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RUDOLF STEINER

Fourteen discussions with workers at

the Goetheanum in Dornach between

30 June and 24 September 1924

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Translation revised by Matthew Barton

Rudolf Steiner Press

Hillside House, The Square

Forest Row, E. Sussex

RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2002

Previous English edition translated by Gladys Hahn and published under the title The Evolution of the Earth and Man and the Influence of the Stars by Anthroposophic Press and Rudolf Steiner Press 1987

Originally published in German under the title Die Schöpfung der Welt und des Menschen Erdenleben und Sternenwirken (volume 354 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. This authorized translation is based on the 3rd edition, edited by Paul Gerhard Bellman, and is published by kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach. Drawings in the text are by Leonore Uhlig and are based on Rudolf Steiner’s original blackboard drawings

Translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2002

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 372 1

Cover by Andrew Morgan Design

Typeset by DP Photosetting, Aylesbury, Bucks.

Contents

Main Contents of the Discussions

Publisher's Foreword

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures to Workers at the Goetheanum

1 Discussion of 30 June 1924

Creation of the world and man—Saturn, Sun and Moon stages of Earth evolution

2 Discussion of 3 July 1924

Creation of the Earth—origin of the human being

3 Discussion of 7 July 1924

What anthroposophy and science have to say about earth strata and fossils

4 Discussion of 9 July 1924

The origins of the world and the human being—Lemuria and Atlantis

5 Discussion of 12 July 1924

Origin and particular character of Chinese and Indian cultures

6 Discussion of 31 July 1924

On the relationship between foods and the human being—raw food and vegetarian diets

7 Discussion of 2 August 1924

Questions of nutrition—children’s nutrition—hardening of the arteries—manuring

8 Discussion of 6 August 1924

On the course of humanity’s cultural evolution

9 Discussion of 9 August 1924

The sense of smell

10 Discussion of 9 September 1924

The planetary influences on animals, plants and rocks

11 Discussion of 13 September 1924

The weather and its causes

12 Discussion of 18 September 1924

Form and origin of the earth and the moon—causes of volcanic activity

13 Discussion of 20 September 1924

What is the aim of anthroposophy? Biela’s comet

14 Discussion of 24 September 1924

Where do we come from?—earth life and star wisdom

Notes

Note Regarding Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures

Main Contents of the Discussions

1 Discussion of 30 June 1924

Creation of the world and man—Saturn, Sun and Moon stages of Earth evolution

The whole earth once lived and thought—and was all possible things; and not until it became a corpse was it able to create the human being. Unthinking concepts of the earth’s creation out of a dead, spiralling, primal fog. What a substance looks like is dependent only on the degree of warmth or heat within it; heat or fire is the original element underlying everything. In the Saturn phase of earth evolution there were as yet no solid bodies, nor any air, but only heat. The first thing that occurred in this cosmic essence of heat was a cooling process. What happens when something in which nothing apart from heat could previously be distinguished starts to cool down? Air arises. In the Sun stage of Earth evolution air is the first thing to arise—a warm airy mist. First (in the Saturn stage) man was present; and subsequently (at the Sun stage) the animals appeared, formed from what could not become man. The animals are related to the human being but they came about later. When heat cools down still further, then not only air forms but also water (that is the Moon stage of Earth evolution); and from water plants shoot up, for they originally grew not on the earth but in water. Our present birds are the descendants of the original animals, which developed at the Sun stage. The life of the human embryo in the womb is similar to life on the Old Moon; the woman’s period is a memory of the Old Sun state. Fertilization on the Old Moon was a kind of cosmic fertilization. Our present earth stage, the fourth stage of evolution, gives rise to solid earth and mineral substance through a further cooling process. How the mineral element is quite differently integrated in the human being and birds. The errors of Darwinism. Fish as birds taken up by the water; they did not arise until the Old Moon period. Fever as memory of the Saturn stage.

2 Discussion of 3 July 1924

Creation of the earth—origin of the human being

In its former states the earth was a kind of living being. The water of the ancient Moon period was a thick fluid in which were dissolved all substances that are nowadays solid, and the air was a thick mist containing mainly metals and sulphur. It would have seemed like being in a world egg. Not until the moon’s departure during the earth stage did the earth die, thus acquiring the mineral realm, which is dead. But only as a result of this did conditions allow plants, today’s animals and the human being to arise in their present form. The effect of silicic acid contained in the air on the human senses, nerves and hair. Silicic acid or silica is an enormously beneficial remedy. How all conditions changed for animals and human beings after the moon left the earth. Once the moon worked on us from without, external fertilization could occur.

3 Discussion of 7 July 1924

What anthroposophy and science have to say about earth strata and fossils

The present earth has a solid core of 70 to 80 substances, and around it is the atmosphere with oxygen and nitrogen. There are always also other substances contained in the air, but only in very small quantities. These include carbon, hydrogen and sulphur. Geology estimates the age of geological strata on the basis of the fossils found in them, but also has to consider strata-inversions and reconfigurations. In the Alps everything that was built up in layers was later thrown about and intermingled. The origin of fossils and casts of animals. The present form of the earth shows us that it was alive at a time when human beings and higher animals did not yet live. The human being could only awaken to consciousness once the earth had gradually died away. We evolve out of the dead earth. Today we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, while the plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. Just as today’s plants build themselves up through carbon, so earlier plants nourished themselves from nitrogen. Today we exhale a compound of carbon and oxygen while formerly we exhaled a compound of carbon and nitrogen—the terribly poisonous prussic or hydrocyanic acid. In the same way that the earth once had prussic acid, so now the comets have it. Where the sun and the stars are is empty space, a vacuum that would immediately suck you up and shatter you. Stars are hollow, empty spaces.

4 Discussion of 9 July 1924

The origins of the world and the human being—Lemuria and Atlantis

The mammoth remains found in northern Siberia. Our present earth is really a kind of cosmic corpse. The earth’s soil is in continual movement, rising and sinking at certain places; and in ancient times it moved on a far mightier scale. The Flood was a small affair compared with the vast fluctuations and deluges of earlier times. The travelling scholar Dubois’ Pithecanthropus erectus, and the origin of the human being. All mammals arose from those forms of the human being that remained imperfect. The apes are human beings that remained at an earlier stage—as it were our less-perfect forerunners. The form and head-formation of Atlantean human beings and their watery brain. Neanderthal man and cave-people with their remarkable cave-paintings. Our former, airy state and our evolution from a purely spiritual condition. The nutritional process in early human beings. The continual transformation of the earth, human beings and animals.

5 Discussion of 12 July 1924

Origin and particular character of Chinese and Indian cultures

The first forms of human life, which were quite different from nowadays, unfolded where the Atlantic ocean now lies. Where the Atlantic ocean is now, there was solid earth. The Japanese and Chinese are vestiges of the earth’s most ancient human inhabitants. Non-religious Chinese culture. The ruler as son of the sun. The Chinese organized their kingdom as a reflection of the heavens. The special mode of thinking of the ancient Chinese and their extraordinarily complex language and script. The nature of Chinese and Japanese painting. The Chinese invented gunpowder millennia ago, and also printing. European influences on Chinese and Japanese culture. Ancient Indian culture with its strongly inward view of the human being. The contrast between the ancient Indians and Chinese.

6 Discussion of 31 July 1924

On the relationship between foods and the human being—raw food and vegetarian diets

The foods which we cannot do without: protein, fats, carbohydrates (which are transformed into sugar) and salts. Plant respiration and human and animal breathing as a process of mutual enhancement: chlorophyll retains carbon in the plant and releases oxygen again, while blood links oxygen with carbon; green plant-sap once more takes carbon from carbon dioxide and releases oxygen. The salts contained in plant roots chiefly affect the head. Strengthening head forces by eating carrots. Strengthening the human being through forces which are used up in the transforming of carbohydrates into sugar. Eating potatoes. Grains as the healthiest form of food. The importance of cooking in nutrition. The whole raw-food fad is nonsense. When we eat herbs and plants that can chiefly give us plant fats, we strengthen heart and lungs. Cooked foods mainly affect the head while salad-type foods work on lung and heart. To build up the organs of nutrition we need plant proteins, as they are contained in blossom and especially fruit. Roots nourish the head, leafy foods the chest region and fruits the lower body. The importance of a vegetarian diet. Excess protein consumption poisons the body and often leads to hardening of the arteries.

7 Discussion of 2 August 1924

Questions of nutrition—children’s nutrition—hardening of the arteries—manuring

Breaking down and new forming of protein and fats in the human being. We make our own protein and also our own fats. Anyone who wishes to stay healthy really needs to eat fruits in either raw or cooked form. We make the soil vital and alive by manuring it properly, and proper manuring supplies us with true plant protein. Our crops have all been suffering for some time from a lack of protein, which will become increasingly severe through the use of artificial, mineral fertilizer. When we eat potatoes we feel continually stimulated to think. Tuberculosis of the lungs only got out of hand when potatoes were introduced as a staple food. On hardening of the arteries and hay fever. Food instincts in animals and man. No animal eats what is not good for it. Diabetes always shows that people have lost their natural instinct for the right food. The contrasting effects of tea and coffee; coffee as a drink of journalists, tea as one for diplomats.

8 Discussion of 6 August 1924

On the course of humanity’s cultural evolution

Humanity’s physical evolution leads from an animal-like body to today’s human form, while spiritual evolution starts from a condition of original perfection. By acquiring awareness that he is a free being, man has taken a real step forward in his cultural history. The origin of certain superstitious beliefs in earlier rites for the dead. The apes are beings that have descended from a higher stage. People of very ancient times had above all a strong imaginative life that worked like an instinct. The invention of rag-pulp paper and telegraphy. The ancient Germanic peoples’ ideas of Wotan and Loki. All original cultural development evolved from rhythm. The Indians and their worship of the ‘Great Spirit’ that rules over everything. The Greeks ascribed everything that forms in nature to good spirits, and everything that is not natural to evil spirits. Imagination is something more spiritual than mere reason. Humanity’s advance from vivid imagination to today’s logical reasoning, from unfree possession by the spirit to freedom through reason and intellect. Goethe’s poems. Through reason we must once more come to the spirit.

9 Discussion of 9 August 1924

The sense of smell

Different creatures’ sense of smell works in the most varied ways and this is linked with the whole origin of living creatures. Nature of smell perception. What smell depends on. Nowhere is there empty space in the universe—either there is matter or spirit. The light of the zodiac constellations. How spirit is connected with the physical body in the human being. The very fine sense of smell in dogs, and the transformation in the human being of the organ of smell into an organ of understanding. Plants smell cosmic space and orientate themselves accordingly; the scent of plants that we smell is really the heavens emanating towards us. The various races in different regions of the earth are due to one part of the earth receiving Venus influences while another part receives Saturn influences. The human being contains the whole of nature. Plant blossoms can smell the whole world, whereas the human nose has become coarse in contrast. Most animals have a very large taste-brain, of which there are only small vestiges in the human being. But he has the capacity to form ideas with his transformed taste-brain. What makes the human being more perfect than other creatures and why he is nowadays so clumsy. By turning their attention to spiritual science human beings will become more adroit again.

10 Discussion of 9 September 1924

The planetary influences on animals, plants and rocks

The planets will one day all reunite with the earth and become one body with it. The planets do not have the same solidity as the earth; description of physical conditions on Mars. Years of grub and May-bug profusion and their connection with the four-year Mars-rhythm. The sun exerts its major influence on everything on earth that is dead and must be reawoken to life each year, while the moon only exerts an influence on living things. Mars only influences what lives in finer realms, in feelings; and the other planets influence soul and spirit. The present conditions on Mars are the same as they were on earth at an earlier stage of evolution, and today’s Jupiter represents a future condition of the earth. The plants gain their scents from the planets and their colours from sun and moon. The sun takes a whole cosmic year to give colours to a stone. Mountain and alpine herbs have greater healing effect than lowland plants. Wild strawberries thrive especially where there are rocks containing a small amount of iron. The rose is an oil-gatherer; it finds in garden cultivation a great deal of what there is little of in the wild. It is enormously important for agriculture to know about soil.

11 Discussion of 13 September 1924

The weather and its causes

The appearance of sunspots and their connection with the weather. Sunspots arose millennia ago; they multiply and will continue to multiply until, in the far future, the sun is eventually extinguished altogether. The ice age will recur in five, six, seven thousand years; it will not occur exactly in the same region of the earth as it once did. Such interruptions to the smooth course of evolution derive from the fact that the surface of the earth continually rises and falls. The origin of air and ocean currents, and also electro-magnetic currents, and their influence on weather conditions. The dispute between Fechner and Scheiden about the moon’s influence on the weather. The repetition of the same moon position after 18 or 19 years. Venus’ transit of the sun every hundred years. The hundred-year calendar. The weather is enormously influenced by forces which arise in the atmosphere itself. Lightning does not arise through electricity but as a result of the air discarding its own heat. Human brains have become much more rigid in recent centuries than they were previously.

12 Discussion of 18 September 1924

Form and origin of the earth and the moon—causes of volcanic activity

How does zigzag lightning arise? The earth’s form is actually a tetrahedron that has grown spherical, and most volcanic mountains lie along its edges. The volcanoes that lie along the sides of the tetrahedron are the original fire-spewing mountains; other volcanoes arose later. The Falb calendar or almanac with predictions of ‘critical days’ of weather, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions etc. in relation to the constellations. Cosmic warmth raying into the earth. The origin of the moon. Julius Robert von Mayer’s reply to the question: How can it be that the sun gives us so much warmth but does not grow cold? The sun is a space that sucks in, continually sucks comet mass towards it. It sucks in fine etheric formations in the universe, which are almost spiritual, and nourishes itself from these etheric masses, these comet masses.

13 Discussion of 20 September 1924

What is the aim of anthroposophy? Biela’s comet

The way people react to anything new. The strangest examples of how new scientific discoveries and inventions are received. The harmful effect of eating potatoes. Eating potatoes has in recent centuries greatly contributed to a general decline in health. Spiritual science researches the spirit in a scientific way. The comet that was expected in Paris in 1773 and that was thought to bring the end of the world; its subsequent appearances in 1832,1845/46,1852 and 1872. Littrov’s text on the 1832 comet (Biela’s comet) and on comets in general. The expected comet does not appear as a comet at all, in fact, but comes as a fine shower of meteorites; it gave itself as nourishment to the earth, and, because it is a medicine, a cosmic medicine, relieves nervousness in human beings. Nothing will ever be solved in the social realm until science once more becomes spiritual. Only through spiritual knowledge do we learn to understand social conditions. Marxism depends on an erroneous science. The workers’ question will assume a quite different form when people view everything from a spiritual perspective.

14 Discussion of 24 September 1924

Where do we come from? Earth life and star wisdom

Why the workers’ question, the social question has become such a burning issue. In the way the social question is addressed, spiritual knowledge is lacking. Originally people had an extensive knowledge of the stars, but nowadays all they know of the stars are calculations; and they are unable to respond to what is spiritual in the stars. The stars all have an influence on human spiritual and cultural life. From the moon come the forces of all reproduction on earth, from the sun come the forces of growth and from Saturn the forces of thinking. Since people do nothing but calculate they have forgotten the real human being, and treat him like a cog in a machine. All agricultural produce has been declining in quality for decades throughout the world. Something is always destroyed in the brain when people think. The whole body—with small exceptions such as the skeleton etc.—is completely renewed in seven or eight years. The body we have in the first seven or eight years of our life comes from our mother and father; but this is cast off completely and after seven or eight years we have a new body that we ourselves must build up. The active force that later builds up the body comes from the world of spirit. We do not only live by virtue of what we eat but also from finely dispersed nutrients in the air, which we inhale. The food we get by eating is used, for example, to continually renew our head, while the nutrients we need to acquire fingernails for instance, come to us from the air. Through the food we eat we take up the physical, but we take up soul and live with it through respiration. The human being lives the same number of days as he breathes in a day: 25,920 breaths. If we regard a human life as one cosmic day, we arrive at the cosmic year: 72 × 360 = 25,920 years.

Publisher's Foreword

The truly remarkable lectures—or, more accurately, question and answer sessions—contained in this book, form part of a series (published in eight volumes in the original German)* dating from August 1922 to September 1924. This series features talks given to people involved in various kinds of building work on Rudolf Steiner's architectural masterpieces, the first and second Goetheanums in Dornach, Switzerland. (The destruction by fire of the first Goetheanum necessitated the building of a replacement.) A vivid description of the different types of workers present, as well as the context and atmosphere of these talks, is given by a witness in the Appendix to the first volume of this English series, From Elephants to Einstein (1998).

The sessions arose out of explanatory tours of the Goetheanum which one of Steiner's pupils, Dr Roman Boos, had offered. When this came to an end, and the workers still wished to know more about the ‘temple’ they were involved with and the philosophy behind it, Dr Steiner agreed to take part in question and answer sessions himself. These took place during the working day, after the mid-morning break. Apart from the workmen, only a few other people were present: those working in the building office, and some of Steiner's closest colleagues. The subject-matter of the talks was chosen by the workers at the encouragement of Rudolf Steiner, who took their questions and usually gave immediate answers.

After Rudolf Steiner's death, some of the lectures—on the subject of bees—were published. However, as Marie Steiner writes in her original Preface to the German edition: ‘Gradually more and more people felt a wish to study these lectures.’ It was therefore decided to publish them in full. However, Marie Steiner's words about the nature of the lectures remain relevant to the present publication:

They had, however, been intended for a particular group of people and Rudolf Steiner spoke off the cuff, in accord with the given situation and the mood of the workmen at the time. There was no intention to publish at the time. But the very way in which he spoke had a freshness and directness that one would not wish to destroy, for this would take away the special atmosphere that arose in the souls of those who asked the questions and him who gave the answers. It would be a pity to take away the special colour of it by pedantically rearranging the sentences. We are therefore taking the risk of leaving them as far as possible untouched. Perhaps it will not always be in the accustomed literary style, but on the other hand it has directness and vitality.

In this spirit, the translator has been asked also to preserve as much of the original style, or flavour, as possible. This might necessitate that readers study a passage several times, trying to bring to mind the live situation in which the talks were given, before the whole can be fully appreciated.

S G

* 347-54 in the collected works of Rudolf Steiner, published by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland. For information on English