Spiritual and Social Changes in the Development of Humanity

GA 196 — 13 February 1920, Dornach

Thirteenth Lecture

I have often pointed out that an ancient wisdom present in mankind can be characterized by the fact that through this ancient wisdom, people were aware that they were citizens of the universe, not merely of the earth. Take a mental look at what is present in the consciousness of thinking humanity today and what is present in the consciousness of those who, from certain scientific backgrounds, reflect on the human being's place in the world. Both are actually the same. For just as the broad masses of people in primeval times on earth thought and felt what was taught in the mysteries, in the mysteries that were the centers of the surrounding culture and civilization, so today people in wide circles absorb what is taught and researched in the profane mysteries of the present, at the universities and colleges. Just as the mysteries of ancient times were related to the beliefs of the general population, so too are the universities of today related to the general public. What the ancient teachers in the mysteries believed about the relationship between man and the sun, between man and the zodiac, was naturally believed by the masses. What the professors of the universities and colleges say and do not say about the relationship between man and the sun, between man and the moon, is believed by the masses. The fact that the entire wisdom about man is exhausted by pointing out that man has gradually developed physically from his animal ancestors is a one-sided, a very, very one-sided truth; it does not exhaust the real facts. But modern people relate to their initiates, to the university professors, as the ancients related to their initiates in the mysteries. There is actually no particular psychological difference between these two relationships. It is just that the ancients knew: All that is in man is connected not only with what develops on earth, but with what is seen by the eye into the space of the stars. That which takes place in man, even physically, is connected with the activity of the sun and the other planets belonging to the solar system.

If you read my “Occult Science in Outline”, you will see that through that anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, which this “Occult Science” wants to serve, this consciousness of people is to be restored, that the human being not only has a relationship to the earth, but also to extra-terrestrial worlds. It is pointed out that our Earth itself is only a temporary embodiment of that which was there before in its essence as the Moon, as the Sun, as Saturn, and it is pointed out that the human being continues to develop and that these further developmental forms of the human being will be connected with future developmental forms of the Earth planet, with Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan. Thus that which belongs to man is raised up out of the merely earthly. Man's gaze is again directed from the earth to the Cosmos. This is one of the facts which humanity must again become aware of if it is not to degenerate on earth: that man belongs to the Cosmos, that man is connected in his inner being with extra-earthly spheres.

Why is this knowledge necessary? It must be known because self-knowledge is necessary; not the self-knowledge that consists of brooding over one's own dear self, but the knowledge of man as a universal being. This self-knowledge must spread; it must become general and ever more general. For without a grasp of the human being, there will be no support for him, especially no psychological support in the future of human development. But it cannot be a matter of merely brooding a little over the subordinate, chaotic human being; rather, it must be a matter of concretely surveying this inner human being in his structure, just as one does not characterize the outer nature merely by saying: nature, nature, nature! but by pointing out: there are plants, there are animals, and distinguishing the individual species and varieties within the individual plants. In the same way, within the soul of man, one must distinguish above all the individual metamorphoses of this soul life. Now let us characterize these individual metamorphoses of the soul life, I would say, the one side of it. First, there is the metamorphosis of our soul life that is most closely connected with our physical body, that is most dependent on our physical body. It is the soul faculty that we denote by the term memory or the ability to remember. Through memory, we are able to renew the experiences of our individual life. Through memory we are able to draw a thread from a certain moment, which lies two, three, four years or even longer after birth, to the phenomena of the respective present moment, and man would be inwardly ill if this thread were to be torn. I have already explained this several times. If we had to look back on a part of our lives in such a way that we would lose the memory of certain events, the context of our experiences would not be there. And that would mean that we would be ill in our sense of self. But on the other hand, a person will at least be able to know how strongly memory is connected to his physical constitution. One need only remember the fact, which I have often mentioned and which is actually widely known, that when we suffer from insomnia or when we are prevented from sleeping properly by external events, our memory suffers. This and much else that can occur in cases of illness proves how memory depends on the physical constitution.

What we call our intelligence is less dependent on this bodily constitution, and thus more independent of it. However, this intelligence is still very much dependent on the bodily constitution. After all, memory only relates to the individual. We have intelligence in common with other people, at least to a high degree. Of course, one person is more intelligent, the other less so; each usually considers himself the most intelligent; but in general one can say: the fact is that one person is more intelligent, the other less so. But a certain uniformity of human intelligence is emerging. While everyone has their own memory content that no one else can see into, and while this memory content is very individual, the content of intelligence is something more common to humanity. It is simply less bound to the physical constitution of the human being. The physical constitution of the human being is actually only like a mirror to what unfolds as intellectual processes. Anyone who claims that the processes in the human nervous system, in the brain, cause thoughts, is saying no more than someone standing in front of a mirror and saying to themselves, “Miss Scholl, Miss Laval, Dr. Grosheintz,” and saying, “The mirror has produced Miss Scholl, Miss Laval, Dr. Grosheintz.” Just as the mirror relates to the images of the three named individuals, and just as the three named individuals are also outside the mirror and actually have nothing to do with it other than being reflected by the mirror, so too does the intellect have to do with the brain only insofar as it is reflected for our consciousness by the brain; but the processes of the intellect itself are outside the brain. We would know nothing of the processes of the senses if we had no brain. The processes of intelligence would not be reflected in our brain. But these intelligent processes themselves are a being outside the brain, which is only mirrored by the brain.

And then we come to the third faculty of the human being, which is at least to a large extent most independent of our bodily constitution. But people believe it least of all, because they consider it to be most dependent on our bodily constitution. This is the activity of the senses. Take the eye. The eye itself as such has nothing to do with the processes that are the visual processes. The visual processes are much less bound to the tool of the eye than the intelligent processes are to the tool of the brain. What the eye has to do with seeing is something quite different. The processes that occur in our consciousness as the content of seeing have nothing to do with the eye. What happens in the eye merely causes us to be present with our consciousness, with our ego, during the visual processes. Please note this fundamental, but not easily grasped, difference.

Take, for example, a person who has lost both eyes due to some disease. He has not lost the visual process as such, but he has lost the perception of what the visual process is through his ego. His ego knows nothing about it. The ego knows nothing of what the visual process is. It is simply the ego that is excluded from the visual process. What happens can be compared to the following.

Suppose you have three telegraph stations, A, B, C; at each telegraph station you have a telegraph operator. When the man at A telegraphs to €, the man at € can read what is being telegraphed from A to C. There is no question of the Morse apparatus at A producing the content of the telegram. It is only the mediator. The Morse telegraph in C cannot read either, but it mediates. But if apparatus B is switched on in the A-C path, then the man operating B can sit down and listen or read along; he only needs to let the stripe run so he can read along. B is then switched on in the path of the current that conveys the contents of the telegraph. But the content that goes from A to C has nothing to do with the processes that take place in the Morse telegraph at B. They are only perceived because the device is switched on.

Of course, if the apparatus is not switched on, one cannot perceive the processes. It is the same with the human eye. What is going on in the eye has nothing to do with seeing in terms of inner truth. The eye is only switched on to the processes. And because the eye is switched on to the processes, the I can watch the processes of seeing. But the eye is not at all what actually conveys or brings about the content of the visual processes or does something with them. It is only the receiving apparatus for the I. One could say, without running the risk of being thought paradoxical, that the human brain, which today is equipped with a somewhat thick brain, finds the following paradoxical: Our sense organ of sight has nothing to do with seeing, but everything to do with the fact that our I knows about seeing. Sensory organs, as we have them today, that is, the higher sensory organs, are not there for seeing, but rather they are there so that the I can know about seeing. I would even like to write this sentence on the board: Higher sensory organs are not there to mediate sensory processes, but rather so that an I knows about sensory processes.

We have the three so-called higher soul activities: memory, intelligence, and sensory perception and activity. The I is involved in them; it is most strongly involved in the memory with its physical body, less strongly in the intelligence, and least strongly in the sensory activity.

What I have described to you now comes from the following. Memory was not always in man as it is today. It has developed. And what was at the basis of the development of memory was an essential activity of man during the last embodiment on earth, preceding our earth, the old moon time. At that time memory was a kind of unconscious, dream-like imagination. “Dream-like imagination was memory. The fact that our bodily organization on earth has become what it has become is the living dream-like imagination, of which the soul being of man was completely filled during the old moon time, has become what is now our memory.

During the old sun time, when we had no physical body at all as we have now, when we were still those beings that I have described in my “Occult Science”, our intelligence was dormant inspiration. This dormant inspiration then developed further and is now our intelligence. But during the old Saturn, our sensory activity was quite dull intuition. Again, you can find the more precise description in my “Occult Science”. And this dull intuition has developed into our present-day sensory activity.

Now one might ask: Why do people have such a hard time grasping such extraordinarily important truths? And if someone imparts them to them, why do they resist them so much? Yes, you see, there are reasons for this in the nature of things themselves. We have had a vague intuition during the old Saturn time. This has gradually developed further and further and has become our sensory activity. But actually today we can only prove that one sensory activity has developed relatively most perfectly from the disposition of the old Saturn sensory activity, and that is hearing. Hearing had its clearest disposition in the old Saturn sphere. Vision arose somewhat later — you can read about these things in my 'Occult Science' —, mainly during the time of the sun. But from this you can already see that, while the first foundation was laid on the old Saturn time in the form of a dull intuition, later on new sense faculties are constantly being added. On the Sun, new sensory abilities were added that are not yet as developed as those from Saturn. On the Moon, new sensory abilities were added again, and on Earth itself, again. On Earth, the sense of touch was added, which is actually the most imperfect of the senses. If we were to recognize the sense of touch purely, we would still describe it today as a dull intuition in the physical body, a low, dull intuition.

It is similar with the sense of smell. There is something extraordinarily peculiar about it. I would recommend to those of you who like to do such things: pick up a psychology or physiology, especially a psychology, a soul science, as they are written today; they all write about sensory activity. What is written there about the activity of the senses — for the unprejudiced person it applies only to the sense of touch. You may remember what I said in my “Theosophy” about the relationship of the higher senses to the sense of touch, which Goethe also noted. Our learned gentlemen want to describe the senses, but they only describe that part of the senses that has arisen directly on the earth, that has received its first impulse on the earth. This applies, for example, to seeing, as when you strike your fist on the eye, you could almost say literally. Because what is described in the psychology is not seeing, but what is described would arise if you punched yourself in the eye; hence the nice theory that has emerged of the so-called specific sensory energies, which in the case of the eye does not come from seeing, but from the fact that when you strike the eye, you see all kinds of sparks. These learned gentlemen describe something that works like a fist to the eye, quite literally. And they want to understand vision through this.

One understands the activity of the senses only when one regards it in connection with what is no longer there at all: Saturn development, sun development, moon development. One understands human intelligence only when one regards it in connection with that which is no longer there at all: the development of the sun, the moon. One understands memory only when one regards it in connection with that which is no longer there at all: the old development of the moon. And from the earth, one only understands the appropriation of sensory activity, of intelligence, of memory by the I, because the I has only been incorporated into the human being during the time on earth. And the organs that have been formed in the human being during the time on earth are not there at all to convey his higher soul abilities, but to convey that these higher soul abilities reveal themselves in an I. We have eyes for an ego, ears for an ego, a nose for an ego, not a nose for smelling, which would be most correct, because it has been formed during the time on earth; but it is also no longer quite correct, because it will change during the time on earth. But we don't have eyes to see and ears to hear; we have ears so that a self can know something of what is going on in the ear, like a Morse telegraph is switched on here so that someone, not the Morse telegraph itself, can know something of what is being negotiated between A and C. By still saying today that we have eyes to see and ears to hear, and by clothing everything in this kind of language, we are talking about something that has no reality at all. We talk constantly in illusions, we talk in untruths. We do not know what we actually have our whole physical organization for. We do not have it to mediate the higher soul activities, but we have it so that the I can learn something from these higher soul activities. Our whole physical being is an image of the I. And we are constituted as we are because we are an I. In our outer form we are meant to become aware of the outer image of the I. For our body, as we now carry it, we have only received through the earth. And it is unthinkable that what the earth has not given us should be derived from the events of the earth, that the cause of it should be sought in the events of the earth.

Just as we have been able to point out that for our memory activity the old moon development is the decisive factor, because the predispositions were formed in it, and we have been able to point out that for our intelligence the old sun development is the decisive factor, because the first predispositions were formed there, and so on to Saturn activity, we must also point out that these higher soul abilities have something to do today with the beings of the higher hierarchies, and in such a way that our memory activity has something to do with the hierarchy of the Angeloi, our intelligence with the Archangeloi, our sensory activity with the Archai.

And this brings me to an important chapter of spiritual knowledge. Suppose you reflect on memory, on the ability to remember, in human self-knowledge. You say: I turn my inner organ, my soul organ, to the ability to remember. But when you look at it with full consciousness, you have to look at it in such a way that you say to yourself: In this whole activity, in this process of remembering, the Angelos lives and weaves within. Now try to remember something that happened to you yesterday, any event. You have allowed an inner soul process to unfold. In what is unfolding, and in that a yesterday's thought arises in you, a yesterday's experience reveals itself anew to you in memory, an angel is at work in it. And when you reflect intelligently - however, it must be intelligently, that is, with inner activity, not a mere brooding, not what most people call intelligent thinking, which is only the boiling of memories, where people let the memories boil out of their bodies, thinking only begins when one actively grasps the thoughts inwardly - when one develops an inner activity, then an archangel is present. And if you listen and look around, you must say: in my ears, in my eyes, there are the thrones of the archai, the spirits of time. If you ask yourself: where are the spirits of time, the archai, which rule the successive world ages of the earth? Then you should not look for them in completely unknown areas, you should look for them in the sensory organs of people. That is where they are. A decadent time, in terms of the abilities of the soul, sought the gods up there above the blue, which does not actually exist. If man asks: Where then are the spirits of time? — they sit in his eyes, in his ears, there they have their thrones.

This is illuminated from another side, which I once made clear to you by pointing out that in man himself are the localities from which the events of nature are controlled. If you have the formulas recited in certain secret societies and interpret them correctly, you will find that these formulas, handed down from very ancient times, point to truths such as the ones I have now developed before you; that man is the temple for the gods that stand above him, that is, for the beings of the higher hierarchies. He is so in the most literal sense. For if one asks: Where do the Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai dwell? - I must say: In the organs of human memory, human intelligence and human sensory activity. Man is, if you speak in a real language, you have to say that, really spirit-filled, that is, filled with spirits. The Church did not want people to realize that, so at the Eighth Ecumenical Council in 869 she forbade knowing or believing anything about the spiritual; she established the dogma that man consists only of body and soul. This human being is a very, very complicated creature, and if, let us say, for example, one were to stand on a distant star and observe the processes of the earth from a different point of view, the mineral kingdom would immediately disappear; it would only appear as a luminous shine. Little of the plant kingdom would be perceived, and not much of the animal kingdom either. From the outside, the individual human beings would not be perceived, but the thrones in the universe would be there and occupied by the angels, archangels and archai. And a being with the necessary ability to see from a distant star would say: The Earth is a body in space that is the dwelling place of archai, archangels and angels. In the language of the gods, this would mean that the earth is the dwelling place of the spirits of time, archangels and angels. In the everyday language of people, this means: Man has sense organs, tools of intelligence and a memory constitution. But humanity is called upon to really get to know man, to seek out the real relationship of this man to the spiritual world.

The pendulum swing of civilization has been different up to now. People have studied the chemical substances that make up food in order to find out what a person absorbs through food. The relationships between the body and the matter of food and so on have been investigated. It has been said: What is out there in the various plants or in the various animals enters the human being; sometimes it is active outside in the cabbage, sometimes in the ox, sometimes it is active inside the human being and constitutes him. — So you see an ox outside, you look at it. Then you see a human being and know that he has eaten the beefsteak that was made from this ox, and you follow the part that the beefsteak that he has eaten, which was still active in the ox outside a number of days ago, plays in the inner workings of the human being; that is the relationship between the physical and the natural world. There one follows how the beefsteak, which was sitting in the ox's loins, is later inwardly active in man.

This has now been sufficiently pursued, and from it a world view has been brewed that has caused the pendulum of the human world view to swing to one side. Now the pendulum must swing to the other side. Now we must know that the soul of man is also related to the spiritual world, to spiritual substances. And what spiritual substances are, archangels, archai, angels, they are within man, as the ox is within man when he eats his beefsteak, in his body. Today's science admits the one, the other it still laughs. But for the further development of humanity, it is necessary that man knows just as much about his relationship to the angel as he knows today about his relationship to the ox or to cabbage – I mean the physical cabbage!

We are at this turning point in time, that there is indeed a need for the development of humanity to turn to what plays out of the spirit into the soul, after we have long enough directed our attention one-sidedly to what plays out of the physical world into the bodily side of man. For the human being who begins to develop today, it is no longer enough to convey certain religious truths to him in a dogmatic and abstract way, as in the confessions of the past. Today's human being has occupied himself with reflecting on the relationship between his earthly body and the spiritual. This earthly body initially only has a relationship to the ego. We will get to know other relationships tomorrow. But that which appears in our earthly body, the constitution for the ability to remember, is related to the hierarchy of the angels. That which is embedded in this earthly body as the constitution for intelligence has relationships to the world of the archangeloi. That which manifests itself in our higher senses, namely that which arises in our higher art, has a relationship to the world of the archai, the spirits of the age. We human beings must become capable of more than just generalizing about the existence of a spiritual world; we must become capable of sensing the concrete relationships between human beings and this spiritual world. We must become capable of sensing how that which echoes within us as hearing is a series of facts that permeate our world and in which the archai are active. We must become capable of grasping that while we are thinking, we dwell in a world that is permeated and permeates the archangeloi; while we are remembering, we dwell in a world that permeates and is permeated by the angeloi; and when we become aware of our self, for which we always most fully use our body, it is a revelation of our self. Only then are we in the world in which man lives and moves. In the Greek mysteries, they still said: If you approach the Guardian of the Threshold, you learn to recognize what is in man in a higher way. This side of the threshold, you only get to know thoughts that remind you of past experiences. On the other side of the threshold, you are surrounded by the beings of the world of the angels. On this side of the threshold one learns to recognize the intelligent being; on the other side of the threshold one perceives how the archangeloi surround one. On this side of the threshold one perceives the external sensory world; on the other side of the threshold one knows how, through our eyes and ears, the spirits of the times enter and leave.

It is necessary to ensure that this awareness is awakened in man, whether he is simply related to the spiritual world by his constitution. But this must be awakened in a concrete way for the individual organs. Man must learn to feel himself in a spiritual world, whereas the world view that has reached its climax today only makes him feel that he lives in a physical world. This feeling that one lives in a physical world would have to dominate man completely if the event of Golgotha had not occurred. That man can develop back to an awareness of his spiritual relationship is due to the mystery of Golgotha. But one must seek out of one's own free inner drive what one owes to the mystery of Golgotha. Christianity presupposes freedom.

What we can know about the relationship between human beings and the spiritual world can actually have a practical effect on us. And the educational principles we want to apply at the Stuttgart Waldorf School are based on the awareness that human beings are more than just a synthesis of external natural processes. Education and teaching should be such that we are aware that within us is not only the baby that is growing physically and that, when it is weaned, gradually absorbs cabbage and oxen, but that is the soul being, in which, little by little, the beings of the higher spiritual world have a share. And by teaching in an educational way, we guide the activity of the beings of the higher hierarchies into the developing child. Man should not just learn to kneel at the altar and pray for his selfishness; man should learn to make a service out of everything he does in the world. Today, it is an urgent task to convey to people that everything they do in the world must be a service to God. But those who do not want to let people partake in these higher tasks of humanity oppose this.

Yesterday, while I was in St. Gallen trying to develop the activity and fruitfulness that can flow from spiritual knowledge in relation to the field of education, I was told that we have now reached the point where the clerical newspapers in St. Gallen have not only not included a text note for this lecture, but have not even accepted an advertisement for it, thus refusing to include an advertisement for it. This opposition is becoming more and more well organized. They understand organization on their side. I only want to make you aware of the fact that resistance to the truth becoming established in the world will become more and more pronounced. I will gradually inform you of these things. I do not want you to remain unaware of this small fact either, so that you may feel that little by little it will not be a task for sleeping souls to stand up for the Christ-Truth, but that it will increasingly become a task for waking souls. Organizations are also needed to be able to deal with the organization on the other side. We will talk about this further tomorrow.