The Rudolf Steiner Archive

16. The Connections between Worlds and Beings

[ 1 ] Today we want to talk about a few things that may fall outside the usual scope of our considerations, but which will shed light on some of the topics covered in previous lectures. Today's collection of messages is intended to shed clearer light on some of what has been heard and what is yet to be heard. What we will discuss today is the sequence of stages of the beings that exist in the world above the human being. We have already spoken occasionally about such beings in connection with the development of the earth. Today they will be considered in a somewhat different context, namely from the point of view of the characteristics, tasks, and work of these beings.

[ 2 ] It is so infinitely convenient to think of a mineral kingdom, a plant kingdom, an animal kingdom, and the kingdom of humans, and then to ascend without further ado to the all-pervading God, of whom one believes one can have a more or less correct consciousness or feeling in this or that way. Real spiritual science is not so convenient; it must interpose between man and what we can intuit as the deity of the world, beings of the most varied degrees of perfection. This sequence of stages has already been indicated repeatedly. In Christian esotericism they bear the names: angels, archangels, primordial forces, powers, dominions, thrones, cherubim, seraphim. These are nine different types of beings, to which human beings are connected at the lowest level. Only when we look up, as it were, beyond the realm of the seraphim, do we begin to sense what we call the deity.

[ 3 ] Do not believe that it is meaningless and insignificant when it is said that it is a convenience of worldview to simply ascend from man to the deity and not to include these beings. If people had not forgotten to study and acknowledge them, then the aberration of materialism would not have occurred. For one can, in a sense, combine a kind of religious feeling, a kind of dark, religious sentiment, with ascending directly from man to God; but such a real understanding of the world is never possible, and one can never combine it with a real picture of the development of the world. That is why humanity has now lost its understanding of the world; and that part of religion which is based solely on feeling, on vague emotions, will always be denied in the face of materialistic ideas. Theosophical worldview opens up a new understanding of the world by enabling people to learn something about these beings again. And thus a point of reference is created to counter the denial of a higher world. People who today refuse to acknowledge this world are increasingly preparing the ground for the most shallow and devastating materialism. The materialists themselves are actually the victims; the real culprits are those who, out of convenience, want to know nothing about what exists between man and God.

[ 4 ] Having discussed the reasons why we must talk about them today, we will now examine the characteristics of these higher beings in a free, aphoristic manner. We will first consider the angels closest to humans, the messengers of the deity, the Angeloi. They differ from humans above all in the nature of their perception and knowledge. Humans perceive and act within a world consisting of the four realms of nature. Their actions take place among minerals, plants, animals, and humans. This is the nature of their perception and their acts of will.

[ 5 ] The angels, who are one step higher than humans, differ from them in that the mineral kingdom does not exist for their perception. Their perception begins with the plant kingdom and then extends to the animal, human, and angelic kingdoms, their own kingdom. The life of angels takes place within these four kingdoms. What humans perceive as minerals, as something filling space, is for these beings an empty space, a space that has been left out. If you remember what was described in my “Theosophy” about how humans perceive the mineral world in Devachan, namely as hollow, then you will also have a rough idea of the perception of these beings who live permanently in such a world. The mineral world presents no obstacle to them; they can pass through it, it does not interest them; it is too low a realm for them. Their perception begins only with the plant world and extends to their own realm. As angelic beings, they say to themselves, “I.” Because these beings are so constituted, their activity will make something understandable that we already know. When a human being has passed through the gate of death, he first has the peculiar experience of the memory image.

[ 6 ] This is how it appears: When a person dies, they first have the feeling that they are growing larger and larger, and this growing larger is accompanied by the emergence of this memory image. When the image then disappears, a kind of extract remains, like the fruit of the last life. This forms a kind of germ power for the development of the human being in his next incarnation. It is a kind of ethereal, structured essence that remains with him as the essence of his experiences in the etheric body and accompanies him through eternity. If we further remember that after passing through Kamaloka, the human being takes this essence with him to Devachan, and that he is not idle there, but has his essential tasks, then the activities of these beings, who are one step higher, will become quite understandable to us. The human being is only reincarnated when he can experience something new, when he can take in a new fruit within himself. The earth goes through many transformations. And it is therefore incorrect when some believe that it is unnecessary to come again and again. Man can always experience something new that he takes with him back into eternity.

[ 7 ] What causes the Earth's surface to change? Who is working on the transformation of the Earth? How is it that in a certain area a completely different picture of the plant world and completely different living conditions arise? Just as humans on the physical plane are constantly changing the face of the earth with physical forces—try, for example, to imagine what it looked like three thousand years ago where Munich stands today—so you can imagine that other changes must originate from the Devachan, for humans only change the mineral kingdom. And here again it is human beings themselves who are constantly transforming the earth from the spiritual realm. But they could not do it alone. They would not know what the face of the earth should look like, what state it should be in. They can only bring this about under the guidance of higher beings. The higher beings who guide and lead them are the beings we call angels. They deal with that part of the human being which exists in a different form during its stay in Devachan. They guide and lead the eternal I of the human being. And because they reach down into the plant world, they can bring about this transformation of the earth.

[ 8 ] Now it is easy for us to see that these beings are always guiding, leading beings for the human ego. They do not interrupt their guidance even when the ego is reincarnated. The ego is regulated and guided by such beings. Therefore, the naive belief that there is a being protecting the higher self is not without reason. However, we know that these beings, which we call angels, were themselves human beings on the moon. They have evolved from human beings. You can easily understand this from the fact that human beings are on the way to becoming such beings themselves, and on Jupiter they will be. Thus, that which is working its way up to a higher existence in human beings is on the way to becoming such a being. It is then of the same nature as such angelic beings. Here we see deeply into the spiritual evolution of the world. But we must not regard the names we have before us as something permanent; they are only ranks.

[ 9 ] If we now ascend in our contemplation to the archangels, we come to beings who have yet another faculty of perception and another kind of activity. For them, the plant world is no longer of interest, no longer perceptible. Their perception begins only with animal life. This is their lowest realm; then come human beings, angels, and archangels. These are the four realms of these beings. We may therefore say that we look up to such exalted beings whose deeds reach only as far as animal life. They live in the animal kingdom, the human kingdom, and so on. Their deeds do not extend down to the plant kingdom. These things were known to an earlier consciousness of human beings. And here we can gain a deep insight into the emotional life of earlier peoples and times. Just as our ancestors still perceived the deeds of angels in plants, so they perceived the deeds of archangels in animals. That is why the ancient peoples, for example the Egyptians, devoted a certain veneration to certain animals. This expresses the knowledge of human beings. Anyone who looks at the strange figures of Egyptian animal worship will stand in awe of the profound wisdom of these people. It was not without reason that they associated these animals with higher beings and with human beings. Let us remember how human life has always been connected with the life of animals, how progress on earth is connected with animals — certain branches of industry are dependent on animals — then we will understand what a deep foundation this animal worship had.

[ 10 ] What, then, is the task of the archangels? — Some people still talk today about the existence of a national spirit, but for most people this has become a mere word, an abstraction. But people today no longer know much about the fact that the people are actually guided by a real folk spirit. This folk spirit, for which the whole people is what the human body is for the human spirit, is an archangel. They are the tribal spirits. While angels guide and direct individual human beings through their incarnations, archangels guide the lives of entire groups, entire peoples. Now we can understand why the Egyptians felt that the deity had assigned certain animals to them, because the life of entire peoples is deeply connected with the life of certain animal groups. They rightly saw in this the deeds of the national spirit. They worshipped the power of the national spirit that had assigned the animal to them.

[ 11 ] Now you might ask me, couldn't one imagine a being that perceives the individual organs of the human being and cannot comprehend him as a whole; it cannot conceive that these organs form a whole. You might say: Certainly, perhaps with their present perception, human beings do not perceive angels and archangels directly, but perhaps they perceive what their organs, their ears, their eyes are. Or we can imagine that angels perceive plants, animals, human beings, and angels; what are their sense organs? — Perhaps human beings could perceive the sense organs of angels? Where are they? — They exist and are perceptible to humans. People just don't know it. The sensory organs of angelic beings will become understandable to you when I tell you that humans have two eyes in themselves for seeing the mineral world, but that they do not perceive them directly in themselves. The sense organs are there for perception, but they do not perceive themselves. This is how it is for angels with the mineral world. Their sense organs are to be found in the mineral, physical world, but they do not perceive this world themselves. The sense organs of angels are our precious stones. These are a mysterious tool for the perception of angelic beings. The organs therefore lie within the mineral world. Just as humans have their sense of feeling, their sense of touch, so these beings have their sense of feeling, which is expressed in carnelian, and their sense of sight in chrysolite. They do not perceive in the mineral world because their sense organs are within it. Even of this we find a vague awareness among ancient peoples; they attribute a certain effect to gemstones. This effect comes from the fact that angels are present in them.

[ 12 ] What we call folk spirit is very real in what we call archangels. Now let us turn to the primordial forces, which are one step higher. What role do they play in the development of humanity? If we consider their powers of perception, we must say that the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms do not exist for them. The human kingdom is what they perceive as the lowest kingdom. Their perception then extends over four kingdoms: the human kingdom, the angelic kingdom, the archangelic kingdom, and their own kingdom. They therefore extend down to the human being.

[ 13 ] We will now look for their deeds. Here we have another word with which human beings have no real connection: the spirit of an epoch, of a time. Every epoch has its own specific characteristics. Let us think, for example, of our post-Atlantean time. The spirit of the times has changed in five epochs. Among the Indians, after a dim clairvoyance had sunk immediately and human beings stepped out into the physical world, this was expressed in the fact that the spirit of the times did not want to acknowledge the physical world, but regarded it as Maya. From then on, we see the world being conquered bit by bit by human beings.

[ 14 ] In the second period, among the Persians, human beings become aware that the earth is a field for their work; they see that they must impose their spirit on the material world. They place themselves as servants of the benevolent spirit Ormuzd; the evil Ahriman is overcome by time.

[ 15 ] Then comes the third period, the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian era. Here the spirit continues its work. The sciences emerge. Man understands the world not only as a field of work, but seeks its laws. The Egyptians discover geometry. The Chaldeans seek a lawfulness within the outer space in the movements of the stars. The world is thought of as permeated in its material substance by laws, that is, by spirit.

[ 16 ] In the fourth period, the Greek era, man conquers a little more of this other world through art. Greek art is special because here man imprints his own “I-form” on matter. Then a new epoch followed. And so we can proceed step by step; we would see how the spirit of the times changes. Just as the face of the earth is changed by the angels and the human ego is guided by them, just as the peoples are guided by the archangels, so the successive epochs are determined by the primordial forces. It is extremely important to consider the beings behind the processes.

[ 17 ] The individual human personality is one thing, its activity under the influence of the epoch spirits is another. Let us think of Giordano Bruno. He is not alone in having done what was accomplished through him. Had he incarnated three centuries earlier or later, he would have been just as gifted an individuality; but, guided by the spirit of his time, he would have had to do something completely different. The spirits of the times, which are the expression of these primordial forces that reach down to human beings, place people where they belong. Then you will understand their work when you regard the individual human being as the instrument of these primordial forces, as the material of these spirits. Wherever human beings appear in a great or small position, they must be judged in this way, for to these primordial forces, human beings are what minerals are to us. For everyone who is engaged in spiritual science, it is always a question of the extent to which this or that personality is the material of the epochal spirits. — One gains a deep insight into the workings of evolution when one observes how human beings are placed in the appropriate positions in the world.

[ 18 ] Let us now ascend to the forces for which human beings as such no longer exist. We will then be able to form a different idea of what is involved in the development of the forces of nature. The lowest realm that can be perceived are the angels. For these highly exalted beings, the angels are the same as the mineral kingdom is for us. We have already pointed out on other occasions the workings of these forces: everything that goes beyond the individual human being, everything that has to do with the affairs of our entire planet, is the work of these beings. If we trace our Earth back to the time when it came into being and man with it as a gradually forming being, then we come back to the primordial forces.

[ 19 ] But if we want to consider the life and becoming of the earth itself, we must go back to the forces. They have nothing to do with individual human beings, but with the becoming of the planet. We have such forces within us in the forces of the sun and moon. We know that humanity as such is under the influence of these solar and lunar forces. If only the solar forces were at work, the warm, fiery, light-giving solar forces, human beings would develop rapidly and rush through life. The delaying force lies in the lunar forces; the lunar forces force them into form. If they alone were at work, human beings would live only once, have only one incarnation; they would die and become mummified in their form. The earth would be covered with statues. If only the solar forces were at work, human beings would also undergo only one incarnation, but in that one incarnation they would experience everything that they would otherwise experience in countless incarnations.

[ 20 ] The interaction of both forces brings about the right balance, so that human beings can develop in the way they do. The moon alone would have a mummifying effect. The moon now regulates the one incarnation; the sun regulates the successive incarnations from outside, while the angels work from within. Here we see the nature and workings of the forces that are quite correctly described in the Bible as light spirits or Elohim, who were there before the earth was created. One of them is Jehovah, who forces humans into form. In the working and weaving of the forces, we see what is connected with the life of the entire planet. Here we have the opportunity to look deeply into what lies at the foundation of our world's evolution.

[ 21 ] But we have also heard that certain beings always remain behind in evolution. The present forces were primordial forces on the moon. However, there are primordial forces of the moon that did not complete their task on the moon and came to earth as primordial forces that did not develop quickly enough, even though they had the potential to become forces. The most outstanding of these primordial forces, which could actually be of the rank of powers, is the entity commonly called “Satan.” He is therefore of the rank of primordial forces and could even be a power. Within the spirits that drive the world forward, this epochal spirit works against the others; it is a force on Earth that would have been appropriate on the old moon and is still intimately interwoven with the forces of the old moon. It is the master of all obstacles and impediments that oppose the advancing epochal spirits. You will understand what it means in the life of Christ Jesus that he first had to overcome Satan, the enemy of progress, precisely at the moment of greatest progress; for Christ wanted to lead humanity a mighty step forward and first had to overcome this adversary as the hindrance and disturbance in evolution that did not want to allow the primordial forces of our earth to advance. Christian esotericism refers to these unlawful primal forces as satanic powers. What is often referred to as providence manifests itself quite concretely in the individual as a group of beings. Human beings would understand many things better if they could once again explore the connection between sensory phenomena and these spiritual beings. Everything that appears to us in the world is an expression of spiritual beings.

[ 22 ] For example, you know that the planets, the heavenly bodies, perform certain movements around themselves and around others. Why does this happen? The movement of the earth around its axis was not always there. Why did it come about? Because human beings in their present stage of development need the alternation between day and night, between sleeping and waking. The macrocosm is intimately connected with the microcosm; life is regulated by the division of time. During the ancient lunar period, it was completely different. There was a completely different division of time, a completely different alternation between day and night, because the ancient moon moved in a completely different way. The beings that direct the movements today have already prepared these movements in their own lives, for behind these movements there are spiritual beings; they are the deeds of spiritual beings. In these movements, human beings will one day recognize a profound wisdom.

[ 23 ] There is a profound wisdom in the Earth's orbit around the Sun, this so-called orbit, and human beings will one day recognize that something immensely significant is taking place in it. Do not be surprised that I say “so-called.” What is taught in schools today about the way the Earth moves around the Sun is only the result of a mathematical calculation. It is not absolutely true. This explanation will also take on completely different forms in the future. Even history could teach people that this is not the case. The Copernican system is a very strange thing. He based his view on three principles, of which modern science has accepted only two, but has discarded the third. In reality, the sun races through space at great speed toward the constellation of Hercules. A movement such as is usually described is only simulated by the fact that the planets move with it. The true orbit of the Earth forms a helical line. What is called the obliquity of the ecliptic is the line of gravity between the Sun and the Earth. It has been forgotten that the Earth rotates once around the axis of the ecliptic in the course of a year, and this rotation combines with the helical rotation. Copernicus still distinguished between these two things, but now they are no longer distinguished. The movement with the ecliptic has been dropped. So it does not correspond to the facts at all when one says that the Earth revolves around the Sun. In reality, a helical movement is present.

[ 24 ] If this screw line were a straight line, progress would have to be incredibly fast; the Earth would have to travel its path at tremendous speed, and that would be precisely what humans could not tolerate.

[ 25 ] If the earth really traversed the spaces it would cover in a straight line, then human beings would all grow old at the same time. However, the movement has been wisely deflected by the guiding spirits. Absolute progress is delayed by this other type of movement. You see how deep wisdom lies in the cosmos; this wisdom is the expression of the guiding spirits. We have regulators of our evolution, given in the angels and archangels. The forces that work from incarnation to incarnation, driving human beings forward so that they cannot become mummified, are the regulators of Jupiter's future cycles. Such spirits, which stand above man and regulate his life, are therefore also called “spirits of the cycles,” because their deeds will later be expressed in the cycles of the heavenly bodies. In the way the stars move today, you can see the results of what higher beings did in the past, and in today's humanity you can already recognize the future cycles. When we learn to look at it in this way, tremendous spiritual life enters the heavenly space.

[ 26 ] Today we should only consider what are the peculiarities of these beings up to the powers. We can imagine how the outer is the expression of the inner. When what is said here once again fills people, many things will change. We have now reached an enormous low point in learned education. External progress does not go hand in hand with spiritual life; the latter would be heading for an enormous low point if such truths were not known, if science were not illuminated by them. People no longer know where to turn with their materialistic science. A psychology book has recently been published; one must not believe that such a book has no effect because the author is still unknown. It explains that the law of conservation of energy also applies to the soul, that inner phenomena of the soul consist only of a transformation of food. He says, approximately: "It has been known for ten years that what is called the law of conservation of energy is identical with the effects of the nervous system; for it can be proven that everything which man takes in with his food in the form of energy is completely covered by the work he performs. Since it can be proven precisely that the same is true in humans as elsewhere in the world, a spiritual being cannot exist. We are only dealing with a transformation of food into forces that are released back into the environment."

[ 27 ] This is a very clever conclusion. One might just as well say: Two people standing in front of a bank count the money being carried in and out; it is the same amount, therefore there are no bank clerks. But aren't clerks still necessary to take care of everything? The view of that psychologist and a large part of what passes for science today stands on the same level. Anyone who gives the matter a little thought can imagine where a spiritual culture that thinks so narrowly would lead. It is necessary to have spiritual knowledge, for this is the only real impetus for the development of humanity. If human beings cannot get behind appearances, the world cannot be understood. We must arrive at the great, comprehensive laws, at the connections between beings and worlds.