The Michael Mystery
GA 26
XXVI. Memory and Conscience
[ 1 ] In his sleeping state Man is given over to the Cosmos. He carried over to the Cosmos in sleep that which is his, as the fruit of previous Earth-lives, when he comes down out of the world of soul and spirit into the earthly world. He withdraws this inner core of his human being from the Cosmos whilst awake.
[ 2 ] In this rhythm of being given over to the Cosmos, and in turn withdrawn from the Cosmos, life rolls on between birth and death.
[ 3 ] The withdrawal from the Cosmos is at the same time an absorption of the man of soul and spirit by the nerves-and-senses organism. To the physical and life-processes which go on in this organism, the spirit-and-soul part of Man is united during waking life; it combines with them in a homogeneous system of working. In this working system are included: Sense-perception, the formation of Memory-pictures, and the life of Fancy. These functions are attached to the physical body. Mental conceptions, the life of Thought, in which Man becomes conscious of what goes on half unconsciously in sense-perception, fancy and memory—these are attached to the Thinking organism.
[ 4 ] This Thinking organism is also, more peculiarly, the region in which Man comes to the consciousness of himself. The Thinking system is a Star-system. Were it to lead its life purely as a star-system from first to last, Man would bear within him not a Self-consciousness, but a God-consciousness. But the Thinking system is a star system taken out of the starry Cosmos and transplanted into the earthly course of events. In realizing the star world in the life of earth, Man becomes a self-conscious being.
[ 5 ] Here then we find that region of inner human life where the divine-spiritual world, to which Man belongs, sets him free in order that he may become Man in the fullest sense.
[ 6 ] But just below the Thinking organism, in the region where sense-perception, fancy, memory-picturing are going on, there the divine spirit-world is living in and with the life of Man. The divine spirit-world may be said to live in Man's waking state in the evolution of memory. For the two other functions, sense-perception and fancy, are only modifications of this forming of inner memory-pictures. In sense-perception we have the formation of the mind's memory-contents in the nascent state; in fancy's contents we have, lighting up in the soul, what lives on of these memory-contents in the soul's inner life.
[ 7 ] The sleeping state carries Man's soul and spirit over into the cosmic existence. Here, with all the functions of his astral body and I he is immersed in the divine-spiritual Cosmos. He is not only outside the physical, he is also outside the world of stars. But he is within those divine spirit-beings from whom his own existence draws its source.
[ 8 ] At the present moment of cosmic evolution, the manner in which these divine spirit-beings work is to imprint the moral World-Content upon the astral body and the I during the sleeping state. All world-procedures in the sleeping man is real moral procedure—nothing that could be said in the least to resemble the results of an action in external Nature.
[ 9 ] This moral world-procedure, in its after-effects, is carried by Man from his sleeping over into his waking state. The after-workings remain in a state of sleep. For Man wakes only in that life which is turned towards the field of Thought. What is really going on within his Willing sphere, remains even in waking life, veiled in the same dull darkness as is the whole of his soul-life during sleep. But in this sleeping life of Will, the divine spirit-world continues to weave on in his waking state. Man is morally as good—or as bad—as he can be, according to how near he can come to the divine-spiritual beings in his sleep. And he comes nearer to or remains further from them, according as his previous earth-lives have been in a moral direction.
[ 10 ] From the depths of the soul's waking being rises the echo of what the soul has been able to receive, implanted into her during sleep in communion with the divine-spiritual world. This voice, ringing up from the depths, is the voice of Conscience.
[ 11 ] Thus the very thing for which a materialist view of the world is most prone to find an explanation solely on the natural side, shows itself, for spiritual knowledge, to lie on the moral side.
[ 12 ] In Memory, divine spiritual Being works in the waking man directly. In Conscience, the same divine spiritual Being works in the waking man indirectly—as an after-effect.
[ 13 ] Memory is formed in the nerves-and-senses organism. Conscience is formed—though as a process purely of the soul and spirit—within the metabolic and limb organism.
[ 14 ] Between the two lies the rhythmic organism. Conscience is formed—though as a process purely of the soul and spirit—within the metabolic and limb organism. This is developed in two directions, so that each side is polar in relation to the other. As Breathing rhythm, it is intimately associated with Sense-Perception and with Thinking. In lung-breathing, the process is at its coarsest. It becomes more delicate, and as refined and sublimated breathing becomes sense-perceiving and thinking. Still quite close to Breathing—only a breathing through the sense-organs, not through the lungs—is Sense-Perception. Beginning then to be more remote from lung-breathing and having for its support the Thinking organism, is the forming of mental conceptions, Thinking as such. And already bordering on the other side upon the rhythm of the blood-circulation—beginning to be an inward breathing that combines with the metabolic and limb organism—is the function which manifests itself in the play of Fancy. [ 15 ] This extends then, as a soul-function, down into the sphere of the Will, even as the circulatory rhythm extends into the metabolic and limb organism.
[ 16 ] In the exercise of Fancy, the Thinking system approaches quite close to the Willing system. It is a dipping-down of the man into his waking sleep-sphere of will. Accordingly, with men whose organization is of this kind, the contents of their soul-world appear like waking dreams. In Goethe there lived a human organization of this kind. That is why he says that Schiller must interpret his poetic dreams for him.
[ 17 ] In Schiller himself the other kind of organization was active. He lived on the strength of what he brought with him from his previous earth-lives. To a strenuous Will, he was obliged to seek the Fancy that should give it content.
[ 18 ] People whose disposition lies more towards the region of Fancy, so that with them all conceptions of sense-reality turn of themselves, so to speak, into pictures of fancy, are the ones on whom the Ahrimanic Powers reckon in their world-plans. They think that with the assistance of people of this kind they will be able completely to cut off the evolution of mankind from its Past and bring it into the direction they are wanting.
[ 19 ] People whose organization tends more towards the region of the Will, but who, out of inner love for an idealistic world-conception, vigorously convert their sense-conceptions into forms of fancy, are the ones on whom the Luciferic Powers reckon. By means of such human beings, the Luciferic Powers hope to maintain Man's evolution altogether within the impulses of the Past. They could then keep Man from going down into the sphere where the Ahrimanic Powers have to be conquered.
[ 20 ] In their earthly life, men are placed between two polar opposites. Overhead, far and wide, spread the Stars. Thence rain the forces which have to do with all that is regular and calculable in Earth-life; regular alternation of day and night, seasons of the year, world-periods of lengthier duration; all this is the earthly reflection of processes originating amid the Stars.
[ 21 ] The opposite pole radiates from the inside of the Earth. The Irregular has here its life. Wind and weather, thunder and lightning, earthquakes, volcanic outbursts, reflect these inner Earth-events.
[ 22 ] Man is an image of this Star-and-Earth life. In his Thinking system lives the Order of the Stars. In his Limb and Will-system lives Earth-Chaos. In the Rhythmic system, Man's own earthly being is realized in the free balance of the two.
Leading Thoughts
[ 23 ] Man has received his spiritual and bodily organization from two sides. Firstly, an organization from the physical and etheric Cosmos. All that is radiating of divine spiritual being into this organization in the human being, lives in him as the power of Sense-Perception, the faculty of Memory and the play of Fancy.
[ 24 ] Secondly, Man received his organization from his preceding Earth-lives. This organization is entirely one of soul and spirit, and lives in Man through the astral body and the I. The life of divine-spiritual beings which here finds its way into Man's being, works on and lights up in Man as the Voice of Conscience and the like.
[ 25 ] In his Rhythmic organization, Man is forever combining the divine-spiritual impulses from both sides. In the inner living realization of this rhythm, the power of Memory is carried into the life of Will, and the force of Conscience into the life of Ideas.
Gedächtnis und Gewissen
(Goetheanum, Februar 1925)
[ 1 ] In dem schlafenden Zustande ist der Mensch an den Kosmos hingegeben. Er trägt dem Kosmos entgegen, was er beim Heruntersteigen aus der geistig-seelischen Welt in die irdische als Ergebnis voriger Erdenleben hat. Er entzieht diesen Inhalt seines Menschenwesens dem Kosmos während des Wachens.
[ 2 ] In diesem Rhythmus: Hingabe an den Kosmos und Sich-dem-Kosmos-Entziehen verläuft das Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod.
[ 3 ] Das Entziehen gegenüber dem Kosmos ist zugleich ein Aufnehmen des geistig-seelischen Menschen durch die Sinnes-Nervenorganisation. Was in dieser als physische und Lebensvorgänge sich abspielt, mit dem vereinigt sich im Wachen das Geistig-Seelische des Menschen zu einer einheitlichen Wirkungsweise. In dieser Wirkungsweise ist Sinneswahrnehmung, Formung der Erinnerungsbilder, Phantasie-Leben enthalten. Diese Betätigungen sind an den physischen Leib gebunden. Die Vorstellungen, das Denk-Erleben, in denen dem Menschen bewußt wird, was halbbewußt in Wahrnehmung, Phantasie, Erinnerung sich abspielt, sind an die Denkorganisation gebunden.
[ 4 ] In dieser eigentlichen Denkorganisation liegt auch das Gebiet, durch das der Mensch sein Selbstbewußtsein erlebt. Die Denkorganisation ist eine Sternen-Organisation. Lebte sie sich einzig als solche aus, dann trüge der Mensch in sich nicht ein Selbstbewußtsein, sondern ein Götterbewußtsein. Aber die Denkorganisation ist Sternen-Organisation, herausgehoben aus dem Sternen-Kosmos und versetzt in das irdische Geschehen. Indem der Mensch dieSternenwelt im Irdischen erlebt, wird er ein selbstbewußtes Wesen.
[ 5 ] Da hat man also das Gebiet des inneren Menschenlebens vor sich, in dem die göttlich-geistige Welt, die mit dem Menschen verbunden ist, ihn entläßt, damit er in vollem Sinne Mensch werden kann.
[ 6 ] Aber gleich unterhalb der Denkorganisation, da wo Sinneswahrnehmung, Phantasie, Erinnerungsbildung sich vollziehen, lebt die göttlich-geistige Welt im Menschenleben mit. Man kann sagen, in der Gedächtnis-Entfaltung lebt das Göttlich-Geistige in dem wachenden Zustande des Menschen. Denn die beiden anderen Betätigungen, Sinneswahrnehmung und Phantasie, sind nur Modifikationen der Formung der Erinnerungsbilder. In der Sinneswahrnehmung ist die Bildung des Erinnerungsinhaltes in seiner Entstehung; in dem Inhalte der Phantasie leuchtet in der Seele auf, was sich von diesem Inhalte im Seelen-Dasein erhält.
[ 7 ] Der Schlafzustand trägt das Geistig-Seelische des Menschen in das Kosmische hinüber. Er ist da mit der Betätigung seines Astralleibes und seines Ich in den göttlich-geistigen Kosmos eingetaucht. Er ist nicht nur außerhalb der physischen, sondern auch außerhalb der Sternenwelt. Aber er ist innerhalb der göttlich-geistigen Wesen, durch die sein Dasein den Ursprung hat.
[ 8 ] In dem gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt der kosmischen Entwickelung wirken diese göttlich-geistigen Wesen so, daß sie den moralischen Weltinhalt während des Schlafzustandes in Astralleib und Ich einprägen. Alles Weltgeschehen im schlafenden Menschen ist reales moralisches Geschehen, kein Geschehen, das der Naturwirkung auch nur ähnlich genannt werden könnte.
[ 9 ] Dieses Geschehen in seiner Nachwirkung trägt der Mensch aus dem schlafenden in den Wachzustand herüber. Diese Nachwirkung bleibt im schlafenden Zustande. Denn der Mensch wacht nur in dem Leben, das dem Denkgebiete zugeneigt ist. Was in seiner Willenssphäre eigentlich vorgeht, das ist auch während des Wachens in solche Dumpfheit gehüllt wie während des Schlafens das ganze Seelenleben. Aber in diesem schlafenden Willensleben webt das Göttlich-Geistige im wachenden Zustande weiter. Der Mensch ist moralisch so gut oder so schlecht, als er es sein kann, je nach der Nähe, in die er schlafend zu den göttlich-geistigen Wesen kommen kann. Und er kommt näher oder bleibt ferner, je nachdem seine früheren Erdenleben in moralischer Richtung waren.
[ 10 ] Aus den Tiefen des wachenden Seelenwesens tönt herauf, was sich während des Schlafens in Gemeinschaft mit der göttlich-geistigen Welt in dieses Seelenwesen hat einpflanzen können. Was herauf klingt, ist die Stimme des Gewissens.
[ 11 ] So zeigt sich, wie dasjenige, was eine materialistische Weltansicht am meisten geneigt ist, bloß nach der Naturseite hin zu erklären, für die Geist-Erkenntnis auf der moralischen Seite gelegen ist.
[ 12 ] Im Gedächtnis wirkt im wachenden Menschen unmittelbar das göttlich-geistige Wesen; im Gewissen wirkt im wachenden Menschen mittelbar — als Nachwirkung — dieses göttlich-geistige Wesen.
[ 13 ] Gedächtnisbildung spielt sich in der Nerven-Sinnesorganisation ab; Gewissensbildung spielt sich als rein seelischgeistiger Vorgang ab, aber in der Stoffwechsel-Gliedmaßenorganisation.
[ 14 ] Zwischen beiden liegt die rhythmische Organisation. Diese ist nach zwei Seiten hin polarisch in ihrer Wirksamkeit ausgebildet. Sie ist als Atmungsrhythmus in inniger Beziehung zur Sinneswahrnehmung und zum Denken. In dem Lungen-Atmen ist der Vorgang am gröbsten; er verfeinert sich und wird als verfeinertes Atmen sinnliches Wahrnehmen und Denken. Was noch dem Atmen ganz nahesteht, aber ein Atmen durch die Sinnes-Organe, nicht durch die Lungen ist, das ist das sinnliche Wahrnehmen. Was dem Lungen-Atmen schon ferner ist und durch die Denkorganisation gestützt wird, das ist Vorstellen, Denken; und was schon nach dem Rhythmus der Blutzirkulation hinübergrenzt, schon ein innerliches Atmen ist, das mit der Gliedmaßen-Stoffwechselorganisation sich verbindet, das offenbart sich in der Phantasie-Tätigkeit.
[ 15 ] Diese reicht dann seelisch in die Willenssphäre, wie der Zirkulationsrhythmus in die Stoffwechsel-Gliedmaßenorganisation reicht.
[ 16 ] In der Phantasiebetätigung strebt die Denkorganisation an die Willensorganisation nahe heran. Es ist ein Untertauchen des Menschen in seine wachende Schlafsphäre des Willens. Es erscheinen daher bei Menschen, die in dieser Art organisiert sind, die Seelen-Inhalte wie Träume im Wachzustande. In Goethe lebte eine solche Menschen-Organisation. Daher spricht er davon, daß ihm Schiller seine dichterischen Träume deuten müsse.
[ 17 ] In Schiller selbst war die andere Organisation wirksam. Er lebte aus dem heraus, was er sich aus den vorigen Erdenleben mitbrachte. Er mußte zu einem starken Wollen den Phantasie-Inhalt suchen.
[ 18 ] Auf Menschen, die nach der Phantasiesphäre hin veranlagt sind, so daß sich ihnen wie von selbst die Anschauung der sinnlichen Wirklichkeit in Phantasiebilder wandelt, zählt bei ihren Weltenabsichten die ahrimanische Macht. Sie meint, mit Hilfe solcher Menschen die Entwickelung der Menschheit von der Vergangenheit ganz abschneiden zu können, um sie in eine Richtung zu bringen, die sie will.
[ 19 ] Auf Menschen, die nach der Willenssphäre hin organisiert sind, die aber die sinnliche Anschauung in Phantasiebilder aus innerer Liebe zur idealen Weltanschauung kräftig gestalten, zählt die luziferische Macht. Sie möchte die Menschheitsentwickelung durch solche Menschen ganz in den Impulsen der Vergangenheit erhalten. Sie könnte dann die Menschheit vor dem Untertauchen in die Sphäre bewahren, in der die ahrimanische Macht überwunden werden muß.
[ 20 ] Man steht im Erdendasein in zwei polarischen Gegensätzen. Oben breiten sich die Sterne. Von da strahlen die Kräfte, die mit allem errechenbaren Regelmäßigen im Erdendasein zusammenhängen. Regelmäßiger Tag- und Nachtwechsel, Jahreszeiten, längere Weltperioden, sie sind die irdische Spiegelung dessen, was Sternen-Geschehen ist.
[ 21 ] Der andere Pol strahlt vom Innern der Erde her. Unregelmäßiges lebt in ihm. Wind und Wetter, Donner und Blitz, Erdbeben, Vulkanausbrüche spiegeln dieses innere Erden-Geschehen.
[ 22 ] Der Mensch ist ein Abbild dieses Sternen-Erdeseins. In seiner Denkorganisation lebt die Sternen-Ordnung, in seiner Gliedmaßen-Willensorganisation lebt das Erden-Chaos. In der rhythmischen Organisation wird in freiem Ausgleich das irdische Menschenwesen erlebt.
Goetheanum, Februar 1925.
Leitsätze Nr. 174 bis 176
(22. März 1925)
(Mit Rücksicht auf die vorhergehende Betrachtung über Gedächtnis und Gewissen)
[ 23 ] 174. Der Mensch ist von zwei Seiten her geistig-leiblich organisiert. Erstens aus dem physisch-ätherischen Kosmos. Was in diese Organisation von göttlich-geistiger Wesenheit in die Menschenwesenheit hineinstrahlt, das lebt in dieser als Kraft der Sinneswahrnehmung, der Gedächtnisfähigkeit und der Phantasiebetätigung.
[ 24 ] 175. Zweitens ist der Mensch organisiert aus seinen vorangegangenen Erdenleben heraus. Diese Organisation ist ganz geistig-seelisch und lebt im Menschen durch Astralleib und Ich. Was sich an göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten in diese Menschenwesenheit hineinlebt, dessen Wirkung leuchtet als Gewissensstimme und alles, was damit verwandt ist, im Menschen auf.
[ 25 ] 176. In seiner rhythmischen Organisation hat der Mensch die fortdauernde Verbindung der beiden Seiten göttlichgeistiger Impulse. Im Erleben des Rhythmus wird die Gedächtniskraft in das Willenssein und die Gewissensmacht in das Ideensein getragen.
Memory and conscience
(Goetheanum, February 1925)
[ 1 ] In the sleeping state man is devoted to the cosmos. He carries to the cosmos what he has as a result of previous earthly lives when he descends from the spiritual-soul world into the earthly world. He withdraws this content of his human being from the cosmos during his waking hours.
[ 2 ] In this rhythm: Surrendering to the cosmos and withdrawing from the cosmos, life passes between birth and death.
[ 3 ] The withdrawal from the cosmos is at the same time an absorption of the spiritual-soul man through the sense-nerve organization. What takes place in this as physical and life processes is united with the spiritual-soul of the human being in waking life to form a unified mode of action. This mode of action contains sensory perception, the formation of memory images, and fantasy life. These activities are bound to the physical body. The ideas, the thought-experience, in which the human being becomes conscious of what takes place semi-consciously in perception, imagination and memory, are bound to the thought organization.
[ 4 ] In this actual thought organization also lies the area through which man experiences his self-consciousness. The mental organization is a stellar organization. If it lived out solely as such, then man would not have a self-consciousness within himself, but a god-consciousness. But the organization of thought is a stellar organization, lifted out of the stellar cosmos and transferred to earthly events. By experiencing the starry world in the earthly, man becomes a self-conscious being.
[ 5 ] Thus we have before us the realm of inner human life, in which the divine-spiritual world, which is connected with man, releases him so that he can become fully human.
[ 6 ] But just below the mental organization, where sense perception, imagination and memory formation take place, the divine-spiritual world lives in human life. One can say that in the unfolding of memory the divine-spiritual lives in the waking state of man. For the two other activities, sense perception and imagination, are only modifications of the formation of the memory images. In sense perception, the formation of the content of memory is in its genesis; in the content of imagination, what is preserved of this content in the soul's existence shines forth in the soul.
[ 7 ] The state of sleep carries the spiritual-soul of man over into the cosmic. With the activity of his astral body and his ego, he is immersed in the divine-spiritual cosmos. He is not only outside the physical, but also outside the starry world. But he is within the divine-spiritual beings through whom his existence has its origin.
[ 8 ] In the present moment of cosmic development, these divine-spiritual beings work in such a way that they imprint the moral world content into the astral body and ego during the state of sleep. All world events in the sleeping human being are real moral events, not events that could even be called similar to the effects of nature.
[ 9 ] This event in its after-effect is carried over by the human being from the sleeping to the waking state. This aftereffect remains in the sleeping state. For man only wakes in that life which is inclined towards the sphere of thought. What actually takes place in his sphere of will is also shrouded in the same dullness during waking as the whole life of the soul during sleep. But in this sleeping life of will the divine-spiritual continues to weave in the waking state. Man is morally as good or as bad as he can be, depending on how close he can come to the divine-spiritual beings while asleep. And he comes closer or remains further away depending on the moral direction of his previous earthly lives.
[ 10 ] From the depths of the waking soul being sounds up what has been able to implant itself into this soul being during sleep in communion with the divine-spiritual world. What sounds up is the voice of conscience.
[ 11 ] This shows how that which a materialistic view of the world is most inclined to explain merely in terms of nature is on the moral side for the knowledge of the spirit.
[ 12 ] In memory, the divine-spiritual being acts directly in the awake human being; in consciousness, this divine-spiritual being acts indirectly - as an after-effect - in the awake human being.
[ 13 ] Memory formation takes place in the nervous-sensory organization; conscience formation takes place as a purely soul-spiritual process, but in the metabolic-limb organization.
[ 14 ] The rhythmic organization lies between the two. This is polarized in its effectiveness on two sides. As a respiratory rhythm, it is intimately related to sensory perception and thinking. The process is coarsest in the breathing of the lungs; it becomes more refined and, as refined breathing, becomes sensory perception and thinking. What is still very close to breathing, but is breathing through the sense organs, not through the lungs, is sensory perception. That which is already more distant from lung breathing and is supported by the mental organization is imagination, thinking; and that which is already bounded by the rhythm of blood circulation, which is already an inner breathing that connects with the metabolic organization of the limbs, reveals itself in the activity of the imagination.
[ 15 ] This then extends psychically into the sphere of the will, just as the circulatory rhythm extends into the metabolic organization of the limbs.
[ 16 ] In the activity of the imagination, the organization of thought comes close to the organization of the will. It is a submersion of the human being into the waking sleeping sphere of the will. Therefore, in people who are organized in this way, the contents of the soul appear like dreams in the waking state. Such a human organization lived in Goethe. That is why he says that Schiller had to interpret his poetic dreams for him.
[ 17 ] The other organization was active in Schiller himself. He lived out of what he had brought with him from his previous lives on earth. He had to seek the content of his imagination for a strong will.
[ 18 ] The ahrimanic power counts on people who are inclined towards the fantasy sphere, so that their perception of sensual reality is transformed into fantasy images as if of its own accord. It believes that with the help of such people it can completely cut off the development of humanity from the past in order to bring it in a direction that it wants.
[ 19 ] The Luciferic power counts on people who are organized according to the sphere of will, but who powerfully shape the sensual view into fantasy images out of inner love for the ideal world view. It would like to keep the development of mankind through such people entirely in the impulses of the past. It could then save humanity from submerging into the sphere in which the Ahrimanic power must be overcome.
[ 20 ] In earthly existence, one stands in two polar opposites. At the top, the stars spread out. From there radiate the forces that are connected with all calculable regularities in earthly existence. Regular changes of day and night, seasons, longer periods of the world - they are the earthly reflection of what happens in the stars.
[ 21 ] The other pole radiates from the interior of the earth. Irregular things live in it. Wind and weather, thunder and lightning, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions reflect this inner earth event.
[ 22 ] The human being is a reflection of this starry earth. In his thought organization lives the star order, in his limb-will organization lives the earth chaos. In the rhythmic organization, the earthly human being is experienced in free balance.
Goetheanum, February 1925.
Guiding Principles No. 174 to 176
(March 22, 1925)
(With reference to the previous consideration on memory and conscience)
[ 23 ] 174 Man is organized spiritually and bodily from two sides. Firstly, from the physical-etheric cosmos. What radiates into this organization from the divine-spiritual essence into the human being lives in this being as the power of sensory perception, the ability to remember and the activity of the imagination.
[ 24 ] 175 Secondly, man is organized out of his previous lives on earth. This organization is entirely spiritual-soul and lives in man through the astral body and the ego. Whatever divine-spiritual entities live into this human being, their effect shines forth as the voice of conscience and everything that is related to it in the human being.
[ 25 ] 176 In his rhythmic organization, man has the continuous connection of the two sides of divine-spiritual impulses. In the experience of rhythm, the power of memory is carried into the being of will and the power of conscience into the being of ideas.