Mystery Knowledge & Mystery Centres

GA 232 — 25 November 1923, Dornach

3. Penetration Into The Inner Core Of Nature Through Thinking And Will

Yesterday I was speaking to you of how man is subject to what natural science generally calls heredity, and also of how he is subject to the influences of the external world and adaptation to it. I also said that everything relating to heredity is connected with the Ahrimanic forces, and adaptation, in the widest sense, with the Luciferic forces. But I also told you how in the realm of the spiritual Beings belonging to the Cosmos, provision has been made to enable the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces to play a lawful part in human life. Something shall now be added to what has been said, recalling the content of the lecture given the day before yesterday.

We turned our minds then to how memory and everything akin to it give man his configuration as a being of soul. To a far greater extent than we imagine our configuration as beings of soul originates from our memories. Our soul has been shaped by the process whereby our experiences have become memories; we are the product of our life of memories to a greater extent than we think. Anyone who is capable of exercising even enough self-observation to enable him to penetrate into the store of memories, will realise how particularly important a part is played throughout earthly life by the impressions of childhood. The kind of life we spent in childhood—which really does not loom large in our consciousness—the period during which we learned to speak or walk, or got our first, inherited, teeth, the impressions made on us during these periods of development—all these play an important part in the fife of soul throughout our existence on Earth. All freely arising thoughts in which impressions from outside have played no part are connected with memories and are usually accompanied by faint nuances of joy or sadness—all this constitutes our memory and is carried with it by the astral body when we pass into the state of sleep. If with Imaginative vision we are able to observe man as a being of soul-and-spirit during sleep, the following picture presents itself. During sleep the etheric body and the physical body are still enclosed within the skin and the astral body is outside—I will speak of the Ego later on. This astral body is seen virtually to consist of the man’s memories. But these memories in the astral body now outside the physical body are seen to be swirling in and through one another in a kind of eddy. Experiences that were widely separated in time and space are now in juxtaposition; parts of the content of certain experiences are eliminated, so that the whole life of memory during sleep is transformed. Hence when a person dreams it is this transformed life of memory that is presented to his consciousness. And in the character and make-up of the dream he can be inwardly aware of the swirling eddy of memories which Imaginative clairvoyance can perceive from outside.

But there is another aspect as well. These memories, which from the time of going to sleep until waking form the main content of man’s astral life, unite during sleep with the forces behind the phenomena of Nature. It may therefore be said that the astral element in the memories enters into a connection with the forces which lie behind, or rather lie within, the minerals, within the plants, behind the clouds, and so on.

Those who can recognise this to be truth will be horrified to hear it said that material atoms are behind the phenomena of Nature. The fact is that our memories during sleep do not unite with material atoms but with the spiritual forces behind the phenomena of Nature. This is where our memories reside during sleep. We can therefore say with truth that during sleep our soul dips down with its memories into the inner being of Nature, and we say nothing untrue or unreal when we assert; When I go to sleep I give over my memories to the Powers that are spiritually active in the crystal, in the plants, in all the phenomena of Nature.

During a walk you may see by the wayside blue or yellow flowers, green grass, gleaming ears of corn, and say to them: When I pass by you during the day I see you only from outside. But while I sleep, I shall sink my memories into your own spiritual core of being. While I sleep you receive and harbour the memories into which I have transformed the experiences I had in life.—There is perhaps no more beautiful feeling for Nature than to have to a rose-tree not merely an external relation but to realise that you love it because a rose-tree harbours the first memories of childhood. Space plays no part at all. However far away the rose-tree may be, during sleep we find the way to it. The reason why people love roses—only they do not know it—is that roses receive and harbour the very first memories of childhood.

When we were children, the love shown us by other human beings made us happy. We may have forgotten all about it, but it remains within our soul, and during our sleep at night the rose-tree receives into and harbours within itself the memory we have ourselves forgotten. We are more closely united than we realise with the world of outer Nature, that is to say with the spirit reigning there. Memory of our earliest childhood is particularly remarkable in connection with sleep because up to the time of the change of teeth, up to about the seventh year, it is only the element of soul that is received and harboured during sleep. It is a fact in our life as human beings that the inner, spiritual core of Nature harbours the element of soul belonging to our childhood. There is, of course, another aspect: the element of soul we developed in childhood when, for example, we may have been cruel, that too remains in us; the thistles harbour it! All this is said by way of analogy but it points to a significant reality. The following will make it clear what it is that is not taken from childhood into the innermost core of Nature.

In the first seven years of life the child’s whole bodily make-up is inherited, including, therefore, the first teeth; all the material substance we have within us during this period is, in essence, inherited. But after approximately seven years all the material substance has been thrust out, has fallen away and is renewed. The human being himself remains as a spirit-form. His material components are thrown out and after seven or eight years everything that was previously there, has gone. And so when we have reached the age of nine our whole bodily make-up has been renewed. We then shape it in accordance with external impressions.

It is very important indeed that in the early epochs of life the child should be in a position to build his new body—not the inherited body, but the one developed from within himself—in accordance with good impressions from the environment and by a healthy process of adaptation. Whereas the body the child has when he comes into the world depends upon whether the forces of heredity are good or not so good, the later body he bears is very dependent indeed upon the impressions he receives from his environment. Invariably, however, after seven years the body is renewed.

Now it is the ‘I’, the Ego, that is responsible for this. Although it is true the Ego is not yet born in the seven-yearold child as far as the external world is concerned—for it is born at a later age—nevertheless it is at work, since it is naturally connected with the body and is responsible for its formation. It is the Ego that is responsible for the development of what then appears as physiognomy and gesture, as the outer, material manifestation of man’s soul-and-spirit. It is a fact that someone who takes an active share in affairs of the world, who has wide interests and assimilates their substance and content will reveal this in his gestures and his very facial expression. In the later life of such a man, every wrinkle on his face will be indicative of his inner activity and it will be possible to read a great deal here, because the Ego comes to expression in a man’s gestures and physiognomy. The countenance of someone whose attitude to the world is one of boredom and lack of interest will retain the same facial expression all through life. There have been no intimate experiences which might have imprinted themselves in his physiognomy and gestures. In many a countenance you can read a whole biography; in another there is not much more to read than that the individual was once a child—and that is of little account.

It is extremely significant that through the change of bodily substance after every seven or eight years, a man shapes his own outer appearance. And the result of this work on his outward appearance as revealed in physiognomy and gesture, is again something that is carried, while he sleeps, into the innermost being of Nature.

If, then, you look at a man with Imaginative clairvoyance, and observe the Ego as it appears while he is asleep, you will find that the Ego is fully expressed by physiognomy and gesture. Hence those human beings who are able to convey a great deal of their inner nature to their facial expression or to their gestures, have gleaming, radiant Egos. This activity in the shaping of gestures and physiognomy again unites with certain forces in Nature. If we had many opportunities in life of showing friendliness and kindness, Nature is inclined, as soon as this kindliness has been expressed in the countenance, to receive it into her own essential being. Nature takes our memories into her forces, our gestures into her very being. Man is so intimately connected with external Nature that there is immense significance for the latter in the memories he experiences in his soul and also in the way in which he expresses his inner life of soul in physiognomy and gesture.

As you know, I have often quoted words of Goethe which were really a criticism of a saying by Haller: ‘Into the inner being of Nature no created Spirit can enter. Happy he to whom she reveals only her outer shell.’ Goethe retorted: ‘O you Philistine! We are everywhere within her being: nothing is within, nothing without; what is within is without, what is without is within. Ask yourself first of all whether you are kernel or husk.’ Goethe said he had heard the remark in the sixties and had secretly cursed it. He felt—naturally he could not then know anything of Spiritual Science—that if a man whom he could only regard as a philistine, says: ‘Into the inner being of Nature no created Spirit can enter,’ he knows nothing of the fact that man, simply because he is a being of memories, a being of physiognomy and gestures, continually penetrates into the inmost essence of Nature. We are not creatures who stand at the door of Nature and knock in vain. Through our own core of being we are connected by intimate ties with the inmost essence of Nature. But because the child until his seventh year has a body that is wholly inherited, nothing of his Ego, nothing of his physiognomy and gestures, pass over into Nature. It is only at the time of the change of teeth that we begin to approach these realities. Hence it is only then—after the change of teeth— that we are mature enough gradually to begin to reflect about any phenomenon of Nature. Until that time it is only arbitrary thoughts that arise in a child, thoughts which really have not very much to do with Nature, and for that very reason are so full of charm. The best way to make contact with a child is to be poetical when we are talking to him, calling the stars the eyes of heaven and so on, when the things of which we speak are as remote as possible from the outer physical reality.

It is only after the change of teeth that the child gradually ‘grows into’ Nature in such a way that his thoughts can gradually comprehend thoughts of Nature. Fundamentally speaking, the child’s life from the seventh to the fourteenth year is a period during which he ‘grows into Nature’. During this period, in addition to his memories he also carries into the realm of Nature his gestures and physiognomy. And this then continues through the whole of life. It is not until the change of teeth that we have any relationship with the inner core of Nature as single human individuals.

For this reason the beings I have called Elementals— Gnomes and Undines—listen so eagerly when a man narrates something about childhood as it was before the age of seven. It is only at the time of the change of teeth that a man is really born as far as these elemental beings are concerned. This is an extremely interesting fact. Before that time man is to the Gnomes and Undines a being ‘on the other side’; it is for them something of an enigma that man should appear at this age almost as a completed being. It would be immensely stimulating for pedagogical imagination if, through imbibing spiritual knowledge, an individual could really participate in a dialogue with the Nature Spirits, if he could transport himself into the soul of the Nature Spirits in order to ascertain their views about what he can tell them about children. In this way the most beautiful fairy-tale imagination takes shape. And if in olden times fairy-tales were so wonderfully vivid and rich in content it was because the narrators could actually converse with Gnomes and Undines and not merely hear something from them. These Nature Spirits are sometimes very egoistic. They become silent if they are not told things about which they are curious. Their favourite stories are those which tell about the doings of babies. Then one learns from them many things that can create the atmosphere of a fairy story. What seems utterly fantastic to people today can be very important for the practical application of spiritual life. It is an actual fact that because of the circumstances of which I have told you, these dialogues with the Nature Spirits may be extremely instructive for both sides.

On the other hand, what I have said may give rise to a certain anxiety, for during sleep man is continually creating pictures of his inmost being. Behind the phenomena of Nature, behind the flowers of the field, and extending into the etheric world, there are reproductions of our memories, good and futile alike. The Earth teems with what is contained in human souls. Human life is intimately connected with these things.

First of all, then, we encounter Nature Spirits as beings into whom we can penetrate through our gestures. But we also find the world of the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai. We penetrate into those Beings too. Our memories carry us into the activities of the world of the Angeloi; our physiognomy and gestures—for which we ourselves are responsible—carry us into the Beings themselves of that world. This following sketch will give some indication of what happens when, during sleep, we penetrate into Nature. Let this (lowest) curve represent our skin; as we move outwards in the radial direction, we pass from the regions of the Angeloi into those of the Archangeloi and Archai. We are now in the sphere of the Third Hierarchy. And when, during sleep, we sink down with our memories and gestures into the flowing sea of Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai, weaving and intertwining, then from one side there comes another stream of spiritual Beings. This is the Second Hierarchy: Exousiai, Kyriotetes and Dynamis. If we want to find something in the physical world to which this can be related, we can say that the daily course of the Sun from East to West expresses how the Second Hierarchy crosses the realm of the Third Hierarchy. The Third Hierarchy, the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai, glide upwards and downwards, handing to each other the ‘golden vessels’. According to this picture we think of the Second Hierarchy following the path taken by the Sun from East to West—not the apparent but the actual daily path of the Sun, for the Copernican theory does not hold good here. Provided a man has the necessary vision, he sees how during sleep he passes into the world of the Third Hierarchy. But this world of the Third Hierarchy is permeated ceaselessly by the Second Hierarchy. The Second Hierarchy also makes its influence felt in our life of soul.

In the lecture the day before yesterday I pointed out to you the significance of vividly re-living experiences of youth. You may be deeply impressed if you turn again to the Mystery Plays and now, perhaps with greater understanding than before, read the passages about the appearance of the Spirit of Johannes’ Youth.¹ It is an indubitable fact that a man’s own inner being can become vividly perceptible to him if with an active effort of will he relives his younger days. I told you that you may, for instance, pick up old school textbooks and steep yourself in what you either learnt or failed to learn from them. It does not matter whether you learnt anything or not; what matters is that you should re-live what happened at the time. In my own case it was vitally important for me a year or two ago, when I needed to strengthen my powers of spiritual understanding, to re-live a situation of my youth. I was eleven years old at the time and had just been given a new school-book. The first thing that happened was that through carelessness, the ink pot upset and blotted two pages of the book so badly that they were illegible. A few years ago I relived the event many times—the textbook with the ruined pages and what I had to suffer in consequence. For the book had to be replaced by a family with very little money. One suffered dreadfully on account of this book with its enormous inkblot! As I said, it is not a matter of having behaved well in circumstances recalled in later years but of experiencing them with real intensity. If you recall such happenings as vividly as you possibly can, you will experience something else as well. More clearly than in a dream, in actual perception, you will experience a situation while you rest in bed, shut off from the day’s impressions. If during the day you have vividly recalled a scene once inwardly experienced, when everything around you is dark and you are all by yourself at night you will see, as though displayed in space, a scene in which you once participated. Suppose you have recalled a scene at which you were once present, let us say at eleven o’clock. Afterwards you went somewhere else and found yourself sitting among a number of people. You have now summoned up something you experienced inwardly. What was around you outwardly at that time was entirely a spatial spectacle. If attention is paid to circumstances such as this, very significant discoveries can be made. Let us suppose that as a youngster of seventeen, you were accustomed to have your midday meal at a Pension where the guests were continually changing. Now you recall some such scene which you had inwardly experienced; you recall it vividly. Then, in the night, you have this experience: you are sitting at a table with other people whom you saw only seldom because the guests in a Pension were perpetually changing. The face of one of these people makes you realise: that is something I actually lived through all those years ago. The external spatial element is added to the inner soul-experience when you activate memories in this way.

This means that you are actually living in the stream which flows from East to West (see diagram). More and more the feeling grows in you that you are not wholly absorbed by the spiritual world into which you pass in sleep, but that in this spiritual world something is happening that is reflected outwardly in the moment when again you see the people sitting around the table in the Pension. You had forgotten about the episode long ago but it is still there. You see it as things can often be seen inscribed in the Akasha Chronicle. The moment you have this before you, you have made contact with the stream that flows from East to West: the stream of the Second Hierarchy. In this stream of the Second Hierarchy there is contained something that is reflected outwardly as the day.

Now the day varies in length throughout the year. In spring it gets longer, in autumn, shorter; it is longest in summer, shortest in winter. During the course of the year the day undergoes metamorphosis. This is caused by a stream running from West to East, countering the East-West stream (diagram). It is the stream of the First Hierarchy, of the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. Hence if you follow how the day changes in the course of the year, if you pass from the day to the year, you come into contact with the stream which flows in the opposite direction and meets you in sleep.

It is really the case that in sleep we grow into the spiritual world, radially from West to East and from East to West. And when we recall some experience vividly the picture before our souls must be of Winter in the world of space.

And it is the same when we become conscious of our will. It is the effect of this that passes into the gestures and physiognomy. What I am now going to say will have a certain significance for Eurythmists, although naturally it is not the purpose of Eurythmy to vindicate what I am saying. It is a fact that when a man becomes increasingly able to shape his external form too from within himself, so that his Ego is expressed with greater and greater definition in his physiognomy and gestures, he does not receive an impression only of the day. An impression of the day results from passing over from a vivid, inner experience of memory to a perception of things in the external world of space. To take the example already given. Suppose you re-experience what happened to you at the age of seventeen, and see the human beings who sat at table with you in the Pension, in pictures, as in the Akasha Chronicle—that is the Day-experience.

But the Year can also be experienced. This is possible if we pay attention to the working of the will, if we notice that it is comparatively easy to assert the will when one is warm, whereas it is difficult to let the will stream through the body when one is very cold. Those who can inwardly experience a connection between the will and being warm or cold, will gradually be able, when this faculty develops, to speak of a Winter Will and a Summer Will in themselves.

We find that the best way to define this will is to relate it to the seasons. Let us observe, for example, the kind of will which seems to carry our thoughts out into the Cosmos and makes it easy to manipulate the body so that in its whole bearing and in its gestures the thoughts seem to be borne out into the Universe; they seem to glide away through the finger-tips. We feel that it is easy to activate the will. We may be standing in front of a tree and something at the top of it gladdens our eye. If our will is warm within us, our thoughts are carried to the treetop—indeed sometimes to the very stars of heaven when in summer nights we feel endowed with this warmth of will.

On the other hand, if the will is inwardly cold, it is as if all thoughts were being carried only in our head and could not make their way into our arms or legs. Everything goes to the head. The head endures the coldness of the will, and if the cold is not so overwhelming as to give rise to a feeling of iciness, the head will become warm as a result of its own inner reaction, and then it unfolds thoughts.

Hence we can say that Summer Will leads us out into the wide expanse of the Cosmos. Summer Will, Warm Will, carries our thoughts here, there and everywhere. Winter Will carries thoughts into our head. The will can indeed be differentiated in this way. And then we shall feel that the will which carried us out into the Cosmos is related to the course of the Summer and the Will which carries thoughts into the head, to the Winter. Through the will we experience the Year.

It is possible to experience as a reality what I am now going to write on the blackboard for you. Your experience of Winter through the medium of the will can be expressed in these words:

World-All pictures!
From widths of Space
Ye are alighting,
Tending towards me,
Entering bounteously
Into my Head,
Into its thinking powers.

These words have no merely abstract meaning. If you can feel your own will united with Nature you will also feel, when Winter comes, as though your own experiences, handed over to Nature, were being brought to you from the expanse of Space. You can be aware of your own experiences which had already been taken into Nature. This is the feeling of Winter Will.

But you can also feel the Summer Will which bears your thoughts out into the Cosmos:

Ye, of my Head
The formative forces, forming in soul,
Filling my inner life!

which means that the thoughts which are at first experienced in the head, pass over into and fill the whole body, but then stream forth from it:

Now reaching outward
Into World-distances,
Weld my own being
With World-creative powers.

These words express the nature of the Summer Will, the will in us which is related to Summer. And when we feel that we have called up from within the active memory of something experienced long ago, then the day with its following night bears it back to us again, supplemented by the spatial picture. This is connected with the stream flowing from East to West. Thus we may say: Winter Will changes in us into Summer Will, Summer Will into Winter Will. We find ourselves no longer related to the Day with its alternating light and darkness, but through our will we are related to the Year, and therewith to the stream flowing from West to East, the stream of the First Hierarchy: the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones.

As we proceed we shall see how man may be hindered or helped through heredity or adaptation to the external world through this association with the inmost life of Nature. What I have just been telling you refers to the fact that man, when hindered as little as possible by Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces, grows by means of ideation (Vorstellung) and will into the inmost life of Nature and is received by the Time-forces, the Day-forces and the Year-forces; Third Hierarchy, Second Hierarchy, First Hierarchy. But the Ahrimanic forces as they manifest themselves in heredity, and the Luciferic forces as they manifest themselves in adaptation, exert very deep influences. These great problems will occupy our minds in the next lecture.

Winter Will
World-All pictures,
From widths of Space
Ye are alighting,
Tending towards me,
Entering bounteously
Into my Head,
Into its thinking powers. Summer Will
Ye, of my Head
The formative forces, forming in soul,
Filling my inner life.
Now reaching outward
Into World-distances,
Weld my own being With World-creative powers.