The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] Well, gentlemen, perhaps you have a special request today. Has anything come to mind that you’d like to ask?

Questioner: I'd like to know why blond people are becoming increasingly rare. In my hometown, there used to be a lot of blond people—now there are fewer and fewer. What's the reason for this?

[ 2 ] Dr. Steiner: That fits in very well with our discussion. I’ll be able to explain this to you quite well if I first explain the eye to you. We’ve looked at the ear; now I’ll explain the eye to you. You may have noticed that being blond is very closely related to having blue eyes. Blond people usually—and this is practically a rule—have blue eyes. What you’re asking about is connected to this. You’ll understand it quite well once we look at the eye. The eye is, in fact, something extraordinarily important in human beings. For, you see, one might think, for example, that if people are born blind, then they actually have nothing at all from the eye. Certainly, people who are born blind do not have the ability to see with their eyes—they cannot do that, of course, if they are born blind. But the entire structure of the eye is still present within them. And the eye does not merely serve the purpose of enabling us to see; it also influences our entire nervous system—insofar as the nervous system originates from the brain. Although the eye cannot see in someone born blind, it is still located in the eye socket, and the problem lies only within it—specifically in the optic nerve. But the muscles that connect to the eye in every person are also present in the blind, and they actually influence the nervous system continuously—even in the blind. And that is why the eye is one of the most important organs we have in our organism, in our bodies.

[ 3 ] The eye is situated inside a cavity formed by the skull bones, the skull skeleton, and the eye is actually something like a small world. It’s extraordinarily interesting to think of the eye as a kind of miniature world. Because, you see, when we look at the eye, the optic nerve is located within the brain tissue. So I’ll sketch the brain tissue here (drawing begins); then the brain transitions into the spinal cord; and the spinal cord runs down here. Now, the optic nerve is located there. It then fills out the eye. I’ll draw the eye itself a little larger. When the eye looks this way, there is this canal here through which the optic nerve passes. What I’ve drawn in red here passes through there; then the eye, when I draw it from the side, sits like this inside the eye socket. There’s fat all around here, and then there are the eye muscles; they’re located here; they extend in like this, and here are the bones. It sits directly on top of what’s here behind the upper jaw. So that’s how the eye sits in there.

[ 4 ] And when you look at the eye from the front, you first see through a completely transparent, crystal-clear membrane. What I’m highlighting in green here is this membrane; it extends all the way through; it’s opaque everywhere else, but here it’s completely transparent, so that light can enter the eye here. That’s what happens when you look into the black part. The black part isn’t actually anything at all. The black part is nothing; rather, when you look at the black part, you’re seeing right through the entire eye, and at the back of the eye, that’s where it’s black. So you’re seeing through this transparent membrane all the way to the back wall of the eye, and that’s why what’s called the pupil appears black to you. Just as if you were looking through a window and the back wall were black, you’d be mistaken into thinking the black part is out front. Inside, the eye is completely transparent. And this here is actually a hard membrane that is opaque here but transparent here. And inside this hard membrane, there is a network containing very fine blood vessels. There are very fine blood vessels, and these fine blood vessels form a ridge here. When viewed from the front, it looks just as the drawing here shows. And what you see around the black spot is the so-called iris; and—I’ll talk about this in more detail in a moment—in some people it’s blue, in others gray, and in others completely black, isn’t that right? So that’s the part that surrounds the black spot.

[ 5 ] Between this transparent membrane—called the cornea—and the iris, there is a hard substance inside; you could say it’s like hard water. It, too, is completely transparent. So where you see the black part, there’s first the transparent membrane, and behind the transparent membrane lies a hard, water-like substance—just as if you were looking in through a window and saw a hard, water-like substance lying there—it’s called the anterior chamber. It’s a living substance that’s like a tiny little glass lens. It looks like a small lens if you could take it out, though not quite like a lens. A lens is like this (it is drawn), whereas this one is flatter at the back and more curved at the front; and right here, where these fine vessels run and form the iris, that is where the actual lens is. That, in turn, is—I would say—living water; that is the lens. The outer membrane of this lens is also completely transparent, so that when you look inside, you can see the black part at the back.

[ 6 ] This lens is surrounded by the choroid; however, unlike a glass lens, it is not immobile—it is movable. When you look at something close up—very close up—this lens is curved like this. When you look further away, this lens is curved like this. So it is thick in the center when you look at something close up, and thin in the center when you look at something far away.

[ 7 ] And this part here—the iris—contains very fine muscles. When you look at something up close, these fine muscles make the lens thicker in the center; or we relax the muscles, and then it becomes thinner. People also adapt to this through their lifestyle. So if someone is an office worker and is always writing, always focusing their eyes on nearby objects, their lens gradually thickens in the center—they become nearsighted. If someone is a hunter and always has to look into the distance, their lens thins in the center, and they become farsighted.

[ 8 ] But the fact is that in youth, these muscles—those tiny ones inside the iris—are still strong; that’s why we can still adjust to what we see. As we age, the muscles become weaker. That is why almost all of us become farsighted as we age. This is the basis for how we can correct the problem. If someone has a lens that is too thick in the center, we give them glasses with lenses that are thinner on average (a diagram is drawn); this balances out the thickness of the lens—it’s thick here and thin there. Some people even have two pairs; depending on what they want to look at in the distance, they need farsighted glasses; when they want to see up close, they need nearsighted glasses. So if someone’s lens looks like this (pointing to the drawing), we have to give them glasses like this. Then we compensate for it. Then, because the lens is thicker there, that thickness of the glasses adds to our eye’s lens, and it is balanced out.

[ 9 ] The fact is, you could say: Because we can correct the defects in the eye’s lens, we are able to see. The lens in the eye is like the lenses in our glasses. Everyone has a pair of glasses that lets them see both far and near. In that respect, you’re gradually catching up with everyone else. Of course, the glasses stay the same, but the lens in the eye is a living lens; it adapts.

[ 10 ] And there, behind the lens, is something that is like living water, and it, too, is completely transparent, so that light can enter from all directions. It fills the entire interior of the eye, so that the inner part of the eye is actually completely transparent to begin with. Here (anterior chamber) there is something like hard water, transparent; a lens, transparent; a vitreous body—all of it transparent again.

[ 11 ] The optic nerve, which enters the eye there, extends roughly to about here; and this optic nerve is an incredibly complicated structure. I’ve drawn it here as if the main strand of the nerve simply split into this one here; but it’s not quite like that—if we study these nerves, I’d actually have to draw four layers here. So four layers of nerve tissue surround our vitreous body; it’s like a glass, but this “glass” has four layers to its wall. I’m now going to draw a small section of such a nerve (drawing begins): There’s an outer layer; this outer layer acts like a strong mirror. So the light enters here and then strikes these layers everywhere, and it’s reflected back from every surface. The light doesn’t enter here, but remains inside the eye. But it acts like a mirrored wall. The light is reflected back here. That is the outermost layer. Further inside this layer, there is another layer; it further enhances the mirror-like effect. So this nerve, which lines our eye like a bubble, consists of four layers. The outermost layer and the second-outermost layer both reflect all the light back into the eye, so that inside this vitreous body we actually have all of that reflected light. Then there is a third layer; this is it (it is drawn); it consists of the same substance as our gray matter. I’ve told you: on the outside, the brain is gray, not white. So there’s a small piece of brain inside as the third layer. And as the fourth layer, we have an additional membrane in there. So this vitreous body is actually contained within a very complex sac. All the light that enters the vitreous body through the pupil is reflected back within the vitreous body and remains there.

[ 12 ] You see, at first glance we actually have something that looks like a terribly complicated physical apparatus. What is all this for? Suppose there is a person standing somewhere here. Through this—this vitreous body, this lens—an inverted image of that person is formed at the back, because everything is reflected. So if a person is standing there, through this entire apparatus you have a small image of that person in your eye—but it’s upside down; that’s what you see at the back (of the eye), just like in a camera. It works just like a camera: the image is captured, and it’s upside down. That’s what we have in our eye. This happens because the eye is a reflecting device. Light enters it and is reflected back here. So we have a small person inside our eye.

[ 13 ] Well, you see, one might say to oneself: Something like the human eye—we certainly couldn’t create that today, no matter how sophisticated our equipment might be. The human eye is, after all, something truly marvelous. If you have a mental image of the entire firmament with the stars shining their light down onto Earth—in other words, a space filled with light, as they say—and then imagine it on a very small scale, you actually have the interior of the human eye. It’s actually a whole world in miniature. And this reflection here actually looks as if there were all kinds of stars standing there; for these outer walls aren’t such that they reflect evenly, but I’d actually have to draw it like this: they’re all these tiny little bodies, like little stars, and from them the light shines into the interior of the body. So if we ourselves could be a tiny little person like the little picture and could look at the inside of an eye—if we were such tiny little dwarfs, if we weren’t used to being such big people as we are—then, if we were that small, we would consider it gigantic, if we were that little person inside there ourselves and were looking at it; we would feel no different than we do at night when we stand on Earth and see the shining stars. It is exactly like that. It is incredibly interesting to realize that the eye is actually a small world. And if what is produced by reflection—the little image—could be conscious, it would feel just as we do on a starry night. That’s very interesting.

[ 14 ] Well, I say: if that were possible to be aware of. But if we didn’t have eyes, then we wouldn’t see the starry night either. We see the starry night precisely because we have eyes. If we close them, the starry night is not there. The fact that we see the entire starry sky actually depends on the eye—that this tiny little world is inside it first, and we tell ourselves: This tiny little world actually represents the big world. That is something you simply have to realize.

[ 15 ] Imagine that someone—whether yourself or another person—shows you a very tiny photograph. You’ll say: “That’s so tiny, and it comes from a great person.” But that person isn’t actually standing right in front of you. In reality, you always have only this small, tiny starry sky within you, and you tell yourself: “What I have here in front of me is a photograph of the vast starry sky.” You do this all the time, constantly. So in reality, you actually have the small, tiny starry sky of your eye within you, and then you tell yourself: “This is a photograph of the vast starry sky.” You’re actually imagining the real starry sky constantly based on the small starry sky in your eye. So this is just a mental image you create for yourself. What you’re really experiencing is the small starry sky in your eye.

[ 16 ] Now you might say: All of that would be true if we had only one eye, like the Cyclopes; but we do have two eyes. Why do we actually have two eyes? Yes, you see, try it for yourself: When you look at something with one eye, it seems as if everything were painted on the back wall. You don’t see the objects double. Physically, you see objects only because you have two eyes. When you look with both eyes, it’s just like reaching with your right hand to touch your left hand. Because we’ve been accustomed since childhood to touching ourselves, that’s how we actually say “I” to ourselves; that’s how we perceive ourselves. If our right side could never perceive our left, we wouldn’t even have the word “I” in our language. We would know nothing about ourselves. We become so accustomed to the most important things that we take them for granted.

[ 17 ] Well, someone who’s such a real philistine these days might say: “I’m certainly not going to keep thinking about why I say ‘I.’” It goes without saying that one says ‘I’! — But then he is simply a philistine. He does not know that the most subtle things are based on the most complicated matters. He does not know that as a child he got into the habit of touching himself—specifically, touching his left hand with his right—and thereby saying “I” to himself.

[ 18 ] You see, this extends right into the culture. If we go back to the very earliest times of humanity—let’s just say as far back as the times of the Old Testament—the priests, who in earlier times—forgive me for this heretical statement—were often much wiser than in more recent times, said: “We want to lead people to self-awareness.” So they had people fold their hands. That is the origin of folding one’s hands: touching oneself to find the strong “I” within and to develop willpower. Of course, no one says any of this today because people don’t understand these things. Today, priests tell people to fold their hands in prayer, but they don’t explain what it means. That is indeed the case.

[ 19 ] The same is true of the eye. When we look with two eyes, we have a mental image that what is in the light is three-dimensional, not merely forces. If we had only one eye, we would always see only the firmament, and everything would be painted on the firmament. The mental image that everything is three-dimensional stems from our two eyes. And we ourselves then feel as if we are standing at the center of the world. Everyone feels like the center of the world—some in a negative sense, some in a positive sense. Thus, the fact that we have two eyes is of great significance.

[ 20 ] And you see, the fact that we see through our eyes—that is, of course, such an important thing for human beings that we actually always focus on that as the only thing when it comes to the eye.

[ 21 ] With regard to the ear, we do not merely behave that way. I believe I already told you the time before last that we don’t just hear, but also speak—that is, we produce what we hear ourselves. And we actually understand what is spoken only because a connecting tube—the Eustachian tube—runs from the throat into the ear. As you know, children who cannot hear cannot learn to speak either. And people who don’t learn to speak can’t understand what they hear either. In such cases, artificial means must be used to help them understand what they hear.

[ 22 ] When it comes to the eye, it seems as if it were meant solely for seeing. But a child doesn’t just learn to see with its eyes; the child—though we don’t usually notice it—also learns to speak with its eyes. It’s just that the language of the eyes isn’t as useful as the language meant for the ears. But you’ll find that there’s a difference between someone lying to you and someone telling you the truth. If you have even a little bit of sensitivity, you’ll be able to tell from the way he looks at you whether he’s telling you the truth or lying through his teeth. The eyes do speak. And a child learns to speak with its eyes just as much as it learns to speak with its mouth.

[ 23 ] However, with the eye, it is such that—whereas in vocal speech, the larynx is separate from the ear and they are two distinct things—with the eye, the seeing eye is inside, and the muscles surround it. These muscles are what make the eye a kind of visible speech organ. Whether we look straight ahead or look in the wrong direction depends on the muscles, which I have marked in yellow here, and which extend throughout the eye. It’s just as if we were organized—as fish are—so that the ear were already inside our larynx and we spoke that way. Isn’t it true that the ear is separate from the larynx; in a fish, they are still one and the same. So we speak in such a way that speaking is separate from hearing. With the eye, it’s as if the larynx itself were surrounding the ear within the muscles. There, the eye is located inside the speech organ, just as if the ear were located inside the speech organ. In humans, it is like this—in fish, it is different—: Here we have the larynx; the continuation extends into the lungs; there is the larynx, the palatal plate, and through this we speak. This then rises up into the mouth. And then the continuation extends from the mouth all the way over to the ear.

[ 24 ] Now imagine that it’s not the same as it is in humans, but rather that the larynx extends further, so that we have a broad larynx here, like the one Lucifer has over there on my wooden figure; and then it’s positioned inside like this, so that the larynx rises up here and the ear is inside; then this would be the organ of sound production, and we would speak and hear with the same organ. With the eye, it’s like this: we speak through the muscles that run all around it, and we see through the eye, which is located right in the middle. So the eye is structurally very similar to the ear, yet of course quite different. That’s why we have these muscles, which I’ve marked in yellow here.

[ 25 ] When we speak, one could say: When we speak, we are actually saying what we know. Admittedly, there are also people who say things they do not know. But we generally regard them, more or less, as fools. We then say: They are talking to themselves, speaking without thinking. But as a rule, with reasonable people, with level-headed people, it is the case that a person says what he knows.

[ 26 ] With the eyes, however, we do not speak consciously. We would have to be quite sophisticated people to speak the language of the eyes consciously. It happens unconsciously and goes hand in hand with the way we otherwise behave. But it goes so far that when you visit southern Italy, for example, people still talk about the “evil eye.” There, people know that a person who has a certain look in their eyes is up to no good. And the people in southern Italy still definitely talk about this “evil eye” because they sense that the eyes reveal the whole of human nature—a nature of which people are actually unaware. And superstition in southern Italy goes very far: there, people have little amulets—those little things you hang around your neck—that are supposed to protect you from the evil eye, because people are afraid of this evil eye in others.

[ 27 ] So you can see just how wonderfully this eye is actually formed. But anyone who studies this eye in this way cannot possibly say: “Yes, there is nothing spiritual inside the eye.” — It is simply foolish and narrow-minded to say: “There is nothing spiritual inside the eye.” — People say: “The light is out there. The light enters the eye through this opening, passes into the lens, into the vitreous humor; the vitreous humor forms an image here, and it continues on into the brain.” - And that’s where modern science stops. It goes on to say: “In the brain, the light is used for thinking and creating mental images.” - And that’s how such general nonsense comes about when you describe it. It’s actually nothing.

[ 28 ] But it’s actually not the case that the light reaches all the way into the brain. I’ve already shown you how the light is reflected back here everywhere, just like a mirror. The light actually remains in the eye. It remains there; and it’s important, gentlemen, to know this: the light remains in the eye. Inside, the eye is like an illuminated starry space. The light remains inside the eye; it does not enter the brain directly in its form as light. For if the light were to enter the brain, we would see nothing. We can only see because the light does not enter the brain. Just imagine, gentlemen, that you are standing here in this room, all alone, no chairs, nothing at all, just walls, but the room is completely illuminated from within. You see nothing inside it. You only know that it is bright, but you see nothing inside it. If the brain were simply filled with light, we would see nothing. Light alone does not make it possible to see. And the light is actually held back in the eye; it merely shines through the eye. And what is it? Well, imagine this: here lies this little box. I stand here like this. Before, I didn’t see it. Then I have to reach behind me, and only then can I know that the box is there. If the eye is illuminated from within, I must first feel the light in order to know that the light is there. I must first feel the light. And that is done with the soul. So this visual apparatus produces what we can feel. The soul then passes through the muscles and so on and feels—feels the little figure inside (it is drawn).

[ 29 ] Every organ in the human body shows us that we must say somewhere: It is the soul that perceives this, that feels what is inside. Especially when one studies this closely, one finds the soul and the spirit everywhere, particularly in the eye, where one actually begins to feel, little by little, as if one were sitting in front of a peep show. You look inside. And if I have a peep box here, there’s a small image of all of you inside it. And when others look in like that, yes, then I see what’s inside; but I form a mental image of what’s inside as the vast world out here. That’s how it is with our eye. Suppose this were a small peep show, and the soul creates a mental image of all of this as the big world. You simply cannot help but look toward the spiritual when you consider the matter in its truth.

[ 30 ] Well, I told you: Here, where I’ve marked this in purple, you can see where the choroid is—it lies beneath the optic nerve. The optic nerve doesn’t extend all the way to the front, but the choroid, together with the muscles, extends toward the lens and actually holds the lens in place. And that, as I told you, is the iris, which you see around the black pupil—which is, after all, just a hole. This iris is an extremely complex structure. I’ll draw it again, a little larger, from the side. Here we have the iris extending from the choroid; the lens is situated inside it and is held in place by the iris. Now, this iris—when you look at a person from the front, the iris has a front wall and a back wall—has all sorts of colored granules on its back wall. These are small sacs, tiny sacs. They’re filled with blue pigment. In every person, they are filled with blue pigment. And it is this blue pigment that you see when you look at a person with blue eyes. So the front part is transparent, and when you’re looking at a person with blue eyes, you’re actually seeing the blue pigment on the back of the iris. You’re actually looking at the back wall; the front is transparent, after all. If someone has brown eyes, they also have that same blue on the back wall of the iris, but in addition, there are little brown bodies here in front that cover the blue ones in the back, and you’re looking at those little brown bodies. And if someone has black eyes, they have little black sacs there. Again, you don’t see the blue ones; instead, you see the black sacs. What makes a person blue-eyed, brown-eyed, or black-eyed is therefore their iris, which is always blue on the back surface and, in blue-eyed people, has no sacs at all on the front surface; in black-eyed and brown-eyed people, it also has such pigment deposits on the front surface, so that the blue pigment deposits at the back are then not visible.

[ 31 ] Where does this come from? Well, you see, these little sacs are constantly being filled with blood and then emptied again. The blood flows into them very gently. So, in people with blue eyes, these sacs are constantly being filled a little with blood, which then flows back out, and so on. And it’s the same for people with brown and black eyes: the blood flows in, deposits blue or black pigment, flows back out, and takes the pigment with it again. This happens continuously throughout life.

[ 32 ] Well, do you think there are people who have a very strong power in their blood—a power so great that it drives food all the way up into their eyes? Then they get brown or black bags. Those who have black sacs are the ones who can force their blood strongly all the way into their eyes, so that nutrients still reach the eyes properly—people with brown eyes, on the other hand, do so to a lesser extent. Those with brown eyes are less well-nourished. But if someone has blue eyes, they do not drive the nutrient fluids strongly enough into the eye to fill even the front wall of the iris with nutrient fluid. As a result, it remains transparent, and we can still see the back wall. Whether a person has blue eyes depends on how they drive their fluids throughout the entire body. So when you see a person with blue eyes, you can say to yourself: this person has less propulsive force in their fluids than a person with black eyes.

[ 33 ] A person from the far north must use much of what he eats to combat the cold around him. He no longer has the strength to channel that energy into his eyes. He needs it to ward off the cold. His eyes turn blue. A person from the south, on the other hand, who always lives in the warmth, has the driving force in his blood to channel nutrients all the way into his eyes. Thus, in the temperate zone, it depends on human nature whether one has more or less of this driving force.

[ 34 ] But this is also related to the hair. Those with strong propulsive force push the nourishing juices all the way into their hair and have black or brown hair. Those with less propulsive force do not push the nourishing juices all the way into their hair, so it remains light and does not darken. And that is why blue eyes and blond hair go together. The fact is that anyone who drives the life juices strongly through their body gets dark hair and dark eyes; those who drive them less strongly get light eyes and light hair. This can be understood from what I have told you. You see, people don’t think about the most important things. But when you think about the most important things, you come to understand how everything lives. The Earth on which we live—as you can already gather from the descriptions I’ve given you before—was once very young, when it gave rise to the giant megatheria and ichthyosaurs. It was young. Now the situation with the Earth is that, essentially, it has passed the age of man; it is growing ever older and will one day perish from old age, not from the causes that today’s materialists speak of. But we are, in fact, already a little way into the Earth’s old age today, gentlemen. Consequently, the entire human race has become weaker in the propulsive force needed to drive food through the body. Who, therefore, must disappear from the Earth first? Black people can endure longer; they have greater propulsive force; blond people have less propulsive force and die out sooner. We are already in the midst of the Earth’s senility! The gentleman (who asked the question) said as much himself—that there aren’t as many blond people today as there were in his youth. Therefore, because the Earth no longer possesses such strong propulsive power, only black and brown people achieve greater propulsive power; the blond and blue-eyed people are actually already on the verge of extinction because they can no longer propel these forces through their bodies with the necessary propulsive power.

[ 35 ] So one could say: The blondes were actually always the physically weaker ones; they were really only spiritually strong. And in earlier times, many people were blond but were strong in spirit; they still knew much in their hearts that many today can no longer know. That is why I was able to draw your attention to just how much people used to know.

[ 36 ] Take ancient India, for example, some five to six thousand years before the birth of Christ. It originally had an indigenous black population; they were quite dark-skinned. And then people with blond hair immigrated from the north. These people eventually became the Brahmins, who were particularly revered—the blond Brahmins. But over time, the blond hair faded because the human race was growing weaker. Eventually, only people with brown or black hair would remain; but unless something is done to counteract this, they will also remain stupid. For the stronger the physical powers, the weaker the spiritual powers. And if the blond people were to die out, humanity would face the danger that the entire human race would actually become stupid—unless what were to come is a Spiritual Science, an anthroposophy, which no longer takes the body into account but rather, through spiritual investigation itself, restores intelligence, if I may put it that way.

[ 37 ] So you see, if you really study natural history, you have to say: Good grief, people on Earth would actually be getting dumber as they get stronger and stronger! If the blue-eyed and blond-haired people were to die out, people would indeed become dumber and dumber unless they attained a kind of intelligence that is independent of blondness. Blond hair actually imparts intelligence. Just as it sends little to the eyes, it remains in the brain with its nourishing juices, giving the brain its intelligence. The brown-haired and brown-eyed, and the black-haired and black-eyed, channel into their eyes and hair what the blondes channel into the brain. That is why they become materialists, focusing only on what can be seen, and this must be balanced through spiritual science. We must therefore have Spiritual Science to the same extent that humanity loses its intelligence through blondness. We did not build this structure, the Goetheanum, here for fun, but with a view to what will become of the human race if the spirit does not step in to compensate for what is disappearing from nature.

[ 38 ] You see, the situation is so serious that one can say: Humanity on Earth must achieve something in a different way than in ancient times—a way that will, in turn, yield results. For it is indeed true that the more the blond races die out, the more the instinctive wisdom of humankind also dies. People are becoming more foolish. And they can only become wise again if they do not rely on the body, but rather if they possess a true spiritual science. That is indeed the case. And if people laugh at this today, let them laugh. But then again, they have laughed at everything that has ever occurred and brought about a great upheaval!

[ 39 ] Of course, back in the days when those giant creatures I’ve described to you—the megatheres, the ichthyosaurs, and so on—existed, there were no cows yet, cows from which milk would have been obtained for human consumption. Of course, you don’t believe either that there were people back then who would have needed milk in that way. — But just yesterday I read something by someone who is actually afraid of progress—he said: “Just as there couldn’t have been cows in ancient times, so too must the people who are already saying what is only supposed to be said centuries from now be persecuted, for the time has not yet come—it is only to be said centuries from now.” — But that strikes me as if, in the era when cows were supposed to have come into being, no cow had had the courage to actually become a cow! So one could say: If one believes that what is taught today as anthroposophy should not come until centuries from now—then it would never come at all, just as no cows would have come into being. Well, I’d rather remain an ancient primeval pig than transform myself into a cow!

[ 40 ] Here on Earth, the fact is that one must have the courage to transform things. And now one must have the courage to consciously rise to a deeper understanding, building on what people—who, instinctively, actually still knew something—had already grasped. That is why I am presenting these matters to you here in such a way that you can see through them, that you can look inside everything and see how things really work! If you pick up a book today, or hear about things out in the world, you won’t figure out how things work, how history is actually unfolding. People don’t know that.

[ 41 ] So even the fact that blond-haired people are dying out makes sense once you understand how the nourishing fluids reach all the way into the eyes—and also into the hair. The hair is, in fact, very closely connected to the eyes. And if, for example, you go to Milan and see the lions there, you will observe the following. If this is the lion’s head (it is drawn), then the mane—that is, the lion’s most prominent hair—is arranged in a radiating pattern. This stems from ancient knowledge, when it was understood that just as the eye is connected to light, so too is the hair connected to light.

[ 42 ] Hair is, in fact, like plants rooted in the ground, and its growth is related to light. Therefore, if the light is unable to draw the nourishing juices all the way into the hair, the hair remains blond. If a person is more materialistic, they get black hair, and the nourishing juices enter but do not mix well with the light. The ancients knew this as recently as a few centuries ago, and that is why they did not depict the lion’s mane as curly, but rather as radiant, as if the sun were shining its rays into its head. This is also very interesting to observe.