The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] It falls to me to add a few further remarks regarding the discussions I have had here recently. I have attempted to describe the course of spiritual knowledge through the centuries and the form it has taken in recent times, and I was able to show how, from about the 15th century through the end of the 18th century—indeed, up to the beginning of the 19th century—the trend was such that what had previously existed as a concrete, if instinctive, form of knowledge actually found greater expression during this period in an emotional devotion to the spiritual nature of the world as a whole.

[ 2 ] We can see, after all, that people’s genuine insights into nature—and into the workings of the spiritual world within nature—were certainly still present in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. We can see this even in a figure such as Agrippa von Nettesheim—whom I have discussed in my book on mysticism—and how he still possesses a clear understanding that, for example, spiritual beings of a very specific nature are present in the planets of our solar system. In his writings, Agrippa von Nettesheim describes for each individual planet what he calls the “intelligence of the planet” and then what he calls the “demon of the planet.” This points to traditions that were still very much alive in those ancient times, but which were not merely traditions even in that era. Looking up at a planet in the sense that later astronomy did—and still does today—would have been entirely impossible for a mind such as Agrippa von Nettesheim. The outer planet—indeed, the outer star in general—was merely a kind of announcement of spiritual beings upon whom the soul’s gaze fell when one looked in the direction of the star. And he knew that the beings associated with the individual celestial bodies are those who govern the inner existence of the planet, but also govern the planet’s movements through the cosmos, which in turn govern the entire activity of a celestial body, and so on. And he summarized such beings under the name “Intelligence of the Celestial Body.”

[ 3 ] But he also knew of entities that exerted a restraining influence—one might say, undermining the benevolent effects of the celestial body—both from within and from without. He summarized these under the name “the demon of the celestial body.” Such an understanding, however, was entirely connected in that era with the view that the Earth, too, was conceived as a celestial body possessing its own intelligence and its own demon. But precisely the essential aspect associated with this conception of celestial intelligence and celestial demonology was lost entirely, for this essential aspect was expressed precisely in the following:

[ 4 ] Of course, the Earth was also regarded as governed in its inner activity and in its movement within the cosmos by a collective of intelligences that could be summarized under the term “the intelligence of the Earth.” But what, for these individuals, was the intelligence of the Earth as a celestial body? It is, of course, extremely difficult today to even speak of these things, because people’s conceptions have strayed so far from what was taken for granted at that time by discerning individuals. The intelligence of the Earth as a celestial body was the human being as such. Human beings were regarded as the beings who had received from the world spirit the task—not merely, as people today suppose, of walking around on Earth or traveling by train, buying and selling goods, writing books, and the like—but rather, human beings were understood as having received from the world spirit the task of intervening in everything related to the Earth’s position in the cosmos in a regulating, ordering, and law-abiding manner. Human beings were understood in such a way that it was said: Through what they are—through the forces they harbor within their being—they give the Earth the impulse for its movement around the Sun and for its movement further out into space.

[ 5 ] At that time, people still had a sense that this had once been bestowed upon humankind—that humankind had truly been made the lord of the earth by the spiritual forces of the universe—but that, in the course of its evolution, it had proved unequal to this task and had fallen from its lofty station. Today, one encounters only very rare echoes of this view in discussions of knowledge. After all, everything conceived of in religious terms regarding the Fall ultimately traces back to this idea. It concerns the notion that humanity originally held a completely different position on Earth and in the universe than it does today—that it had fallen from its former heights. But apart from this religious view—in contexts where one believes one possesses knowledge acquired methodically—there are today, in fact, only echoes of that ancient insight, born of instinctive clairvoyance, regarding humanity’s former mission and its fall into its present confinement within such narrow boundaries.

[ 6 ] For example, it still happens today that one manages to get this or that person to speak—let’s say, and I’m stating facts here—one strikes up a conversation with this or that person who has thought deeply, reflected, and even gained deeper insights into this or that topic in the spiritual realm; one finds oneself discussing whether human beings today, as they stand on Earth, are actually self-contained creatures who carry their very essence within themselves. And then such individuals tell you: That cannot be the case. Human beings must actually—otherwise they could not possess the striving that they do possess— otherwise, in his highest forms, he could not develop the great idealism that he so often does—human beings must, in fact, by their very nature be all-encompassing beings who have, however, somehow incurred a cosmic sin, through which they have been confined to their present earthly existence, so that today they are, in effect, sitting as if in a cage.

[ 7 ] Certainly, this view can still be found here and there as a remnant of that old way of thinking. But on the whole, where is it that those who consider themselves scientists today are seriously engaged at all with these far-reaching questions—questions that are, after all, the only thing that can truly lead human beings to a life worthy of their dignity?

[ 8 ] And so it was once the case that human beings were regarded as the bearers of the Earth’s intelligence. But even the Earth was attributed a demon by a figure such as Agrippa von Nettesheim. Now, this demon of the earthly realm—if we go back to the 12th and 13th centuries—is actually a being that, as it has become, could only have come into being on Earth because it found in human beings the tools for its work.

[ 9 ] To understand this, one must really familiarize oneself with the way people at that time thought about the relationship between the Earth and the Sun, or between human beings on Earth and the Sun. And if I am to characterize the conception of this relationship, I must, in essence, speak in terms of imaginations, for these things cannot be captured in abstract concepts. The true age of abstract concepts did not begin until later, and abstract concepts are far from encompassing reality; thus, they must be presented through imaginations.

[ 10 ] The Sun—after it has separated from the Earth, or the Earth has separated from it, in the manner I described in my *Secret Science*—is, in fact, the place of origin of humankind, since humankind has been connected to the entire planetary system, including the Sun, ever since the Saturn era. Humanity does not have its home on Earth; rather, humanity has a temporary sojourn on Earth. According to that ancient view, humanity is in reality a solar being. He is connected to the Sun in his entire being. Since he is this, he should actually stand on Earth as a solar being in a different way than he does. He should stand on Earth in such a way that the Earth could satisfy its urge to bring forth the seed of humanity in ethereal form from the mineral and plant kingdoms, and the sunbeam should then fertilize this seed brought forth by the Earth. And from this, the etheric human form should emerge, which would only assume physical earthly substance through that which it establishes as its own, self-generated relationship to the physical substances of the Earth. Thus, it was roughly thought by the contemporaries of Agrippa von Nettesheim—Agrippa, unfortunately, already had a certain cloudiness in his insight— but his more enlightened contemporaries had actually believed that human beings were not meant to be born on Earth in the way that is now the case, but rather that they were to come into being in their etheric bodies through the interaction of the Sun and the Earth, and only then, as they wandered the Earth as etheric beings, were they to assume their earthly form. In a sense, the seeds of humanity were to grow on Earth in plant-like purity, appearing here and there in the ether as darkly sparkling fruits of the Earth, then to be illuminated by the light of the sun at a certain time of year, and through that illumination to take on an ethereal form in the human likeness. For it was not from the mother’s body, but from the earth and what is upon it, that human beings themselves were to draw forth that which they were to incorporate as physical substance from the earthly realm. It was thought that this would actually have been in keeping with the spirit of the worlds when human beings first set foot on the earth.

[ 11 ] And what came later arose because human beings allowed an impulse that was too deep, a desire that was too intense, to awaken within themselves toward the earthly and material. As a result, humanity lost its connection to the Sun and the cosmos, and could find its existence on Earth only in the form of the current of heredity. But through this, the demon of the Earth, so to speak, began its work; for the demon of the earthly realm could not have occupied itself with human beings who were born of the Sun. But then, if humankind had thus set foot on Earth, it would truly be the fourth hierarchy. Then, whenever people spoke of humanity, they would have to say: First Hierarchy—Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; then Second Hierarchy—Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes; Third Hierarchy—Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai; Fourth Hierarchy—humanity, in three stages of human development, but indeed a fourth hierarchy. However, because human beings asserted their strong physical impulses, they did not become the beings at the lowest rung of the hierarchies, but rather the beings at the pinnacle, on the highest rung of the earthly kingdoms of nature: the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, and the human kingdom. This is how the position of human beings was viewed at that time.

[ 12 ] But because humankind has not found its purpose on Earth, the Earth, too, does not occupy its rightful place in the cosmos. For it is, in fact, because humankind has fallen that the true ruler of the Earth is absent. What has come in its place? The true ruler of the Earth is missing, and it became necessary for the Earth not to govern its position in the cosmos on its own, but to be governed by the Sun, so that the tasks that should actually be performed on Earth have fallen to the Sun. Thus, people in the Middle Ages looked up at the Sun and said: There are certain intelligences in the Sun. They determine the Earth’s movement within the cosmos; they regulate what happens on Earth itself. Human beings were supposed to do this. The forces of the Sun were supposed to work on Earth through human beings for the sake of the Earth’s existence. — This gave rise to that significant concept of medieval people, which is encapsulated in the words: “The Sun, the illegitimate prince of this world.”

[ 13 ] And now consider, my dear friends, how infinitely deepened the Christ impulse became for these medieval people precisely through such ideas. Christ became the Spirit who did not wish to find his further mission on the Sun, who did not wish to remain among those who unlawfully direct the Earth from without. He wanted to find his way from the Sun to the Earth, to enter into human destiny and the destiny of the Earth, to walk through earthly events and through earthly evolution into human destiny and the destiny of the Earth. Thus, for medieval people, Christ was the only being in the cosmos who saved humanity’s mission on Earth. And now you see the connection. For now you can understand why, during the Rosicrucian era, the student was repeatedly reminded: “O human being, you are not what you are.” Christ had to come to take your task from you, to carry out your task on your behalf.

[ 14 ] In Goethe’s *Faust*, many elements have been passed down from deeply medieval conceptions in a way that Goethe himself did not understand. Recall Faust’s invocation of the Earth Spirit. If one carries these medieval ideas within oneself, then one feels quite deeply how this Earth Spirit, whom Faust summons, speaks of surging up and down in the storm of deeds—birth and grave, an eternal weaving, a glowing life—how he creates at the whirring loom of time and weaves a living garment for the deity. For whom, exactly, is Faust summoning? Goethe certainly did not know this in its full depth when he wrote *Faust*. But if we go back from Goethe’s Faust to the medieval Faust, if we listen in on this medieval Faust, in whom Rosicrucian wisdom lived, then this listening teaches us how this medieval Faust, too, wanted to perform a summoning. But whom did he wish to conjure in the Earth Spirit? He did not speak of the Earth Spirit at all; he spoke of the human being. That was the longing of the medieval human being to be human, for he felt deeply that, as an earthly human being, he was not truly human. How can one regain humanity? The way in which Faust is cast aside by the Earth Spirit is a representation of how human beings, in their earthly form, are cast aside by their own true nature. And because this was understood in this way, some of the — well, how should one call them — stories of conversion to Christianity possess an extraordinarily profound character: the character of certain people who strove for their lost humanity but were forced to despair—and rightly so—at the prospect of being able to experience this genuine humanity within themselves during their earthly, physical lives, and who then realized from this perspective: Thus, the human striving for humanity must be abandoned, and earthly humanity must leave it to Christ to fulfill the task of the earth.

[ 15 ] In the era when, I would say, both the relationship to humanity itself and the relationship to Christ were still conceived of in a transpersonal-personal way, in that era, spiritual knowledge and spiritual vision were still very much a reality. It was still the substance of experience. That came to an almost complete end with the 15th century. And that was when the shift took place—a shift that, in fact, no one really understood.

[ 16 ] But for those who know such things, there existed in the 15th and 16th centuries—and even later—a solitary Rosicrucian school, scarcely known to the world, where, time and again, a small number of students were educated, and where, above all, care was taken to ensure that a certain sacred tradition was preserved. This sacred tradition was as follows. I will present the whole story to you in the form of a narrative.

[ 17 ] Let us say, once again, that a new student arrived at this secluded place for preparation. There, he was first taught the so-called Ptolemaic system of the world in its true form, as it had been handed down from ancient times—not in the trivial way it is presented to people today as something that has been superseded, but differently. He was shown how the Earth actually possesses the forces within itself to determine its course through the universe of its own accord. Thus, the world system must be presented correctly—that is, depicted in the old Ptolemaic sense: the Earth at the center of the universe for humankind, with the other celestial bodies directed in a corresponding orbit around the Earth. Then the student was told: If one truly studies what the Earth’s greatest forces are, one arrives at no other world system than this one. But that is simply not the case. It is not so through humanity’s fault. Through humanity’s fault, the Earth has unjustifiably passed into the realm of the Sun, and the Sun has become the ruler of earthly activities. And so one can contrast a world system—which was to be given to humanity by the gods in the sense of the ancient Ptolemaic world system with the Earth at its center—with one that has the Sun at its center, with the Earth revolving around the Sun: the Copernican world system.

[ 18 ] And it was revealed to the student that this is a case of a world error—a world error brought about by human fault. And then, for this student, the following was summarized—what he should engrave deeply in his soul and deep in his heart: People have now overcome the old world system and replaced it with another, yet they do not even realize that this other system, which they regard as correct, is the result of their own human guilt. What is merely the expression, what is merely the manifestation of human guilt, is simply regarded as the right thing as opposed to the wrong. — “What has happened in recent times?” the teachers then asked this student. Science has been overthrown through human guilt. Science has become a science of the demonic. — Until such things became impossible at the end of the 18th century, there were always at least a few individual students who drew their spiritual nourishment from a solitary Rosicrucian school, guided by this insight into the soul and this spiritual perspective. For example, it was still the case that the great Leibniz, the philosopher, drew from his own reflections the impetus to seek out somewhere a place of learning where one could correctly articulate the true nature of the Copernican and Ptolemaic world systems. He was unable to find it.

[ 19 ] One must be aware of such things in order to grasp the precise nuance of the shift that has taken place over the last few centuries in humanity’s view of itself and of the universe. And with the decline of this living connection between human beings and themselves—with this alienation of human beings from themselves—came humanity’s clinging to external intellect, which today dominates everything. For is this external intellect human experience? It is not human experience. For if it were human experience, it could not exist within humanity in such an external manner as it does. After all, reason is fundamentally not connected to the individual person, to the individual human being; reason is, in fact, almost a conventional construct. It does not spring forth from inner human experience. It actually approaches human beings as something external.

[ 20 ] And just how it has become something external—one can sense this when one compares, for example, how Aristotle himself taught his logic—which, in Kant’s words, has not advanced since Aristotle—to his students, and how logic was then taught in the 17th century A.D. In Aristotle’s time, logic was still something quite human. For when people were urged to think logically, they still had a sensation—the sensation, if I may once again express myself imaginatively, of dipping their heads into cold water and thereby became estranged from themselves for a moment—or another sensation, the very one that Alexander held up to Aristotle when he wanted to teach him logic: “You’re squeezing all the bones in my head together”—as if it were something external. In the 17th century, this external nature was taken for granted. One learned how to derive the conclusion from the major premise and the minor premise. One learned precisely what you still find treated ironically in Goethe’s *Faust*: “The first was thus, the second thus, and therefore the third and fourth thus; and if the first and second had not been, the third and fourth would never have been.” And so the mind is trained, laced into Spanish boots. — Whether one feels, as Alexander did, that one’s head is squeezed into one’s skull, or whether one is laced into Spanish boots by the first, second, third, and fourth—this is already a metaphor for the very same thing that human beings feel.

[ 21 ] This outward aspect of abstract thinking was no longer perceived at the time when logic was consciously taught in schools. Today, that has more or less ceased. Logic is also no longer consciously taught in schools. Well, that’s roughly as if there had been a time when people enthusiastically donned the same uniform according to the rules by the hundreds and hundreds, and this was followed by a time when they did so voluntarily, without even thinking about it first. But in this era, in which the logic of the abstract was gaining more and more the upper hand, in this era, the old spiritual knowledge could no longer progress. That is why we see it becoming externalized and taking on the form that appears in such works as, for example, the writings of Eliphas Levi or the publications of Saint-Martin. Even in these publications, one can already discern the final vestiges of ancient spiritual insight and spiritual vision.

[ 22 ] But what is contained in a text such as Eliphas Levi’s *Dogma and Ritual of High Magic*? For example, one first finds all sorts of symbols—triangles, pentagrams, and so on; you’ll find certain words dredged up from ancient times, from languages that once prevailed—namely Hebrew—and you’ll find that which was once life, but also knowledge—that which could be transformed into human action, but also into human ideas—you’ll find this degenerated into mindlessness on the one hand and into external sorcery on the other; Speculations about the symbolic meaning of this or that sign—in the face of which modern man, if he wishes to be honest, would have to admit that there is nothing special contained within them—and horrifying rituals linked to all manner of rites, the spiritual context of which was not in the least clear to those who spoke of such rites and often performed them. Everywhere, such books pointed to that which was once understood in ancient times, experienced inwardly through knowledge, but which, by the time Eliphas Levi, for example, wrote his books, was no longer understood. And I myself have already spoken about Saint-Martin in the weekly journal *Goetheanum*. And so we see—one might say—that what was once woven into the soul-spiritual life of the human being, but which could not be preserved within this soul-spiritual human being, is treated with complete incomprehension.

[ 23 ] What is genuine and true from the 15th through the 18th and into the 19th century is that which has presented itself to the mind as a universal yearning for the divine. There is beauty, splendor, and magnificence to be found there. And there is a genuine, enchanting touch of the spiritual in many things that are given far too little attention today. But alongside all this, a fossilized seed of the old spiritual truths is taking root, accompanied by an inability to approach the spiritual in a way appropriate to the times. One can encounter people from the 18th century who speak of nothing less than the destruction of everything human and the rise of a terrible materialism. Sometimes it seems as though what these 18th-century people say might also apply to our own time. Yet it does not apply—it does not apply to the last two-thirds of the 19th century. For in the 19th century, what was still viewed in the 18th century with a certain—I would say—loathing for its demonic character has become a matter of course. People lacked the strength to say to themselves: Copernicus—very well, but a view that could only have arisen because humanity had not become on Earth what it should have become, because the Earth stood without a ruler and dominion over the Earth had passed to the unlawful princes of the world—a term that recurs repeatedly in the Middle Ages—which is why Christ abandoned the Sun and united himself with the fate of the Earth.

[ 24 ] And indeed, it was not until the end of the 19th century that it once again became possible to look into these matters with a primal human clarity. It has only become possible again in the Michael era. We have, of course, spoken repeatedly about the dawn and the character of this Michael era. But there are tasks connected with this Michael era that can now be alluded to here, following what has been said previously about the development of spiritual vision over the various centuries during the Christmas season and thereafter.