Lessons for the Participants of Cognitive-Cultic Work 1906–1924

GA 265a — 7 July 1909, Kassel

From the Unhewn Stone to the Cube

Notes by Franz Seiler Starting from the end:

Schema = salt process, world ether, example: precipitation of salt by cooling a warm salt solution. Wisdom forms the crystals.

Geometry = shows us how we can create a triangle in our minds (and probably other figures as well).

Natural science: the great achievements of science are nothing more than reinterpretations of the existing word. Composition. All achievements serve utility, egoism, pleasure, enjoyment.

The technique of science: The great thing about science is the technique. We should acquire this. Embracing technique.

But we should take the content from higher regions.

The content of science: Next to nothing; [we] only learn form; but this form will be useful; we must imbue it with new spirit.

God: Not recognized as scientific, only [Dilthey]. Why? Because he deals with things that lie beyond the sensual, behind [the material].

Theory of colors: Contains deep wisdom. Shows how color can be represented geometrically in its values.

Geometry of quantities = geometry of colors = the set of colors, their intensity.

Geometry of qualities = scheme of colors = their mixture and their relationship to each other.

Jakob Böhme: Aurora = dawn.

Dawn = symbol = key: leads down to the mothers. The mothers = Saturn, Sun, Moon; now is Earth; the children = , , Vulcan

Mephisto, Faust = Mephisto, who is a dog in the sensual; he also has knowledge, but regards that which leads downwards as nothing. Faust, who descends into the realm of the mothers, says, “In your nothingness I hope to find the all.”

Symbols: Those who cling only to mental images will not go deeper. Grasp them mentally, emotionally, and will-wise. Given by the Masters: They conceal lofty secrets of the world. They have infinite content: emotional and will-based comprehension leads back to the first times of our world's history.

Unhewn stone = chaos, which confronts us in miniature. Cubic stones = the form which we are to give to the unformed: regularity, beauty.

From mental image, imagination, idea, concept: today's science calls a clear mental image and a plastic concept = abstract. Only that which exists as a sensual object is concrete for it. Dry, abstract concept.