taken today—which can be characterized by the statement: “Oh, I already know that; I’ve already dealt with it”—but rather to take it in the sense of life, which is always linked to repetition, to, I might say, the recurrence of the same effect in the same place. Precisely when we make it a point to permeate our soul with spiritual life in this way, our inner capacity for spiritual attention also increases. It becomes so intimate that we can inwardly and spiritually take in those important moments in which the—I would say—most heartfelt connections with the spiritual world can develop.

[ 8 ] For example, the moments of falling asleep and waking up are significant for communication with the spiritual world. Now, the moment of falling asleep will be less fruitful for most people at the beginning of their spiritual development, because one has just fallen asleep and consciousness is thus so clouded that one does not perceive the spiritual realm. But the moment of transition from sleep to wakefulness can become very fruitful if we get into the habit of not simply drifting through this moment in a daze, but rather if we try to direct our attention to it, if we try to wake up in such a way that consciousness has returned, but the external world does not immediately assail us with its coarse brutality. In this regard, there is much truth in folk customs dating back to ancient times that are still little understood today. The simple folk, who have not yet been tainted by intellectual culture, say: When you wake up, you should not look into the light right away. In other words, do not immediately be subjected to a brutal impression from the outside, but remain somewhat in a state of wakefulness without yet receiving impressions from the external world.

[ 9 ] When we observe this, there remains the possibility, precisely at this moment of waking, to see how the dead who are karmically connected to us approach us. They do not approach us only at this moment, but this moment is the one in which we can perceive them most clearly. And in this moment, we not only perceive them, but we also perceive what is happening between the dead and us in the time outside of this moment. For the perception of the spiritual world is not bound to time in the same way as the perception of the physical world. Herein lies a difficulty with regard to comprehending the spiritual world and its nature. A single moment of perception can reveal to us, from the spiritual world, something that extends over a vast period of time—all in an instant, all at once. The difficulty lies in having enough presence of mind to grasp, in that moment, that which is extended over longer periods of time. For the moment can, as is usually the case, pass in a state of becoming. As it arises, the thing is already forgotten. This is, in general, a difficulty in comprehending the spiritual world. If this difficulty did not exist, then—especially in the present day—a great many people would already be receiving impressions from the spiritual world.

[ 10 ] But there are other moments in life as well when the spiritual world can enter into us. For example, every time we develop a thought in such a way that the thought springs from within us. If we simply let life take its course, if we just drift along with life, then there is little likelihood that the genuine, the true, the inwardly living spiritual world will work within us; but the moment we take the initiative within ourselves, when we are faced with a decision that we must make for ourselves—even in the smallest matters—that is also the most favorable time for the deceased who are karmically connected to us to enter our sphere of consciousness. Such moments need not be “important” in the sense of what is commonly called “important” in external, material life. It is indeed true that sometimes what is important for spiritual experience does not appear important in external life. But to those who see through such things, it seems extraordinarily clear that these events—which may be outwardly unimportant but are inwardly of extraordinary significance—are deeply karmically determined. Thus, it is indeed necessary to observe more intimate soul processes if one wishes to gain an understanding of the spiritual world. For example, it may turn out that a person is walking down the street or sitting in their room when an unexpected bang or a sudden noise occurs. They are startled. After this startle, they may have a moment of reflection that reveals to them: During this startle, something important was revealed to them from the spiritual world. One need only turn one’s attention to such things. Most often, people do not pay attention to these things because they are preoccupied solely with the startle itself. They think only of how startled they are. That is why it is so important to attain balance of the soul, as you can find hinted at in the conclusion of my book *Theosophy* or in *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*. For if one attains this balance of the soul, one will not be so bewildered after being startled that one simply succumbs to that startle; then what one has just experienced in such a moment—seemingly unimportant on the surface but inwardly quite significant—will naturally come to the fore, even if only in a subtle way.

[ 11 ] All of this, of course, is just the beginning; it needs to develop further. For as we develop these things—attention to the moment of waking, attention to the moment when we are jolted from the outside in one direction or another—we learn once again to rediscover our connection to the great cosmos, which is both material and spiritual, in which we stand as a part and from which we have emerged; we have emerged, however, in order to become free human beings, but we have indeed emerged. In truth, it is indeed as people in prehistoric times believed: that we do not wander the earth so lost, as it were, like a cosmic hermit, as is now believed. Rather, what prehistoric people believed is true: that we are a part of the entire great cosmic context, just as a finger is a part of our organism. People no longer have this feeling today—at least the majority of people do not—of being a part of the great cosmic organism, insofar as the spiritual manifests itself in the visible world. Nevertheless, even ordinary scientific thinking today could teach people that, through their lives, they are such a part of the entire cosmic order in which they exist as an organism. Take something very simple that anyone can work out for themselves with a simple calculation.

[ 12 ] Don't we all know that in the spring, on March 21, the sun rises at a specific point in the sky? We call this point the vernal equinox. But we also know that this vernal equinox isn’t the same every year—it keeps moving forward. We know that the sun now rises in Pisces. Before the fifteenth century, it rose in Aries. Astronomy has kept using the term “in Aries,” but that doesn’t match reality. — This aside is not important at the moment. — So this vernal equinox is moving forward; the sun rises in spring a little further along the zodiac each year. From this, it is easy to see that over a certain period of time it traverses the entire zodiac, that the point of rising moves through the entire zodiac. Now, the time it takes for the Sun to complete this journey through the entire zodiac is approximately 25,920 years. So if you take the vernal equinox in a given year: the following year it has moved forward, and the year after that it has moved forward again. Once 25,920 years have passed, the vernal equinox returns to the same point. Thus, 25,920 years is an extraordinarily significant period of time for our solar system: the Sun completes a cosmic cycle, so to speak, by returning to the same point in its spring rise. Now Plato, the great Greek philosopher, called these 25,920 years a “world year”—the great Platonic world year. What is remarkable—very remarkable indeed, but when one delves into this entire phenomenon, it appears to be infinitely profound—is the following:

[ 13 ] Normally, a person takes 18 breaths per minute. This number varies: it is slightly higher in childhood and lower in old age, but on average, 18 breaths per minute is correct for a healthy person. Let’s calculate how many breaths that amounts to in a day. It’s a simple calculation: 18 times 60 equals 1,080 breaths per hour; multiply that by 24—the number of hours in a day—and you get 25,920 breaths in a day. You can see from this that this same number, in a sense, governs the human day in terms of breaths, just as the great cosmic year is governed by this number in its passage through the zodiac at the vernal equinox.

[ 14 ] This is one of the pieces of evidence that shows us that we are not merely using some general, vague, obscurely mystical figure of speech when we say: Microcosm—image of the Macrocosm, but that human beings are truly governed in a vital activity—on which their lives depend at every moment—by the same number and the same measure as the orbit of the Sun, within which they are placed.

[ 15 ] But now let’s consider something else: Isn’t it true that the “age of the patriarchs,” as it is commonly called, is 70 human years? Of course, 70 human years is not necessarily a fixed limit for human beings. Of course, one can live much longer, but human beings are free beings and sometimes far exceed such limits. But let’s stick to this “patriarchal age” and say: On average, a person lives 70 to 71 years. And if we calculate how many days that is, we have, don’t we, 365.25 days in a year. Let’s first take 70—that gives us 25,567.5; and if we take 71, we’d have 365.25 times 71 = 25,932.75. As you can see, at 70 years we get 25,567.5 days, and at 71 years, 25,932.75 days. From this, however, you can see that the point exactly between 70 and 71 years is where human life spans exactly 25,920 days, so that the age of the patriarchs is precisely the one that spans 25,920 days. You have thus defined the human day as having 25,920 breaths. You have defined the human lifespan as consisting of 25,920 days.

[ 16 ] Now let’s examine something else. And this isn’t difficult. You will easily see that if I divide 25,920 years—the time it takes for the vernal equinox to pass through the zodiac—by 365.25, I must get approximately 70 or 71. I get 70 to 71 because I also arrived at that result through multiplication. This means that if I treat the Platonic year as a “great year” and divide it to obtain a single day, I will find what constitutes a day in the Platonic year. What is that? It is a human lifespan. A human lifespan is to the Platonic year as a human day is to a year.

[ 17 ] The air is all around us. We breathe it in and breathe it out. It is numerically regulated in such a way that, by being breathed in and out 25,920 times, it constitutes one day of life. But what, exactly, is this thing we call a day of life? A day of life consists of our ego and astral body leaving our physical body and etheric body and then returning to them. So day after day this sequence repeats: the ego and the astral body go out, come in, go out, come in, just as the breath goes out and comes in. Many of our friends will recall that, in order to clarify this point, I have even compared this alternation of waking and sleeping to a long breath in public lectures. Just as we exhale and inhale air with each breath, so too, as we wake up and fall asleep, the astral body and the “I” move in and out of the etheric body and the physical body. But this simply means: There is a being—or a being can be assumed to exist—that breathes just as we breathe in an eighteenth of a minute, a being that breathes, and whose breathing signifies the entry and exit of our astral body and I. This being is nothing other than the truly living Earth being. As the Earth experiences day and night, it breathes, and its breathing process carries our sleeping and waking on its wings. This is the breathing process of a greater being. And now consider the breathing process of a greater being, the Sun, which moves about. Just as the Earth spends a day expelling and drawing in the “I” and the astral body within human beings, so does the great being—which corresponds spiritually to the Sun—bring us human beings into being; for the 79 to 71 years are, as we have demonstrated, a day of the solar year, the great Platonic year. Our entire human life is an exhalation and inhalation of this great being, to which the Platonic year is assigned. You see: we have a small breath in an eighteenth of a minute that governs our life; we stand within the life of the Earth, whose breath encompasses day and night: this corresponds to the going out and coming in of the “I” and the astral body into the physical and etheric bodies; and we ourselves are breathed in by the great being to whose life the solar cycle corresponds, and our life is a breath of this great being. Now you can see how we stand within the macrocosm—truly stand within it as a microcosm—subject to the same laws with regard to the universal beings as the breath within us is subject to our human being. There, number and measure reign. But what is truly magnificent, significant, and deeply moving to us is this: number and measure govern the great cosmos, the macrocosm, and the microcosm in the same way. It is not merely a figure of speech; it is not merely a mystical feeling, but something that the wise contemplation of the world teaches us—that we, as a microcosm, are situated within the macrocosm.

[ 18 ] If one performs such very simple calculations—for they can, of course, be carried out using the most common scientific numbers—and does not have a heart like a block of wood, but rather a heart that is sensitive to the mysteries of the world’s existence, then one also hears the statement: “We are placed within the universe”—ceases to be merely an abstract statement; it becomes a very living one. A knowledge blossoms, a feeling arises, and bears fruit in the impulses of the will, and the whole human being participates in the great life of divine cosmic existence. But this is the path by which we, so to speak, find our connection to the spiritual world, and it must be found during the time to which we referred in the last meditation—the time when Christ walks on Earth in an etheric form. I even recently pointed to the year in which He began to walk on our Earth in an etheric form. It must be found! People need only accustom themselves to perceiving the connection—the intimate connection—that already arises from the existence of the world itself and which, when perceived, must give rise to the need, the intense impulse, to seek this connection to the spiritual world. For it will not be long now before people will at least be compelled to recognize the following:

[ 19 ] One may indeed deny the spiritual world if one has been numbed by materialism, but one cannot destroy within oneself the forces that are capable of seeking a connection with the spiritual world. One can delude oneself about the existence of a spiritual world, but one cannot kill the forces within the soul that are capable of bringing a person into contact with the spiritual world. This, however, has very significant implications—and something that should certainly be taken into account, especially in our time: these forces are present and active, even if one denies them. The materialist does not prevent the forces in his soul that are drawn toward the spiritual from acting; he cannot prevent them; they act. So one can be a materialist, you might say, and yet the forces drawn toward the spiritual still act within him. Yes, that is true. They are at work within him. It is no use; they are at work within him. And what effect do they have? Forces that are present can indeed be suppressed in terms of their inherent effectiveness; but then they transform into other forces. And if one does not use the forces that are oriented toward the spiritual to seek an understanding of the spiritual—I am speaking now only of seeking “understanding” of the spiritual; that is all that is needed for the time being—if one does not use these forces for that purpose, then they transform into a force of illusion in human life. They then cause a person to succumb to all manner of illusions regarding the external world in everyday life. This is not an insignificant matter to consider in our time, for in no other era have people, so to speak, fantasized more than in our own, even though they do not love fantasy. This fantasizing is not limited to specific areas. And if one were to begin giving examples of what people fantasize about—even though they claim to be nothing but realists and materialists—one could truly shed light on all manner of areas; there would be no end to it. One could begin—well, we do not wish to be heretical, but if, for example, one were to start by looking at what certain, let us say, statesmen predicted about the probable course of events in the world, perhaps only weeks ago, and what then actually came to pass; if one compares these things, one will find that the capacity for illusion has not been insignificant for many years now.

[ 20 ] Well, one can explore all areas of life in this way; it is quite remarkable how, everywhere—everywhere today—one finds this capacity for illusion to be significantly developed. It is precisely this capacity for illusion that sometimes lends the worldviews and attitudes toward life of materialistically minded people a certain childlike quality—not to say childishness. When one sees today what it takes for people to grasp one thing or another—what it takes to have things shoved right in their faces—then one begins to get a sense of what is meant here by “childlike,” not to say “childish.” Well, that is how it is. When people turn away from the spiritual world, they pay the price by becoming susceptible to illusions, by losing the ability to form accurate concepts of external physical reality and its course. They are forced to fantasize in another realm because they no longer wish to hold fast to the truth—whether it pertains to spiritual or physical life.

[ 21 ] I once gave you an obvious example, and even if it is said in my own defense, it is nonetheless a typical example: One can always find highly critical reviews of the spiritual science that I advocate. Why? Those concerned justify this by saying: “He’s just making it all up!” And that’s not allowed—just making things up! — So people do not want to enter the real spiritual world because they consider it mere fantasy, and they despise fantasizing. And then they spin all sorts of arguments out of this that have as much to do with reality as white has to do with black—for example, about my ancestry, or about the nature of what I have done here or there. There they give free rein to the wildest imagination. There you see it side by side: flight from the spiritual world coupled with a capacity for illusion! The person in question doesn’t notice this, but it follows a natural law. A certain amount of energy is directed toward the spiritual world; a certain amount of energy is directed toward the physical world. If the portion directed toward the spiritual world is not utilized, it then turns toward the physical world—not to grasp what is real and true there, but to plunge people into illusions of life. This cannot be observed immediately in individual cases in such a way that one can say: “Aha, there he is; he is being plunged into illusions because of his aversion to the spiritual world!” — Such examples do exist, but one must seek them out; the fact that this cannot be readily demonstrated in life stems from the fact that life is complex and one factor influences another. It is always the case that the stronger soul influences the weaker soul. Thus, if one finds a degree of susceptibility to illusion in a soul, the root of this susceptibility is somehow already present in a hatred of or aversion to the spiritual world; it need not lie within the soul that is under the illusion itself, but may have been suggested to it. For in spiritual realms, the power of contagion is much greater than in any physical realm.

[ 22 ] How this relates to the general karma of humanity, and how these things—when one considers them and takes into account this important law of the metamorphosis of the soul’s powers—a metamorphosis, a transformation of the powers directed toward the spiritual into the power of illusion, operate within the overall context of life and relate to the conditions of development in our present and the near future—this will be the subject of our next consideration, where we will continue to elaborate on the present and then connect it to the Christ Mystery as well as the mystery of the present age, in order to gain some further insights into the significance of spiritual vision in general.