The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Thirteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] The mystery traditions of various eras were spread across different regions of the Earth in manifold forms, as I said yesterday. Each region had a particular form of the mystery tradition, depending on its population and the other conditions characteristic of the specific area in question. But then came a time of extraordinary importance for the entire mystery tradition. This is the period that began for the development of the Earth several centuries after the founding of Christianity.

[ 2 ] As you can see from my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact, what happened on Golgotha, in a certain sense, sums up everything that was scattered across the earth in the most diverse mysteries. But the Mystery of Golgotha differed from all the other mysteries I have described to you, in that it stands, so to speak, on the stage of history before the whole world, whereas the older mysteries actually took place in the twilight of the temple’s interior, and from that twilight of the temple’s interior sent their impulses out into the world.

[ 3 ] When we look at the Eastern mysteries—the mysteries I have described to you as the Near Eastern Ephesian mysteries—when we look at the Greek mysteries, whether the Chthonic or the Eleusinian, when we look at the mysteries I mentioned yesterday, the Samothracian mysteries, or finally, when we turn to the mysteries I have characterized as the Hybernian Mysteries—everywhere we see how, in the twilight of the temple’s interior, the true mystery unfolds and then sends out its impulses into the world. Whoever truly comprehends the Mystery of Golgotha—for one has not comprehended it merely by knowing the historical accounts that have been preserved about it—has thereby also comprehended the mysteries that preceded it.

[ 4 ] These mysteries, which preceded the Mystery of Golgotha and culminated in it, all had a distinctive quality in terms of their emotional impact. Much that was tragic took place within the mysteries. And whoever attained initiation into the mysteries had to endure suffering and pain. Well, I have described this on numerous occasions. But on the whole, one can still say that up until the Mystery of Golgotha, the one who had to undergo an initiation—who was made aware in advance that he would have to endure the most varied trials, sufferings, and pains, and go through tragic experiences—would nevertheless have said: “I will pass through all the fires of the world, for this leads into that region of light within the spirit where one beholds what one can only intuit in the ordinary consciousness of human beings on earth in a particular age.” So, in essence, it was a longing—a longing that was at the same time joyful—that seized those who sought the path to the ancient mysteries—certainly a solemn joy, a deep joy, a sublime joy, but joy nonetheless.

[ 5 ] Now there was an interim period—when I give the lectures over the next few days, I will, of course, have to characterize these things from a historical perspective—there was an interim period that ultimately led to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when, as you know, a new epoch in human development began. An interim period began. And afterward came that which created an entirely different atmosphere at the starting point of the path for those who were seeking knowledge in the higher worlds. It is indeed the case that when we look back at the ancient mysteries through the Akashic Records, we find joyful faces—profound, yet fundamentally joyful faces. If I were to describe to you a scene that can indeed be retrieved retrospectively from the Akashic Records—a scene, for example, from the Kabirian or Samothracian mysteries—then one would have to say: the individuals who entered the inner sanctum of the Kabiri’s temple had expressive, profound countenances, yet there was something joyful about them.

[ 6 ] Then came an interim period. And then came that which did not have a temple in the strict sense, but nevertheless possessed a moral cohesion similar to that found in the ancient mysteries. And then came that which is often referred to as the Rosicrucian movement in the Middle Ages.

[ 7 ] But if one were to characterize these initiates of the Rosicrucian Order in a similar way to how I have just done so—from the perspective of the ancient mysteries—one would have to say: the most important of these figures, who in the Middle Ages sought knowledge and explored the spiritual world, truly did not have joyful faces; they truly had deeply tragic faces. This is so very true that one can even say: those who did not have deeply tragic faces were most certainly not genuine people in this pursuit. And there was indeed every reason to bear tragic faces.

[ 8 ] I would like to illustrate to you how, little by little, people who sought knowledge came to view the mysteries of nature and the spirit differently than they had been viewed in antiquity within the ancient mysteries—a process that culminated in the Rosicrucian movement of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

[ 9 ] As I already pointed out yesterday: For ancient people, natural phenomena and natural processes were, in and of themselves, divine acts. Just as it would never occur to anyone today to view the movement of the human eye in isolation rather than as a revelation of the human being’s soul, spirit, and body, so too would it never have occurred to a person in ancient times to view any natural phenomenon in isolation. They regarded it as the ‘expression of the divine, revealing itself through natural phenomena.’ The Earth’s surface was, for ancient people, just as much the skin of the Earth-divine being as human skin is the skin of the animated human being for people today. It is impossible to understand the spiritual disposition of an ancient person unless one knows that they spoke, as I mentioned yesterday, of the Earth as a divine body, and of the other planets in our solar system as brothers and sisters.

[ 10 ] This direct relationship to natural phenomena and natural objects—where the individual natural object or phenomenon itself was the revelation of the divine to humankind—this perspective then gave way to a completely different one, in which, so to speak, the divine aspect of natural phenomena had withdrawn from human understanding. Imagine—if it were possible for something terrible to happen—that one of you were to stand somewhere, and it happened that all one could see of him was his body, just as one sees the earth, neutral in itself, without any soul: it would be terrible, something truly dreadful!

[ 11 ] But this dreadful reality has become apparent to modern thought. And this dreadful reality was felt by the thinkers of the Middle Ages. It is as if the divine had withdrawn from the realm of human understanding as manifested in natural phenomena and processes. And whereas in ancient times natural phenomena and processes were revelations of the divine, this intermediate period arrived, and now natural phenomena and processes are merely images—no longer revelations, but images of the divine.

Ancient Times: Natural Phenomena and Processes
Manifestations of the Divine

Middle Ages: Natural Phenomena and Processes
Images of the Divine

[ 12 ] But people today no longer even have a proper understanding of the extent to which natural processes and the like are images of the divine. I would like to use an example—one that, of course, anyone today who has studied even a little chemistry will be familiar with—to show you how natural science was practiced by those people who still held the view that natural phenomena and processes are images of the divine.

[ 13 ] Let’s consider a simple experiment that any chemist can perform today. Take a retort—I’ll explain this very schematically—pour oxalic acid into the retort (which can be obtained from clover), and mix this oxalic acid in equal parts with glycerin. Then heat this mixture of glycerin and oxalic acid, and you’ll get—as I said, I’m describing this schematically—carbon dioxide escaping here. The carbon dioxide escapes, and what remains here is formic acid. The oxalic acid is converted, so to speak, into formic acid through the loss of carbon dioxide.

[ 14 ] Well, please take a look at this diagram: oxalic acid, formic acid; carbon dioxide escapes. Now, with the retort in front of you in the laboratory, you can conduct this experiment. You can stand there just like a modern chemist who has just completed this experiment.

[ 15 ] This was not the case for people in the Middle Ages before the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; rather, these people immediately focused on two things. They said: Oxalic acid—yes, certainly, it is most abundant in clover; clover acid; but oxalic acid is present in certain quantities throughout the entire human organism, particularly in that part of the human organism that encompasses the digestive organs—the spleen, liver, and so on. So that when you consider the human organism, you must expect, particularly in the area of the digestive tract, processes that are influenced by oxalic acid.

[ 16 ] But the fact is that the human organism itself exerts an effect on this oxalic acid—which is present, in particular, in the human abdomen and plays an important role there—an effect similar to that exerted by glycerin on oxalic acid in a retort. A glycerin-like effect occurs here. And consider this remarkable fact: Under the influence of this glycerin-like effect, the conversion product of oxalic acid—formic acid—is produced in the lungs and respiratory air. And the human being exhales carbon dioxide, which is released there (see diagram). You expel it outward with your breath; in doing so, you expel the carbon dioxide. For now, you can think of this (the retort containing the heated mixture of glycerin and oxalic acid) as the human digestive tract; the point where the formic acid flows out as the lungs; and this here as the exhaled air—the carbon dioxide from the lungs.

[ 17 ] Now, a human being is not a test tube. The test tube merely demonstrates, in a lifeless way, what is alive and sentient within a human being. But this is true: If a human being were never to produce oxalic acid in his digestive tract, he would not be able to live at all—that is to say, his etheric body would have no foundation whatsoever in his organism. But if a human being were not to convert oxalic acid into formic acid, his astral body would have no foundation in his organism. Human beings need oxalic acid for their etheric body and formic acid for their astral body. And they do not need these substances per se, but rather the inner work and activity that consists in the oxalic acid process taking place and the formic acid process taking place. This, of course, is something that modern physiology has yet to grasp; it cannot speak in these terms today, for it speaks of what takes place within the human being as if these were external processes.

[ 18 ] That was the one question that anyone who practiced natural science back then and sat in front of his retort asked himself: How does any external process that I observe in a retort or in some other chemical setup correspond to a process within the human being?

[ 19 ] The second question was this: How does this process occur in the great outdoors? Well, regarding this process—if I were to choose it as an example—the naturalist of that time would have said to himself: I now turn my gaze out toward the earth, where the plant world is spread out. Admittedly—in a pronounced, radical form—oxalic acid is found in wood sorrel and in clover species in general; but in reality, oxalic acid is widespread throughout the vegetation, even if sometimes in homeopathic doses—yet it is present everywhere. Everywhere there is at least a trace—even if sometimes only a homeopathic trace—of what, for example, the insect species known as ants produce by being able to access oxalic acid even in decaying wood. This army of insects, which is often such a nuisance to humans, transforms what is spread as oxalic acid across the meadows, across the fields, across the entire vegetative layer of the earth, into formic acid. And we do, in fact, continuously inhale formic acid from the air—albeit in small doses—and owe the presence of this formic acid in the air to the work of the insects on the plants, as they convert the plants’ oxalic acid into formic acid.

[ 20 ] The medieval naturalist reasoned as follows: The process of converting oxalic acid into formic acid occurs in humans. “But this conversion process is also present in the life and activity of nature.”

[ 21 ] The medieval naturalist asked himself these two questions every time he conducted an experiment in his laboratory. And there was something peculiar about this medieval naturalist—something that people today have completely lost. Today people think that anyone can conduct research in a laboratory—whether one is a good or a bad person doesn’t matter. You have the formulas; you analyze or synthesize—anyone can do that. Back then, when nature was approached in this way—when nature was regarded as an effect of the Divine, that is, of the Divine within the human being, as I have described, and of the Divine in the greater natural world—back then, there was a requirement: the person conducting such research must at the same time possess an inner piety. He must be able to direct his soul and spirit toward the divine-spiritual aspect of the world. And people were clear about this, for it was a fact: whoever had to prepare for their experimentation as if for a sacrificial rite, and had truly warmed themselves inwardly through exercises of piety for their experimentation, would experience that the experiment led them, on the one hand, into the exploration of the human being, and on the other hand, out into the exploration of the great natural world. Thus, inner goodness was regarded as preparation for research, and one viewed one’s laboratory experiments in such a way that the questions they answered were seen as ones one would have gladly had answered by divine-spiritual beings.

[ 22 ] Well, with that I have described the transition that took place from the spirit of the ancient mysteries to what the mystery cults of the Middle Ages may have been. You see, traditionally, many elements of the ancient mysteries were indeed preserved in the mystery traditions of the Middle Ages. But the true greatness of the late mysteries—those of Samothrace or Hybernia—what was truly great about them—could not be attained in the Middle Ages.

[ 23 ] Traditionally, something like this—what is called astrology—has been preserved right up to the present day. Traditionally, what is called alchemy has been preserved. But people today have no idea—and even in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they hardly knew—what the conditions for true astrological knowledge and true alchemical knowledge are.

[ 24 ] You see, no one can arrive at astrology through reflection or through empirical research, as it is called today. Those who were initiated into the ancient mysteries would have answered you—if you had asked them whether one can arrive at astrology through research or through reflection—as follows: You can arrive at astrology through reflection and through empirical research just as easily as you can discover the secrets of a person through empirical research and reflection if that person does not tell you. Suppose there were something that only one person knew—something that no one else knew except that person—and someone claimed that they were conducting experiments to discover what that person knows, or that they were reflecting on what that person knows—wouldn’t that be absurd! But to learn something about astrological matters through reflection, or through experiments, or through observations, would have seemed just as absurd to an ancient person as it seems absurd to a person today to try to investigate what can only be learned by having someone tell you. For the ancients knew: Only the gods—or, as they were later called, the cosmic intelligences—know the secrets of the starry worlds. The cosmic intelligences—they know the secrets of the starry worlds; only they can tell us. Therefore, one must follow the path of knowledge that leads to being able to communicate with the cosmic intelligences.

[ 25 ] True, authentic astrology is based on gaining the ability to understand the cosmic intelligences. And true alchemy? True alchemy does not rely on conducting research the way today’s chemists do—that is, through experimentation and reflection—but rather on being able to perceive the spirits of nature within natural processes, so that one can communicate with them; so that the spirits of nature tell one how the process unfolds and what is actually happening there. In the earliest times, astrology was by no means mere speculation or observational research, but rather communion with the cosmic intelligences. Alchemy in ancient times was by no means observational research or mere reflection, but rather communion with the spirits of nature. This is what one must first understand. If one had approached an Egyptian of earlier times, or specifically a Chaldean of earlier times, that person would have said: “I have my observatory so that I may engage in dialogue through my instruments and through what I allow to speak from my spirit with the help of my instruments—to engage in dialogue with the cosmic intelligences.” And the one who, as a devout natural scientist in the Middle Ages, stood before the retort and, through the retort, scientifically explored on the one hand the inner workings of the human being and, on the other hand, the weaving and essence of the great natural world—this medieval researcher would have said: “I experiment because, through the experiment, the spirits of nature speak to me.” The alchemist was the one who summoned the spirits of nature. Everything that was later regarded as alchemy is merely a decadent product. Everything that was astrology in earlier times is the result of communion with the cosmic intelligences.

[ 26 ] Well, during that time—in the first centuries after the emergence of Christianity—ancient astrology, that is, communication with the cosmic intelligences, had actually already disappeared. The tradition still existed. When the stars were in opposition, in conjunction, and so on, people would make calculations, wouldn’t they, and so forth. People still had everything that remained as tradition from the times when astrologers communicated with the cosmic intelligences. But while during this period—a few centuries after the emergence of Christianity—astrology had essentially already faded away, alchemy actually still existed. Communication with the spirits of nature was still quite possible in later times.

[ 27 ] And if we now look into what was a true Rosicrucian alchemical laboratory in the Middle Ages—let’s say in the fourteenth, but even as late as the fifteenth century—we find instruments there that sometimes even look relatively similar to today’s instruments; at the very least, based on today’s instruments, we can already form an idea of what these instruments from that time were like. But when we then look inward, spiritually, into these Rosicrucian mysteries, we actually find everywhere within them—I would even say—the older, even more serious, and even more profoundly tragic figure who later became Faust, specifically Goethe’s Faust. And in contrast to what stands in the Rosicrucian laboratories—the researcher with the profound, tragic countenance who can no longer cope with life—in contrast to what confronts us there, Goethe’s Faust is actually something similar to that—as I said yesterday in rather radical terms — the “newspaper-article Apollo of Belvedere” as opposed to the Apollo who emerged from the billowing sacrificial smoke at the altar of the Cabiri.

[ 28 ] Basically, when you look into these alchemical laboratories of the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, you see a profound tragedy. And this tragedy of the Middle Ages—this tragedy of the most serious-minded people, in particular—is not properly recorded in any history book, because one cannot truly see into their souls.

[ 29 ] All these true researchers, who in this way seek humanity and the universe as nature in the retort—all these people are heightened Faustian figures of the early Middle Ages, for they feel one thing deeply: When we experiment, the spirits of nature speak to us—the spirits of the earth, the spirits of water, the spirits of fire, the spirits of air. We hear them in their murmurs, in their whispers, in their peculiar, meandering sounds that begin with a hum, which then merge into harmonies and melodies before returning to themselves. So that melodies resound when natural processes take place. One has a retort before one; one immerses oneself, as I have said, like a devout man, in what is happening there. It is precisely during this process—where one witnesses the metamorphosis of oxalic acid into formic acid—that one experiences how, when one inquires into the process, the spiritual aspect of nature responds, so that one can then utilize this spiritual aspect for the inner being of the human being. There, the retort begins to speak through colored phenomena. One feels how the nature spirits of the earthly realm and the nature spirits of the aqueous realm rise from the oxalic acid and assert themselves, but then how the whole process transitions into a humming melody, harmonies that then return to themselves. This is how one experiences this process, which ultimately yields formic acid and carbonic acid.

[ 30 ] And if one immerses oneself in this transition from the colorful to the resonant, then one also immerses oneself in what the laboratory process can tell us about the great forces of nature and about human beings. Then one already has the feeling that natural phenomena and processes reveal something more—that the gods speak through them; they are images of the divine. And one applies this insight fruitfully to human beings. In all those times, medicine, for example, was still intimately connected to the knowledge of the general worldview to a high degree.

[ 31 ] Well, let’s say that with such a perspective, one would have the task of developing a therapeutic approach. One has a person in front of one. The same external symptom complexes can, after all, be the outward expression of the most diverse disease states and causes of illness. But with a method that takes this into account—I’m not saying it can be the same today as it was in the Middle Ages; of course, it must be different today—one can say to oneself: When a very specific complex of symptoms appears, the person is unable to convert enough oxalic acid into formic acid. They have somehow become too weak to convert oxalic acid into formic acid. Perhaps one can treat them with a remedy by somehow supplying them with formic acid, so that one helps them from the outside when they cannot produce formic acid on their own.

[ 32 ] Look, you can now treat two or three people whom you’ve diagnosed as being unable to produce formic acid with formic acid, and it helps them quite well. Then you come across a person with a similar condition. You give them formic acid—it doesn’t help at all. But the moment you give oxalic acid, it helps immediately. Why? Well, because the deficiency lies in a different place—namely, where oxalic acid is supposed to be converted into formic acid. In such a case, someone who thought along the lines of these medieval researchers would have said: “Yes, under certain circumstances, if you simply give the human organism formic acid under specific conditions, it will say: I won’t transport this into the lungs, or anything like that, so that it enters the respiratory air and the circulation; rather, I want to be acted upon in a completely different place—I want to be acted upon already in the realm of oxalic acid; I want to convert that oxalic acid into formic acid myself. I’ll do without the formic acid—I’ll produce it myself.

[ 33 ] That’s just how things are. And what these alchemical researchers—who are worthy of the name—were concerned with—for, of course, a great deal of fraud, foolishness, and so on has been perpetrated in connection with these matters—was always that which constitutes the healthy nature of human beings, conceived in intimate connection with that which constituted the diseased nature of human beings.

[ 34 ] But all of this led to nothing other than communion with the spirits of nature. The medieval researcher thus had this feeling: “I am in communion with the spirits of nature.” But there were ancient times when people were in communion with the cosmic intelligences. Those are beyond my reach.

[ 35 ] Yes, my dear friends, ever since the spirits of nature have also withdrawn from human understanding, ever since natural phenomena and processes have become the abstractions they appear to be to today’s physicists and chemists, ever since that time, the tragedy that existed in the Middle Ages no longer arises. For the nature spirits with whom those people still interacted were just enough to awaken the longing for the cosmic intelligences to which the ancient people had arrived. But it was no longer possible to find the path to the cosmic intelligences using the means of knowledge available at that time; one could only find the path to the nature spirits. And by perceiving the nature spirits—by incorporating them into one’s understanding—people felt a profound sense of tragedy that they could not reach the cosmic intelligences from which the nature spirits themselves are in turn inspired. They perceived what the nature spirits know; but they could not penetrate through them to the cosmic intelligences. That was the prevailing mood.

[ 36 ] And, fundamentally speaking, the fact that the medieval alchemists retained their understanding of the spirits of nature, while their understanding of the cosmic intelligences was lost, was the cause of their tragedy. And this, in turn, was also the reason why even these medieval natural philosophers could no longer attain a complete understanding of humanity. But he still sensed where a complete understanding of humanity lay. And one must say: It is like a reminiscence of what many a laboratory scientist in the Middle Ages felt when Goethe’s Faust says: “Here I stand? “Here I stand, I poor fool, and am as wise as before”—for, in essence, it was precisely this lesson that the spirits of nature, whom they had managed to reach, imparted to the laboratory scientists. Yet these spirits of nature did not provide any true understanding of the soul either.

[ 37 ] Today, much has already been lost to tradition; but it must be rediscovered. I would like to say that this researcher also had knowledge of repeated earthly lives. He was standing in his laboratory; the nature spirits had the peculiar trait that, while they spoke of all manner of things regarding the nature of substances and the description of world events, they never—not even once—spoke of repeated earthly lives; they had no interest in repeated earthly lives.

[ 38 ] Well, my dear friends, I have presented to you some of the thoughts that served as the starting points for a tragic underlying mood among these medieval natural philosophers. And let us turn our gaze to this peculiar figure, this Rosicrucian researcher standing in the early-medieval laboratory, with his serious, often so profound, yet sorrowful countenance—without intellectual skepticism, but with a deep uncertainty of the soul; without a paralysis of the will, but with the awareness:

O, will, will is within me —
How do I direct it out toward the paths
that lead to the cosmic intelligences?

[ 39 ] Yes, countless questions arose in the mind of this medieval naturalist! And the first Faust monologue, along with what follows it, offers a faint reflection of that.

[ 40 ] Tomorrow, we’ll take a closer look at this serious scholar with the pensive expression, who is actually the forefather of Goethe’s Faust.