Good and Evil Spirits E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

'We learn gradually to raise our eyes not only to material existence; instead we discover spiritual entities and their actions wherever we look in the universe... We get to know the deeds of these spirits. We are alive and active and we are within the spiritual entities and their activities.' – Rudolf Steiner. >This classic series of lectures presents systematic knowledge on many different spiritual entities, ranging from the higher hierarchies of angels down to hindering demons. Basing his presentation on spiritual-scientific research, Rudolf Steiner intends to awaken us to the existence of these beings and how they interact with all aspects of our lives. Steiner describes how animals, plants and minerals have group souls – with even an inert stone having a spiritual counterpart in the invisible world. The various planets in the cosmos are connected to great spiritual beings and hierarchies too, as is the zodiac, which is not a static band of fixed stars but is also evolving. Steiner gives a remarkable picture of how Christ relates to the zodiacal constellations and to our own higher aspects. Spiritual entities are associated with the evolution of earth and the previous stages of its existence – and here Steiner elaborates relevant chapters of his book Occult Science, An Outline, explaining how our task on earth is ultimately to develop love rather than wisdom (which was the goal of earth's previous stage). From cosmic considerations, Steiner leads to the spirits of the kingdoms of nature – the elemental beings, with their four classes connecting to the four elements – gnomes, undines, sylphs and salamanders, or earth, water, air and fire spirits. He describes how elemental beings are created by human activities – with coercion of the views of others leading to 'demons', lying leading to 'phantoms', and bad social systems to 'spectres'. Spirits are also created in the association of humans and animals, whilst other spiritual entities connect us with the arts. Steiner emphasises the importance of developing and appreciating the arts – such as music, sculpture, architecture, painting and poetry – for the sake of humanity's future evolution.

Leseprobe

GOOD AND EVIL SPIRITSAND THEIR INFLUENCE ON HUMANITY

GOOD AND EVIL SPIRITSAND THEIR INFLUENCE ON HUMANITY

Thirteen lectures held in Berlin between 6 January and 11 June 1908

ENGLISH BY A.R. MEUSS INTRODUCTION BY MARGARET JONAS

RUDOLF STEINER

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS CW 102

The publishers gratefully acknowledge the generous funding of this publication by the estate of Dr Eva Frommer MD (1927–2004) and the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2014

Originally published in German under the title Das Hereinwirken geistiger Wesenheiten in den Menschen (volume 102 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. Edited by R. Friedenthal, H. Knobel and F. Weidmann. Drawings in the text by Hedwig Frey are based on sketches in the shorthand records. This authorised translation is based on the 4th edition of 2001, which was reviewed by A. M. Balastèr and U. Trapp

Published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

© Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach 2001

This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

The right of Anna R. Meuss to be identified as the author of this translation has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 444 5

Cover by Mary Giddens Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

CONTENTS

Editor's Preface

Translator's Notes

Introduction by Margaret Jonas

LECTURE 1

BERLIN, 6 JANUARY 1908

How spiritual entities influence our existence. Spirits of the astral plane and Devachan. The group souls of animals, plants and minerals. Good-natured and ill-natured Moon, Mars and Venus spirits. Inventive and wild Saturn spirits. Different ways in which these elemental spirits act on the earth and on human beings. Chyle, lymph and blood as the bodies of spirits from other planets. Influence of Saturn spirits through sense organs (odours, scents). Opposition of lung and liver. The Prometheus legend.

LECTURE 2

BERLIN, 27 JANUARY 1908

Planetary existence, Sun existence and zodiacal existence as stages in cosmic evolution. ‘Time’ and ‘eternality’. Saturn as dawn of our planetary state. Its origin as ‘sacrifice’ made by the zodiac. Ascending and descending powers of the zodiac. The seven aspects of the human being and of higher spirits. Man is receptive, sublime spirits are creative. The significance of the constellation Scales for evolution of the human I. The Christ as the ‘Mystic Lamb’ and humanity. Their relationship in the zodiac.

LECTURE 3

BERLIN, 15 FEBRUARY 1908

The theory of Kant and Laplace and theosophy. The earlier embodiments of Earth as the deeds of spiritual entities. Additional spirits and those remaining behind. Origin of the animal world. Separation of the Sun and of the planets Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter as dwelling places of spiritual entities. Mars passage and iron. Separation of the Moon, its connection with the Sun spirit Jehovah. Venus and Mercury spirits as teachers of humanity. Influence of Mars in sentient soul, Mercury in rational soul and Jupiter in spiritual soul.

LECTURE 4

BERLIN, 29 FEBRUARY 1908

Heat on ancient Saturn. The spirits of form creating the first beginnings of the human physical body on Saturn. Myth of Chronos and Gaea/Gaia. The spirits of form sacrificed the ether body on Sun, the astral body on Moon, thus bringing about the first beginnings of the human ether and astral bodies. On Earth, the I was instilled in Lemurian times. In the course of Atlantean times the I took hold of human astral body, ether body and physical body. Development of sentient, rational and spiritual soul, Spirit Self and Life Spirit. The Mystery of Golgotha.

LECTURE 5

BERLIN, 16 MARCH 1908

World evolution through Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth. Recapitulation of earlier stages when Earth evolution began. The human being as the first-born before animal, plant and mineral. The Earth as warmth organism. Cyclopean warmth organ. Origin of light and air. System of air and neural substance. Water given form by sound in accord with music of the spheres. Protein created by ‘substances dancing’. About the cell. Senses opening up when the Sun had separated off. Living and mineral heat. Incorporation of solid matter (ash) in the organism through thought, through the word which was there at the beginning.

LECTURE 6

BERLIN, 24 MARCH 1908

Reversal of time for recapitulation of developmental stages. Different systems (blood, nervous, glandular and sense organ) change form in the course of evolution. Awareness of individual nature on Earth compared to that on the old Moon. Echoes of the latter in old Germanic world (blood feud) and Judaic world (blood group soul, memory extending through generations). Group soul conscious awareness on old Moon. The Moon as planet of wisdom, Earth as planet of love. The future planet Jupiter. Opposite nature of spirits of wisdom and spirits of love. Their collaboration in creating ‘individual nature’ and ‘personal nature’ as human beings go through their incarnations. Advance of the spirits of wisdom to spirits of the orbital periods. The Christ as the Sun spirit, the ‘Mystic Lamb’, as ‘Earth's great sacrifice’. The human body between the spirits of wisdom and Jehovah, the lord of form, in balance through the Christ spirit. The human body ennobled and spiritualized in the ‘resurrection of the body’. Freedom coming in through the spirits that remained behind. Community in the spirit as faith on Jupiter and the meaning of Christianity. Description of post-Atlantean periods of civilization. The ground and origin of our world in the Old and New Testaments. Christianity as religion for all humanity.

LECTURE 7

BERLIN, 13 APRIL 1908

Ulfilas’ Silver Bible. Siegfried and the Christ spirit. Richard Wagner's Parsifal. Conscious awareness today and in Atlantean times. The nature of the ancient myths and legends. Difference in connection between ether body and physical body between Atlantean and modern times. Initiation in the ancient mysteries. The nature of religion. Renewed loosening of the ether body and the consequences of this for modern man. About a book on psychology (by Ebbinghaus). The Christ as example for regaining the old kind of memories in prehistoric times and for all prophesy in the future. Synthesis of Christmas and Easter. Nervousness as consequence of having no awareness of the spiritual world. The Christ idea for the future.

LECTURE 8

BERLIN, 20 APRIL 1908

Spiritual hierarchies of a higher order than man. The nature of angels. Their mission as guardian spirit for individual human beings in repeated lives on earth. The nature of archangels. Their role as spirits of nations and other functions. The Archai as spirits of the ages and their role in post-Atlantean ages and in individual human beings. Giordano Bruno. Satan, the unlawful, and Jehovah, the rightful prince of this world. About the Exusiai, the Powers or Authorities. The Christ as director of all humanity; every human being must find his own way to him.

LECTURE 9

BERLIN, 13 MAY 1908

Direct experience of the supersensible world (Atlantis) and memory-based religion (post-Atlantean). Myths and legends. The origin of yoga. Ancestor worship and the religious systems based on this. Vedanta philosophy, system of the Hebrews, the Egyptians. The religious system of the Greeks. Greek architecture. Gothic and Romanesque styles. Christianity. The figure of Christ Jesus. Modern science with focus on externals. The connection between ether body and physical body in earlier times, at present and in the future. About spiritual death. Christianity is greater than all religions.

LECTURE 10

BERLIN, 16 MAY 1908

Theosophical insights connected with feeling. Essential nature of higher spirits, human beings, animals and elemental spirits. About gnomes. Differentiation of elemental spirits into gnomes, undines, sylphs and salamanders. The Ahasver myth. The 16 roads to perdition. On the nature of the animal group soul. Nature and origin of elementals, especially salamanders. The nature of apes. Signs of decadence today and the health-giving nature of theosophy.

LECTURE 11

BERLIN, 1 JUNE 1908

About animal group souls. The origins of elemental spirits. Bee and sylph. Modern science and elemental spirits. Theories on all-being and all-ensoulment. The nature of group souls. Human evolution from group soul to individual nature. Conscious awareness in the state of ancient clairvoyance and in patriarchal times. Distinction between Jewish and Christian conscious awareness. Academic view of history a ‘convenient tale’. Individualization process in medieval times (founding of cities). General acceptance of mathematical truths. Racial relationships of earlier times and future group soul qualities. Elemental spirits (undines, sylphs). Elemental spirits between rider and horse, herder and herd. Distinction between gods and human beings. On the nature of symbolism.

LECTURE 12

BERLIN, 4 JUNE 1908

Elemental spirits. The I souls of animals, plant, mineral on different planes. The human being in sleep. The four systems of the physical body—sense organs, glands, nerves, blood. Difference between ‘physical’ and ‘mineral’. I and astral body separating from ether body and physical body in sleep. Higher spirits penetrating physical body and ether body. Parts of entities tied off due to lies (phantoms), bad social systems (spectres), imposed attitudes (demons). Loosening of the ether body and being filled with spiritual, that is, religious and artistic ideas. Richard Wagner. Words of a well-known architect (H. v. Ferstel). Pentecost.

LECTURE 13

BERLIN, 11 JUNE 1908

Human beings relating to spiritual entities in art. Buildings connecting us with the ether bodies (Greek temple), music with the astral bodies of higher spirits. The harmonizing and restoration of human powers in sleep. The spiritual powers in space. Boecklin and his Pietà. The Greek temple, Egyptian, Romanesque architecture, the Gothic cathedral. Sculpture as the art of the ether body, painting the art of the sentient soul, music of the rational soul, poetry of the spiritual soul. Example from Goethe's Faust. Richard Wagner on music. His attempt to bring together Shakespeare and Beethoven. Ninth Symphony. The significance of art for future theosophical life. Art in the design of profane buildings such as railway stations. The catacombs. Christians an example for the spiritual striving in our time.

Page from Rudolf Steiner's notebook for the lecture given on 16 May 1908 (facsimile)

Notes

Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works

Significant Events in the Life of Rudolf Steiner

EDITOR'S PREFACE

The lectures in this volume were given by Rudolf Steiner in the Besant Branch of the Theosophical Society in Berlin during the first six months of 1908. They were part of ongoing work on the basics of spiritual science with anthroposophical orientation, and continued the lectures given in October and November 1907 (German collected works GA 101, not translated into English). This means that the audience had been familiar with anthroposophy for some time. Rudolf Steiner also gave lectures on the subject of this volume in various other cities at that time, published in the German collected works GA 98 (again, not presently translated).

Following directions given by Rudolf Steiner, the term ‘theosophy’ was in earlier editions replaced with the terms ‘spiritual science’ or ‘anthroposophy’, as appropriate. Rudolf Steiner wanted to avoid confusion with the Theosophical Society, the Anthroposophical Society having separated from it in a serious conflict in 1912. These changes have also been applied in the present edition. (See also Translator's Notes, on following page.)

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

Origins of the text

Translation serves to build bridges of various kinds, one of which is between the origins and the destination of a text. All but one of the lectures in this volume were taken down and written up by Walter Vegelahn (1880–1950). It is important for the way one handles a translation to know how reliable the sources are. My researches yielded the following information.

Walter Vegelahn was born in Berlin. His father was a coachman to the crown prince, his mother a seamstress. Trained against his will as a bank clerk he used all his spare time to educate himself further, also at the worker's college where Rudolf Steiner taught. He loved the theatre. Joined the Giordano Bruno Association. When the bank he was working at ceased to trade in 1902 Vegelahn became an actor. He joined the Theosophical Society the same year, mainly because he was interested in Rudolf Steiner himself and above all the public lectures. Having learned stenography as part of his commercial training he started to take shorthand notes of lectures and then wrote them out so that they would be available to members. He had a remarkably good memory which gave those papers the quality of almost word-by-word records. In 1908 Rudolf Steiner and Marie von Sivers appointed official stenographers and he was one of them. Constant practice meant that he was by then able to take down lectures in full. He died of a stroke in 1959. [Based on information provided by Ulla Trapp-Geromont in Anthroposophie im 20.Jahrhundert, Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach 2003]

Acknowledgement

On the other side of this particular ‘bridge’, where the focus is on the destination of the texts, I am much indebted to Peter Heathfield who has patiently checked my translation for typing or other errors that had eluded my own checks.

Theosophy or anthroposophy?

One thing which has puzzled me is the statement made in the ‘Editor's Preface’ [from the original German edition]:

Following directions given by Rudolf Steiner, the term ‘theosophy’ was in earlier editions replaced with the terms ‘spiritual science’ or ‘anthroposophy’, as appropriate.

The terms ‘theosophy’, ‘theosophist’ and ‘Theosophical Society’ are nevertheless quite widely used in the text, and I have followed the original exactly. Perhaps we may take it as an indication of the state of flux which existed at the time. It must have been very difficult for the people involved in those days. Flux, or even uncertainty, does have the positive aspect of challenging us to give more serious consideration to an issue and to use our own judgement.

Anna R. Meuss

Stroud, October 2013

INTRODUCTION

There are parts of the world, perhaps surprisingly Iceland and Ireland in the West, where the presence of invisible beings in the landscape is still taken seriously, and the destruction of certain natural features is sometimes avoided, even by local councils when building work is carried out. However, by 1908, when these lectures were given, the existence of such entities would have been treated dismissively by most educated people—although not by folk in more remote rural areas, who had long believed in gnomes, fairies, elves, pixies, trolls and so on, and even miners, who might still be paying some attention to the tradition of strange beings under the earth (which they called ‘kobolds’ on the Continent or ‘knockers’ in Cornwall).

Within the Theosophical Society, in which Rudolf Steiner was still lecturing at the time, there would have been acceptance and discussion of the likelihood of invisible entities, and interest in spiritualistic phenomena was generally rife at this period, with the practice of holding seances in which souls of the dead were said to manifest. This mixture of naive belief and enthusiasm for ‘proof’—especially photographic—of the normally invisible realm on the one hand, and the ever-growing grip of scientific materialism and refutation of a ‘spiritual’ world on the other, was the background to these lectures in Berlin. They were originally published as The Influence of Spiritual Beings upon Man, and this new translation contains two additional lectures.

The course contains the idea that there are in fact many different kinds of spiritual entity, ranging from the higher hierarchies of angels down to hindering demons. The notion of animals, plants and minerals having group souls is introduced—even the inert stone having a spiritual counterpart in the invisible world. Different beings are connected with the planets. How some of them have come into existence, and the planets’ influence for good or ill, especially on the human organs, is discussed. Some remarks here will surprise people familiar with traditional astrology. The planetary beings and their connections with those higher beings referred to as the spiritual hierarchies are introduced in connection with the evolution of earth, and the previous stages of its existence are discussed in considerable detail, elaborating the relevant chapters in An Outline of Occult Science. We come to learn that the present earth is a planet on which love must be developed, rather than wisdom, which was the task during its previous incarnation as ‘Moon’. Steiner's examples from mythology and the nature of the pagan gods, which were how the people at those times understood some of these beings, are further aids to our understanding.

Spiritual beings belong to the zodiac also, and we are told that it is not a static band of fixed stars, but is still evolving in that certain constellations must develop ‘through the power of the developing human being’. Here, Rudolf Steiner gives us a remarkable picture of how the Christ relates to the zodiacal constellations and to our own higher aspects. This unusual picture, of ‘ascending and descending constellations’, is not treated elsewhere to my knowledge.

From these cosmic considerations Steiner leads on to the actual spirits of the kingdoms of nature—the elemental beings—and we learn about the four classes in connection with the four elements: gnomes, undines, sylphs and salamanders or earth, water, air and fire spirits. (In later lectures, notably Harmony of the Creative Word, Steiner would develop these insights in much greater detail.) But there are not only nature spirits. Elementals are created by human activities—lying leads to ‘phantoms’, bad social systems to ‘spectres’, and coercion of the views of others to ‘demons’. People engaged in magical practices have long known of them, folk tales of malicious spirits are not without foundation, and we have a possible clue to certain ghostly and poltergeist phenomena. Much later in 1924, in Torquay, Steiner would elaborate on how these sorts of beings come about and manifest (in the lectures published as True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigation).

Spirits are also formed in the association of humans and their animals—not just when keeping pets, but in a working relationship. And other spiritual entities connect us with the arts. Music, sculpture, architecture, painting and poetry all involve us with certain kinds of beings (who may not be harmonious if the art form in question is disharmonious). Whether we pursue the arts as creators or art lovers, we are interacting with these entities. Our different ‘bodies’ and higher sheaths also connect with the arts in a certain way. Here, Rudolf Steiner begins to discuss the importance of developing and appreciating the arts for the future of humanity, a theme which he would unfold in greater detail, not only in later lectures but in actual creative activity as he gave indications to interested artists.

The mention of Richard Wagner may cause some concern today. It should be remembered that Steiner was speaking about Wagner's music, which he saw as carrying a true spiritual inspiration, and not about any opinions which Wagner may have held—which were also the regrettable opinions of many contemporaries. The ‘bad’ elemental beings connecting to such distorted views evidently could not interfere with the spiritual power of his music.

Rudolf Steiner's intention was to awaken his hearers to the existence of these beings and to how they interact with all aspects of our lives. His own remarkable clairvoyant faculties enabled him to carry out the necessary research. Without developing clairvoyance ourselves, we cannot see these beings, except perhaps in rare moments when we are experiencing shock or illness. However, by learning about a framework of their activities to build upon, we can allow our imaginative capacity to come to life as we think through what is relayed to us. In more recent times, accounts of conversations have been published between people—perhaps with newly developed faculties—and some of these beings. It is all too easy to scoff that such individuals are ‘away with the fairies’. We have a better chance today of realizing some of these possibilities, as our understanding of the ‘etheric’ and ‘energy fields’ is also a growing area of enquiry. The first conditions for training our faculties to become aware of another world are open-mindedness, a calm acceptance and reverence towards such possibilities. Rudolf Steiner hoped that spiritual insight could then truly become spiritual research.

Margaret Jonas, May 2014

LECTURE 1

BERLIN, 6 JANUARY 1908

TODAY we’ll need to discuss some facts and entities in higher worlds and how these relate to human beings, doing so from the spiritual-scientific point of view. From the beginning it will be necessary, though it may seem that there's no need for this in a theosophical branch meeting such as this, to say that the lecture will be one that is given for theosophists who are considered to have reached an advanced stage. There has to be occasion also for such things in a theosophical branch meeting. Anyone who has perhaps only been attending these Monday lectures for a relatively short time may still feel taken aback by some of the things discussed today; but we would not be able to progress if we were not also prepared to talk about things at the higher level of theosophy. Anyone who may be completely new to it all and is perhaps still waiting to be convinced of the spiritual-scientific truths may feel that some of the things said today are a kind of utter lunacy; but such areas must also be considered on occasion.

The lectures given here most recently1 have shown that when we clairvoyantly ascend to the higher worlds from the physical plane we meet spirits there which do not belong to our physical world, yet as spirits of the higher worlds they are so complete in themselves that we can refer to them as persons, for those worlds, just as we refer to human beings here on the physical plane as persons. You have seen that in the animal world whole groups that are the same or similar belong together in a group soul or a group I, and that we meet the lion soul, the tiger soul and other group Is of animals on the astral plane that are like complete persons there. We may meet them when—to use a commonplace term—we go for a walk on the astral plane, just as here on earth we meet the human individuals of the physical world. In yet higher regions, on the Devachan plane, we find the Is of whole plant groups, and in the highest parts of Devachan we find the Is of minerals as persons complete in themselves, just as human beings are here on the physical plane. We see from this that we meet spirits in these higher worlds that may be said to extend their organs, their individual limbs, down into the physical world. If someone were to show his fingers by pushing them through holes in a curtain or a paper screen, we would only see that person's ten fingers; he himself would be behind the screen. That is how it is with the group Is of animals. Here, with our physical eyes, we see something extended down like limbs by higher spirits on the astral plane, and the actual I is behind the screen that separates the physical from the astral world. And it is correspondingly the same with the other group Is, those of plants or of the mineral world. Moving up to higher worlds from this starting point in the physical world we meet there not only the spirits I have just been mentioning, spirits extending their limbs down to the physical world, but also a whole number of other spirits which we may equally call persons complete in themselves in those worlds. Their physical limbs are, however, not so immediately apparent and demonstrable as those of the group Is of animals, plants and minerals.

The astral plane and the Devachan plane are highly populated worlds. We find there all kinds of spirits the revelations of which are not so evident here, yet their influence, their activities, come to expression here on the physical plane. They do have a great deal to do with the physical plane, with the whole of our human life today. We won’t understand human life unless we know that spirits living in higher worlds up above are active in human life. Much goes on in the human body which is not under human control and does not reflect the human I. It is the doing, action, the revelation of spirits in the higher worlds. These are the things we want to speak of today.

Turning our attention to the astral plane we meet there certain spirits—just one of many kinds—that do not appear to have a reflection, a revelation, among the entities on the physical plane which we are taking note of at first, yet they do have a connection with our physical plane. We meet them there on the astral plane as astral spirits with a distinct will, distinct intentions. Their existence within our own immediate world is such that, as I said, we can find them on the astral plane; but they are related, of the same kind, as spirits that inhabit our present Moon, actually in a kind of physical existence on our present Moon. Someone who is able to come closer to these things through clairvoyance will know that these are spirits which in a way are human-type spirits there, in the Moon arena, except that compared to human beings they are like dwarfs, for they barely reach the height of a child of six or seven. There, on the Moon, they have a singular opportunity to be active. Physical conditions are very different there; the atmosphere is very different, for instance, and the consequence of this is that these spirits when they withdraw to their home world, as it were, gain the ability to roar prodigiously, producing tremendously powerful, terrible sounds. These dwarfish entities are able to be present in our world as astral spirits.

You will have to think of conditions in the higher world as much more complex than one usually does. As soon as we speak of the higher worlds, there is a definite connection between the individual planets, and so there is a connection between Moon and Earth similar to the way you telephone from Berlin to Hamburg, for example, and the spirits living on the Moon are thus able to have an influence on Earth with the help of astral powers. These spirits, we might say, are merely the bad aspects of others which we also find in the astral world—kindly disposed spirits which compared with present-day human nature, even the gentlest, are still much, much more gentle, very gentle also with regard to speech. The speech of those spirits does not have the brittleness of human speech, where we have to give a lot of thought first before expressing ourselves, if we are to put our thoughts and ideas into words. We might say that thoughts flow from the lips of these spirits, not just the expression of thoughts in words but the thoughts themselves are flowing from their lips in gentle speech. These spirits are also to be found in our astral world; their true arena is on yet another planet. Whereas the spirits mentioned first have their home on the Moon, these second ones live on Mars; they inhabit it, and are in fact the main population there, just as certain human races are the main population on our Earth.

If we then ascend further towards the Devachan plane we find spirits which are also gentle and peaceful by nature and in a certain respect are extraordinarily intelligent. Where others are at home on Moon and Mars, those particular spirits found on the Devachan plane have their real home on the planet Venus. On Venus we also find a second kind of spirits who—unlike the gentle, lovely ones—are a wild, raging variety, their main occupation being to wage war against and rob one another.

Then on the higher parts of the Devachan plane we find two kinds of spirits that are most difficult to describe. We can only do so by analogy, saying that they are infinitely inventive, discovering something at every moment in life, for it would be wrong to say that they think it up. This gift of invention they have is as if one were to look at something and at the same moment—even as one looks at them—the idea would come as to how it may be configured differently. The invention is there immediately. These spirits, whose home is on Saturn, are the opposites of others who are like the other side of the coin to them—wild, gruesome, having all the wild, sensual greed and desire that might be found in man, but to a much greater, terrible degree.

These spirits which I’ve just mentioned are in no way unrelated to our life; they do certainly extend their actions, influence and revelations into our life, and for people gifted with clairvoyance their influence makes itself felt particularly when certain conditions pertain on Earth. The spirits that have their home on the Moon, for example, are present on Earth under all kinds of conditions—as astral spirits, of course—for instance when someone is subject to delusions, when there are lunatics somewhere. Such spirits particularly like to be around madhouses as astral spirits. They are also almost always to be found close to mediums and sleepwalkers, some of whom have masses of these spirits whirling around them, and a great many of the influences on these people are due to the presence of such creatures. Where there is love and kindness, however, where people are humanitarian, you will find the gentle, mild Mars spirits as astral creatures, and these spirits are active in the powers developed there. This is their nourishment, the atmosphere in which they can live and from which they in turn influence human beings.

In places where human inventions are made, where engineers are busy in industrial workshops, the atmosphere is right for those inventive Saturn spirits I described. And in places where acts evolve that have something to do with presence of mind, one has spirits from Venus.

You see, therefore, how human beings all the time have elemental spirits, as they are also called, flitting around them. People are truly never alone, for whatever they do or undertake also provides occasion for a number of spirits to unfold. The lesser and greater things people do, their most idealistic and thoughtful actions and their worst actions, provide occasion and cause for creatures to be present that intervene in human powers and are active in them. We have to know them if we truly want to understand life. People who do not see such things for what they are go blindly through life. It is not just theory or a theoretical requirement we have there but it is a matter of all these things needing to be really practical. Only then will people gradually learn in further Earth evolution how to behave and deal with things in the right way when they come to see more and more which creatures are called in by which kind of action or situation. Everything people do is like a call going out to unknown spirits. The Moon spirits may dare to approach not only lunatics or mediums but for instance also young children if these have been so senselessly overfed that greediness develops; the spirits can then approach them and ruin their development. You see, therefore, how necessary it is to know what people call to life in the world around them with the whole way in which they act and behave.

In other ways, too, these spirits are not unconnected with people. They do have a profound relationship to our immediate human build. Only one thing in the human body really belongs to the human being or can belong to him more and more, and that is the blood. Human blood is the direct expression of the human I. But when people fail more and more to see to it that they inwardly strengthen, firm, their I with a strong, robust will, with a strong and robust soul, if the I is lost to them, as it were, other spirits can also anchor in their blood, and that is then very serious and bad for them. On the other hand many other spirits are still anchored in other parts of the human organism today, are contained in it. Let us look and see everything that extends its feelers into this human body, is anchored in the human body. We’ll have to give some thought to this human physical body.

You know that the blood flowing in our veins, spreading through the human body, reflects the human I, and that it comes to give greater and greater expression to the I when the I itself finds its centre, its inner energy core, more and more strongly and robustly in itself. It will gain mastery of other parts, other inclusions in the organism, only in a more distant time in the future. Today these ingredients of the human body hold many other spirits in them. Let us take a closer look at the three levels of juices—chyle, lymph and blood—to help us with our study.

Perhaps you know already what significance these three kinds of juices have for human beings. You know that when people take food it first passes to the stomach through the organs that prepare it, is mixed and prepared with the appropriate juices that are secreted from the glands, so that it can be processed in the intestines. The food is taken to a fluid state, the pulpy fluid taken forward by the intestines. Any part of it that can be nourishment for the human being is taken into the body through small organs called villi, to serve as nourishing juices for the body, building it up anew over and over again. This is one of the kinds of substances we have in the living body. We call it chyle.

And perhaps you also know that apart from this chyle, which comes into existence because food enters into the living human body from outside, there are vessels going wholly in the same direction in the human body which contain a kind of juice which in a way is similar to the white substance in our blood. This juice also flows through the whole human organism in particular vessels, and the vessels often run side by side with the blood vessels we call veins because the blood they contain is bluish red. These vessels actually also take in the chyle. The fluid they contain is lymph. That is a juice which, we might say, is spiritualized compared to the actual food juice, the chyle. These lymph vessels filled with lymph run through the whole human body; they even pass through the bone marrow, in a way, and the fluid in them also takes in the food pulp, the chyle. Everything in the left half of the body and the lower extremities, from the left side of the head, the left side of the trunk to the left hand and both legs, all the lymph spread out and flowing apart there comes together and flows into the left subclavian vein, terminating in the blood circulation there. Only the content of the lymph vessels in the right side of the hand and the trunk comes together and takes the lymph into the subclavian vein on the right side. In this way the lymph vessels reflect an important fact.

You see how this divides the human being into two, not symmetrically but in such a way that one part includes all the lower parts of the body and the left side of the trunk and the head, and the other part consists of the right side of the trunk and the head. This, then, is a second juice which pulses through the human being, a juice which is much closer to the soul sphere than is the case with the chyle, the gastric and intestinal juice of the food pulp, though states of soul do also have a profound influence on the digestion and the whole circulation of the food juice. States of soul are, however, much more deeply connected with the lymph juices. In someone who is very active, lymph flows much more actively than in someone who is indolent and lazy, doing nothing. And so we can mention many states of soul that are connected with the movement of lymph in the human body.

The third juice is the blood, and we have spoken of this on a number of occasions. It divides up into a red, life-giving blood rich in oxygen that flows in the arteries, and a bluish red blood rich in carbon that flows in the veins. Just as our blood is revelation, reflection of our I, so lymph is in a way the reflection, the revelation, of the human astral body. Such things come to expression there in not just one direction. In another way the nervous system is a reflection of the astral body. In the way we want to look at it today, lymph actually reflects, reveals the astral body. Just as someone may have two occupations, so it is with the human astral body. On the one hand it builds up the nervous system, on the other it creates lymph. The human ether body also builds up and develops the whole glandular system, and in another way it is also the developer and regulator of the movement of chyle, the food pulp. This gives you a first picture of these juices moving through the human body and the elements of human nature as such.

Now we must clearly understand that the I is definitely not the only master in the human astral body, the human ether body. In the course of their evolution human beings are progressively gaining mastery of their astral and their ether body by transforming the astral body into Spirit Self or Manas, and transforming the ether body so that the I gains mastery of the Life Spirit or Buddhi. But for as long as man does not have mastery of these parts of himself, other spirits will be connected with these aspects of human nature.

Other spirits are embedded in the human astral body like maggots in cheese (please forgive this unappetizing analogy). Astral spirits are incorporated in the astral body, have something to do with it, which as I told you have their true home on Moon or Mars, depending on whether they are benign or evil by nature. They anchor in the astral body. And the lymph, that whitish juice flowing in human beings, belongs to the body of the spirits that live in our astral world. They are not as tangible as the animal groups, those spirits that we find on the astral plane, though their real home is on the Moon or on Mars. But they are of such a kind of astral nature that in a certain other direction we may say: Just as in the animals, for instance in a pride of lions, we have a kind of revelation of the spirit which we meet as a whole person on the astral plane, as the lion I, so we have—though not as tangibly—the lymph which flows through the human body as the revelation, the extended limbs, of these astral spirits.

Do these astral spirits therefore have a kind of physical existence— you may ask—just like the animal group soul has its manifestation here on the physical plane? The answer to this question would have to be: Yes, they do. In the case of the animals, we saw that the astral group I extends its individual extremities into the individual lions; these astral spirits also extend their physical nature in here. But they cannot extend them into the physical plane from outside in the same way. They need entities on the physical plane in which they live as parasites, taking hold and boring into them. They are parasites on human beings here. If there were no human beings here they would soon depart from this earth, being unable to find dwelling places; they would not like it here. But there are entities—people and higher animals—who have lymph, and it is there, in this lymph, that these spirits come to physical manifestation. It is therefore not just matter that pulses in our bodies but in every circulation of this kind those spirits also move, hordes of them, spirits that rotate through human beings, move through them and have their body in the lymph, whilst actual human beings, governed by an I, initially have their bodies merely in the blood. The lymph is given its character depending on whether it is more Moon spirits of this kind or more Mars spirits of this kind that circulate in the human body. If more Moon spirits circulate in the body, the individual tends to be more wicked, angry, wrathful; if there are more Mars spirits, the individual tends to be gentler, kinder, more lenient. You see, therefore, that not only juices flow in us but also spirits, and we can only understand human nature if we know that human beings have not only juices in them but also spirits.

If you use clairvoyance to study chyle, initially the outward reflection of the human ether body, you find similar spirits anchored and integrated there as well. Initially they are the spirits we have been characterizing earlier as good Venus spirits on the one hand and bad Venus spirits on the other. Their home is on Venus and they are present in our devachanic world. For someone with clairvoyance they are persons there, and their reflection, their manifestation here in physical life comes in the human chyle, strange though this may seem. In the chyle, which is present throughout the human body, we find these spirits whose real home is on the devachanic plane, and—in so far they assume a physical body—on Venus. Venus forces are in a way connected with the whole of vegetation here on earth and everything else that lives on our Earth. You will thus see the connection which exists between human food and what this food makes of human beings. This is anything but irrelevant. The influences of the Venus spirits live in all plants, and of course also in the animals. These are either good, gentle and lenient or the wild Venus spirits described to you, rapacious and fighting one another. Depending on which of them influence our animals or plants, the meat or plants are such that when they turn into chyle they build virtues or vices into human bodies.

You now see from a standpoint that is higher than it has been possible to show you in previous lectures2 how important it is to know human food from a spiritual-scientific point of view, to know the influence under which one plant or another is, and which animal is subject to one influence or another. You can learn from this that someone who knows, for instance, that one or another kind of plant and animal thrive in a country and are under a particular heavenly influence will understand how the particular character of that nation must develop, because in everything people there take in by way of food coming from the surrounding area they eat not only the things known to be contained in the food through chemistry but also certain spirits, and it is these which pass through the mouth into the stomach, spreading out in people's essential nature. Here the prospect opens up for us of seeing how the deeper geographical nature of a country reveals the character of a nation.

Do not forget a remark which you may find in the published lecture on the Lord's Prayer.3 There such a fact was presented from a completely different point of view, and it was said that people relate to the spirit of their nation through their ether bodies and are connected with their more immediate environment through their astral body.

Here you see light thrown from an even more profound point of view on the way the character of a nation develops out of the spirits taken in with the food. It is one of the means used by the great spiritual guidance of earth to distribute the different national characters over the earth by distributing the foods which have different effects in such a way that one or another national character shows itself in the food harvested. This does not take us in a roundabout way to materialism, but spiritual science shows that all things material are a revelation of the spirit, and that spiritual influences spread out also in human beings in a way of which people are not aware.

It is more difficult to understand the way in which the Saturn spirits influence human beings. These are spirits which will have an invention the moment they look at something. On the other hand they develop dreadfully nasty passions of a sensual kind. Anything human beings may develop in this respect is but a trifle. These Saturn spirits insinuate themselves into the human body in an even more mysterious way, doing so through sensory experiences. An idea arises in you when you turn your eye to something beautiful, pure and noble; a different idea comes if you turn your eye to something dirty, ignoble. At the same time as external impressions evoke an idea in the soul, the Saturn spirits insinuate themselves, good ones and bad ones. With everything you have through mere sympathy or antipathy with your surroundings in what you see and hear and smell you expose yourself to the insinuation of Saturn spirits of the one kind or the other. They enter through eyes and ears and through the whole of the skin as you are sentient of things. It is truly horrendous when occult observations are made to note what nasty spirits creep into human noses with some of the scents that are most favourably regarded in society when we are in such an environment, quite apart from what is getting into the noses of those who are actually wearing those scents.