OUR CONNECTION WITH THE ELEMENTAL WORLD E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The heart of this volume comprises Rudolf Steiner's commentary on the elemental forces that are responsible for our earthly nature as human beings – forces that influence us through our membership of a national or geographical group. When such elemental forces are not recognised and understood, he states, they cause conflict and chaos. However, Steiner indicates an important accompanying task that calls upon each human being to develop individuality, emancipating ourselves from the earthly influences underlying national and racial groups.These great themes are framed by Rudolf Steiner's pioneering research into the two major Northern folk-poems, the Kalevala and The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson. The former tells of the elemental spirits who created the conditions for our earthly incarnation, whereas the Dream Song has to do with the drama of excarnation – the journey of the human soul after death. Linking these vast motifs is Steiner's unique description of the mission and tasks of the Russian people and the contrast of their destiny to the North American people (who, he says, are 'dominating the Earth for a brief period of increasing splendour').Steiner explains how elemental beings, responsible for the balance of land and sea, have created conditions where various peoples are enabled to develop their gifts and fulfil their destinies. Thus he speaks of Finland as the ancient conscience of Europe, Russia as the future bearer of the Christ-imbued Spirit Self, and the differing but complementary environments of Germany and Britain. Strikingly, he states that, 'no souls on Earth love one another more than those living in Central Europe and those living in the British Isles'.Rudolf Steiner also speaks of the necessary work of luciferic and ahrimanic beings that collaborate to enable the solid spatial forms of our physical bodies. Likewise, they influence our etheric and astral bodies, facilitating thinking, feeling and will to be imbued with life and consciousness.

Leseprobe

OUR CONNECTION WITH THE ELEMENTAL WORLD

Kalevala—Olaf Åsteson—The Russian People The World as the Result of Balancing Influences

Seven lectures, including one public lecture, six addresses and one question and answer session given in Hanover, Helsinki, Berlin and Dornach in 1912, 1913 and 1914

TRANSLATED BY SIMON BLAXLAND-DE LANGE

INTRODUCTION BY SIMON BLAXLAND-DE LANGE

RUDOLF STEINER

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

CW 158

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 2016

Originally published in German under the title Der Zusammenhang des Menschen mit der elementarischen Welt (volume 158 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. Based on shorthand notes that were not reviewed or revised by the speaker. This authorized translation is based on latest available (fourth) edition (1993), edited by Edwin Froböse

Published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

© Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Rudolf Steiner Verlag 1993

This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2016

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

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

ISBN 978 1 85584 616 6

Cover by Mary Giddens Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press Ltd., Malta

CONTENTS

Editor’s Preface

Introduction by Simon Blaxland-de Lange

KALEVALA

PUBLIC LECTURE

HELSINKI, 9 APRIL 1912

The Essential Nature of National Epics, with Particular Reference to the Kalevala

Recollection of ancient times through the folk-epics. Herman Grimm’s studies of the Iliad. The influence of divine-spiritual impulses within the human soul in ancient times through the example of Achilles (Iliad) and Siegfried (Nibelungen). The legendary figures of the Kalevala and the Sampo. Christian impulses at the end of the Kalevala (Marjatta and her son). Insights of spiritual science concerning the evolution of mankind and of the animal kingdom. Imagination as a clairvoyant power in olden times; man as a vessel for supersensible forces. Achilles and Siegfried as representatives of a former humanity, Agamemnon and Gunther as representatives of modern humanity. The treasure of the Nibelungen. Brunnhilde. The anger of Kriemhilde and the anger of Achilles. The first stage of a modern clairvoyance that is imbued with intellectual powers: a perception of one’s own ether body. The three members of the inner life of soul (consciousness soul, intellectual or mind soul, sentient soul) and their sheaths. The capacity that the clairvoyants of olden times had to behold these three soul-members as creative forces; their manifestation in the Kalevala in the form of Väinämöinen, the bringer of culture, the creator of the astral body; Ilmarinen the smith, the transformer of matter, creator of the ether body; Lemminkäinen, the bearer of bodily forces, creator of the physical body. The Sampo as an image of the ether body and, hence, as the bearer of folk consciousness. The individual and the universally human. An example of the congruence between spiritual science and the folk-epics (Väinämöinen’s instrument).

LECTURE 1

DORNACH, 9 NOVEMBER 1914

Man’s Connection with the Elemental World. Finland and the Kalevala I

The soul-trinity of sentient soul, intellectual or mind soul and consciousness soul in contrast to the onefold soul. The extinguishing of consciousness for the threefold soul-nature through the influence of the Mystery of Golgotha upon the onefold soul; the preparation through Scythianos. The Kalevala as an expression of the capacity of the Finnish people to sense the threefold nature of the soul-members; Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen as inspirers of the three soul-members. The feeling for a oneness of soul on the part of a Slavic people influenced by Graeco-Byzantine culture: the ‘Ruotsi’ (Russians); their penetration into Finnish culture. The preparation of Christianity by the Finnish people through their receiving of the divine onefoldness in a threefold context. Identification with the Angel, rapid dissolution of the ether body and strengthening of the Michaelic hosts preparing Christ’s appearance in the etheric after a Russian incarnation; strong retention of the ether body and its slow dissolution after life in a Western (e.g. French) body. Russia and France: spiritual battle, physical bond. Physical plane and spiritual world: reflection or contrast?

LECTURE 2

DORNACH, 14 NOVEMBER 1914

Man’s Connection with the Elemental World. Finland and the Kalevala II

The forming of the physical body through etheric forces: in the peoples of Europe and America from without, in the peoples of Asia and Africa from within. The Earth as an organism, as the sum of nature-spirits. The interplay between elemental beings and the etheric forces of Europeans. The influence of the earthly element upon the forming of the ego, and of the watery element upon the soul-nature. The connection between the threefold extension of the ocean-being of the sea (the Gulfs of Bothnia, Finland and Riga) and the feeling for the threefold soul in the ancient Finnish people (Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen). The elemental beings as instruments of the Folk-spirits; the forms of nature as an expression of an inner spiritual essence; comparison with the architraves of the Goetheanum. The eclipsing of reality through maya illustrated by an example from a lecture which was ostensibly about Herman Grimm’s ancestors and ancestral circumstances but was actually about Switzerland. The ‘sea-dragon’, the watery nature as the inspirer of European humanity; the counterbalance of the earthly aspect in the British Isles. The solid land as the skeleton of elemental nature. The land configuration of Russia in connection with the development of the Spirit Self. The relationship between land and water in Southern Europe: the physiognomy of Italy, Greece and France.

LECTURE 3

DORNACH, 15 NOVEMBER 1914

Man’s Connection with the Elemental World. Finland and the Kalevala III

Two important truths for our times: the soul belongs to a world lying behind the sense-world and goes from life to life. The inclination towards these truths in the case of certain people in the cultural environment of modern times illustrated through the example of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s book Representative Men. Emerson’s understanding of the truth of repeated earthly lives in sleep in connection with his relationship to Montaigne. The forgetting of the contact with elemental beings that one has in sleep in the case of most people; Albrecht Dürer’s Hercules. The relationship between human soul-members and the elements. The interaction between Earth and man as ensouled and spirit-imbued organisms in connection with evolution. The Finnish people as the ‘conscience’ of the European East. The forming of the physical body through water-forces in the West, the forming of the physical body through earth-forces in the East in modern times. The impulses working upon the ether body from the Celtic element (genii of the sea) and from the Romance element (historical impulse) in the European West (France). The impulses of the fluid and earthly elements upon the physical body in Central Europe (Franks and Saxons). The relationship between Central Europe and the British Isles: the same impulses, borne in the former case within the physical body and in the latter case within the etheric body; harmony in the spiritual world, battle on the physical plane.

THE WORLD AS THE RESULT OF BALANCING INFLUENCES

LECTURE 4

DORNACH, 20 NOVEMBER 1914

Fundamental Experiences of the Fourth and Fifth Post-Atlantean Epochs

The perception of the world of Imagination through the ether body. Feeling oneself separated from one’s own physical body as an ever stronger experience of human beings in the future. Two fundamental experiences: the riddle of the Sphinx in the Greek cultural epoch (the involvement of Lucifer in the human breathing process, his immersion in the blood; expansion of the ether body; the experience of being strangled in a nightmare or in a more subtle way in doubt, in questioning); the riddle of Mephistopheles in modern times (Ahriman’s habitual existence in the nervous system, his longing for blood; contracting and drying out of the ether body; the torment of being bound through enchantment to one’s own prejudices. Mephisto as one who accompanies man; a future phenomenon already appearing in childhood). Themes of riddles and enchantment in legends and fairy stories. Theology as a quest for wisdom through the nervous system. The conquering of the Sphinx through the development of the ego-nature, of Mephistopheles through imbuing the ego with knowledge of the spirit. The club feet of Oedipus; Faust as the opposite of Oedipus. Oedipus and the Sphinx, Faust and Mephisto in relation to Lucifer and Ahriman.

LECTURE 5

DORNACH, 21 NOVEMBER 1914

Battles Waged by Lucifer and Ahriman in the Human Organism

Regarding the apprehending of spiritual-scientific truths. Materialistic prejudices of our time: soul-processes as an accompanying phenomenon to physical processes. The transition from a thinking based on anatomy and physiology to one founded upon spiritual science as a task of modern times. Man as a spatial being; the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman in the three dimensions of space: (1) The symmetry of the organs of perception; the arising of the sense of the ego in the experience of intersection. Man as a surface-being poised between Lucifer battling from the left and Ahriman battling from the right; the struggle between stomach (Lucifer) and liver (Ahriman). Ether body lighter on the left, darker on the right. (2) The influence of Lucifer from in front to the breast bone, the influence of Ahriman from behind to the spinal column; the free space in between. The influence of Lucifer and Ahriman: in the right and left dimension through thoughts, in the forwards-backwards dimension through feelings, in the upwards-downwards dimension through the will. (3) Lucifer’s influence from above until the cervical vertebra, Ahriman’s influence from below as far as the diaphragm. The forms of the Dornach Building: the principle of the ‘Gugelhupf cake-tin’; the sense of ‘being in-between’ as a principle of modern art. The free space between the influences of Lucifer and Ahriman; Yahweh’s breath.

LECTURE 6

DORNACH, 22 NOVEMBER 1914

The World as the Result of Balancing Influences

The working of luciferic and ahrimanic forces in the ether body. The ‘age difference’ between the three basic activities: will as childlike thinking, feeling as an older form of will. The law of transformation in the ether body. Lucifer’s rejuvenating influence in will, Ahriman’s hardening influence upon thinking; the influence of both in the region of feeling and in the moulding of the ether body; the need for their activity. The possibility for full ego-development only in the physical body but not in the ether body. The influence of nature-spirits upon the ether body through Ahriman and their help on returning to the body in the morning. The loosening of the ether body when one is frightened. The nature of fairy tales: descriptions of experiences outside the physical body . The extent to which etheric forces live in speech. The influence of Lucifer and Ahriman upon the astral body as characterized by consciousness (physical body: form and force; etheric body: life and movement). Waking consciousness, dominance of Ahriman; sleep consciousness, dominance of Lucifer; dream, balance between the two. Duty and rights. The replacement of the epoch of the assertion of rights by one where there is an emphasis on duty. Learning to love duty, redemption of Lucifer; calmness arising from understanding in the realm of rights, redemption of Ahriman. The alternation between revolutionary and warlike (luciferic) and conservative and peaceful (ahrimanic) epochs. Manichaeism. Art in this whole connection.

OLAF ÅSTESON

ADDRESS, NEW YEAR FESTIVAL

HANOVER, 1 JANUARY 1912

The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson

The time of the Christmas festival: darkness of the being of nature, but spiritual awakening of the human soul. The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson: visions of the human soul’s destiny after death. The significance of the name Olaf Åsteson: son of love, the one who has inherited the consciousness of his ancestors. The discovery of the Dream Song by the clergyman Landstad and its rapid dissemination in Norway. Recitation of the Dream Song.

ADDRESS, INTRODUCTION TO A LECTURE FOR MEMBERS

BERLIN, 7 JANUARY 1913

Olaf Åsteson, the Awakening of the Earth Spirit

The occult significance of the time between Christmas and Three Kings Day: the change in dream life, strong connection with the spiritual world. Greatest emancipation of the soul from the cosmos at high summer. The significance of the name Olaf Åsteson; the description of experiences at the threshold of death in the Dream Song. The close relationship of the old Norwegian language to occult secrets. The sleeping (summer) and waking (winter) of the spirits connected with the Earth in the cycle of the year; Christmas as a festival of the awakening of the spirit; regarding the outward position and the spiritual state of the Sun.

ADDRESS, NEW YEAR’S FESTIVAL

DORNACH, 31 DECEMBER 1914

Cosmic New Year. The Waking of the Human Soul from the Spiritual Sleep of the Age of Darkness

The influence of the cosmos upon the spirit of the Earth at Christmas and at St John’s Tide. The immersion of the microcosm in the macrocosm at Christmas time: the Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson; his state of being immersed in the elements. The need to rediscover the lost wisdom of ancient times and the development of a mood of reverence and devotion towards these revelations. Words from the Book of Exodus (chapter 33, verse, 18): man as a thought of the higher hierarchies; the nature of the spiritual world’s perception; the mystery of initiation in the words of Yahweh to Moses. The reason for the chaotic feelings that people have today about cosmic existence: the lack of any awareness of the various aspects of human nature. The concepts of freedom, equality, brotherhood: a true understanding arises only from knowledge of the threefold being of man. The polarities between these concepts in the example of freedom and brotherhood. The ideal of brotherhood for man’s physical nature, of freedom for the soul, of equality for the spirit-world. The need for materialistic culture on the one hand and for a reawakening of spirituality on the other.

ADDRESS FOR A RECITATION OF THE DREAM SONG OF OLAF ÅSTESON

(UNDATED MANUSCRIPT)

The experience of people living in rural areas of the cycle of the year. The withdrawal of the soul and its immersion in the spiritual world at Christmas time; particular dream experiences. The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson: experience of the soul’s destiny after death; partly pagan, partly Christian conceptions. The life of the Folk-soul in this poem.

THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE

ADDRESS FOR RUSSIANS ATTENDING THE LECTURE CYCLESPIRITUAL BEINGS IN THE HEAVENLY BODIES AND IN THE KINGDOMS OF NATURE

HELSINKI, 11 APRIL 1912

The need for theosophy out of a sense of responsibility towards the cultural life of modern times. The revelation of the greatest wisdom through the essentially childlike personality of H.P. Blavatsky on the basis of her at once selfless and self-possessed nature. Her aspiration for the European West, for England. The suppression of Eastern occultism by the West. The revenge of the East: infiltration of the occultism appearing in the West with national, egotistic interests. Receiving of the Christ impulse into the progressive stream of humanity as a consequence of the victory of the Western world, though only at a superficial level. Taking possession of Christ’s name; the continuing domination of the old warlike cultures in modern industrialism. Chivalry as the noblest flowering of materialistic culture. The superiority of Eastern peoples in their knowledge of the mysteries of existence. Chinese culture as a successor to ancient Atlantis; its future dissemination. Theosophy in Central Europe: impersonal, free from all narrow interests, hence a somewhat aloof spirituality. The task of the Russian Folk-soul: ensouling of this impersonal theosophy; uniting of theosophy with the heart.

ADDRESS FOR RUSSIANS ATTENDING THE LECTURE CYCLETHE OCCULT FOUNDATIONS OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA

HELSINKI, 5 JUNE 1913

Becoming conscious of the theosophical impulse. The overemphasis on the dead Christ in the Russian Easter service. Christ’s association with mankind through a death that is the source of life-forces. Individual soul and Folk-soul; the old Western European and the youthful East European Folk-souls; the mediating role of Central European culture. The receiving of significant impulses by primitive peoples in the example of the Christ impulse. The interweaving of Indian ‘head culture’ and the European soul-quality of the heart in Western culture; example of two incarnations of one individuality and its affinity first to one and then another stream (Spinoza-Fichte). The furtherance of the theosophical impulse through the life-force of Russian souls. The North American people, who are rooted in materialism, as an opposite pole to the spiritual affinities of the Russian people. What is freedom? In America it is like a product that can be used or consumed, in Western Europe, it is an ideal; while through theosophists freedom is ‘ensouled’. Theosophy as a salvation for Russia.

QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION

HELSINKI, 7 APRIL 1912

Regarding the future of Finland. The element of repetitions with respect to evolution and the cultural periods. The heroes of the Kalevala; the connection of the Finnish mysteries with the old European mysteries.

Invitation to the lecture cycle given in Helsinki in 1912

Notebook entries for the lecture of 9 April 1912

Notes

Rudolf Steiner’s Collected Works

Significant Events in the Life of Rudolf Steiner

Index

EDITOR’S PREFACE

The present volume contains the results of Rudolf Steiner’s research on the two great Northern folk-poems, the Kalevala and The DreamSong o/Ola/Åsteson, together with the three lectures directly relating to this research on the Kalevala which he gave in Dornach on the theme ‘The World as the Result of Balancing Influences’ and two addresses about the national character of the Russian people.

The lecture of 9 April 1912 entitled ‘The Essential Nature of National Epics with particular reference to the Kalevala’ was one of the two public lectures that Rudolf Steiner gave during the first lecture cycle in Helsinki, Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and in the Kingdoms of Nature (GA 136). He took up this theme again in November 1914 in Dornach in the lectures ‘Man’s Connection with the Elemental World. Finland and the Kalevala’. These three lectures were directly linked to the lectures on ‘The World as the Result of Balancing Influences’. Extracts relating to the Kalevala and Finland from a question and answer session after the lecture of 7 April 1912 (GA 136) in Helsinki have been included for the first time in the present fourth [German] edition of this volume.

The second main focus of this volume consists of the addresses and lectures that Rudolf Steiner gave about the Norwegian Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson. Among these were an introduction to a lecture for members that he gave in Berlin on 7 January 1913 (this lecture can be found in the volume Life between Death and New Birth in Relationship to Cosmic Facts, GA 141), while the lecture of 31 December 1914 was the fourth lecture from the cycle entitled Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom (GA 275).

In the last part of the volume there are two addresses that Rudolf Steiner gave for the many Russians who attended the two Helsinki lecture cycles Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and in the Kingdoms of Nature (GA 136) and The Occult Foundations of the Bhagavad Gita (GA 146). The second of these cycles was to have been held in St Petersburg, but the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church— as the relevant authority—refused to grant entry permits. The lecture cycle therefore took place in Finland, which—despite being part of the Russian Empire at the time—was bound by less strict laws than Russia itself. At the express indication of Rudolf Steiner, these notes were made available at the time only in exceptional circumstances.

INTRODUCTION

Although this volume of Rudolf Steiner’s Complete Works centres around a particular theme as opposed to comprising a cycle of lectures given in a specific temporal context, it is nevertheless helpful to be aware of the circumstances surrounding the period in November 1914 when most of the lectures—as distinct from the addresses—in this volume were given.

After the period between the end of July and the early part of August when one declaration of war followed another, thus precipitating Europe and the world into the First World War, Rudolf Steiner increasingly centred himself in Dornach, where the construction of the first Goetheanum had become a very particular focus; and between 10 and 25 October he gave a series of lectures entitled ‘The Building at Dornach’. During this time his travels— such as they were—were necessarily confined to Germany and its allies; and on 1 September he gave what was to be the first of 14 lectures in Berlin (the last was given on 6 July 1915) on the theme of ‘The Destinies of Individuals and of Nations’. Other lectures were also given in, for example, Munich and Stuttgart on the spiritual origins of the war and on the tasks and destinies of the various peoples involved and the impulses of the Folk-souls associated with them. Shortly before returning to Dornach in time to give the first of the November lectures in this volume, he also gave two public lectures in Berlin on Goethe, Schiller and Fichte in the light of the conflict in which Europe had become engulfed.

Already from the first of these lectures, it is apparent that Rudolf Steiner envisaged that the Goetheanum would—and needed to— become a place where people would not only gain insight into matters pertaining to national and racial identity and conflict (and, hence, the causes of the war) but also into wider themes of individual, spiritual identity. Thus at the beginning of the third of these lectures (15 November) he indicates that humanity has reached a point where people need to emancipate themselves from the earthly influences underlying phenomena such as national and racial groups and open themselves up to influences from the world of spirit, pre-eminent amongst which in our time are those emanating from the Mystery of Golgotha; and he specifically draws attention to two things of which we need to become conscious today, namely, that we cannot find our true, essential being in the sense-perceptible world and that the human soul is not confined to the body in which it lives between birth and death but goes from life to life.

And yet, Rudolf Steiner seems to be reiterating in these and other lectures given in the early period of the war, we will not get very far with this essential exploration of our true, spiritual individuality unless we can in addition acquire a greater understanding of the elemental forces that are responsible for the configuration of our earthly nature as human beings, forces which influence us through our membership of a particular racial, national or geographical group and which, if not recognized and understood, will cause conflict and chaos rather than, as intended, work together in a spirit of collaboration; and indeed, this endeavour to understand these elemental forces constitutes the principal aim of the present volume. One inherent problem of such an endeavour is, however, that these are ‘difficult truths’ that would really require a year’s explanation, whereas ‘I am having to explain [them] in an hour’ (p. 75). And yet a reader who carefully considers the initially baffling statements and sketches in the first three of these November lectures may feel a sense of utter wonder at the way in which the elemental beings or spirits responsible for the balance of land and sea in any particular area have created conditions where the various peoples of Europe are enabled to bring their particular gifts and fulfil their destinies. (Other regions of the world are mainly referred to in terms of their contrast to the European or European-based situation.) Thus, for example, we have Finland as the ancient conscience of Europe and Russia as the nascent bearer of the Christ-imbued Spirit Self of the future, the contrast and potential conflict between the (Russian) East and the quintessentially French West, the need for the sea-girt peninsula of Italy (and also, in a different way, of Greece) and the larger land-mass of France, and the differing but complementary elemental environments of Germany and Britain, so that, ‘from a spiritual point of view, no souls on Earth love one another more than those living in Central Europe and those living in the British Isles’ (p. 80). And behind all of this and interwoven through these lectures is the Finnish Kalevala, whose ancient runes tell of the mystic origin of the human soul’s threefold nature (sentient soul, intellectual or mind soul and consciousness soul), whose evolutionary drama is being engineered, whether blindly or no, by elemental beings at the behest of Folk-spirits. (It can be helpful to read the public lecture placed first in this collection, which is a model of clarity, before proceeding to the lectures of 9, 14 and 15 November.)

In the last three lectures from November 1914 a further theme is introduced and explored at some length, although the imaginative figures of the Kalevala—together with the geographical counterparts with which Rudolf Steiner associated them—reappear at intervals as if to indicate that this is simply another aspect of the work of elemental beings beneath or behind the veil formed by the physical world. This theme has to do with the activity of Lucifer and Ahriman and their attendant forces in our physical, etheric and astral sheaths. Rudolf Steiner emphasizes that in this context these beings are acting in a legitimate and, indeed, necessary way; for ‘these powers are hostile influences in the world only where they are working outside their own territory’ (p. 117). After an introductory lecture which characterizes the respective influences of Lucifer and Ahriman in the fourth and the present fifth post-Atlantean epochs through the figures of the Sphinx and Mephistopheles, we learn that the apparently solid spatial forms of our physical bodies are—except for the cuboid inner space which furnishes the physical foundation for our individual, soul-spiritual essence—the result of the collaboration between luciferic and ahrimanic powers; and that these influences also extend in differing ways to our etheric body and astral body, enabling our thinking, feeling and will to be imbued with the appropriate degree of, respectively, life and consciousness.

Whereas the Kalevala, together with the lectures in this volume that Rudolf Steiner gave out of the background of this great folk-poem, speaks to us of the elemental spirits who created the conditions for our earthly incarnation in modern times, the Dream Song ofOlafÅsteson (on which there is an extensive commentary in the notes to the text) has to do with the drama of excarnation, with the journey of the individual human soul after death. Linking the vast themes of these great folk-poems, of which Rudolf Steiner thought so highly, is that of the spiritual impulses of the Russian Folk-soul and the tasks of the Russian people. Nowhere, perhaps, did Rudolf Steiner speak so incisively and intimately about the capacities, tasks and struggles of this people, its direct contrast to the North American people (who are ‘dominating the Earth for a brief period of increasing splendour’, p. 196) and its distinctive and crucial relationship to the future development of anthroposophy. However, his remarks need to be viewed in the context of that remarkable lecture of 9 November 1914 where, uniquely, he explains the elemental origin and significance of the Russian soul. Not least for this reason, it seems important that the three hitherto unpublished lectures of 9, 14 and 15 November are now available in published form in English for the first time and can be viewed as an integral part of the whole volume.

Simon Blaxland-de Lange, September 2016

KALEVALA

PUBLIC LECTURE

HELSINKI, 9 APRIL 19121

The Essential Nature of National Epics, with Particular Reference to the Kalevala

I must first apologize for the fact that I am unable to give the lecture which I am about to present to you in one of the languages that are in habitual use in this country. That I am able to speak to you now arises from a wish on the part of the friends of our Theosophical Society2 who invited me here to give a series of lectures over the coming fortnight;3 for they had the idea that it might be possible to insert the two public lectures that have been announced into the programme.4 A further apology that I have to make is that, because of my ignorance of the language, my pronunciation of several of the names and other words derived from the national epic of the Finns5 may not be altogether correct. Next Friday’s lecture will lead us more directly into spiritual science itself. This evening’s lecture will be mainly concerned with a closely related area which can be illuminated by spiritual science. I shall be speaking of a subject which is one of the most interesting aspects of historical research and of the thoughts that are stimulated by it.

National epics! We need only to consider some of the more well-known national epics such as those of Homer,6 which have become the national epics of the Greeks, the Nibelungen legend of Central Europe and finally the Kalevala to realize at once that these national epics lead us more deeply into the inner life and aspirations of human beings than any amount of historical research; for through them ancient times of great significance become alive within us as a present experience, touching us no less than the lives and destinies of those living around us now. From a historical point of view, the times of the ancient Greeks of whom the Homeric epics speak belong to the twilight realm of uncertainty; and when we immerse ourselves in the Iliad or the Odyssey we gain a real insight into the souls of people who have become completely oblivious to ordinary historical observation. It is not surprising that those who study these national epics from the point of view of academic literature are perplexed by them. We need only to call to mind a particular aspect of the ancient Greek epics, to which a brilliant student of the Iliad has repeatedly referred in a very beautiful book about Homer’s Iliad which appeared a few years ago.7 I am speaking of Herman Grimm, the nephew of the great researcher into German language, legends and myths, Jakob Grimm.8 When Herman Grimm allowed the characters and events of the Iliad to exert their influence upon him, he felt himself ever and again moved to say:9 Oh, this fellow Homer—we do not need today to enter into the question of who Homer actually was—when he is describing something that has to do with a craft or an art appears to be an expert in that specialized field of activity. If he is describing a battle, he seems to have full knowledge of the strategic and military principles involved in conducting a war. Herman Grimm rightly points out that Napoleon,10 who was a strict judge of such things, was an admirer of Homer’s matter-of-fact descriptions of battles; and Napoleon was someone who was doubtless entitled to judge whether or not military exploits are realistically and vividly portrayed by Homer. We know from a generally human standpoint to what extent Homer was able to depict the characters in his narrative as though they stood directly before our physical eyes.

How is interest in such a national epic maintained over the years? Anyone who studies these things in an unprejudiced way will not receive the impression that the interest in the Iliad and the Odyssey that has been maintained until our own time has been artificially contrived by some kind of inbred academic institutionalism. This interest speaks for itself, it has a universally human quality. However, these national epics present us with a task; and as soon as we seek to study them we come to see that it is a quite definite and, moreover, interesting one. They want to be studied quite precisely in all their details. We feel at once that there is something about such national epics that is incomprehensible to us if we try to read them as we would a modern work of art, a modern novel for instance. From the first lines of the Iliad we can feel that Homer is speaking with absolute precision. What is he describing to us? He tells us right at the beginning. From other accounts not contained in the Iliad we know a lot about events that led up to what is described in it. Homer’s sole wish is to make us aware of what he expresses so concisely in the first line11—the anger of Achilles. And if we now peruse the entire Iliad and consider it with an open mind, we have to admit that there is nothing in it that cannot be construed as following from the anger of Achilles.

There is also something else that becomes apparent right at the beginning of the Iliad. Homer does not simply begin with facts, nor does he begin with some kind of personal opinion. Rather does he begin with something that in the modern age might be regarded as a meaningless cliché: ‘Sing to me, O Muse, of the anger of Achilles!’ But the more deeply we explore this epic tale the clearer it becomes to us that we cannot understand its meaning, essential quality and significance if we do not take its initial words seriously. We then need to ask ourselves: what do they really mean?

Just consider the nature of the description, the way that the events are brought to our awareness! These words, ‘O sing to me, Muse, of the anger of Achilles’, have posed a question for many people, not only academic, literary specialists but also those of a truly artistic inclination such as Herman Grimm. This has been a question that went right to their hearts. How do the deeds of divine, spiritual beings (and in Homer’s poetic writings these are the deeds, intentions and passions of the Olympic gods) interact in the Iliad, and equally in the Song of the Nibelungen or in the Kalevala, with the deeds, intentions and passions of human beings who—like Achilles—are in a certain sense remote from the ordinary run of humanity and, furthermore, with the passions, intentions and deeds of human beings who, like Odysseus or Agamemnon, are closely related to ordinary humanity?

When we become inwardly aware of Achilles, he appears to us as someone who, with respect to his fellow human beings, lives in solitude. As the Iliad proceeds, we very soon come to feel that, in Achilles, we have a personality who is unable to speak of his innermost concerns with all the other heroes. Homer also shows us that Achilles has to sort out his most intimate concerns with divine, spiritual beings who do not belong to the human kingdom, that through the entire course of the Iliad he relates in solitude to the human kingdom but is closely affiliated to supersensible, super-earthly powers. And the strange thing is that if we summon forth all the feeling and thinking as they have been refined in the development of human culture and direct our attention towards Achilles, he seems to us to be so egotistic, so personal! A being with divine-spiritual impulses dwelling in his soul is acting entirely out of personal considerations. For a long time this legendary Trojan War, which was so important for the Greeks, continued to be waged— thus bringing about the particular episodes described in the Iliad— because Achilles was settling personal accounts with Agamemnon. And we see constantly that super-earthly powers become involved. We see Zeus, Apollo and Athene sharing out impulses and, as it were, putting human beings in their place.

Before I came to have the task of approaching these matters from the standpoint of spiritual science, I always found it strange how a person of great brilliance with whom I often had the good fortune to discuss these things on a personal level, namely Herman Grimm, dealt with this sort of issue. He had a lot to say not merely in his writings but frequently—and with far more precision—in personal conversations. He said that if we take into account only the influence of historical powers and impulses on human evolution, we will not be able to make sense of what is living and working in the great national epics. Hence for Herman Grimm, a truly erudite student of the Iliadand of folk epics of every kind, there was something that goes beyond the ordinary faculties of human consciousness, beyond reason, understanding and sense observation, something that transcends ordinary feeling and becomes a real power, a power that is creative like other historical impulses. Herman Grimm spoke of a true creative imagination pervading human evolution, speaking of it as one speaks of a being, of a reality, of something that has held sway over human beings and which, in the earliest stages of the times that we are able to observe, when the individual folk-groups were coming into being, had more to say to them than their ordinary human soulforces. Herman Grimm always spoke of this creative imagination in terms of the irradiating light of a world that goes beyond ordinary human soul-forces; and he therefore regarded it as having attained a co-creative role in the process of human evolution.

But the strange thing is that, when we focus upon this battlefield of the Iliad, this evocation of the anger of Achilles with all the interplay of divine-spiritual, supersensible powers, we will not be satisfied with the kind of study that Herman Grimm has provided of it; and in his book on the Iliad we find many references to a sense of resignation, which show us that the ordinary standpoint that an academic literary historian has to adopt today cannot give an adequate account of these phenomena. What does Herman Grimm have to say about the Iliad or about the Nibelungen legend? His conclusion is that the historical ruling dynasties were preceded by other similar dynasties. This is Herman Grimm’s actual, even literal view. He thinks that Zeus, together with his whole retinue, represents a kind of ruling dynasty which preceded the ruling dynasty to which Agamemnon belonged. Thus his view of human history is that it has a certain uniformity, and that the gods or heroes portrayed in the Iliad or the Nibelungen legend are human beings from a bygone age whom people of a later time dared to portray only by clothing their deeds and character in the garb of superhuman myths. There is much that cannot be accounted for if one begins with such a supposition, especially the particular way in which the gods intervene in Homer’s epic story. I beg you to consider how Thetis, the mother of Achilles, Athene and other gods intervene in the events of Troy. They intervene by taking on the form of mortal human beings, inspiring them and inciting them to accomplish their deeds. Hence they do not appear in their own right but instead they pervade living human beings. Living human beings feature not merely as their representatives but as sheaths pervaded by invisible powers which are unable to appear on the battlefield in their own form or as they really are. It would certainly be a strange thing to suggest that ordinary people from long ago should have been portrayed as needing to adopt representatives from the race of mortals as their sheaths. This is only one of the many indications that can prove to us all that we cannot make sense of the ancient national epics in this way.

It is no easier if we consider the characters in the Song of the Nibelungen—for example, Siegfried from Xanten in the lower Rhine, who went to the court of Burgundy in Worms to court Kriemhilde, the sister of Gunther, and then courts Brunnhilde for Gunther with his special powers. How strangely are figures such as Brunnhilde from Issland and also Siegfried described to us! Siegfried is described as someone who has overcome the so-called Nibelungen race and has acquired or conquered the treasure of the Nibelungen. Through what he has acquired as a result of his victory over the Nibelungen, he receives quite special powers which come to expression in the epic where it is said that he can make himself invisible and is in a certain sense invulnerable. Furthermore, he has powers that an ordinary person like Gunther does not possess; for he cannot win Brunnhilde, who cannot be conquered by an ordinary mortal. Siegfried conquers Brunnhilde through the special powers that he has as the possessor of the treasure of the Nibelungen; and through his capacity to conceal the powers that he has developed he is able to lead Brunnhilde to Gunther, his brother-in-law. Then we find that Kriemhilde and Brunnhilde, whom we experience at the same time at the Burgundian court, are two very different characters, who manifest influences that cannot be explained in terms of powers residing in the human soul. Because of these influences they come in conflict; and this leads to Brunnhilde’s being able to induce the faithful servant Hagen to kill Siegfried. This is indicative of a feature that is so characteristic of Central European legends. Siegfried has higher, superhuman powers. He has these superhuman powers because he possesses the treasure of the Nibelungen. Ultimately, they do not make him into a figure who is necessarily victorious but into one who stands tragically before us. The powers that Siegfried has through the treasure of the Nibelungen at the same time represent the undoing of human beings. Everything becomes even stranger if we also consider the related Nordic legend of Sigurd, the dragon slayer, though it is illuminating. Sigurd, who is none other than Siegfried, immediately appears to us as the conqueror of the dragon and has therefore acquired the Nibelungen treasure from an old race of dwarves; while Brunnhilde appears to us as a figure of superhuman nature, as a Valkyrie.

Thus we see that in Europe there are two ways of portraying these things. One way is where everything is connected to the divine, supersensible domain, where it becomes apparent to us that Brunnhilde belongs directly to the supersensible world, and the other way is where the legend is humanized. Nevertheless even here we can recognize that the divine world reverberates through everywhere.

Now let us turn our attention from these legends, from these national epics, to a realm of which I am only qualified to speak as someone who is able to view these phenomena from outside, that is, as someone who can recognize them without speaking the relevant language. I ask you to allow for the fact that, as a Western European studying the Kalevala, I am only able to speak as someone who is aware of the spiritual content and its great, mighty figures, and that the more subtle details that the epic doubtless contains, which only emerge if one has really mastered the language in which it was written, will inevitably elude me. But even a study of this nature reveals a threefold quality in the three . . . well, one is really in a quandary trying to find a name for them; one cannot call them gods, or heroes, so we shall simply say the three beings, Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen. These figures speak a strange language, if we compare their characters with one another—a language from which we can clearly recognize that what is being said to us goes far beyond what can be achieved with ordinary human soulforces. If we consider them purely outwardly, these three figures grow into monstrous proportions. But what is so strange is that, even though they grow to so vast a degree, every single characteristic appears graphically before us, so that we never have the feeling that these immense proportions have something grotesque or paradoxical about them but have the sense that what needs to be said must necessarily manifest itself on a superhuman scale and with superhuman significance. And then the content itself is so full of riddles. There is something about it that spurs us on to think about the very essence of man’s being but nevertheless reaches beyond what our ordinary soul-forces are able to grasp. Ilmarinen, who is often called the blacksmith and who is first and foremost an artist, at Väinä-möinen’s instigation forges the Sampo for a foreign land, a region where those people who may be called the older brothers of humanity live, people who are at any rate more primitive than the Finns. And we see this remarkable circumstance that a lot takes place far from the scene where the main events are enacted, and that as time passes Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen are after a certain period obliged to retrieve the Sampo which was through them placed in a foreign land. Anyone who allows this strange language of the spirit that evokes this forging of the Sampo, its state of separation and recovery, to work upon him—and as I have said, I ask you to bear in mind that I am speaking as a foreigner and can therefore only speak of the impression that I receive—immediately has a sense that the most essential and most significant aspect of this epic poem is the forging, state of separation and regaining of the Sampo.

I find the conclusion of the Kalevala particularly moving. I have heard that there are those who believe that this conclusion is perhaps a later addition. For my feeling, this ending involving Marjatta and her son,12 where one sees the interweaving of a very distinctive form of Christianity—and I say this quite explicitly—belongs very much to the whole. Because of this conclusion, the Kalevala acquires a quite particular nuance, a quality that enables us fully to penetrate what it is all about. I would even say that, for my feeling, the conclusion of the Kalevala has no parallel as a delicate and miraculously impersonal portrayal of Christianity. The Christian principle is freed from all geographical limitations. Marjatta’s approach to Herod, whom we encounter in the Kalevala as Rotus, is formulated in so impersonal a way that it is barely reminiscent of the places and personalities in Palestine. Indeed, we are, I would say, not reminded even to the slightest degree of the historical Christ Jesus. At the end of the Kalevala we find a delicate reference to the immersion of the noblest cultural pearl of humanity into Finnish culture as an intimate concern of the human heart. With this is linked the tragic episode that can affect us so deeply, namely that at the moment when Christianity makes its mark—when Marjatta’s son is baptized—Väinämöinen takes leave of his people in order to go to an unspecified destination, bequeathing to them only the substance and the power of what he has, through his art as a singer, been able to tell them about the events in far-off times that form part of their history. I find this withdrawal of Väinämöinen when the son of Marjatta appears so significant because we can discern in it the living interplay of what was living in the depths of the Finnish people and the Finnish Folk-soul—and had done so since ancient times—in the moment when Christianity found entry into Finland. Everything that lived in people’s souls through the way that this ancient wisdom related to Christianity can be felt with a wonderful intimacy. I am saying this as something of whose objectivity I am thoroughly conscious; I am not saying it to please or flatter anyone. In this national epic we Western Europeans have one of the most wonderful examples of how the members of a folk stand bodily before us with their entire soul in the immediate present, with the result that the acquaintance that we have in Western Europe with the Finnish soul through the Kalevala can enable us to become thoroughly familiar with it.