The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. Influences of Other Worlds on Earth

[ 1 ] Last Saturday, we took a look at distant worlds. Today, we will do something similar in a slightly different way; today, we will delve a little deeper into spiritual worlds. When I describe lectures such as today's and Saturday's as “intended for the advanced,” I am referring less to what is commonly called intellectual understanding. I mean a different kind of understanding that comes to us when we immerse ourselves more and more in the spiritual worlds, when we accustom ourselves, so to speak, to sensations and feelings that enable us to believe that there really is something like what we are discussing today in the world immediately around us.

[ 2 ] The study of theosophy leads people to develop a feeling for spiritual worlds. Spiritual worlds, spiritual facts are all around us, as we have often emphasized. As we go our way in the world, we do not only pass through material air, but we are constantly passing through spiritual beings and facts. The first thing that rises up in a person when the gift of clairvoyance dawns in them are those spiritual worlds that are somehow connected to what people perceive here with their ordinary physical senses, that is, to what is tangible in a certain sense; everything that the senses perceive is related to spiritual worlds. We know that our entire animal world, as it appears externally, is based on a sum of animal group souls. These live on the astral plane, and those who acquire the gift of clairvoyance on the astral plane encounter them there as complete personalities, just as human beings encounter physical personalities here on the physical plane. They are truly limited personalities. And if one wants to express it trivially, one can say that on the astral plane one can make the acquaintance of group souls, just as one does here with human beings. However, in a certain respect these group souls differ from the human beings here. Strange as it may sound, they are wiser than human beings; their deeds are the wise institutions of the animal kingdom, but also everything that lies in the expediency of the animal way of life.

[ 3 ] The seer of the Devachan plane encounters a second type of being, which is connected to plants. The plant Iches are on the Devachan plane. And in the higher region of this Devachan plane, which we call Arupa, are the group Iches of minerals. All these beings have connections, so to speak, to the physical plane. The astral and Devachan planes also surround us, and all these group Iches are around us. They therefore have, one might say, tangible manifestations, forms in the physical world.

[ 4 ] But anyone who, as a seer, gets to know all these worlds, the Devachan plane and the Arupa plane, learns not only about these beings, but also about completely different ones that do not find their physical expression in the physical world in such an obvious way, but which also intervene in destiny in a certain way, but not as tangibly as is the case with the others. We find such beings of a very strange nature on the astral plane. These beings reveal themselves first through their effects, that is, only through our experience of their effects. For example, where somnambulism occurs, in mediumistic persons, in all states of subdued consciousness, and especially on moonlit nights, such beings swarm around us; but we only perceive their effects. We feel strange when we observe these beings clairvoyantly. It is as if they were reaching their hands in from far away, as if—to choose a crude comparison—you were in Cannstatt and had hands so long that you could work with them in Stuttgart. Then you would see these hands here in Stuttgart, the effects of their work; but to see the people themselves, you would have to go to Cannstatt.

[ 5 ] Physical beings of this kind do not exist, of course, but astral beings do. We discover their effects on Earth; but if we want to get to know them as complete personalities, we must seek them out in their actual home, which is the moon. These beings even have a physical form there, albeit a very subtle one. They cannot be seen with a microscope. They do not grow very large, but they are well known to clairvoyants. They do not grow larger than a seven-year-old child, and the peculiarity of these beings is that they have a terribly roaring voice, and their roaring is not an individual roar, but an expression of the climatic conditions on the moon. Depending on whether it is a full moon or a new moon, these moon beings roar or remain silent, and their influence extends to the Earth. As I said, human beings are particularly dependent on these beings, and these beings are of great importance for human life. And one learns about these effects when one pursues a little of what is called occult anatomy. We have often looked at human beings, but today we want to examine them in terms of their juices.

[ 6 ] There are three kinds of juices that we want to consider today. First, there is the one called chyle, or food juice. Food comes from the stomach into the intestines and is absorbed by the human organism through the intestinal walls. A second fluid is that which flows in the lymphatic vessels, which run throughout the entire body. This fluid is similar to the white blood cells in the blood. The lymphatic vessels accompany the blood vessels in a certain way; they are partly intended to absorb the chyme and transport it until it can enter the blood. Specifically, it is the protein substances and fats that are prepared in the lymphatic vessels for transfer into the blood. Only sugar and sugar-forming substances are absorbed directly into the blood; they do not first pass through the lymphatic vessels. So, flowing through our body, we have a fluid that is a kind of transitional fluid between the chyle and the blood. A third fluid is blood itself, which flows through the blood vessels and is constantly renewed through the respiratory process, through the supply of oxygen, and so on. Thus, in the three fluids, we have three levels of fluid that humans contain. Chyle is, in a sense, the crudest, lymph is finer, and the finest of the human fluids is blood.

[ 7 ] Now you know that blood is the outer material expression of the I, that the I lives and pulsates, so to speak, in the blood. When blood flows through the body, it is not only matter, but also the I flowing through all parts of the body. But blood is the only one of the three fluids that is so intimately connected with one's own spiritual being. Man will most likely become master of his blood. Admittedly, very few people today have reached the point where their ego is master of their blood, but human beings will increasingly gain influence over it.

[ 8 ] The ego has less influence on the lymph. Spiritual forces also pulsate through the lymph. It is precisely in the lymph that you have a fluid in which the beings described earlier as moon beings exert their influence. This lymph pulsates up and down within you, and within it pulsates the influence of these moon beings in your body. Here you can see what you have enclosed within your body! Another type of being that also influences the lymph are those whose actual home is on Mars. These Martian beings, which can be observed clairvoyantly, are again very strange creatures. They have a certain kind of language, a gentle way of speaking that expresses what these beings want to say in a light and supple manner. When you encounter such Mars beings, they appear to you as if their faces bear the expression of their inner being, their soul. A malicious being has a malicious expression on its face; if the Mars being is good, then it bears goodness as the beauty of its face; its soul being is on the surface of its physicality.

[ 9 ] These are beings that the clairvoyant encounters when he penetrates to the moon and Mars. He learns about their deeds from the composition of the lymph and from whether it flows faster or slower. For under every soul experience, this lymph has a different nature. Temperament and character are connected with the nature of this lymph. And only those who become acquainted with these beings of Mars and the moon can recognize what is really happening in the human being in the spiritual foundation of the lymph.

[ 10 ] The clairvoyant finds other beings in the same region where the group souls of plants are — that is, in the Devachan — beings that also exert their influence on Earth and on whose actions the fate of human beings depends. Their actual home is on Venus, where they are found in the devachanic region. Their effects and actions are expressed in a profound influence on the chyle. Whether you eat one thing or another depends on whether good or evil beings from Venus gain influence over you. There are beings that are good, gentle, and mild, who have already developed a high degree of religiosity, as it appears here on Earth in Christianity. But there are also beings of bad character—predatory beings—who destroy everything, and between these two radical extremes, all possible stages are represented on Venus; they express their activity in the human digestive juices.

[ 11 ] And now imagine how another heavenly body with its beings plays into the human body, into the whole of human existence. Think of how the human race is distributed on Earth. In one region, people live on a certain diet, while in another, completely different foods grow. Depending on what a person takes in as food, very specific beings assert themselves within them. This is what accounts for the diversity of human character. In a person who eats something different from another person, the clairvoyant sees completely different influences from those beings, and now you understand why, wherever one approaches the nature of the human being from a spiritual point of view, importance is attached to what a person eats. What occultism inspires in relation to food has been researched with these entities in mind. What occultism can offer us in practical life depends on such complicated things.

[ 12 ] There are other beings that also have strange effects on our earth — again not as tangible as the group souls — beings that the clairvoyant perceives when he rises to the Saturn stage of existence. Their effects are to be found in the higher devachanic world and have a profound influence on human beings. This brings us to a chapter where we are no longer dealing with juices, but with much finer things. When the clairvoyant examines these beings, they appear very strange to him. They are endowed with a magnificent power of invention; in fact, they are inventors at every moment of their lives. But they do not need to think about their inventions. They see, and as they see things, the thought occurs to them that they should be different, and they immediately transform them. Thus, they are beings who are actually engaged in continuous revolutionary activity. Everything they see, they immediately change in the most ingenious way; sensory perception is immediate, and mental invention is immediate. They want nothing to do with reflection, logic, and the like, but immediately, based on sensory impressions, they change everything; they are reformers, revolutionaries.

[ 13 ] These beings also express their influence on our earth. They creep into our inner being through our sensory perceptions. With color, sound, smell, taste, with the sensation of warmth, with everything that human beings perceive through their senses, the spiritual effects of these Saturn beings creep into them. They go through the world, and these beings have an abundance of influence on what you experience in your sensory perception. How dry and sober, even ridiculous, the materialistic investigations of the ordinary anatomist appear! For the effects of such beings penetrate with the flash of light that enters the eye. It is not unimportant to know such things for practical life. In fact, those who do not know this do not know the most important thing about life. The worst, and in some circumstances also the best, because they are the strongest, are the influences of Saturnian beings, insofar as they assert themselves through the sense of smell. With smells, we continually draw their effects into ourselves: there are smells in which the downright infernal effects of these beings enter into us. When people know this, they get an idea of what they are doing to their fellow human beings when they force them to inhale all kinds of horrible perfumes. Patchouli, for example, gives the worst kind of Saturn spirits access to people, and influencing fellow human beings through smells is one of the worst kinds of black magic.

[ 14 ] I could tell you about long periods in history when intrigues were carried out at certain courts by people who knew how to use smells to gain influence and power. For a long time, there have been schemers who have ruled more or less consciously in this way. Such magical means have often played an important role in history. An example from recent history may be interesting: a minister at a small European court wrote a memoir about his time as a minister. He knew nothing about any of these things, but in his naive way he recounts very beautifully how such things played out at the small court in question, where a sensational catastrophe took place at the time. There was a female personality who understood all the arts of influencing people through smells. And when the minister appeared before the queen in question, he was met by all kinds of perfumes, and he knew he had to leave, because she understood something about smells. This experience made him realize that something was going on. He knew nothing about occultism. Anyone who reads such chapters as an occultist can see deeply into how effects are exerted on people.

[ 15 ] And now, starting from here, consider a little how occultism is connected with the true knowledge of reality. People will have to look more and more into immediate human life from an occult point of view. It would be terrible for humanity if such a pseudo-science were to continue for much longer, in which people try to find the truth by dissecting things. The most distorted truth is that which can be found through anatomy. These insights will never be of practical use, and they will bring disaster upon humanity if they are not paralyzed by spiritual insights. And we are currently in the midst of a flood of materialism; it is creeping into legislation and everywhere else and having an enormous impact. The church and religion are intolerant in a way they never were before. How intolerant materialistic medicine is today! They will not burn their opponents, but they do something else. They want to spare themselves the bad reputation that burning has. They therefore ensure that people cannot do what they used to be burned for. Today, their opponents do not even get the chance to sin. Burning was certainly a terrible thing, but at least before they could do what they were burned for afterwards!

[ 16 ] People do not realize this because they do not think long enough to connect one thought to another. But it is important that people regain healthy thinking through spiritual knowledge. Take another example: I have told you that fats and proteins pass through the lymphatic vessels and sugar goes directly into the blood. The ego, as it lives out its life in our time, is the carrier of pure combinatory power, of egoism, since in our European culture it is initially concerned only with utility. Anyone who can observe life will be able to deduce the great role that sugar plays in human life. It is precisely where egoism reigns supreme, especially in its refined forms, where it appears as scientific criticism, where it appears purely intellectual, that you will also see diabetes everywhere in a mysterious connection! However, you must not think that the individual who is afflicted by it should be viewed from this perspective. The individual does not live as an individual. And you must also realize that it is not so easy to help the individual. Think of a person who lives in a swampy area: he can only become healthy if he leaves this swampy area. One must take into account that human beings live in their environment.

[ 17 ] And that is why it is above all important to realize that we must make ourselves selfless, for Theosophy is there for the whole. It is very important to understand this thoroughly. Only when people increasingly decide to devote their efforts to the whole of humanity will there be an atmosphere in which the individual will be liberated. If the individual innocently develops diabetes, this is no indication of the general knowledge that is correctly stated in Theosophy. Diabetes is connected with the prevalence of egoism.

[ 18 ] You can cast your searching gaze over two very different regions of Europe. Look at the peasants in Russia, where the sense of self is only just beginning to develop, and look at England, where a strong sense of self prevails. This is not meant as criticism, only as a statement of fact. And now look at sugar consumption; how much more sugar is consumed in England than in Russia. Now some may say: So what should we do? Because it is right, must we recommend that people eat less sugar so that they become selfless? The truth is not so simple. People would prefer to have fixed rules that apply to all circumstances; a kind of fixed route. There are people who, due to their mental and spiritual constitution, tend to easily lose themselves in a pious form of devotion. This is a good thing; it helps them to attain the highest bliss of knowledge. But there must be a counterbalance: such people must eat a lot of sugar. In order for them to stand firm on earth, they must be given a lot of sugar. Others, on the other hand, are always out to assert themselves; they are the opposite of a devotional nature. They can be advised to practice asceticism in their consumption of sugar. Thus we see that, based on theosophy, we must acquire the ability to become well-rounded, not to be quick to judge based on abstractions.

[ 19 ] Thus, from today's explanations, you have learned about other kinds of beings that are intimately connected with our lives. If you feel a certain shyness toward all the worlds you have heard about here, if you perhaps think it would be better not to know anything about them, consider that this is the same as the ostrich hiding its head in the sand, for these things are there! And you can never free yourself by closing your eyes, but only by getting to know these things. If you organize your life in such a way that you become more and more the ruler of your body from your ego, then you drive all these entities out of your life. Knowledge and truth are the means to become free. And what is written in a religious document is true: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”