The Elementary Kingdoms

GA 98/1907-12-04/p023 ·1907-12-04 · English LowLow alignmentMost translators re-paragraphed Steiner substantially. The locus identifies the same chapter or section, but paragraph-N to paragraph-N mapping is loose. For exact-quotation precision, compare with the German.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Hörernotizen von achtzehn Vorträgen» (Listeners' notes of eighteen lectures). Rudolf Steiner Verlag Gesamtverzeichnis 2022, volume subtitle. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

In like manner, there is a first Elementary Kingdom, which gives the minerals their form. The animals received their shape, or form—a form determined by instincts and desires—from the Beings belonging to the third Elementary Kingdom. The leaves, etc., of the plants are formed by the second Elementary Kingdom; this work consists chiefly of repetitions. But the forming, shaping forces of the minerals, which work out of the formless element, are to be found in higher Devachan, in Arupa-Devachan. These three Elementary Kingdoms permeate one another, flow into one another. One who imagines everything distinct and separate, will never attain to a living understanding. In the vegetable kingdom, the vegetable and mineral kingdoms permeate one another. In the animal kingdom, the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms interpenetrate. And in a human being, the Ego is added to these. For, with the incoming of the Ego, the human kingdom first arose upon the earth. It is the blood which first makes man a human being; all the kingdoms are contained within it. But the Ego can for the present, penetrate with its cognitive forces only into the mineral kingdom; it must leave the other kingdoms to the Beings of the Elementary Kingdoms. The mineral kingdom contains, besides this mineral kingdom itself, also the first Elementary Kingdom; for this reason, it takes on a clearly defined shape. The plant owes its form entirely to the second Elementary Kingdom—for, without it, it would be spherical. And the animal is endowed with instincts, etc., owing to the added activity of the third Elementary Kingdom. Our world consists of interpenetrating regions; only if we are able to make our thoughts mobile and fluent, shall we gradually be able to understand such things.

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Cite: GA 98/1907-12-04/p023 · edition English