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

GA 265a — 10 May 1914, Kassel

The Human Being: The Spiritual Eye of the Hierarchies

Notes A by Unknown

The human being is the eye of the spiritual hierarchies. The spiritual hierarchies perceive the soul of the human being as their soul. Just as these hierarchies have undergone a soul-spiritual development, they are now undergoing their physical development in humanity. We should learn to feel more and more that we are organs of these high beings.

It is wrong to speak of feeling at home in the universe and to say: What more do I need to know about it when I know that I am at home in the universe. This is roughly the same as a naturalist saying: What do I need to explore nature in detail! Everything is nature, nature, nature! —But just as we do seek to fathom nature particularly in its details, so we should also do it with the spiritual. And what was said before about us being the sense organs of the spiritual beings should serve this purpose. And the more we grasp all this, the more we will come into the right relationship with the whole world. Another thing can help here. Let us look at our temple: It is a reflection of man as well as of the world (?), all these relationships are expressed in it.

Let us turn to the altar of the east: in the east, the intellectual powers of the earth flow towards it. From there, the sacred powers of the intellect flow through the earth. These are roughly represented in A. This is the head of the earth.

Let us turn to the south. From there the sacred powers of the heart radiate, the powers of love and devotion of the earth.

From the west, the sacred will pours into the earth, flowing through the limbs, from which the actions flow.

When we imagine our temple in meditation, we should remember that the altar of the east represents the head, the altar of the south the heart, and the altar of the west the limbs of the earth, and we should feel how in the east the powers of the intellect, in the south the powers of the heart and love, and in the west the powers of will flow and converge in the center of the temple.

Then we will turn to these altars and ask that these forces flow into us and flood and empower us.

In the past, people lived much more in all the relationships between body, earth and the life within it. This can still be clearly seen, for example, in the units of measurement used: the foot, the ell, the system of twelve, and so on.

Now we have the decimal system, which is the work of Ahriman. So that we can follow the work of Ahriman in the details of life, in general the work of the spiritual.

It is not enough to say: I feel myself in the universe. We must know this universe, this spiritual, down to the smallest detail, only in this way can we stand in life in practice. Not a single measure or other relationship reminiscent of Ahriman is found in our Dornach building.

Everything is arranged in single-axis symmetry. As we know, the Ahrimanic entities are always particularly active around the turn of a millennium and seek to attack people. In Moorish culture, the Ahrimanic forces attempted such an advance northwards. The Ahrimanic principle has been expressed in the pinnacle that characterizes Moorish architecture.

In contrast, another current had come from the north in the Norman wooden buildings, but could not develop further because the Ahrimanic influence prevented it.

The architecture of these buildings now appears again in our Dornach building, but in such a way that where there were windows before, there are now walls, and where there were walls before, there are now windows. In this century, mighty storms will still befalling humanity, and in the eighties or nineties nothing more of our building will be seen on the physical plane. But the seed will have been planted in people's souls and will continue to work. In the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries, our building will then serve as an example, as a model, for such buildings.

Record B by unknown

You come to the point where you experience your organs, let's say the eye; it could also be another organ. It becomes like this: not “I see through my eye,” but “the spirit of the earth sees through me.” Some insects have compound eyes. Every human being is a facet in the eye of the earth spirit. Just as the body of the earth, the sun, moon and stars are the sky for the eye, so the earth is its body and it sees through the eye.

The ego and the astral body are the soul of the higher hierarchies of the spiritual world, embedded in the soul of the spirit.

Just as the germ of the plant has it within itself, so our lodges are the germs of what must flourish in the world as a plant, and therefore the germ of what will become a spiritual fruit in the world must be nurtured and cared for. The germ does not perish with the plant; and even if many germs do not develop into plants, the spiritual germ does not die, it is eternal like the germ itself. If we meditate on this truth, it can be of great help to us in realizing the higher worlds.

The outer [cultures] may die away. We know that the culture of the Moors strove to bring ahrimanic forces to the West in the pointed arches of their architecture.

The Normans counteracted them with their buildings. What they left unfilled was to be filled by the art of the future - as in the Dornach building. But in the eighties nothing of it will remain. Yet in the twentieth, twenty-first century many such buildings will come into being. It will remain a model in the hearts of many; and subsequently will produce its own kind.

Thus the world spirit looks through us into the future.

Imagine the spiritual being:

The altar of the east = head
the altar of the south = heart extended into infinity
the altar of the west = limbs

Notes C from the estate of Elisabeth Vreede First degree

Let us look at our temple, it is a reflection of the human being as well as of the world; all these relationships are expressed in it. 1914

Let us turn to the altar of the East. From the East the intellectual forces of the Earth stream in. From there, the Earth is permeated with the sacred powers of the mind. These are reflected in the altar; there is the head of the Earth.

If we turn to the south, the sacred powers of the heart, the powers of love and devotion, radiate from there to the earth.

From the west, the sacred will pours into the earth, flowing through the limbs, from which the actions flow.

When we imagine our temple in meditation, we should remember that the altar of the east represents the head, the altar of the south the heart, and the altar of the west the limbs of the earth; and we should feel how in the east the powers of the intellect, in the south the powers of the heart and love, and in the west the powers of the will flow and converge in the center of the temple. Then we will turn to these altars and ask that these powers flow into us and flood and empower us.