The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] My dear friends! Yesterday we examined the constitution of the human being, insofar as it can be perceived in the human being itself or in its immediate vicinity. We must now go beyond the human being, for everywhere the human being stands in relation to the forces of the universe; and these relationships to the forces of the universe can only be understood if one truly has the good will to engage with the great diversity in which the universe is structured.

[ 2 ] Just consider, my dear friends, how many ways the forces anchored in the universe actually work in humanity’s favor. Let us say, for example, that we see a plant growing out of the earth. We observe the plant’s growth from the soil in two directions: the stem growing upward and the roots forming downward. Thus, we have two tendencies within the plant: the striving upward and the striving downward. And if we were already so far advanced today in the physical study of nature that we applied the investigative methods—sometimes used for less essential matters—to such phenomena as the upward growth of the plant’s stem and the downward growth of its roots, we would discover the interconnections within the universe which, in turn, by entering into a relationship with humanity, actually make this totality comprehensible: humanity and the world, the macrocosm and the microcosm. For we would see that everything connected with the upward growth of the stem stands in a certain relationship to the unfolding of the solar forces throughout the year, throughout the day, and even beyond the year. That everything connected with the unfolding of the root forces is related to the development of the Moon, to the lunar forces, so that when we look at a plant in the right way, we must already perceive within the plant’s formation the relationship between the Sun and the Moon. We must, so to speak, look out from the universe and its forces to find the simplest, most primitive image of the plant. Those who are able to see will never perceive the root in any other way than as curving inward toward the earth as it reaches down into the soil. The root curving inward toward the earth—that is the image in which one must see the root: the image curving inward toward the earth (Plate 9, left).

[ 3 ] One must view the stem differently—its unfolding upward. When it comes to the stem, if one combines feeling and sensation with observation, one must inevitably have the sense that the stem strives radiantly; the stem seeks to unfold the direction of its lines. The root seeks to unfold the curvature of the circular direction; the stem seeks to unfold its linear direction. This is the original image of the plant being. And in the upward-striving linear direction, we must see the presence of the sun’s forces on Earth. In the root’s striving toward the circular, we must see the presence of the moon’s forces on Earth.

[ 4 ] Now let’s look further. We tell ourselves: The sun is present wherever the plant soars upward in a radiant manner. Now it expands upward again, creating breadth and periphery. There, in what emerges from this upward, radiant striving, we find—first and foremost directly above in the flower—that which is active where the forces of Venus interact with the forces of the Sun; and as the flowers unfold further downward, becoming leaves and forming from the outside in, we find the forces of Mercury. So, if we want to understand the structure of the plant in relation to the radiant direction of the sun, we must understand that the forces of Venus and the forces of Mercury come to the aid of the forces of the sun. That is one aspect.

[ 5 ] On the other hand, we must be clear that these forces alone would not be capable of forming the plant. In a sense, the essence of the plant would tend only toward this convergence. In order for the plant to unfold—as we see, for example, in the most extreme case of a tree’s growth—the forces of Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter act everywhere in opposition to these forces of Venus and Mercury. Thus, alongside the two fundamental polarities—the effects of the Sun and the Moon—the remaining planetary influences of the universe also converge (Plate 9, left).

[ 6 ] What I’m trying to say with this, first of all, is this: My dear friends, take a look at a plant. There you have the plant’s entire planetary system. It lies there on the earth; it is there, and it no longer seems so absurd when someone who is half or three-quarters knowledgeable—as Paracelsus was—makes a statement such as: “Whoever eats a plant eats the entire planetary system along with it, for the forces are there.” Paracelsus expresses this in his characteristic blunt manner and simply feels that, by eating the plant, one eats the entire heavens. Now, the world is so manifold in its form that, everywhere in one’s immediate surroundings, the forces of the macrocosm are present in growth, in arrangement, and in everything.

[ 7 ] Let us return from there to the human being. Yesterday we showed how one can ascend from breathing to that realm of human experience in which, if we may put it that way, inhalation is more subtle, and we discovered within this more subtle inhalation the continuing effect of the karmic current of the past. Now we can proceed further. If—depicted, of course, entirely schematically and symbolically (Plate 9, right)—we have at work within the human being what I would initially call a refined breath current, then we can now say the following: If a human being were to unfold what lies within his astral body and within his “I,” he would never come near the sun, given the current constitution of the human being. The human being would never come near the sun. When he is in his “I” and astral body—between falling asleep and waking up—he does not come near the sun. It remains dark for them. Thus, if a human being were in their astral body and in their “I” without a connection to the etheric body and the physical body, they would not be able to approach the sun. Indeed, how do they approach the sun?

[ 8 ] Now let us first consider how things stand. The astral body and the “I” approach the etheric body, but if one realizes this state through contemplation—which is relatively easy to do by greatly intensifying one’s thinking—if one intensifies one’s thinking through thorough, very energetic meditation, one can easily enter this state; it is the state of beginning initiation. It is easy to enter the state in which a person immerses themselves in their etheric body but has not yet grasped the physical body. They live in the etheric body. You see, in this state—when one lives in the etheric body and cannot yet grasp the physical body—in this state, however, one can think very, very well. One simply sees nothing, hears nothing, but one can think very well. Thinking is by no means extinguished; it is only the seeing, the hearing, and the other sensory perceptions that are suppressed. But thinking remains with one—first of all, just as it was before: one can think, but one can actually think more than before. One can think about things like these here, and one can think about the macrocosm. Thinking remains and expands, and you know exactly: you are now immersed in the world-ether. So, by being in your etheric body, you are immersed in the world-ether. But as you enter this world-ether, you certainly have the experience, the realization, that you are now within that spiritual world from which the sensory world also emerges. But one has not yet individualized either the spiritual world or the sensory world. One has stepped out of the individualized sensory world. The sun no longer shines, the stars no longer shine, the moon does not shine. In the realms of nature on Earth, there is no longer a clear distinction. One can perceive this only when one is in the physical body, in ordinary life, or in a higher state of initiation. But in place of the contours of the sensory world, which have grown dim, one has the general spirituality, the weaving and life of the spiritual.

[ 9 ] If one now proceeds further and begins to consciously detach oneself from one’s physical body—so that one begins to live within the organs—and if one consciously detaches oneself from this physical body, then the beings that had faded away and disappeared, with the exception of the earthly ones, begin to reappear, but as spiritual entities. Where one used to see the sun in ordinary consciousness—which had darkened and become veiled, yet remained within the general spiritual fabric—the sum total of the beings of the second hierarchy now appears. One now perceives individuality in the spiritual world. The moon and stars reappear, but they appear in their spiritual aspects and are now spiritual colonies or the like—so to speak— and now we know how, externally—first in ordinary consciousness, for example (and it is the same with other things)—we used to see the sun in its physical form; just as we now, having consciously grasped the physical body and likewise grasped it in its spiritual aspect, see the sun as a spiritual being—and the whole world in the same way. But now we also know that with every ray of sunlight, the day enters us radiantly; with every ray of sunlight, spirit also enters. Spirit enters through every sensory perception, so that we must regard this upwardly refined breathing as one that is continuously imbued with spirit, and we perceive that the sun lives in every sensory perception that flows in. It is precisely the spirit of the sun—or the spirits of the sun—that lives in every sensory perception, so that the immediate life of the sun, the immediate forces of the sun, flow into human beings, into this refined breathing.

[ 10 ] You see, this is the relationship between human beings and the sun. When a ray of light streams into your eye, the spirit of the sun streams in with that ray of light. The spirit of the sun is the substance of refined breathing. We inhale the manifold ingredients of the spiritual Sun along with our sensory perceptions. But now you have a significant insight into the human being as it relates to one pole. As the human being unfolds through its etheric body (Plate 5, yellow), it develops within the etheric body the thinking of the universe, the thoughts of the universe. And these thoughts of the universe, within which the person living consciously in his etheric body finds himself, are at first devoid of warmth, cold, or sound. They are like a general feeling, in which the feeling of the self coincides with the feeling of the macrocosm. If one now enters the spirit of the senses by taking hold of the physical body, thought becomes colored from the most diverse directions: through the eyes, thought is colored by the inhalation of the essence of the sun; the thought takes on color; through the ear, the thought takes on sound; through the organ of warmth, the thought takes on warmth and cold—and you now have the cosmic understanding of the relationship between the mental and the sensory. The mental must be presented here as the more primordial, and the sensory arises through solar impregnation, through solar coloring.

[ 11 ] This is one aspect of the human being. Human beings simply do not perceive how the sun, with its very essence, flows into them with every sensory perception. And along with this sun, past karma also flows in. And it is by no means a childish notion to think of the sun at the same time as a vessel of past karma. So that when we look thoughtfully at the human head, we must say to ourselves: There, in the occult realm, flows the spiritual ray of the sun, which is transformed as it flows into the physical realm—appearing precisely as physical in the world of color, sound, and warmth. At the same time, along the path of the sun’s rays—which creep from the senses into the nerves—karma flows into the human being.

[ 12 ] Now let us look at the other side. Let us look where we had to recognize yesterday: karma flows out where the lymph is in the organism, where everything in the organism that is active and essential—but has not yet been absorbed into the blood—is located. There we find the karma flowing out. What are these pathways along which karma flows out? To understand this, one must familiarize oneself with the lunar forces from a scientific-occult perspective.

[ 13 ] As one gradually moves through the etheric realm—into which one has first settled—toward the physical body in the peripheral direction toward the senses, all life flowing in from the Sun certainly appears, on the one hand, to carry past karma along its paths, it appears to us as such, accompanied by many reproaches, by many things that trouble the human being. But far more significant than all that which so troubles the human being in his karma—when he truly arrives at this insight—is all that which gives him the knowledge: Through your past, you have nevertheless become what you are now. What one carries within oneself is carried in far greater abundance when one perceives the sun’s entry upon the chariot of the sensory nerve pathways. But just as one detaches oneself from karma and surrenders to the inflow of the spiritual solar forces, an infinite bliss arises in receiving the solar essence, and one has the feeling that the solar essence is such that one must continually wish for it within oneself, that one must desire it. Moreover, the solar essence is that which enters us in love when we desire it, and that which we recognize in a diminished form in physical life as living and weaving in love. This occurs through the interaction of the human inner world with the solar forces, which pour into the human being through love; and everything within the human being that seeks to grow, sprout, and flourish is drawn into the human being by these solar rays living in love. For here love is not merely a soul-spiritual force; here it is the force that calls all that is physical to growth, sprouting, and budding—which is beneficial and joyful to the human being in every detail, if he can truly appreciate it, but which he receives through his immediate perception.

[ 14 ] If, on the other hand, one approaches the physical body from the opposite direction—that is, from the direction of the forces that develop the lymph and prepare it for blood formation—one becomes aware of the lunar influences. But these lunar influences have a completely different characteristic. We can therefore say that, on the one hand, the spiritual solar influences are at work, as we have indicated, and on the other hand, the lunar influences are present. We immerse ourselves in this by inwardly engaging with the process of blood-lymph formation; we immerse ourselves precisely in the lunar influences. But these lunar influences are such that we constantly have the feeling they want to take something away from us. They want to draw something out of us. With the Sun, we have the feeling it constantly wants to give us something; with the Moon, we have the feeling it constantly wants to draw something out of us. And before we know it—if we are not attentive to this perception of the moon’s effects, if we immerse ourselves in the formation of blood and lymph and grasp the physical body there, if we do not have ourselves properly under control, if we are not truly attentive in our observation—suddenly the thread snaps, and before us stands some spiritual being that resembles us but is distorted, usually caricatured—that we ourselves have brought forth from within. We have simply overlooked this transition, this stepping out, when we are not attentive. It is nothing strange to us when we see how it detaches itself from us and stands before us. It is little more than an intensified form of seeing one’s reflection. When we see ourselves in a mirror, it is in the physical world. When we see ourselves reflected in the ether through the forces of the Moon, it is a higher, intensified reflection.

[ 15 ] Let’s walk through the entire process. There is nothing particularly special about it. It merely shows us how we are connected to the universe—that the Moon continually draws out forces from within us, making them independent—forces that live within us, that enter the spiritual world, flow into the macrocosm, and continually carry images from within us out into the macrocosm. But look, my dear friends, imagine that a process is created through which such an image—which the lunar forces continually seek to generate within the human being and carry out into the vastness of the world—is held within the human body, retained there. It is not merely an abstract reflection; it is an image that is already permeated by forces. Yes, how can such an image be held within a human being? Here we have the drawing forces of the Moon, which constantly seek to draw its image out of the human being. How, then, can this image be held within the human being, rather than emerging from it? How can it be formed within him? When, from the other side, the forces of the Sun are brought down so deeply that the image remains within the human being. Then the image remains inside, works within him, and an embryonic life arises. Fertilization consists of nothing other than the solar forces being drawn down through fertilization to the point where the lunar forces intervene in the lymph, causing the image—which would otherwise escape—to be taken up by the physical matter in the human body. What is otherwise an image penetrates all the way into the physical formation. Through this, the union of the lunar forces with the solar forces takes place in the lymphatic region of the human organism (Plate 9).

[ 16 ] Let us look at the other side. We can, after all, also raise the lunar forces all the way up; then the opposite occurs—the human being is not reformed within the human being, but rather the solar macrocosm is formed within the human being. There, the human being perceives that which is macrocosmic in a different sense. When the embryo forms, the physical world arises within the human being, which must emerge from within him. If, on the other hand, the lunar forces act in their nature of desire—for they already seek to draw in or intercept the solar forces—then the spirit of the universe arises within the human being. The spirit of the universe arises, the spiritual embryonic state. Yes, what do you have there? There you have the possibility of forming that which must enter from the spiritual world—that which existed in the spiritual world before earthly life and now lives its way in here as a spiritual embryo. Then the connection between the two takes place within the human being.

[ 17 ] Tracing these things back to the point where they are seen to be directly connected to one another—that is what can truly explain humanity’s relationship to the universe. Now, there is help everywhere. The effects of the Sun, which combine here with the effects of the Moon, are aided by Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. What, then, are the tasks of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn? Yes, my dear friends, remember what I said yesterday. As the solar principle penetrates: first, a halt must be called to the light; second stage: a halt must be called to macrocosmic chemistry; third stage: a halt must be called to life. The forces of Saturn bring the light to a halt; the forces of Jupiter, in their wisdom, bring the world’s chemistry to a halt; the forces of Mars bring life to a halt. Thus, in specific, concrete terms, you have the drawing in of the solar forces, modified by the forces of the so-called other outer planets. Conversely, in the opposite direction, the lunar forces have been modified; these forces, when acting on their own in their full strength, actually lead to the embryonic—that is, to physical formation; when they are weakened toward the spiritual, when they do not reach physical matter, they remain as the purely soul-based forces of love from Venus, and if they are weakened even further, so that in everyday life they can always unite with what comes from the other side, they become the forces of Mercury, the messenger of the gods, who leads the lower forces upward toward the higher ones in ordinary earthly life.

[ 18 ] Look at the image on the right and the one on the left (Plate 9). When we look outward at what first spreads out in the plant world, we see the sun, moon, and stars spreading out. If we look inward, there we find the sun, moon, and stars, which correspond exactly to one another internally. If something is amiss within, then something is amiss in the inner interplay of the sun, moon, and stars. If we wish to set things right, we must seek—therapeutically—among what we find out there a corresponding Saturn effect for an improper lunar effect, and so on. All of this is out there, after all. So you see, trust in medicine can begin when we recognize that human beings perceive the world internally. This is precisely what we would like to reintroduce into medicine, for this truth once existed within it. Active inner trust in medicine will only be established in the world when these things are once again fully understood.

[ 19 ] But let us look at the other side. Let us first look at all that in human beings is the influence of the Moon—that which constantly strives to draw the human out of the human being and carry it out into the universe. The image stands before us: the human being, striving to emerge from within himself, wanting to be carried out into the cosmos. This must be presented to humanity—not in abstract form, but as an image—this immensely profound mystery: that the lunar influence constantly seeks to draw the human being out of himself in order to reveal to him his kinship with the macrocosm. He arises on Earth through an inner embryonic formation, but when this direct lunar influence is refined toward the influences of Mercury and Venus, he is then born not physically but spiritually. And we can—if we add to physical birth what we can add when we invoke the Mercury and Venus influences for that which has arisen through the pure influence of the Moon—we can add to the physical birth of the human being within the human being the spiritual birth of the human being outside the human being in the universe: we baptize the human being.

[ 20 ] We can add to what is always present in human beings the physical effects of the sun, the awareness that spiritual effects of the sun flow into them, that through the physical-etheric rays of light from the sun, chemical rays, life rays, the spiritual floods in, and that spiritual beings enter the human being along the same paths as the physical-etheric effects of the sun enter through the senses. We enable the human being to perceive, just as he perceives the physical-etheric effects of the sun in ordinary physical life, the spiritual-soul effects of the sun; that is, we administer to him the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion.

[ 21 ] If we take the Lord’s Supper as our starting point, we will find that on one side there is that which pertains to the sun’s powers—the darkening of the light, the continual encroachment of death upon life. We go outward, toward the outer planets connected to the Sun, and add the anointing for death to the Last Supper at the proper hour.

[ 22 ] Or, to put it another way, we enter into the human being, pausing within him before he reaches the macrocosm; we do not merely wish to place him as a human being within the macrocosm, but rather to implant the macrocosm within him in the form of an image, so that the macrocosm becomes a seed of development within him. We give him confirmation.

[ 23 ] When these things are fully internalized, and the recipient of the sacraments lives in full awareness of them, then through the sacraments the human being is continually healed of the universal illness into which he sinks, or into which he continually threatens to sink in the *status nascendi*, as he descends into the physical, material world. Therein lies the priestly dimension.

[ 24 ] Or the opposite may occur: by nature, the human being is constantly in a state of nascent development, in the process of becoming that which seeks to be free in the spiritual realm, that which wants to emerge from the physical but must remain within it during life; thus, it is not a lack of spirit but an excess of spirit that gives rise to illness within. We administer the remedy as the opposite pole of the sacrament when the illness sets in. The physician is there.

[ 25 ] On the one hand, we see the priest’s role as a spiritual healer; on the other hand, we see the priesthood of the physician—the physical healer—and when we recognize this coordination, we understand the connection between pastoral care on the one hand and medicine on the other. Thus, pastoral medicine encompasses not only a theoretical discipline but also human collaboration.