Original Impulses for the Science of the Spirit
GA 96
21 October 1906, Berlin
X. The Way to Higher Knowledge and Its Stages II: Imaginative Perception and Artistic Imagination
The second subject on which we have said occult teachers instruct their pupils is Imagination. With this, the individual does not go through life in the ordinary everyday way but in accord with Goethe s words ‘All things corruptible are but a parable’. Pupils will see something else in every animal and every plant. Thus the autumn crocus will be the image of a melancholy mind, the violet an image of being quietly in harmony with God, the sunflower an image of life bursting with energy, independence, ambition. Living in this way, pupils rise to imaginative perception. They’ll see something like a cold flame rise from a plant, a colour image that takes them to the astral plane. The pupils are thus guided to see things that are shown to them by spiritual entities from other worlds. It had to be said, however, that the pupils must strictly follow their occult teacher, who alone can tell them what is subjective and what is objective. The occult teachers are able to give their pupils the necessary security. The world of the senses gives this of its own accord by continually correcting our errors. The situation is different in the astral world. There one is easily deluded; there someone with greater experience has to be at one s side.
The teachers give their pupils who want to follow the Rosicrucian way a number of instructions. In the first place they give them a particular instruction once they have begun to reach the level of imaginative development. A teacher will then say: ‘Endeavour first of all to love not just individual animals, to develop a particular relationship to individual animals, to learn one thing or another from one animal or another, but try to develop a living inner feeling for whole groups of animals; you will then gain an idea of the nature of the group soul. The individual soul of man is on the physical plane, the individual souls of animals are on the astral plane. An animal cannot say 'I' to itself here on the physical plane.’
A question that is often asked is if animals do not have the kind of soul that human beings have. They do have such a soul, but the animal soul is up above on the astral plane. The individual animal relates to the animal soul the way individual organs relate to the soul in human beings. If your finger hurts, it is the soul which feels it. All the sensations of individual organs go to the soul. The same is the case for a group of animals. Everything an individual animal feels inwardly is felt inside it by the group soul. Let us take all the different lions, for example. The sensations felt by the lions all go to a soul they have in common. All lions have a common group soul on the astral plane. If you cause an individual lion pain, or if it feels inner gratification at something, this goes all the way to the astral plane, just as the pain in a human finger goes all the way to the human soul. Man is able to gain insight into the group soul if he is able to create a form for himself that contains all individual lions, just as a general concept contains all the individual forms belonging to it.
Plants have their soul in the rupa part of the devachan plane.67Rupa lokas (worlds) on the devachan = lower spheres in the world of the spirit, where forms still exist. By gaining an overview of group of plants and developing a particular relationship to the plant’s group soul, human beings learn to penetrate to the group souls of plants on the rupa plane. When it is no longer the individual lily, the individual tulip that is special to them, but when the individual plants merge for them in living, concentrated Imaginations that become images, human beings experience something completely new. It is important to have a very real image, individually created in one’s powers of imagination. One will then find that the earth’s plant cover, a flower-bedecked meadow, for instance, becomes something completely new and that the flowers become a genuine revelation of the earth’s spirit. That is the revelation of these different plant group souls. Just as human tears become a reflection of sadness felt in the soul, and the physiognomy comes to reflect the soul of a person, so does the occultist come to see the green of the plant cover as a reflection of inner processes, of the earth’s true life in the spirit. Some plants will then be like the earth’s tears for him, with the earth’s inner sadness welling forth. As in the case of someone who shares in the tremors and sorrow of others, so does a new, imaginative content enter into the pupil’s soul.
These are the moods a person must go through. If you go through the mood relating to the animal world, you find your way up to the astral plane. If you enter into the mood I have described for the plant world, you find your way up to the lower part of the devachan plane. You will observe the flame forms rising from the plants. The earth's plant cover will then be covered with a sum of configurations, the incarnations of light rays, that come down upon the plants.
We can also approach a dead stone in the the same way. There is a basic inner feeling relating to the mineral world. Let us take a rock crystal with the light shining through it. Looking at it we can say to ourselves that in a way this is an ideal picture of the human being himself. Just as the human physical body is physical matter, so a stone, too, is physical matter. But there is a future prospect, and the occult teacher guides his pupils towards this. Today human beings are still full of drives, passions and appetites. This fills our physical nature. But the occultist has an ideal before him. He will say to himself: ‘Our animal nature is gradually cleansed and purified until a level is reached where this human body can stand before us as chaste and free from desire as the mineral which desires nothing, with no wishes stirring in it when something comes near it. The inner material nature of the mineral is chaste and pure.’ This chastity and purity is the inner feeling pupils should have on looking at the world of rocks and minerals. These inner feelings are differentiated according to the different shapes and colours in which that world shows itself, but the basic inner feeling present in the mineral world is one of chastity.
Our earth has a quite specific configuration, a quite specific form today. Let us go back to earlier stages of its evolution. It once had a completely different form. Let us go back to Atlantis and earlier. There we come to increasingly higher temperatures, with the metals running about the way water runs on earth today. All metals have turned into those veins in the earth today because they were originally running streams. Just as lead is solid today and mercury liquid, so lead was liquid once, and mercury will one day be a solid metal. The earth is thus changing, and humanity has always been part of the different evolutional stages. The physical human being did not yet exist at the times of which we have been talking. But the ether body and the astral body were there, being able to live at even higher temperatures. As the earth cooled down, the outer bodies gradually developed around the human being.
New things were developing all the time in the human being in the course of evolution, and correspondingly new things also developed in the natural world around him. The beginnings of the human eye developed at the Sun stage of the planet. The ether body developed first, and then in turn created the physical human eye. Our physical organs developed from the more subtle ether body the way a piece of ice develops in water as it freezes. Physical organs developed inside the human being, and out there the earth grew solid. The development of an organ in the human being and the development of specific configurations in the natural world outside always ran parallel. When the potential for the eye developed in man, the chrysolite evolved in the mineral world. We can thus think of the same creative powers putting together chrysolite nature in the world of nature and creating the human eye.
We cannot be satisfied with general phrases in a given case, saying that man is microcosm and the world macrocosm, for occult studies have shown the true relationship between human being and world. When the physical organ for the ability to connect thoughts developed in Atlantean times, lead solidified in the outside world; it changed from the liquid to the solid state. Thus the same powers are active in the solidification of lead and the organism of rational thinking. We will only understand the human being if we are able to see the connections between the human being and the powers of nature. There is a particular group within the socialist movement which thinks differently from the other social democrats, being extremely moderate. This group within the socialist movement are the printers. And the reason is that printers work with lead. The tariff community between workers and employers developed first among the printers.68Tariff community, general labour contract. Lead taken in small quantities creates such an inner mood.
Another example taken from experience also shows how the nature of a metal influences a person. A gentleman had noticed that he found it easy to see analogies between all kinds of things. It was possible to conclude from this that he had frequent contact with copper. And that was indeed the case. He played the French horn in an orchestra, an instrument that contains a great deal of copper.
Once you study the relationship between the inanimate world outside and the human organism you find that the relationship between human beings and the world that surrounds them takes many different forms. An example is the relationship between the senses and precious stones. We have already seen the relationship between the eye and the chrysolite. In the same way a relationship exists between the organ of hearing and the onyx. This stone has a peculiar relationship to the movements of the I-life in man. Occultists have always made this connection. The stone represents life arising from death, for instance. Thus in Goethe’s Tale, the dead dog is changed into an onyx by the old man’s lamp. Goethe had an intuition here that came from occult knowledge. The relationship between the onyx and the organ of hearing is connected with this. Occult relationships also exist between the organ of taste and topaz, the sense of smell and jasper, the skin sense as man’s sense of temperature, and carnelian, the power of productive thought and carbuncle. The latter was used as a symbol of the productive powers of thought which arose in man at the time when the carbuncle developed in the natural world.
The occult symbols come from the depths of profound and real wisdom. Wherever you consider occult symbolism, you find genuine insight. Knowing the significance of a mineral you gain access to the upper parts of the devachan plane. Seeing a precious stone and gaining a real feeling of what this precious stone can tell us, we gain access to the arupa parts of the devachan plane. The occult student's horizons thus widen, with more and more worlds opening up to him.
He must not make do with general suggestions, but must gain access to the world-whole—bit by bit.
Looking at German literature we can also see that writers who know about mining have an instinctive intuition concerning the powers of minerals. Thus Novalis had studied mining science.69In Novalis' novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen. Körner70Körner, Karl Theodor (1791–1813), German lyric poet. In his poems Bergmannsleben (miner's life) and Berglied (mountain song) and his play Der Kampf der Geister mit den Bergknappen (struggle between the spirits and the pitmen). Notes taken of the lecture give the name as 'Kernig', clearly misheard. See Picht C. S. 'Theodor Körner and seine Beziehungen zum Reich der Steine', Das Goetheanum 1940; 19: Nr. 21.often made miners the people with occult knowledge in his works. As to Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann,71Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm (or Amadeus) (1776–1822), German writer, music critic and caricaturist. Reference here to 'Die Bergwerke von Falun' in his anthology Die Serapionsbrüder, 1. Teil, 1819. that strange individual who sometimes went deep into the secrets of nature in his art, especially in his short story The Mines at Falun, you can often sense echoes of occult relationships between the mineral world and the human being. This also shows the strange way in which great occult powers influence the artist’s imagination.
The true birth place of art were the mysteries. They were real and alive in astral space, where you had a synthesis of truth, beauty and godliness. This was very much the case in the mysteries of ancient Egypt and those of Asia, and also the mysteries of ancient Greece, especially in Eleusis. There the pupils would truly see spiritual powers coming down into the different forms that exist on earth. There was no other knowledge at that time than knowledge which was seen in this way. There was no other godliness than the harmony with God felt in the visions gained in the mysteries. Nor was there any other beauty than the beauty seen when the gods descended.
We live in a barbaric age, a chaotic age, an age lacking in style. In all the great periods in the arts creativeness came from most profound depths of the spirit. Looking at the images of Greek gods, you see exactly three types. Firstly there is the Zeus type, with Pallas Athene and Apollo also belonging to it. The Greeks were characterizing their own race in this. It was a specific shape given to the oval of the eye, to the nose, the mouth. Secondly you see the group that may be called the Mercury type. The ears are positioned quite differently, the nose differently, and the hair is woolly and crinkly. Thirdly there is the Satyr type, where we see quite a different shape to the angles of the mouth, a different nose, eyes and so on. These three types are clearly evident in Greek sculpture. The Satyr type is meant to represent a very ancient race, the Mercury type the race that followed it, and the Zeus type the fifth race.
Spiritual views of the world were part of everything in earlier times. During the Middle Ages this still showed itself in the work of craftsmen, with every door lock something of a work of art. Outer culture still showed us something that had been created by the soul. Our modern times are very different. The present time has only produced one style, and that is the style of the mercantile store. The large store will be just as characteristic of our age as Gothic edifices such as Cologne Cathedral are of 13th and 14th century medieval times. The new life comes to expression in these forms. As the knowledge given through the science of the spirit spreads, the world will have spiritual content again. And when this life of the spirit later comes to expression in outer forms we shall have a style that reflects this life of the spirit. The things that live in the science of the spirit must later come to expression in outer forms. We thus have to see the mission of spiritual science to be a cultural mission.
Der Erkenntnispfad und Seine Stufen
Imaginative Erkenntnis und künstlerische Imagination
Unter den verschiedenen Anweisungen, die der okkulte Lehrer dem Schüler gibt, wurde an zweiter Stelle die Imagination genannt. Sie besteht darin, daß der Mensch nicht so durch das Leben geht, wie das in der Alltäglichkeit geschieht, sondern im Sinne des Goetheschen Spruches «Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis», so daß ihm hinter jedem Tier und jeder Pflanze etwas aufgeht, was dahintersteht. In der Herbstzeitlose wird er dann zum Beispiel ein Bild des melancholischen Gemütes erblicken, im Veilchen ein Bild stiller Frömmigkeit, in der Sonnenblume ein Bild kraftstrotzenden Lebens, von Selbständigkeit, von Ehrgeiz. Wenn der Mensch in diesem Sinne lebt, dann schwingt er sich zur imaginativen Erkenntnis auf. Er sieht dann aus einer Pflanze etwas wie eine kalte Flamme aufsteigen, ein Farbenbild, welches ihn in den Astralplan einführt. So wird der Schüler dahin geführt, Dinge zu sehen, die ihm die geistigen Wesen aus anderen Welten vorführen. Gesagt wurde aber schon, daß der Schüler dem okkulten Lehrer streng folgen muß, weil nur dieser ihm sagen kann, was subjektiv, was objektiv ist. Und der okkulte Lehrer kann dem Schüler die notwendige Festigkeit geben, die die Sinnenwelt von selbst gibt, weil sie die Irrtümer fortwährend korrigiert. In der Astralwelt dagegen ist es anders. Da ist man leicht Täuschungen unterworfen; da muß einem der Erfahrenere zur Seite stehen.
Eine Reihe von Anweisungen gibt der Lehrer dem Schüler, der den rosenkreuzerischen Weg gehen will. Zunächst gibt er ihm eine bestimmte Anweisung, wenn er angefangen hat, die Stufe der imaginativen Entwickelung zu erreichen. Er sagt ihm: Bemühe dich zuerst, nicht bloß einzelne Tiere zu lieben, nicht bloß zu einzelnen Tieren ein bestimmtes Verhältnis zu gewinnen, bei diesem oder jenem Tier das oder jenes zu erfahren, sondern versuche, für ganze Tiergruppen eine lebendige Empfindung zu haben, dann wirst du eine Vorstellung davon bekommen, was die Gruppenseele ist. Die einzelne Seele, die beim Menschen auf dem physischen Plan ist, diese Seele ist bei den Tieren auf dem Astralplan. Das Tier kann nicht hier auf dem physischen Plan zu sich Ich sagen.
Oft wird die Frage gestellt: Hat das Tier keine solche Seele wie der Mensch? - Es hat eine solche Seele, aber die Tierseele ist oben auf dem Astralplan. Das einzelne Tier verhält sich zu der Tierseele so, wie sich beim Menschen die einzelnen Organe zu seiner Seele verhalten. Tut man einem Finger weh, so ist es die Seele, die dies empfindet. Alle Empfindungen der einzelnen Organe gehen zu der Seele hin. Das ist bei einer Tiergruppe in gleicher Weise der Fall. Alles, was das einzelne Tier empfindet, empfindet in ihm die Gruppenseele. Nehmen wir zum Beispiel alle verschiedenen Löwen: Die Empfindungen der Löwen führen alle zu einer gemeinschaftlichen Seele hin. Auf dem astralen Plan haben alle Löwen eine gemeinschaftliche Gruppenseele. So haben alle Tiere auf dem Astralplan ihre Gruppenseele. Wenn man dem einzelnen Löwen einen Schmerz bereitet, oder wenn er eine Wollust empfindet, so setzt sich das bis auf den Astralplan fort, wie der Schmerz des Fingers sich bis zu der Menschenseele fortsetzt. Der Mensch kann sich zum Verständnis der Gruppenseele erheben, wenn er sich eine Form zu gestalten vermag, die alle einzelnen Löwen enthält, so wie ein allgemeiner Begriff die einzelnen dazugehörigen Gebilde enthält.
Die Pflanze hat ihre Seele in der Rupapartie des Devachanplanes. Dadurch, daß der Mensch lernt, eine Gruppe von Pflanzen zu übersehen und zu der Gruppenseele der Pflanzen ein bestimmtes Verhältnis zu gewinnen, lernt er, zu den Gruppenseelen der Pflanzen auf dem Rupaplan einzudringen. Wenn ihm nicht mehr die einzelne Lilie, die einzelne Tulpe etwas Besonderes ist, sondern wenn ihm die Individuen zusammenwachsen zu lebendigen, verdichteten Imaginationen, die zu Bildern werden, dann erlebt der Mensch etwas ganz Neues. Es kommt darauf an, daß das ein ganz konkretes, in der Phantasie individuell gestaltetes Bild ist. Dann erlebt es der Mensch, daß ihm die Pflanzendecke der Erde, daß irgendeine mit Blumen besäte Wiese ihm ein ganz Neues wird, daß die Blumen für ihn eine wirkliche Offenbarung des Geistes der Erde werden. Das ist die Offenbarung dieser verschiedenen pflanzlichen Gruppenscelen. Wie die Tränen des Menschen zum Ausdruck der inneren Traurigkeit der Seele werden, wie die Physiognomie des Menschen ein Ausdruck der Seele des Menschen wird, so lernt der Okkultist das Grün der Pflanzendecke als den Ausdruck von inneren Vorgängen, von wirklichem geistigem Leben der Erde betrachten. So werden gewisse Pflanzen für ihn wie die Tränen der Erde, aus denen die innere Trauer der Erde herausquillt. Wie bei jemand, der mitbebt und mitempfindet mit den Tränen der Mitmenschen, so gießt sich bei dem Schüler ein neuer, imaginativer Inhalt in seine Seele.
Diese Stimmungen muß der Mensch durchmachen. Macht er die entsprechende Stimmung gegenüber der Tierwelt durch, dann rankt er sich hinauf auf den Astralplan. Wenn er sich in die geschilderte Stimmung gegenüber der Pflanzenwelt versetzt, dann rankt er sich hinauf bis auf die untere Partie des Devachanplanes. Dann beobachtet er die Flammenbildungen, die von den Pflanzen aufsteigen. Die Pflanzendecke der Erde wird dann überdeckt mit einer Summe von Gebilden, den Inkarnationen der Lichtstrahlen, die auf die Pflanzen niedergehen.
Man kann in dieser Weise auch bis zum toten Stein gehen. Es gibt eine Grundempfindung bei der Steinwelt. Nehmen wir den lichtdurchglänzten Bergkristall. Wenn man sich denselben anschaut, wird man sich sagen: In einer Art stellt dies ein Ideal für den Menschen selbst dar. Wie der physische Körper des Menschen ein physisch Materielles darstellt, so ist auch der Stein ein physisch Materielles. Aber es gibt eine Zukunftsperspektive, zu der der okkulte Lehrer den Schüler hinleitet. Heute noch ist der Mensch durchzogen von Trieben und Begierden, von Leidenschaften. Das durchtränkt die physische Natur. Aber ein Ideal steht vor dem Okkultisten. Er sagt sich: Die tierische Natur des Menschen wird allmählich geläutert und gereinigt bis zu einer Stufe, auf welcher dieser menschliche Leib ebenso innerlich keusch und wunschlos vor uns stehen kann wie das Mineral, das nichts begehrt, in dem kein Wunsch rege wird, wenn etwas in seine Nähe kommt. Keusch und rein ist die innere materielle Natur des Minerals. — Diese Keuschheit und Reinheit ist die Empfindung, die den Schüler bei dem Anblick der Gesteinswelt durchziehen soll. Je nachdem wie die Gesteinswelt sich in den verschiedenen Formen und Farben zeigt, sind diese Empfindungen spezifiziert, aber die Grundempfindung, die durch das Mineralreich zieht, ist die Keuschheit.
Heute hat unsere Erde eine ganz bestimmte Konfiguration, eine ganz bestimmte Form. Gehen wir in der Evolution der Erde zurück. Einst hatte sie eine ganz andere Gestalt. Versetzen wir uns in die Atlantis und noch weiter zurück. Da kommen wir zu immer höheren Temperaturen, bei denen die Metalle umherrannen, wie heute das Wasser dahinrinnt. Alle Metalle sind dadurch zu diesen Gängen in der Erde geworden, daß sie zuerst in Bächen dahingeflossen sind. Genau wie das Blei heute fest und das Quecksilber flüssig ist, so war das Blei einmal flüssig, und so wird das Quecksilber einst ein festes Metall werden. So ist die Erde wandelbar, aber der Mensch hat diese verschiedenen Evolutionen immer mitgemacht. In den Zeiten, von denen wir gesprochen haben, war der physische Mensch noch nicht da. Aber der Ätherleib und der Astralleib waren da, sie konnten in noch höheren Temperaturen leben. Mit der Abkühlung bildeten sich allmählich die Hüllen und gliederten sich um den Menschen herum.
Während sich in der Erdenevolution immer etwas Neues am Menschen gebildet hat, hat sich auch entsprechend Neues draußen in der Natur um ihn her gebildet. Zuerst entstand die Anlage des menschlichen Auges auf dem Sonnenplaneten. Der Ätherleib bildete sich als erstes heraus, und dieser hat wieder das menschliche physische Auge gebildet. Wie ein Stück Eis aus dem Wasser heraus gefriert, so sind die physischen Organe aus dem feineren Ätherleib heraus gebildet. Innen im Menschen bildeten sich die physischen Organe, draußen wurde die Erde fest. In jeder Zeit geht die Bildung eines Organs im Menschen und draußen in der Natur die Bildung bestimmter Konfigurationen parallel. Während im Menschen das Auge veranlagt wurde, bildete sich im Mineralreich der Chrysolith. Daher kann man sich denken, daß dieselben Kräfte, die draußen die Natur des Chrysoliths zusammenfügen, im Menschen das Auge bilden.
Wir können uns im einzelnen nicht mit allgemeinen Redensarten begnügen, daß der Mensch der Mikrokosmos und die Welt der Makrokosmos ist, sondern der Okkultismus hat den wirklichen Zusammenhang zwischen dem Menschen und der Welt nachgewiesen. Als sich in der atlantischen Zeit das physische Organ für die Verstandeskombination bildete, da verfestigte sich draußen das Blei; es ging aus dem flüssigen in den festen Zustand über. Es sind dieselben Kräfte, die bei der Verfestigung des Bleis und dem Verstandesorganismus walten. Man versteht den Menschen erst, wenn man die Zusammenhänge zwischen dem Menschen und den Naturkräften erkennen kann. Es gibt innerhalb der sozialistischen Bewegung eine besondere Gruppe, die sich von der allgemeinen Sozialdemokratie dutch eine große Mäßigung unterscheidet. Es sind die Gemäßigten, die immer viel von Verstandeskombinationen gehalten haben. Diese besondere Gruppe in der sozialistischen Bewegung bilden die Buchdrucker. Das kommt daher, daß die Buchdrucker mit Blei zu tun haben. Die Tarifgemeinschaft zwischen Arbeiter und Prinzipal wurde zuerst bei den Buchdruckern ausgearbeitet. Das Blei bewirkt diese Seelenstimmung, wenn es in kleinen Mengen aufgenommen wird.
Ein anderes Beispiel kann aus der Erfahrung angeführt werden, wo in ähnlicher Weise die Einwirkung der Natur eines Metalls auf einen Menschen zu beobachten war. Einem Menschen war es aufgefallen, wie leicht er bei allen möglichen Dingen Analogien herausfindet. Man konnte schließen, daß er viel mit Kupfer zu tun habe. Das war der Fall! Er war Waldhornbläser im Orchester, hatte es also mit einem Instrument zu tun, das viel Kupfer enthält.
Wenn einmal die Beziehung der äußeren toten Welt zum menschlichen Organismus studiert wird, so wird man finden, daß eine Beziehung zwischen dem Menschen und der Umwelt in der verschiedensten Weise besteht, zum Beispiel die Beziehung der Sinne zu den Edelsteinen. Es gibt gewisse Beziehungen, die in der Evolution der Sinne begründet sind, zu den Edelsteinen. Eine Beziehung zum Auge haben wir schon beim Chrysolith gefunden. So gibt es eine Beziehung zum Gehörorgan beim Onyx. Er steht in einem merkwürdigen Verhältnis zu den Schwingungen des Ich-Lebens im Menschen. Die Okkultisten haben ihn immer dazu in Beziehung gebracht. Er stellt zum Beispiel das Leben dar, das aus dem Tode hervorgeht. So wird in Goethes «Märchen» der tote Hund durch die Lampe des Alten in einen Onyx verwandelt. In dieser Intuition Goethes liegt das Ergebnis eines okkulten Wissens. Damit hängt die Beziehung des Onyx zum Gehörorgan zusammen. Eine okkulte Beziehung besteht ferner zwischen dem Geschmacksorgan und dem 'Topas, dem Geruchssinn und dem Jaspis, dem Hautsinn als Wärmesinn des Menschen und dem Karneol, der produktiven Vorstellungskraft und dem Karfunkel. Dieser wurde als das Symbol der produktiven Vorstellungskraft verwendet, die beim Menschen zu gleicher Zeit entstanden ist wie der Karfunkel in der Natur.
Die okkulten Symbole sind tief aus der wirklichen Weisheit herausgeholt. Wo man nur in die okkulte Symbolik hereinsteigt, da findet sich echte Erkenntnis. Wer die Bedeutung eines Minerals erkennt, findet zu den oberen Partien des Devachanplans Zugang. Wenn man einen Edelstein sieht und durchfühlt, was uns der Edelstein zu sagen hat, so findet man den Zugang zu den Arupapartien des Devachanplanes. So weitet sich der Blick des okkulten Schülers, so gehen ihm immer mehr und mehr Welten auf. Er darf sich nicht mit dem allgemeinen Hinweis begnügen, sondern er muß Stück für Stück den Zugang zu dem Weltenganzen finden.
Auch in der deutschen Literatur kann man sehen, wie sich eine instinktive Intuition gegenüber den mineralischen Kräften bei solchen Dichtern zeigt, die Bergleute waren, zum Beispiel bei Novaks, der Bergbauwissenschaft studiert hatte. Körner hat vielfach zu den Typen seiner okkulten Persönlichkeiten Bergleute gewählt. Bei dem Dichter Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, diesem merkwürdigen Geist, der sich zuweilen in die Geheimnisse der Natur künstlerisch vertieft hat, vor allem in der Erzählung «Die Bergwerke zu Falun», wird man manches nachklingen fühlen, was die okkulten Beziehungen des Gesteinreichs zum Menschen andeutet und was auch zeigt, wie die okkulten Gewalten in merkwürdiger Weise in die künstlerische Imagination hereingreifen.
Das Mysterium ist die eigentliche Geburtsstätte der Kunst. Die Mysterien waren im astralen Raum wirklich, lebendig. Da hatte man eine Synthesis von Wahrheit, Schönheit und Frömmigkeit. In hohem Maße war das bei den ägyptischen Mysterien und denen in Asien der Fall, auch in den Mysterien Griechenlands, besonders in den Eleusinien. Da sahen die Schüler wirklich, wie sich die geistigen Mächte in die verschiedenen Formen des Daseins herniedersenkten. Es gab damals keine andere Wissenschaft als die, welche man also schaute. Es gab keine andere Frömmigkeit als die, welche in der Seele aufstieg, wenn man in den Mysterien schaute. Auch gab es keine andere Schönheit als die, welche man erblickte, wenn die Götter herabstiegen.
Wir leben in einer barbarischen Zeit, in einer chaotischen Zeit, in einer stillosen Zeit. Alle großen Kunstepochen waren aus dem tiefsten Geistesleben heraus schaffend. Wer die griechischen Götterbilder betrachtet, der sieht genau drei verschiedene Typen: Erstens gibt es den Zeustypus, wozu auch Pallas Athene und Apollo gehören. Darin charakterisierten die Griechen ihre eigene Rasse. Es war eine bestimmte Ausgestaltung des Augenovals, der Nase, des Mundes. Zweitens kann man den Kreis beobachten, der mit dem Typus des Merkur benannt werden darf. Da stehen die Ohren ganz anders, die Nase ganz anders, das Haar ist wollig und kraus. Drittens gibt es den Satyrtypus, wobei wir eine ganz andere Form der Mundwinkel finden, eine andere Nase, Augen und so weiter. Diese drei Typen sind in der griechischen Plastik klar ausgestaltet. Der Satyrtypus soll eine uralte Rasse darstellen, der Merkurtypus die darauf folgende Rasse und der Zeustypus die fünfte Rasse.
Früher haben die geistigen Weltanschauungen alles durchdrungen und durchtränkt. Im Mittelalter war noch eine Zeit, wo dies auch beim Handwerk zum Ausdruck kam, wo jedes Türschloß eine Art Kunstwerk war. Da trat uns in der äußeren Kultur noch dasjenige entgegen, was die Seele geschaffen hat. Die moderne Zeit ist da ganz anders. Nur einen Stil hat die neue Zeit hervorgebracht, nämlich das Warenhaus. Das Warenhaus wird für unsere Zeit ebenso charakteristisch sein, wie die gotischen Bauten, zum Beispiel der Kölner Dom, für das Mittelalter des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts. Die Kulturgeschichte der Zukunft wird mit dem Warenhaus ebenso zu rechnen haben wie wir mit den gotischen Bauten des Mittelalters. Das neue Leben lebt sich aus in diesen Formen. Durch die Ausbreitung der geisteswissenschaftlichen Lehren wird die Welt wieder mit einem geistigen Inhalt erfüllt werden. Wenn sich dann später das geistige Leben in äußeren Formen auslebt, dann werden wir einen Stil haben, der dieses geistige Leben ausdrückt. Was in der Geisteswissenschaft lebt, muß sich später in den äußeren Formen ausprägen. So müssen wir die Mission der Geisteswissenschaft als eine Kulturmission betrachten.
The Path of Knowledge and Its Stages
Imaginative Knowledge and Artistic Imagination
Among the various instructions given by the occult teacher to the student, imagination was mentioned in second place. It consists in the fact that man does not go through life as he does in everyday life, but in the sense of Goethe's saying, “Everything transitory is only a parable,” so that behind every animal and every plant something dawns on him that lies behind it. In the autumn crocus, for example, they will then see an image of melancholy, in the violet an image of quiet piety, in the sunflower an image of life bursting with energy, of independence, of ambition. When people live in this sense, they rise to imaginative knowledge. He then sees something like a cold flame rising from a plant, a color image that introduces him to the astral plane. In this way, the student is led to see things that spiritual beings from other worlds show him. However, it has already been said that the student must strictly follow the occult teacher, because only the teacher can tell him what is subjective and what is objective. And the occult teacher can give the student the necessary stability that the sensory world provides of its own accord, because it constantly corrects errors. In the astral world, however, it is different. There, one is easily subject to deception; there, the more experienced must stand by one's side.
The teacher gives a series of instructions to the student who wants to follow the Rosicrucian path. First, he gives him a specific instruction when he has begun to reach the stage of imaginative development. He tells them: First, strive not only to love individual animals, not only to develop a certain relationship with individual animals, to experience this or that with this or that animal, but try to have a living feeling for entire groups of animals, then you will get an idea of what the group soul is. The individual soul that is on the physical plane in humans is on the astral plane in animals. Animals cannot say “I” here on the physical plane.
The question is often asked: Does the animal not have a soul like the human being? It does have such a soul, but the animal soul is up on the astral plane. The individual animal relates to the animal soul in the same way that the individual organs relate to the soul in the human being. If you hurt a finger, it is the soul that feels it. All the sensations of the individual organs go to the soul. This is also the case with a group of animals. Everything that the individual animal feels is felt by the group soul within it. Take, for example, all the different lions: the feelings of the lions all lead to a communal soul. On the astral plane, all lions have a communal group soul. Thus, all animals on the astral plane have their group soul. If you cause pain to an individual lion, or if it feels pleasure, this continues up to the astral plane, just as the pain in your finger continues up to your human soul. Humans can rise to an understanding of the group soul if they are able to form a shape that contains all the individual lions, just as a general concept contains the individual entities that belong to it.
The plant has its soul in the rupaparty of the devachan plane. By learning to overlook a group of plants and to gain a certain relationship to the group soul of the plants, man learns to penetrate the group souls of the plants on the rupaplan. When the individual lily or tulip is no longer something special to them, but when the individuals grow together into living, condensed imaginations that become images, then the human being experiences something completely new. It is important that this is a very concrete image, individually formed in the imagination. Then the person experiences that the plant cover of the earth, that any meadow sown with flowers, becomes something completely new to them, that the flowers become a real revelation of the spirit of the earth. This is the revelation of these different plant group souls. Just as human tears become an expression of the inner sadness of the soul, just as the physiognomy of a person becomes an expression of their soul, so the occultist learns to regard the green of the plant cover as an expression of inner processes, of the real spiritual life of the earth. Thus, certain plants become for them like the tears of the earth, from which the inner sorrow of the earth wells up. As with someone who feels and sympathizes with the tears of their fellow human beings, a new, imaginative content pours into the soul of the student.
Human beings must go through these moods. If they go through the corresponding mood in relation to the animal world, they climb up to the astral plane. If they put themselves in the mood described towards the plant world, they climb up to the lower part of the Devachan plane. Then they observe the flames rising from the plants. The plant cover of the earth is then covered with a sum of formations, the incarnations of the rays of light that descend upon the plants.
In this way, one can also go as far as dead stone. There is a basic feeling in the stone world. Let us take the light-filled rock crystal. When one looks at it, one will say to oneself: in a way, this represents an ideal for human beings themselves. Just as the physical body of human beings represents something physically material, so too is the stone something physically material. But there is a future perspective to which the occult teacher guides the student. Even today, human beings are permeated by drives and desires, by passions. This saturates the physical nature. But the occultist has an ideal before him. He says to himself: The animal nature of the human being will gradually be purified and cleansed to a degree where this human body can stand before us as chaste and desireless as the mineral, which desires nothing, in which no desire is stirred when something comes near it. The inner material nature of the mineral is chaste and pure. This chastity and purity is the feeling that should pervade the student when looking at the world of rocks. Depending on how the world of rocks presents itself in its various forms and colors, these feelings are specified, but the basic feeling that pervades the mineral kingdom is chastity.
Today, our Earth has a very specific configuration, a very specific form. Let us go back in the evolution of the Earth. It once had a completely different shape. Let us transport ourselves to Atlantis and even further back. There we encounter ever higher temperatures, at which metals flowed around like water does today. All metals became these passages in the earth because they first flowed in streams. Just as lead is solid today and mercury is liquid, lead was once liquid, and mercury will one day become a solid metal. Thus, the earth is changeable, but human beings have always gone through these various evolutions. In the times we have spoken of, the physical human being did not yet exist. But the etheric body and the astral body were there; they could live in even higher temperatures. With the cooling, the sheaths gradually formed and organized themselves around the human being.
While something new has always been formed in humans during the evolution of the earth, something new has also been formed outside in nature around them. First, the human eye was formed on the sun planet. The etheric body was the first to develop, and this in turn formed the human physical eye. Just as a piece of ice freezes out of water, so the physical organs are formed out of the finer etheric body. Inside the human being, the physical organs were formed, while outside, the earth became solid. In every age, the formation of an organ in the human being goes hand in hand with the formation of certain configurations outside in nature. While the eye was being formed in the human being, chrysolite was formed in the mineral kingdom. Therefore, one can imagine that the same forces that bring together the nature of chrysolite outside form the eye in the human being.
We cannot be satisfied with general statements that the human being is the microcosm and the world is the macrocosm, but occultism has proven the real connection between the human being and the world. When the physical organ for intellectual combination was formed in the Atlantean epoch, lead solidified outside; it changed from a liquid to a solid state. The same forces are at work in the solidification of lead and in the intellectual organism. One can only understand the human being when one can recognize the connections between the human being and the forces of nature. There is a special group within the socialist movement that differs greatly from general social democracy in its moderation. These are the moderates, who have always thought highly of intellectual combinations. This special group within the socialist movement is made up of printers. This is because printers work with lead. The collective bargaining agreement between workers and employers was first developed among printers. Lead causes this state of mind when it is absorbed in small quantities.
Another example can be taken from experience, where the effect of the nature of a metal on a person could be observed in a similar way. A person noticed how easily he could find analogies in all kinds of things. One could conclude that he had a lot to do with copper. That was indeed the case! He was a French horn player in an orchestra, so he was involved with an instrument that contains a lot of copper.
Once the relationship between the external, inanimate world and the human organism is studied, one will find that there is a relationship between humans and their environment in many different ways, for example, the relationship between the senses and gemstones. There are certain relationships with gemstones that are rooted in the evolution of the senses. We have already found a relationship with the eye in chrysolite. There is also a relationship with the hearing organ in onyx. It has a strange relationship with the vibrations of the ego life in humans. Occultists have always associated it with this. For example, it represents life emerging from death. In Goethe's “Fairy Tale,” the dead dog is transformed into an onyx by the old man's lamp. Goethe's intuition is the result of occult knowledge. This is related to the relationship between onyx and the organ of hearing. There is also an occult relationship between the organ of taste and topaz, the sense of smell and jasper, the sense of touch as the human sense of warmth and carnelian, productive imagination and carbuncle. The latter was used as the symbol of productive imagination, which arose in humans at the same time as the carbuncle in nature.
The occult symbols are drawn from the depths of true wisdom. Wherever one enters into occult symbolism, one finds true knowledge. Those who recognize the meaning of a mineral find access to the upper parts of the Devachan plane. When one sees a gemstone and feels what it has to say to us, one finds access to the Arupa parts of the Devachan plane. In this way, the occult student's view expands, and more and more worlds open up to him. He must not be satisfied with general references, but must find access to the whole world piece by piece.
In German literature, too, one can see how an instinctive intuition for mineral forces manifests itself in poets who were miners, for example in Novaks, who had studied mining science. Körner often chose miners as the models for his occult personalities. In the poet Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, that remarkable spirit who at times immersed himself artistically in the mysteries of nature, especially in the story “The Mines of Falun,” one senses many echoes that hint at the occult relationships between the mineral kingdom and human beings, and which also show how occult forces intervene in the artistic imagination in strange ways.
Mystery is the true birthplace of art. The mysteries were real and alive in the astral realm. There was a synthesis of truth, beauty, and piety. This was very much the case with the Egyptian mysteries and those in Asia, as well as in the mysteries of Greece, especially in the Eleusinian mysteries. There, the disciples truly saw how the spiritual powers descended into the various forms of existence. At that time, there was no other science than that which one saw. There was no other piety than that which arose in the soul when one looked into the mysteries. Nor was there any other beauty than that which one beheld when the gods descended.
We live in a barbaric age, a chaotic age, an age without style. All great artistic epochs were created from the deepest spiritual life. Anyone who looks at the Greek images of the gods sees exactly three different types: First, there is the Zeus type, which also includes Pallas Athena and Apollo. In this, the Greeks characterized their own race. It was a specific design of the oval of the eyes, the nose, and the mouth. Secondly, one can observe the circle, which can be named after the type of Mercury. The ears are completely different, the nose is completely different, the hair is woolly and frizzy. Thirdly, there is the satyr type, where we find a completely different shape of the corners of the mouth, a different nose, eyes, and so on. These three types are clearly represented in Greek sculpture. The satyr type is said to represent an ancient race, the Mercury type the race that followed it, and the Zeus type the fifth race.
In the past, spiritual worldviews permeated and saturated everything. The Middle Ages were a time when this was also reflected in craftsmanship, when every door lock was a kind of work of art. In our external culture, we still encountered what the soul had created. Modern times are very different. The new era has produced only one style, namely the department store. The department store will be as characteristic of our time as Gothic buildings, such as Cologne Cathedral, were of the Middle Ages in the 13th and 14th centuries. The cultural history of the future will have to reckon with the department store just as we do with the Gothic buildings of the Middle Ages. The new life is lived out in these forms. Through the spread of spiritual science teachings, the world will once again be filled with spiritual content. When spiritual life later finds expression in external forms, we will have a style that expresses this spiritual life. What lives in spiritual science must later find expression in external forms. We must therefore regard the mission of spiritual science as a cultural mission.