The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] Today I would like to continue the discussion I began yesterday by bringing it even closer to human beings themselves. As you can imagine, what one actually attempts to portray through such a description is something so rich and diverse that any broad overview, such as yesterday’s, can only capture the subject from a single perspective, and that a sense of what such a description is actually intended to convey can only emerge through depictions from a wide variety of perspectives.

[ 2 ] When we consider human head formation—that is, the formation of the head—we must be clear that this head formation does not merely concern the head as seen from the outside, bounded downward by the neck, but also the processes—the internal organ processes—that take place within the human head. Although these are primarily present as head processes within the head, they extend throughout the entire organism; thus, in essence, the head organization is found in the whole human being, but outwardly it manifests itself predominantly in the head. The same is true of the chest organization, which essentially encompasses respiration and blood circulation. This, too, extends both into the head organization and into the metabolic and limb organizations. We can speak of the human being in such a way that we distinguish between its individual organizational components in our consideration, but we must be clear about how they interact within the whole human being.

[ 3 ] When we now consider the organization of the human head, we see that, as it passes through the spiritual world between death and a new birth, it undergoes metamorphoses quite different from those of the other parts of the human organism. In the head, we have a true replica of that which is cosmic—which develops as a spiritual seed through the kind of activity I described yesterday and on the preceding days. In the human head, we have a replica of the universal, condensed and filled with material existence.

[ 4 ] If one were able to study the human head—not with a physically constructed microscope, but with spiritual and soul-based powers of magnification—one would find the entire cosmos reflected in its physical, etheric, astral, and ego structures. We do indeed carry this entire cosmos within us, and most of all in the organization of our head. It is especially true of this head organization that, between death and a new birth, the human being, in union with higher spiritual beings of the upper hierarchies, works out what will continue as part of their development within human heredity—which, in a sense, after having been brought to a certain point by the human being themselves in union with the beings of the higher hierarchies in the spiritual world, descends into the physical world and continues its development within the mother’s organism through conception.

[ 5 ] What appears to us as the formation of the head has in fact arisen from the cosmos, so that even in its astral state—which it ultimately reaches through human activity— it descends to Earth and continues its development there from before conception until it reaches the physical stage of development, so that later what remains of the human being itself may clothe itself in an etheric body—after first having shed the seed of the physical body in the spiritual realm—and may then reunite with this spirit seed that has become physical.

[ 6 ] The fact is, however, that while we are awake, we are constantly continuing on a small scale what we have accomplished on a large, universal scale between death and a new birth, in union with divine-spiritual beings. This activity, which is carried out here, takes place, so to speak, beyond ordinary human consciousness.

[ 7 ] I would like to outline this for you. When we consider the human head of a normally functioning person, the following becomes apparent to spiritual perception: While we are awake, as impressions from the external world continually approach the human head through wakefulness, everything that lives in sensory perception unfolds before our consciousness. I would like to characterize what lives in sensory perception here by first drawing the eye (see drawing), the nose, where olfactory sensations occur, the palate, and the mouth, where taste experiences take place. This part, marked in red, is thus intended to schematically represent everything that a person actually experiences in ordinary consciousness. But in the world of reality that unfolds within the human being, this is not all that takes place. As you know, the brain is structured in the most manifold ways. I want to indicate this only schematically (blue-green). What is combined and structured here in the brain is precisely a reflection of the entire universe; it is the entire universe condensed into a small form and lined with earthly substances. Because this brain—in its “I” part, its astral and etheric parts—is then lined with physical earthly matter, the Earth, with its forces and its constituents, exerts an influence on this part of the human being.

[ 8 ] While our sensory perception is taking place—while colors flood in and take shape internally as mental images, while auditory impulses vibrate through the human organism and, through the structure of the auditory organ, take shape as auditory perceptions, while something similar occurs with the perceptions of taste, smell, and touch perceptions, and while this entire waking experience is sustained by the influence of the external physical-sensory world—this manifests as a force within the unconscious parts of the human brain’s organization. And while we perceive a color, hear a tone, or experience a taste, we are unconsciously working to create an afterimage of how, say, Jupiter relates to the Sun or to Mars (yellow). We map out a cosmic relationship within ourselves. Throughout our entire waking life, something takes place that we accomplish behind our ordinary consciousness: the re-enactment of cosmic activity. What is accomplished there behind ordinary consciousness is nothing other than the echo of what we experience cosmically between death and a new birth or conception. There we went through it on a grand, universal scale. There we went through it in the spiritual realm, undisturbed by earthly matter. There we did not need to draw out the earthly matter in fine strands, wind it in spiral lines around axes, and so on. There we carried out everything in a spiritual substance. There, the spiritual-divine powers of the highest hierarchies accompanied us in our work. What we accomplished there in their company, we accomplish here in a way that is unconscious to us, by surrendering outwardly to the sensory perceptions in our brain, by recreating in an earthly manner with earthly substances what we performed outwardly in a spiritual way with spiritual beings. Through this activity, we carry our pre-earthly life into our earthly life, right down into our physical organization.

[ 9 ] What we see through colors, hear through sounds, and smell through odors is what is present to us during our earthly existence. What takes place in the background consists of thoughts that possess an ethereal vitality, which find their physical expression only in the material substance of the brain. What is essential, what really matters, is what weaves ethereally within the finest substance of the brain. There, living thoughts interweave. Our thoughts are, after all, merely reflected images formed within this inner cosmos, where what we receive from the outside is reflected back and then becomes conscious to us. But behind the level of memory, what I have just described takes place. Nothing need take place behind an ordinary mirror; behind the mirror that, through our brain, reflects our abstract ideas back to our consciousness, an entire cosmic existence is reflected on a small scale within each individual human being. And these living thoughts that we develop there are, for the third hierarchy—the hierarchy of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai—the very same as our abstract, reflective thoughts are for us. Behind our consciousness, the third hierarchy unfolds its activity through our humanity. There, the beings of the Archai, Archangeloi, and Angeloi develop what must be accomplished—and can only be accomplished—by placing the human being within the cosmos and upon the Earth. In the formation of his brain, he does not merely create a mirror that reflects his ordinary earthly consciousness—the abstract ideas—but within his head something takes place that the hierarchy of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai must accomplish on Earth and through earthly existence. This is an event that is just as closely connected to earthly existence as any other event.

[ 10 ] You can characterize earthly existence by saying: Through minerals, this and that happens; through plants, they bloom and bear fruit; through animals, yet another thing happens. Through human beings, the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai pour their activity into the spiritual atmosphere of the Earth. But this occurs indirectly through the subconscious activity of the human head organization.

[ 11 ] Earthly existence is not limited to plants blooming and animals roaming about; rather, earthly existence continues into a spiritual existence. Beyond plants, animals, and human beings, there is an activity of the angelic world, the spiritual world, the third hierarchy, and this activity is made possible through the human head.

[ 12 ] As I was able to point out to you yesterday, there is an astral form above a plant (see drawing) as it grows out of the earth (green and pink). So above it, too, we have an astral formation, a higher spiritual entity (yellow), than is manifested in the plant’s flower itself. In this way, the activity of the human head extends into the spiritual realm, and when we seek where it continues, we find the activity of the beings of the third hierarchy in connection with earthly existence.

[ 13 ] But this activity also has a very profound significance in cosmic evolution. Behind humanity’s own activity on Earth—behind what human beings must do without realizing it, in their organic activity—the beings of the third hierarchy are their helpers. Human beings die during their earthly existence. We have considered death and sought to understand it. But what death is for human beings is, for the beings of the third hierarchy, a immersion into human nature. If they had only this—this immersion into human nature—their consciousness would fade; they would lose their essence. They must, so to speak, nourish their essence again and again. The essence of these beings of the third hierarchy must be nourished from the substance of the worlds.

[ 14 ] Now, what is woven behind human consciousness are, as I have already said, primarily etheric formations. Even during our earthly existence, there is no boundary so sharp between the inner human ether and the outer cosmic ether that what is imprinted behind the conscious thoughts—through human thoughts and this human activity in the brain—does not continually vibrate out into the cosmic ether. In fact, a human being is constantly surrounded by the vibrations generated around his head and radiating out into the world ether through his mental activity, carried out in union with the beings of the third hierarchy. And when a human being passes through the gate of death, it is as I said yesterday: that mental activity first subsides, even with regard to the ethereal. In reality, however, this means that whatever takes place in the head—even at the subconscious level—first disperses rapidly into the world ether. Everything that is brought about in this way by the human being takes on formative structures in the world ether, and the beings of the third hierarchy feed on these; so that the beings of the third hierarchy, on the one hand, help the human being with regard to his mental organization, and on the other hand, in turn, further their own development through what takes place within this mental organization.

[ 15 ] Because human beings are woven into the development of the Earth during their earthly existence, these beings of the third hierarchy also come into contact with earthly existence through them. Otherwise, these beings of the third hierarchy would belong to a world from which they could have no connection whatsoever with earthly existence. But they must draw their spiritual nourishment from earthly existence in the manner described. Human beings are thus involved in a cosmic activity mediated by these beings of the third hierarchy. This cosmic activity passes, as it were, through their very being. Among the higher beings who stand immediately above human beings, these beings of the third hierarchy are the least powerful. They could not transform what radiates outward from the human being into the world—and which is meant to become their spiritual nourishment—if it were entirely foreign to their nature. This is why as little as possible of what the human being is through his other nature is mixed into what arises as a human effect through the main organization of the head. Our thoughts remain logical, even when a person accumulates much evil in terms of morality through his or her life. The thoughts remain detached from the other human aspect. They remain detached to the extent that they can become the aforementioned nourishment for higher beings.

[ 16 ] If everything that a human being experiences in their emotions were to flow into these living thoughts that take place behind consciousness, then the angels, archangels, and so on would not be able to absorb it. It would be useless nourishment for them. However, whether we are moral or immoral beings does play a role in our ordinary, reflected thoughts. But if I were to express this in more specific terms—though this can only be done in a general sense—what takes place at the back of our heads, behind ordinary consciousness, is something that remains, so to speak, innocent, untouched by human moral aberrations. These human moral aberrations exert an influence on the cosmic ether and on the cosmic astral realm only insofar as the human soul is bound to the chest organization, the respiratory organization, and the blood circulation organization. The head is, in a certain sense, a pure reflection of the cosmos. And what, as a reflection of universal cosmic activity during earthly life, lies beyond ordinary consciousness—where worlds are continually being formed and continually being destroyed—what takes place there exists in a certain purity in contrast to the rest of human nature. But the fact is that if one could, so to speak, turn one’s eyes inward so that they might see spiritually, and if these eyes—turned inward in their sockets and now spiritually clairvoyant—could look back into the interior of the human cranial cavity, they would see celestial bodies shining there continuously, celestial bodies in motion relative to one another—a world of fixed stars. An entire tiny cosmos would become visible.

[ 17 ] The organization of the human chest differs from that of the human head. Where breathing and blood circulation—the rhythmic aspects of the human being—take place, the cosmic influence does indeed play a role, but earthly conditions have a much greater impact there. They alter what comes in as a reflection of the cosmos to a much greater extent. When our lungs are active, we could view what takes place inside them as a star, a planet, or a world of suns and moons—if we could, so to speak, turn around and see what is merely clothed in earthly matter in its etheric-astral constitution. But earthly conditions are constantly influencing this inner existence. Here, the Earth itself exerts a much greater influence. You must bear in mind: only something as subtle as what the eyes perceive from the world of colors, or what is formed from the body out of the world of sound, directly and immediately influences the structures in the head that I have just described. This fits into the cosmic activity. And what is pushed into it is only what is brought about from the rest of the organism through the breaths and through the blood that also functions in the brain. That is precisely the filling substance. It pushes its way in. But the configuration, the plasticity—this inner plasticity that takes place there—is entirely a reflection of the cosmic. The Earth has little influence there.

[ 18 ] The chest system is in a completely different situation. The chest system takes in the air we breathe and processes it. This is something that exists in the immediate vicinity of the Earth, something that does not penetrate the human organism in such a subtle way as what the eyes make of colors. The air we breathe is coarser than the colored light that penetrates our organism. Therefore, the coarser air has a much stronger, more transformative influence on everything that exists in the chest organism as a reflection of cosmic processes. And this is especially true when we consider the blood circulation! All human foodstuffs play a role in the blood circulation. They are first taken in as food, transformed through the processes of digestion and nutrition, and sent into the circulating blood.

[ 19 ] When the blood reaches the head, it arrives there in an extraordinarily refined state—a state that the ancient, intuitive art of clairvoyance correctly termed a “phosphoric state.” This is an extraordinarily refined state. There, the reflection of cosmic activity exerts power over matter, so that matter cannot unfold its own forces. If any salt entering the brain attempts to unfold its own forces, it is drowned out and overwhelmed by the directions and activities that the reflection of the cosmos exerts in the even denser blood circulation taking place in the chest organs. In the chest organs, what enters from the human being has a much greater influence. There, what replicates the cosmos is altered in a much more pronounced way. And therefore, when one observes the human chest organization with spiritual vision, it presents itself in a way that I can roughly characterize as follows (see drawing).

[ 20 ] There one can see how, during inhalation, an afterimage of the cosmos truly lights up. In the brain, one actually sees an entire cosmos in motion. This is interrupted for the brain only during sleep. Here, sleep does not interrupt anything, but the process continually interrupts itself. Viewed with the spiritual eye: the structure of the chest reveals stars and even the movements of stars, though distorted when viewed backward and having become entirely indistinct when viewed forward. In terms of the structure of the chest as well, the human being is, in a certain sense, an afterimage of the cosmos, insofar as there are processes on our Earth that depend entirely on the regular cycle of years and months. Plants emerge and then wither away again. There is regularity. The spiral paths I have described play out in the forms of plants. There is a mineral tendency here, which is indeed spread out over long periods of time, but which also proceeds, in a certain sense, with cosmic regularity. Certain changes take place in the air currents above the Earth, which we can observe, for example, in the metamorphoses of the weather changes that occur over the course of the year. But this includes everything that is irregular in cloud formation—what is, in fact, changing weather. It includes the caprices of meteorology. The caprices of meteorology fall within the cosmic order.

[ 21 ] Thus, within the human chest—in relation to what is connected to the back—there exists a distorted cosmos, a cosmos that gives the impression as if we were to take our surrounding cosmos one night, and one giant were pulling on one side while another giant were pulling on the other, so that instead of the rounded cosmos we would end up with an elongated cylinder that is slightly thicker in the middle. Thus, to the spiritual eye, the cosmos appears to extend backward, and looking forward, it appears to have fallen into disarray. Just as what takes place above the Earth’s surface is subject to sudden changes, so the cosmos appears to have fallen into disarray when viewed from the front. The whole process is such that the cosmos alternately lights up and disappears: it lights up with inhalation and disappears with exhalation. Just as a person brings about physical processes within themselves through breathing, so does inhalation cause the distorted cosmos to shine, while exhalation causes the distorted cosmos to darken.

[ 22 ] The Indian yogi sought to relive this alternation of light and darkness in the distorted cosmos through his yoga exercises. And he then sought to deduce the true form of the world from this by infusing what he perceived in this way—through the vitalization of the breath—with the capacity to perceive this inner, distorted cosmos, and by penetrating it with what he was then able to discover through his reflection upon it. Thus, as human beings with a chest, we also experience the cosmos a second time, but in a sense as if in a struggle against chaos. And we experience the cosmos a third time, in such a way that it actually appears quite indistinct. For it is integrated into the human metabolic system and the system of the limbs. It is hardly possible to discern to what extent that which is integrated there—astrally and in terms of the “I”-being—has emerged from the cosmos. That is why, during the lectures I have given here, I have had to call that which is integrated there “embryonic,” for it is actually a cosmos in the making. It is the case that only when a human being moves their limbs, or when metabolism is active, does that which appears like a cosmos in the making behave in a manner very similar to that in which it is immersed. If I lift a leg, the spiritual aspect of this third human limb, so to speak, intervenes in the movement of the leg and in the inner processes that arise in connection with that movement.

[ 23 ] Schematically, I must draw this third element (see diagram) in such a way that nothing at all remains visible of a cosmos such as that which is quite clearly present in the organization of the human head—a cosmos that exists in a distorted form, attenuated and obscured in relation to spiritual light, both in the organization of the arms and legs and in the nutritional system (red). Everything there is actually still like a cosmic nebula. For we can study cosmic nebulae out in the vastness of space. But with a spiritual gaze, we can also study these cosmic nebulae on a small, microcosmic scale when we look at the third part of the human being—the limb metabolic system—and when we see how this nebular formation (bluish) is embedded within the stars (yellow), as if they were about to emerge as a glow, but then fade away again the very moment they come into being. We can see how this is completely overwhelmed by what emanates from the Earth. Within it, the chemical affinities—the chemical forces of the Earth’s substances—play a major role.

[ 24 ] During a person’s earthly existence, the way in which the individual earthly substances relate to one another in terms of their chemical forces is far more important than the way in which what a person has brought with them from the cosmos relates to these forces. Nevertheless, human beings are also connected to the spiritual worlds through this part of their constitution; specifically, they are connected to the spiritual worlds through their chest constitution in that, first of all, a spiritual hierarchy influences their chest constitution just as it does their head constitution. In the head, it is the third hierarchy; in the chest constitution, the second hierarchy is at work: the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes. Through the earthly human being, these hierarchies develop a cosmic activity in which they make use of what takes place within the human chest organization. And their activity is such that it is far more spiritual than that of the third hierarchy; this third hierarchy can therefore endure what arises in the material image. Hence, in the formation of the human head, one truly has a material image of the cosmos. Here in the chest organization, there is a distortion precisely for the reason that the substance should not become a faithful replica of the cosmos, so that it can be destroyed and dissolved again and again. The cosmic formation is not completed. So there is the earthly, which plays a strong role, and the cosmic, which remains unfinished within the human being—that which remains cosmic—so that, insofar as the human being breathes, insofar as there is circulation, a cosmic activity permeates them, in which the beings of the second hierarchy work, weaving and hovering. And into this, the human being inserts that living photograph of which I spoke yesterday and in the previous lectures—which is a reflection of his moral and spiritual qualities.

[ 25 ] Since human beings have lungs and the processes of the lungs continue as the processes of respiration, and since they have circulation and what is set in motion by circulation vibrates into the world ether, indeed even into the world astral, they are woven into the activity of the second hierarchy. His very being creates cosmic effects, and the beings of the second hierarchy become integrated into what is accomplished cosmically through him. But into this, the human being pushes more and more—the further his earthly life progresses—the living image of his moral and spiritual qualities: this elemental being, of which I have told you that it is generated by the human being during his earthly life. Incidentally, every night this elemental being pushes itself out of the human being to some extent, and one can see in it the activity exerted by the second hierarchy predominating. When the person is awake during the day, it pushes itself back into the human being, and it continues to permeate the waking activity with the moral and spiritual assessments of human character.

[ 26 ] The first hierarchy is connected to the activity that takes place in the metabolic-limb human. This connection is primarily held by the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. Here, the human is most physical, most devoted to physical forces. The cosmic realm plays a role within him only as a faint mist. But into this—which exists within him as a faint, cosmic activity, interwoven with a strong, intense material activity in chemistry and in physical processes—the activity of the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones flares, surges, and impacts. For through their spirituality, these beings master the strongest material forces, and it will be the beings of this hierarchy who will one day transform the earthly processes of chemistry and physics themselves from the Earth form into the Jupiter form, as I have described in my Outline of Esoteric Science. But into this activity, which actually takes place in the cosmos, is subtly inscribed during earthly life that which is permeated by the volitional aspect of the soul, as I have explained in the other lectures, and in which subtle cosmic processes are interwoven in loose combinations with what is truly earthly, and with the chemical and physical processes that overwhelm the cosmic.

[ 27 ] There (see diagram), in the metabolic system of the limbs, the Earth—I would say—is fully in possession of the human being. In this part, the earthly element predominates over the cosmic element during the course of earthly life. In the chest organization, the cosmic element balances the earthly element. In the head organization, the cosmic element predominates. However, this also means that the head organization can only be connected to the lowest type of beings from the higher hierarchies. Where the earthly element predominates—because the human being is more detached from the earthly aspect of his being—the most powerful spiritual beings work within him: Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones.

[ 28 ] And when a human being passes through the “gate of death,” when the physical organism is shed, that which is merely a nebulous spiritual entity is taken up into the activity of the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones and gradually woven into them. But what had previously formed within the chest organism as the living image of the moral-spiritual human being sinks down into this activity. That which was, so to speak, merely within the current of the middle hierarchy now enters the current of the first hierarchy. Through this, it gains greater intensity within the context of the cosmos; so that the human being, in his middle member, develops his karma as a living, elemental being. This is then taken up by the current of the first hierarchy. And while the human being lives through the period between death and a new birth, while—as I have described to you—he breaks free from his karmic image, ascends into the world where he can actually collaborate with higher beings on the spiritual archetype of the physical organism, and while the human being experiences all that he will later rediscover in this image upon his return, something else is also taking place. While the human being enters the spirit realm from the soul world and remains there, that living image of the destiny they have fashioned for themselves is, in the meantime, guided back by the beings of the highest hierarchy—the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones—and handed over to the second hierarchy and finally to the third hierarchy: the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai. Upon descending once more, the human being now receives this image—which he had left behind with the first hierarchy—from the third hierarchy. When he re-enters life, it becomes incorporated into what takes place between the third hierarchy—the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai—and his head organization. Everything that the human being has produced through his most earthly nature and has handed over to the cosmos after death—what the human being has developed within himself by virtue of having a material organization dominated by the earth—what he must hand over after death to the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones after death—what they allow to flow into the cosmos in this way—they actually receive back through the same process by which the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai work through their head organization in a new earthly life. Human beings hand over to the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones what they have prepared for themselves as their destiny, and receive it again from the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai. They carry it into the activity that the human being carries out in a new earthly life. In this way, what the human being handed over to the first hierarchy upon leaving his last earthly life is taken up into his new earthly destiny from the hand of the third hierarchy.

[ 29 ] Thus you see that one can understand the universe as a whole only by placing the context—which our senses can perceive here and our intellect can conceive—within the context that reveals itself to true vision. For there appear not only growing plants, not only water in cloud formations and currents; there appear not merely physical stars—there appears the entire cosmos in its living activity, imbued with spirit by a series of hierarchies that exercise an activity just as real as physical activity, an activity that ripples through and surges through this physical activity. And events of this kind unfold in such a way that, while the human being experiences existence between death and a new birth, his human destiny passes from the hands of the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones to the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai. Through this, the human being then receives what he is to experience as his destiny in a new life. What a human being has left behind with the highest hierarchy, they receive back from the third hierarchy, and together with the third hierarchy, they must restore it to the balance of the worlds through compensatory deeds during their earthly existence.