The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] We continue our examination of the course of the year from the perspectives we began exploring yesterday and the day before. We must be clear about how, during the depths of winter, the Earth actually becomes a self-contained being in relation to the cosmos. During winter, so to speak, the Earth becomes fully Earth; its earthly nature becomes concentrated. During the height of summer—to add this contrast to the explanation—the Earth is surrendered to the cosmos, living in harmony with the life of the cosmos. And in between, during spring and fall, there is always a balance between these two extremes. All of this, however, has the deepest possible significance for the entire life of the Earth. Of course, what I am about to say also always refers to that part of the Earth’s surface where the transition from winter to spring is taking place.

[ 2 ] Let us begin, as we have always done in recent days, by considering the purely material aspect, and let us examine what we have had to regard as most important for the winter season: the deposits, the salt-like substances. Let us consider this first, specifically in a phenomenon of the utmost significance for the very essence of the Earth: the limestone deposits. You need only go out here, where you are surrounded on all sides by the Jurassic limestone formations, and you will have before you, so to speak, everything I need to describe to you at the very beginning of this discussion.

[ 3 ] Viewed from the outside, it is indeed the case that to a person, lime is simply lime, and to the purely external eye, there really is no significant difference at various times between, so to speak, winter lime and spring lime. But this lack of distinction is, in a certain sense, only apparent from the perspective I characterized as the “flea’s perspective.” The metamorphoses of chalk only become apparent when one, so to speak, ventures further out into the cosmos in one’s contemplation. And there a subtle difference emerges between winter chalk and spring chalk—precisely this most important deposit in our soil. Winter chalk is, so to speak, a self-contented entity—and based on the manifold considerations we have made here, since we know that, fundamentally, soul and spirit are to be found everywhere, we may speak of such things as if they were living, animated beings—winter chalk is, in a sense, a self-contented entity.

[ 4 ] If one intuitively delves into the nature of this winter lime—as is meant for intuition in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?—it is actually permeated by the most diverse spiritual elements. For it is the elemental beings who live in the earthly realm. It is imbued with spirit. But it is, in a sense, as content as a human mind is when it has just solved an important problem and is glad to now possess the thoughts that constitute that solution. Because one perceives everything emotionally through intuition, one senses inner satisfaction throughout the entire process of earthly lime formation during the winter season.

[ 5 ] Isn't it true that if you were swimming underwater, you would perceive water everywhere? When one moves mentally through the course of the formation of lime, one perceives satisfaction everywhere during the winter season, which manifests itself in inner experiences—the permeation of this winter lime by living, transforming forms that appear in the imagination, living, transforming forms of a spiritual nature. But as spring approaches, especially when March arrives, the limestone becomes, so to speak, dull in terms of its spiritual qualities. It no longer possesses these spiritual qualities because, as you know from the previous descriptions, the elemental beings make their way out into the cosmos through a kind of spiritual-cosmic breathing. It becomes dull in terms of its intellectual and spiritual qualities. But the remarkable thing is that it now becomes full of longing. It develops a kind of inner vitality. There is more and more of a subtle life present in the chalk, and this life within the chalk becomes all the more inwardly active as spring approaches—and then continues into summer—the more the plants sprout forth.

[ 6 ] Of course, these things do not take place on a gross level, but on a subtle, intimate level—yet they do take place. The plants that grow up draw some water and some carbon dioxide from the lime—specifically from the lime distributed throughout the soil—and the lime is deprived of these. And for the lime, this means an inner coming to life. It comes to life. But because this lime becomes alive from within, it acquires an immense power of attraction for the Ahrimanic beings. These Ahrimanic beings gain hope every time spring approaches. They actually have no particular hopes regarding nature otherwise, because they can only truly act within the human being. These Ahrimanic beings can otherwise work within the animal nature of the human being. But as spring approaches, the impression that spring lime makes on them leads them to believe that they can unfold their dragon-like nature out into the wider natural world, and that by finding the spring lime alive, they can also gain the ability to attract astral forces from the cosmos to animate this living lime, to permeate it with soul. So that, as March approaches, this remarkable spectacle unfolds for the true seerly observer of nature: Everywhere one sees how the hopes of the Ahrimanic beings play across the earth in imaginations—I might say, like a spiritual wind that sweeps over everything—and one sees how the Ahrimanic beings now strive to bring down, as it were, a rain of astral substance from above. This rain of astral substance that they seek to bring about—if they could, for they always strive toward it with all their might—would, during the summer months, transform the Earth, at least in part—insofar as it consists of limestone—into an animated, living being. And this is what the Ahrimanic beings strive for every spring: to transform the earth into an animated, living being. So that if any being were to set foot on the earth in the fall, the earth would feel pain from the mere act of that foot being placed upon it in the fall.

[ 7 ] Well, this striving, this illusion, is present in the Ahrimanic beings every spring and is destroyed every spring. Certainly, from a human point of view, one might say: By now, the Ahrimanic beings should have become wise enough to give up these hopes. — But that is simply not how the world works, as humans imagine it; rather, it is simply a fact that every spring these Ahrimanic beings once again harbor new hopes of transforming the Earth into an animated, living being through an astral rain from above. These illusions are destroyed every year.

[ 8 ] But human beings are not, so to speak, immune to these illusions. After all, human beings enjoy those natural products that thrive in this atmosphere of hopes and illusions, and it is, in essence, a form of human naivety to believe that they are eating their bread made merely from ground and baked grain. Within this ground and baked grain lie the illusions of the Ahrimanic beings and the hopes of the Ahrimanic beings. Outwardly, they are destroyed. All the more, then, does a longing arise within the Ahrimanic beings to achieve their goal through what they desire, precisely where the soul already exists—in human beings. Thus, every spring—even though all this takes place in the innermost depths—human beings are in fact at risk of falling prey to the Ahrimanic beings. In this regard, human beings are truly much more exposed to all the Ahrimanic forces in the cosmos in the spring than they are in any other season.

[ 9 ] Something else happens when we look up. If we look up—up there, where the elemental beings of the Earth ascend, where they then merge with the cloud formations, where they take on an inner activity that is subject to planetary life—then, above all, especially as we approach March, when the Ahrimanic beings are at work down below, something else emerges. That is when the elemental beings ascend; whatever is purely spiritual within the Earth—whatever is non-material but expresses itself in the material world—is transported upward into the region where there is mist, air, and warmth. And there, everything that now takes place within the active elemental beings is, in turn, permeated from above by the Luciferic beings. Just as the Ahrimanic beings below experience their hopes and go through their illusions, so too do the Luciferic beings above experience their hopes and go through their illusions.

[ 10 ] If we examine the nature of the Ahrimanic beings more closely, we find that it is actually ethereal. And the Ahrimanic beings—who are, in fact, the beings overthrown by Michael—lack the ability to develop in such a way that they could gain dominion over the Earth by any means other than through lime that has become alive and desirous.

[ 11 ] The Luciferic beings up there permeate and infuse that which has been drawn upward and is now becoming active in the upper elements of the Earth. They infuse it, and these Luciferic beings are, in fact, of a purely astral nature. They now harbor the hope that, through everything that begins to strive upward in the spring, they will be able to impose their astral nature upon the etheric nature and bring forth an etheric sheath for the Earth—one that could then be inhabited by themselves.

[ 12 ] One can therefore say: The Ahrimanic beings strive to animate the Earth astral-ly (Plate III, reddish); the Luciferic beings strive to absorb the etheric from above into their being (blue with yellow).

[ 13 ] When plants begin to sprout in the spring, they assimilate carbon dioxide—they take in carbon dioxide. And this carbon dioxide is something that—because the plant cover is there—acts, so to speak, in a higher region in spring than in winter; it rises upward, the carbon dioxide, namely into the region that is the realm of the plants. So when plants begin to sprout in spring, this carbon dioxide is drawn to the Luciferic beings. And while the Ahrimanic beings strive for a kind of astral rain to animate the living lime as well, the Luciferic beings strive for an elevation of carbon dioxide, a kind of evaporation of carbon dioxide upward from the earth (see Plate III, blue). If they were to succeed in this, breathing on Earth would have to cease, and they would draw upward everything that the human being possesses apart from physical breath—his etheric body—and through their connection with the human etheric, they would be enabled to become etheric beings, whereas at present they are merely astral beings. So that—with the destruction of what is human and animal down below—there would be a shell of etheric angelic beings up above. This, in turn, is something that the Luciferic spirits strive for and hope to achieve when March—specifically, the end of March—arrives. They hope to transform the entire Earth into such a fine earthly shell in which they, condensed by the etheric nature of human beings, can carry on their existence.

[ 14 ] If the Ahrimanic beings were to see their hopes fulfilled, then all of humanity would gradually dissolve into the Earth. The Earth would absorb humanity. Ultimately, a great being would emerge from the Earth—this is also Ahriman’s intention—in which all human beings would, so to speak, be dissolved. They would be united with this great, unified Earth being. But the transition to this oneness with the Earth being would consist in the human being’s entire organism becoming more and more like living lime. They would combine living lime with their organism and become increasingly calcified. Through this process, they would undergo a metamorphosis, transforming their form into one that would then look entirely different—something like this: a sclerotized form with a sort of bat-like wings and this head (see Plate IV). This form would be capable of gradually dissolving into the earthly realm, so that the earthly realm would then, in an Ahrimanic sense, become an earthly-living being as a whole.

[ 15 ] If, on the other hand, the Luciferic beings were to draw upon the human etheric body and thereby, in a sense, condense themselves from their astral nature into the etheric, then something would arise from them in an etheric way that would, more or less, lack the lower parts of the human organism, but which would also have altered the upper parts; which, for example, would consist above all of a body formed as if from earth vapor (Plate TV, blue), but one that would be developed only as far as the chest, and in place of that would have a human head elevated to the ideal (red). But now comes the peculiar feature: this being would have wings, wings that seem to have been born out of clouds (yellow). These wings would converge forward into a sort of enlarged larynx; on the sides, they would converge here into ear organs, organs of hearing, which in turn are connected to the larynx.

[ 16 ] As you can see, I have attempted to depict what is forming down there in the form of Ahriman—who was depicted artistically over there in the dome and has now been sculpted in the wooden group—as well as what, in the Luciferic realm, would form from earth’s vapors and billowing clouds into a Luciferic figure, were it able to absorb the etheric essence of the Earth.

[ 17 ] Thus, however, the two extremes of the human being are inscribed into earthly life itself: the one extreme of the human, which is what a human being would become if, so to speak, under the influence of Ahriman, he were to absorb the living lime and thereby gradually become one with the Earth, dissolving into the entire living, sentient Earth being—that is the one extreme. The other extreme is what a human being would become if the Luciferic beings were to succeed in carrying out their plan—namely, to cause a mist of carbon dioxide to rise from below, so that breathing would cease, causing human beings to disappear as physical humanity, while their etheric bodies would unite with that which exists above as an astral, Luciferic angelic being.

[ 18 ] Once again, one might say: These are hopes; these are illusions created by the Luciferic beings. — Anyone who casts a clairvoyant gaze out into the vastness of the worlds does not, as the Shakespearean play puts it, see one moment a camel, or something else in the passing clouds, but rather, when March comes, sees in the passing clouds the dynamically striving forces of the Luciferic angels, who seek to create a Luciferic shell around the earthly realm, one that aims to remove the human race from the Earth. Humanity hovers between these two extremes. This is what both the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic beings want: to wipe out humanity as it exists today.

[ 19 ] Within the life of the Earth, however, these various influences do manifest themselves. Once again, it is true that what the Luciferic beings hope for is destroyed anew each year in the external natural world; but it takes effect within the human being. And around springtime, just as human beings are strongly exposed to the Ahrimanic forces on the one hand, they are also increasingly—and this continues throughout the summer—exposed to the Luciferic beings.

[ 20 ] Now, however, for human beings as they are today, the situation is this: In human life, this manifests in such a way that it is very subtle—only those with a spiritually sensitive nature who can truly experience what happens in the cosmos over the course of the year are able to perceive it. But in earlier times—even as late as the Late Atlantean period—this had great significance. In earlier periods of Earth’s development, for example, human reproduction was tied to the cycle of the year. Conception could only take place in the spring—every spring—when the forces became as active as I have just described to you, and births could only take place toward the end of the year. In that way, life on Earth was connected in a positive way to human life.

[ 21 ] It is now a principle of the Luciferic beings to set everything on Earth free, and among the earthly, more sensual realities that have now been set free by the Luciferic beings is precisely the emancipation of conception and birth. The fact that a human being can be born at any time of year was brought about in earlier times by this Luciferic force that tears human beings away from the earth. This is, so to speak, inherent in the freedom of the human race to be born at any time of the year. The Luciferic forces are truly at work here. I will speak next time about influences that are still at work today. But I wanted to describe to you these influences, which I have just characterized, so that you can see how, in earlier times, what the Luciferic beings strove for was actually fulfilled to a certain degree and still remains a possibility today—that a human being can be born at any time of the year. For otherwise, human beings would be born only in winter.

[ 22 ] In contrast, the Ahrimanic forces use all the power at their disposal to bring human beings back into harmony with the Earth. And while the Luciferic beings exerted this great influence during an earlier phase of Earth’s history, the Ahrimanic beings now actually have the prospect of achieving, at least in part, what they desire—namely, to bind human beings to the Earth by fusing their very mindset and outlook with the earthly realm. They want to make him a complete materialist in every respect; they want human beings to be capable of nothing other than what the food they have digested produces in terms of intellectual power, emotional power, and so on. And this influence of the Ahrimanic beings is making itself felt particularly in our age and will become stronger and stronger.

[ 23 ] So when we go back to the turn of the ages, we arrive at what the Luciferic beings once achieved and left behind. If we shift our perspective to the time after the end of the Earth, the threat facing humanity is that the Ahrimanic beings—since they cannot dissolve human beings into the Earth—will at least cause them to harden within themselves, to become philistine, to become materialistic, so that they actually think and feel nothing more than what the substances within them automatically think and feel.

[ 24 ] The Luciferic beings achieved their—I would say—nature-liberating effect with regard to the things I have described at a time when human beings themselves did not yet possess freedom. Freedom did not arise through a decision by human beings or in an abstract way, as is usually described, but rather through the fact that such natural phenomena—such as the distribution of births—became free within human life. From these natural phenomena, the reign of freedom, so to speak, then arose. Even in ancient times, it was very clearly evident that human beings could bring their offspring into the world at any time of year, and this imbued them, both emotionally and spiritually, with a sense of freedom. That is how things are. They are far more connected to the cosmos than people usually imagine.

[ 25 ] But now that humanity has advanced into freedom, it is precisely under the influence of this freedom that it must eliminate this threat—that Ahriman chains it to earthly conditions. This threat stands before humanity as a prospect for the future. And there we see how something objective has come to pass in the development of the Earth: the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 26 ] The Mystery of Golgotha did not occur merely as a one-time event. It was indeed necessary for it to take place as a one-time event in the course of earthly history, but this event—this Mystery of Golgotha—is renewed for humanity in a certain way every year. Whoever develops a sense of how, up above, the Luciferic force seeks to suffocate physical humanity in carbon dioxide vapor, and how, down below, the Ahrimanic force seeks to animate the entire Earth—in its limestone masses—through astral rain in such a way that human beings initially become sclerotic and dissolve within it—whoever sees through this, for that person the figure of Christ arises between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic, the figure of Christ freeing himself from matter, who has Ahriman at his feet, emerging from the Ahrimanic, disregarding the Ahrimanic, overcoming it, as has been depicted here in a painterly and sculptural manner. And he sees this Christ as he overcomes, on the other side, that which seeks to pull the upper part of the human being away from the Earth. The head of that figure who triumphs over Ahriman appears; the head of Christ appears with such a physiognomy, such a gaze, and such a facial expression that this gaze and this facial expression have been wrested from the dissipating forces of Lucifer. The Luciferic power drawn into the earthly realm, placed within the earthly realm—that is the figure of Christ as he appears every year in spring, as we must imagine him: Standing upon the earthly realm that is to be transformed into the Ahrimanic, triumphing over death, rising from the grave, ascending as the Risen One toward transfiguration—the transfiguration that comes about through the transposition of the Luciferic into the earthly beauty of the Christ-face.

[ 27 ] And so, between the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic, Christ—appearing before our eyes in his resurrected form—emerges as the Easter apparition, the Easter apparition that stands before humanity in this way; the risen Christ, with Luciferic forces hovering above him and Ahrimanic forces grounding him below.

[ 28 ] This world-image presents itself as the Easter image, just as the Virgin and Child present themselves as the Christmas image—the midwinter image—within the cycle of the year, and just as the Michael image, as I described it to you the day before yesterday, presents itself as the late-September image. Thus you can see at the same time how justified it was to shape the image of Christ as it was shaped here among us, for it is born out of the cosmic unfolding within the course of the year. There is nothing arbitrary about it. Every glance, every feature of the face, every flowing fold in the robe is to be understood in such a way that the image of Christ image stands between the image of Lucifer and the image of Ahriman as that which is to work within the human being during Earth’s evolution—so that the human being may be snatched away from the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces precisely at the time when he is most susceptible to them: during Easter, during the spring season.

[ 29 ] Once again, we see from this very image of Christ that nothing can be created arbitrarily in the sense that is so popular in art today. Precisely when a person wishes to develop complete freedom in their artistic work, they do not bind themselves slavishly—in an Ahrimanic manner—to material and model; rather, they rise freely to spiritual heights and, from those spiritual heights, freely create what can be freely created there, because it is precisely in spiritual heights that freedom can reign.

[ 30 ] Then it will be that, out of a bluish-violet mist, he creates what is a kind of chest formation of the Luciferic, that, emerging reddish as if from cloud formations, he creates what constitutes the wing, larynx, and ear structures—so that the wing-larynx-ear structure, formed as if from clouds, may simultaneously appear in its full reality as a pictorial representation of what these beings are astral beings, and what they threaten to become etheric beings (see Plate IV for this and the following).

[ 31 ] For if you vividly imagine these wings of Lucifer—active in the astral realm and striving toward the etheric—you will find that, because they are groping, these wings, as they feel their way through the vastness of the worlds and work their way through the vastness of the worlds, sense all the mysteries of power in the universe. In the Luciferic realm, there is a wandering, a moving about in waves, so that these wings, in their wave-like formations, sense everything that exists in the universe in terms of mysterious, spiritual wave effects. And what is sensed in these waves passes through the ear formation into the inner being of the Luciferic being, where it continues. Through its ear structures, the Luciferic being comprehends what it perceives through its wings, and through the associated larynx, this becomes the creative word that dwells in the forms of the living and lives on.

[ 32 ] So when you look at such a Luciferic being with its yellowish-reddish wing-ear-larynx formations, you see in it that which acts in the universe—palpating the mysteries of the universe through the wings, experiencing these mysteries of the universe through the ear-like structures that continue to work inward, and expressing these mysteries of the universe in creative speech through the larynx, which is connected to the wings and ears as an organic whole.

[ 33 ] Just as Lucifer was depicted pictorially at the top of the dome, so he will be depicted sculpturally in the sculptural group that is to form the center of our Goetheanum. And so, in a certain sense, the mystery of Easter is to stand precisely at this center of the Goetheanum. But some form of supplementation will still be necessary when one grasps the whole matter. For everything that can be perceived there as the threatening Luciferic, as the threatening Ahrimanic—that is, after all, the inner essence of the forces of nature; that is what the forces of nature tend toward in the spring as summer approaches, and to which the healing principle radiating from Christ stands in healthy opposition. But one will gain a living sense of all this when, after the whole has taken on an architectural and sculptural form and what I have described stands there in architecture and sculpture, when in the future the opportunity can once again be created to present a living, dramatic performance before this sculptural work, specifically at Easter time—a living, dramatic performance in which there would be, in particular, two main characters: humanity and Raphael. It would have to unfold as a kind of mystery play right within this sculpture and within this architecture—a mystery play with humanity and Raphael as the main characters, Raphael with the caduceus, Raphael with everything associated with the caduceus. In the living-artistic realm, everything—absolutely everything—is demanding, and there is, in essence, no sculpture and no architecture that, if it contains cosmic truth within itself, would not demand that which happens artistically within a space that possesses this architecture, this sculpture. And at Easter, this architecture, this sculpture, would call for a mystery play: the human being, instructed by Raphael, learning to what extent the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces make people sick, and to what extent one can be guided by the power of Raphael to perceive and recognize the healing principle—the great world therapy—that lives in the Christ principle. And if all of this could be fully realized—for the Goetheanum was designed for precisely this purpose—then, among many other things, it would mean that everything that can flow into human beings from the Ahrimanic and Luciferic mysteries would experience a certain culmination precisely at Easter time.

[ 34 ] When one learns to recognize the Ahrimanic principle as it works in the lime that comes to life in the spring, striving eagerly to absorb the cosmic astral, then one learns to recognize the healing powers in everything that is salt-like. This difference is not expressed in the gross effects; it is expressed in the healing effects. One learns, for example, about the healing effects of all salt deposits by studying this weaving and life of the Ahrimanic in the Earth’s salt deposits. For that which—we will go into this in more detail in the next lecture—becomes Ahrimanized during one season is in turn transformed into healing power during another season. And when one then understands what mysteriously takes place within natural products and natural beings, one learns to recognize their therapeutic power. And the same is true of the Luciferic. One learns to recognize what is at work in evaporating substances—which strive upward as they evaporate—and specifically what acts as healing forces from that which is active in carbonic acid. For just as I was able to tell you that there is actually something mercurial in all water, so too is there something sulfuric and phosphoric in everything that is carbonic acid.

[ 35 ] There is no such thing as carbon dioxide, which, as the chemist says, consists merely of one atom of carbon and two atoms of oxygen; this carbon dioxide does not exist. In everything we ourselves produce as carbon dioxide in our exhaled air, there are elements of phosphorus and sulfur. This carbon dioxide, CO₂, one atom of carbon, two atoms of oxygen—that is merely an abstraction; it is something that arises in human beings as a construct of the intellect. In reality, there is no carbon dioxide that does not—if I may put it this way—contain phosphorous and sulfurous elements in an extraordinarily dilute form. And it is this phosphorous and sulfurous substance—this rising vapor—that the Luciferic beings actually strive for. And in turn, in this peculiar balance that exists between the sulfurous substance, which becomes astral, and the lime, which comes to life, those forces are then manifested in which we can recognize the healing effects.

[ 36 ] And so, for example, among the many other elements linked to the mystery of Easter, this mystery play during the Easter season—precisely because it follows on from, and stands before, that which has been rendered in sculpture and painting — what has been handed down over the course of the year to those who wish to hear it, in terms of modes of healing, would find its culmination in a way that could be thoroughly immediate, vivid, and artistically-religious. It could indeed be crowned by being, as it were, placed within the entire course of the cosmos, within the cycle of the year, and the Easter liturgy would contain something that could be expressed in these words: The Savior of the worlds is felt—the one who, as Savior, sought to lift the great evil of the earth—he is felt. For he was, as I have often described, the great “healer of human evolution.” This is sensed, and offerings are made to him with all the wisdom one can muster regarding healing effects. This would be woven into the mystery of Easter, into the Easter ritual, in that this very Easter ritual would in fact be performed and observed in such a way that it would fit quite naturally into the course of the year.

[ 37 ] At first—and we will touch on other things as well—regarding what presents itself to people as a powerful imagination during the Michaelmas season and the Christmas season, I could only present these images to you. But when it comes to what presents itself as an imagination in relation to the mystery of Easter—where, so to speak, the higher spiritual life emerges in contrast to the natural spiritual forces, as it can develop in the presence of Christ—in that context, I was able to show you how it can lead directly to worship in the earthly realm, and how it can also embrace that which must be nurtured and cultivated in the earthly realm: the restorative, healing forces, and the recognition of what can destroy the human organism—what can destroy it in an Ahrimanic way, what can destroy it in a Luciferic way. Ahriman hardens the human being; Lucifer seeks to dissolve and disperse him through breathing. In all of this lie the forces that cause illness and disease.

[ 38 ] Everything that—I would say—is learned under the influence of the great master Raphael, who in Christian terminology is actually Mercury, the one who, in Christian tradition, carries the caduceus, everything that can be learned in this field under the great teacher Raphael can only attain its worthy culmination by being incorporated into the Easter cult, which can still encompass much more, as I will explain to you in a subsequent reflection.