Lecture II

Let us suppose that from waking to falling asleep we have been interested in the outside world and what has passed there. This absorbing of the outside world can be likened to the swing of the pendulum in one direction. When we have sufficiently absorbed the world outside then by reason of the satiety this causes there develops the satisfaction formerly provided by the outside world—and we go to sleep. When we have exhausted this enjoyment of ourselves we are able to wake up again. It is a swinging to and fro, a periodicity, which takes its regular course in the same way as in ordinary mechanics. Lucifer and Ahriman can, however, lift a man out of the whole course of nature. Thus the man who goes to a lecture or concert from sheer courtesy and not because he wants to listen, can be lifted out of himself so that he loses all interest. He withdraws from himself, feeds on himself, finding this more interesting than what is going on around him.