Anthroposophic News

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PUBLISHED BY THE GENERAL ANTHROPOSOPHIC SOCIETY, DORNACH,
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29th of September, 1940.No. 39/40 8th Year.

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THE ETHERIC BODY AS A REFLEXION OF THE UNIVERSE.

Lecture by Dr. RUDOLF STEINER, delivered at Elberfeld on the 13th of June 1915.

(From stenographic notes unrevised by the lecturer.)

At present we live in the midst of events that arouse every feeling of the
human soul in the deepest and most significant way. We live in the
midst of events that cause death to pass over the earth very, very
frequently, in a comparatively short time, death that has always been
looked upon by our spiritual science as a riddle which must be solved.
The times in which we live send pain and suffering to many human
souls, but let us hope that these times also bear within them forces for
the unfolding of man's future development. Many things are born out
of pain and suffering, and in these fateful days spiritual-scientific
thoughts in particular are well suited to awaken in us forces of
confidence and of hope. Let me therefore unfold a few thoughts before
your souls. Although not directly, they are nevertheless, indirectly
connected with feelings that come to the surface in these stormy and
sorrowful times.

What we can see and feel in the manifold events of the present time,
is the fact that many people abandon the physical plane, at a
comparatively early age of their earthly life. What characterizes the
events of the present, is that they call away many young lives from the
physical plane.

We know that when a human being passes through the portal of

death, he must leave his physical body to the elements of the earth.
When he passes through the portal of death, he is, to begin with, still
united with his etheric body, his astral body and his ego. And we know
that after a comparatively short time the etheric body becomes severed
from the human being, who then continues along the path which he
must tread between death and a new birth; he passes through the after-
death experiences with his ego and his astral body and together with
those members of his spiritual nature which can only be acquired in the
spiritual world. Afterwards, however, as he continues along his path
during the time between death and a new birth, also the etheric body
becomes severed from the human individuality and goes its own ways.

Now it must be evident to everyone of us that the etheric body of a

man who died young must have an entirely different constitution than
that of a man who died after having reached, so to speak, a normal age.
We know that the ordinary natural science of to-day always speaks of
the fact that forces never go lost, but transform themselves. Natural
science recognises this truth in regard to the external world of physical
life; it admits that forces do not go lost, but merely transform
themselves. Spiritual science must teach that this truth should be
recognised in regard to the spiritual world.

When an etheric body abandons a human being who has passed

through the portal of death at an early age, that etheric body might still
have maintained that man's life on the physical plane for many
decades. The constitution of an etheric body must be of such a kind as
to enable it to provide the life-forces required by a human being until
he reaches an advanced age. But when a human being passes through
the portal of death in his 25th, 26th or 30th year, the etheric body that
abandons him still possesses the forces that might have enabled it to
preserve physical life up to the 60th, 70th or 80th year. These forces live
in the etheric body; they do not go lost.

Particularly at a time such as the present one, in which so many

etheric bodies are entrusted, as it were, to the spiritual worlds, we
should contemplate the following problem: What takes place with the
etheric bodies of those who have passed through the portal of death in
their early youth? — In order to obtain a sound answer to this question,
it will be a good thing to become acquainted first of all with the path
trodden by man's etheric body, while he is passing through his life
between birth and death.
 Man's external physical body (we know this, for it is a trivial truth)
grows older and older. But this is not the case with the etheric body. It
may perhaps be difficult to understand this, but the etheric body does
not in any way grow older; the etheric body grows younger and
younger, in the same degree in which the physical body grows older,
until it reaches, as it were, a certain childlike stage of etheric existence,
when the human being passes through the portal of death after having
reached a normal age. We should therefore say to ourselves: When we
begin our physical life on earth through birth, then our etheric body,
that has become united with our physical body, is, comparatively
speaking, old, and in the course of our earthly life it grows younger and
younger, until it reaches its childhood stage, when we pass through the
portal of death. We might also say: When a human being dies in his
young years, his etheric body has not grown young enough, but has
instead maintained a certain age. What does this really mean? — A
concrete example, already known to many of you, but that I must
nevertheless repeat here, a real event of recent times, experienced by
quite a number of our friends, may throw some light upon this
question.

This concrete example is really connected with a child, with the little
boy of one of our members. After an evening lecture at Dornach, we
were told that the son of our friend Faiss was missing — a little boy of
seven. It was soon evident that a terrible accident must have happened,
for a large furniture van had arrived in the late afternoon, moving
towards the Goetheanum Building. Curiously enough, this furniture
van had appeared in a part where perhaps no furniture van had been
seen for a long time, or perhaps never at all, and where perhaps no
furniture van would ever be seen again. At a certain spot, this large van
had overturned; this had happened towards evening. Nothing else had
been noticed, but the little boy was missing. When our friends, with the
help of other people, began to lift the van between eleven and twelve at
night (the owners intended to lift it the following day for it had fallen
most awkwardly and was moreover a very heavy van), sparing no effort
in doing so, and when they at last succeeded in lifting it, with the help
of other people, it appeared that the little boy, Theodor Faiss, had
passed by just when the van had collapsed, so that it fell on top of him.
This child (he was only seven years old) was an exceptionally lovable
child, with exceptionally beautiful qualities.

In order to see this in the light of spiritual science, let me remind

you of a logical train of thoughts which I have often advanced in our
circles. I have frequently explained to you that a superficial manner of
thinking, an untrained manner of thinking, easily mixes up cause and
effect; indeed, such confusions in regard to cause and effect are very
frequent. I tried to explain this with the aid of an example, which was
only meant, as a comparison. Take the following case: You see a man,
who is walking along the bank of a river; you see him fall into the river
and try to reach him. Where he fell into the river, you see a stone. You
then try to draw the man out of the water; he is dead. What would be
more natural than to think that he had stumbled over the stone, thus
falling into the water and drowning? But this need not be true at all; a
physical investigation may show us that his destiny in no way led him
to the stone or anything else, but that at the very moment when he
reached the stone, he had a stroke, and this stroke was the cause of his
felling into the water. If we were not to investigate matters, we would
simply say that the cause of his death was the fact that he fell into the
river. Yet this would be the exact opposite of the truth.

In the case of things that are connected, with the spiritual world, it
is far more difficult to perceive the true relationship of cause and effect.
We should therefore say to ourselves: When we have before us [a] case
resembling that of the boy who found his death under circumstances
that were so extraordinary (other things too occurred that made it
appear extraordinary), we should not think — if we consider the whole
case from a higher standpoint — that for instance, the following course
of events took place: That the furniture van arrived and overturned,
and that the child simply happened to be crushed by it, so that the van
was the real cause of the child's death. In a similar case, we think
correctly and contemplate it from a spiritual-scientific standpoint, if we
say instead that the boy's Karma had reached its end and that the van
really arrived at that particular spot because the child had to encounter
its death. The van therefore merely provided the external conditions
that enabled the child to meet its death, as prescribed in its Karma.
Trivially speaking, we might say: The child's Higher Self, that wished to
pass through the portal of death, gave orders that this situation should
arise, it ordered that these events should occur. Of course, those who
think in accordance with the mentality of our time, will find that this is
quite an insane idea. Spiritual science must however show that many
things which are looked upon as insane by the materialistically minded
people of the present time, really correspond to the truth.

In this particular case, however, it is significant that the etheric

body of a child of seven severed itself from the child's individuality,
from that part of its being which then continued along its path in the
spiritual world, united with its ego and astral body. Now I do not mean
to speak of the further path taken by the individuality of little Theodor
Faiss, but I would rather draw your attention to the fact that this
etheric body was of such a kind that its life-forces nurtured that boy's
physical existence for only seven years; nevertheless it contained forces
that might have enabled it to sustain a whole existence between birth
and death, feeding it with life-forces. These forces remained in that
etheric body and the significant fact is that all those who had any
spiritual connection with the Building which we intend to erect at
Dornach in the service of spiritual science, know from that day, which
is connected with the death of little Theodor Faiss, what has become of
his etheric body.

Many things must be achieved in connection with the Building. Let

me now say a few things in regard to the inspirations which must now
be brought down from the spiritual worlds. Helping forces are needed
if everything that must be brought down from the spiritual world is
really to come down. Ever since the death of little Theodor Faiss, we
can see that our Dornach Building is enveloped by the greatly enlarged
etheric body of this child, as if by an aura that reaches very far. Indeed,
we may even determine the limits of this enveloping aura. If you
contemplate the Dornach Building you will know (and those who have
seen it know this) that it is a double cupola building. (A drawing is
made). Here is a separate fire-box building, constructed in a special
way, according to principles dictated by spiritual science, and here is
another building, where the glass windows for the Goetheanum are cut.
Casually I might also add that here you may see the so-called “Haus
Hansi”, the house in which I live. Now it is strange to see that little
Theodor Faiss' aura, enveloping the whole Building, reaches as far as
this spot, near the woods; then it goes past the fire-box building and
through the very midst of the building where the windows are cut, and
finally past Haus Hansi, but without enclosing it. Consequently, when
we enter the Goetheanum, we actually enter this etheric aura.

I have often explained to you that when the etheric body frees itself
from the physical body it grows large. Consequently we should not
wonder at the large size of this etheric body. It contains mediating
forces, and in these we may find certain impressions from the spiritual
world, which are needed to create the forms and the artistic structure
of our Building. Those who work upon the Building know how much
they owe to this etheric aura. And I shall never hesitate to confess that
ever since little Theodor's death, the work upon the Building became
possible, because the boy's etheric body spreading over the Building
supplied the mediating forces that were needed to draw down
inspirations from the spiritual world. It would be far easier to hide this
fact, or to take on airs as if these mediating forces were not needed. But
this is not the essential point; the essential point is to recognise the
true facts.
 If we consider the facts which I have described to you just now, we
can grasp how matters really stand with an etheric body that had to cut
itself off from the existence of a human being at a moment when death
closed this existence at an early age. It is important to note that the
etheric body does not remain, as it were, a mere misty shape, in which
the physical body lies embedded. Even the true aspect of the physical
body cannot be recognised if we merely describe a mass of muscles,
bones, etc. It can only be recognised if we see in it, as it were, a kind of
temple, an abode of the Godhead — if we see it standing before us like a
microcosm. We recognise what pertains to the physical body only if we
realise that its forms are really taken from the whole universe and that
in regard to his physical body the human being is a wonderful
structure. Those who know the feelings voiced in the first dialogue of
my second Mystery Play, “The Souls' Probation”, can have an idea of
how the individual human being is placed into his physical existence;
all the hierarchies are at work on his physical body, a whole world of
divine Beings has the task of placing a human being into his physical
existence. If we bear in mind to some extent the observations of
clairvoyant knowledge, we fully learn to know the significance of the
physical body.

You see, clairvoyant knowledge arises when our soul-spiritual part

is lifted out of our physical-corporeal part, so that we are endowed with
consciousness and with perceptive forces in the soul-spiritual sphere,
outside the body.

From a purely external standpoint, there is really no difference

between one who is able to perceive clairvoyantly and one who is
asleep, for in both cases the soul-spiritual part is lifted out of the
physical-corporeal part. The clairvoyant consciousness is able to
perceive outside the physical body, so that it can have an idea of what
takes place with the human being when he is asleep.

To facilitate matters, let me draw you a diagram. (A drawing is

made.) Now let us assume that this is the physical-corporeal and that
the soul-spiritual part of a sleeping human being. When a man is
awake, the soul-spiritual part is of course contained in the physical-
corporeal part; but let us now imagine a sleeping human being. On the
bed lie his physical body and his etheric body; they do not contain his
astral body and his ego, as is the case when he is awake. We might say,
however: The activity that our astral body and ego carry on within our
physical body while we are awake, does not cease completely while we
are asleep. To begin with, and seen purely from outside, the sleeping
human being lying there on the bed has a lifeless aspect, but to a
clairvoyant consciousness the physical and etheric body of the man
lying there asleep on the bed do not present a lifeless aspect. The seer
must give an entirely different description of a sleeping human being,
of this physical and etheric human being, lying there asleep on his bed.
A clairvoyant seer must say: The whole day long the sun shone over
that region of the earth, where the human beings are now sleeping.
Now it is night. (I am speaking of normal conditions; when people are
asleep during the night and awake during the day, I am not speaking of
the conditions of life in great cities, of metropolitan habits). Darkness
envelops that region on which the sun shone the whole day long. And
now it is strange to notice the following: The earth, as a living Being,
begins to think, and the organs through which the earth thinks are the
sleeping human bodies.

The human beings think through their brain, and in the same way
the earth thinks through these sleeping human bodies. The earth
always perceives by day; it perceives through the fact that the sun
shines upon it out of the cosmic spaces. That is the earth's perception.
And during the night, the earth works out in thoughts all its
perceptions. “The earth thinks”, says the clairvoyant seer; the earth
thinks because it makes use of the sleeping human beings. Every
sleeping human being becomes, as it were, a brain-molecule of the
earth. Our physical body is organised in such a way that it can be used
by the earth for it's thinking activity, when we do not use it ourselves.

Just as the earth thinks through the physical body, so it “imagines”

(you know what imaginative knowledge is) — it imagines all that is not
earthly upon the earth itself, all that belongs to the earth from out the
cosmos. The earth imagines this through the etheric body.

We may discern in the sleeping human body parts of the earth's

brain, and when the human being is asleep, we may discern in his
etheric body the imagination of that part of the universe which belongs,
to begin with, to the earth. The etheric body contains, in a play of
wonderful pictures, all the forces that must stream into the earth out of
the etheric world, so that the earth's events may take place.

As a physical being man belongs to the earth, and just as truly does
he belong to the heavens as an etheric being. We can only use our
physical body as an organ of thinking, because it is organised for that
purpose, because the earth sets it free, as it were, for this purpose,
when we are awake. And we can only use our etheric body in such a
way that it provides us with life-forces, because the heavens place it at
our disposal; when we are awake, and because the heavenly forces of
imagination are transformed into life-forces within us, when we are
awake.

Thus we cannot speak of our etheric body merely as a misty form,

but we should rather speak of it as a microcosmic form reflecting the
heavens. When we are born, the etheric body is handed over to us as a
specially perfect form. When we are born, our etheric body glistens and
shines inwardly, because it is so full of imaginations that come towards
it from the great universe. It is a magnificent reflexion of the universe!
All that we acquire during our life as culture, knowledge and forces of
the will and of feeling, is all drawn out of our etheric body as we grow
old in the course of our existence between birth and death. Heaven's
cosmic forces give us what they must give us during our life between
birth and death, and so we are once more young as etheric beings,
when we have lived through a normal life between birth and death, for
then we have drawn out of our etheric body everything that could be
drawn out of it.

But when an etheric body belonging to a youthful body passes

through the portal of death, it still contains a great, great deal of
unused heavenly light. That is why it becomes a mediator of the forces
which I have described to you. Quite apart from what takes place with
the individuality of a human soul such as the one of which we spoke
just now, its etheric body almost becomes a heavenly gift, a gift of the
spiritual worlds. Such an etheric body can therefore have the inspiring
influence that I have described to you.

It would lead us too far to speak of the peculiar Karma of a human

soul that is able to make such a sacrifice. This cannot be produced
artificially; it must be connected with the whole Karma of the human
being that is called upon to make this sacrifice, thus fulfilling
something within the process of development of the world that is
destined to play a part in the spiritual progress of humanity — and this
is the aim of our Building at Dornach, that will house our spiritual-
scientific endeavours.
 Consider now that we live in a time in which many of these etheric
bodies, though they may not be as young as Theodor Faiss, but which
are nevertheless etheric bodies coming from youthful human lives,
inhabit, as it were, the spiritual atmosphere. Those who crossed the
threshold of death on the bloodstained battlefields, pass through this
portal of death in a different way than those who pass through it when
they die in bed, or as a result of an ordinary accident. In a certain way,
they pass through the portal of death so that they reckon with their
death, even though this may be more or less unconscious, but in a
certain way the astral body reckons with death. We can always say that
these deaths are sacrifices. All the etheric bodies, of youthful human
beings that thus ascend to the spiritual world contain unused forces.
And at present we are facing an epoch in the evolution of humanity in
which the souls of men will be able to look up consciously to the
spiritual worlds and say to themselves: A time has gone by which sent
many, many unused etheric bodies to the spiritual world. These unused
etheric bodies contain forces. And from a spiritual-scientific
standpoint, we may say even at the present time that these unused
etheric bodies contain forces that will be very significant for the
evolution of humanity.

When similar things are discussed, it should be emphasized that

they cannot apply to every war that was waged in the evolution of
humanity upon the earth. What takes place spiritually, what should be
contemplated with the aid of spiritual science, is not so easy as natural
science thinks. Other wars belonging to the past, require to be spoken
of differently. And what I am now explaining to you only applies to the
present fateful times.

Now imagine the following: On various occasions we had to

emphasize the fact that to-day we do not pursue spiritual science
arbitrarily, but that this is connected with the evolutionary process of
humanity. It is connected with the progress of humanity that the
human beings should gradually become acquainted with spiritual
science. We know that every epoch of human evolution has its
particular task. You will find this in many of my lectures. And we can
realise that man's future salvation, man's welfare in the nearest future,
can only flourish if that which spiritual science can reveal, becomes the
spiritual property of an ever growing number of human souls.
 Consider now — you, who are filled with a heartfelt enthusiasm for
spiritual science — consider the difficulties connected with the
propagation of spiritual-scientific truths at the present time! Consider
the strong opposition that spiritual-scientific truths encounter on the
part of people outside. Consider how these truths are slandered, how
people look upon them as something insane, distorted and mad, how
they consider them to be empty fantasies. Indeed, I might mention
striking cases, yet they would all be merely a portion of what everyone
can feel, if he is filled with enthusiasm for spiritual science and faces a
world, desirous that this world should take up spiritual science ... a
world that is so little inclined to take it up!

The spiritual scientist may now say: What the mere earthly forces of
humanity are able to attain, seems so weak, so very weak, in
comparison to the tasks of spiritual science! But in the near future, the
unused etheric bodies of those who had to carry life and soul through
the portal of death, on the battlefields where the events of our time are
taking place, will be there — and these etheric bodies with their unused
forces will be inspiring forces, they will be helping forces in the near
future. We only need to look up, but not in an intellectual or theoretic
way, we only need to look up to the heavenly etheric bodies of those
who in the present fateful times passed through the portal of death in
their youth; we only need to direct our souls, as it were, in the mood of
prayer towards these etheric bodies ... all those who are filled with
enthusiasm for spiritual science only need to direct their souls towards
these forces, and they will obtain help from these etheric bodies. Help
will come! Those who are genuinely filled with a spiritual-scientific
mentality and having a deep life in common with these etheric bodies
will find that among the many fruits that will fall into the lap of our
earnest time there will also be the one that the souls of men who are
filled with enthusiasm for spiritual science will receive the instreaming
forces of the youthful etheric bodies that were sacrificed in these
terrible times; these forces will flow into them. The souls of those who
will live in physical bodies in the near future, and who genuinely feel
this, will be filled by the forces of the etheric bodies that were thus
sacrificed; their forces will stream into them. And these will be
heavenly forces, that is to say, forces pertaining to the spiritual world!
Entirely different forces will in future hold sway in the world, so that
the world may receive what it should receive: a spiritual-scientific
mentality. If we but find the possibility of recognising what is taking
place now, if we recognise it in accordance with the explanations given
to you just now, this fateful present will acquire a deep, deep
significance, also for those who pursue spiritual science.
 I already explained to you how wonderful are the imaginative forms
contained in man's etheric body! Yet they would present a different
aspect, if they had not passed through a human etheric body. We may
also apply to this field the saying: “Out of nothing, comes nothing.”
Although this is not an absolute truth, it is nevertheless valid for this
particular field. The etheric body that man receives through the fact
that the human soul enters physical existence through birth, contains a
whole collection of forces pertaining to the spiritual world. These forces
are gradually used up during physical life. They do not come from
nothing, they exist in the spiritual world. They may, of course, also be
found in the spiritual world, but it is difficult to discover them directly
in the spiritual world; for this we would have to unfold far greater
powers. They can be used and they can help us more easily when they
have passed through a human being who died young, and in that case
they appear together with what they contain through the fact that they
passed through that human being. All the forces that lived in the
youthful etheric body of little Theodor Faiss would be in the spiritual
world even if he had not existed, but without him, it would be a
Herculean task to draw them down. Ever since they have become
accessible to us through that boy, it is far easier to be inspired by them,
so that there is a difference.

Think how important it is for the whole progress of human

evolution that in the near future such a great number of etheric bodies
with their unused forces will be at the disposal of humanity! Since
these forces (I must always call them heavenly forces) have passed
through human beings, they have become, as it were, emancipated
from the cosmic laws on which they depend. Outside, in the cosmos,
these forces that are drawn directly out of the cosmos, cannot possibly
be used in an evil way.
 Let us now consider the following: All those who pass through the
portal of death as a result of the war, or through some other accident,
would not yield such a great number of etheric bodies, had the war not
broken out. Of course, all these forces also exist in the cosmos, but they
could not be employed by the human beings on earth, for it would be
too difficult to use them. Another reason why they could not be
employed is that they would be entirely used up in the life of men who
die at a normal age. This is a very significant fact, it is most important
that these heavenly forces should have passed through human bodies,
for this renders them, as it were, free from the ordinary course of
development. Yet this very freedom also makes it possible that these
forces be used for other purposes than the salvation of humanity.

These forces could be used in different ways. Let us take for granted
that human life develops in the light of freedom. Let us then assume
that Ahriman succeeds in darkening human thought and reason to
such an extent as to induce him to reject spiritual science. The etheric
bodies would then still be there, but no souls would be there, filled with
enthusiasm for spiritual science and able to place these forces at the
service of the earth's progress. Lucifer and Ahriman would in that case
be able to exercise their influence and they would make use of these
etheric forces, either by leading them into the world built up by Lucifer,
or into that built up by Ahriman.

Consider the tremendous importance of this fact! It means, that it

will depend on man, as it were, how these forces, bestowed upon the
world through death-sacrifices, will be embodied in the evolutionary
process of the earth. They serve the evolutionary process of the world
through the fact that they can inspire us with what spiritual science has
kindled. If materialism were to take hold of every mind, or if
nationalism were to spread out exclusively in the form of passion, then
Lucifer and Ahriman would be able to use these forces for their own
end and in that case these forces would be unable to further the
progress of the earth. If we consider these connections, then the deep
significance which spiritual science has for the human development on
earth rises up before us. And only then shall we be able to say: In order
that these forces, sacrificed through death, may be rightly used for the
progress of human development, it is necessary that the new spirit,
which is the outcome of spiritual science, should take hold of those
human beings who are capable of grasping it. If we consider spiritual
science in connection with the spiritual process of evolution, which
comes to the fore so clearly in these fateful days, then we realise that
spiritual science is something tremendously great and sacred. The new
spirit which can be acquired through spiritual science thus becomes
something that may be compared with the mood of prayer and it may
be comprised in the words:

O cosmic spirit, let us be completely filled with the spirit that grows
out of spiritual science; so that we may not fail to wrest from Ahriman
and Lucifer that which can be of help to the earth, for its salvation and
its progress!

Our Building is intended to be a symbol of the soul-attitude that

humanity should adopt through spiritual science; for that reason, it is
built in such a way that its forms are an artistic expression of what
spiritual science is able to give us.

I would be obliged to speak of many things were I to explain to you

all that is contained in the details of this Building. But you will learn to
know them when you shall see the Building in the course of time and
participate in what takes place within it.

To-day I will just mention one thing connected with the

explanations which I gave just now. There will be a plastic group in a
significant place of our Building, where it turns to the East. This plastic
group in particular expresses something that should completely fill our
consciousness at the present time. Apart from the details that will be
added to the group, we may say that it consists of three chief figures.
Three Beings express themselves in this plastic group. In this sculpture
we shall see a kind of rock with a projecting part, and in this projection
there will be a cave. The central figure of the group will stand upon the
projecting rock. It is quite indifferent what name we give to this central
figure, but we may see in it the representative of man on earth, man's
representative in the highest meaning of the word. And if we see the
ideal of humanity in that human being who for three years bore within
him the Christ, then we may also see the Christ in this central figure of
our plastic group. Yet we should not simply face the statue with the
thought: “That is meant to be the Christ”, for this would be wrong.
Instead, we should experience everything in an artistic way, that is to
say, we should not interpret things symbolically from outside, but
everything should result from what the forms themselves reveal.

Above, you may see a second shape. This Being has a head
resembling (I can only say, resembling) a human head. It is really
formed in such a way that it has a strongly developed skull and
particularly a strongly developed forehead. Whereas in man these parts
are relatively rigid, everything in that Being is extremely mobile. That
is to say, everything is an expression of the soul. Just as we can move
our hands and fingers, but not the upper parts of our head, so this
Being can move everything up there. And the sculptural work expresses
that everything up there is mobile. In this Being, the lower part of the
physiognomy recedes in a marked way. One might say that the mighty
skull dominates the face, that recedes. (I can only discuss a few details,
for every line of this sculpture is significant). It is characteristic that the
ear of this Being is connected with that part which has, in the case of
man, deteriorated and become his larynx. The lobe of the larynx grows
upwards and forms the lower part of the ear, whereas the upper part of
the ear is formed by the forehead. On the other side, we can see two
protuberances that remind us of birds' wings, and in between there is a
form that, as a whole resembles a transformed human countenance.
The wings, larynx and ear are one form. We may therefore say that this
Being lives with its wings in the harmony of the spheres; it swings
through the spaces, through the waves of the harmony of the spheres,
and this becomes localised in the ear. (In man, all this has
deteriorated). Through the fact that the Representative of Mankind
raises His left hand, the wings of that Being break against the rock. You
may now guess that this falling shape with the broken wings is meant
to be Lucifer.

Below in the cave, we can see another shape. Its wings do not
resemble birds' wings, but those of a bat. Its body is like that of a
dragon, or of a worm, and its head again reminds us of a human head.
Whereas in Lucifer's forehead everything is powerfully developed, the
forehead of this second Being recedes and is quite undeveloped.
Instead, the lower parts, towards the jaw, are strongly developed. This
Being is enwrapped in gold; it is the gold contained in the earth. The
gold of the earth takes on the shape of strong fetters that chain this
shape to the cave. It writhes under the influence of Christ's hand
pointing downward, the hand of the Representative of Mankind. The
shape in the cave is Ahriman; it is Ahriman fettered by the gold of the
earth.

The above explanations can really give you, as it were, an idea of the
whole. Yet this idea merely indicates the essential point. The essential
point that we must bear in mind is that we should never imitate the
mistake of the old theosophists, who always work with symbols; the
essential point which we must bear in mind is that everything in
spiritual science that tends towards human feeling should be
transformed into something artistic. We should therefore not say: that
these sculptures express “this or that”, but they should reveal to us,
through what they are artistically and through what we can see in
them, the relation of man, or of Christ, to Lucifer and Ahriman. For
that reason, it is impossible to express this with the artistic means of
the past. Every movement of the fingers and of the hands, the way in
which the hands are shaped, are significant, for they must express
something significant. At first we may think that Christ raises His left
hand and sends out forces with the intention of breaking Lucifer's
wings and of causing him to fall. We might also think that the right
hand of Christ pointing downwards sends out forces that fetter
Ahriman. Yet it would be quite wrong to think so.

In order to explain the significant fact contained in this, let me

remind you of one of the greatest works of art that have so far been
produced, of Michelangelo's Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel in
Rome. There we see Christ sending the righteous men to heaven and
the sinful ones to hell. We see Christ sending one part of mankind to a
good world and the other part to an evil world. The Christ that is
portrayed on Michelangelo's picture is not the Christ whose true nature
we must, from now onwards, learn to know through spiritual science.
The true Christ never condemns in wrath, nor does he mete out praise
in ordinary love. His influence goes out of him simply because he is
there; Lucifer's wings do not get broken, but it is Lucifer himself who
breaks them, as a result of what takes place within his soul through the
fact that he is in the proximity of Christ. And Ahriman fetters himself,
as a result of what takes place within his soul, through the fact that he
is in the proximity of Christ. When Christ raises his left hand and
points downwards with his right hand, he only expresses purest
compassion with the world. Lucifer, there above, cannot bear this, he
cannot bear the proximity of Christ's hand. And what he thus
experiences within him induces him to break his wings. It is not Christ
who breaks them, it is Lucifer himself who breaks his own wings.

Michelangelo was not as yet able to portray the real Christ. Christ is
such a significant Being and it is so difficult to understand Him, that
this understanding can only be reached in the course of time. Only in
[the] future shall we be able to grasp the Christ Who induces the other
beings to condemn or to redeem themselves, simply through the fact
that He is there. The Christ on Michelangelo's painting still has
Luciferic and Ahrimanic traits, for he sends the sinners to hell in wrath
and leads the righteous to heaven, so that his passions are active. But
in our sculpture, Christ is mute impersonal, and the Beings that
approach Him must judge themselves.

You may therefore see that man's position in the world that contains
the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic forces will be significantly expressed in
our Building. You will see in it the artistic expression of Beings that can
only be found in the spiritual world. Naturalism in art and everything
towards which art has striven in recent times as a result of materialism
which took hold of man, must be overcome by the art which we
cultivate here. Even in the sphere of art, something entirely new must
enter the world through spiritual science, something that is able to
overcome even the greatest artistic achievement — the Christ,
portrayed in Michelangelo's Last Judgment.

It is permissible to say this, if we emphasize on the other hand

something that we should not forget: that in spite of everything, our
Building is but a first, primitive beginning. Everything in this Building
is still imperfect and elementary, it is merely a beginning, yet it is the
beginning of an entirely new impulse. We should of course bear in
mind that everything is imperfect, yet at the same time we should not
fail to notice in this the new impulse that will enter human life.

Consider how easy it is to ignore a gift of cosmic life consisting of

the unused forces pertaining to the etheric bodies of human beings!
Consider how these unused forces of the human etheric bodies can fall
a prey to Lucifer and Ahriman, if we do not find the possibility of
including them in the evolution of the earth, for the welfare of the
earth!

Here we touch upon a great mystery, connected with the evolution

of humanity upon the earth. IT IS THE MYSTERY OF THE
CONNECTION EXISTING BETWEEN THE CHRIST-IMPULSE AND
THE IMPULSES OF LUCIFER AND OF AHRIMAN. This connection of
the Christ-impulse with the Lucifer-impulse and with the Ahriman-
impulse will be grasped more and more clearly in the near future.

Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces surge through the world, but owing
to the fact that man is conscious of Christ, owing to his Christ-
consciousness, he is like a sailor who must steer his boat through the
storms called up by Lucifer and Ahriman. He can steer his boat
through that ocean, whose living substance consists of Lucifer and of
Ahriman; he can do this in spite of everything, because he sits in his
Christ-boat.

The true reason why we come together in our Group-meetings is not

that of learning in a theoretical way one or the other truth which
spiritual science can reveal, but the true reason why we assemble is
that everything that lives in our souls should be filled with the spirit
that can flow out of spiritual science. The essential point is not WHAT
we think, but HOW we think, feel and will. The smallest or the greatest
things in the evolution of the earth may rise up before our soul's eye,
yet everything shows us how necessary it is for the human beings of the
future to become acquainted above all with the significance of the triad,
Christ, Lucifer and Ahriman. Michelangelo was unable to grasp this,
and in the times that have gone by men were unable to see how these
three Beings stand within the world. The true nature of Christ will only
be grasped in the right way if we can see Him in relation to the forces
which are active in the same way in which the North and the South
poles are active: in relation to the forces of Lucifer and of Ahriman.

Many things connected with these thoughts will be discussed in the

next few days for those who can remain. To-day I wished to bring
before your souls thoughts that render the spiritual-scientific attitude
so important even in regard to the significant things that will in the
near future appear in the spiritual world to those who can discern the
spiritual behind the physical events.

O how earnestly one would like to entreat the guardian spirits and
the guardian divinities, of the earth and of humanity to give man
strength, so that the things needed for the welfare of mankind may take
place!

There above, will be the unused etheric forces of those human

beings who passed through death in their youth. But here on earth
there must be human hearts and human souls who look up to these
forces so that they can be included in the right direction of human
evolution. It is not only essential that these forces should exist up
there, for they can fall a prey to Lucifer and Ahriman, but it is essential
above all that here below physical bodies should be inhabited by
human souls that send up their reverent thoughts to these sacrificed
etheric bodies. On this circumstance will depend the way in which
these forces will stream into the evolution of humanity, these forces
that arose on the battlefields streaming with blood, where sacrifices are
made and suffering is borne.

This indicates more or less what spiritual science is able to

contribute to the future development of humanity, if a certain number
of people really takes in that which can only be recognised through
spiritual science.

Before I close this lecture, let me once more address to your souls a
few pragmatic words that express what the present time, so fraught
with destiny, is able to give us:

From the courage of the fighters

From the blood of the battles,

From the suffering of the abandoned,

 From the nation's sacrifices,

Shall grow forth a spirit-fruit,

If souls will lead, in spirit-consciousness,

Their mind and heart into the spirit-realm.

(ORIGINAL TEXT:)

Aus dem Mut der Kämpfer,

Aus dem Blut der Schlachten,

Aus dem Leid Verlassener,

Aus des Volkes Opfertaten —

Wird erwachsen Geistesfrucht,

Lenken Seelen giestbewusst

Ihren Sinn ins Geisterreich.

THE ETHERIC BEING IN THE PHYSICAL HUMAN BEING

Lecture by Dr. Rudolf Steiner

Berlin, 20 April, 1915

[From stenographic notes not revised by the lecturer.]

To begin with, let me remind you of something which most of you

already know from previous lectures. When the human soul unfolds in
the way which I have so often described even in public lectures, we
arrive at a different picture of the world. The essential thing is that our
soul follows, as it were, the path leading from the physical into the
spiritual world. When the soul progresses in its development, the
physical world gradually transforms itself and assumes the aspect of a
spiritual world. We might say: Little by little, the characteristics of the
physical-sensory world vanish and on the horizon of our consciousness
appear forms, beings, and events pertaining to the spiritual world.

An important thing which now rises up in our consciousness with

everything that appears before us, might be described as follows: We
ourselves undergo a change — in our own sight, of course, we ourselves
change, and even the surrounding world which exists in our physical-
sensory perception undergoes a change. Let us first consider what lies
nearest to us, the earthly plane.

Man really knows very little of the world which transcends the
earth, if during his earthly existence he does not abandon his habitual
attitude, if he remains within this whole way of looking at the world,
which makes him grow together with his earthly life. When we
penetrate into the spiritual world (we are then outside the physical
body) and look back upon our body, upon our whole physical life, or in
general upon our whole being, it is evident that we grow richer and
richer; our content grows, our whole being expands and becomes a
world. Man himself actually grows to the size of a whole world, when
we thus look back upon him.

This is the true significance of something which we have often

emphasized: Through spiritual development we identify ourselves with
the world. We perceive a new world which seems to come out of our
own being. We expand into a world. The earth instead loses is solid
substance, or what we are accustomed to see physically — mountains,
rivers, etc. This vanishes and we gradually begin to experience
ourselves within the earth — I purposely say within the earth — we feel
as if we lived within a great organism. We are outside our own world,
and our inner world, this inner reality, now becomes an immense
world, whereas the physical world which surrounded us becomes a
Being and we live within it. This is what we should be able to conceive.
When we transcend our own self, the human world expands into an
immense world, and we ourselves grow into the organism of the earth;
within it we experience ourselves in the same way in which our finger
would, for example, feel that it belongs to our organism — if the finger
were endowed with consciousness.

Man passes through this experience and this has often been
expressed by more poetical natures, by people with a deeper capacity of
feeling. The moment of waking up in the morning has often been
compared with the awakening of Nature outside; the daily course of
human life, with the sun's ascent to the zenith, and sunset with the
need to sleep which appears in the form of fatigue.

These similes are born out of the feeling that man stands within the
life of Nature. Nevertheless they are not worth much, for they do not
touch the essential. I have therefore told you many times that a
comparison really in keeping with the facts must differ from the one in
which Nature's course of events is compared with the processes of
sleeping and waking. The course of human life during the space of 24
hours should instead be compared with the course of events upon the
earth during a whole year. The simile will agree if we take the whole
year and compare its events with the processes of waking up and falling
asleep which take place within us in the course of 24 hours. It is quite
wrong to compare man's waking life from the moment of waking up to
the moment of falling asleep with the summer season, for man's
waking condition corresponds to winter, when Nature outside is awake,
and summer should be compared with man's sleeping condition. If
comparisons are drawn in, we should therefore say:Man falls asleep;
i.e., he passes over into the summer season of his personal existence;
whereas his waking condition would more or less correspond to
autumn, winter, and early spring.

Why is this in keeping with the actual facts? Because when we

develop in the manner described and become part of the whole earthly
organism, we should indeed consider that in the summer the Spirit of
the Earth is asleep; summer is the earth's real sleeping condition and
the great consciousness of the Spirit of the Earth then withdraws. In
the spring the Spirit of the Earth begins to slumber and it wakes up
again in the autumn, when the first frost falls; it then begins to think
and lives through its thinking, waking condition. This is daytime for
the Spirit of the Earth, in the course of the year.

When we look back upon the sleeping human being, we see that
when he falls asleep and goes out with his Ego and astral body, there
arises a kind of vegetable activity in the organism abandoned by the
astral body and Ego. There is activity in man's inner being and we feel
that the first moments of sleep are like the beginning of a vegetative
process; to the clairvoyant, sleep appears as if the body were pervaded
by the growing life of plants. Imaginative knowledge enables us to
perceive this. This vegetation, however, does not grow in the same way
as that upon the earth. It is possible to describe this, to meditate over
such things, for then we progress further and further.

Upon the earth, the plants grow out of the soil. But it is otherwise
when we observe the “vegetable growth” in man. There the plants grow
in such a way that their roots are outside and grow into man; their
flowers should therefore be sought in man. Sleeping man is indeed a
beautiful sight — I mean, to the clairvoyant. He is like the earth with its
budding, greening life, but with a whole vegetation growing into it.
What disturbs the view is that at the same time we have the impression
that the astral body is gnawing at the roots. This appears in the course
of sleep. The animals consume, eat up what summer produces upon the
surface of the earth, and we perceive that our astral body behaves like
the animal world, except that it gnaws at the roots. If this were not so,
we could not unfold the nucleus, the kernel, which we take with us
through the portal of death. What the astral body thus appropriates, is
what we really take with us through the portal of death, as harvest of
our life.

I am describing to you facts which rise up before the clairvoyant

consciousness. And even as winter comes over the fruits of the earth
and covers them with frost, I might say, so the astral body and the Ego,
when diving down into the etheric and physical body cover with frost,
freeze up the vegetation or spiritual plant growth which arises in our
organism during the night.

What I described to you as the Spirit of the Earth, is really a

personality, like man — except that the Spirit of the Earth leads a
different kind of life. One year is one of his days, and in the Spirit of the
Earth we gradually learn to recognize the Impulse which I described to
you when speaking of the Impulse of Golgotha. We find in it that
vivifying power which did not live in the earth before the Mystery of
Golgotha, and within it we feel in the safekeeping of the Spirit who
passed through the Mystery of Golgotha. We grow aware of this when
we really penetrate into that condition in which the earth becomes for
us a Being to whom we belong in the same way in which a finger
belongs to our organism. In the present time, occult immersion in the
world cannot help taking on the character of religious immersion in the
divine essence that streams through the world and spiritualizes it. Real
knowledge of the spiritual world cannot therefore take away religious
feeling; on the contrary, it deepens it.

I wished to speak of the true aspect of things when one enters the
image world of spiritual reality; for what we appear to our own sight, in
our ordinary physical consciousness, is merely a reflexion, only an
inner kernel — but I must immediately add that this expression is not
quite appropriate, for it is difficult to coin words for such significant
facts; what we appear to be in our own sight always remains connected
with us when we are outside the body with our soul being. It is
therefore not correct to say that this is a kernel, for a fruit has its peel
outside and its best substance inside — in man, on the other hand (in
the spiritual, things are frequently reversed) his best part is outside and
his peel inside; what exists inside is only his peel, whereas the spiritual
is something which may spatially be described as peel.

When we follow the path leading into the spiritual world we learn
that man is not a simple, but a very complicated being. We gathered
that man and everything that lives in him participates in all the worlds
which are accessible to him. With his physical body he belongs to the
physical world; with his soul he belongs to the soul world; with his
spirit he belongs to the spiritual world. We reach into these three
worlds.

We know that when we enter the spiritual world we really

experience ourselves in a multiplied form. What is so alarming is that
the oneness, the unity is then split up, so that we feel as if we belonged
to many worlds. It is possible to bring forward different points of view,
but I will now draw attention to one aspect and refer to explanations
repeatedly given in recent lectures.

When studying human life from the inner aspect, we should look
upon it as a structured life; but when we leave the body, the human
being immediately appears structured, subdivided into four parts. We
have, to begin with, the force which lies at the foundation of memory.
Through memory, things experienced in the past rise up in our
consciousness. Memory brings a connected sequence into life, so that
our existence from birth to death becomes a whole, a unity. — A second
element is what we call thinking, our representing power — I cannot go
into further details, this is not the essential point just now, but our
thinking activity is something that lives in the present. And if we
proceed further, we come to feeling, and still further to the will. When
we look into ourselves, our own inner being takes on the aspect of
memory, thinking, feeling and will.

We may now ask: What is the essential difference between these

four soul activities? Ordinary psychology enumerates, but does not
differentiate them. Truth can only be reached if we are able to
penetrate into the essence of these four soul activities, and there we
discover that the will is, as it were, the infant among them; feeling is
older, thinking still older, and the activity that lives in memory is the
oldest, the old man among our soul activities. You will grasp this more
clearly from the following standpoint:

We have often explained that man did not begin his development
upon the earth, for the evolution of the earth was preceded by the old
Moon evolution, the old Sun evolution, and the old Saturn evolution.
Man did not first come into being upon the earth, but in order to
become man he had to pass through the evolutions of Saturn, Sun and
Moon.

You see, what we unfold in our will, the will as it exists today, arose
upon the earth; its development is not complete and it is altogether a
product of the evolution of the earth. During the Moon evolution man
was not an independent volitional being; the Angels willed for him. The
will rayed in, as it were, when the evolution of the earth began. During
the Moon evolution, man was already endowed with feeling; he was
endowed with thinking during the Sun evolution, and with memory
during the Saturn evolution. If you now connect these things with other
facts described in my “Akasha Chronicle” and in “Occult
Science” you will discover an important connection. The first
foundation of man's physical body arose during the Saturn stage of
evolution; the first basis of man's etheric body arose during the Sun
stage of evolution; during the Moon stage of development arose the
first foundation of the astral body, and the Ego began to unfold during
the earthly stage of development.

Let us now consider separately the activity which we designate as

memory. What is memory? The picture of an event which we
experienced remains behind in the soul, in the same way in which
something of the thoughts of a book's author remain in the book we
read. When you read a book, you may think through (not always, but
this does not count now) everything thought out by the author of the
book. Memory is a subconscious reading activity. In memory remain
the signs which the etheric body engraved upon the physical body. You
may have lived through something years ago and gathered from it the
necessary experience; what remains behind is the impression which the
etheric body engraved upon the physical body, and when you
remember this past experience your memory process is a subconscious
act of reading.

The mysterious processes which take place in the human organism,

in order that the etheric body may engrave upon it the signs which lie
at the foundation of memory, began to form part of man's structure
during the ancient Saturn evolution. We have in fact within us this
secret Saturn-organism and its existence reveals a life and being of its
own. Upon it the etheric body writes down the signs connected with
man's experiences in the external world, so that these signs may be
drawn up again from memory. That man carries out this subconscious
writing activity is essentially dependent on the fact that during his first
seven years of life, the body, or that part of his physical body which
receives these impressions or signs, is still elastic. Consequently we
should not — as explained in my book “The Education of the
Child” — maltreat a child by developing its power of memory. During
the first seven years, the essential thing is to leave the child's elastic
organism to its own elemental forces, without maltreating it. We
should therefore tell a child as much as possible, but without stressing
the point that it should unfold its memory power artificially. In regard
to the unfolding of memory, the child should instead be left to its own
resources. Spiritual science may thus be of immense importance in
pedagogical life.

Even as the power of memory is one of human nature's oldest

components, so the activity which lies at the foundation of thinking is
part of something which we may designate as having been formed upon
the Sun. This too is relatively old. The Sun forces organized man's
etheric body so as to enable it to exercise this peculiar activity of
thought, or representation. This will show you that we must go far back
into cosmic evolution in order to give an answer to the question: Why
is man able to remember things, and why is he able to think? — We
must go back to the evolutions of Saturn and of the Sun.

If we consider man's feeling life, we only have to go back as far as

the Moon evolution, and for his volitional life as far as the evolution of
the Earth. This will enable you to understand many things. In the case
of people who were strongly moulded by their preceding incarnation,
who are not elastic, but have a sharply moulded form, many things will
be pressed into their organism; they will be people endowed with an
almost automatic memory, but with their thinking power they will not
be able to unfold much in a productive way. Whereas the power of
memory should be connected chiefly with the etheric body, and man's
feeling life with the astral body, his volitional life should be connected
chiefly with the Ego. Man says “I” to himself only because he is a being
endowed with will. If he had merely the power of thinking, his life
would only be like a dream.

We thus have, I might say, an organic connection of inner soul

activities which were impressed on our soul's being in the course of
development. In regard to the will, I have already explained that it only
arose during the development of the Earth. Upon the Moon, higher
spiritual hierarchies, the Angeloi, still willed for man. During the Moon
evolution, man's whole will was still of such a kind that when the
clairvoyant consciousness tried to recall this state of existence, it
perceives that although the will then existed upon a higher stage, it
lived in man instinctively, in the form in which it now exists in the
animals of the earth. The animal necessarily follows its hot and
whirling instincts and it lives in the common will of its species.
 Even as higher spiritual beings, the Angeloi, willed for us during the
Moon evolution, so higher spiritual beings are now at work in
determining our Karma from one incarnation to the other. The Angeloi
do not work in our will, but in the uninterrupted stream of our Karma.
Even as during the Moon evolution man felt that his will was not his
own, but that of an Angel, so here on earth we do not think that it is we
who shape our Karma; this is ruled by the spiritual beings of higher
hierarchies. Only if our will can be silenced, as it were, a gleam of the
course of Karma, which ordinarily remains concealed, may shine
through and reveal itself even to a non-clairvoyant consciousness.

Bear clearly in mind what I have explained to you: That in man a

nucleus unfolds which passes through the portal of death and enters
the spiritual realm; this nucleus is the bearer of our Karma. What each
one of us will do tomorrow is determined by Karma and already lives in
us today. If the will had not to be unfolded here on earth, we might be
able to see through our Karma. We could see through it to the extent
that under certain conditions it might be possible to foresee the near
future. But the will which penetrates into the stream of Karma darkens
our outlook into the events which may happen to us, for example
tomorrow. Only if the will is completely silenced, something of what
will happen — not through us, but to us — may gleam through.

Let me give you an example, related by Erasmus Franceschi and

based on truth. In his youth, Erasmus Franceschi lived with an aunt.
Once he dreamed that a man whose name he also heard in his dream
would fire at him, but that he would not be killed, because his aunt
would save his life. This is what he dreamed. On the following day,
before anything had happened, he told his aunt what he had dreamed.
She was greatly alarmed and said that quite recently a man had been
shot in the neighbourhood, and she entreated her nephew to remain at
home, so that nothing might happen to him. She gave him the key to
the apple pantry, so that he might always go up and fetch himself some
apples. He went to his room and sat down at his desk to read. But at
that moment the book did not interest him as much as the pantry key
in his pocket which his aunt had given him. He decided to go upstairs
to the apple room. No sooner had he moved, than a shot was fired,
aimed in such a way that the bullet would have struck his head, if he
had still been reading. If he had not got up, the bullet would have gone
through his head. In the neighbour's house, the manservant, whose
name was the one which Franceschi had heard in his dream and whom
he did not know, was cleaning two guns and was not aware that they
were loaded. A gun went off, and if Franceschi had not risen from his
chair at that very moment, in order to go to the apple pantry to which
his aunt had given him the key, he would unfailingly have been killed.
The dream therefore faithfully rendered what would have taken place
on the following day.

You see, of this event we may say that the will had nothing to do
with it, for Franceschi could not influence the events with his own will;
he could not protect himself, yet something entered his Karma so that
he could live on. In his case, the spiritual being that moulded his
Karma had already had the rescuing idea. The dream was foresight of
the spirit controlling Karma, who saw what would have occurred on the
following day, and because that young man's soul had, almost through
natural meditation, passed through a certain deepening, something
arose which may be compared with certain things in external life. In
regard to external life man can prophesy only in a very limited
measure. But in a certain sense we are all prophets. For example, we all
know that tomorrow at a certain moment the light will dawn, or a man
crossing a field will be able to foretell what it will look like tomorrow ...
yet he will not be able to foresee whether rain will fall upon it
tomorrow. The same applies to inner life. Man lives in accordance with
his will, and Karma is contained in his will. Through feeling, we may
learn to know the things which lie closest to us, and in the same way a
light may be kindled in the souls of certain people who have passed
through an inner deepening, so that they can see events in which the
will must remain silent. In the study of spiritual science it is important
to bear in mind such things, because they show us that in man's inner
being lives something which he is unable to survey through his
ordinary consciousness and which points to the future. Karma then
penetrates through the silenced will.

Everything which thus rises up before our soul in spiritual-scientific

research, shows us that what we call the great illusion chiefly consists
therein that with his ordinary consciousness man cannot survey his
own being; he belongs to the whole universe, although his ordinary
consciousness only enables him to see the shell, enclosed, as it were, by
the skin, etc. But what he thus sees in an enclosed state is only an
extract of what he really is, for man is as great as the universe. Even in
ordinary life we look back upon ourselves from outside.

When we clearly realize these things, we gradually begin to feel that

within us lives something which we may designate as man's etheric
body. Indeed, even in our ordinary life it is possible at least to observe
this second man — the etheric being in man's physical being, but for
this it is necessary to observe life in a far more delicate way than is
usually the case.
 Think, for example, that you are lying lazily in bed in the morning
and would much rather remain in bed than get up; indeed it costs you
an effort to get up. You will find it difficult to get up if you only rely on
what lives in you. But imagine that you are suddenly struck by the
thought that in the room next to yours there is an object which you
were expecting for some days. A thought connected with something
outside rises up in you, and this will work almost like a miracle. For
you will see that it is even capable of driving you out of bed!

What has happened? When you awoke and dived down into your
physical body, you felt what the physical body can make you feel; but
this cannot inspire you with the thought of getting up. The etheric body
acts independently, when you draw its attention to something which is
outside. This example will show you how you may confront your
physical body with the etheric body, and how the etheric body literally
takes hold of you and pushes you out of bed.

A definite sensation may be reached in regard to our own being: that

of looking at ourselves and distinguishing between two kinds of human
activities: the things we do in the ordinary hubbub of life, and those in
which we feel that an inner activity asserts itself. These are, of course,
finer observations, and if we want to, we may always deny them. But
our observation should be adapted to life and we should really gain
insight into life as it reveals itself to us. This will push our feeling in the
right direction. We should realize that the path leading into the
spiritual world cannot be discovered all at once; it leads out of the
world little by little, so that we ascend to what I have described before,
when that which used to be our world loses its lifeless character and
becomes a living being.

We thus grow together cognisantly with the spiritual world. We

grow together with something of which we may say that it forms part of
us when we discard what is given to us with the instrument of the
physical body and what essentially constitutes our life from birth to
death. When passing through the portal of death we grow into a world
which very much resembles the one described just now, which reveals
itself to higher knowledge. And then we notice an infinitely important
thing: If we wish to penetrate in the right way into the world we enter
through the portal of death, we need — in the same way in which a light
is needed in a dark room — something which we unfold here on earth
in the innermost depths of our soul. Life on earth should not be looked
upon as a prison. In the natural course of development man must, of
course, pass through the portal of death and he must pass through the
life between death and a new birth, but the whole of life exists in order
that each part of our being may add to us something we need,
something new, and in the present cycle of evolution, life on earth
should give us something that flames like a torch, so that we do not
simply live through our spiritual existence, but recognize it; our life in
the spiritual world will then be flooded with light. The light which
illumines us is the imperishable element which we gain from birth to
death for our life between death and a new birth.

In connection with these things, we should always say that

particularly in the present time it is important that as many people as
possible should grasp that the truths connected with the spiritual world
which we learn to know in the physical world, within the physical body,
become a flaming light, when we live in the spiritual realms. All the
difficulties which more developed human beings must encounter in the
present time, admonish us in a certain way to deepen our soul and
immerse it in spiritual feelings, in spiritual vision. Consciousness of the
fact that a spiritual-scientific deepening is needed in the present time
and that the difficulties of our age are a warning, induce us to conclude
with words which we always pronounce before parting. I hope that we
shall be able to continue these lectures in a not too distant future. Let
us now close with the words:

Aus dem Mut der Kämpfer,

aus dem Blut der Schlachten,
aus dem Leid Verlass'ner,
aus des Volkes Opfertaten —
wird erwachsen Geistesfrucht,
lenken Seelen geistbewußt
ihren Sinn ins Geisterreich.

(From the courage of the fighters,

From the blood of the battles,
from the sorrow of the abandoned,
from the people's sacrifices —
shall spring forth a spirit fruit,
if souls, spirit-consciously direct
their mind (thoughts) to the spirit realm).

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The Weaving and

Living Activity of the
Human Etheric Bodies
By Rudolf Steiner

GA 174a

From a lecture dated 20th March, 1916.

(Stenographic notes unrevised by the lecturer.)
All rights reserved. Lecture given in Munich. Search for related titles available
GA# 174a. for purchase atAmazon.com!
Copyright © 1940
This e.Text edition is provided through the wonderful work of:
The General Anthroposophical Society
Dornach, Switzerland

Thanks to an anonymous donation, this lecture has been made available.

THE WEAVING AND LIVING

ACTIVITY OF THE HUMAN
ETHERIC BODIES.

Lecture by R u d o l f S t e i n e r

delivered at MUNICH on the 20th of March,

1916.
From stenographic notes unrevised by the lecturer.

For a gradual acquisition of that science which we designate as spiritual

science, it is necessary that we should have the good will of filling out
the thoughts and thought-connections which are indicated almost in
the form of a plan with real ideas relating to those things which can at
first only be given in a more general outline. We say that the human
being consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, Ego, etc. This
is quite correct, to begin with, for it is necessary that we should orient
ourselves with the aid of encompassing schematic ideas. But if we wish
to continue in the acquisition of spiritual science, we must penetrate
more accurately into everything which has thus been given in a
schematic form. We already possess quite a considerable number of
lecture-cycles, which are read particularly within the more restricted
circle connected with our Society; but these cycles of lectures still
contain relatively little of what should be known to humanity in a near
future, at least to a certain number of people! This would be most
desirable. To begin with, we say: We designate as man’s physical body
his external appearance, which can be perceived through the physical
senses and which can be observed with the aid of that science that is
linked up with the intellect, with experiments and observations. We
know that the etheric body lies at the foundation of the physical body.
Let us, first of all, cast our spiritual eye upon these two members of
human nature.

Spiritual science as such, needs to say least of all (of course, this is
at first only apparently the case) about the physical body, for the
physical body is the only thing which the ordinary science, dealing with
the physical world, is willing to contemplate with the aid of its
methods. But although the physical body may at first seem to be what
natural science considers, it to be, its true significance and its position
within the universe can only be recognised if the higher members of the
human organisation are also borne in mind.

You will undoubtedly recollect that man’s physical body, in the form
in which it envelops him here upon the. earth, could only arise during
the Earth-epoch, but it received its first foundation during the ancient
Saturn-epoch. During the Sun, Moon and Earth epochs, it then
underwent a constant transformation. It was gradually transformed
under the influence of the processes which were taking place: it was
transformed through the fact that the etheric body was incorporated
with it. When the physical body passed on from the Saturn epoch to a
new epoch, it had to change, for it became permeated with the etheric
body. And it also had to change when it became permeated with the
astral body upon the Moon. Not only has the astral body been added to
the physical body, but the physical body has been transformed through
the fact that the etheric body penetrated into it, as it were, during the
Sun-epoch and the astral body during the. Moon-epoch, whereas the
Ego is gradually developing in every direction here, upon the Earth; of
course, it develops first of all within the astral body, then within the
etheric body, but then also within the physical body.

If we now pass on from the human being to the cosmos, we only

need to remember what is contained in our lecture-cycles. We must
remember, in this case, that just as the first foundation of the physical
body has been made possible through the outpouring, as we may call it,
of the Spirits of the Will or the Thrones, so the transformation during
the Sun-epoch became possible through the Spirits of Wisdom, and the
transformation during, the Moon-epoch through the Spirits of
Movement. The transformation during the Earth-epoch, that is to say,
the change entailed through the fact that an Ego now dwells within the
physical body, has been made possible through the Spirits of Form,
This is a most significant fact, which we must bear in mind. When we
encounter man’s physical body upon the Earth, we must think of it as
being endowed with an Ego, and since it is endowed with an Ego, we
must bear in mind that it has received a certain form, the form which is
most appropriate to it. During the Moon epoch, it has merely received
the inner movement which was most adapted to it. The form which was
most suited to it, is a gift of the Spirits of Form, and is in keeping with
the fact that an Ego had to be Implanted in it.

We may thus say: Our earthly body, which has a physical form, has
been formed in such a way as to become a bearer of the Ego. Together
with the Ego, the Spirits of Form gave the human physical body the
form which it now has and which is in keeping with the fact that it is
the bearer of an Ego. The beings that belong to the other kingdoms of
Nature, have received their forms later. If you read the more intimate
descriptions of the Moon-epoch, [See “THE AKASHA CHRONICLES” by
Rudolf Steiner.] you will find that they describe all the other beings in
such a manner that it is not possible to say that also these beings had
their forms at that time. They are described with a certain mobility.
Bear in mind, for instance, the description contained in my “Occult
Science”.

Also the other kingdoms of Nature have received their stable forms
through the Spirits of Form, during the Earth-epoch. Let us now
contemplate the animal kingdom. Also the animal kingdom has its
definite forms. It has acquired these forms only during the Earth.
epoch. But think of the great difference between the forms of the
animal kingdom and of the kingdom of man! If we cast our gaze over
the surface of the earth, we may indeed find certain differences among
men, but these differences belong to another field of study. We also
come across certain differences in the external human form. All the
interesting peoples which the West Europeans now lead into the field
against Central Europe of course present a different aspect from the
European populations! Differences can of course be perceived when we
cast our gaze over the surface of the earth and study the form of various
individual human beings. The colour of the skin must, for instance, be
considered in connection with the bodily form. But if you compare the
differentiations which exist in regard to the human being with the great
differentiations which exist in regard to the various animal species, you
will have to admit: The various species of animals differ far more from
one another than the human beings. In comparison to the various
animal species we can speak of an individual human species; in the
human kingdom, however, we cannot find such a great difference as
may be found, for instance, between a lion and a nightingale. If there
would be such a great difference in the kingdom of man as that between
a lion and a nightingale, we would not hear even such peculiar
observations that it is not possible to notice the differences which exist
among human beings. The fact to be borne in mind is that the animals
show infinitely greater differences than the human being, within his
own general human species.

Although the things which I have just now explained to you are
undoubtedly right, they are only right within certain limits, if we
consider them from the aspect of spiritual science. The following fact
should be looked upon as a truth: In your thoughts and, in your
observation, add the etheric body to man’s physical body and imagine
that a certain experiment is to be made; in reality, of course, this
experiment cannot be made. Imagine the following experiment and
that you see it being enacted; imagine that the whole physical body of
man can be separated from him, detached from him scientifically, piece
by piece and that before we begin to detach the physical body from the
human being we are in the position to invoke the Spirits of the higher
hierarchies — to send an invocation to the Spirits of the Angeloi,
Archangeloi, Archai. We would have to utter this invocation in such a
way that its request would be granted, namely, that the Spirits of the
Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai might withdraw from the human
being and cease; to influence his etheric body. We would, therefore —
we cannot say, excoriate — but we would have to take away from the
human being everything pertaining to his physical body and then we
would have to ask the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai to withdraw
their influences, so that man’s etheric body may be left entirely to its
own resources, and may no longer be influenced by anything else. For
the etheric body is subjected to certain influences; it is inserted in the
physical body and the physical body has its own solid form, to which
the etheric body must adapt itself. If you take a very soft piece of rubber
and put it into a glass, it will adapt itself to the form of the glass and
will no longer maintain its own form. But if you take it out of the glass,
it will bound back into its own form. In a similar way, the etheric body
must adapt itself to the physical body, without a form of its own.
Consequently, if we draw away the physical body, we eliminate the
forces to which the etheric body had to adapt itself; however, it would
not immediately take on its own form, owing to the fact that the
Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai still work upon it, but we have asked
them to withdraw, so that the etheric body can now obey its own forces
to the fullest extent. In that case, the etheric body would take on its
own elasticity. And this would be visible; we would see the etheric body
jumping out. And what would occur? — You would have before you the
whole animal kingdom! The etheric body would split up into portions,
and these would show in their fundamental types the forms of the
whole animal kingdom. In other words: etherically, the human being
carries about within him the whole animal kingdom, which is simply
held together by the form of his physical body and by the activity of the
Beings of the above-named hierarchies. It is unquestionably true that
the human being bears within him, as a disposition, the whole animal
kingdom. From this standpoint, the animal kingdom differs from man
only through the fact that every animal-species has assumed a form of
its own, which it has developed independently into a physical shape.
Consequently, the animal kingdom is the expanded etheric body of
man,

A strange fact should be borne in mind. At the turn of the 18th and
of the 19th century, something special arose within the world-
conception of Europe, and we may observe this, for instance, more in
detail in the case of Oken. From the standpoint of his time, the scientist
Oken could not as yet speak of etheric bodies; indeed, he was far from
doing so. But in his books we may find the following peculiar
statement: “The animal kingdom is the human being, expanded.” This
means that in his fantasy he had caught, a glimpse of the truth. It rose
up on his spiritual horizon at a time when the great ideas of the Central
European world-conception had developed. Indeed, this truth even
rose up on Schelling’s horizon, and this same statement can also be
found in Schelling’s books. Those who were unable to penetrate into
such a lofty idea, which could not, of course, be developed fully, those
who were unable to penetrate into such a great idea, went through a
terrible time. We should think of Oken in such a way, that the things
which he could not as yet grasp clearly, nevertheless lived within his
soul as a marvellous conception, so that he could feel the single parts of
the human being really consist of animal forms. He even had the
courage to express this, but this courage very much annoyed the
learned Philistines. Just think that Oken conceived the following idea:
What is the tongue? — Well, he said that the tongue is a cuttlefish. Of
course, the things which I have just explained to you lay at the
foundation of this statement ... but just imagine what the learned
Philistines thought about it! If we wish to grasp the development of
man’s spiritual life we must become broad-minded and we must realise
that things which may apparently sound like nonsense may bear within
them a great truth. Oken subdivided the human being as follows: The
tongue is a cuttlefish, other organs are something else. After all, it was
merely the exact repetition of a truth which existed in a very ancient
conception of man and which brought into evidence the fundamental
types, subdividing the human being in accordance with the four
fundamental animal types: Lion, eagle, angel and calf.

Thus we may say: Things are not as easy as they appear to be, for in
reality, the human being bears within his etheric body the whole animal
kingdom. As a philosopher might express himself, he bears it within
him as a disposition.

Now you should bear in mind the following fact: If the things which
I have just now described to you would not take place, if in addition to
the fact that the physical body holds together the whole animal
kingdom, the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai would not exercise their
influence, then the process explained above would necessarily take
place, when the human being lays aside the physical body and passes
through the portal of death; namely, the etheric body would, in that
case, jump out elastically into the world when the astral body and the
Ego have abandoned it, and a whole etheric animal kingdom would rise
out of the etheric body. But in reality, this does not take place; this
animal kingdom does not rise out of the human being, for the etheric
body detaches itself in an entirely different form; it detaches itself and
becomes incorporated with the universal ether and interweaves with it.
[Compare: “Inner Being of Man and Life Between Death and a New Birth”.]

What lies before us in that case? The fact that the Beings of the
hierarchies of the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai work upon our
etheric body and do not allow it to reach the point of splitting up into
the animal kingdom. What does really take place? — You see, I would
like to describe these things by drawing in a comparison. Here upon the
earth we human beings work. We build machines, for instance,
machines made of wood or of iron. Wood and iron are our fundamental
materials. We use them to construct machines. The way in which these
materials are put together is our own work, but wood and even iron are
raw materials which we take from the earth. We take them from a
kingdom which lies below our human kingdom.

If you now imagine that the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai live
above us, you will also realise that these Beings do not exist in the
universe simply in order to have a perpetual holiday. They have their
work, tasks which they must fulfil. What do they really do? They, too,
must use a material for their work, just as we use wood and iron which
we take from the earth, and they, too, will work upon this material. Our
etheric bodies are the material used by the Angeloi, Archangeloi and
Archai. For the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai, our etheric bodies
have the same value that the wood and iron which we take from the
earth have for us, when we use them to build machines. The Angeloi,
Archangeloi and Archai work upon our etheric bodies, and when we
walk about upon the earth and harbour, as it were, the thought (if we
have such thought at all!) that we carry about within us our etheric
body, believing that we carry it about as something that belongs to us in
the same way in which the lungs that we carry about within us belong
to us — then the whole essence of the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai
is active around us and works out forms for the spiritual world, forms
that are needed there, just as machines are needed here upon the earth.
They work out what is needed in the spiritual world. What aids these
spiritual beings in their work?

You see, throughout our life we think; we think, from the moment
that we attain the capacity of thinking up to the moment of death. Our
thinking consists therein that it weaves and lives in our etheric body.
Yet, while we live within our physical body, we believe that only the
things we mould in the shape of thoughts belong to us. But what we
thus possess in the shape of thoughts, what we thus form and mould
within our thoughts is, as it were, only the inner aspect of our whole
thought-life. From outside, the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai work
upon our thoughts, particularly in regard to our etheric body. As
human beings, it is not at all unnecessary that we should think. Our
thoughts are necessary not only for the physical earth, but also for the
cosmos. For what we transform within our etheric body through our
thinking, is employed during our earthly life as a material which is used
in accordance with higher standpoints. While we pass through the
world as thinking human beings, the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai
work upon our thoughts, so that after our death something may arise
that can be incorporated with the whole ether of the universe. When
our astral body and our Ego lay aside our etheric body, they sew into
the cosmos the wool of our etheric body, that has arisen essentially
through our manner of thinking.
 As human beings, we do not only live for ourselves; we also live for
the whole universe. We know that Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan will
follow our Earth. But all this must be prepared; it must be interwoven
with the universe as forces. This entails work. It forms part of this
work, for instance, that the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai carry it on
in accordance with our thoughts. (Stupid thoughts are not the same
kind of material as clever thoughts). Coarsely speaking, the Angeloi,
Archangeloi and Archai work upon these etheric machines in
accordance with the material that we supply to them, and these
“machines” then exist, in order that the evolution of the universe may
continue. When our etheric body is handed over to the cosmos after our
death, this kind of work is therefore handed over at the same time to
the Beings of the three, above-mentioned hierarchies.

Let us now contemplate from a similar standpoint man’s astral

body. We always contemplate things from different standpoints, so that
we always obtain other connections with the surrounding kingdoms,
and those who cannot read (an encompassing view of things is needed
in order to be able to read) may discover many contradictions in our
descriptions, but this is only due to the fact that they ignore the
standpoints from which these things are viewed
You see, our astral body is connected with the earthly surroundings in a similar way as our
etheric body. From the standpoint just indicated, our etheric body is the whole ANIMAL
KINGDOM. Our astral body is, instead, the whole VEGETABLE KINGDOM. In exactly the same
way in which I spoke to you of the etheric body in connection with the animal kingdom, I
would now have to speak to you of the astral body in connection with the vegetable kingdom.
All the vegetable forms of our earth are contained in the astral body. And again, we find that if
nothing else were to occur, if the Beings of the higher Hierarchies would not work upon our
astral body, if during the time between death and a new birth, when we live backwards
through our life, nothing would occur except the fact that the astral body is discarded, then
the astral body would appear as the whole vegetable kingdom outside in the world. Indeed,
this would even take on the form of a sphere, it would follow its own elasticity. The astral body
would really take on the form of a sphere; but it cannot do this because during our life
between birth and death the Spirits of Form have been working upon our astral body, also the
Spirits of Movement, the Spirits of Wisdom, and even the Spirits of the Will. When after years
or decades we have lived backwards through our earthly life and have thus gradually freed the
astral body from its connection with earthly existence, then the astral body will contain the
results of a work, results that the Spirits of Form, the Spirits of Movement, the Spirits of
Wisdom and the Spirits of the Will require in order to incorporate something with the cosmos,
namely, to incorporate with it, what they MUST incorporate with it. Of course, what thus
becomes incorporated with the cosmos is to our own profit; for this must be contained in the
cosmos. However, this becomes inwoven with the cosmos in a manner that differs from the
process described above.
When we discard our etheric body, this becomes inwoven, I might say, with the universal ether
of the cosmos. But what appears now, as a woof woven out of our astral body as a result of
the work of the Spirits of Form, the Spirits of Movement, the Spirits of Wisdom and of the
Thrones, cooperates with our Ego that is passing through its time between death and a new
birth and contains forces which must be active, in order that we may once more enter a new
incarnation. Many things are needed in order that we may enter a new incarnation! Many
things, indeed! To-day, the ordinary science of the physical world really knows quite a lot
about the structure of the skull and of the human brain; such a lot, that many people find it is
too much to learn all these things! It is undoubtedly a lot. But suppose that all the knowledge
which is acquired through external science were to be considered from a particular standpoint
... from the standpoint that the _skull containing that wonderful structure of the brain has
actually arisen, that it could really be formed in its minutest details, whereas if all this had to
be formed with the aid of our ordinary external science, very little indeed could be achieved!

Here we face a significant mystery, a mystery that obtuse men (the sort of men whom we can
really designate as obtuse) think to cope with so easily by saying: “Well, the human being
simply arises! In the course of the generations, it so happened that human bodies develop
spontaneously within the bodies of mothers. This is quite spontaneous.” Indeed, the
arguments adopted by such people can be grasped ... but let me show you, with the aid of a
comparison, how clever they really are!

For instance, you may take for granted that here in Munich there are certain Beings able to
perceive many things, but unable to perceive man, and thus unable to see his activities. It is
quite possible, to imagine this! But those Beings who cannot see man, nor his activities, may,
for instance, be able to see — a clock. They would, therefore, know that there are clocks and
also how they are made. They would not, however, see the man who makes the clock; they
would only see how a clock arises from its single parts. They would perhaps see the different
kinds of pincers taking hold of the clock’s parts, but they would see them gripping, as it were,
out of the air. What a conception would these Beings have of a clock? They would not say: “In
Munich there are clock-makers”, but they would say: “Clock-makers do not exist; the clocks
arise spontaneously, of their own accord, for we can see how they form themselves.” This is
the manner of thinking adopted by people who take for granted that things that gradually
develop in a physical way must arise quite spontaneously! However, everything that arises is
the result of actions fulfilled by spiritual Beings belonging to the higher Hierarchies. Indeed,
the human being does not arise spontaneously, merely through the interchanging influence of
father and mother and through what develops within the mother’s body, but the whole
cosmos participates in his development.

Particularly the external world, as far as its highest regions, cooperates in the formation of the
human head. It participates less in what is attached to the head, and participates in a
particular way in the development of the human head. In a not too distant future, even
ordinary science will learn to think differently in embryology concerning all the organs and also
concerning the human head. It will discover that the other organs depend very strongly upon
hereditary qualities, whereas the formation of the head depends upon them only very slightly.
The form of the head is simply pushed together after the formation of the other organs. The
whole cosmos participates in the forming of the head and the influences of the cosmos
penetrate into the mother’s body. Those who do not see these forces ... well, also a farmer
does not see the forces that are active in a magnet, but this does not prove the non-existence
of these forces. What exists in the human head, has been worked out, as it were, in connection
with all that the human being has received from the Spirits of Form, the Spirits of Movement
and the Thrones, with what he bears along within his Ego, carrying it over into the time
between death and a new birth, as a mighty spherical form. What is thus elaborated is
gigantic; it is a sphere and within this sphere everything is worked out. [See Rudolf Steiner's
“MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM”. ]

Imagine a gigantic sphere, upon whose surface is engraved, as upon a globe, everything that
must be worked into it in accordance with what the human being handed over, to begin with,
to the universal cosmos through his etheric body, through the extract of his etheric body; this
forms, as it were, something that is copied on to the surface of the sphere. We then work into
it what should be engraved upon it in accordance with what we have brought along with us
through the work done upon our astral body. And then comes the time — it begins with that
moment designated by me as the world’s midnight hour — when the sphere gradually grows
smaller and finally this sphere, upon which, the higher Spirits work, becomes quite small, it
grows smaller and smaller, until it unites with the human germ conceived within the mother’s
body. This, above all, gives rise to the form of the head. The gradual development of the form
of the head is the result of centuries of work on the part of the higher Hierarchies.

Just imagine how man’s feelings in regard to his relationship with the world could be
deepened if he would be aware of his position within the whole cosmic connections! The
human being who carries his head upon his shoulders should learn to think in all humility,
without any pride and arrogance, that human wisdom and all that may be found in it, contains
very little indeed of what is required for the forming of the head bestowed upon the human
being! Man bears within him everything that is contained in the cosmos. If we consider things
from this standpoint, spiritual science acquires an immense value through, the fact that it
becomes the point of departure for certain feelings, that may, indeed, endanger souls filled
with pride and arrogance.

In my second Mystery Play I have alluded to this fact, in the scene where Capesius, conversing
with Benedictus, feels the approach of truths telling him that the deeds of gods are needed in
order to give rise to man. Truths of this kind may increase the vanity of many, who may at first
be disposed to vanity. They may attribute enormous importance to themselves. Yet it would
be far more reasonable to foster the feeling showing us how little of all that wisdom which
gave rise to the human being really exists within our own consciousness! Of course, we may
snare the opinion of those who say: “Of what use is it to know all these things? We can quite
well do without this knowledge. Indeed, we can live quite comfortably without knowing, all
these, things” ... Yet a great error is contained in the belief that we can quite well do without
this knowledge! For, in reality, we cannot live without it. Indeed, at the present time we easily
yield to the erroneous belief that we can lead quite a decent life without having a knowledge
of the spiritual world; that is to say, that we can breakfast, etc., and do many things in
between ... Undoubtedly, it is very easy to believe this at the present time; nevertheless, such
a belief is not based upon truth. We should gradually be brought to the point of feeling that
such beliefs are not based upon truth. For this reason, I mention a subject such as that of
Planck. I mention Planck, that strange man, who lived for many years an extremely lonely life
at Ulm and was not even offered a chair at the university of Tübingen, because nobody really
understood his true value and significance; the significance of a man concerning whom obtuse
persons would certainly say: “Towards the end of his life, he grew so nervous that he said all
manner of things that sounded like megalomania.” Well, obtuse men may argue like that. But
even someone who had not to endure the sufferings that Planck had to endure, would have
grown nervous through the way in which his fellow men treated him, and he would also have
uttered the words which may be found in Planck’s introduction to his “Philosophy of Nature
and of Mankind”, the words of an ancient Roman: “Ungrateful country of mine! You shall not
even have my bones!” I am quoting these words purposely; they were uttered in 1889, the
year of Planck’s death, and they really convey exactly what we tried to explain just now.

The reality could be perceived by a man with idealistic conceptions, because the forces that
develop within us when we are able to think in this manner, are, at the same time, the most
practical thing in the world. The most practical thing is not at all as imagined by those who
believe that they really are in touch with the most practical things in life; this can only be
explained through the brutality with which they face life’s practical aspects. When I advance
such examples, I only advance them in order to show you that all those human forces which
are also needed in practical life, can give rise to clear thoughts filled with insight, only if the
soul is fertilized by spiritual scientific truths.

Is it possible to-day that people actually believe that human life on earth is possible, without
the slightest idea of spiritual scientific truths? Why do people believe such things? — Because
they are so terribly short-sighted! If they were not so short-sighted, it would be possible to
prove, even in an entirely external way, how mistaken are those who say: “Well, people simply
believe that they need not concern themselves with a spiritual world. They are born without
doing anything towards this, and they grow ...” Of course, some kind of education must be
offered to man. Modern pedagogy is so extremely clever, that it sets up clever principles,
reaching the gigantic heights of Forster’s pedagogy! And then we gradually become mature
men, who concern themselves with the problem of what we should do, in order to give others
something to eat and to drink.
Yet it was not always so within the human race. It is not so long ago that the present
conditions arose, inducing men to believe that they can live upon the earth without possessing
any spiritual knowledge. External proofs may be advanced, in support of this.

Let me advance one of these proofs. Probably, if we had time to spare (but here in Munich,
people do not have much time), we might even come across a similar proof here in Munich. At
the Museum of Art, in Hamburg we recently discovered a proof that may be advanced
externally. It results from the following fact:

Let us bear in mind that great symbol at the beginning of the Old Testament: Adam and Eve’s
Temptation, what is known to us as the Luciferic temptation. Let us think of this. When a
modern painter paints this (his standpoint is quite an indifferent matter; it is all the same
whether he is a realistic or an idealistic painter, an expressionist, impressionist, or futurist), he
thinks that the reality can be conveyed best of all if he paints Adam and Eve in a more or less
ugly way; between them, he will paint the Tree of Paradise and upon it the Serpent, with a real
serpent’s head, as large as the Tree. Can this be termed realistic, in the true meaning of the
word? I do not think so. Leaving aside the present assumption, it is impossible to believe that
the archetypal mother Eve could have been so stupid as to be tempted by a real serpent.
Imagine, a real serpent creeping through the green grass should have caught mother Eve! Even
the present serpent can only be looked upon as a symbol of something else. Let us recall the
thoughts that should really be connected with the Luciferic temptation. The serpent is Lucifer.
It can only symbolize Lucifer. The fact that this being remained behind upon the Moon-stage of
development, is connected with the Luciferic principle. It is therefore impossible to see Lucifer
through physical eyes, for these have only developed upon the earth. Lucifer can only be
perceived through the inner eye, and so he cannot resemble an earthly serpent that can be
seen through our ordinary earthly eyes. Lucifer should be imagined as spiritual science is able
to represent him. Imagine now that man carries upon him his head, as the most perfectly
formed member of his body. Attached to it (it suffices if you study a skeleton) is the remaining
organism; the spine is attached to the head. Everything that has, later on, developed
physically, was formed in advance. If we go back into evolution, if we were to perceive Lucifer
through our inner power of vision, we would see him in the form which he had upon the
Moon, when he was preparing the earthly human head, a human head that was not so dense
and solid as the present one, for it was inwardly mobile, manifold in its forms, and attached to
it was a human spine, a spinal cord, that may be imagined in the form of a serpent’s body.
Lucifer would, therefore, have to be painted with a countenance as expressive as possible, and
attached to it, a serpent’s body, but one that resembles the archetypal human spine. This
would be a kind of picture of Lucifer.

At the Museum in Hamburg there is a picture by Master Bertram representing a Story, of the
Creation, and there the Paradise-symbol is represented in such a way that Lucifer is portrayed
as described, exactly in accordance with spiritual science. In the 13th and 14th century, Master
Bertram therefore painted Lucifer correctly, in a spiritual-scientific sense. This can be seen; it is
a historical fact. We have frequently spoken of the ancient atavistic clairvoyance. What Master
Bertram painted, shows that up to the 13th and 14th century it was possible to paint Lucifer
correctly, in accordance with an ancient spiritual science. It can therefore be proved, it can be
proved externally, that the human beings have become, so abandoned by the spirit as they are
now, only a few centuries ago. This can be proved, and you will be able to discover such
proofs.

In other words: What the obtuse people of to-day consider as the everlasting human nature ...
the fact that they look out into the world through their eyes and then combine the things they
see through their intellect, has become a human soul-quality only a few centuries ago. Before
that time, man was aware of his connection with the spiritual world. This has faded. But we
can learn to know that even in the 13th and 14th century people were still able to paint in such
a way that this was in keeping with the ancient spiritual science. It is important to bear in mind
such a fact. It shows us that the ancient spiritual science had to vanish for the sake of the
development of human freedom, for in the 5th post-atlantean epoch arose something that has
often been described: namely, the, consciousness-soul had to develop and consequently the
old spiritual science had to recede. But it must be brought back again.

In regard to what constitutes the spirit of invention, the creative spirit, humanity still lives to-
day upon the old inheritance in every sphere, upon the old inheritance that entered human
evolution with the ancient spiritual science. When someone has a new idea to-day and invents
something quite new, he does this because the ancient spiritual science still continues to be
active. But in less than a hundred, in less than fifty years time, every kind of invention, every
creative kind of thought shall have disappeared; it shall have disappeared even in the
mechanical sphere, unless spiritual science influences humanity in a fruitful way. Spiritual
science must begin to penetrate livingly into the development of the human race, for
otherwise, the human race must grow barren.

In the sphere of art, this, fact is more or less evident to-day. In art it is strongly evident that the
human beings are, as it were, abandoned by the spirit, seeing that they can only weave into
their works of art what they find as a model, outside, in Nature; thus the inner fertilization on
the part of the spirit is completely lacking.

These facts stand on one side. They show us how necessary it is for the human being to
become aware of the fact that he is connected, as a whole human being, with Beings belonging
to the higher kingdoms. We may think of people — some still exist to-day — who do not know
that air exists. For them, space is empty. At least this fact does not reach their consciousness.
After all, the physical body cannot be thought of without the environing air — for what would
we be with our physical body without any air! We imagine that the physical body is closed up,
because it is enveloped in its skin, — but here is the air outside the body: we breathe it in, and
now it is inside us; we breathe it out, and then it is outside. Does not the air belong to the
physical body in the same way as the muscles? Do you not have within you what is outside,
and outside what is within? In the same way in which we are connected with the air in regard
to our physical body, so we are connected, in regard to our soul-element, with the Beings that
weave through the world as Spirits of Form, Spirits of Movement and Thrones; through our
astral body we are united with the Beings who weave through the world as spiritual
Hierarchies; they are incessantly active in us, just as the air is active within our physical body. If
we know this, we have the right kind of consciousness of man’s being.

This is one aspect of the matter. But then there is still another aspect. Now I wish to awaken in
you a conception of these things, by contemplating them from several aspects, as it is
necessary to-day.

Read, for instance, (I might also indicate another example) Dostojevski’s “Karamasov
Brothers”. Four characters appear, among others, in this book: the four sons of the old
Karamasov, Ivan, Dmitri, Aljosha, Smerdiakov. It is very strange to see what an influence this
novel of Dostojevski had, particularly in Europe. I would have to say many things if I wished to
explain the whole way in which such things rise out of human life and pass through a soul such
as that of Dostojevski where they develop into a work such as his “Brothers Karamasov”. Let
me only say this: In spite of the greatest admiration which we may have for the penetrating
psychological art (this is the name given to it by many modern people, because they know so
little what psychology really is!), in spite of the penetrating insight of Dostojevski’s
psychological art, also in spite of his fine and penetrating observation of life, those who have
really reached the point of taking up spiritual-scientific conceptions not only in such a way as
to say, man consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego, but so that they are
filled with what may be experienced in connection with these members of human nature —
those who strive to build up feelings in the way in which we endeavour to do it, will have an
uncomfortable feeling when they read the frequently chaotic descriptions of the Karamasov
brothers. For this book contains many things that may indeed be designated as fine
observations of life, if we simply bear in mind an external, superficial observation of life ... for
instance the fact that the eldest brother is the son of another mother and has an entirely
different character than that of his two younger brothers; the fourth son is again the offspring
of another mother (the old Karamasov is namely a thorough scoundrel!), whereas the third son
has a most peculiar mother. One does not know if he is really the son of the old Karamasov ...
But I do not intend to tell you the story of the book. Indeed, if we also bear in mind the aspect,
who were the mothers, we may feel throughout: there is something behind all that! In fact,
this is so, for a Central-European writer would not describe things in that way; he would
describe things far more consciously and thus he would not bring into his description so many
sub-conscious factors; as is the case with Dostojevski, he constructs more, and since he only
brings into his book what he more or less knows, his book will not contain such a wealth of
things as that of Dostojevski, who takes the things he writes from LIFE.
Life contains more than that which rises up in the consciousness of the human soul. Towards
all these things we feel that in the case of Dostojevski we have before us an extremely chaotic
mind, rendered chaotic through his epilepsy; but, in spite of this, many things passed through
his entirely diseased soul, things which could pass through it, because human nature is, in our
time, inclined, as it were, to reveal certain Things. We may then come to the following result: If
we have acquired the right kind of feeling, the right kind of idea in regard to what is meant by
physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego, we shall find in the four Karamasov brothers
four human beings who can only be understood in the right way if we say to ourselves: In one
of them, we have before us a human being in whom the physical body is specially active; in the
other one, a human being in whom the etheric body is particularly active; in the third one, a
human being in whom the astral body is more active; and in the fourth one, a human being in
whom the Ego is more active. It is indeed so: If you take the Karamasov brothers and study
them from an inner aspect, you will be able to say that, in accordance with. the present cycle
of human evolution, and in a case where everything is active in such a way that the poet is
influenced and stimulated to describe things more from out his sub-consciousness, the various
members of human nature are active so that in one brother one particular member has the
upper hand, and in another one, another member; the four brothers therefore appear like the
drawn-out image of humanity. In Dmitri we find that the Ego is preponderant; in Aljosha, the
astral body; in Ivan, the etheric body; and in Smerdiakov, the physical body. Though at first this
may seem strange, it is nevertheless so, from the standpoint of reality.

You see, here we have the strange case of a poet who produces chiefly from out his sub-
conscious depths and even has a chaotic soul life owing to his epilepsy, but who is
nevertheless pushed towards the reality and whose astral body, that is to say, his sub-
consciousness, becomes connected with what weaves and lives in the world.

We may well believe that the experience of standing beneath the gallows and. being
unexpectedly pardoned at the last minute (Dostojevski’s comrades have already been hung,
while Dostojevski himself is facing the moment of being hung), is not an indifferent experience;
indeed, such an experience awakens in a human soul altogether different feelings than those
of a soul that has never passed through a similar experience. This is a fact that should be borne
in mind. But all this shows us that at the present time, in particular, a soul of Dostojevski’s kind
could be influenced by the real facts in such a manner that his soul felt induced to describe
throughout his book, in a chaotic way, these four brothers, who possess the qualities just
described, whom we can only understand if we know this and if we are able to feel it. In that
case, we shall understand why the brother in whom the etheric body predominates and the
one in whom the astral body predominates, must be the sons of a mother afflicted with
hysterical fits. If we know this, the details in particular become wonderfully transparent. This
reveals the tendency of our time within the sphere of a nation inclined to offer (I have already
explained this to you), as it were, those blood qualities which must become united with the
Central European qualities. We can grasp what is taking place, also in the case of men in whom
these events are still inwoven unconsciously; but we can grasp this only if we understand
spiritual science.

Even though it may seem stupid, let me nevertheless say that the world is deep, and that it is
not such a simple matter to gain some knowledge in regard to it, nor to judge it; it is not so
simple a matter as imagined by those who lead the usual kind of life. The human beings pass
through life in a dream or in a state of intoxication. Yet great things are preparing and it is not
so easy to attract people’s, attention to these things.

Through your Karma you belong to those who are gradually penetrating into these things; you
have been listening to them for many years and have thus gradually become familiar with
them, acquiring an idea of all that lies concealed beneath the surface of life. But in regard to
outsiders: — we may sometimes allude to such things in their presence and the very people
may be sitting there, who belong to the clever set and believe, above all, that the person who
speaks in a spiritual-Scientific manner and mentions this or that thing to them, does not really
know anything beyond what he is saying. They have not the slightest idea that this knowledge
must be drawn out of an all-encompassing knowledge, one that can really be proved in every
detail and that becomes interesting just when it can be substantiated through details

That many things in human evolution must change, can be seen therein that I have put before
you two facts: I have shown you, on the one hand, what is connected with the human being,
but on the other hand, I have also shown you the way in which we should contemplate the
events that are now taking place. If someone who knows nothing of microscopy looks through
a microscope, he will see nothing whatever. In a similar way, nothing whatever can be
discerned when we contemplate human experience. Nothing whatever can be discerned in the
experiences of the East during the 19th century; nothing can be seen in a Dostojevski, who
wrote the book, “The Brothers Karamasov”, a book that indicates a sub-earthly element. In the
East, in the Russian East, people have become aware of this, for a certain attitude towards life
has been designated, as “Karamasovshchina”. It is difficult to explain this word; it is a far more
qualitative concept than, for instance, the word “Strizitum” (a word in Austrian dialect,
indicating a loose, half rascally, half good-fellow attitude towards life). “Karamasovshchina” is
a far more concrete thing. We may come across this in life itself and even in art, and in order
to perceive what is taking place, it is easy to realise that when we contemplate things, it is
necessary to have in our soul’s background a knowledge that can only come from spiritual
science.

Even the external processes rising up before us at the present time in particular, reveal this
necessity; if we only look upon life thoughtfully, they reveal the necessity to which I allude and
which I illuminated from two aspects. For instance, a very distressing phenomenon of the
present is the following one: — General opinions existed long before the war. Certain people
were considered to be prominent in this or in that sphere. There was no reason to object to
this because they really achieved extraordinary things in the meaning of modern civilisation.
Then war broke out. These prominent people expressed their views, they wrote letters. It is
almost incredible what nonsense these prominent men wrote! For instance, Krapotkin, who
enjoyed a great reputation in England. But read the letters written by him at the beginning of
the war! He was looked upon as a broad-minded free-thinker, yet how stupid were the letters
he wrote!

These are weighty facts. Indeed, I might say: Particularly now that humanity is facing such a
sudden and powerful situation, we can see how little their thoughts are capable of grasping
something that does not, for once, break in upon mankind in accordance with an ordinary,
easy programme. From their own standpoint, the ordinary Philistines are better off than
others, for they judge things in accordance with their views. But how do these views generally
arise? At the present time, people despise authority and have their own views! Yet their
opinions are merely based upon the fact that they have forgotten where they have read them!
These are the “individual opinions”, that are simply characterised through the fact that they
have been read or heard somewhere. All these things show that particularly the so deeply
incisive events of the present contain something that must become a distinctive mark of
humanity: namely, the fact that many, many things in spiritual life must change completely;
human beings must make up their mind not to pass through life in the same way as the
materialists, who merely dream of the world ... Of course, they think that the others are
dreaming, nevertheless it is THEY who really dream, for they have never really woken up
properly. Spiritual life must indeed change, and this fact must penetrate into the
consciousness of those who wish to become united in their heart with the true life-essence of
the spiritual-scientific world-conception.

Earnest words had to be said at this meeting, simply because to-day things present such an
aspect that every opportunity must be used which may, perhaps, not always be available. It is
difficult to travel about, at present.

It is therefore necessary to discuss these earnest things. They are also connected with
questions discussed on previous occasions, questions that may be considered in connection
with those of to-day. I explained that our etheric body is not something that may be
designated as the bearer of our thoughts; it does not simply evaporate: no, the etheric body
does not evaporate ... it becomes inwoven with the world-ether. When, however, as is the
case at present, hundreds and thousands of deaths prevent human beings from carrying their
etheric bodies through several decades, as would be the case normally, when these etheric
bodies are handed over to the spiritual world, then something arises which I have frequently
described: They remain here, with that part of the etheric body which may still have been
used, and this will be found ABOVE. But its INFLUENCE in the future will depend upon the
constitution of the souls BELOW. Strength for a spiritual progress will in future be found by
those souls below who say to themselves: Many men have passed through the sacrifice of
death and if we grow conscious of the forces contained in what they leave behind, then a
spiritual growth will be possible. Souls must be there who are open to the comprehension of
the spiritual world. In that case, the forces existing through the death-sacrifices can become
fruitful for the earth. Otherwise, they must fall a prey to Ahriman. It need not NECESSARILY
arise that these forces become fruitful for the earth ... for this will depend either upon the
greatest possible number of souls that are inclined to unite in their feelings with what has
arisen spiritually through the death-sacrifices; it will depend upon the possibility of utilising
this later on, or else it will depend upon whether this will fall a prey to Ahriman. Meditate this
thought, for then it will acquire significance and you will be able to feel the words with which I
once more wish to conclude my lecture:

Aus dem Mut der Kämpfer,

Aus dem Blut der Schlachten,

Aus dem Leid Verlassener,

Aus des Volkes Opfertaten:

Wird erwachsen Geistesfrucht,

Lenken Seelen geistbewusst

Ihren Sinn ins Geisterreich.

(TRANSLATION)

From the courage of the fighters,

From the blood of the battles,

From the suffering of the abandoned,

From the nation's deeds of sacrifice,

Shall spring forth a Spirit-fruit,

If souls, in spirit-consciousness,

Lead their heart and mind into the Spirit-realm.

 Rudolf Steiner Archive & e.Lib
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The Work of the Angels

In Man's Astral Body
A Lecture By
Rudolf Steiner
Zurich, 9th October, 1918
GA 182

Translated by D. S. Osmond with the help of

Owen Barfield

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Translated from a shorthand report unrevised by
the lecturer. The original text is included in the
volume of the Complete Edition of the works of
Rudolf Steiner entitled: Der Tod als
Lebenswandlung. (Bibl. No. 182). The volume
contains the texts of seven lectures given by
Rudolf Steiner in different places between 29th
November, 1917 and 16th October, 1918.
 This English edition of the following lecture is
published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner
Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.
Copyright © 1960
This e.Text edition is provided with the cooperation of:
The Rudolf Steiner Press

Thanks to an anonymous donation, this lecture has been made available.

The following lecture was given Kindle Instant Preview

by Rudolf Steiner to an
audience familiar with the
general background of his
anthroposophical teachings.
He constantly emphasized the
distinction between his written works and reports of lectures which were given
as oral communications and were not originally intended for print. It should also
be remembered that certain premises were taken for granted when the words
were spoken. “These premises,” Rudolf Steiner writes in his autobiography,
“include at the very least the anthroposophical knowledge of Man and of the
Cosmos in its spiritual essence; also of what may be called ‘anthroposophical
history,’ told as an outcome of research into the spiritual world.”

THE WORK OF THE ANGELS IN MAN'S ASTRAL BODY

ANTHROPOSOPHICAL understanding of the spirit must not be a

merely theoretical view of the world, but a leaven, an actual power
in life. Only when we manage to investigate this view of the world
so fundamentally that it really comes alive in us does it properly
fulfill its mission. For by linking our souls with this
anthroposophical conception of the spirit we have become
custodians, as it were, of very definite and significant processes in
the evolution of humanity.

Whatever their view of the world, men are generally convinced

that thoughts and ideas have no status in it except as the contents
of their own souls. Those who hold such views believe that
thoughts and mental pictures are “ideals” which will be embodied
in the world only to the extent that man succeeds in ratifying them
by his physical deeds.

The anthroposophical attitude posits the conviction that our

thoughts and ideas must find other ways of taking effect besides
the way through our deeds in the physical world. Recognition of
this essential principle implies that the anthroposophist must play
his part in watching out for the signs of the times. A very great deal
is happening all the time in the evolution of the world; and it is
incumbent upon men, particularly the men of our own time, to
acquire real understanding of what is going on in the evolutionary
process in which they themselves are placed.

In the case of an individual human being, everybody knows that

account must be taken of his stage of development, not only of the
outer facts and occurrences around him. Think of it quite crudely
for a moment. Outer, physical happenings are going on around
human beings of five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy years of age.
But nobody in his senses will expect the same reaction to these
happenings from the five-year-olds, the ten-year-olds, the twenty-
year-olds, the fifty-year-olds, the seventy-year-olds! How human
beings may be expected to react to their environment can be
determined only by taking account of their stage of development.
Everybody will admit this in the case of the individual.

But just as there are definite stages in the evolution of the

individual human being, just as the nature of his powers and
faculties differs in childhood, middle life and old age, so too are the
powers and faculties possessed by humanity in general constantly
changing in the course of evolution. Not to take account of the fact
that the character of humanity is different in the 20th century from
what it was in the 15th century, let alone before and at the time of
the Mystery of Golgotha, is to sleep through the process of world-
evolution. One of the greatest defects, one of the principal sources
of aberration and confusion in our time, is its failure to pay heed to
this, as well as the prevalent notion that it is possible to speak of
man or of humanity in terms of abstract generalisations, that there
is no need to regard humanity as being involved in a continuous
process of evolution.

How can a more exact insight into these things be acquired? As

you know, mention has often been made of an important phase in
the evolution of humanity. The Greco-Latin epoch of civilisation,
lasting from the 8th century B.C. to approximately the 15th century,
was the period of the development of the Intellectual Soul, or
Mind-Soul; the development of the Consciousness-Soul (the
Spiritual Soul) has been in progress since the 15th century. This is a
factor in the evolution of humanity which essentially concerns our
own times. The paramount force in human evolution from the 15th
century until the beginning of the fourth millennium, is the
spiritual Soul.

But in true Spiritual Science we must never stop at

generalisations and abstractions; everywhere and at all times it
must be our endeavour to grasp concrete facts. Abstractions are, at
the highest, useful to curiosity in the most ordinary sense of the
term. If Spiritual Science is to become the very leaven and essential
force of life, earnestness must outweigh curiosity and we must not
stop at abstractions such as those of which I have just spoken. It is
both true and important that because we are living in the epoch of
the Spiritual Soul we must take account of its development; but we
must not stop there.

To arrive at a clear conception of these things, we must above

all consider in greater detail the nature of man himself. In the
sense of Spiritual Science, the members of man's being, beginning
from above downwards, are: Ego, astral body, etheric body —
which latterly I have also called the body of formative forces — and
physical body. The Ego is the only one of these members in which
we live and function as beings of spirit-and-soul. The Ego has been
implanted in us by the Earth-evolution and the spirits of Form who
direct it. Fundamentally speaking, everything that enters into our
consciousness enters it through our Ego. And unless the Ego, as it
unfolds itself, can remain connected — connected through the
bodies — with the outer world, we have as little consciousness as
we have during sleep. It is the Ego that connects us with our
environment; the astral body is the legacy of the Moon-evolution,
the etheric body of the Sun-evolution, the physical body, in its first
rudiments, of the Saturn-evolution.

But if you study the description of these bodies given in the

book, An Outline of Occult Science, you will realise by what a
complicated process this fourfold constitution of man came into
being. It is not evident from the facts presented in that book that
Spirits belonging to all the Hierarchies participated in the
formation of the three sheaths of man's being? Is it not evident that
our threefold sheath composed of physical body, etheric body,
astral body, is extremely complicated? It is not simply that these
sheaths owe their origin to the co-operation of the Hierarchies; the
Hierarchies are still constantly working within them. And those
who believe that man is merely the apparatus of bones, blood, flesh
and so forth, of which natural science, physiology, biology and
anatomy speak, have no understanding of his nature.

If we genuinely study these sheaths of man, we realise that

spiritual Beings of the higher Hierarchies are working together
with wisdom and set purpose in everything that takes place,
without our being conscious of it, in our bodily sheaths. From the
brief outline I have given in Occult Science about the co-
operation that took place between particular Beings of the
Hierarchies in order that man should come into existence, you will
have realised how intricate the details must be. Nevertheless if man
is to be understood, these things too must be studied more and
more concretely.

In this domain it is extremely difficult even to formulate a

concrete question, because of the tremendous complexity of all
such questions. Suppose for a moment that someone were to ask:
What is the Hierarchy, let us say, of the Seraphim or of the
Dynamis (Mights) doing in man's etheric body in the year 1918 of
the present cycle of evolution? For we can certainly ask this
question, just as we can ask whether it is raining or not raining in
Lugano at the present time. Neither question can be answered by
mere reflection or theorising, but only by ascertaining the facts.
Just as we should have to find out, by means perhaps of a telegram,
whether or not it is raining at Lugano, so it is necessary to
investigate the facts themselves, in order to get the answer to a
question such as: What is the task of the Spirits of Wisdom or of
the Thrones in the etheric body of man during the present cycle of
evolution? Only, this latter kind of question is indescribably
complex and we can never do more than make an approach to the
domains where such questions arise. Good care is taken that man
shall not soar too far aloft and become arrogant and supercilious in
his endeavours to attain knowledge of such things.

Roughly speaking, it is the prospects nearest to us — those that

directly concern us — of which we can get a clear view. But such a
view we must get, if we are not to remain asleep at our stations in
the evolution of humanity.

I will therefore speak about a question that is less vague and

indefinite than the question as to what the Dynamis or the Thrones
are doing in our etheric body. I will speak of another question that
is of immediate concern to men at the present time. It is the
question: What are the Angels — the spiritual Beings nearest to
men — doing in the human astral body in the present cycle of
evolution?

The astral body is the member nearest to the Ego; obviously,

therefore, the answer to this question will vitally concern us. The
Angels are the Hierarchy immediately above the Human Hierarchy
itself. So the question is not unduly arrogant and we shall see how
it can be answered. What are the Angels doing in man's astral body
in this present epoch which began in the 15th century and will last
until the beginning of the fourth millennium?

What is there to be said in the general sense when it comes to

answering a question such as this? It can only be said that spiritual
investigation, when earnestly pursued, is not a matter of juggling
with ideas or words, but works its way into the actual sphere where
the spiritual world becomes perceptible ... but this question can, in
reality, be fruitfully answered only in the age of the Spiritual Soul
itself.

You may think that if this question had been asked in other
epochs, an answer would probably have been forthcoming. But
neither in the epoch of atavistic clairvoyance nor in that of Greco-
Latin civilisation could this question have been answered, because
the pictures arising in man's soul from atavistic clairvoyance
obscured his observation of the deeds of the Angels in his astral
body. Nothing could be seen of this, precisely because he had in
him the pictures given by the atavistic clairvoyance. And in the
Greco-Latin period, thought was not as strong as it is today.
Thought has been strengthened as the direct consequence of
natural science. Hence it is in the epoch of the Spiritual Soul that
such questions can be the subject of conscious study. The
fruitfulness of Spiritual Science for life must be shown by the fact
that we do not just browse on theories but know how to say things
of incisive significance for life.

What are the Angels doing in our astral body? Conviction of

what they are doing can come to us only when we have achieved a
certain degree of clairvoyance and are able to perceive what is
actually going on in our astral body. A certain degree at least of
Imaginative Knowledge must therefore have been attained if this
question is to be answered.

It is then revealed that these Beings of the Hierarchy of the

Angels — particularly through their concerted work, although in a
certain sense each single Angel also has his task in connection with
every individual human being — these Beings form pictures in
man's astral body. Under the guidance of the Spirits of Form
(Exusiai) the Angels form pictures. Unless we reach the level of
Imaginative Cognition we do not know that pictures are all the
time being formed in our astral body. They arise and pass away,
but without them there would be for mankind no evolution into the
future in accordance with the intentions of the Spirits of Form. The
Spirits of Form are obliged, to begin with, to unfold in pictures
what they desire to achieve with us during Earth-evolution and
beyond. And then, later on, the pictures become reality in a
humanity transformed.

Through the Angels, the Spirits of Form are already now

shaping these pictures in our astral body. The Angels form pictures
in man's astral body and these pictures are accessible to thinking
that has become clairvoyant. If we are able to scrutinise these
pictures, it becomes evident that they are woven in accordance with
quite definite impulses and principles. Forces for the future
evolution of mankind are contained in them. If we watch the
Angels carrying out this work of theirs — strange as it sounds, one
has to express it in this way — it is clear that they have a very
definite plan for the future configuration of social life on earth;
their aim is to engender in the astral bodies of men such pictures as
will bring about definite conditions in the social life of the future.

People may shy away from the notion that Angels want to call
forth in them ideals for the future, but it is so all the same. And
indeed in forming these pictures the Angels work on a definite
principle, namely, that in the future no human being is to find
peace in the enjoyment of happiness if others beside him are
unhappy. An impulse of Brotherhood in the absolute sense,
unification of the human race in Brotherhood rightly understood —
this is to be the governing principle of the social conditions in
physical existence.

That is the one principle in accordance with which the Angels

form the pictures in man's astral body.

But there is a second impulse in the work of the Angels. The

Angels have certain objectives in view, not only in connection with
the outer social life but also with man's life of soul. Through the
pictures they inculcate into the astral body their aim is that in
future time every human being shall see in each and all of his
fellow-men a hidden divinity.

Quite clearly, then, according to the intention underlying the

work of the Angels, things are to be very different in future. Neither
in theory nor in practice shall we look only at man's physical
qualities, regarding him as a more highly developed animal, but we
must confront every human being with the full realisation that in
him something is revealing itself from the divine foundations of the
world, revealing itself through flesh and blood. To conceive man as
a picture revealed from the spiritual world, to conceive this with all
the earnestness, all the strength and all the insight at our command
— this is the impulse laid by the Angels into the pictures.

Once this is fulfilled, there will be a very definite consequence.

The basis of all free religious feeling that will unfold in humanity in
the future will be the acknowledgment, not merely in theory but in
actual practice, that every human being is made in the likeness of
the Godhead. When that time comes there will be no need for any
religious coercion; for then every meeting between one man and
another will of itself be in the nature of a religious rite, a
sacrament, and nobody will need a special Church with institutions
on the physical plane to sustain the religious life. If the Church
understands itself truly, its one aim must be to render itself
unnecessary on the physical plane, as the whole of life becomes the
expression of the super-sensible.

The bestowal on man of complete freedom in the religious

life — this underlies the impulses, at least, of the work of the
Angels.

And there is a third objective: To make it possible for men

to reach the Spirit through thinking, to cross the abyss and
through thinking to experience the reality of the Spirit.

Spiritual Science for the spirit, freedom of religious life for the
soul, brotherhood for the bodily life — this resounds like cosmic
music through the work wrought by the Angels in the astral bodies
of men.

All that is necessary is to raise our consciousness to a different

level and we shall feel ourselves transported to this wonderful site
of the work done by the Angels in the human astral body.

We are living in the age of the Spiritual Soul, and in this age the
Angels work in the astral bodies of men as I have described. Man
must gradually come to understand this in his wideawake
consciousness. It is part of the process of human evolution itself.
How can such a statement be made? Where are we to look for this
work of the Angels?

It is still to be discovered in man while he is sleeping, in the

conditions prevailing between the moments of falling asleep and
waking — also in somnolent waking states. I have often said that
although men are awake, they actually sleep through the most
important concerns in life. And I can give you the not very
heartening assurance that anyone who goes through life with alert
consciousness to-day finds numbers and numbers of human beings
who are really asleep. They let events happen without taking the
slightest interest in them, without troubling about them or
associating themselves with these happenings in any way. Great
world-events often pass men by just as something that is taking
place in the city passes a sleeper by ... although people are
apparently awake. At such times, while men, in spite of being
awake, are sleeping through some momentous event, it can be seen
how in their astral bodies — quite independently of what they want
or do not want to know — this important work of the Angels
continues.

Such things proceed in a way which must necessarily seem

highly enigmatic and paradoxical. A man may be considered
entirely unworthy of having any connections at all with the
spiritual world. But the truth about such a man may well be that in
this incarnation he is just a terrible dormouse who sleeps through
everything that goes on around him. Yet one of the choir of the
Angels is working in his astral body at the future of mankind.
Observation of his astral body shows that it is being made use of, in
spite of these conditions.

What really matters, however, is that men shall become

conscious of these things. The Spiritual Soul must rise to the level
where it is able to recognise what can be discovered only in this
way.

After all this, you will understand me when I point out that this
epoch of the Spiritual Soul is heading towards the definite event,
and that — just because it is the Spiritual Soul that is involved — it
will depend upon men themselves how this event takes effect in the
 evolution of humanity. It may come a century earlier or a century
later, but it is bound to form part of the evolutionary process. It can
be characterised by saying: Purely through the Spiritual Soul,
purely through their conscious thinking, men must reach the point
of actually perceiving what the Angels are doing to prepare the
future of humanity. The teachings of Spiritual Science in this
domain must become practical wisdom in the life of humanity —
practical, because men can be convinced that it belongs to their
own wisdom to recognise the aims of the Angels, as I have
described them.

But the progress of the human race towards freedom has

already gone so far that it depends upon man himself whether he
will sleep through this event or face it with fully wideawake
consciousness. What would this entail? To face this event with
wideawake consciousness would entail the study of Spiritual
Science, which is possible to-day. Indeed nothing else is really
necessary. The practice of meditations of various kinds and
attention to the guidance given in the book Knowledge of the
Higher Worlds and its Attainment, will be an additional
help. But the essential step has already been taken when Spiritual
Science is studied and really consciously understood. Spiritual
Science can be studied to-day without developing clairvoyance
faculties. Everyone can do so, who does not bar his own way with
his prejudices. And if people study Spiritual Science more and
more thoroughly, if they assimilate its concepts and ideas, their
consciousness will become so alert that instead of sleeping through
certain events, they will be fully aware of them.

These events can be characterised in greater detail, for to know

what the Angel is doing is only the preparatory stage. The essential
point is that at a definite time — depending, as I have said, upon
the attitude men themselves adopt it will be earlier or later or at
worst not at all — a threefold truth will be revealed to mankind by
the Angels.

Firstly, it will be shown how his own genuine interest will enable
man to understand the deeper side of human nature. A time will come
— and it must not pass unnoticed — when out of the spiritual world
men will receive through their Angel an impulse that will kindle a far
deeper interest in every individual human being than we are inclined to
have to-day. This enhanced interest in our fellow-men will not unfold
in the subjective, leisurely way that people would prefer, but by a
sudden impetus a certain secret will be inspired into man from the
spiritual side, namely, what the other man really is. By this I mean
something quite concrete — not any kind of theoretical consideration.
Men will learn something whereby their interest in every individual can
be kindled. That is the one point — and that is what will particularly
affect the social life.

Secondly: From the spiritual world the Angel will reveal to man
that, in addition to everything else, the Christ Impulse
postulates complete freedom in matters of religions life, that the only
true Christianity is the Christianity which makes possible absolute
freedom in the religious life.

And thirdly: Unquestionable insight into the spiritual nature of the

world.

As I have said, this event ought to take place in such a way that the
Spiritual Soul in man participates in it. This is impending in the
evolution of humanity, for the Angel is working to this end through the
pictures woven in man's astral body.

But let it be emphasised that this impending event confronts

the will of man. Many things that should lead to conscious awareness
of this event may be and indeed are being left undone.

But as you know, there are other beings working in world-evolution,

beings who are interested in deflecting man from his proper course:
these are the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic beings. What I have just said
belongs to the divinely-willed evolution of mankind. If man were to
follow the dictates of his own proper nature, he could not very well fail
to perceive what the Angel is unfolding in his astral body; but the aim
of the Luciferic beings is to tear men away from insight into the work of
the Angels. And they set about doing this by curbing man's free will.
They try to cloud his understanding of the exercise of his free will.
True, they desire to make him good — far from the aspect of which I
am now speaking, Lucifer desires that there shall be goodness,
spirituality, in man — but automatic goodness, automatic spirituality —
without free will. Lucifer desires that man shall be led automatically, in
accordance with perfectly good principles, to clairvoyance — but he
wants to deprive him of his free will, to remove from him the possibility
of evil-doing. Lucifer wants to make man into a being who, it is true,
acts out of the spirit, but acts as a reflection, as an automaton, without
free will.

This is connected with certain specific secrets of evolution. As you

know, the Luciferic beings have remained stationary at other stages of
evolution and they introduce an element that is foreign to the normal
evolutionary process. They are deeply interested in so seizing hold of
man that he does not unfold free will, because they themselves have
not acquired free will. Free will can be acquired only on the Earth but
the Luciferic beings want to have nothing to do with the Earth; they
want only Saturn-, Sun-, Moon-evolution, and to remain at those
stages. In a sense they hate the free will of man. Their manner of acting
is highly spiritual, but it is automatic — that is a point of great
significance — and they want to lift man to their own spiritual heights,
to make him an automaton — a spiritual, but an automatically
spiritual, being. Thereby on the one side the danger would arise that
prematurely, before his Spiritual Soul is in full function, man would
become a being whose actions are those of a spiritual puppet and he
would sleep through the impending revelation.

But the Ahrimanic beings too are working to obscure this revelation.
They are not at pains to make man particularly spiritual, but rather
to kill out in him the consciousness of his own spirituality. They
endeavour to instill into him the conviction that he is nothing but a
completely developed animal. Ahriman is in truth the teacher par
excellence of materialistic Darwinism. He is also the great teacher of all
those technical and practical pursuits in Earth-evolution where there is
refusal to acknowledge the validity of anything except the external life
of the senses, where the only desire is for a widespread technology, so
that with somewhat greater refinement, men shall satisfy their hunger,
thirst and other needs in the same way as the animal. To kill, to darken
in man the consciousness that he is an image of the Godhead — this is
what the Ahrimanic beings are endeavouring by subtle scientific means
of every kind to achieve in our age of the Spiritual Soul.

In earlier epochs it would have been of no avail to the Ahrimanic

beings to obscure the truth from men by theories in this way. And why?
Even during the Greco-Latin age, but still more so in the earlier epoch
when man still had the pictures of atavistic clairvoyance, howhe
thought was entirely a matter of indifference: he had his pictures and
these pictures were windows through which he looked into the spiritual
world. Whatever Ahriman might have insinuated to man concerning
his relation to the animals would have had no effect at all upon his way
of life. Thought has for the first time become really powerful — one
could also say, powerful in its ineptitude — in our Fifth Post-Atlantean
epoch, since the 15th century. Only since then has thinking been
competent to bring the Spiritual Soul into the realm of the spirit, but at
the same time also to hinder it from entering the spiritual world. Only
now are we experiencing the age when a theory or a science, by the
path of consciousness, robs man of his divinity, of his knowledge of the
Divine. Only in the age of the Spiritual or Consciousness Soul is this
possible. Hence the Ahrimanic spirits endeavour to spread teachings
which obscure man's divine origin.
 From this mention of the streams which run counter to the normal,
god-willed evolution of man it can be gathered how he must conduct
his life, lest the impending revelation finds him in a state of sleep. A
great danger may arise and men must be alert to it. If they are not,
instead of the event that should play a momentous part in shaping the
future evolution of the Earth, a great danger to this evolution will
supervene.

Now certain spiritual beings achieve their

development through men who evolve together with them. The Angels
who unfold their pictures in the human astral body are not doing this
as a game but in order to achieve something. But because this aim must
be achieved in earthly humanity itself, the whole matter would become
a game if, having reached the stage of the Spiritual Soul, men
deliberately ignore it. It would become a game! The Angels would be
playing a game in the evolution of man's astral body! Only when this
activity is realised in humanity itself is it not a game but serious
business.

From this you can realise that the work of the Angels is, and under
all circumstances must remain, serious. Just imagine what conditions
would be behind the scenes of existence if through their somnolence
men were able to turn the work of the Angels into a game!

And what if this should happen after all? What if humanity on earth
should persist in sleeping through the momentous spiritual revelation
of the future? If this were to happen in respect of the freedom of the
religious life, for example, if men were to sleep through the repetition
of the Mystery of Golgotha on the etheric plane, the reappearance of
the etheric Christ, or other matters as well, then the Angels would have
to try different means of achieving what the pictures they weave in the
astral body of man are intended to achieve. If men do not allow this to
be achieved in the astral body while they are awake, the Angels would,
in this case, endeavour to fulfill their aims through their sleeping
bodies. Therefore what the Angels could not achieve, because in their
waking life men slept through it, would be achieved with the help of the
physical and etheric bodies of men during actual sleep. It is there that
the Angels would seek forces required for the fulfillment of what could
not be achieved through men in their wideawake consciousness when
the souls were within the etheric and physical bodies in the waking
state. It would be achieved by means of the etheric and physical bodies
in the sleeping state, when human beings who ought to be awake to
what is going on were outside these bodies with their Ego and astral
body.
 Here lies the great danger for the age of the Spiritual Soul. This is
what might still happen if, before the beginning of the third
millennium, men were to refuse to turn to the spiritual life. The third
millennium begins with the year 2000, so it is only a short time ahead
of us. It might still happen that the aim of the Angels in their work
would have to be achieved by means of the sleeping bodies of men —
instead of through men wideawake. The Angels might still be
compelled to withdraw their whole work from the astral body and to
submerge it in the etheric body in order to bring it to fulfillment. But
then, in his real being, man would have no part in it. It would have to
be performed in the etheric body while man himself was not there, just
because if he were there in the waking state, he would obstruct it.

I have now given you a general picture of these things. But what
would be the outcome if the Angels were obliged to perform this work
without man himself participating, to carry it out in his etheric and
physical bodies during sleep?

The outcome in the evolution of humanity would unquestionably be

threefold. Firstly, something would be engendered in the sleeping
human bodies — while the Ego and astral body were not within them —
and man would meet with it on waking in the morning ... but then it
would become instinct instead of conscious spiritual activity and
therefore baleful. It is so indeed: certain instinctive knowledge that will
arise in human nature, instinctive knowledge connected with the
mystery of birth and conception, with sexual life as a whole, threatens
to become baleful if the danger of which I have spoken takes effect.
Certain Angels would then themselves undergo a change — a change of
which I cannot speak, because this is a subject belonging to the higher
secrets of Initiation-Science which may not yet be disclosed. But this
much can certainly be said: The effect in the evolution of humanity
would be that certain instincts connected with the sexual life would
arise in a pernicious form instead of wholesomely, in clear waking
consciousness. These instincts would not be mere aberrations but
would pass over into and configure the social life, would above all
prevent men — through what would then enter their blood as the effect
of the sexual life — from unfolding brotherhood in any form whatever
on the earth, and would rather induce them to rebel against it. This
would be a matter of instinct.

So the crucial point lies ahead when either the path to the right can
be taken — but that demands wakefulness — or the path to the left,
which permits of sleep. But in that case instincts come on the scene —
instincts of a fearful kind.
 And what do you suppose the scientific experts will say when such
instincts come into evidence? They will say that it is a natural and
inevitable development in the evolution of humanity. Light cannot be
shed on such matters by natural science, for whether men become
angels or devils would be equally capable of explanation by scientific
reasoning. Science will say the same in both cases: the later is the
outcome of the earlier ... so grand and wise is the interpretation of
nature in terms of causality! Natural science will be totally blind to the
event of which I have told you, for if men become half devils through
their sexual instincts, science will as a matter of course regard this as a
natural necessity. Scientifically, then, the matter is simply not capable
of explanation, for whatever happens, everything can be explained by
science. The fact is that such things can be understood only by
spiritual, super-sensible cognition. That is the one aspect.

The second aspect is that from this work which involves changes
affecting the Angels themselves, still another result accrues for
humanity: instinctive knowledge of certain medicaments — but
knowledge of a baleful kind!

Everything connected with medicine will make a great advance in

the materialistic sense. Men will acquire instinctive insights into the
medicinal properties of certain substances and certain treatments —
and thereby do terrible harm. But the harm will be called useful. A sick
man will be called healthy, for it will be perceived that the particular
treatment applied leads to something pleasing. People will
actually like things that make the human being — in a certain direction
— unhealthy.

Knowledge of the medicinal effects of certain processes and

treatments will be enhanced, but this will lead into very baleful
channels. For man will come to know through certain instincts, what
kind of illnesses can be induced by particular substances and
treatments. And it will then be possible for him either to bring about or
not to bring about illnesses, entirely as suits his egotistical purposes.

The third result will be this. Man will get to know of definite forces
which, simply by means of quite easy manipulations — by bringing into
accord certain vibrations — will enable him to unleash tremendous
mechanical forces in the world. Instinctively he will come to realise in
this way the possibility of exercising a certain spiritual guidance and
control of the mechanistic principle — and the whole of technical
science will sail into desolate waters. But human egoism will find these
desolate waters of tremendous use and benefit.
 This, my friends, is a fragment of concrete knowledge of the
evolution of existence, a fragment of a conception of life which can be
truly assessed only by those who realise that an unspiritual view of life
can never grow clear about these things. If a form of medicine injurious
to humanity were ever to take root, if a terrible aberration of the sexual
instincts were to arise, if there were baleful doings in the sphere of the
purely mechanistic forces of the world, in the application of the forces
of nature by means of spiritual powers, an unspiritual conception of life
would see through none of these things, would not perceive how they
deviate from the true path ... The sleeper, as long as sleep lasts, does
not see the approach of a thief who is about to rob him; he is unaware
of it and at most he finds out later on, when he wakes, what has been
done to him. But it would be a bad awakening for humanity! Man
would pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of
certain processes and substances and would experience such
satisfaction in obeying certain aberrations of the sexual impulses that
he would regard them as evidence of a particularly high development of
superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of broad-mindedness! In
a certain respect, ugliness would be beauty and beauty, ugliness.
Nothing of this would be perceived because it would all be regarded as
natural necessity. But it would denote an aberration from the path
which, in the nature of humanity itself, is prescribed for man's essential
being.

If a feeling has been acquired of how Spiritual Science penetrates

into and affects our whole attitude of mind, I believe that there can also
arise the earnestness required for receiving such truths as have been
presented today. From this earnestness there can stem what ought
indeed to stem from all Spiritual Science: the acknowledgment of
definite obligations, of definite responsibilities in life. Whatever our
position may be, whatever we have to do in the world, the essential
thing is to foster the thought that our conduct must be permeated and
illumined by our anthroposophical consciousness. Then we contribute
something towards the true progress of humanity.

If a man ever believes that true Spiritual Science, earnestly and

worthily pursued, may divert him from practical and necessary activity
in life, he is entirely misguided. True Spiritual Science begets vigilance
— an awakening in regard to matters such as those I have presented
today. It may be asked: Is waking life, then, really harmful to sleep? If
we choose to draw this parallel — namely that insight into the spiritual
world is itself a greater awakening from ordinary waking life, just as
the ordinary waking is an awakening from sleep, then in order to follow
the comparison, we can indeed ask the question: Can waking life ever
be harmful to sleep?
 Yes — if waking life is not what it ought to be! If a man spends his
waking life as it ought to be spent, his sleep will also be healthy, and if
in his waking life he is drowsy or lazy, happy-go-lucky or indolent, then
his sleep too will be unhealthy. And it is the same in regard to the
waking life we acquire as the result of our study of Spiritual Science. If
Spiritual Science enables us to establish a true relation to the spiritual
world, our interest in the familiar facts of physical life will be guided
into the right channels — just as a healthy waking life brings order and
direction into sleep.

Anyone who looks at life, particularly in our own age, must himself
be asleep if he does not notice a number of things. How men have
preened themselves on their conduct of life, particularly during the last
few decades! Things have finally come to the point where the leading
positions everywhere are held by those who are most contemptuous of
the ideal, of the spiritual. People managed to go on declaiming about
their conduct of this life as long as mankind had not actually been
dragged into the abyss. Now a few — mostly out of instinct — are
actually beginning to croak that a new age must come, with all kinds of
new ideals. But it is all so much croaking. And if things have to come
about instinctively, without conscious penetration into Spiritual
Science on the part of men, they would lead to the decline of what
ought to be experienced in the waking state rather than to any
wholesome transition in evolution.

One who today makes impassioned speeches to men in the words

they have so long been accustomed to hear can still usually count on
some applause. But men will have to get used to listening to different
words, different ways of putting things, if social cosmos is again to
arise out of chaos.

If, in some epoch, the men who ought to be vigilant fail in this
respect and do not discern what really ought to happen then nothing
real does happen. Instead, the ghost of the preceding epoch walks-as
the ghosts of the past are walking in many religious communities
today, and as the ghost of ancient Rome still haunts the sphere of
jurisprudence. In the age of the Spiritual Soul, Spiritual Science must
make men free in just this way, must lead them to perception of a
spiritual fact: What the Angel is doing in our astral body. To speak
abstractly about Angels and so on, can at most be the beginning;
progress requires that we speak concretely — which means that in
reference to our own epoch we find the answer to the question nearest
to us. This question concerns us most nearly, for the simple reason that
in our astral body the Angel is weaving pictures that are to determine
our future form, and this determination is to be brought about through
the Spiritual Soul.

If we had not the Spiritual Soul, there would be no need to exert

ourselves, for then other Spirits, other Hierarchies, would certainly
step in to bring to fulfillment what the Angel is weaving. But because
our task is to unfold the Spiritual Soul, no other Spirits step in to carry
the work of the Angels into effect.

Other Angels, of course, were at work in the Egyptian epoch. But

other Spirits soon made their entry and the work of the Angel was
obscured from men through their own atavistic clairvoyance. Their
clairvoyance wove a veil, a dark veil over the pictures. But now man
must unveil them. Therefore it behooves him not to sleep through what
is being inculcated into his conscious life in the epoch that will end
before the third millennium does. Let us draw from anthroposophical
Spiritual Science not only teachings, but resolutions as well! They will
give us strength to be vigilant and alert. We can season ourselves to be
watchful human beings by paying heed to many things. We can make a
beginning in this direction now; we can discover that in reality no
single day passes without a miracle happening in our life. This last
sentence can be turned, and we can also say: If on some day we find no
miracle in our life, then we have merely overlooked it. Try one evening
to survey your life and you will find in it some event of slight or great or
middling importance of which you will be able to say: It came into my
life and took effect in a truly remarkable way. You can realise this
provided only that you think comprehensively enough, provided only
that you have in your mind's eye a sufficiently comprehensive picture
of the circumstances and connections of life. But in the ordinary course
this does not happen, because as a rule we do not ask ourselves: What
was it that was prevented from happening by this or that occurrence?

We do not usually trouble about the things that have been prevented
but which, if they had happened, would have fundamentally changed
our life. Behind these things which in some way or other have been
kept out of our lives there is very, very much that educates us into
becoming vigilant human beings. What manner of things might have
happened to me today? If we ask ourselves this question every evening
and then think of particular occurrences which could have had this or
that result, observations will couple themselves with such questions
and introduce the element of vigilance into the exercise of self-
discipline. This is something that can be a beginning, and of itself leads
on and on, until finally we do not explore only into what it meant in our
life when, for example, we wanted to go out, say, at half-past ten one
morning and at the last moment somebody turned up and stopped us
... we are annoyed at being stopped, but we do not enquire what might
have happened if we had actually gone out as we had planned. What is
it that has been changed?

I have already spoken here in greater detail about such matters.

From observation of the negative in our life — which can, however,
bear witness to the wisdom guiding it — to observation of the Angel
weaving and working in our astral body there is a direct path, a direct
and unerring path that can be trodden.