The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eleventh Lecture

[ 1 ] From what I had to say yesterday, it may become clear when I say of Aristotle—the synthesizer of all knowledge and all insight in antiquity during the fourth century B.C.—that, although he essentially only allowed a kind of logical system to flow through Central Europe, he nevertheless stood on the foundation of the Greek—and indeed the entire—mystery tradition of that time. Indeed, one must even say that anyone capable of absorbing such things as worldviews not merely with the intellect but also with the heart can sense from Aristotle’s logical expositions that a certain intimate connection with the mysteries of nature also underlies Aristotelian logic and philosophy. It was simply more a matter of Aristotle’s destiny to spread a logical system throughout Europe than, if I may put it this way, his own course of development. For, after all—and one can certainly say this to illustrate the peculiar fact at hand—it would perhaps have been unthinkable for Plato to have become Alexander’s teacher, whereas Aristotle was able to do so.

[ 2 ] In his own way, Plato certainly merely continued the ancient mysteries in a more ideal form. But it was precisely through his idealism that he became the figure who led people further away from the mysteries of nature, while Aristotle, in turn, led them back to them—as you can already see from my very brief descriptions in my Riddles of Philosophy. But one can only truly grasp the full picture when one can form a conception of what the seven years of instruction that Aristotle gave to Alexander actually entailed in terms of content. I will briefly summarize what, drawn from the ancient mystery traditions, constituted the content of this instruction.

[ 3 ] Indeed, if one spoke of nature in a meaningful way at all in those ancient times, it was not in the sense that modern natural science understands it: merely earthly phenomena, from which one then draws superficial conclusions about extraterrestrial celestial phenomena; but rather, one linked human beings to nature in the broadest possible sense, and this was only possible if one also sought the spirit within nature, for in those ancient times it was simply unthinkable to regard human beings as soulless and spiritless. And so, in the mystery teachings on nature, the aim was always to extend nature far out into the cosmic realm—as far as the cosmos could be accessible to human beings through their kinship with it.

[ 4 ] Well, all teaching—all teaching taken seriously in those ancient times—was not, after all, an appeal to human reason or to man’s capacity for external observation. What we today understand as knowledge did not actually play a significant role in those earlier times, not even in Aristotle’s day. And if the historians of the various sciences today wish to present their own scientific thinking, they should really begin with Copernicus or Galileo; for whatever they retroactively tack on to that is by no means accurate. And if they go as far back as Greek scholarship, what they present is pure fantasy: it is a kind of extension of the present into earlier times, which, however, never actually existed. For even in Aristotle’s time, and by Aristotle himself, any instruction that was taken seriously was imparted in such a way that it was linked to a transformation of the whole of human nature—an appeal not only to human thought and observation, but to the entirety of human life. Through knowledge, a person was meant to become a different being than he or she was without that knowledge. That was, after all, the essential point of the Mysteries: that through knowledge, a person would become a completely different being than he or she had been before. And precisely in Aristotle’s time, this transformation of the human being was sought above all by allowing two polar, mutually opposed sensations to act upon the human soul.

[ 5 ] People were urged—those who were to be taught, who were to gradually come to knowledge and understanding—to empathize in a truly human way with their natural surroundings. “Look,” they would say, for example, “you breathe the air, but you breathe air that is warm in summer and cold in winter. You breathe the air in such a way that you can perceive your own breath as vapor or mist in winter. It becomes invisible when you breathe warm air in summer.”

[ 6 ] And this phenomenon was taken as a starting point. At first, one did not approach nature by saying, for example: “Look, a body has this or that temperature; I heat it in a retort, and it undergoes this or that change.” No, one began with the human being—with the human being as he feels within himself in that context that constitutes the process of breathing. And gradually, on the one hand, people were led to feel and sense the warmed air: Imagine exactly what that means—warmed air. It wants to rise, and as the warmed air approaches you, you must feel that something actually wants to carry you out into the vastness. And in contrast, feel the cold water—cold water in any form; just feel it. You don’t really feel at home in it. In the warm air, you feel at home—so at home that the warm air wants to carry you out into the vastness of the cosmos. In the cold water, you feel like a stranger, not at home. But you feel that when you step away from the cold water, and when you let the cold water do whatever it wants outside of you: then this fact becomes something for you; then, when you let the cold water do whatever it wants outside of you, it itself creates, for example, the snowflakes that fall to the earth. Outside the snowflakes, observing the snowflakes, you feel you are in your rightful place. You can really only feel the warm air within yourself, and you want to let the upward-rising warm air carry you into the vastness of the universe. You can really only feel the cold water outside yourself, and—so that you may have a connection with it—you actually want to observe its effects through your senses.

[ 7 ] These were the two polar opposites that people were led to consider at that time: to realize that “outside and inside the human being” is actually an empty expression. “Outside” and “inside” do not really mean anything specific. What does mean a great deal is: warm airiness, cold wateriness. These are opposites through which human beings are placed in the world in accordance with their innermost being. For “outside” is only such insofar as it is cold and damp; “inside” is only such insofar as it is warm and airy. This contrast was felt qualitatively, as was the human being’s placement within the world.

[ 8 ] Then people no longer spoke of things; instead, they spoke of human beings themselves. They spoke of how the warm and airy leads to the gods—to the gods in the heights—and how the cold and damp leads to the subterranean demons. But the journey to the subterranean demons is simultaneously linked to an understanding of nature. One need only bring down into the lower regions what one has explored and experienced through the warm air in the heights, so that the lower realms cannot harm one. And if one then approached nature with this inner sense of the contrast between the warm and the cold and damp—if one approached nature with this experience—then, through further experience of natural objects and processes, one could look deeply into the very essence of the universe as a whole.

[ 9 ] Today, the chemist studies hydrogen and, based on his investigations, attributes certain properties to it. Then he observes outer space, sees something there that exhibits the same properties as hydrogen in the laboratory, and concludes that hydrogen also exists in the vastness of space. Such a line of reasoning would have been considered sheer folly even in Aristotle’s time. But back then, people took a different approach.

[ 10 ] Once the inner experience had been deepened by what I have just described, the student was then guided to observe what truly lives within the blossoming flower as it opens out into the vastness of the world. Knowledge of plants—that was what the student was guided toward: knowledge of plants. Look into the opening corolla of the flower; observe how what radiates out toward the vastness of the world makes an impression on you.

[ 11 ] And as the student gazed upon the blooming flowers with those profound feelings I have spoken to you about, an inner realization, an inner enlightenment dawned upon him. The flowers out there on Earth became to him heralds of the world’s mysteries in the vast expanses. The flowers spoke to him of the vastness of the world. And in a compelling yet only suggestive way, the teacher guided the student to discover within himself this mystery that flows from the vastness of the world into the being of the flower. And so, little by little, the student was led, in response to the teacher’s question: “What do you actually perceive when you look into the opening calyx, into the opening corolla, where the stamens emerge and shine out toward you—what do you actually perceive?” — the student was led to say: “The plants tell me that they are actually compelled by the heavy, cold earth to take their place on the earth, but that they did not actually come from the solid earth, rather they have merely been anchored within it; that they are, in truth, water-born beings, and in this vitality of theirs as water-born beings, in the pre-experienced state of earthly existence—I mean the state described in my Occult Science, the lunar state—they have had their true, authentic existence.” You see, the student was led to say: “What are actually the mysteries of the Moon—which emerged from the Earth and still preserves something of the pre-earthly lunar state—is reflected back to me by the flowers.” For the flowers did not tell the student the same thing every night. When the Moon was in Leo, the flowers said something different than when the Moon was in Virgo or in Scorpio. For the flowers on Earth recounted what the Moon experienced as it circled through the zodiac. The flowers on Earth spoke of the mysteries of the universe out there. It was truly the case that, through what was brought to him, the student spoke from the depths of his heart:

I gaze at the flowers;
They reveal their kinship with the moon;
They are now bound to the earth, for they were born of water.

[ 12 ] The student could sense this because he had previously been introduced to what the cooling water gave him. He had experienced it, and through that experience, he came to this realization when he saw the flower.

[ 13 ] And once the student had become sufficiently familiar with the mystery of the moon, as revealed by the plants sprouting from the earth, he was then introduced to the metals of the earth—the primary metals: lead, tin, iron, gold, copper, mercury, and silver—as I demonstrated to you yesterday in a different context. And if he possessed such a deeply attuned sensory life as I have just described, then it was precisely through the metals—by familiarizing himself with what they mysteriously revealed to him—that he came to know the secrets of the entire planetary system. For lead enlightened him about Saturn, tin about Jupiter, iron about Mars, gold about the Sun, copper about Venus, mercury about Mercury, and silver about the Moon—insofar as the Moon is not merely closely related to the Earth but is also a part of the entire universe. And just as the student revealed the secret of the flowers to himself, so he revealed the secret of the metals to himself. Thus, the first was the secret of the plants, and the second was the secret of the metals.

[ 14 ] This secret of metals, which was revealed in the Eleusinian Mysteries through the mighty planiglobe of the male statue I described to you yesterday, was woven into the teachings even in Aristotle’s time, and through this secret of metals, the mystery of the planets was unveiled. People’s perceptions were not as crude as they are today; when approaching the metal lead, they sensed that lead did not merely appear to the eye as a lead-gray color, but that this lead-gray made a peculiar impression on the inner eye. In a certain sense, this lead-gray of the fresh lead metal extinguished the other colors, and one felt oneself moving in harmony with the lead-gray metallic quality. One entered a certain state of consciousness and experienced something entirely different from the present. One truly entered a mood as if the entire prehistory of the Earth were unfolding before one, as the present was dimmed by the lead-gray. The nature of Saturn revealed itself.

[ 15 ] When it comes to gold, based on external analogies, it is assumed that the ancients saw gold as a representation of the sun. It was truly not merely a superficial play on analogies that the sun was regarded as something valuable in the sky and gold as something valuable on earth. After all, when it comes to dismissing the ‘ancients’ as foolish, nothing is too silly for modern people. If one looked at gold in its self-contained, brilliant yellow color—with its outward modesty and pride—one did indeed feel something that initially seemed akin to the entire human blood circulation. One felt this in relation to the quality of gold: there you are within it, there you feel at home. And through this sensation, one came to understand the nature of the solar. One felt the kinship between the quality of gold and that which the sun brings to bear in human blood.

[ 16 ] And so, through the individual metals, the entire planetary system was perceived. And the student came to apply this way of thinking about things—which cannot be conceived of as abstractly as today’s thinking—in the following manner:

I am thinking about the metals; tea
They reveal their connection to the planets;
They are earth-bound, for they are born of air.

[ 17 ] In fact, the metals, as they exist in the Earth today, came from the cosmos in gaseous form and gradually became liquid only during the Moon phase. They arrived in gaseous form when the Earth was in its ancient solar state, attained a liquid form during the Lunar Era, and were transformed into a solid form by the Earth’s influence precisely during the Earth Era. That was the second mystery revealed to the student.

[ 18 ] The third mystery was meant to become clear to the student as he learned to observe how people and peoples differ across the earth. Go to warm Africa with its distinctive climate, and you will find that people there differ from the people of Greece even in their outward appearance, based on skin color. Go over to Asia, and again you will find people who are different. And the Greeks certainly had a keen sense of the outward differences among people.

[ 19 ] One of the most interesting works by Aristotle that has survived to this day is his treatise on physiognomy, which, however, was not limited to facial physiognomy, but studied the physiognomy of the entire human being with the “claim that through this one can come to know the true nature of man—how a person’s hair was curly or straight, depending on the various climates in which he lived, and how he changed not only his skin color but the entire expression of his human nature, depending on whether he was born under this or that climate.

[ 20 ] Just as one learned about the reflection of the mystery of the moon in flowers, and the reflection of the planets in metals, so too did one come to know the true mystery of humanity on Earth through this third lesson. And in this regard, the natural sciences of that time made an extraordinary contribution to allowing the diversity of human nature on Earth to take effect and to arriving at an answer to the question: What primordial form of humanity actually underlies the intentions of the gods?

[ 21 ] And it was through the forms, through the physiognomy of human beings across the earth—as it was presented, vividly presented—that the mystery of the zodiac first dawned on the student inwardly. For just as this zodiac influences the elements of the Earth, and just as this zodiac—in conjunction with the planetary system and the Moon—drives the winds in one direction during one season and in another direction during another season, sometimes bringing warm air over a region, sometimes sweeping cold showers across a region, and thereby profoundly affecting human life, the natural scientists of that time sought the origins of these phenomena in the influences radiating toward the Earth from the stars of the zodiac, modified by the planets, the Sun, and the Moon.

[ 22 ] And it was of particular interest to the natural history of that time to say: Here is a person—with black, curly hair, a ruddy complexion, a nose of such-and-such a shape, and so on: this is a person who reminds me of the sign of Leo, just as the lion radiated its powers, weakened or strengthened by the other planets, depending on whether they were in this or that position. This is a person who, inwardly, according to his karma, bears these or those qualities in his liver. Such a quality in the liver—which, for example, introduces a touch of melancholy into the soul life—was brought about by the fact that, at a certain point in time, Venus entered into a certain relationship with Jupiter, and this gave the lion’s radiance a certain character. I see this cosmic predetermination, this cosmic destiny of the human being, in the particular nature of the temperament in connection with the nature of the liver. I extend this to the qualities of the peoples of the Earth. I see the mystery of the zodiac in what human beings experience in unison with their atmospheric surroundings.

[ 23 ] And as the student was thus introduced to the subject, a realization arose once again in his heart, which he expressed in roughly the following words:

I experience the mysteries of the zodiac, Plate 18, in the diversity of humankind;
The kinship between this diversity of humankind and the fixed stars stands before my soul;
For humankind lives, with this diversity, Plate 19, bound to the earth; they are born of warmth.

[ 24 ] Those born from the heat-ether, from the heat-ether under the influence of the signs of the zodiac: they are those born of heat. Thus, in his physiognomy, man felt himself to be the heat-born being, who had merely been transformed during his lunar existence and his earthly existence, yet had acquired his original disposition in the ancient Saturn era—just as he perceived the metallic nature of the earth as sun-born and air-born, and the floral and plant-like qualities as moon-born and water-born. He was able to perceive things this way because he had been prepared for it by, so to speak, touching things with the sensations that had been aroused within him for the warm-airy and the cold-watery.

[ 25 ] People were observed in such a way that one got the impression: they affect the warm-airy aspect in a certain mixture with the cold-watery aspect; in Aristotle’s time, people were observed by examining their physiognomy, so as to answer the question: how much of the warm-air element does this person give, and how much of the cold-water element does he take? With what had been developed in this way within the soul, people looked at human beings, and gradually learned to view all of nature in this way. This became the preparation for what then came over from Africa to Spain and spread across parts of Central Europe as the ancient alchemy, the true alchemy: to view everything in nature, in the world—every flower, every animal, but also every cloud, every misty formation, sand and stones, sea and river, forest and meadow—in the way they make an impression in terms of warmth and cold dampness.

[ 26 ] And so, with regard to nature, a refined sense for four qualities developed. It formed as one perceived the warm air—the sensation of warmth—but at the same time, in relation to the air, just as warmth was associated with airiness. And through the cold, a sense of the moist and the dry developed. For these distinctions, for these differentiations, one acquired a refined sense of perception, for one stood with one’s whole being within what the world offered, through these sensory faculties.

[ 27 ] From the perspective now held by Aristotle’s student, Alexander the Great, it was only natural to first understand the entire region in which the two lived from this perspective. And when Alexander was imbued with what arose precisely from such a sensibility, he actually perceived the entire Greek essence—as it manifested itself in Macedonia—in terms of the two qualities of the moist and the airy, and this shaped his disposition during a certain period of his life. And what he perceived—I would say through a special kind of initiation he had received from Aristotle—as the fundamental character of the immediate world he experienced, he regarded as only half the picture. “This can only be half the world,” he told himself. — You see, during this period, everything natural was brought very close to human beings, so that people actually experienced this natural aspect, and from this natural aspect the following teaching could now be derived:

[ 28 ] Here, the wind was blowing from the northwest; if this were, say, Macedonia, the wind would be blowing from the southwest, the northeast, or the southeast.

[ 29 ] Well, Aristotle’s student, Alexander, had learned to perceive this on his own, specifically through what the climatic influences—the winds blowing from the northwest—brought: the cold and damp; and through what was carried from the southwest: the warm and damp. That constituted half of his perception of the world. In his studies, this was supplemented, and it dawned on him inwardly that the following also belonged to this picture: what blew from the northeast radiated dry cold, and what flowed from the southeast, dry warmth. Thus, from the four cardinal directions, he had come to know the sensations of dry cold, dry warmth, warm dampness, and cold dampness. As a true man of his time, he wanted to reconcile these opposites: Here in Macedonia, one experiences only the cold-damp and the warm-damp; these must be united with the cold-dry, with the fiery-dry, with what blows over from the north of Asia, and with what blows over from the south of Asia through Asia.

[ 30 ] This gave rise to that irresistible attraction to Asian features. And this example should show you that things were different back then than they were later on. Think of a prince’s education today—what is taught there; imagine such a prince being trained for military campaigns. Try to grasp how much connection there is between the physics lessons that a prince’s tutor teaches someone and what is then experienced on a military campaign: what a relationship there is! What is done on military campaigns does not, as a rule, emerge from the test tubes. — In such examples you can see particularly clearly how far removed what is known today—what is meant to be imparted to a person to shape their inner being—is from what a person is in their outer life. Here you have a time when, precisely out of this knowledge, a complete unity could be sought between what shapes and forms a person inwardly and what determines how they stand in the world and how they act and behave within it. Ancient history already emerges from the schoolroom. But the schoolroom was, in fact, related to the mysteries, mysterious in nature, and the Mystery signified the world, and the world arose as the result of the forces present within the Mystery. This provided the impulse to carry what was ancient natural science over to Asia. In a form that had been sifted through many times, it came through Europe via Spain. One can still discern it in what Paracelsus expressed, what Jakob Böhme and Gichtel expressed, and what the various individuals expressed who, in turn, drew upon the ideas of figures such as Basilius Valentinus. But at first, what was immersed in mere thought, what was immersed in mere logic, was to prevail, and the rest was to wait.

[ 31 ] But today is the time when this “other” has fulfilled its task of waiting, when it must be rediscovered as the sum of our knowledge of nature. Alexander first had to, in a sense, bury these mysteries of nature over in Asia, for only their remains were brought back to Europe. But it is not these remains that should be revived; rather, the vital essence that is inherently its own must be rediscovered today. The necessary enthusiasm for this, of course, can essentially arise only if there is also a warm feeling for what once existed at the turn of the ages, and if one develops a living sense that Alexander’s campaigns—which outwardly appeared to be conquests—were in fact journeys from one side of the compass rose to the other, that they set out to unravel the other half of what could only be half the earth. And it was certainly also a quest for a personal experience. This personal experience consisted precisely in the fact that there was a certain inner dissatisfaction and unease in an environment of mere cold-dampness and damp-warmth, and that the other sensation was meant to complement it.

[ 32 ] To what extent this also had great historical significance—in the most eminent sense—for the development of the entire Western world is something I will have to explore in the lectures to be held in the near future during the Delegates’ Assembly on the occult foundation of human historical life on Earth.

I. The Secret of Plants

I gaze at the flowers;
They reveal their kinship with the moon;
They are now bound to the earth, for they were born of water.

II. The Secret of Metal

I reflect on the metals;
They reveal their kinship with the planets;
They are bound to the earth, for they are born of the air.

III. The Mystery of Humanity

I experience the mysteries of the zodiac in the diversity of human beings;
The kinship between this diversity of human beings and the fixed stars stands before my soul;
For human beings live with this diversity, bound to the earth; they are born of warmth.