Lecture III

In order to proceed in an appropriate manner, we will prepare the grounds today for certain matters to be deepened physiologically and psychologically tomorrow, considering the forms which consonants take in eurythmic movement. In what has been developed as the form involved in consonantal movement consideration has been truly given to everything which must be taken into account when man attempts to penetrate into the outer world through speech. The person who sets himself the task of observing speech will see that man's confrontation with the outer world must consist on the one hand of living into the world vigorously; of making himself selfless and living out into the world. In the vowels he comes to himself; in the vowels he goes within and unfolds his activity there. In the consonants he becomes in a way one with the outer world although to varying degrees. These varying degrees of unification with the world are manifest in certain practices within language as well. In the development of the consonantal element in eurythmy, particularly in reference to the sensible-super-sensible observation of which I so often speak in introducing eurythmy performances,—it is necessary to take into consideration whether the human being objectifies himself. To discover whether man extroverts himself completely in order to grasp the spiritual element in the things outside him in a spoken sound, or if, despite this objectification of himself, he remains more within and does not go completely out of himself but instead reproduces the external within himself. That is a major distinction, by reason of which I must ask Mrs. Baumann to be so good and show us first of all the movement for “H”. Now please disregard this H-movement altogether and Mrs. Baumann will demonstrate the F-movement. And now keep an eye on what you can observe here in these two different movements. You can observe what is present by virtue of the human instinct in the attempt to enunciate the sound in question. Consider the pronunciation of H: actually you say H-a, you follow up with a vowel. It is impossible to sound a consonant without it being tinged by a vowel, you follow it up with an “A”. The pure consonant is vocalized, combined with a vowel. If you consider the “F” you will find that man's linguistic instinct places an “E” in front of it: e-F. Here the opposite occurs: an E is set before it.