The Michael Mystery
GA 26
XXIII. Where is Man as a Thinking and Remembering Being?
[ 1 ] In mental conception (thinking) and in the awakening of remembrances, Man is in the sphere of the physical world. Yet wheresoever he may look in this physical world, nowhere with his senses will he find anything that would give him the powers of mental conception and of remembrance.
[ 2 ] In the act of mental conception, the consciousness of self arises. Self-consciousness—as indicated in the preceding letters—is a possession that Man has acquired by the powers of the earth-world. But these are earthly powers of a kind that remain hid from the observation of the senses. What Man thinks in earthly life is, it is true, only what comes to him by means of his senses; but the power to think it does not come to him from any of the things that he thus thinks.
[ 3 ] Where then is to be found this power, which, out of the realm of earth, forms mental conception (thinking) and the images of memory?
[ 4 ] One finds it if the spirit's eye be directed towards that which Man brings with him from his previous earth-lives. Ordinary consciousness knows nothing of this; it lives, of itself, unconscious in Man. But it shows itself at once, when Man sets foot on earth after the spiritual state of existence, to be related to those earthly forces which do not come within the sphere of sense-observation and sense-thinking.
[ 5 ] It is not with his mental conceiving—this Thinking—that Man is in this sphere, but with his Willing, which works itself out along the lines of his destiny,
[ 6 ] In view of the fact that the Earth contains forces which lie outside the sphere of the senses, we may speak of the ‘spiritual earth,’ as opposite pole to the ‘physical earth.’ The conclusion then is, that Man as a willing being lives in and with the ‘spiritual earth;’ but that as a mentally conceiving or thinking being, although he is in the midst of the physical earth, he does not live with it.
[ 7 ] Man as a thinking being carries over forces from the spiritual world into the physical. But with these forces he remains a spirit-being, that only appears in the physical world but enters into no community with it.
[ 8 ] The only community entered into by mentally conceiving—thinking—Man, in the course of his earthly existence, is with the ‘spiritual earth.’ And it is in this community with the ‘spiritual earth’ from which his individual self-consciousness grows. The origin of self-consciousness is due to spiritual processes which Man undergoes in earthly life.
[ 9 ] Comprehending in spiritual vision all that is here described we have before us the human I, spiritually seen.
[ 10 ] With the experiences of Memory we come into the region of the human astral body. In Remembering, it is not merely—as in the act of mental conception or Thinking—the results of previous earth-lives that send their stream into the I of the present moment; it is the active forces of the spirit-world to which Man was subjected between death and new birth, which now stream into his inner life. These forces stream into the astral body.
[ 11 ] Here again, there is in the physical earth no direct field for the reception of this stream of forces. Man, as a Remembering being, can as little unite himself in remembrance with the things and processes perceived by his senses, as he can unite himself with them as a Thinking being in the act of forming mental conceptions.
[ 12 ] He enters however, as a Remembering being, into community with something which, though not physical, translates the physical into processes, into proceedings—namely with the Rhythmic processes in Nature and in human life. In Nature, there is a rhythmic alternation of day and night, a rhythmic succession of seasons, and so on. In Man, the breathing and the circulation of the blood proceed rhythmically; so too the alternation of sleep and waking, and so on.
[ 13 ] Rhythmic processes are nothing physical, whether in Nature or in Man; they might be called semi-spiritual. The physical as a ‘thing’ disappears in the rhythmic process. In his Remembering, Man with his inner being is translated into the Rhythm which is both his and Nature's. He is then living in his astral body.
[ 14 ] The aim of the Indian ‘Yoga’ is to enter completely into the life of Rhythm. It is an endeavour to get away from the field of mental conception—of Man's I—and in a process of living inner experience, similar to the process of Remembrance, to see into the world which lies behind what can be known to the ordinary consciousness.
[ 15 ] The spiritual life of the West must not pursue knowledge by suppressing the I; rather, it must educate the I to the perception of the Spiritual.
[ 16 ] This can not be done if one pursues a way from the sensible into the rhythmic world, where all that one realizes in the rhythm is the passing-over of the physical into a semi-spiritual. The better alternative is to seek that sphere of the Spirit-world which manifests itself in the rhythm.
[ 17 ] Two ways are therefore possible: First, the experiencing of the Physical in the Rhythmic realm where the Physical passes into the Semi-Spiritual. This is an older road, no longer to be taken to-day. Secondly, the experiencing of that spiritual world, of which the world-rhythm, both in and outside of Man, is the special sphere, even as the special sphere of Man is the earth-world with its physical beings and physical events.
[ 18 ] Now this is the spirit-world to which belongs all that is being done, in the present cosmic moment, by Michael. A spirit such as Michael, by taking up his habitation in the rhythmic world, brings what otherwise would life in Lucifer's domain into the field of purely human evolution, over which Lucifer has no influence.
[ 19 ] This all becomes plainly visible when Man enters into Imagination. For the soul, in her Imaginings, lives in rhythm; and Michael's world is the world that manifests itself in rhythm.
[ 20 ] With Remembrance, Memory, we are already in this same world, but not very deep. The ordinary consciousness knows nothing of its life. But when we enter Imagination, then, out of the rhythmic world there rises up, first, the world of subjective memories; this, however, passes over at once into the world of Ideal forms, whose life is in the Ether—the Archetypes created by the divine spiritual world for the physical. We experience the Ether, lighting up in cosmic pictures, bearing within it the creative process of the World. And the forces of the Sun, weaving in this Ether: here they not only radiate; out of the light they conjure forth the cosmic Archetypes. The sun is now revealed as the World-painter, the cosmic artist. The Sun is the cosmic counterpart of those impulses which in Man paint the pictures of mental conception, of Thought.
Leading Thoughts
[ 21 ] Man as a Thinking being lives within the spheres of the Physical Earth; but he enters into no community with this physical Earth. His life is that of a being of mind and spirit, open to the impressions of the physical world; but the forces for his Thought come to him from the Spiritual Earth, by the same route as that which leads him, as the result of previous earth-lives, to the realization of his destiny in life.
[ 22 ] What lies in the life of Remembrance, of Memory, is already in that world where in Rhythm and Physical becomes Half-Spiritual, and where such spiritual events take place as are being enacted at the present cosmic moment by Michael.
[ 23 ] For anyone who has learnt rightly to know Thinking and Remembrance, it becomes understandable how Man as an Earth-Being lives within the sphere of Earth, yet never becomes wholly immersed in this Earth-sphere. As a being from beyond the Earth, Man is seeking—through community with the Spiritual Earth—to attain his own Self-consciousness, and therewith the fulfillment of his I.
Wo ist der Mensch als denkendes und sich erinnerndes Wesen?
(Goetheanum, Januar 1925)
[ 1 ] Mit dem Vorstellen (Denken) und dem Erleben von Erinnerungen befindet sich der Mensch innerhalb der physischen Welt. Aber, wo immer er den Blick in dieser physischen Welt hinrichtet: mit seinen Sinnen wird er nirgends etwas finden, das ihm die Kräfte zum Vorstellen und Erinnern geben könnte.
[ 2 ] Im Vorstellen erscheint das Selbstbewußtsein. Dieses ist — im Sinne der vorangehenden Betrachtungen — ein Erwerb, den der Mensch von den Kräften des Irdischen hat. Aber diese irdischen Kräfte sind solche, die dem sinnlichen Anschauen verborgen bleiben. Der Mensch denkt zwar im Erdenleben nur das, was ihm seine Sinne vermitteln; aber die Kraft zum Denken gibt ihm nichts von alle dem, was er so denkt.
[ 3 ] Wo findet man diese Kraft, die aus dem Irdischen heraus das Vorstellen (Denken) und die Erinnerungsbilder formt?
[ 4 ] Man findet sie, wenn man den Geistesblick auf das richtet, was sich der Mensch aus den vorigen Erdenleben mitbringt. Das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein kennt dieses nicht. Es lebt im Menschen zunächst unbewußt. Aber es erweist sich, indem der Mensch nach dem geistigen Sein die Erde betritt, sogleich als verwandt mit den irdischen Kräften, die nicht in den Bereich von Sinnesbeobachten und Sinnesdenken fallen.
[ 5 ] Nicht mit dem Vorstellen (Denken) ist der Mensch in diesem Bereich, sondern mit dem Wollen, das sich im Sinne des Schicksals abspielt.
[ 6 ] Man kann in Anbetracht dessen, daß die Erde Kräfte enthält, die außerhalb des Sinnenbereiches fallen, von der «geistigen Erde» als Gegenpol der physischen sprechen. Dann ergibt sich, daß der Mensch als Willenswesen in und mit der «geistigen Erde» lebt, daß er aber als vorstellendes (denkendes) Wesen zwar innerhalb der physischen Erde ist, daß er aber als solches nicht mit ihr lebt.
[ 7 ] Der Mensch als denkendes Wesen trägt aus der Geist-Welt Kräfte in die physische; aber er bleibt mit diesen Kräften Geistwesen, das in der physischen Welt nur erscheint, aber keine Gemeinsamkeit mit ihr eingeht.
[ 8 ] Eine Gemeinsamkeit geht der vorstellende (denkende) Mensch während des Erdendaseins nur mit der «geistigen Erde» ein. Und aus dieser Gemeinsamkeit erwächst ihm sein Selbstbewußtsein. — Dessen Entstehung ist also verdankt solchen Vorgängen, die sich im Erdenleben mit dem Menschen als geistige abspielen.
[ 9 ] Umfaßt man mit der Geistesschau, was da beschrieben ist, so hat man das «menschliche Ich» vor dieser Schau.
[ 10 ] Mit den Erinnerungs-Erlebnissen kommt man in das Gebiet des menschlichen Astralleibes. Im Erinnern strömen nicht bloß wie beim Vorstellen (Denken) die Ergebnisse voriger Erdenleben in das gegenwärtige Ich, sondern es strömen die Kräfte der Geist-Welt, die der Mensch zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt erlebt, in sein Inneres ein. Dieses Einströmen geschieht in den Astralleib.
[ 11 ] Nun gibt es innerhalb der physischen Erde auch für die unmittelbare Aufnahme der so einströmenden Kräfte kein Gebiet. Der Mensch kann als sich erinnerndes Wesen noch ebensowenig mit den Dingen und Vorgängen, die seine Sinne wahrnehmen, sich verbinden, wie er sich als vorstellendes Wesen mit diesen verbinden kann.
[ 12 ] Aber er geht Gemeinsamkeit ein mit dem, was zwar nicht physisch ist, was aber das Physische in Vorgänge, in Geschehnisse umsetzt. Es sind dies die rhythmischen Vorgänge in Natur- und Menschenleben. In der Natur wechseln rhythmisch Tag und Nacht, folgen rhythmisch Jahreszeiten und so weiter. Im Menschen erfolgt das Atmen und die Blutzirkulation im Rhythmus. Es geht so der Wechsel von Schlafen und Wachen vor sich und so weiter.
[ 13 ] Rhythmische Vorgänge sind weder in der Natur, noch im Menschen etwas Physisches. Man könnte sie halbgeistig nennen. Das Physische als Ding verschwindet im rhythmischen Vorgang. Im Erinnern ist der Mensch mit seinem Wesen in seinen und in den Naturrhythmus versetzt. Er lebt in seinem Astralleib.
[ 14 ] Indischer Yoga will ganz in dem Erleben des Rhythmus aufgehen. Er will das Gebiet des Vorstellens, des Ich verlassen und in einem inneren Erleben, das dem Erinnern ähnlich ist, in die Welt schauen, die hinter dem liegt, was das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein kennen kann.
[ 15 ] Das westliche Geistesleben darf zum Erkennen das Ich nicht unterdrücken. Es muß das Ich an die Wahrnehmung des Geistigen heranbringen.
[ 16 ] Es kann das nicht geschehen, wenn man von der sinnenfälligen in die rhythmische Welt so vordringt, daß man im Rhythmus nur das Halbgeistig-Werden des Physischen erlebt. Man muß vielmehr die Sphäre der Geistwelt finden, die im Rhythmus sich offenbart.
[ 17 ] Zweierlei ist also möglich. Erstens: Erleben des Physischen im Rhythmischen, wie dieses Physische halbgeistig wird. Es ist dies ein älterer, heute nicht mehr zu betretender Weg. Zweitens: Erleben der Geist-Welt, die den Weltenrhythmus in und außerhalb des Menschen so zu ihrer Sphäre hat, wie der Mensch die Erdenwelt mit ihren physischen Wesen und Vorgängen.
[ 18 ] Zu dieser Geist-Welt nun gehört alles, was im gegenwärtigen kosmischen Augenblicke durch Michael geschieht. Ein Geist wie Michael bringt dasjenige, was sonst im luziferischen Gebiet liegen würde, dadurch in das der rein menschlichen Entwickelung — die von Luzifer nicht beeinflußt ist -, daß er die rhythmische Welt zu seinem Wohnplatz erwählt.
[ 19 ] Angeschaut kann das alles werden, indem der Mensch in die Imagination eintritt. Denn die Seele lebt mit der Imagination im Rhythmus; und Michaels Welt ist diejenige, die im Rhythmus sich offenbart.
[ 20 ] Erinnerung, Gedächtnis steht schon in dieser Welt darinnen, aber noch nicht tief. Das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein erlebt davon nichts. Tritt man aber in die Imagination ein, dann taucht aus der Rhythmus-Welt zunächst die Welt der subjektiven Erinnerungen auf; diese geht aber sogleich über in die im Ätherischen lebenden von der göttlich-geistigen Welt geschaffenen Urbilder für die physische Welt. Den in kosmischen Bildern aufleuchtenden, das Weltenschaffen in sich bergenden Äther erlebt man. Und die in diesem Äther webenden Sonnenkräfte: die sind da nicht bloß strahlend, die zaubern Welten-Urbilder aus dem Lichte heraus. Die Sonne erscheint als der kosmische Weltenmaler. Sie ist das kosmische Gegenbild der Impulse, die im Menschen die Vorstellungs- (Denk-) Bilder malen.
Goetheanum, Januar 1925.
Leitsätze Nr. 165 bis 167
(1. März 1925)
Mit Bezug auf die vorangehende Betrachtung: Wo ist der Mensch als denkendes und sich erinnerndes Wesen?
[ 21 ] 165. Der Mensch lebt zwar als denkendes Wesen in dem Bereich der physischen Erde; aber er geht mit dieser keine Gemeinsamkeit ein. Er lebt als Geist-Wesen so, daß er das Physische wahrnimmt; die Kräfte zum Denken empfängt er aber von der «geistigen Erde» auf demselben Wege, auf dem er das Schicksal im Ergebnis voriger Erdenleben erlebt.
[ 22 ] 166. Was in der Erinnerung (im Gedächtnisse) erlebt wird, das ist schon in der Welt, wo im Rhythmus das Physische halbgeistig wird und wo solche Geist-Vorgänge sich abspielen, wie diejenigen sind, die im gegenwärtigen kosmischen Augenblicke durch Michael geschehen.
[ 23 ] 167. Wer Denken und Erinnerung richtig kennen lernt, dem geht das Verständnis dafür auf, wie der Mensch als Erdenwesen zugleich innerhalb des Erdgebietes lebt, aber doch nicht völlig in dieses Gebiet mit seinem Wesen eintaucht, sondern als außerirdisches Wesen durch die Gemeinsamkeit mit der «geistigen Erde» sein Selbstbewußtsein, als die Vollendung des Ich sucht.
Where is man as a thinking and remembering being?
(Goetheanum, January 1925)
[ 1 ] With imagination (thinking) and the experience of memories, man is within the physical world. But wherever he directs his gaze in this physical world, he will not find anything with his senses that could give him the power to imagine and remember.
[ 2 ] Self-consciousness appears in the imagination. This is - in the sense of the preceding considerations - an acquisition that man has of the powers of the earthly. But these earthly powers are those that remain hidden from sensory perception. In earthly life, man thinks only what his senses convey to him; but the power to think gives him nothing of all that he thinks in this way.
[ 3 ] Where does one find this power that forms the imagination (thinking) and the memory images out of the earthly?
[ 4 ] It is found when one directs the spiritual gaze to that which the human being brings with him from previous earthly lives. Ordinary consciousness does not know this. It lives in man unconsciously at first. But when the human being enters the earth after spiritual existence, it immediately proves to be related to the earthly forces that do not fall within the realm of sense observation and sense thinking.
[ 5 ] It is not with imagination (thinking) that man is in this realm, but with volition, which takes place in the sense of destiny.
[ 6 ] In view of the fact that the earth contains forces that fall outside the realm of the senses, we can speak of the "spiritual earth" as the antipole of the physical. Then it follows that man as a being of will lives in and with the "spiritual earth", but that as an imagining (thinking) being he is indeed within the physical earth, but that as such he does not live with it.
[ 7 ] Man as a thinking being carries powers from the spirit world into the physical; but he remains with these powers spirit being, which only appears in the physical world, but does not enter into commonality with it.
[ 8 ] The imagining (thinking) human being only enters into a commonality with the "spiritual earth" during his earthly existence. And from this commonality arises his self-consciousness. - Its emergence is therefore due to such processes that take place in earthly life with man as spiritual ones.
[ 9 ] If one grasps what is described there with the spiritual vision, then one has the "human ego" before this vision.
[ 10 ] With the memory experiences one enters the realm of the human astral body. In remembering, not only do the results of previous earthly lives flow into the present ego as in imagining (thinking), but the forces of the spirit world, which the human being experiences between death and new birth, flow into his inner being. This influx occurs in the astral body.
[ 11 ] Now there is also no area within the physical earth for the direct absorption of the forces flowing in in this way. As a remembering being, man cannot yet connect with the things and processes that his senses perceive, just as little as he can connect with them as an imagining being.
[ 12 ] But it enters into common ground with that which is not physical, but which transforms the physical into processes, into events. These are the rhythmic processes in natural and human life. In nature, day and night alternate rhythmically, seasons follow rhythmically and so on. In humans, breathing and blood circulation take place in rhythm. This is how the alternation of sleeping and waking takes place and so on.
[ 13 ] Rhythmic processes are not something physical, neither in nature nor in humans. You could call them semi-spiritual. The physical as a thing disappears in the rhythmic process. In remembering, man with his being is placed in his and in the rhythm of nature. He lives in his astral body.
[ 14 ] Indian yoga wants to be completely absorbed in the experience of rhythm. It wants to leave the realm of imagination, of the ego, and in an inner experience that is similar to remembering, look into the world that lies beyond what the ordinary consciousness can know.
[ 15 ] The Western spiritual life must not suppress the ego in order to recognize. It must bring the ego closer to the perception of the spiritual.
[ 16 ] This cannot happen if one penetrates from the sensual into the rhythmic world in such a way that one experiences in rhythm only the half-spiritual becoming of the physical. Rather, one must find the sphere of the spiritual world that reveals itself in rhythm.
[ 17 ] Two things are therefore possible. First: experiencing the physical in the rhythmic, how this physical becomes semi-spiritual. This is an older path that can no longer be followed today. Secondly, experiencing the spirit world, which has the world rhythm within and outside of man as its sphere, just as man has the earth world with its physical beings and processes.
[ 18 ] Now everything that happens in the present cosmic moment through Michael belongs to this spirit world. A spirit like Michael brings that which would otherwise lie in the Luciferic realm into that of purely human development - which is not influenced by Lucifer - by choosing the rhythmic world as his dwelling place.
[ 19 ] All this can be seen by the human being entering into the imagination. For the soul lives with the imagination in rhythm; and Michael's world is the one that reveals itself in rhythm.
[ 20 ] Recollection, memory is already present in this world, but not yet deep. Ordinary consciousness experiences nothing of it. But if one enters the imagination, then the world of subjective memories first emerges from the world of rhythm; but this immediately passes over into the archetypes for the physical world created by the divine-spiritual world living in the etheric. We experience the ether that lights up in cosmic images and contains the creation of the world within itself. And the solar forces weaving in this ether: they are not merely radiant, they conjure up world archetypes out of the light. The sun appears as the cosmic world painter. It is the cosmic counter-image of the impulses that paint the images of imagination (thought) in man.
Goetheanum, January 1925.
Guiding principles no. 165 to 167
(March 1, 1925)
With reference to the previous consideration: Where is man as a thinking and remembering being?
[ 21 ] 165 Although man lives as a thinking being in the realm of the physical earth, he has nothing in common with it. He lives as a spiritual being in such a way that he perceives the physical; but he receives the powers to think from the "spiritual earth" in the same way in which he experiences fate as a result of previous earthly lives.
[ 22 ] 166. What is experienced in memory is already in the world, where in rhythm the physical becomes semi-spiritual and where such spirit processes take place as those which happen in the present cosmic moment through Michael.
[ 23 ] 167 Whoever learns to know thinking and memory correctly will understand how man as an earth being lives within the earth realm at the same time, but does not completely immerse himself in this realm with his being, but as an extraterrestrial being seeks his self-consciousness as the perfection of the I through the commonality with the "spiritual earth".