For
members of the Anthroposophical Society from stenographic notes
not reviewed by the speaker.
Dornach,
May 29, 1924
In my last
lecture here I spoke of how man is related to the Spiritual
Hierarchies during the different periods of his life. — I
should like to repeat that the aim of all these lectures is to
lead us to a better understanding of how karma works
in human life and in human evolution. Everything is really a
preparation for this.
I told you that
from a person's birth until about his 21st year, the Third
Hierarchy [Angels, Archangels, Archai] is related to him in a
special way; at the age of puberty the Second Hierarchy —
Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes — begins to work. These
Hierarchical Orders continue to work from puberty until the 21st
year in the first period of their influence; in the second period
they work until the 28th year, and in the third period until the
35th year. But from the 28th year onwards, an inner relationship
begins with the First Hierarchy — Seraphim, Cherubim,
Thrones. These Beings of the First Hierarchy continue working, in
the first phase of their influence, until the 35th year (during
which period they co-operate with the Second Hierarchy), in the
second phase until the 42nd year, and in the third phase until
the 49th year.
Now the
influences exercised directly by the Hierarchies during the
various periods of man's life interweave with the influences
which act as reflections from the Spiritual Beings of the
planetary spheres. As we look at the outer, physical radiance of
the planets, we know that each of these heavenly bodies is but
the sign that in the direction where we behold it there is a
colony of spiritual Beings in the cosmos.
Our constitution
as human beings is such that within the physical body we have an
etheric body. The moment a man acquires the faculty of
super-sensible, Imaginative Knowledge, he is able to perceive
everything that can be revealed to him through the etheric body.
And then, as he looks back over the tableau of his earthly life
since birth, all the events he has lived through and the forces
that have influenced his development and determined his
organisation of body, soul and spirit, lie manifest before the
eye of soul in a mighty panorama, as if time had become space. At this stage of
Imaginative Consciousness on the path of Initiation, life can be
surveyed in this way.
When, however, at
the stage of Inspiration, knowledge through Inspiration is
reached, a higher revelation is added to the memory-tableau of
the earthly life. This higher revelation is possible because in
inspired consciousness the imaginations are suppressed and the
pictures of the events of earthly life, even when they have been
perceived through the etheric body, are no longer there.
If by means of a
diagram I were to represent this backward survey as a stream
(drawing it as if presented to physical sight, not to the eye of
soul) you must picture that the several phases are blotted out in
Inspired Consciousness and manifestation of a different character
revealed.
|
|
Diagram
|
|
First of all,
something is made manifest as a kind of revelation within this
first phase and if we can find our bearings in the sphere of
Inspiration, we become aware of what it is that is actually
appearing.
Please understand
me. — We gaze at a tableau of the whole of earthly life.
Part of this tableau is obliterated, blotted out as it were, when
Inspired Consciousness has been attained on the path of
initiation — in this case the phase in the memory-tableau
from birth until the 7th year. This is blotted out and in its
place the deeds resulting from the connection between the Moon
Beings and man after death are visible to the soul's eye.
I told you, for
example, how the life after death undergone by the personality
who was the model for Strader in the Mystery Plays was
experienced. What happens in such a case is that one looks, first
of all, at the memory-tableau; then, in Inspired Consciousness,
this memory-tableau is obliterated. When the part of the tableau
corresponding to the period from birth until the 7th year is
obliterated, the deeds of which I have told you are made manifest
— the deeds wrought by the Moon Beings in connection with
the human being after death. Such experiences are possible when
the course of life from birth until the 7th year becomes
transparent and the Moon Beings and their deeds are revealed. A
vision of the revelations connected with this phase of life is
possible for every Initiate and is indeed the easiest to attain.
As you will
readily understand, initiation is possible at any age in life,
with the exception of early childhood. Children up to the age of
seven are not, as a rule, initiated. And if what I am now
describing is to be seen and understood one must, in the present
earthly life, have passed beyond this age. Everyone who is
initiated has passed the age of seven. That is why vision of what
is disclosed by this first phase of life is comparatively easy to
attain. What is here revealed are the
experiences undergone by a human being after death during the
backward journey which lasts for a third of the time of his
earthly life.
A second
revelation is possible when that part of the backward survey
which corresponds to the years between 7 and 14 — that is
to say, to the time of puberty — becomes visible to
Inspired Consciousness. The experiences lived through by the
human being after death as he ascends from the sphere of the Moon
to that of Mercury are then revealed.
Having traversed
the sphere of the Moon, man ascends to the sphere of Mercury. But
in order to establish a relationship with human beings in the
Mercury-sphere, the phase of life between the 7th and 14th years,
between the time of the change of teeth and that of puberty, must
be erased from the memory-tableau.
If in Inspired
Consciousness the next phase of life is obliterated, enabling
what can become visible here to shine through, the experiences
undergone in the sphere of Venus after death are revealed.
Thus in looking
back with the Inspired Consciousness of initiation over these
first periods of life, one beholds what is happening in the
macrocosm, the spiritual macrocosm, to the dead, the so-called
dead.
You will realise
from what I am saying that infinite wisdom is contained in the
terminology used by ancient science. For the element of love is
associated with the name of Venus. Vision of the Venus-sphere
corresponds to the period of human life following the onset of
puberty.
Then there is a
period lasting from the 21st until the 42nd year of life. When
this period is revealed in Inspired Consciousness, one
experiences — or can at any rate experience — what a
dead person undergoes in the period that is by far the longest —
in his life between death and a new birth, when he is living
together with the Sun Beings. The Sun-existence between death and
rebirth is now revealed.
The Sun is a
heavenly body of such might, embracing such a multitude of
spiritual forces and spiritual Beings, that in order to perceive
all the influences of the spiritual Sun-sphere upon the human
being between death and rebirth, a period three times as long as
the others must be erased from the memory-tableau, namely the
whole period between the 21st and 42nd years. You will realise
from this that initiates themselves must have passed the age of
42 before they are able to look back upon man's connection with
the Sun Beings between death and a new birth. This connection
cannot be perceived in its fullness before then. To grow older,
you see, has an important bearing upon spiritual vision itself.
There are realities for the perception of which a certain
maturity of years, not only a certain degree of Initiation, must
have been reached.
We come now to
the period between the 42nd and 49th years. When man reaches
his 49th year the possibility of a direct relationship with the
Hierarchies ceases. We shall consider presently how it is with
people who have passed the age of 49.
If our attention
is focussed upon influences which interweave with this phase of
the tableau — we ourselves must of course have reached the
age of 50 or more — and as we look back at the span of time
between the 42nd and the 49th years, we can behold the
experiences a person undergoes after death in connection with the
Beings of the Mars-sphere.
But in this
sphere the spiritual world begins to impart a strongly
individualised character to the karma of the human being when he
is on earth. You have heard that a person's karma is prepared
during the period which immediately follows death and lasts for a
third of the time of the earthly life. Karma is then gradually
elaborated, and I have already indicated how this takes place.
Karma is elaborated, wrought out, in union with higher Beings.
Now there are
people whose karma is elaborated mainly in the Mercury-sphere, or
in the Venus-sphere, or in the Sun-sphere; and again there are
others whose karma is elaborated mainly in the sphere of Mars.
Human beings who by virtue of their earlier earthly lives bring
into the spiritual world something that must be elaborated
chiefly in the sphere of Mars give evidence of this during their
next life on earth. Let me give you an example.
At the time when
the influence of Islam upon civilisation had already spread
across Asia, Northern Africa and into Spain, there lived a
personality whose spiritual development proceeded, to begin with,
in Northern Africa, in a school which in spite of having become
decadent, was similar to the school in which, very much earlier,
St. Augustine had spent the same phase of his life. The study in
which this personality engaged in Northern Africa was
similar in character and trend.
We must picture
to ourselves that in those days the pursuit of knowledge was
something very different from what it is today. Little is to be
heard at the present time about the kind of study that was
pursued so many centuries ago in Northern Africa by St.
Augustine, or, later on, by the personality of whom I am now
speaking. But at that time, particularly in Northern Africa,
studies connected with the Mysteries were still possible although
the Mysteries were in the throes of decline. The personality to
whom I am referring had pursued such studies, had imbibed all
that could be learned from them concerning the independence of
the human soul, the realms experienced by the soul when liberated
from the body, and so forth. Then this personality joined in the
Islamic campaigns and went to Spain. There he absorbed much
Islamic-Asiatic learning in the form into which it had already
been re-cast in Spain; also much of the lore that had been spread
far and wide by the Jews — it was not, however, the
Cabbalism that was so universally cultivated later on, in the
Middle Ages, but an older form of Cabbalism. And so in the early
years after the Islamic campaigns we find this personality
steeped in Islam, but working along particular lines: reckoning,
calculating, according to Cabbalistic principles. All this was
lived through again in a later incarnation as a woman, when it
was inwardly deepened, received by the heart rather than by the
head.
Then, later on,
in the 18th century, this same individuality passed over into a
man who has become a world-famous figure in French culture,
namely Voltaire.
When our gaze is
directed to the experiences lived through by this individuality
between death and a new birth, before he became Voltaire —
experiences that were the outcome of his previous earthly lives —
we find that the fruits of his studies in Northern Africa, with
their subsequent Cabbalistic trend, were wrought out in the
sphere of Mars during the second half of his life between death
and rebirth. And with the results of the metamorphosis that can
be wrought in the Mars-sphere, he came again in the 18th century
as Voltaire. I am therefore able to describe him as an example of
the elaboration of karma in the sphere of Mars between death and
a new birth.
Now the Mars
Beings imbue everything with an element of aggressiveness —
be it in the domain of physical, psychical or spiritual
qualities. Nay more, they make one combative, warlike by nature.
This warlike element is compatible not only with attack but also
with retreat — otherwise wars could not be waged! I think
this was obvious enough during the [First] World War.
Look at the whole
life of Voltaire. — It was a life in which splendid
qualities of soul were developed, but it was a life of attack, of
aggression, and also of withdrawal and retreat — at times
engaging in attacks with almost foolhardy daring, at others
evincing actual cowardice in retreat. It is much better
to study these things from examples where the whole character and
tenor of the life can be discerned than to study them in theory.
That is why I am taking examples of this kind.
And now when a
person penetrates with the Inspired Consciousness of initiation
into the phase of life between the 49th and 56th years — he
must be considerably older than was necessary for the vision
connected with the earlier periods — he attains knowledge
of what the Beings of the Jupiter region can bring about in human
beings during their life between death and a new birth.
Acquaintance with
the Beings of the Jupiter-sphere makes a very remarkable
impression. — One must of course have passed the age of 56
before this experience is possible. — The first impression
is one of astonishment that Beings like those belonging to the
Jupiter-sphere can exist at all. — I mean that as a person
on earth one is astonished, not as a person between death and
rebirth; for then, of course, one is actually connected with
these Jupiter Beings. They are Beings who need not ‘learn’
anything, because the moment they take form — I cannot say
‘the moment they are born’ as you will presently see
— they are already wise, supremely wise. They are never
stupid, never unwise. They are as people on earth would often
like to be — people who do not appreciate the blessings of
being taught and would prefer to be wise directly they are born.
These Beings on Jupiter are not ‘born’; they simply
arise out of the whole organism of Jupiter. Rather in the way
that we see clouds forming out of the atmosphere, do these Beings
arise out of Jupiter, and once they are there they can be
regarded as embodied wisdom. Neither do they die; they are merely
transformed, they undergo metamorphosis. Jupiter is in essence
interweaving wisdom. Picture yourselves standing,
let us say, on the Rigi mountain looking down at the clouds. And
now imagine that you are looking not upon interweaving clouds of
water-vapour but upon interweaving wisdom itself, interweaving
thought-images which are actually Beings. — Then you
will have an impression of Jupiter.
Again let me give
an example of the way in which karma can be elaborated in this
Jupiter-sphere.
There was a
personality who lived in the later period of Mexican civilisation
and was connected with the utterly decadent, pseudo-magical
mystery cults of Mexico; with an intense thirst for knowledge he
studied everything with close and meticulous exactitude. My
attention was attracted to him through having made the
acquaintance some years ago of a curious man who is still engaged
in a primitive form of study of the decadent superstitions of the
Mexican Mysteries. Such lore is of negligible importance, because
anyone who studies these things at the present time is studying
pure superstition; it has all become decadent to-day. But the
other personality to whom I am referring imbibed with fervent
enthusiasm all that could be learnt from the still flourishing
Mexican civilisation before the discovery, the so-called
‘discovery’ of America. In those days Mexican
civilisation was still influenced by the Mysteries but was
already in the throes of decline. When mention is made to-day of
Taotl, Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoka — the Beings of the
Mexican Mysteries — little more is known than the names and
a few scattered images. But this personality still knew that
Taotl is a Being who as a cosmic, universal Spirit weaves in the
clouds, lives in the lightning and the thunder. He knew too that
under certain given conditions this Spirit could be invoked into
consecrated water by enactments of sacred ritual. And he knew
that Quetzalcoatl was a Divine Being who could take hold of man
in his circulating blood, in the working of his breath. Living
reality of Being was experienced in the Mexican Mysteries by the
personality of whom I am speaking. He was reborn in a later age
without any intermediate life as a woman. He had been a man in
Mexico and was born again as a man. But in his life between death
and rebirth this individuality passed through the super-sensible
world in such a way that in the development of his karma —
this in turn was the outcome of still earlier incarnations not in
Mexico but elsewhere — he carried through the Jupiter region
all that he had experienced in Mexico: knowledge that had
degenerated into superstition but was nevertheless replete with
vitality, saturated with the fruits of older civilisations. In
the Jupiter-sphere all this assumed the form of wisdom, but a
wisdom that is in truth automatic, unconscious, when compared
with the wisdom man should make his own by individual effort.
When in the
elaboration of karma between death and a new birth, the living,
weaving wisdom of the Jupiter-sphere pours over what has been
experienced by a person in a previous earthly life, wisdom and
its light can still shine forth in the subsequent life. But the
wisdom, then, is founded on the experiences of earthly life.
The
individuality of whom I am speaking was born again in modern
civilisation as Eliphas Levi.
He had spent his previous incarnation in the Mexican
civilisation, had then passed through the sphere of Jupiter with
its wisdom, and in this sphere of Jupiter everything was worked
through once again. But Mexican culture is a decadent culture and
if you read the books of Eliphas Levi to-day you will find
evidence of great wisdom related to something extremely
primitive. And one who has insight into these things will say:
all this is Jupiter, but inferior Jupiter!
When it is
possible to survey the period of life from the 56th to the 63rd
year — and I myself am now in this position — one
gazes at the influences exercised upon man between death and
rebirth by Saturn, by the Beings of Saturn. This is an even more
startling vista, a vista that causes bewilderment, may cause
actual pain.
The Beings
associated with Saturn are Beings who by their very nature take
no heed at all of what they do in the immediate present; they act
unconsciously, under the sway of much loftier Beings into whose
world they enter on reaching maturity. But as soon as they have
done something, it stands there in powerful, living remembrance.
Try for a moment
to imagine yourselves in this position ... I am not referring to
any particular vocation or profession ... but just picture
yourselves doing something, no matter what, and not noticing
anything at all while you are actually doing it; but once you
have done it, it stands there in living remembrance as an
intensely vivid picture. Take a singer: he sings but is
unconscious that he is doing so; he is simply being used by the
gods to sing. Imagine a large audience listening to him; as long
as he is actually singing he is aware of nothing at all; he knows
nothing, either about himself or about what he is experiencing.
But the moment it is all over and the concert ended, the whole
event is there and does not fade away; it remains and forms part
of the content of his very life. On Saturn, man is the
past, only the past.
Think of
yourselves walking over the earth. As you walk you see nothing of
yourself. But when you have gone a little farther and look back,
you see a little snowman — he is a figure of yourself as
you were before you took the last step. Again you observe
nothing, but walk on, and another little snowman stands behind
you. And so it continues, with more and more little snowmen
standing behind you. To all of them you say “I”. —
Now transpose this imagery into the spiritual and you have the
key to the nature of the Saturn Beings. Between death and a new
birth man has to encounter these Beings — Beings who live
wholly in the past. And there are people who in the elaboration
of their karma have a particularly strong connection with these
Saturn Beings.
The destiny of
such people can be intelligible only when one looks back upon the
period of life between the 56th and 63rd years. Again I will give
an example in order to show you how karmic events in life point
back to happenings in the super-sensible world between death and
a new birth.
When I was
speaking to you not long ago about the Hibernian Mysteries, I
told you how difficult it is to approach these Mysteries, how
they seem to thrust one back; and I spoke of the wonder and the
sublimity of what was experienced in these Hibernian Mysteries in
Ireland. I described how the pupil, having first learned to know
the utmost depths of doubt and uncertainty in life, was led
before two statues. The first consisted of a substance that was
elastic throughout and the pupil was exhorted to touch or to
press this statue again and again. The indents made in the statue
gave rise to a feeling of overwhelming dread: it was as if one
had constantly to cut, I cannot say into a corpse, but into
living flesh — a horrifying experience for any sensitive
person. The second statue
retained every indent made upon it by pressure and its form was
only restored, made intact, after an interval of time, when the
candidate for Initiation was led before the statue again. I told you how
those who were initiated in these Hibernian Mysteries experienced
the glory and majesty of the microcosm, that is to say of
humanity itself, and of the great world, the macrocosm. The
impressions were tremendously powerful, of indescribable
sublimity.
One of those who
had participated with intense fervour in the Hibernian Mysteries
and had reached a high degree of Initiation, was destined after
death to penetrate deeply into the Saturn-sphere. — His
earthly life within these Mysteries was the outcome of still
earlier incarnations. — He had been profoundly moved by the
grandeur and majesty of what he had experienced in the Mysteries
of Hibernia. — When I was describing them to you I told you
that in spiritual vision, without any kind of connection in
physical space, the Initiates beheld the actual Event of
Golgotha.
The individuality
of whom I am speaking lived through all these experiences again
with great intensity of feeling and was subsequently born again
in our own period of civilisation. Picture to
yourselves what this personality acquired by virtue of the fact
that the karma of his last life had been elaborated, wrought out
in the Saturn-sphere. Everything presented itself to him in the
light of the past. He beheld his experiences in the Hibernian
Mysteries in the light cast by the Saturn Beings over the far,
far distant past, and majestic pictures of pre-earthly times, of
Moon periods and Sun-periods came alive in him.
When he was born
again, all that before this earthly incarnation had been bathed
in the past, coloured by the past, transformed itself into mighty
pictures — idealistic, albeit visionary pictures which cast
their light into the future and came to expression in a
transcendental romanticism. In short, this
individuality who had once been initiated in the Hibernian
Mysteries, was born in our epoch as Victor Hugo. In its romanticism, in its
whole configuration, Victor Hugo's life bears the stamp of karma
wrought out in the Saturn-sphere.
These are small
contributions towards an understanding of how karma originates
and takes shape. As I said, the best way of understanding karma
is to study concrete examples. For the study of how karma is
elaborated in the case of men like Voltaire, Eliphas Levi, Victor
Hugo, is full of the deepest interest and leads to a knowledge of
the connection of the human being on earth with the macrocosmic,
spiritual being engaged in the elaboration of karma between death
and a new birth.
Thanks to the Rudolf Steiner Archive
Continued in the next issue of SCR
