Rhythms in the Cosmos and in the Human Being

GA 350 — 9 June 1923, Dornach

The Effects of Light and Color in Earthen Materials are Reflected in the Heavenly Bodies

Well, gentlemen, what have you decided?

Question: The various chemical substances have the property of giving certain colors to a flame, for example. On the other hand, many stars also have a color shimmer, like Mars. I would like to know more about this. For example, Mars has a reddish shimmer. Iron, when it oxidizes, rust, also has a reddish color. Are there any connections here?

Dr. Steiner: That is, of course, a very difficult question. First of all, we need to recall what we have already discussed about colours. We have already discussed various aspects of colours. You have to bear in mind that the colour of a body is connected with the whole way in which it is situated in the world. So let us imagine we have some kind of substance. This substance has a very specific colour. Now do you think that this color can possibly express itself quite differently when you bring this substance to the flame, so that you then get a certain coloration of the flame? You must realize that, when the flame arises by itself, the flame already has a certain color and that when we bring a substance into the flame, two colors interact: that of the substance and that of the flame. But there is something very peculiar about the way colors relate to each other in the world. I will tell you something about that now.

You know the usual rainbow. The rainbow has a red band, then it turns orange and yellow, then the band turns green, then blue, then the band turns a little darker blue, indigo blue and then the band turns violet. This is how we get a number of seven colors that the rainbow itself has (see drawing). Of course, people have always observed these seven colors and explained them in a variety of ways, because the seven colors that you get from a rainbow are actually the most beautiful colors that you can see in nature. And besides, you must know that these colors are as if they were floating freely. They arise, as you know, when it is raining somewhere when the sun is shining. Then the rainbow appears on the other side of the sky. So when you see a rainbow somewhere, you have to ask yourself: where is the weather? Yes, on the opposite side, away from the rain, the sun must be. That is how it should be. That is how the seven colors of the rainbow come about.

But these seven colors also occur in a different way. Imagine that we burn a metal-like body, heating it more and more, so that it becomes very hot. Then this metal-like body first, as you know, becomes red-hot, and finally white-hot, as they say. So imagine that we have created a kind of flame by what I might call actually a metal flame. But it is not an actual flame, it is a glowing metal, a metal that glows all over. If you now look at such a metal, which glows all over, through a so-called prism, you do not see a white-hot mass, but you see the same seven colors as in the rainbow.

I will now draw a schematic diagram (see page 72). Imagine that there is this glowing metal, and now I have a prism like this. You know what a prism is. It is drawn here from the side, as a triangular glass. There is my eye. Now I look through it. Now I don't see a white body, but I see the seven colors of the rainbow, the seven consecutive colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. So through the prism I see what is actually white, what is incandescent, in seven colors. From this you can see that what is incandescent can be seen shimmering in the colors of the rainbow.

Now, there is something else that can be done that is extremely interesting. You see, such a white-hot mass can only be produced when a metal, a solid body, is made to glow. But if I have a gas and burn the gas, then when I look through a prism, I don't get the seven colors, I don't get such a seven-color band, but something completely different.

You may ask how you can get a glowing gas. Yes, it is very easy to get a glowing gas. Imagine, for example, that I have ordinary table salt. There are two substances in ordinary table salt: first, a metal-like substance called sodium, and then there is chlorine. This is a gas that, when spread out somewhere, when it is somewhere, immediately hisses sharply into the nose. It is the same gas that is used, for example, to bleach laundry. The laundry items are bleached by letting chlorine brush over them.

So when you have sodium and chlorine together as one body, it is our common table salt, which we use to salt our food. If you take away the chlorine and put the sodium, which is then whitish, into a flame, the flame turns completely yellow. Why is that? Yes, gentlemen, that is because the sodium, when the flame is hot enough, turns into a gas, and then the sodium gas burns yellow, gives a yellow flame. So now we not only have a really glowing metal body, but we also have a gaseous flame. If I now look at this through my prism, it does not become seven-colored in the same way, but essentially remains yellow. Only on one side – and here you have to look very, very sharply – you see something bluish and something reddish. But on the whole you don't really notice that; you only see the yellow.

But that is not the interesting thing yet. The most interesting thing is this: if I set up the whole story here, enter the yellow flame here (see drawing on page 72) and now look through plate s my prism again, what will you say? You will say: when I look through Bee there, I see red, orange, yellow, green and so on. There is yellow there too, you will say. So when I look through it, the yellow will be particularly strong here, you will say, it will be an especially bright yellow, a very luminous yellow. Yes, you see, that is not the case. What is there is that no yellow appears at all, that the yellow is completely eliminated, erased, and there is a black spot. Just as there can be a yellow gas flame, there is also, for example, a blue one. You can also find substances, such as lithium, that have a red flame. Potassium and similar ones have a blue flame. If you now put a blue flame in here, for example, it is not the case that the blue appears stronger here, but again there is a black spot here. The strange thing is this: when you make something glowing, when something glows as a solid and is not gas, but glows, then you get this color band of seven colors. But if you only have a burning gas, then you get more or less a single color, and this single color then extinguishes that in the whole color band, which it itself has as a color.

What I am going to tell you now is something that people have only known for a relatively short time, having only been discovered in 1859. It was only in 1859 that it was discovered that in a seven-color band emanating from a glowing solid body, individual colors originating from glowing gases or burning gases extinguish the corresponding colors.

From this you can already see how extraordinarily complicated one color affects another. And this is why, when you look at the sun, it appears as if it were a white-hot body. It is right that way: if you look superficially through a prism, you also see these seven successive colors in the sun: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. But if you look more closely, then in the sun, in the solar disc, there are not these seven colors, but only approximations of the seven colors, and in between there are nothing but black lines, a whole lot of black lines. So if you look closely at the sun, you don't have a seven-color band, but you have the seven colors, but they are interrupted everywhere by nothing but black lines.

What do you have to say to yourself then? When you don't see the right, uninterrupted band of colors from the sun, but rather a band of colors interrupted by black lines, well, you have to say: Between us and the sun are nothing but burning gases that are always extinguishing the corresponding colors as they pass by. So when I look at the sun instead of at a glowing metal and see the black lines, I have to say to myself wherever I see the black lines: there, in other words always at the respective point, the yellow is being extinguished, for example here by sodium. When I look at the sun and see a black line in the yellow, I have to say: between me and the sun is sodium. And so I see black lines in the sunlight for all metals. So between me and the sun, all kinds of metals are spread out in space in gaseous form.

What can we conclude from this? Gentlemen, we can conclude that space, at least the area surrounding the Earth, is filled with nothing but not just glowing, but burning metals. When you consider that, then you have to realize that basically we cannot speak of the earth standing there and the glowing sun being up there, but what we see actually depends on what is between us and the sun, and the physicists would be very surprised if they could actually get into the sun, because it would not look as they assume it to be, but what one sees actually comes from what is between man and the sun. So you can see from this example how complicated the connection between substances and colors actually is.

So if you have a flame somewhere, and the flame, say a candle flame, has a certain coloration, you first have to ask: Well, what is inside the candle? In the flame, you have those substances in a gaseous state – they usually become gaseous due to the heat of the flame – that are inside the candle in a solid state. If we then look through a prism, as I have done here with the flame: a substance that is gaseous colors the entire flame. For example, the flame turns yellow due to the sodium. If you had a flame somewhere, for example in this room, and then looked at it through a prism, you would see the sodium blackness almost everywhere. You don't even need to add the sodium somehow. If the apparatus are arranged very precisely so that you can see correctly, you will find these black lines everywhere, which should actually be yellow and which basically come from the fact that there are tiny traces of sodium everywhere. There is hardly anything on earth that does not have small traces of sodium. But this proves that sodium is absolutely necessary in nature. Where it is not, we could not live. We also have to have a certain amount, a certain amount of sodium in us at all times, and we have to process the sodium. And it only betrays itself by the fact that it erases the yellow lines everywhere and makes them black.

Now, you have to remember what I told you before: what causes blue and violet colors? What causes red and yellow? - Well, I told you that blue appears in the vastness of space, because out there, where we see the firmament, there is nothing. It is the vast, black space of the universe. So we see the vast black space of the universe. But we do not see it just by looking out in front of us. Between us and this wide black space are the water vapors that are constantly rising. Even when the air is clear, water vapors are constantly in the air. If the Earth is here (he draws a picture), the water vapour is here and the black space is all around, then the sun shines through these vapours. If you were standing down there and looking up, you would not see black, but blue. Through the illuminated you now see the dark space in a blue colour. That means that when I see something dark or gloomy through something illuminated, I see it in blue.

The dawn and dusk are, as you know, yellowish or yellowish-reddish. When the Earth is here (it is drawn), since the vapors are all around and now the sun is coming up here, I see it illuminated. I see a bright spot here, but I see it first through the dark vapors. This makes it yellow for me. When I see a bright color through a dark color, it turns yellow. When I see a dark color through a bright color, it turns blue. Blue is the darkness seen through a bright color, yellow is the brightness seen through a dark color. That's understandable!

If I now have the yellow through the yellow sodium flame, then this yellow sodium flame means that the sodium is a substance that, when it evaporates, becomes bright but at the same time produces something dark around it. So the sodium actually burns like this: when the sodium burns here, the white light shoots up in the middle (diagram, left) and all around it, darkness shoots up, and that's why I see the whole thing yellow. So the sodium radiates light, but all around it, because it radiates light so strongly, it creates darkness.

You should not be surprised that the strongly luminous sodium produces darkness around itself, because if you are a fas t runner and run quite fast and someone else wants to keep up with you, he will just fall behind. That which splashes out is just a fast runner; it therefore appears luminous through the darkness, it appears yellow to me.

With an ordinary candle flame, the particles scatter in such a way that it becomes bright around the edges and dark in the middle. Therefore, if you have an ordinary candle flame, you see the dark through the light. Here the bright dots splash (see drawing, right). Here in the middle it remains dark and therefore appears blue. So if you have a yellow flame, as you do with sodium, it means that it splashes extremely strongly. If you have a blue flame, it means that it does not actually splash strongly, but rather splinters.

This is the fundamental difference between the effects of the substances in the world. Imagine I have a glass tube here; I melt both ends of it. Now, however, I also pump out the air so that I get a completely airless glass tube. Now I do the following: I introduce an electric current here, which ends there, and here [on the other side] too; this is a current that is then closed here. So now the two poles of electricity are facing each other. Between them is the vacuum. Now something very strange happens: on one side electricity is spurting out and on the other side, where it appears bluish, such waves are forming (see drawing on page 78), and these then merge.

There, so to speak, the light continuously splashes into the dark, the light electricity into the dark. So you have the two flames that I showed you separately. You have them on one pole of the electricity and that one on the other pole. What the sodium flame does is done here on one side, what the ordinary candle flame does is done on the other.

If you proceed in the right way, you get different types of rays here, including X-rays, which, as you know, can be used to see solid components, bones and so on, or foreign components that the body has within itself.

So the thing is that there are substances in the world that radiate. There are other substances that do not radiate, but, one can say, that glow and cover themselves on the surface with such waves. The substances that cover themselves on the surface with such waves are bluish; the substances that radiate are yellowish. If a dark body then comes before the yellowish, the yellowish becomes reddish. So if you make the yellowish darker again, it can become reddish.

So you see, gentlemen, we have bodies in the world that partly radiate and thus show the light colors that are on one side of the rainbow, and that on the other hand do not radiate, but send out such waves. This is how you get the bluish colors that are on the other side of the rainbow.

If you know this, then you will say to yourself: There are such stars as, for example, Mars, which radiates yellowish-reddish, or as, for example, Saturn, which radiates bluish. Now you can see from the nature of the star how it behaves. Mars is simply a star that radiates a lot, so it must appear yellowish-reddish. It is a star that radiates a lot. Saturn is a body that behaves more calmly and is covered with waves. You can almost see the waves around it. If you have Saturn, you can still see the waves around it as rings. It appears blue because it is surrounded by waves.

Now, what we observe on the earth's bodies shows us, if we observe them correctly and not indifferently, how the bodies are out in space. But we must be clear about the fact that all of space is filled, as I have told you, with all possible substances, which are always actually in a combustible state.

Now take a body, for example iron: it rusts. That is what you meant by your question, isn't it? Iron rusts, and that makes it redder than it otherwise is. So we have a body that is relatively dark, that rusts and that becomes reddish as a result. Now that we have studied colors, we will be able to provide information about what that actually means: iron becomes reddish when it rusts, that is, when it is constantly exposed to the air. Let's make it very clear to ourselves what that means. Of course I don't have all the colors here, but you can probably imagine what I mean. So let's assume we have the blue iron. Now it is exposed to the air. Now, because it is exposed to the air, it becomes reddish due to rusting.

Now you can tell yourself that the reddish color arises from the fact that you have a bright object that you see through darkness. So a bright object seen through darkness becomes reddish. When I look at the iron as it is in its normal state, it is dark at first, that is, it emits wavy lines. But when I expose the iron to the air for a long time, when the iron is in the air for a long time, then the air comes to the iron; and the iron gradually becomes so in the air that it begins to resist the air internally. It resists the air, begins to radiate. And that which radiates, like the sodium flame here, where there is darkness all around, turns yellowish or reddish. So you can say that the relationship between iron and air is such that the iron begins to tingle on the inside and radiates. The iron becomes tingly and radiates.

Now you know that iron is also present in the human body, and as a very important substance. Iron is contained in human blood, and iron is a very important component of blood. If we have too little iron in our blood, then we are people who cannot walk properly, who quickly become tired, who become weak. If we have too much iron in our blood, then we become agitated people and lash out at everything. So we have to have just the right amount of iron in our blood, otherwise we will feel bad. Now, gentlemen, nowadays people are less concerned with these things, but I have already drawn your attention to the fact that if you investigate how man is connected with the whole world, you find that blood in man is connected with the influence of Mars. Mars, which is moving, actually always stimulates the activity of blood in us. This is due to its affinity with iron. That is why ancient scholars who knew this attributed to Mars the same nature as iron. So in a sense, Mars can be seen as something similar to our iron. But at the same time, it shimmers reddish yellow, that is, it is constantly radiant in its interior. So in Mars we see a body that is constantly radiating within.

This whole thing can only be understood if, on the basis of these studies, we say to ourselves: Mars has an iron-like nature, is an iron-like substance; but it is constantly tingling, it constantly wants to become radiant. Just as iron wants to radiate through the influence of the air, so Mars wants to radiate constantly through the influence of its surroundings. So, in fact, it has a nature that constantly wants to tingle inside, that is, to come to life. Mars constantly wants to come to life. — This can be seen in its entire coloration and in the way it behaves. When dealing with Mars, one must know that it is a world body that actually constantly wants to come to life.

With Saturn it is different. Saturn has a bluish shimmer, that is, it does not radiate, but it surrounds itself with a wavy. It is just the opposite of Mars. Saturn wants to constantly pass into the dead, constantly becoming a corpse. You can see from Saturn that it surrounds itself, so to speak, with brightness, so that we then see its darkness through the brightness bluish.

Now I would like to draw your attention to something: You can have a very nice experience if you ever walk through a willow forest, or a forest with willows, on a not completely dark but very twilight night. Every now and then you might see something that makes you wonder: Gosh, what is glowing over there? What is it that glows like that? Then you go close and the glowing turns out to be rotting wood. So that which is rotting becomes luminous. If you then went very far away and looked at it and behind it, behind this glowing, you would have a dark area, then the glowing would no longer appear luminous to you, but blue. And so it is with Saturn. Saturn is actually constantly decaying. Saturn decays. That is why it has a light color all around, but it itself is dark, and that is why it appears blue, because we look at its own darkness, I might say, through its decay products, which it has around itself. With Mars, we see how it continually wants to live, with Saturn we see how it continually wants to die.

That is the interesting thing, that one can look at world bodies in such a way that one can say of them: the world bodies that appear to you in a bluish glow are perishing, and those that appear to you in a reddish, yellowish glow are only just emerging. And so it is in the world: in one place there is something that is emerging, in another place something that is passing away. Just as in one place on Earth there is a child and in another place an old man, so it is in the universe. Mars is still a young man and wants to live forever. Saturn is already an old man.

You see, the ancients studied that. We have to study it again. But we can only understand what the ancients meant if we find it again. That is why, as I said last time, it is so stupid when people say that anthroposophy only writes down what can be found in old writings. Because you can't understand what you find in old writings! You see, you only understand what is written in the old scriptures and comes from the right ancient wisdom when you have found it again. In the Middle Ages, before America was discovered, there was a saying that was very interesting; almost every single person said it. If you had lived at that time, you would have known the saying too. In the Middle Ages, all kinds of people said the saying, because you still learned the saying the way you learn something today, yes, I don't know, an agitprop slogan.

This slogan is:

Oh Sun, a king of this world!
Luna your gender receives.

Luna is the moon.

Mercury copulates you quickly.
Without Venus you would all be nothing,
The Marten chooses himself to the man.

So Mars.

So the saying implies: Venus, who is also a young figure, has chosen Marten as her husband, Mars. It is thus implied that Mars is a youth out there in the universe.

Without Jupiter's power, you lack everything.

So Jupiter is also hinted at, how he intervenes everywhere. And then it is said at last:

So that Saturn, old and decrepit,
appears in many colors.

Do you see how beautifully this medieval saying contrasts the youth of Mars with the age of Saturn?

Oh Sun, a king of this world!
Luna your lineage receives.
Mercury copulates you quickly.
Without Venus' favor, you all achieve nothing, The Marten to the man chosen.
Without Jupiter's might, you lack everything.
That Saturn, old and decrepit,
In many colors he appears.

So you see, it will not be understood, and that is what people show. Because if a modern scholar reads such a saying, he says: Well, that's a stupid superstition! He laughs at it. If you find what is true in such a saying, he says that it has been copied. So, no, it is impossible to imagine how foolish people actually are, because they cannot understand it. No modern scholar understands what lies in such a saying. But if you can do spiritual research, then you come across it again, only then do you understand it. One must first find these things again oneself, otherwise these old sayings, which are folk wisdom, really remain quite worthless. But it is also wonderful when one finds these things through spiritual research, and then one discovers this tremendous wisdom in simple folk sayings! This just testifies that the old folk sayings are taken from what was taught in ancient schools of wisdom. That is where these sayings come from. Today, people cannot go to their scholars in this way, because today's science does not produce sayings! There is not much that can be applied in life. But there was once a time when people knew such things as I have told you again today. They then wove them into such beautiful sayings. And then, of course, all kinds of things arose from it, sometimes misunderstandings too, of course. Now, this saying that I have just quoted to you about all the planets, yes, that has been forgotten, but other sayings have then been distorted.

Of course it is also significant when, let us say, the animals do this or that. They are connected with the universe. We can tell from the tree frog that something is going on with the weather when it climbs up. Isn't it true that the tree frog is used as a weather prophet when it climbs up or down its ladder? That is because everything that lives is in relationship with the whole universe. Only that was later distorted, and it is of course not completely unjustified when one also has such sayings, which one can make fun of when one listens to them, because stupidity has taken hold of them. For example, if someone says: 'If the cockerel crows on the dung heap, the weather will change or remain as it is' – well, that just shows that you shouldn't mix everything up and you shouldn't mix the stupid with the clever either.

The saying that I have quoted to you is, of course, one that points to secrets in the universe that are related to light and color. On the other hand, what people often say about what the cockerel does and the like can, of course, be ridiculed, as it is in the saying itself that I have quoted to you. But on the other hand, there is sometimes something extraordinarily profound and very wise in the sayings of the peasants, which are gradually being forgotten. And the farmer is not sad when it snows in March, because there are certain connections between the grain seed and the March snow.

In this way, we can see from such things how the whole world can be understood from what we observe on earth. It would be better to stick to what the tree frog can do, which is to climb up and down depending on the weather, than to stick to the marmot, which sleeps, and thus miss out on all the secrets of the universe.

I hope it has become clear to you what I developed in relation to your question. It is complicated, of course, and cannot be said in a few words. So I had to say all that, but you will be able to summarize it. It is quite interesting, isn't it, to see the context in this way.

Next Wednesday.