Initiation or Consecration

At the beginning of his Theory of Colors, this much-misunderstood work—the time has not yet come to understand this work of Goethe's, but perhaps in some time, when the perspectives I mentioned in my lecture “Natural Science at a Crossroads” come to fruition—Goethe says that the eye is formed “in the light for the light.” He says that it was an indifferent organ, not sensitive to light. Through light, it was called upon to become the organ that can now see light and perceive illuminated, light-filled objects. So, in Goethe's sense, we should think of what I have said in the sense of Spiritual Science: that in distant primeval times, human beings did not have eyes that could perceive light, that the eyes emerged from organs of a completely different nature. And what force brought about this transformation? Light itself! It conjured up the eye, which had become sensitive to light. And at the same time, Goethe suggests that there may be other, unknown and unrecognized abilities in human beings which, when developed, open up a new world, just as the eye, when it is brought forth, opens up the world of light and colors. And in no other sense do we speak in Spiritual Science of the higher, supersensible worlds.