The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Planetary Spirits that Determine Destiny and Liberate Humanity II

[ 1 ] Yesterday I gave you a description of the starry sky closest to us. If you reflect on this description, you will have to conclude, above all, that when such a characterization of the starry sky is derived from spiritual insight, it appears quite different from what is generally said in this field today. Yesterday, precisely to bring this point clearly to the fore, I spoke in the manner I have just described. I had to speak in a way that must seem absurd, perhaps even ridiculous, to anyone who today acquires knowledge of these subjects through contemporary education. And yet, the fact is that a kind of healing of our ailing spiritual life can only take place if this total shift in perspective—especially regarding matters such as those we discussed yesterday—can take hold.

[ 2 ] And one might say: Wherever thinking takes place today—but in such a way that it continues to follow the old, conventional ideas—one sees, on the one hand, how thinking everywhere points toward this new kind of spiritual insight. But one also sees how people are unable to keep up with such spiritual insight, and how they therefore remain at a loss everywhere—and, what is perhaps the worst thing at this moment in history, they are not aware of their own helplessness and do not even want to become aware of it.

[ 3 ] Let’s imagine for a moment how what I described yesterday from a completely different perspective is being described today. Yesterday I spoke about the Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, and so on, and I presented to you the individualities—the spiritual individualities—that can be associated with these terms. I showed you, so to speak, our planetary system as an assembly of spiritual beings who act out of various impulses, but in such a way that these impulses also have something to do with events on Earth. We saw living beings with specific characteristics appearing in the cosmos. We were able to speak of living beings in Saturn, the Moon, and so on. But the entire way of speaking differs precisely from what is said about such things today. It is assumed—I repeat this once more—that there was once a primordial nebula that was in a rotating, circular motion, from which the individual planets broke away; today these are viewed with complete indifference as more or less luminous physical bodies whizzing through outer space.

[ 4 ] This view—that the celestial bodies are merely neutral entities to which nothing applies other than physics, specifically mathematics, in order to calculate their orbits and, if necessary, to investigate whether the substances found on Earth are also present there—this impersonal view of the celestial bodies is something that has actually only become common among humankind in the last three to four centuries. And it has become common in a very specific way. Things are simply not understood today. Because we have lost the ability to look into the spiritual realm—or, as was the case only in the late Middle Ages, at least to intuit it—it has also become possible for us to have lost the spiritual realm entirely. People then came to regard the physical concepts that arose on Earth—the mathematical and computational concepts—as something certain, and have now applied these calculations to what reveals itself out there in the heavens. In doing so, they made a certain assumption—I must preface these theoretical discussions somewhat today— people learned how to calculate things on Earth, how to conduct physical science on Earth, and then extended these Earth-based calculations—this physical science—to the entire celestial realm, believing that the results of these calculations, which apply on Earth, would also apply to outer space.

[ 5 ] Here on Earth, we speak of time, matter, and motion; for physicists, one might say, of mass, as well as velocity, and so on: all concepts derived from Earth. Since Newton’s time, these have also been extended to outer space. And the entire conception we have there of what is happening in the world is, in fact, nothing other than a mathematical result derived on Earth and then projected out into the heavens. The entire Kant-Laplace theory becomes an absurdity the moment one realizes that it holds only on the assumption that the same laws of calculation apply out there in outer space as on Earth, that the concepts of space, time, and so on are just as applicable out there as they are on Earth.

[ 6 ] Yet there is a curious fact here—a fact that causes people a great deal of concern today. We do, after all, live in a very strange time, one that is heralded by a multitude of signs. At all the popular gatherings held by monists and other members of various movements, people are presented with the certainty that out there, the stars shine as a result of the well-known processes. The entire beautiful doctrine of spiral nebulae and so on—which present themselves to the external eye—is expounded to a credulous audience by popularizing speakers and writers. And it is from these popular speakers and writers that people today derive their education. But this education is, in essence, merely the result of what physicists and other so-called scholars thought and conceived decades ago. At such popular gatherings, everything that was accepted by experts decades ago is simply rehashed. But today, experts are being shaken up by something entirely different. What is shaking them up is, for example, the so-called theory of relativity.

[ 7 ] This theory of relativity—Einstein’s theory of relativity—is what occupies the minds of the most thoughtful physicists today. Now, one can certainly discuss the details of this theory of relativity, as I have done here and there; but today we are not concerned with its intrinsic validity, but rather with the fact that it exists and that physicists speak of it. Certainly, there are physicists who oppose it, but there are also a great many physicists who simply speak of the theory of relativity. But what does that mean?

[ 8 ] Yes, this means that this theory of relativity destroys all the concepts on which our understanding of the motions and nature of celestial bodies in outer space is based. What has been accepted for decades—what is written in astronomy textbooks today, what is still presented to the lay public in popular lectures and books—has been accepted as fact. But physicists are setting out to dismantle and dismantle the most widely accepted concepts—time, motion, space—and declare: None of this is as people had imagined. — You see, for the physicist today, it is already something of a matter of conscience when, for example, he says: I point my telescope at a distant star. But I have calculated that it takes so-and-so much time for the light from that star to reach Earth. So when I look out through my telescope, the light entering my telescope has taken so many light-years to travel. The light entering here, then, was emitted up there so many light-years ago. The star isn’t even there anymore; it isn’t there at all. I receive the beam of light in my telescope, but what lies in the telescope’s line of sight isn’t the star at all. And if I look at a star next to it, from which the light takes far fewer light-years to travel, it still arrives at the same time. I turn my telescope: the star appears as a point of light that was perhaps there so many years ago. Now I turn my telescope again: a star enters my field of view that isn’t there at all, but that was there a completely different number of years ago. And that’s how I form my impressions of the starry sky! Everything is there from the time when it once was, but actually it isn’t there at all. Actually, nothing is there: everything is all jumbled up.

[ 9 ] It’s exactly the same with space. We perceive a distant sound somewhere. When we approach it, it seems to us to have a different “pitch” than when we move away from it. Space determines the nature of what we perceive. And that, of course, gives people a headache. All that time that factors into every calculation has suddenly become something quite uncertain, something merely relative. And regarding all that which is depicted in such a popular way out in outer space, today’s physicist—and he is aware of this—can really only say: There was something there once, it is still there, and it will be there someday. Well, yes, there is something there. And whatever is there causes its light emissions to coincide with the crosshairs of my telescope at a specific point in time. — That is the only certainty we still have: the coincidences of two events. So, what once happened somewhere, at some point in time, coincides with what is taking place today in the crosshairs of my telescope. One can speak only of such coincidences—says today’s physicist—everything is relative; the concepts from which the structure of the universe has been theoretically constructed are, in fact, of merely relative value, and of no absolute value at all. — That is why physicists today speak of a radical upheaval of all concepts in physics. And if one were to go directly from a popular gathering for laypeople to a lecture by a relativity theorist today, one would find that the popularizer is passing on to people something based on ideas about which the experts say: “It’s all melted away like snow in the sun!”

[ 10 ] You see, we cannot simply say that over the past three to four centuries a physical worldview has been built up based on certain concepts; rather, we must say that there are already enough people today who, starting from these very concepts, have dismantled and destroyed them. After all, for a large number of thinkers, this worldview—which is considered certain—no longer exists at all. So the situation is not quite such that what is said from an entirely new point of view can be dismissed with a smile. For what is said from the other point of view is melting away in the present just as snow melts in the sun. In fact, it no longer exists at all for those who understand the matter, or at least want to understand it. So we are actually faced with the fact that people say: What is described here from the standpoint of spiritual science is absurd because it does not agree with what we regard as correct. — But if they now adopt the relativistic standpoint, then these people must say: “What we have regarded as correct is absurd!” — That is how things stand today. Yet the vast majority of humanity is, in fact, asleep, watching these events unfold while asleep, and letting them happen. But it is important to know that the worldview which, as such, has celebrated such great triumphs, is today, in fact, completely in ruins.

[ 11 ] "The reality that exists in the spiritual world will actually only become clear to a wider audience when people loosen the pointed cap under which they sleep—at least a little—at least once. So, it is by no means the only option to think that what is expressed in such a tone—as I did yesterday—is absurd in the eyes of modern science, for this science is, for example, entirely negative in its theory of relativity; it actually asserts everywhere what is apparent, and humanity will have to be guided toward a recognition of what truly is.

[ 12 ] These things are to be achieved precisely through the kinds of descriptions I attempted to provide yesterday with regard to individual stars in our solar system. But what do we see here? We see that, in a sense, the course of world development is being followed quite precisely. What would an old-school—not a new-school—physicist—since the new-school ones are mostly relativity theorists—what would an old-school physicist say to you if he heard someone utter something as outrageous as what I said yesterday? If he didn’t immediately say that all of this is crazy and twisted—and he might well say that at first—he would still assert: This contradicts the solid foundations of science. — But what are the solid foundations of science? They are those concepts of space, time, and so on that have been derived here on Earth. Now the relativity theorists are doing away with these concepts as they apply to the universe, declaring them invalid.

[ 13 ] Anthroposophy, however, takes a practical approach: it disregards earthly concepts when speaking of the Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, and so on. It no longer speaks of earthly matters at all, but rather attempts—even if this is only possible with great difficulty—to characterize Venus and Mars in a way that can no longer be achieved using earthly concepts. And so one must once again be willing to let go of earthly concepts if one wishes to ascend into the cosmos. I wanted to show you how the cosmos fits into present-day spiritual life and what the state of affairs is in present-day spiritual life. There is only a kinship with earthly concepts when one ventures out into the cosmos. Just consider: if we go as far as the Moon—as I described it yesterday—to those beings who are anchored in the Moon as in a cosmic fortress and who actually live beneath the Moon’s surface—where, if I may put it that way, they go about their cosmic business— when we come to these beings, whom one can approach only with a clairvoyantly sharpened gaze, we find that these beings work in secret. For what is within the Moon does not enter the world, and everything that comes from the Moon is reflected back from the world. Just as the Moon does not absorb sunlight but reflects it, so too does it reflect everything else that happens in the universe. Everything that happens in the universe is reflected by the Moon as if by a mirror. Processes take place within it that remain hidden.

[ 14 ] But I have told you: The spiritual beings who are entrenched in this lunar fortress, just as they are in the universe, and who go about their worldly business there—they were once on Earth, before the Moon broke away from the Earth. They were the first great teachers of human souls on Earth. And the great, ancient wisdom that is spoken of is, in essence, the legacy of these lunar beings who today live in seclusion within the Moon. They themselves have withdrawn.

[ 15 ] When one speaks in this way about the universe, moral concepts find their way into the ideas one develops. One forgets the physical concepts of the Earth; moral concepts enter into the description. We ask ourselves: Why have these lunar beings withdrawn? Why do they work in secret? — Yes, when they were still on Earth, they certainly inspired an immense sense of wisdom in human beings. Had they remained on Earth, they would have continued to inspire this wisdom in human beings, but human beings would never have been able to enter the age of freedom.

[ 16 ] These beings had, so to speak, made the wondrous decision to withdraw from Earth, to retreat to a secluded place in the universe, so that there, far from human existence, they could carry out their cosmic work, so that humans would no longer be influenced by them, and so that all humans could absorb the impulses of the universe and become free beings. These beings have chosen a new dwelling place in the universe in order to gradually make freedom possible for human beings.

[ 17 ] Yes, this is a different way of speaking than that of a physicist, who, upon hearing that the Moon had broken away from the Earth, would simply calculate the speed at which this occurred and the forces involved—while keeping only earthly forces and earthly speeds in mind. These are completely disregarded when we speak of the Moon, as I did yesterday. But when one leaves the physical aspects aside, what remains are such conclusions, such great cosmic-moral impulses. One arrives—and this is the significant aspect of the matter—from the physical chatter that applies to physical conditions on Earth to a discourse in moral ideas about the universe.

[ 18 ] The essential point is not merely to propose theories that are meant to be believed, but that there is a moral order of the universe. This has thoroughly confused the human soul over the last three to four centuries—the idea that one can know certain things about the Earth, and based on what one knows on Earth, calculate the universe and formulate theories such as the Kant-Laplacean one, but when it comes to the moral-divine world order, one must simply believe. — This has confused people immensely, because the insight has been completely lost that one must speak in earthly terms about the Earth, but that the moment one rises to the universe, one must begin to speak cosmically. There, physical speech gradually gives way to moral speech. There, what is otherwise at most merely imagined is put into practice.

[ 19 ] If you read a physicist’s description of the sun today, it is portrayed as some kind of gaseous sphere steaming out there, and its eruptions are described in the same way as eruptions on Earth. Everything is projected onto this celestial body in the same way as what happens on Earth, and using the same calculations we have adopted here, we then determine how a beam of light passes by the Sun or the like. But what applies here in terms of calculations for earthly phenomena ceases to hold true once you venture out there. And just as the intensity of light decreases in proportion to the square of the distance, so do the laws cease to apply out in the universe. And we are connected to the universe only through our morality. By rising above the physical realm as human beings to the moral realm, we here on Earth become similar to what operates out in the universe as realized morality.

[ 20 ] So we must say: Anthroposophy is, in the broadest sense, a science. It truly carries out what arises as a demand. It no longer speaks in earthly terms at all, except for moral ones—which, however, are already otherworldly on Earth. It speaks in such moral concepts when it soars up into the universe. This must certainly be taken into account. And from this point of view, we must in turn derive the concepts we need to comprehend on Earth that which cannot be comprehended at this moment.

[ 21 ] You see, the beings anchored in the Moon—I said—operate only as if within a fortress. There they conduct their cosmic affairs. For everything the Moon gives to the world, to the Earth, is, after all, reflected back. But this is a state that has only recently come into being in the course of cosmic evolution. It used to be different. And these beings—when they still walked upon the Earth—acted upon the, I might say, soft, slimy form that the Earth itself and all beings once possessed. And the formation of the spinal column in both humans and animals is connected to these influences. Thus, the spinal column in humans and animals is a legacy from very ancient times, when the lunar beings were still connected to earthly existence. This can no longer come into being today. The spinal column is a legacy; it can no longer come into being today.

[ 22 ] But as for four-legged animals, these beings have made their spines so rigid that they remain horizontal. In humans, they designed it so that it could become vertical, and so that, through the vertical spine, humans could become free to experience the universe and its influences at the very moment these lunar beings withdrew into the lunar fortress.

[ 23 ] And so we will gradually come to explain the earthly realm in terms of the universe as a whole, and to properly assess spiritual forces and spiritual impulses even within earthly existence. The fact is that ideas have taken root in people’s minds that have really only emerged in the last three or four centuries. And all of them have arisen under the influence of the view that the only things one can apply to the entire universe to explain it are those derived from physical events and physical objects on Earth. The entire universe has been turned into a physical replica of the Earth. People have, however, now realized: Something coincides with my crosshairs, but that was there once! — The whole story does not hold true in this way. And when one takes into account stars that are far enough away, today’s physicist can already say: What I am mapping out does not actually exist there at all. I draw two stars side by side: one star was there, let’s say, a thousand years ago; the other was there six hundred years ago. Yes, side by side just as I see the points of intersection of the light rays in my crosshairs—they were never there like that!

[ 24 ] So all of that melts away; none of it is really like that. You can’t use these concepts to figure out what’s out there. You calculate, calculate, calculate. It’s just like when a spider spins its web and then imagines that this web spans the entire world.

[ 25 ] The reason for this is that the laws by which we calculate here no longer apply out there at all; rather, we can at most use the moral principle within us to form concepts of what exists out there. Out there in the starry sky, things unfold in a moral way—and at times also in an immoral, Ahrimanic, Luciferic, and so on manner. But if I take the moral as a generic concept, things unfold morally, not physically. Yet this is something we must return to, because the other view has become so firmly ingrained in people’s minds over the course of the last two to three centuries that even doubts such as those held by relativity theorists—for their objections have much merit—cannot drive it out of people’s minds at all. It is also understandable, for even if this last chimera—the space-time calculus they employ—were to vanish from people’s minds when they contemplate the starry sky, there would be nothing left in those minds at all, and people do, after all, like to keep something there. For something else will only be able to take its place there once one rises to the possibility of gazing at the starry sky just as we did yesterday.

[ 26 ] Now we must realize that all of this points to how necessary it is for people today to form clear concepts of what has actually happened over the last three to four centuries, and what has found its provisional outcome in the greatest of all wars that have ever been waged on earth, and in the chaotic conditions that will, in fact, become even more chaotic in the near future. What is required of humanity is precisely to finally gain a clear understanding of these things. And in this regard, it is interesting to take a look at the world with its current spiritual development.

[ 27 ] Within the civilization in which Westerners and their American followers live, everything that has developed over the last three to four centuries under the influence of phenomenally advanced technology and global commerce—which is only now beginning to fall apart—is considered so unshakable that, naturally, anyone who does not accept these same concepts is considered a fool. Now, it is true that the East is in a state of decadence, but one must nevertheless say: What we must once again state today, based on the sources of our own anthroposophical research—as I did yesterday—was, albeit in a completely different form, indeed Eastern wisdom in ancient times.

[ 28 ] As I have often explained, we cannot accept this Eastern wisdom in its original form today. We must rediscover it from within the Western mind, from within the Western soul. But there was a time—I would say it was a custom—when, drawing on ancient clairvoyance, on that dreamlike ancient clairvoyance, people spoke of the stars in the way I began to speak of them again yesterday. However, this has been completely lost to humanity, and European humanity today regards as absurd everything that was once considered the highest human wisdom.

[ 29 ] Well, as I said, even though there was once a magnificent, primordial wisdom over in the East, people there are now in a state of decadence. But in a certain sense, at least outwardly and traditionally, something of this view of the universe—I would say, a soulful view of the universe—has been preserved in the East. And the technical culture of Europe makes very little impression on people in the East. It is precisely these souls in the East who today respond lovingly to the ancient wisdom who, deep down, despise what has developed in Europe as a mechanical culture and civilization. They study what pertains to the human soul from their ancient writings. For some, this gives rise to an inner, albeit already decadent, enlightenment, so that something of what constitutes a spiritual perception of the world still lives on in the East. And it is not without value to consider, at least once, the way in which these people—who still possess, at least in a kind of reflection, an ancient culture—view the European-American intellectual ferment. Even if it is only for the sake of comparison, it is nonetheless interesting.

[ 30 ] A curious book has been published by a certain Rãmanãthan, an Indian from Ceylon, titled The Culture of the Soul among the Western Nations [the title was written on the board]. This Rãmanãthan speaks in a peculiar way. He apparently belongs to those who, over there in the East within Indian civilization, once said to themselves: “These Europeans do have some very peculiar writings, for example, the New Testament.” — Now these people, among whom Rãmanãthan is included, have engaged with the New Testament—but of course in the way that the soul of these people is capable of engaging with the New Testament—and have absorbed this New Testament, the work of Christ Jesus as revealed in the New Testament, in accordance with the disposition of their souls. And there are indeed people over there—as this book by Rãmanãthan shows—who, drawing on the remnants of an ancient culture, now speak of Christ Jesus and the New Testament. They have formed very specific conceptions of Christ Jesus.

[ 31 ] And now this man writes extensively about these ideas concerning Christ Jesus, and he naturally addresses the book—which he has written in English—to Europeans. He addresses the book—which was written by the Indian spirit about Jesus as described in the Gospels—to Europeans, and he tells them something quite remarkable. He tells them: it is truly strange that they know absolutely nothing about Christ Jesus. For the Gospels contain magnificent things about Christ Jesus, but Europeans and Americans know nothing at all about them—they really know nothing at all! And he gives the Europeans and Americans some curious advice. He tells them: “Why don’t you invite New Testament teachers from India to come to you? They will be able to tell you what Christ Jesus is really like.”

[ 32 ] So these people over in Asia who are studying European progress today and who then read the New Testament say to these Europeans: “If you want to learn anything about Christ Jesus, then you must have teachers come from us, for all the teachers who speak among you understand nothing of it at all—it is all a misunderstanding!” — And he elaborates on this in detail. He says: “In Europe, at a certain point in time, a certain literal understanding of everything took the place of an understanding of the spiritual essence.” Europeans cling to a certain literal understanding of words in relation to all things. They do not carry a spiritual understanding in their minds, but rather the words they learn from their respective populations rise up into their heads, and then they think in words.

[ 33 ] It is a curious way in which these Indians, despite their decadence, still arrive at this insight, for up to this point the story is strikingly accurate. Even in physics and mathematics today, people think in words, not in things. In this respect, people today are quite peculiar. If someone wants to appear very clever, they’ll quickly quote: “For precisely where concepts are lacking, a word steps in at the right moment.” — But today this usually happens out of the urge that the person in question has run out of concepts himself: that is when Goethe’s word quickly comes to mind. But he doesn’t realize that. He doesn’t realize that he is deeply mired in this vice at the very moment he is condemning it.

[ 34 ] So this Indian says to the Europeans: You have only a verbal understanding of all things, and you have extended this verbal understanding to the New Testament, and thereby you have killed Christ for four centuries. He no longer lives among you; he has been dead for four centuries. Find teachers from India so that he may be resurrected. — This is what this Indian tells the Europeans.

[ 35 ] He says: For three to four centuries now, Europeans have known absolutely nothing about Christ. They cannot know anything at all because they lack the concepts and ideas through which one can come to know anything about Christ. — The Indian says to the Europeans: You need a Renaissance of Jesus Christ. You must rediscover Christ, or someone else must discover him for you, so that you may have him again! — So says the Indian, after he has come to read the Gospel. He realizes that strange things have been happening in Europe over the last three to four centuries. And then he says: If Europeans themselves were to rediscover the Christ who lives in the New Testament, they would have to go back a long way. For this lack of understanding of Christ has developed gradually, and in fact, if Europeans were to learn to understand anything about Christ from their own writings, they would have to go back as far as Gnosticism.

[ 36 ] What a strange phenomenon! Here is an Indian—who is, after all, merely a representative of many—who reads the New Testament and tells the Europeans: “Nothing can help you now except to return to the Gnostics.”

[ 37 ] But the Gnostics are really only known to Europeans through the writings that oppose them. Europeans know nothing about the Gnostics. It is indeed a curious fact: The Gnostic writings have all been eradicated; all that remains are the polemics of the Christian Church Fathers against the Gnostics, with the exception of the Pistis Sophia and a few others—which, however, can be understood just as little in their current form as the Gospels themselves can be understood. '

[ 38 ] But then, if one is not a Gnostic but rediscovers Christ through modern spiritual science, the theologians come along and say: “Here, Gnosticism is being rehashed”—Gnosticism, which they do not actually know, of course, since they cannot know it from any external sources. But it is indeed “rehashing Gnosticism,” and that must not be done, for it leads to a distortion of Christianity. This is also a point of divergence between East and West. Anyone in the East who studies the New Testament finds that one must go back to the first centuries. When contemporary theologians encounter something—such as the portrayal of Christ in modern anthroposophy—that seems to echo the Gnosis unknown to them, they say: “He wants to revive Gnosis again; that must not be allowed, for it distorts Christianity.”

[ 39 ] Yes, the Indian’s judgment is quite strange. This Rãmanãthan actually says: What Europeans now call their Christianity is a distortion. The Europeans say: Rãmanãthan is distorting our Christianity. Rãmanãthan, however, comes quite close to the correct view—albeit with his decadent perspective. The correct is always a distortion of the incorrect. It just matters that one calls these things by their proper names. The correct is always a distortion of the incorrect, for if one did not distort the incorrect, one would not arrive at the correct.

[ 40 ] But that is how things stand today. Just think of the abyss one gazes into when considering this example from Rãmanãthan. For example, someone might say: Why don’t you read the Gospels with an open mind? — It is difficult for Europeans today to read them with an open mind, having been presented for centuries with those mangled translations and having been raised with certain preconceptions. It is difficult to read them with an open mind. But if someone reads them with an open mind—even if from their own point of view—then they will discover a spiritual Christ in the Gospels. For that is what Rãmanãthan discovered in the Gospels, even if he cannot yet perceive him in the anthroposophical sense. But Europeans should at least take note of the fact that this Ceylonese Indian is giving them this advice: “Let preachers come to you from India to speak of Christ, for you have none.”

[ 41 ] When it comes to these matters, we must have the courage today to look deeply into the developments that have taken place over the last three to four centuries, and only through this courage is it possible to truly emerge from the immense chaos into which humanity has gradually plunged. This tendency toward obscurity clouds all concepts and ultimately leads to social chaos as well. For what takes place between people ultimately springs from their souls, and there is indeed a connection between the highest truths and the destruction of external economic conditions. And so one must once again be willing to let go of earthly concepts if one wishes to ascend into the universe.

[ 42 ] In yesterday’s lecture, I wanted to give you an example of how the cosmos relates to contemporary spiritual life and what the state of affairs is in that life. A connection to earthly concepts exists only when one ventures out into the cosmos.