The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. The Influence of the Extraterrestrial Cosmos on Human Consciousness

The Effects of the Sun and the Moon

[ 1 ] Yesterday I pointed out how the abnormal, pathological paths into the spiritual world—on the one hand, the path of inner, mystical deepening, of delving more deeply into the world of dreams, and on the other hand, the path that, I might say, in a caricatured, scientific manner through the phenomena that manifest externally in somnambulists and mediums—how these two paths must be taken up and fruitfully pursued if genuine initiatory knowledge is to be attained. We will now delve further into this area as we consider the influences from the cosmos to which human consciousness—and indeed the entire human being, together with human consciousness—is subject.

[ 2 ] It is easy to overlook how, among all the influences on human beings other than those of the Earth, the influences of the Sun and the Moon surpass everything else. People don’t usually think about this, but it is now quite evident from a scientific standpoint that nothing on Earth would exist if it weren’t for the effects of the Sun, which descend upon the Earth from the extraterrestrial cosmos.

[ 3 ] The effects of the sun bring the entire plant kingdom into being. The effects of the sun are necessary for all animal life, but also for everything that is physical and etheric in human beings. The sun’s influence can be observed wherever one is willing to notice it, and it is certainly significant for the higher aspects of the human being as well. The moon’s influence is less readily observed. Today, it often lives on in superstition, and what can be known about it with precision is distorted by the fact that there are, in many cases, superstitious notions regarding the effects of the Moon, and that those who seek to pursue science today feel superior to all superstition and therefore reject everything significant about the Moon’s effects and refuse to admit it into science proper. Here and there, however, one senses—not only among poets, who know how stimulating the moon’s magic is to the imagination, not only among lovers, who like to arrange their romantic encounters in the moonlight—but one senses even among those who seek knowledge that effects from the moon on the Earth do indeed occur, albeit of a completely different nature. There, one can indeed experience some particularly remarkable things.

[ 4 ] In the mid-19th century, there were two scholars in Germany. One was named Schleiden; the other was Gustav Theodor Fechner. Gustav Theodor Fechner liked to approach the more mysterious forces of nature—both within human beings and out in the wider natural world—from a highly precise standpoint. In particular, he collected data—compiling a kind of statistical analysis—on how the amount of rainfall at a given location correlates with the full moon and the new moon. And he discovered, in his view, that during certain lunar phases, a particular location receives more rainfall than during other lunar phases. He advocated this view. He was not shy about asserting such a theory in the face of mainstream science. However, his colleague at the university, Professor Schleiden—the great botanist—disagreed; he ridiculed Fechner’s opinion and said: “There can be no question whatsoever of lunar influences of this kind.”

[ 5 ] But here’s the strange thing: The two scholars were married—at that time, in the still relatively small university town (which is, however, one of Germany’s major cities), conditions were still patriarchal— it was customary at the time for women to collect rainwater because they believed it was particularly good for doing laundry. So there was Mrs. Fechner and Mrs. Schleiden. And it came to pass that not only did the two professors discuss this matter, but their wives also got wind of it. And lo and behold, Professor Fechner said to his wife: “Well, Professor Schleiden doesn’t believe that the phases of the moon influence the amount of rainfall; so just say that you want to use these phases of the moon to collect rainwater, and Professor Schleiden’s wife can then collect rainwater after you during a different phase; since Professor Schleiden doesn’t believe that the phases of the moon have any influence, there can’t possibly be any objection to that. — But lo and behold, Professor Schleiden’s wife didn’t want to leave Professor Fechner’s wife the very lunar phase that her husband didn’t believe would bring more rainwater! So there was a very amusing university family feud over this matter. But it does have a scientific basis. And if we approach such effects—albeit using more humanities-based methods—we’ll come to realize that strong lunar effects can indeed be discussed not merely in terms of superstition, but in a truly scientific manner, just as we discuss solar effects.

[ 6 ] But with that, we have, in a sense, already exhausted the factors that play a role in the reality encompassed by the ordinary consciousness of modern human beings. Modern human beings live, so to speak, under the influence of the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun. Modern human beings are also, in their consciousness, essentially dependent on the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun. For, as I have already indicated, what is outwardly visible of the stars is not the essential, nor is what is outwardly visible of the Sun and the Moon. We have, after all, spoken explicitly about how the lunar sphere harbors within itself those beings who were once the great primordial teachers of humanity. Similarly, the solar sphere harbors a great multitude of spiritual beings. Every star is a colony of beings, just as the Earth is the cosmic colony of humanity. But as I said, the human being who today spends his time between birth and death lives almost exclusively under the influence of the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon. And now the task is to gain a more precise understanding of how the human being, with his entire conscious and physical state—that is, with his spiritual, soul, and physical state—lives under the influence of the Sun and the Moon.

[ 7 ] Let us consider the most extreme states of consciousness, between which the dream state lies: let us consider waking daytime consciousness and the consciousness-empty—if I may use this contradiction—the consciousness-empty state of sleep, the dreamless state of sleep. If we observe the human being as he exists during sleep—the physical body and the etheric body are separated from the astral body and the “I”—then we find that, between falling asleep and waking up, the human being carefully preserves within himself the effects of the sun in what he has drawn out of his physical and etheric bodies as the astral body and the “I.”

[ 8 ] From the moment we wake up until we fall asleep, we look outwardly at the sun. We also observe its effects when there is a thick blanket of rain; for what we see of other things is, after all, the sun’s rays reflected back. Throughout our waking hours, we are under the influence of the sun, which illuminates things externally. The moment we drift off into sleep, the sunlight begins to shine within our “I” and our astral body—visible to the spiritual eye. Thus, between falling asleep and waking up, we have the sun within us. As you know, there are certain minerals that, when exposed to sunlight under specific conditions and then placed in darkness, retain the light and reflect it back in the darkness as an afterglow. So it is, in spiritual perception, with the human “I” and the human astral body. They are, so to speak, overshadowed by the external sunlight in the waking state. They begin to glow and shine by now carrying the sunlight within them between falling asleep and waking up.

[ 9 ] So we can say: When awake, a person is under the influence of the sun’s external effects. During sleep, the human being is under the influence of the sun’s effect, which he now carries within himself until he awakens. — We have the sun within us when we sleep, and at night we leave behind only the physical and etheric bodies. But in the spiritual realm, we ourselves use what we now possess as stored sunlight to illuminate our physical and etheric bodies from the outside during sleep. And if we did not do this—if we did not radiate our stored sunlight from the outside onto our skin and deep into the interior of our sense organs—human beings would soon become completely dry, withered, and wither away. In fact, we do everything necessary for the freshness, growth, and vitality of our organism by radiating the stored sunlight from the outside onto our skin and our senses while we sleep. And it is truly the case that during sleep, as the human being is outside with their “I” and their astral body, first, sunlight shines upon their skin, and second, the sunlight penetrates through the eyes and ears, reaching deep into the nerves. This is the phenomenon of human sleep: the sun shines, emanating from the human “I” and the human astral body itself, entering the person, radiating onto the skin, and shining into the person through the sensory gates (see drawing “Sleep,” no. 202, red).

[ 10 ] Then, regardless of whether it is a new moon or a full moon—for this merely alters the effects, but they are present in all phases of the moon—the lunar effects approach the human being from the outside and extend over the physical and etheric bodies. So we have—I would have to draw the whole human being—: in the physical and etheric bodies during sleep, solar influences from the ego and the astral body; lunar influences from the outside on the physical and etheric bodies. You see, this characterizes the state of sleep in relation to the cosmos. The human being is connected to the Sun through their inner being and to the Moon externally, for the astral body and the “I” are, after all, the inner being, even though they are now on the outside. (See drawing “Sleeping.”)

[ 11 ] When we are awake, it is the other way around. When we wake up, we carry the lunar influences within us, deep within, while the solar influences come from the outside. So we can say: When we are awake, the solar influences come from the outside and act directly upon the physical and etheric bodies, while the “I” and the astral body within are under the influence of the preserved lunar forces. So if we draw a schematic diagram of this for the waking state, we have the effects of the Sun—that is, effects of the Sun from the outside (yellow)—acting on the physical and etheric bodies, while internally, the “I” and the astral body are under the influence of the preserved lunar forces (green). (See diagram: “Waking.”)

[ 12 ] Thus, while we are awake and the Sun’s influence shines upon us from the outside in relation to our physical and etheric bodies, we carry within us, during wakefulness, the preserved effects of the Moon. In the human ego and in the astral body, the Sun lives during sleep and the Moon during wakefulness. In the physical and etheric bodies, the Sun lives during wakefulness, and the Moon during sleep. And because this is so—even when a person becomes a night owl and, instead of sleeping at night, sets themselves up for a headache the next morning—even then these influences remain present in the same way; for even if the external constellation is disregarded, these things are such that, through one’s own inertia and the persistence of cosmic forces, they unfold in this way for the person nonetheless.

[ 13 ] Even if a person sleeps during the day and stays awake at night, they still carry the effects of the Moon within their “I” and their astral body while awake at night; and the effects of the Sun reach them, only in the form of streetlights, or—if they are lying somewhere in a field—in the form of faint starlight and the like. But everywhere it is the effects of the Sun that a person retains during sleep, and the effects of the Moon that a person carries within themselves while awake. And the reverse is true for the physical and etheric bodies in relation to the person’s outer appearance. It is to this constellation that a person owes their ordinary consciousness between birth and death. We shall now see how the ascent to other forms of consciousness changes this situation. For in the initiate, the relationship to the sun and moon is now altered, changing more and more, and in this change of relationship to the cosmos lies the path into the spiritual world.

[ 14 ] The Living Perception of the Lunar Sphere as the Starting Point of an Initiate’s Path

[ 15 ] I need not describe how a person stands within the world, how they face the sun and the moon with ordinary consciousness; this is something every soul can perceive for itself if it reflects on what the day looks like, how one lives as a human being during the day, and how one lives as a human being at night. At the very moment when a person begins to strengthen their inner soul power for the otherwise chaotic dream consciousness—at the moment when they succeed in transforming that otherwise dreaming consciousness into a tool for perceiving reality—at that very moment, the person becomes aware of how the Moon, which is preserved within their “I” during the waking state, is present within them. At the very moment when one truly transforms the dream into reality through the knowledge of the initiate, one feels as if one were permeated by a second human being. But one knows that within this second human being lives the power of the lunar sphere.

[ 16 ] So, in the early stages of initiatory consciousness, one tells oneself: The power of the lunar sphere lives within me, and it actually always tends to form a second human being within me, whom I then carry within my first human being as if in a shell. And now the struggle begins—not in waking consciousness, but in the consciousness of sleep—as the Moon begins to work inwardly within the human being — in this second human being, of whom I am speaking right now, who is normally triggered in the human being by the inner lunar influences when these are set in motion by the actual moon at night; when this second human being asserts itself in the drowsy state of sleep, then this second human being, who is enclosed within the first, the ordinary human being, wants to wander about in the moonlight and takes the first human being along with it. And that somnambulistic state arises, which we see manifesting in the moonwalkers.

[ 17 ] Now imagine that when the moon is shining outside, the “second human” can be awakened, who then brings about special magical effects—that is, extraordinary effects that deviate from natural phenomena. The person wanders about. Imagine this sleepwalker. With his consciousness subdued, the person does all sorts of things he would not do in his normal state of consciousness. In his normal state of consciousness, he would simply stay quietly in bed. That is where he belongs. Instead, he wanders around outside, climbing onto rooftops. He seeks out the realm that is actually supposed to lie outside his physical body.

[ 18 ] You see, when translated into ordinary terms and brought into conscious inner experience, this is the case in the early stages of initiatory consciousness; except that here one does not approach the influence of the Moon—the actual influence of the Moon from without—but rather allows the inner influence of the Moon to develop the consciousness of the second human being. And one must now hold all one’s strength together so that this second human being does not slip away. With the first human, one could remain calm. But this second human—he could slip away, wander aimlessly astray, take entirely the wrong paths. One must hold him fast.

[ 19 ] This is precisely what must happen when one attains the consciousness of an initiate: inner steadfastness and composure, so that what seeks to emerge remains within, and one keeps it connected to the very ordinary, down-to-earth consciousness one possesses in one’s physical body. But one must constantly struggle to prevent this second human being—who has been formed there through the intensified inner lunar being—from slipping away. And this second inner human being that is forming there has a very strong attraction to everything related to metabolic and motor processes in the human being, to everything emanating from the stomach and other organs; he has a very, very strong attraction to all of this. And he draws very, very heavily upon these forces.

[ 20 ] That, you see, is the present reality—that which is, at first, an experience for the budding initiate’s consciousness—namely, that one follows one of the two paths that must be taken: the path through the shaping of the dream world, through its realization, through the bringing of the dream world into being. And if one now reflects—and one must indeed reflect, as I have just explained—then one comes to realize: outwardly it is day, yet inwardly one carries the night within oneself; and in the midst of the day, something like an inner night awakens.

[ 21 ] When this consciousness of the initiate arises, then—you see—to the outer eye it is day, for the outer perception of things it is day; but within the space of this day, the spiritual moonlight begins to weave and live everywhere, radiating and shining all around, and the spiritual begins to illuminate. So one knows that, through one’s own soul, one brings the night into the day. If all this happens in full consciousness—just as a level-headed person performs other tasks during the day—and if this level-headed person is able to conjure the lunar-night effects into the effects of the day, then he is on the right path. But if he brings anything into himself without the full awareness that night dawns within the day through his inner forces, then he strays onto the wrong path, which ultimately leads into the realm of mediumship.

[ 22 ] Thus, full consciousness—the inner mastery of the reality into which one immerses oneself—is what is decisive; not the phenomenon in itself, not the reality in itself, but the way in which one immerses oneself in it. If the ordinary moonlit sleepwalker could develop his full composure at the very moment he is wandering around on the roof, he would be an initiate at that instant. He does not, however; instead, if you shout at him to wake him up, he falls down. If he did not fall but instead developed full waking consciousness and could then remain in that state, he would be an initiate. To develop what is being developed there in a pathological way—not merely in a healthy way, but in a super-healthy way—that is the task of initiatory knowledge. You see how closely wrong and right lie side by side in the spiritual world. In the physical world, because we have coarse-grained logic and coarse-grained experience, it is still possible to easily distinguish the false from the true. As soon as one enters the spiritual world, this distinction becomes extraordinarily difficult; it depends entirely on one’s inner attitude and inner composure.

[ 23 ] And furthermore, once a person has thus awakened the night within the day, the moonlight gradually loses its character as an external radiance. It no longer seems so external. It merely evokes a general sense of life. But something else occurs. In this spiritual night sky, Mercury now shines in a wondrous, glowing light. The planet Mercury truly rises in this night that has been magically brought into the day—but not as one sees Mercury through a telescope; rather, one becomes aware that this is something alive. One cannot yet immediately distinguish the living spiritual beings that inhabit Mercury, but one generally becomes aware, from the very way Mercury appears to one, that one is dealing with a spiritual world.

[ 24 ] When moonlight becomes, in one’s spirit, the universal elixir of life in which one feels immersed, then the spiritual star Mercury gradually rises in this night that has been magically conjured into the day. Emerging from this sparkling twilight and twilight-like sparkle, in which Mercury comes to meet one, is the being who is then designated as the divine being Mercury. One needs him. One absolutely needs him; otherwise, confusion arises. One must first find this being in the spiritual world, knowing full well that he belongs to the Mercury beings. And by getting to know him, one can now master—deliberately master—the second human being that is brought to life within oneself. One no longer needs to abandon oneself to indeterminate paths like a lunatic, but can, guided by this divine messenger Mercury, tread the definite paths into the spiritual world.

[ 25 ] And this is the point: If one wishes to find the right paths into the spiritual world, one must first have very specific experiences that serve as a guide and direction. The ordinary mystic delves deep into his inner self. This results in a jumble of feelings in which everything is mixed together; God and the world, angels and devils—for the ordinary mystic, they are all jumbled together. At best, this may lead to general dreams in which one cannot distinguish whether they originate from the sexual sphere or the mental sphere. In general, these experiences are jumbled together or mixed up like a porridge. This is the unclear, nebulous mysticism that does not illuminate the dream; on the contrary, it interweaves the dream with greater chaos, which is then understandable only to the initiate.

[ 26 ] Experiences such as those described—which are so wondrous, so magnificently poetic, like those of Catherine of Siena and others like her—can only be understood by the initiate, for only he knows what is actually taking place. And so it can be said: If you pursue your initiation with full consciousness—a consciousness as clear and transparent as that which you use when doing math or geometry—and if you approach these matters with all this full composure, then you will find the right path. — Only by knowing that you are conjuring the inner night into the outer day will you find the true, real spiritual world. Just as no one can deny that the moon rises, that Mercury rises in the outer world of space—that this is not a dream but a reality—so too will you find this when you enter with full consciousness and encounter spiritual beings, just as you might encounter people in the physical world. And false paths are taken wherever one seeks the spirit without becoming aware of what actually exists in the spiritual world. If one remains only on Earth and, for my sake, experiments with mediums—without truly entering the spiritual world, but merely wishing to experiment with what the mediums outwardly manifest, without truly encountering the spiritual—then one is on the wrong path. Everything that does not awaken consciousness in the spiritual world, but instead remains in a state of slumber and seeks only to study the effects—such as external occultism—is on the wrong path. Everything that, upon entering the spiritual world, immediately encounters the spiritual world as a reality—albeit a spiritual one—is on the right path.

[ 27 ] And, you see, this inner, vividly perceptive grasp of the lunar sphere is the starting point of one path of initiation. And we can say: What otherwise occurs in wakefulness—where the human moon is at work within—and what otherwise occurs in wakefulness only in relation to the sun and moon—now occurs for the initiate during wakefulness just as it otherwise occurs in sleep. The human being becomes aware of the lunar influences as if they were external. He conjures the night into the day. And instead of the entire sky being instantly studded with stars, as in ordinary nighttime contemplation, the planet Mercury first rises spiritually. And once one has, following the method I described in How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, succeeded in developing imaginations and arriving at true imaginations, the world of imaginations appears as reality to one precisely in this lunar world during the day.

[ 28 ] But as one enters into the effects of Mercury, these imaginations merge with their corresponding entities. One no longer merely depicts visions with no reality behind them, but rather presents visions as imaginations—which then merge with their corresponding entities. Therefore, if you have not yet progressed far enough on your path of initiation, you may have a vision of the Archangel, but it remains a vision. Only when you advance further does this vision truly merge with the Archangel, and you then behold the vision of the Archangel who is present within it. For the time being, in the mere moonlight, he need not be present within it. Now he is present within it. And in this way you become aware of the effects of Mercury as your visionary world flows into a true world of spiritual perception. All of this can only—and this must be mentioned again and again—be achieved in the proper way with the utmost composure.

[ 29 ] And then, as the human being continues his meditations, further strengthens his inner being, and makes it more and more active, he attains the Venus effect in addition to the Mercury effect. And lo and behold, when the Venus effect occurs—when Venus rises in this inner night conjured into the day—the visions that appear in the images of imagination and real visions dissolve in the presence of the spiritual beings that have appeared; the visions dissolve within them, and one stands before the spiritual world with an empty consciousness. One knows that the spiritual beings are there. One has arrived in the sphere of Venus. The spiritual beings are there. One waits until the sphere of the Sun comes to meet one. The whole process is a preparation for now experiencing the Sun a second time. One does all this while awake during the day, when one stands outside the effects of the Sun. One travels this path I have described, through the Moon, Mercury, and Venus. There the visions fade away. One presses on. The entire path was a journey from Earth to the Moon, to Mercury, to Venus, and toward the Sun. One penetrates into the interior of the Sun. One beholds the Sun a second time, spiritually. It does not yet remain visible; it is indistinct, but one knows: one is beholding it spiritually. One looks into the interior of the Sun.

[ 30 ] It’s like this—if I may use a very rough comparison—as if one were to say to oneself: I see something over there in the distance; I approach it, at first thinking it’s something man-made, get closer, reach out to grab it, and then it seizes my hand in its teeth. Now I know that it isn’t man-made; it’s a real dog. I realize that it had an inner life. This rough comparison can draw your attention to the fact that this is something that has reality. One proceeds from the Earth through the influences of the Moon, Mercury, and Venus, and comes to gaze upon the Sun, so that one realizes: it is a living spiritual being; there are also beings living within it.

[ 31 ] This is, first and foremost, the path that can be cultivated—a path that demonstrates, at every single step, how the initiate, as he proceeds, must maintain complete composure and thus walk the right path; and how, if a person is not at all aware that, by stepping outside of himself in any way, he enters the cosmos—and that the cosmos becomes spiritual before his spiritual gaze—he is walking on the wrong path. You see, inwardly one must know the difference between true and false paths in spiritual vision.

[ 32 ] The Representation of Human Organization in the Imagination

[ 33 ] As I already hinted at yesterday, various psycho-occult societies—which operate by caricaturing scientific methods—are seeking to explore the spiritual world through external phenomena out of a necessity dictated by the times. Please do not misunderstand me; I do not wish to appear as a critic of these methods, for I know all too well how strong the longing can be to penetrate the essence of the spiritual world through the observation of external facts by scientific means. I merely wish to show how these paths lead to error and how the true paths must differ from them. It is entirely understandable today—because we live in the age of natural science and must continue to do so—that people emerge who wish to investigate the spiritual world in the same way that one directly investigates in natural science, and who regard other, purely spiritual paths as unreliable. And so they come to say: On the one hand, there is simply the ordinary world; there, people go about carrying out the tasks imposed on them by external social life; there, people go about thinking and acting in accordance with this external social life. Since we are accustomed to it, this is nothing out of the ordinary. It is precisely this realm that natural science investigates, dealing with external phenomena such as heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and so on.

[ 34 ] But abnormal phenomena also occur in everyday life. People behave as if they were automatic writers, carrying out this or that action to which they are prompted under hypnosis or through suggestion. It is believed that in this way, an unknown world makes its way into this ordinary world. People seek to interpret these external signs they receive—these anomalous phenomena. They seek to understand how it is that when someone in New York vividly thinks and experiences something, a person living in Europe who is in spiritual communion with them receives the message inwardly—knowing it in the same way one would otherwise receive a message externally only through wireless telegraphy. Such phenomena—of which one could cite hundreds, even thousands—are investigated using scientific, external, and statistical methods.

[ 35 ] The path cannot lead to a goal because one lacks a spiritual direction in which to proceed—a direction that must lie within the spiritual world itself. Consequently, all these phenomena, however wondrous they may be, remain as aggregates in the external world, one alongside the other. One does not arrive at any knowledge or insight at all; one can only register these phenomena, regard them as something marvelous, and devise hypotheses about the spiritual world—hypotheses that, however, have no meaning, because the phenomena themselves, in this external world into which they are placed, do not truly reveal what they are to that external world. No matter how much we engage with media or with external scientific facts, the spiritual world reveals itself within them; yet it does not express what it actually is.

[ 36 ] You see, this is where the research comes in that I mentioned yesterday—the research that Dr. Wegman and I are now attempting to describe in precise terms. Just as with the other research I have just described—which seeks to shed light on the inner life of dreams—this research does not proceed by avoiding the spiritual world; rather, it proceeds by taking up the phenomena that present themselves for such research, with the direct aim of exploring what opens up in the spiritual world itself. But these phenomena do not lie in the scattered, wondrous facts that confront us in the external world in the manner just described. These phenomena lie within the realm that the medically, anatomically, and physiologically trained person contemplates when, having grasped the external form of a human organ—the lung, the liver, or any other organ—he ascends to an imaginative apprehension of that organ, when he gradually begins to be able to present the human organism to his soul in images.

[ 37 ] You see, this is possible if one is able to study the human organs—which normally do not function like external natural phenomena, but rather function like abnormal phenomena—if one can proceed from a scientific-anatomical understanding inherent in the human being, which then rises to a spiritual insight into the human organism. The method I described earlier takes the whole human being as its starting point. The approach that can lead to the truth—as opposed to the error of understanding external phenomena in a statistically caricatured, natural-scientific way—takes as its starting point the individual human organs, which are grasped and directly observed through spiritual anatomy. Therefore, you can understand that it was first necessary to find a person who is thoroughly grounded in medicine in this way, so that these things can be presented.

[ 38 ] Now, the point is that at the very moment when a human organ is mentally grasped in this way by a person—that is, when a person stands there viewing anatomy in this manner—this goal does not exist in their thoughts as an indefinite one. And now it is not an inner human being that emerges, as I have described him before, but an outer human being, a cosmic human being, who admittedly still appears nebulous, but as a cosmic human being, as a great, gigantic human being—the human being, as he is viewed, not as the whole of the Earth, but viewed by looking at his organs and embracing them inwardly and spiritually. Because these organs reveal themselves in the spirit, it is no longer merely the earthly human being who stands there, but the human being who encompasses the cosmos. Then one sees: just as one once conjured the world of night and the world of the moon into the world of day, so now one conjures into the human being—into that which is not the whole human being, the contoured human being, but the human being consisting of his individual organs—the impulses of the sphere of Saturn.

[ 39 ] Just as the lunar sphere was once conjured into ordinary everyday consciousness, so now the Saturnian sphere is being conjured into scientific consciousness, and one becomes aware that the forces of Saturn act in a particular way in every organ—that the forces of Saturn act most strongly in the liver, for example, relatively weakly in the lungs, and least of all in the head. One thus becomes aware of the goal, which one learns to express as follows: You must seek Saturn everywhere. And just as one previously penetrated through meditation, so now, by immersing oneself in this search for Saturn—the inner spiritual structure within each organ—one now penetrates into the sphere of Jupiter and learns to recognize how each organ is actually the earthly image of a spiritual-divine being. Human beings carry within their organs the images of spiritual-divine beings. The entire cosmos, which was first a great human being in the sphere of Saturn—the entire human being—becomes clear as a gigantic cosmic being, but it appears as the sum, as the inner-organic interplay of generations of gods.

[ 40 ] Once again, it is essential that this path be followed with the utmost prudence. But it must be followed in such a way that the forces capable of sustaining all of this are at work within it. You must bear in mind that these are all effects that initially exist as if in a state of becoming—they are there, but as soon as they are there, they immediately pass away. So that one can indeed grasp them easily; but it becomes impossible to describe them, to capture them, or to form them in any way as mental images if one succumbs to the danger here—namely, that as everything I have told you emerges and then immediately vanishes from consciousness again, one does not even get the chance to observe it. You see, modern practitioners of psychical research don’t even think of actually invoking the spiritual realm. They want to conduct all of this in a laboratory-like manner, in whatever way they please, by summoning A, B, and C—as human beings—into the laboratory and carrying it out. That is not how spiritual realities can be brought into the world perceptible to human beings—especially not those realities that are to be grasped in this way and gradually described in a truly scientific manner.

[ 41 ] What I said yesterday about the medical book can only represent the very first, most elementary beginning, and it will only become a fully developed science after a long time, when we will no longer be alive. But just as much as these things exist in the spiritual world today—just as much as they are, for example, commonplace among beings who live not on Earth but in the Sun—so too can they be introduced into earthly consciousness in the manner described. One must simply not believe that one can conduct laboratory-style experiments, nor believe that one could make any progress with abstract anatomy and the like, as presented in textbooks. The point is that all of this must pass through the living human being. Why?

[ 42 ] Because these things can only be held fast if one grasps them with the forces that arise from the collective striving of human beings—if, so to speak, they are grasped with the forces that people carry within them from their previous earthly lives—and these forces are used above all to hold and keep these things in place. Then, when that happens, what might be called the Mars sphere enters the world of the Saturn and Jupiter spheres. From that point on, things begin to speak. From that point on, things become manifest through inspiration. And then one returns once more to the Sun with this inspired consciousness. This is the other path that presents itself today as the one demanded by natural science—the one that the initiates, of whom I spoke yesterday, would gladly avoid. They feel uneasy when they embark on this path, yet it must be taken.

[ 43 ] For the path through the lunar sphere—as will be clear to you from today’s discussions—was indeed wonderfully traversed by the ancient initiates, and there are also marvelous things to be found, particularly in Helena Petrovna Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine, regarding this lunar path. One must simply be able to distinguish the true from the false; but then there are magnificent truths in this Secret Doctrine. Yet it is the path that ascends through the light of the lunar ray, in which Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was able to live in a wondrous way, and in which the Messenger of Mercury became a truly wondrous guide for her interpretations. One can see this when following her discussions, as she consistently directs the imagination to the right place. It is truly marvelous with Blavatsky: when she develops an imagination, that imagination is there; the Mercury Messenger guides her; he leads her into a place where a hidden library exists. The idea arises within her; the Mercury Messenger guides her to a book carefully preserved by the Vatican; Blavatsky reads from it. And there are many things in Blavatsky’s writings that she otherwise could not have found, because the Vatican carefully preserved them—because they have been well preserved for centuries! This path is indeed the one that has been taken many, many times, and it must be carefully distinguished from everything that is achieved through a firm inner attitude, as I have mentioned.

[ 44 ] And the other path follows the course I have described, which relies on the modern scientific approach—which Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, incidentally, hated as much as the night; that is to say, she hated the night, but the average person fears ghosts. This is the path that must be followed in the manner I have outlined for you; one must become aware that it finds its support and strength in the karmic development of human powers—not so much to obtain memories, but to retain them so that they can be described. Contemporary science must be deepened from a human perspective, just as I described yesterday in reference to my colleague in this field. So you see, this example is the best way to discuss how the right paths and the wrong paths emerge. This is not achieved through definitions, but by discussing things using real-life examples.

[ 45 ] I will take the liberty of adding whatever else can be said on this topic in the short time available tomorrow, so that, in a sense, we can bring this course to a close.