III. The Spiritland

It is necessary, in the first place, to distinguish the different kinds of archetypes from one another. In the “Spiritland,” too, one has to distinguish between a number of grades or regions in order to find one's way among them. Here also, as in the soul-world, the different regions are not to be thought of as lying one above the other like strata, but as mutually interpenetrating and pervading each other. The first region contains the “archetypes” of the physical world in so far as it is not endowed with life. The archetypes of the minerals are to be found here—also those of the plants; but the latter only in so far as they are purely physical, that is, in so far as the life in them is not taken into account. In the same way one finds here the archetypes of the physical forms of the animals and of human beings. This does not exhaust all that is to be found in this region but merely illustrates it by the readiest examples. This region forms the basic scaffolding of the “Spiritland.” It can be likened to the solid land of the physical earth. It forms the “continental” mass of the “Spiritland.” Its relationship with the physical corporeal world can only be described by means of an illustration. One gains some idea of it in the following way. Picture a limited space filled with physical bodies of the most varied kinds. Then think these bodies away and conceive in their place cavities in space, having their forms. The intervening spaces, on the other hand, which were previously empty, must be thought of as filled with the most varied forms, having manifold relationships with the physical bodies spoken of above. This is somewhat like the appearance presented by the lowest region of the archetypal world. In it, the things and beings which become embodied in the physical world are present as “spatial cavities.” And in the intervening spaces the mobile activity of the archetypes (and of the “spiritual music”) plays out its course. At the time of physical embodiment the spatial cavities become as it were filled with physical matter. If anyone were to look into space with both physical and spiritual eyes, he would see the physical bodies, and in between, the mobile activity of the creative archetypes.