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THE
SULT
SIGNIFICANCE OF .
BLOOD
RUDOLF STEINER
RUDOLF STEINER PRESS
Some fundamental works by Rudolf Steiner:
Occult Science—an Outline
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment
Theosophy: an Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and
the Destination of Man
Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity
The Evolution of Consciousness
Reincarnation and Karma. Their Significance in modern Culture
The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind
Anthroposophy: an Introduction
The Philosophy of Freedom
Festivals and their Meaning. Four volumes: Easter, Ascension and Pentecost,
Michaelmas, Christmas
All the published works of Rudolf Steiner in English translation and in
the original German, catalogues, and the works of other authors on
Anthroposophy, can be obtained from Rudolf Steiner Press and Bookshop
35, Park Road, London, N.W.1.
RUDOLF STEINER
See
(Or GAM Tis E
SIGNIFICANCE OF
BLOOD
A public lecture given in Berlin,
25th October, 1906
RUDOLF STEINER PRESS
First English Edition 1912
Second English Edition 1926
Third Edition (revised by O.B.) 1967
Translated from a shorthand report unrevised by the
lecturer. The text of this lecture is included in the volume
of the Complete Edition of the works of Rudolf Steiner,
entitled: Die Erkenntnis des Ubersinnlichen in unserer Zeit
und deren Bedeutung fiir das heutige Leben (No. 55 in the
Bibliographical Survey, 1961, containing the texts of
thirteen lectures given during 1906 and 1907).
Publication of this English edition of the following
lecture is by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassver-
waltung, Pornach, Switzerland.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
© 1967 Rudolf Steiner Press, London
Printed by The Garden City Press Ltd., Letchworth, Herts.
SBN 85440 186 5
aith OCCULT .SIGNIFIGANCE
OF BLOOD
Blood is a very singular fluid—Mephistopheles in Faust
In GorTHe’s great work we are shown how Faust, the
representative of the highest human endeavour, enters into
a pact with the Powers of Evil, represented by Mephis-
topheles, the emissary of hell. Faust isto strikea bargain with
Mephistopheles and the contract must be signed with his
own blood. To begin with, Faust regards it as a jest. But at
this juncture Mephistopheles utters the sentence which
without doubt Goethe intended should be taken very
seriously: “Blood is a very singular fluid.”
The so-called commentators have adopted an extra-
ordinary attitude towards this line in Faust. You are
certainly well aware that the literature dealing with Goethe’s
version of the legend is so voluminous that whole libraries
might be filled with it. Naturally, I cannot make it my
business to expatiate on what the different commentators
have said about this particular line; but none of the
interpretations throw much more light on it than that of
Professor Minor, one of the most recent commentators.
He, like others, treats it as though it were an ironical
remark made by Mephistopheles and makes the following
very curious comment—listen to exactly what he says and
you may well be astonished at the strange conclusions
which commentators on Goethe are capable of drawing.
Professor Minor remarks that “the devil is the enemy of
the blood”, and he points out that as the blood is the
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sustainer and preserver of life, the devil, who is the enemy
of the human race, must also be the enemy of the blood.
He then—quite rightly—draws attention to the fact that
even in the oldest versions of the Faust Legend, and indeed
in legends generally, blood always plays the same role.
In an old book on Faust it is clearly described how Faust
makes a slight cut in his left hand with a small penknife,
and how then, as he takes the pen to sign the agreement, the
blood from the cut forms the words: “O man, escape!”
All this is correct; but now comes the remark that the devil
is an enemy of the blood and that the reason why he insists
that the signature shall be written in blood is precisely
because he is hostile to the blood. Can you imagine anyone
desiring to possess the very thing he abhors? The only
reasonable explanation—not only of the sentence from
Goethe, but also of the main legend and all the earlier
Faust lore—is that the devil regarded the blood as of par-
ticular importance and that it was by no means a matter of
indifference to him whether the pact was signed in ordinary
ink, or in blood.
We can only assume here that the representative of the
Powers of Evil is convinced he will have Faust more
completely under his control if he can only gain possession
of at least a drop of his blood. This is self-evident and the
line cannot really be understood in any other way. Faust
is to sign his name in his own blood, not because the devil
is hostile to it, but because he desires to gain the mastery
over it.
This passage is based on a remarkable insight, namely
that he who wins power over a man’s blood wins power
over the man himself. Blood is “a very singular fluid”
because whenever there is a struggle between good and
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"om in a man’s life, it is really his blood that is being fought
or.
All the things that have come down to us from popular
legends and myths touching the life of man—our whole
way of looking at them—will undergo a radical trans-
formation in our time. The age is past when legends, fairy-
tales and myths were regarded merely as the expressions of
a childish folk-lore. Indeed the time has even gone by when
a puerile scholarship could speak of them as a sort of folk
“poetry”.
This so-called “poetic soul” of a people is nothing but
the product of academic red-tape; for there is academic,
as well as bureaucratic red-tape. Anyone who has insight
into the soul of a people is well aware that he is not dealing
with imaginative fiction or anything of that kind, but with
something very much more profound, and that in point of
fact the legends and fairy-tales of the various peoples give
expression to wonderful powers and wonderful events.
If from the standpoint of modern spiritual investigation
we ponder deeply on the old legends and myths, allowing
those great, powerful pictures which have come down from
primeval times to work upon us, we shall find, supposing
we are equipped for our task by the methods of spiritual
science, that these legends and myths are the expressions of
a profound wisdom.
True, it may at first be asked how it came about that in a
primitive state of development and with primitive men-
tality, unsophisticated men were able to picture the enig-
mas of the universe in the imagery of these legends and
fairy-tales; and how it is that when we ponder over them
we have before us in the form of pictures what spiritual
investigation to-day is revealing. This is bound, at first, to
surprise us. But when we probe more and more deeply
5
into the ways by which these fairy-tales and myths have
come into being, all our surprise and our doubts will
vanish. For we shall find in these legends not only what is
termed a naive and unsophisticated mentality but a won-
derfully profound and wise expression of a primordial,
truly wise conception of the world and of life.
Very much more can be learned by thoroughly inves-
tigating the background of the myths and legends than by
absorbing the intellectual and experimental science of the
present day. But to embark upon work of this kind the
student must of course be conversant with spiritual-
scientific methods of investigation. Everything that is
contained in these legends and ancient views of the world
about the blood is of importance because in those olden
times there was a wisdom by means of which men under-
stood the true significance of blood, that “very singular
fluid” which is itself the flowing life of human beings.
We shall not enter to-day into the question of the source
of that primeval wisdom. This subject will have to be
touched upon at the end of the lecture; but the actual study
of it will be dealt with in later lectures. To-day we shall
consider the blood itself, its importance for man and for the
process of civilisation and culture. We shall not approach it
from the physiological or purely scientific point of view
but rather from the vantage point of a spiritual conception
of the world and of life. And the best approach will be by
way of an ancient saying intimately connected with the
original culture of ancient Egypt, where the priestly
wisdom of Hermes flourished; it is a saying which con-
stitutes a fundamental principle of all spiritual science and
has become known as the “Hermetic maxim”’. It is the
maxim: “‘As above, so below.”
There are many superficial explanations of these words,
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but the one we shall consider to-day is the following.
It is quite obvious to spiritual science that the world to
which man has primary access through his five senses does
not represent the whole world, that it is in fact only the
expression of a deeper world hidden behind it, namely, the
spiritual world. In the sense of this Hermetic axiom, this
spiritual world is called the world “above” and the world of
the senses displayed around us, the existence of which we
know through the medium of our senses and are able to
investigate by means of our intellect, is the world “below”
—the expression of the spiritual world. The spiritual inves-
tigator sees in this world of the senses nothing ultimate but
rather a kind of physiognomy giving expression to a world
of soul and spirit lying behind; it is just as when you gaze
at a human countenance you should not stop at the form of
the face and the movements on it, but you must pass as a
matter of course from the physiognomy and the facial
movements to the elements of soul and spirit which are
expressed in them.
What every person does instinctively when confronted
by any being possessed of a soul, the occultist or spiritual
investigator does in respect of the entire world. The saying,
“As above, so below” applied to the human being, would
mean: The impulses contained in his soul come to expres-
sion in his face: coarseness of soul is expressed in a harsh,
coarse countenance, inner happiness in a smiling one,
suffering in teardrops.
Let me here apply the Hermetic axiom to the question:
What actually constitutes wisdom? Spiritual science has
always maintained that man’s wisdom has something to do
with experience, painful experience. Someone who is in
the actual throes of suffering and pain may possibly make
manifest a certain inner disharmony. A man who has
a
overcome the pain and suffering and bears their fruits
within him will invariably tell you that through suffering
he has gained some measure of wisdom. He says: The joys
and pleasures of life, everything life can offer me in the
way of satisfaction—all this I accept gratefully; but I am
more loth to part with my past pain and suffering than
with the pleasant gifts of life, for it is to my pain and
suffering that I owe my wisdom. And so spiritual science
has always recognised in wisdom something that may be
called crystallized pain—pain that has been overcome and
has been transformed into its opposite.
It is interesting that modern, more materialistic research,
has recently arrived at the same conclusion. A short time
ago a book very well worth reading was published on the
“Mimicry of Thought”. It is not the work of a theosophist
but of a student of nature and of the human psyche. The
author endeavours to show how the inner life of man, his
mode and quality of thinking, comes to expression in his
physiognomy, and he points to the fact that there is always
something in the facial expression of a thinker that is
suggestive of what might be called “absorbed pain”.
So you see how, in striking confirmation of an immem-
orial principle of spiritual science, this principle is again
brought to light in the more materialistic thought of our
day. You will become more and more deeply aware of this
and you will find that gradually, point by point, ancient
wisdom is becoming accessible to the science of modern
times.
Spiritual investigation, by its very nature, shows that
everything surrounding us in the world—the mineral
sub-structure, the plant covering, the animal world of our
Earth—are to be regarded as the physiognomic expression,
or the “below” of an “above”, of a spiritual life behind
8
them. From the standpoint of occultism or spiritual science,
the sense-world can be rightly understood only if we also
have knowledge of the “above”, the spiritual prototype,
the spiritual origins whence it has proceeded. For this
reason we shall concern ourselves with what lies hidden
behind the phenomenon of blood, with what has created
in the blood a physiognomical expression in the sense-
world. Once you have grasped this spiritual background of
blood you will also realise how such knowledge is bound to
influence our whole cultural life.
Questions and problems of great importance are pressing
upon us to-day: questions concerning the education, not
only of the young but of whole peoples. There are also the
vital questions which the future holds in store for humanity
and which cannot fail to be recognised by anyone who is
attentive to the great social upheavals and demands that
are everywhere becoming apparent, whether in the shape
of Woman’s Rights, the Labour Question, Pacifism or other-
wise. All of them cause us anxiety. But they are clarified
as soon as we recognise the spiritual reality lying behind
blood.
Nobody would deny that this question is closely linked
to that of race which—significantly—is again coming to the
fore at the present time. But this question of race is one
Wwe can never understand until we understand the myster-
ious working of blood and the mingling of their blood by
different peoples. And finally there is yet another question,
which will become more and more insistent, the more we
endeavour to give up aimlessly tinkering with it and
move on towards a rationally conceived method. This is
the question of colonisation, which crops up whenever
civilised peoples come into contact with uncivilised
peoples. The question is: To what extent are uncivilised
9
peoples capable of accepting and absorbing new forms of
civilisation? How can a negro or a savage become really
civilised? How should we behave towards them? And here
deadly serious and far-reaching problems of life are in- ~
volved, not just the feelings of a vague morality. Those who
have no knowledge of the conditions governing the
existence of a people, whether it be on the up-grade or
down-grade of its evolution, whether one feature or
another is conditioned by its blood, will not be able to find
the right way to introduce culture to an alien people. All
these issues are raised the moment the all-important ques-
tion of blood is brought into focus.
You presumably all know what blood is in itself from
the current teachings of natural science and you will be
aware that in man and the higher animals, blood is prac-
tically fluid life.
You are aware that it is by way of the blood that the
“Gnner man” is directed outward and that in the course of
this process man’s blood absorbs oxygen, which constitutes
the very breath of life. Through the absorption of this
oxygen the blood undergoes a renewal. Conversely, the
blood which is offered to the instreaming oxygen is a kind
of poison to the organism—a kind of destroyer and
demolisher—but through the absorption of the oxygen the
blue-red blood becomes transmuted by a process of com-
bustion into red, life-giving fluid. This blood that finds its
way to all parts of the body, depositing everywhere its par-
ticles of nourishment, has the task of directly assimilating
the materials of the outer world, and of applying them, by
the shortest method possible, to the nourishment of the
body. Man and the higher animals have first to convey
such foodstuffs into their blood; then, having formed the
Io
blood, to absorb the oxygen from the air into it, and to
build up and maintain the body by means of it.
Not without justification has an intelligent psychologist
observed: “The blood with its circulation is like a second
human being, and is related to the man of bone, muscle and
nerve, like a kind of external world.” For, as a matter of
fact, the entire human being continually draws his sus-
tenance from the blood, and at the same time discharges
back into it that for which he has no use. A man’s blood is
therefore a true “double”, ever bearing him company,
from which he draws new strength, and to which he gives
all that he can no longer use. ““Man’s fluid life” is therefore
a good name to have given to the blood; for this con-
stantly changing “singular fluid” is assuredly as important
to man as is protoplasm to the lower organism.
-The famous scientist, Ernst Haeckel, who has looked
deeply into the operations of nature, in several of his
popular works has rightly drawn attention to the fact that
blood is really the latest comer in the organism. If we
follow the development of the human embryo we find
that the rudiments of bone and muscle are evolved long
before the first tendency towards blood-formation be-
comes apparent. The ground-work for the formation of
the blood, with all its attendant system of blood-vessels,
appears very late there, and from this natural science has
rightly concluded that the formation of blood occurred
late in the evolution of the universe; that other powers,
which were there first, had to be raised to the height of
blood, so to speak, in order to effect at that height what
was to be effected within the human being. Not until
the human embryo has recapitulated all the earlier stages
of human evolution, thus attaining to the condition in
which the world was before the formation of blood, is it
II
ready to perform this crowning evolutionary act: the
transformation and sublimation of all that had gone
before into the “very singular fluid” which we call blood.
If we would study those mysterious laws of the spiritual
universe which prevail behind the blood, we must occupy
ourselves a little with some of the elementary concepts of
Anthroposophy. These have often been set forth, and you
will see that these elementary ideas of Anthroposophy are
the “above”, and that this “above” expresses itself in the
momentous laws of the blood—and also in those of the
rest of life—as though in a physiognomy.
Those who are already well acquainted with the primary
laws of Anthroposophy will, I trust, here permit a brief
repetition of them for the benefit of others who are here
for the first time. In any case the laws become more and
more clear as we learn to apply them repeatedly to new and
special cases. To those, of course, who know nothing about
Anthroposophy, who have not yet familiarised themselves
with these conceptions of life and of the universe, what I
am about to say may seem little more than a string of
words of which they can make nothing. But then, when
words mean nothing, the fault does not always lie with the
idea behind them. It was the witty Lichtenberg (if I may
adapt a little), who said: “Ifa head and a book come into
collision and the resulting sound is a hollow one, it is not
necessarily the book’s fault!”
And so it is with our contemporaries when they pass
judgment on anthroposophical truths. If these truths often
sound like mere verbiage, the fault need not necessarily rest
with Anthroposophy: those, however, who have found
their way into these matters will know that behind all
these delineations and these allusions to higher Beings, such
I2
Beings do actually subsist, although they are not to be
found in the world of the senses.
Our anthroposophical conception of the universe shows
us that man, as far as he is revealed to our senses in the
external world, as far as his shape and form go, is but a
part of the whole human being, and that, in fact, there are
many other parts behind the physical body. Man possesses
this physical body in common with all the “lifeless”
mineral objects around him. Over and above this, however,
man possesses the etheric body—life-body. (“Etheric’’ is
not here intended in the sense in which it is applied by
physical science.) This etheric body—or life-body as it is
sometimes called—far from being an invented hypothesis,
is as distinctly visible to the developed spiritual senses of the
occultist as are externally perceptible colours to the physical
eye. This etheric body can actually be seen by the clair-
voyant. It is the principle which calls the inorganic materials
into life, and, summoning them from their lifeless con-
dition, weaves them into the thread of life’s garment. Do
not imagine that this body is to the occultist merely some-
thing which he adds in thought to what is lifeless. That is
what the natural scientists try to do! They try to complete
what they see with the microscope by inventing something
which they call the “life-principle’.
This is not the standpoint of anthroposophical investiga-
tion. It has a fixed principle. It does not say: “Here I stand
as a scientific engineer, just as I am. All there is in the world
must conform to my present point of view. What I am
unable to perceive has no existence!” That argument is
about as sensible as if a blind man were to say colours are
simply matters of fancy. The man who knows nothing
about a thing is not in a position to judge of it, but only
one who has experienced something of it.
13
Now man is in a state of evolution, and for this reason
Anthroposophy says: “If you remain as you are you will
not see the etheric body, and may certainly therefore speak
of the ‘boundaries of knowledge’ and of “Ignorabimus’; —
but if you develop, and acquire, the necessary faculties for
the cognition of spiritual things, you will no longer speak
of the ‘boundaries of knowledge’, for these exist only as
long as man has not developed his inner senses.” It is for
this reason that agnosticism constitutes so heavy a drag
upon our civilisation; for it says: “Man is thus and thus,
and being thus and thus he can know only this and that.”
To such a doctrine we reply: “Though he be thus and thus
to-day, he has to become different, and when different he
will then know something else.”
So the second part of man is the etheric body, which he
possesses in common with the plant kingdom.
The third part is the so-called astral body—a significant
and beautiful name, the reason for which will be explained
later. Those who are desirous of changing this name can
have no idea of what is implied in it. To the astral body is
assigned the task, both in man and in the animal, of raising
the life-substance to the plane of feeling, so that in the life-
substance not only fluids may move but there may also be
expressed in it all we know as pain and pleasure, joy and
grief. And here you have at once the essential difference
between plant and animal, although there are transitional
stages between the two.
A recent group of naturalists is of opinion that feeling
in its literal sense should also be ascribed to plants. This,
however, is nothing but playing with words. For although
it is obvious that certain plants are so irritable that they
“respond” to stimuli in their environment, yet that is not
“feeling”. In order that “feeling’’ may exist, an image of
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some sort must arise within the creature as the reflex of
that which produces the sensation. If, therefore, certain
plants respond to external stimuli, this is no proof that the
response attains to the level of a feeling, that is to say, that it
is inwardly experienced. That which is inwardly experi-
enced has its seat in the astral body. And so we come to see
that what has reached the stage of animal existence consists
of the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body.
Man, however, towers above the animal through the
possession of something quite distinct, and thoughtful
people have at all times been aware in what this superiority
consists. It is indicated in what Jean Paul says of himself in
his autobiography. He relates that he could quite well
remember the day when he stood as a child in the court-
yard of his parents’ house, and the thought suddenly flashed
across his mind that he was an Ego, a being capable of
inwardly saying “T’ to itself; and he tells us that this made
a profound impression upon him.
All merely external psychology overlooks the most
important point here. I will ask you, therefore, to follow
me for a few moments in a train of thought that is rather
subtle but very relevant. In the whole of human speech
there is one small word which differs in toto from all the
rest. Each one of you can name the things around you; each
one can call a table a table, and a chair a chair. But there is
one word, one name, which you cannot apply to anything
except its owner, and this is the little word “‘T’. None can
address another as “I’’. This “I’’ has to sound forth from the
inmost soul itself; it is the name which only the soul itself
can apply to itself. Every other person is a “‘you” to me,
and I am a “‘you” to him. All religions have recognised this
“TY” as the expression of that principle in the soul which
enables it to utter its own inmost being, its divine nature.
15
Here, then, begins that which can never penetrate through
the outer senses, which can never be meaningfully named
from without, but which must sound forth from the in-
most being. Here begins that monologue, that soliloquy ©
of the soul whereby the divine Self announces its presence
when the path lies clear for the entry of the Spirit into the
human soul.
In the religions of earlier civilisations, among the ancient
Hebrews, for instance, this was known as “the unutterable
Name of God”, and whatever interpretation modern
philology may choose to place upon it, the ancient Jewish
name of God has no other meaning than what is expressed
in our word “‘T’. A thrill passed through those assembled
when the “Name of the Unknown God” was pronounced
by the Initiates, when they dimly perceived what was
meant by those words reverberating through the temple:
“T am that Iam.”
In this word is expressed the fourth principle of human
nature, the one that man possesses alone among his terres-
trial fellow-creatures; and this “I’’ in its turn encloses and
develops within itself the seeds of higher stages of humanity.
We can take only a passing glance at what in the future
will be evolved through this fourth principle. Man con-
sists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and
the Ego, his proper inner Life; and within thisinner Lifeare
the rudiments of three further stages of development that
will spring from the blood. These three are Spirit-Self,
Life-Spirit and Spirit-Man; the Spirit-Self as distinguished
from the bodily self; the Life-Spirit; and the veritable
Spirit-Man, a far-off ideal to the man of to-day, the tiny
seed now latent within him, but destined in future ages to
reach perfection.
We have seven colours in the rainbow, seven tones in the
16
scale, seven series of atomic weights and seven grades in the
scale of the human being; and these are again divided into
four lower and three higher grades.
Let us now attempt to obtain a clear insight into the way
in which this higher spiritual triad achieves a physiognomi-
cal expression in the lower quaternary, and how it appears
to us in the world of the senses. Take, in the first place, that
which has crystallized into form as man’s physical body.
This he possesses in common with the whole of what is
called “lifeless” nature. When we talk in the anthro-
posophical sense of the physical body, we do not really
mean what the eye actually beholds but rather that com-
bination of forces which has built up the physical body, the
activity content which exists behind the visible form. _
Now let us think of a plant. This is a being possessed of
an etheric body, which raises physical substance to life—in
other words, it converts that substance into living sap.
What is it that transforms the so-called lifeless forces into
the living sap? We call it the etheric body, and the etheric
body does precisely the same work in animals and in men;
it evokes that which has a merely material existence into a
living configuration, a living form.
This etheric body is, in its turn, permeated by an astral
body. And what does the astral body do? It leads the
substance that has been set in motion to experience the
material circulation of the fluids inwardly, so that external
movement becomes reflected in inward experience.
We have now arrived at the point where we are able to
comprehend man as far as his place in the animal kingdom
is concerned. All the substances of which man is composed,
such as oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulphur, phosphorus,
etc., are to be found outside in inanimate nature also. If
that which the etheric body has transformed into living
17
substance is to have inner experiences, if it is to create inner
reflections of what takes place externally, then the etheric
body must be permeated by what we have come to know
as the astral body, for it is the astral body that gives rise to
sensation. But at this stage the astral body calls forth sensa-
tion in one particular way only. The etheric body changes
the inorganic substances into vital fluids, and the astral body
in its turn transforms this vital substance into sentient
substance; but—and this I ask you specially to notice—what
is it that a being with no more than these three bodies is
capable of feeling? It feels only itself, its own life-processes;
it leads a life that is confined within itself.
This is a most interesting fact and one of extraordinary
importance for us to bear in mind. If you look at one of the
lower animals, what do you find it has accomplished? It
has transformed inanimate substance into living substance,
and living substance into sensitive substance; and sensitive
substance can be found only where there exist the rudi-
ments, at all events, of what at a later stage appears as a
structured nervous system.
Thus we have inanimate substance, living substance and
substance permeated by nerves capable of sensation. If
you look at a crystal you have to recognise it primarily as
the expression of certain natural laws that prevail in the
external world in the so-called lifeless kingdom. No crystal
could be formed without the whole of surrounding nature.
No single link can be severed from the chain of the cosmos
and set apart by itself. And just as little can you separate
from his environment man, who if he were lifted to an
altitude of even a few miles above the Earth must inevit-
ably die. Just as man is only conceivable here in the place
where he is, where the appropriate forces are combined in
him, so is it too with regard to the crystal; whoever views a
18
crystal rightly will see in it a picture of the whole of nature,
indeed of the whole cosmos. What Cuvier said is actually
the case, namely, that a competent anatomist will be able to
tell to what sort of animal any given bone has belonged,
every animal having its own particular kind of bone-
formation.
Thus the whole cosmos lives in the form of a crystal. In
the same way the whole cosmos is expressed in the living
substance of a single being. The fluids coursing through it
are, at the same time, a little world, and a counterpart of
the great world. And when substance has become capable
of sensation, what then dwells in the sensations of the
most rudimentary creatures? Their sensations mirror the
cosmic laws, so that each separate living creature senses
within itself microscosmically the whole macrocosm. The
sentient life of a simple organism is thus an image of the
life of the universe, just as the crystal is an image of its form.
The consciousness of such living creatures is, of course,
very dim. But its vagueness is counterbalanced by its far
greater range, for the whole cosmos glimmers in the faint
consciousness of an elementary being. In man there is only
a more complicated structure of the same three bodies that
are found in the simplest sensitive living creature.
Take man—without considering his blood—take him as
a being composed of the substance of the surrounding
physical world and containing, like the plant, certain saps or
juices which transform all that into living substance, and in
which a nervous system gradually becomes organised.
This first nervous system is the “sympathetic” system, and
in the case of man it extends along the entire length of the
spine, to which it is attached by minute threads on either
side. It has also at each side a series of nodes, from which
threads branch off to different parts, such as the lungs, the
19
digestive organs, and so on. This sympathetic nervous
system betokens in the first place, the life of sensation just
described. But man’s consciousness does not extend to a
sufficient depth to enable him to follow the cosmic pro-
cesses mirrored by these nerves. They are a medium of
expression, and just as human life is formed from the
surrounding cosmic world, so is this cosmic world reflected
again in the sympathetic nervous system. These nerves live
a dim, inward life, but if man were only able to dive down
into his sympathetic system, and to lull his higher nervous
system to sleep, he would behold, as in a state of luminous
life, the silent workings of tremendous cosmic laws.
In past times people were possessed of a clairvoyant
faculty that is now superseded but may still be experienced
when, by special processes, the activity of the higher system
of nerves is suspended, thus setting free the lower or sub-
liminal consciousness. At such times man lives in that
system of nerves which, in its own particular way, is a
reflection of the surrounding world.
Certain lower animals indeed still retain this state of
consciousness, and though it is dim and indistinct, it is
essentially more far-reaching than present-day human
consciousness. A farspread world is reflected there as dim
inward life, not merely a small section of it such as is
perceived by contemporary man. But in the case of man
there is something else. When evolution has proceeded so
far that the sympathetic nervous system has been developed,
so that the cosmos is reflected in it, the evolving being
again at this point opens itself outwards; to the sym-
pathetic system is added the spinal cord. The system of
brain and spinal cord then leads to those organs through
which connection is established with the outer world.
Man, having progressed thus far, is no longer called upon
20
to act merely as a mirror for reflecting the primordial laws
of cosmic evolution, but a relation is set up between the
reflection itself and the external world. The conjunction
of sympathetic system and higher nervous system is
expressive of a change that has taken place beforehand in
the astral body. The latter no longer merely lives the cos-
mic life in a state of dull consciousness, but it adds thereto
its own peculiar inward existence. The sympathetic system
enables a being to sense what is taking place outside it; the
higher system of nerves enables it to perceive, to become
aware of, what happens within it, and the highest form of
the nervous system, such as is possessed by mankind in
general at the present stage of evolution, takes back from
the more highly developed astral body material for the
creation of images, or representations, of the outer world.
Man has lost the power of experiencing the former dim,
primitive pictures of the external world, but, on the other
hand, he is now conscious of his inner life, and out of this
inner life he forms, at a higher stage, a new world of
images in which it is true, only a small portion of the outer
world is reflected, but in a clearer and more perfect manner
than before.
Hand in hand with this transformation another change
takes place at a higher stage of development. The trans-
formation thus begun extends from the astral body to the
etheric body. As the etheric body in the process of its
transformation evokes the astral body, and as to the
sympathetic nervous system is added the system of the
brain and spine, so, too, does that which—after adopting
the lower circulation of fluids—has grown out of and
become free from the etheric body, now transmute these
lower fluids into what we know as blood.
Blood is therefore an expression of the individualised
21
etheric body, just as the brain and spinal cord are the
expression of the individualised astral body. And it is this
individualising which brings about that which lives as the
Ego, or “T”.
Having followed man thus far in his evolution, we find
that we have to do with a chain consisting of five links:
1. physical body;
2. etheric body;
3. astral body;
or
1. the inorganic, neutral, physical forces;
2. the vital fluids which are also found in plants;
3. the lower, sympathetic nervous system;
4. the higher astral body which has been evolved from
the lower one and which finds its expression in the
spinal cord and the brain;
5. the principle that individualises the etheric body.
Just as the last two principles have been individualised,
so will the first principle through which lifeless matter
enters the human body, serving to build it up, also become
individualised; but in our present-day humanity we find
only the first rudiments of this transformation.
We have seen how the external formless substances pass
into the human body, and how the etheric body turns
these materials into living forms; how, further, the astral
body fashions pictures of the external world, how this
reflection of the external world resolves itself into inner
experiences, and how this inner life then reproduces from
within itself pictures of the outer world.
Now when this metamorphosis extends to the etheric
body, blood is formed. The blood-vessels, together with
the heart, are the expression of the transformed etheric
22
body, in the same way that the spinal cord and the brain
express the transformed astral body. Just as by means of the
brain the outer world is internalised, so also by means of
the blood this inner world is transformed into outer ex-
pression in the body of man. I shall have to speak in similes
in order to describe to you the complicated processes which
have now to be taken into account.
The blood receives those pictures of the outside world
which the brain has internalised, transforms them into
living constructive forces, and with them builds up the
present human body. Blood is therefore the material that
builds up the human body. And we see going on before
our eyes a process in which the blood extracts from its cos-
mic environment the highest substance it can possibly
obtain, viz., oxygen, which renews the blood and supplies
it with fresh life. In this manner our blood is caused to open
itself to the outer world.
We have thus followed the path from the external world
to the inner world, and also back again from that inner
world to the outer world. There are now two possibilities.
We see that blood originates when man confronts the
external world as an independent being, when out of the
sensations which the external world has become in him, he
fashions forms and images of his own accord, thus himself
becoming creative, and making it possible for the Ego, the
individual Will, to come into life. A being in whom this
process had not yet taken place would not be able to say
“T’. In the blood lies the principle for the development of
the Ego. The “T’ can be expressed only when a being is
itself able to form within itself the pictures it has engen-
dered from the outer world. An Ego-being must be capable
of taking in the external world and engendering it again
within itself.
23
Were man endowed only with a brain, he would only be
able to reproduce pictures of the outer world within him-
self, and to experience them inwardly; he would then only
be able to say: “The outer world is reflected in me as in a —
mirror.” If, however, he is able to build up this reflection of
the external world into a new form, then this form is no
longer merely the external world, it is “T’. A creature
possessed of a sympathetic nervous system only mirrors the
world that surrounds it; it does not apprehend that outer
world as itself, as its inner life. A being possessed of a spinal
cord and a brain senses the mirroring as its inner life.
But when a creature possesses blood, it experiences its inner
life as its own form. Through the blood, assisted by the
oxygen of the external world, the individual body is
formed according to the pictures of the inner life. This
process of formation comes to expression as perception of
the “T’, or Ego.
The Ego points in two directions, and the blood ex-
presses this fact externally. Its vision is directed inwards; its
will is turned outwards. The forces of the blood are dir-
ected inwards; they build up the inner man, and again they
are turned outwards to the oxygen of the external world.
This is why, on going to sleep, man sinks into uncon-
sciousness; he sinks into that which his consciousness can
experience in the blood. When, however, he again opens
his eyes to the outer world, his blood takes into its forma-
tive process the pictures engendered with the help of the
brain and the senses. Thus the blood stands midway, as it
were, between the inner world of pictures and the outer
world of living forms. This role becomes clear to us when
we study two phenomena, viz., heredity—the relationship
between conscious beings—and experience in the world of
external events. Heredity, or descent, places us where we
24
stand by virtue of our blood. A person is born of a connec-
tion, a race, a tribe, a line of ancestors, and what these
ancestors have bequeathed to him is expressed in his blood.
In the blood is gathered together, as it were, all that the
material past has constructed in man; but in the blood there
is also being formed all that is being prepared for the future.
When, therefore, man temporarily suppresses his higher
consciousness, when he is in a hypnotic state, or one of
somnambulism, or when he is in a condition of atavistic
clairvoyance, then he descends to far deeper consciousness,
one wherein he becomes dreamily cognisant of the great
cosmic laws, but nevertheless perceives them much more
clearly than the most vivid dreams of ordinary sleep. At
such times the activity of his brain is in abeyance, and dur-
ing states of the deepest somnambulism this applies also to
the spinal cord. The man experiences the activities of his
sympathetic nervous system; that is to say, in a dim and
hazy fashion he senses the life of the entire cosmos. At such
times the blood no longer brings to expression those pic-
tures of the inner life that are produced by means of the
brain; instead, it presents those which the outer world has
built into it. Now, however, we must bear in mind that the
forces of his ancestors have helped to make him what he is.
Just as he inherits the shape of his nose from an ancestor, so
does he inherit the form of his whole body. At such times
of suppressed consciousness he senses his ancestors within
him, even as during his waking consciousness he receives
through his senses the images of the outer world; that
is to say, his ancestors are audible in his blood, and at such
a time he dimly takes part in their remote life.
Everything in the world is in a state of evolution, includ-
ing human consciousness. Man has not always had the
consciousness he now possesses; when we go back to the
25
times of our earliest ancestors, we find a consciousness of a
very different kind. At the present time man in his waking
life perceives external things through the agency of his
senses and forms representations of them. These represen- .
tations of the external world act on his blood. Everything,
therefore, which he has received as the result of sense-
experience, lives and works in his blood; his memory is
stored with these experiences of his senses. On the other
hand, the man of to-day is no longer conscious of what he
possesses in his inward bodily life by inheritance from his
ancestors. He knows nothing of the forms of his inner
organs; but in earlier times this was different. There then
lived within the blood not only what the senses had
received from the external world, but also what is con-
tained within the bodily form; and as that bodily form was
inherited from his ancestors, man sensed their life within
himself.
If we think of a heightened form of this consciousness,
we shall have some idea of how this was also expressed in a
corresponding form of memory. A person experiencing no
more than what he perceives through his senses, remembers
no more than the events so experienced. He can only be
aware of such things as he may have experienced in this
way since his childhood. But with prehistoric man it was
different. Such a man sensed what was within him, and as
this inner experience was the result of heredity, he passed
through the experiences of his ancestors by means of his
inner faculty. He remembered not only his own childhood
but also the experiences of his ancestors. This life of his
ancestors was, in fact, ever present in the pictures which his
blood received, for, incredible as it may seem to the
materialistic ideas of the present day, there was at one
time a form of consciousness by means of which men con-
26
sidered not only their own sense-perceptions as their own
experiences, but also the experiences of their forefathers.
In those times, when they said, “I have experienced such
and such a thing,”’ they were alluding not only to what had
happened to themselves personally, but also to the experi-
ences of their ancestors, for they could remember them.
This earlier consciousness was, it is true, of a very dim
kind, very hazy as compared to man’s waking conscious-
ness at the present day. It partook more of the nature of a
vivid dream, but on the other hand it embraced far more
than does our present consciousness. The son felt himself
connected with his father and his grandfather as one “T’,
because he felt their experiences as if they were his own.
And because man was possessed of this consciousness,
because he lived not only in his own personal world, but
because within him there dwelt also the consciousness of
preceding generations, in naming himself he included in
that name everyone belonging to his ancestral line. Father,
son, grandson, etc., designated by one name that which
was common to them all, that which passed through them
all; in short, a person felt himself to be merely a member of
an entire line. This sensation was a true and actual one.
We must now enquire how it was that this form of
consciousness was changed. It came about through a cause
well known to occult history. If you go back into the past,
you will find that there is one particular moment that
stands out in the history of each nation or people. It is the
moment at which a new phase of civilisation begins, the
moment when old traditions cease, when it loses the wis-
dom that was handed down through the generations by
way of the blood. The various peoples possess a conscious-
ness of all this and it is expressessed in their legends.
In earlier times, tribes held aloof from each other, and
27
the individual members of families intermarried. You will
find this to have been the case with all races and with all
peoples; and it was an important moment for humanity
when this principle was broken through, when alien blood
was introduced, and when marriage between relations was
replaced by marriage with strangers, when endogamy gave
place to exogamy. Endogamy preserves the blood of the
generations; it permits of the same blood flowing in the
separate members as flows for generations through the
entire tribe or the entire people. Exogamy inoculates man
with new blood, and this breaking-down of the tribal
principle, this mixing of blood which sooner or later takes
place among all peoples, signifies the birth of intellect, of
external understanding.
The important thing to bear in mind here is that in olden
times there was a hazy clairvoyance from which the myths
and legends originated. This clairvoyance could exist in the
inbred blood, just as our present-day consciousness comes
about owing to the mingling of blood. The birth of
logical thought, the birth of the intellect, was simul-
taneous with the advent of exogamy. Surprising as this
may seem, it is nevertheless true. It is a fact which will be
substantiated more and more by external investigation;
indeed, the initial steps have already been taken.
But this mingling of blood which comes about through
exogamy is also the thing that obliterates the clairvoyance
of earlier days, in order that humanity may evolve to a
higher stage of development; and just as the person who has
passed through the stages of occult development regains this
clairvoyance, and transmutes it into a new form, so has our
waking consciousness of the present day been evolved out
of that dim and hazy clairvoyance which obtained in times
of old.
28
At the present time everything in a man’s environment
to. which he gives himself expresses itself in his blood;
hence the environment forms the inner in accordance with
the outer. In the case of primitive man it was that which
was contained within the body that was more fully
expressed in the blood. In those early times the recollection
of ancestral experiences was inherited, and, along with this,
good or evil tendencies. But when blood became mixed
through exogamy, this close connection with his ancestors
was severed, and man began to live his own personal life.
He began to regulate his moral tendencies according to
what he experienced in his own personal life. Thus in an
unmixed blood is expressed the power of the ancestral life,
and in a mixed blood the power of personal experience.
The myths and legends tell of these things. They say:
“That which has power over thy blood has power over
thee.” This traditional power ceased when it could no
longer work upon the blood, because the latter’s capacity
for responding to such power was extinguished by the
admixture of alien blood. This statement holds good to
the widest extent. Whatever power it is that wishes to
obtain the mastery over a man, that power must work
upon him in such a way that the effects are expressed in his
blood. If, therefore, an evil power would influence a man,
it must be able to influence his blood. This is the deep and
spiritual meaning of the quotation from Faust. This is why
the representative of the evil principle says: “Sign with thy
blood thy name to the pact. If once I have thy name written
in thy blood, then I can hold thee by that which above all
sways a man; then shall I have drawn thee over to myself.”’
For whoever has mastery over the blood is master of the
man himself, or of the man’s Ego.
When two groups of people come into contact, as is the
29
case in colonisation, then those who are acquainted with
the conditions of evolution are able to foretell whether or
no an alien form of civilisation can be assimilated by the
others. Take, for example, a people that has grown out of
its environment, into whose blood this environment has
built itself, and try to graft upon such a people a new form
of civilisation. The thing is impossible. This is the reason
why certain aboriginal peoples have to go under, as soon as
colonists come to their particular parts of the world.
It is from this point of view that the question will have to
be considered, and the notion that changes are capable of
being forced upon all and sundry will in time cease to be
upheld, for it is useless to demand from blood more than it
can endure.
Modern science has discovered that if the blood of one
animal is mixed with that of another not akin to it, the
blood of the one is fatal to that of the other. This has been
known to occultism for ages. If you mingle the blood of
human beings with that of the lower apes, the result is
destructive to the species, since the one is too far removed
from the other. Whereas, if you mingle the blood of man
with that of the higher apes, death does not ensue. Just as
this mingling of the blood of different species of animals
brings about actual death when the types are too remote, so
too the ancient clairvoyance of undeveloped man was
killed when his blood was mixed with the blood of others
who did not belong to the same stock. The entire intellec-
tual life of to-day is the outcome of the mingling of blood,
and the time is not far distant when people will study the
influence this had upon human life, and when investiga-
tions are once more conducted from this standpoint they
will be able to trace it back in the history of humanity.
We have seen that blood to blood in the case of remotely
30
connected animal species, kills: blood to blood in the case
of more closely allied species, does not kill. The physical
organism of man survives when strange blood comes in
contact with strange blood, but his clairvoyant faculty
perished under the influence of this mixing of blood, or
exogamy.
Man is so constituted that when blood mingles with
blood which is not too far removed in evolution, the
intellect is born. By this means the original clairvoyance
stemming from the animal organism was destroyed, and a
new form of consciousness took its place.
Thus in the higher stage of human development we find
something similar to what happens at a lower stage in the
animal kingdom. In the latter, strange blood kills strange
blood. In the human kingdom strange blood kills that
which is intimately bound up with kindred blood, viz.,
the dim, dreamy clairvoyance. Our everyday objective
consciousness is therefore the outcome of a destructive
process. In the course of evolution the kind of mental life
due to endogamy has been destroyed, but in its stead
exogamy has given birth to the intellect, to the wideawake
consciousness of the present day.
That which is able to live in a man’s blood is that which
lives in his Ego. Just as the physical body is the expression of
the physical principle, as the etheric body is the expression
of the vital fluids and their systems and the astral body of
the nervous system, so is the blood the expression of the
“T’ or Ego. Physical principle, etheric body and astral body
are the “above”; blood and Ego are the “in between”;
physical body, vital system and nervous system are the
“below”. Whoever, therefore would master a man must
first master that man’s blood. This must be borne in mind
if any advance is to be made in practical life. For example,
31
the individuality of a people may be destroyed if, when
colonising, you demand from its blood more than it can
bear, for in the blood the Ego is expressed. Beauty and
truth possess a man only when they possess his blood.
Mephistopheles obtains possession of Faust’s blood
because he desires to rule his Ego. Hence we may say that
the sentence which has formed the theme of the present
lecture was drawn from profound depths of knowledge, for
truly
“Blood is a very singular fluid.”
32.
COMPLETE EDITION
of the works of Rudolf Steiner in the original German. Published by the
Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland, by whom all
rights are reserved.
General Plan (abbreviated) :
A.
I. Works written between the years 1883 and 1925.
II. Essays and articles written between 1882 and 1925.
If. Letters, drafts, manuscripts, fragments, verses, meditative sayings,
inscriptions, etc.
B. LECTURES
I. Public Lectures.
Il. Lectures to Members of the Anthroposophical Society on general
anthroposophical subjects.
Lectures to Members on the history of the Anthroposophical
Movement and Anthroposophical Society.
Ill. Lectures and Courses on special branches of work:
Art: Eurythmy, Speech and Drama, Music, Visual Arts, History
of Art.
Education
Medicine and Therapy
Science
Sociology and the Threefold Social Order
Lectures given to Workmen at the Goetheanum
The total number of lectures amounts to some six thousand, shorthand
reports of which are available in the case of the great majority.
C. REPRODUCTIONS and SKETCHES
Paintings, drawings, coloured diagrams, Eurythmy forms, etc,
When the Edition is complete the total number of volumes, each of a
considerable size, will amount to several hundreds. A full and detailed
Bibliographical Survey, with subjects, dates and places where the lectures
were given, is available.
All the volumes can be obtained from the Rudolf Steiner Press, as well
as directly from the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung (address as above).