Formative forces

The etheric formative forces underlie the living development and form-giving in the Four kingdoms of nature, they are also called etheric or life forces, and correspond the various planetary spheres in which Earth is embedded.

Just as the laws of mineral science describe the physical (behaviour of 'dead' mineral matter, as the ancient greek denoted with the element 'earth'), so a different set of laws describes the etheric formative processes in everything that is alive (corresponding to the element 'water'), and we can observe first of all in the plant kingdom (but also in the animal and human kingdoms). See Schema FMC00.255.

At the end of the 19th century, theosophy re-introduced the ancient indian term of the tattvas as the formative forces underlying the four elements (a.o. Rama Prasad), whilst contemporary scientists were exploring the vibrations of the so-called 'ether' as a theory of physics to understand matter (a.o. Oliver Lodge, Gustave Le Bon). More on this paradigm below under 'Aspects' for 'tattvas', and on the topic page Spectrum of elements and ethers for 'the ether'.

In the 20th century, a large body of experimental research has proven the workings of these etheric formative forces in nature (see Scientific research into the etheric formative forces), experiments that have been backed with mathematical modelling using projective geometry (see: Mathematics of the etheric).

• The different influences of the planetary spheres was proven as early by the qualitative experimental work of Lily Kolisko using Capillary dynamolysis - rising picture method as early as the 1920s, besides her quantitative work on Potentization which provides the scientific foundation underlying Homeopathy.
• Other pioneers such as George Adams, Olive Whicher and Lawrence Edwards showed how shapes in nature and forms of buds and plants are formed in line with the scientific principles and corresponding mathematical models of the etheric. For an introductory tour with rich visual illustrations, see eg John Blackwood's 'Geometry in nature'. More on: Overview on etheric research and the plant kingdom

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As per the explanation of the Cosmic fractal, all spiritual realities underlying the phenomena in the physical world are ultimately the workings of spiritual beings. The formative forces come into being and function through the spiritual beings of The elementary kingdoms. When these forces affect the Four kingdoms of nature on Earth, they work in constellation with the Elementals of nature and the third hierarchy consisting of angels, archangels and archai. The spiritual scientific framework is given in the Golden Chain section, see Schema FMC00.142A below.

Aspects

• for an excellent introduction to the theme and paradigm shift of the etheric, it is recommended to read the lecture by George Adams (see also Further reading section below). In ten pages Adams gets the essence across of how the 'peripheral' etheric of formative life forces work differently from what we know as central point forces (such as gravity) working on mineral physical matter (and that are successfully mastered by physics and described by mathematical laws in euclidean space).
• terminology:
  • warmth or fire ether (Daskalos: kinetic ether)
  • light ether (Daskalos: imprint ether)
  • chemical ether or sound or tone ether or number ether (or thought ether) (Daskalos: sensate ether)
  • life ether (or atomic ether) (Daskalos: creative ether)
• The two etheric streams discusses how these influences work together to create what can be described as 'maya' or the rendered mineral physical reality experience we perceive with our waking consciousness
• for comments on the 'vril' force (and the triangle part of the hexagram symbol), see Hints of future etheric force technology#1906-01-02-GA093
• besides working on Man - see Human etheric body, the three formative forces affect three different kingdoms of nature where they can be studied, eg see alchemy (and for example plant alchemy or spagyrics). See Schema FMC00.142A below.
• a sevenfold breathing rhythm of the formative forces happens between the cosmos and the Earth, based on the influx of the planetary spheres and the alternation from expansion to contraction giving rise to 'a breathing rhythm of the cosmos' (see Wachsmuth below). See also Planetary hours and Cosmic breathing
• limestone or chalk retains cosmic formative forces: "Chalk indeed is something quite different from the coarse material which the chemists of today represent it to be. It contains formative forces, relatively active though unrecognized."(see Earth's seven epochs#1923-12-01-GA232)
• an introductory overview of scientific progress in the last century is given on (page content to be reorganized):
  • Scientific research into the etheric formative forces
  • Overview on etheric research and the plant kingdom
  • Hints of future etheric force technology

Tattvas

• the tattvas - a sanskrit term used in early theosophical teachings - are the forces or spiritual influences that correspond to the four elements, see more on the Spectrum of elements and ethers
• five etheric streams corresponding to the tattvas flow in Man, corresponding to the pentagram (1906-11-14-GA266/1)
• on akasha:
  • Schema FMC00.194 and FMC00.149 show how all elements and ethers ultimately arise from an initial cosmic stream that contained them all before they split (see also Schema FMC00.067). See also Schema FMC00.084: consider the four elements, and an equivalent etheric formative force for each (including warmth ether for element fire), than they all arise out of a single stream.

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Inspirational quotes

Socrates

Geometry is the art of the ever-true

Lamblichus (3th century AD)

Nature expresses invisible reasons and productive forces through visible forms

Boethius in 'De Trinitate' (6th century AD)

From forms that transcend matter, have come forms which are found in matter and effectively constitute bodies

Algis Uzdavinys (1962-2010) - summarizing Proclus (412-285) on Euclid (around 300BC), here freely rephrased

Contemplating geometry with the aid of imagination is able to bring about a recollection of the eternal ideas in the soul

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.571 provides an overview of descriptions of the five etheric streams, influence or forces called tattvas. Rudolf Steiner's description seemingly corresponds to the one in the theosophical publication and book by Rama Prasad. In later lectures and scientific courses he used different terminology of ethers and formative forces, see eg the light course (GA319) and warmth course (1920-GA320).

Schema FMC00.175A is a simplified variant of Schema FMC00.175 that summarizes the formative forces proceeding from the Elementary Kingdoms, all three active and interpenetrating all the time. They work together with the intelligence of the group soul from the different worlds.

Schema FMC00.030 shows the three main forces of nature, related to the formative etheric forces corresponding to the three previous planetary stages of evolution, and still working through on Earth. In the ancient mysteries these were referred to as the Three mothers

Compare with Schema FMC00.142A: light in the sub-material state is electricity and corresponds to the astral and EK3. The other two forces map to the lower and higher spirit world and EK2 and EK1. The second force, known by the Atlanteans as Tao, and now more popularly known as Vril, is indeed the growth force of nature.

Schema FMC00.142A is lifts out one aspect from Schema FMC00.142, as a graphical illustration to Schema FMC00.175A as well as Schema FMC00.030.

Schema FMC00.255 shows four types of earthly and cosmic laws. The physics of the current materialistic or mineral science is extremely successfull in describing the laws for the element earth, on our planet earth. However 'life', as we see it in the plant world, is governed by different laws, these are those of the etheric world and formative forces. Still other laws exists apply for the astral and spirit worlds. See below for reference lectures.

Schema FMC00.379 illustrates the rhythmic aspect of the etheric formative forces and the various planetary influences and their reversal, as explained in Wachsmuth (see below). This principle explains the principles underlying the differentiation of plant growth, see also the 'Further reading' section on Overview on etheric research and the plant kingdom.

Schema FMC00.595: shows an experiment by Rudolf Hauschka to show the effect of cosmic nutrition and the etheric formative (life) forces, by comparing growth of seedlings immersed directly into solutions of substances vs indirectly in their spheres of radiation. Graphs show average length of shoots after 10 days of experiment in solutions with different potencies D4 to D8. Above the line is shown the avg. length of leaves, below the line the avg. length of roots.

Substances on the left are brain and eye as organs of the nerve-sense subsystems. They promote growth when raying in influences from the surrounding sphere, whereas they have no effect in direct application.

Substance on the right is spleen as organ for the metabolic-limb subsystem. Take up is largest for direct immersion versus radiation influence.

Taken from the book 'Nutrition' by Rudolf Hauschka as another excellent example of experiments confirming the spiritual scientific knowledge paradigm or hypothesis in the physical lab, without any need for higher cognition. Other examples are Schema FMC00.011, Schema FMC00.012 and Schema FMC00.527.

Lecture coverage and references

In the lectures of 1921-06-24-GA205 and 1921-06-26-GA205, Rudolf Steiner describes four types of earthly and cosmic laws (see table below), and takes the perspective as if an ancient Greek would converse with a contemporary scientist. The Greek would point out that all our current knowledge is just one type of knowledge or lawfullness, denoted with the element 'earth'. Similarly, the second lawfullness, denoted with the element 'water', describes the etheric and its formative forces, not only in the plant kingdom but also in the inner movements or streams in the human being (forming the organs). See Schema FMC00.255 above.

Wachsmuth (posthumous publication of info from Rudolf Steiner)

Guenther Wachsmuth wrote two books on the etheric, and it is clearly apparent that certain information must have come from new indications by Rudolf Steiner. Indeed Wachsmuth’s two books ‘Etheric Formative Forces in Cosmos Earth and Man’ and ‘The Etheric World in Science, Art and Religion’ were published in German already in 1923 and 1927. They were thus written before, and started in the period (after the so-called 'scientific courses'), when Wachsmuth and Pfeiffer were investigating the etheric with counsel from Steiner. Whereas the first book has been widely available in English, the second has never been published in English (yet). However the editing and updating of an old and poor existing translation in the works by the FMC project.

The start of the second book presents the wave rhythm of etheric forces in the planetary system.

Please refer to Schema FMC00.003A and Schema FMC00.003 on Earth for the explanation below.

A first wave from the Saturn region to Sun region releases a second wave between Sun and Earth, with the principal of reversal.

If we now follow this wave action of the spheres of formative forces still further inward, we penetrate the sphere of the Earth. However, whereas the first two rhythms were of the same nature in the succes­sion of their forces, there now occurs, with the entrance into the terrestrial system of laws, that primal principle of reversal, of in­version, the validity of which for both the macrocosmic and the microcosmic evolutionary process has been shown in Volume 1 (p. 100 & 201).

The cosmic rhythms upon reaching the Earth :

• do not release a rhythm in the same succession of force-spheres (warmth-ether, light-ether, chemical-ether, life-ether)
• but the wave here reverses itself, as it were, and the forces-spheres follow one another now in precisely the reverse succession (life ether, chemical ether, light ether, warmth-ether), a process of inversion
  • whereby the exterior becomes the in­terior, and the interior becomes the exterior,
  • and which now repeats itself several times inwards within the body of the Earth.

It is then laid out how this, with two repetition and three reversals, gives rise to five waves of formative forces with their own rhythm (we will not go into this here), and then continues with what this means for things on Earth, specifically for plant growth for example:

If we now investigate the effects of these cosmic formative forces on the growth of plants on the surface of the Earth, for example, we must bear in mind that the life process of the plant presents a thrice-repeated rhythm of expansion and contraction (as already set forth in Volume 1, p. 64).

But this threefold rhythm in plant growth is only a continuation of that fourfold rhythm of the alternating expanding and contracting forces as this holds sway in the planetary spheres from the outermost sphere all the way to the surface of the earth.

If we perceive in each such alternation from expansion to contraction a breathing rhythm of the cosmos, we then recognize

• four breath-rhythms which roll inward from the outermost spheres of the formative forces of the cosmos to the surface of the Earth,
• where they are partly reflected and induce three breath-rhythms of plant growth in the reverse direction.

Thus seven breath-rhythms of the formative forces in the interaction of cosmos and Earth cause the creation of a plant on Earth. This shows how the planetary constellations naturally exert an important influence on the differentiation of plant growth. We now understand why the primeval Indian wisdom spoke of the ‘breath of Brahma’ and Christian wisdom of the ‘breath of God’ as the giver of life.

[illustration]

The knowledge of the cosmic harmony of this form-creating surging of the formative forces, surging from without inward and again from within outward, renders possible a profound and satisfying glimpse into the plan of the creation of the world.

Tattvas

1889 (1887 to 1897) - Rama Prasad: 'The Science of Breath & the Philosophy of the Tattvas'

also called 'Nature's finer forces' (see 'References and further reading' below)

extract below edited and SWCC for readability; for the figures see online version, and see also Schema FMC00.571

The tattvas are the five modifications of the great Breath. [refers to the Cosmic breath of Brahma, see also Cosmic breathing]

[see also: Schema FMC00.194]

Acting upon prakriti, this great breath throws it into five states, having distinct vibratory motions, and performing different functions.

[see also: Schema FMC00.006A]

The first outcome of the evolutionary state of parabrahma is the akasha tattva. After this come in order the vayu, the taijas, the apas and the prithivi. They are variously known as mahabhutas.

[akasha]

The word akasha is generally translated into English by the word ether.

Unfortunately, however, sound is not known to be the distinguishing quality of ether in modern English science. Some few might also have the idea that the modern medium of light is the same as akasha. This, I believe, is a mistake. The luminiferous ether is the subtle taijas tattva, and not the akasha. All five subtle tattvas might no doubt be called ethers, but to use it for the word akasha, without any distinguishing epithet, is misleading.

We might call

• akasha the sonoriferous ether,
• vayu the tangiferous ether,
• taijas luminiferous ether,
• apas the gustiferous ether, and
• ·prithivi the odoriferous ether.

Just as there exists in the universe the luminiferous or light ether, an element of ‘refined matter’ without which it has been found that the phenomena of light find no adequate explanation, so do there exist the four remaining ethers, elements of refined matter, without which it will be found that the phenomena of sound, touch, taste and smell find no adequate explanation.

The luminiferous or light ether is supposed by modern science to be matter in a most refined state. It is the vibrations of this element that are said to constitute light. The vibrations are said to take place at right angles to the direction of the wave.

Nearly the same is the description of the taijas tattva given in the book. It makes this tattva move in an upward direction, and the center of the direction is, of course, the direction of the wave. Besides, it says that one whole vibration of this element makes the figure of a triangle.

Suppose in the figure: [sketch]

AB is the direction of the wave; BC is the direction of the vibration. CA is the line along which, seeing that in expansion the symmetrical arrangements of the atoms of a body are not changed, the vibrating atom must return to its symmetrical position in the line AB.

The taijas tattva of the ancients is then exactly the luminiferous ether of the moderns, so far as the nature of the vibration is concerned.

There is no exception, however, of the four remaining ethers, at all events in a direct manner, in modern science.

The vibrations of akasha, the soniferous ether, constitute sound; and it is quite necessary to recognize the distinctive character of this form of motion.

The experiment of the bell in a vacuum goes to prove that the vibrations of atmosphere propagate sound. Any other media, however, such as the earth and the metals, are known to transmit sound in various degrees. There must, therefore, be some one thing in all these media which gives birth to sound -- the vibration that constitutes sound. That something is the Indian akasha.

But akasha is all-pervading, just as the luminiferous ether.

Why, then, is not sound transmitted to our ears when a vacuum is produced in the bell-jar?

The real fact is that we must make a difference between the vibrations of the elements that constitute sound and light, etc., and the vibrations in the media which transmit these impressions to our senses.

It is not the vibrations of the ethers - the subtle tattvas - that cause our perceptions, but the ethereal vibrations transferred to different media, which are so many modifications of gross matter -- the sthula Mahabhutas.

The luminiferous ether is present just as much in a darkened room as in the space without. The minutest space within the dimensions of the surrounding walls themselves is not void of it. For all this the luminosity of the exterior is not present in the interior. Why? The reason is that our ordinary vision does not see the vibrations of the luminiferous ether. It only sees the vibrations of the media that the ether pervades. The capability of being set into ethereal vibrations varies with different media. In the space without the darkened room the ether brings the atoms of the atmosphere into the necessary state of visual vibration, and one wide expanse of light is presented to our view. The same is the case with every other object that we see. The ether that pervades the object brings the atoms of that object into the necessary state of visual vibration.

The strength of the ethereal vibrations that the presence of the sun imparts to the ether pervading our planet is not sufficient to evoke the same state in the dead matter of the darkening walls. The internal ether, divided from the eternal one by this dead mass, is itself cut off from such vibrations. The darkness of the room is thus the consequence, notwithstanding the presence therein of the luminiferous ether. An electric spark in the vacuum of a bell-jar must needs be transmitted to our eyes, because the glass of the jar which stands in contact with the internal luminiferous ether has a good deal of the quality of being put into the state of visual vibration, which from thence is transmitted to the external ether and thence to the eye. The same would never be the case if we were to use a porcelain or an earthen jar. It is this capability of being put into the state of visual vibrations that we call transparency in glass and similar objects.

[sound or chemical ether]

To return to the soniferous ether (akasha): Every form of gross matter has, to a certain extent, which varies with various forms, what we may call auditory transparency.

Now I have to say something about the nature of the vibrations. Two things must be understood in this connection.

In the first place the external form of the vibration is something like the hole of the ear: [sketch]. It throws matter which is subject to it, into the form of a dotted sheet [sketch]. These dots are little points, rising above the common surface so as to produce microscopic pits in the sheet. It is said to move by fits and starts (sankrama), and to move in all directions (sarvatogame). It means to say that the impulse falls back upon itself along the line of its former path, which lies on all sides of the direction of the wave:

It will be understood that these ethers produce in gross media vibrations similar to their own. The form, therefore, into which the auditory vibrations throw the atmospheric air is a true clue to the form of the ethereal vibration. And the vibrations of atmospheric air discovered by modern science are similar.

[vayu]

Now we come to the tangiferous ether (vayu). The vibrations of this ether are described as being spherical in form, and the motion is said to be at acute angles to the wave (tiryak). Such is the representation of these vibrations on the plane of the paper:

The remarks about the transmission of sound in the case of akasha apply here too, mutatis mutandis.

[apas]

The gustiferous ether (apas tattva) is said to resemble in shape the half moon. It is, moreover, said to move downward.

This direction is opposite to that of the luminiferous ether. This force therefore causes contraction. Here is the representation of the apas vibrations on the plane of paper: [sketch]

The process of contraction will be considered when I come to the qualities of the tattvas.

[Prithivi]

The odoriferous ether (prithivi) is said to be quadrangular in shape, thus: [sketch]

This is said to move in the middle. It neither moves at right angles, nor at acute angles, nor upwards, nor downwards, but it moves along the line of the wave. The line and the quadrangle are in the same plane.

These are the forms, and the modes of motion, of the five ethers.

Of the five sensations of men, each of these gives birth to one, thus:

(1)   Akasha, Sonorifierous ether, Sound;

(2)   Vayu, Tangiferous ether, Touch;

(3)   Taijas, Luminfierous ether, Color;

(4)   Apas, Gustiferous ether, Taste;

(5)   Prithivi, Odoriferous ether, Smell.

In the process of evolution, these co-existing ethers, while retaining their general, relative forms and primary qualities, contract the qualities of the other tattvas. This is known as the process of panchikarana, or division into five.

If we take, as our book does, H, P, R, V and L to be the algebraic symbols for (1), (2), (3), (4), and (5), respectively, after panchikarana  the ethers assume the following forms: [sketch]

One molecule of each ether, consisting of eight atoms, has four of the original principle ethers, and one of the remaining four.

The following table will show the five qualities of each of the tattvas after panchikarana:

                 Sound     Touch      Taste        Color      Smell

(1)   H        ordinary     …          …             ...           ...

(2)   P         very light   cool        acid           light blue    acid

(3)   R        light           very hot  hot            red           hot

(4)   V        heavy       cool        astringent   white         astringent

(5)   L        deep         warm      sweet       yellow         sweet

It might be remarked here that the subtle tattvas exist in the universe on four planes. The higher of these planes differ from the lower in having a greater number of vibrations per second. The four planes are: (1) Physical (Prana); (2) Mental (Manas); (3) Psychic (Vijnana); (4) Spiritual (Ananda)

I shall discuss, however, some of the secondary qualities of these tattvas.

• Space: This is a quality of the akasha tattva. It has been asserted that the vibration of this ether is shaped like the hole of the ear, and that in the body thereof are microscopic points (vindus). It follows evidently that the interstices between the points serve to give space to ethereal minima, and offer them room for locomotion (avakasha).
• Locomotion: This is the quality of the vayu tattva. Vayu is a form of motion itself, for motion in all directions is motion in a circle, large or small. The vayu tattva itself has the form of spherical motion. When to the motion which keeps the form of the different ethers is added to the stereotyped motion of the vayu, locomotion is the result.
• Expansion: This is the quality of the taijas tattva. This follows evidently from the shape and form of motion which is given to this ethereal vibration. Suppose ABC is a lump of metal: [sketch] If we apply fire to it, the luminiferous ether in it is set in motion, and that drives the gross atoms of the lump into similar motion. Suppose (a) is an atom. This being impelled to assume the shape of the taijas, vibration goes towards (a’), and then takes the symmetrical position of (a'). Similarly does every point change its place round the center of the piece of metal. Ultimately the whole piece assumes the shape of A’B’C’. Expansion is thus the result.
• Contraction: This is the quality of the apas tattva. As has been remarked before, the direction of this ether is the reverse of the agni, and it is therefore easy to understand that contraction is the result of the play of this tattva.
• Cohesion: This is the quality of the prithivi tattva. It will be seen that this is the reverse of akasha. Akasha gives room for locomotion, while prithivi resists it. This is the natural result of the direction and shape of this vibration. It covers up the spaces of the akasha.
• Smoothness: This is a quality of the apas tattva. As the atoms of any body in contraction come near each other and assume the semi-lunar shape of the apas, they must easily glide over each other. The very shape secures easy motion for the atoms.

This is sufficient to explain the general nature of the tattvas. The different phases of their manifestation on all the planes of life will be taken up in their proper places.

Discussion

Note 1 - On entropy

This note goes into the concept of entropy as part of the second law of thermodynamics as part of contemporary mineral science.

The excerpts below are organized in two sections:

• two short quotes that position it in a scientific context
• then a second section with quotes that show how the second law of thermodynamics is an epitome or spearpoint of the current worldview, and the implications it has for the state of soul of Man, and also for humanity, due to the lack of moral world order in this worldview. So this is in context of cosmogony and teleology (re: Meaning of life#Note 1 - Relevant concepts and terminology)

Scientific context

1917-11-12-GA073 Q&A

Question. It is possible to say something from the point of view of spiritual science about the concept of entropy in modern physics?

Concerning the modern concept of entropy one has to say first of all that anything covered by this concept is above all merely abstracted from the view taken in inorganic natural science.

If we define the term by saying that the final state of present evolution will come because more and more heat remains when mechanical energy is converted to heat energy, so that ultimately the state of the world can only be a state of heat, this is an abstraction taken wholly from the laws of the inorganic world. There can be no objection to this in itself from the point of view of spiritual science. People who follow the entropy idea know that in postulating this end state one also assumes there to have been an initial state; both logically and scientifically it is necessary to assume an initial state if one then lets everything drift towards such a heat death.

From the point of view of spiritual science, the situation looks like this. Again I am immediately considering something real.

1/ In the first place, the observations made in the science of the spirit do not connect at all with an idea which is widely accepted in speculations on inorganic nature, and that is the idea of the dissipation of energies, with people always thinking that the dissipation of energies may go on to infinity. Speaking of energies in terms of modern science, I thus always think of something that goes out into infinity. On the basis of experience gained in the science of the spirit, we cannot do anything with this idea, for from the point of view of this science, and considering their morphogeny, all energies prove to be elastic. This means that when they spread out, they do not dissipate into infinity but only as far as a certain limit from which they then return into themselves. This may, however, take such a long time that it has no immediate relevance for the Earth period that lies directly ahead.

In the science of the spirit one does indeed have to realize that the concept of dissipation into infinity is nebulous and that any form of energy that spreads does not dissipate into infinity but returns to itself. Applying this concept in the field of entropy, we have a final state which is the polar opposite, so that the dissipating energies may come back to themselves again, as it were. This, then, is one point.

2/ The other is the following. If you look at my Outline of Esoteric Science you’ll find that this state, which I refer to by the technical term ‘Old Saturn state’ is indeed shown to be entirely a state of heat. This on the basis of a system of spiritual observation which is a more developed form of what I have today been presenting in its elementary form. I go back and by spiritual scientific methods arrive at an initial state - which is not constructed but seen. The whole of evolution which follows arises from this heat or warmth state. When people arrive at an end state that is a heat state with their idea of entropy, this is an end state which I have to take as an initial state. The consequence is that there must then be a new beginning, starting from this. So there is no ‘beginning and end’, for beginning and end are merely a link in a sequence of evolution.

Commentary

what is sketched here is the principle of cosmic breathing, see also Cosmic breath of Brahma. The point made here is that the theoretical concept has to be framed within an area of application.

• First: the mineral physical condition only, see Three dimensions of evolution. That is the point Rudolf Steiner makes with regards to the Old Saturn 'warmth' state.
• And secondly, the fact that only the mineral is regarded in science today, due to the scientific framework of mineral science related to contemporary Waking Consciousness. That is the point he makes with regards to 'laws of the inorganic world'. There is more in the world than considering only dead matter. For this point, see Spectrum of elements and ethers.

1920-03-08-GA321

coverage in context here, as part of the 'warmth course'

“A perpetuum mobile of the first type is an impossibility.” This concept is intimately connected with the history of physics in the 19th century. The first person to call attention to this change of heat into other forms of energy or vice-versa was Julius Robert Mayer. He had observed, as a physician, that the venous blood showed a different behavior in the tropics and in the colder regions, and from this concluded that there was a different sort of physiological work involved in the human organism in the two cases. Using principally these experiences, he later presented a somewhat confused theory which as he worked it out meant little more than this, that it was possible to transform one type of energy into another. The matter was then taken up by various people, Helmholtz among others, and further developed. In the case of Helmholtz a characteristic form of physical-mechanical thinking was taken as the starting point for these things.

If we consider the most important treatise by which Helmholtz sought to support the mechanical theory of heat in the forties of the 19th century, we see that such ideas as expressed by Hartmann are really postulated as their foundation. A perpetuum mobile of the first type is impossible. Since it is impossible the various forms of energy must be transformations of each other. No form of energy can arise from nothing. The axiom from which we proceed—“a perpetuum mobile of the first type is impossible”—can be changed into another: the sum of the energy in the universe is constant. Energy never is created, never disappears, it is only transformed. The sum of the energy in the universe is constant.

These two principles fundamentally, then, mean precisely the same thing. “There is no perpetuum mobile of the first type.” “The sum of all the energy in the cosmos is constant.” Now applying the method of thinking that we have used before in all our observations, let us throw a little light on this whole point of view.

Note now, when we make an experiment with the object of transforming heat into what we call work, that some of the heat is lost so far as the transformation is concerned. Heat reappears as such and only a portion of it can be turned into the other energy form, the mechanical form. What we learn from this experiment we may apply to the cosmos. This is what the 19th century investigators did. They reasoned somewhat as follows: “In the world about us work is present and heat is present. Processes are continually going on by which heat is transformed into work. We see that heat must be present if we would produce work. Only recollect how great a part of our technical achievements rest on the fact that we produce work by the use of heat. But it always comes out that we cannot completely transform heat into work, a portion remains as heat. And since this is so, these remainders not capable of yielding work, accumulate. These non-transformable residues accumulate. And the universe approaches a condition in which all mechanical work will have been turned into heat.”

It has even been said that the universe in which we live is approaching what has been learnedly called its “warmth-death.” We will speak in coming lectures of the so-called entropy concept. For the present our interest lies in the fact that certain ideas have been drawn from experiment bearing on the fate of the universe in which we find ourselves.

Eduard von Hartmann has presented the matter very neatly. He says: physical observation shows that the world-process in the midst of which we live, exhibits two sorts of phenomena. In the end, however, all mechanical work can be produced, and the universe will have to come to an end. Thus says Eduard von Hartmann; physical phenomena shows that the world process is running down. This is the way he expresses himself about the conditions within which we live. We live in a universe whose processes preserve us, but which has a tendency to become more and more sluggish and finally to lapse into a state of complete inaction. I am merely repeating Eduard von Hartmann's own words.

Now we must make clear to ourselves the following point. Is there ever really the possibility of calling forth a series of processes in a closed system? Note well what I am saying. If I consider the totality of my experimental implements, I certainly am not myself in a vacuum, in empty space. And even when I believe myself to be standing in empty space, I am still not entirely certain but that this empty space is empty only because I am unable to perceive what is really in it. Do I therefore ever really carry out my experiments in a closed system? Is it not so that what I carry out in the simplest experiment has to be thought of as dovetailed into the world process immediately around me? Can I conceive of the matter otherwise than in this fashion, that when I do all these things it is as though I took a small needle and pricked myself here? When I prick myself here I experience pain which prevents me from having an idea that I would otherwise have had. It is quite certain indeed, that I cannot consider merely the prick of the needle and the reaction of the skin and muscles as the whole of the process. In such a case I would not be placing the whole process before my eyes. The process is not entirely contained in these factors. Imagine for a moment that I am so clumsy as to pick up a needle, prick myself and experience the pain. I will pull the needle away. What appears thus as an effect is very definitely not comprehended when I hold in mind only what goes on in the skin. The drawing back of the needle is in reality nothing other than a continuation of what I apprehend when I hold before my mind the first part of the process. If I wish to describe the whole process, I must take into account that I have not stuck the needle into my clothes, but into my organism. This organism must be considered as a regulating whole, calling forth the consequences of the needle prick.

Is it legitimate for me to speak of an experiment such as we have before our eyes in the following way: “I have produced heat, and caused mechanical work. The heat not transformed remains over in the condensation water as heat.” It is not in this way that I stand in relation to the whole thing. The production or retention of heat, the passage of it into the condensation water are related to the reaction of the whole great system as the reaction of my whole organism is to the small activity of being pricked with the needle. What must be taken into account especially is: That it is never valid for me to consider an experimental procedure as a closed system. I must keep in mind that this whole experimental procedure falls under the influence of energies that work out of this environment.

1920-03-13-GA321

Your attention has been called to the fact that the physicists have come to a certain view so neatly expressed by Eduard von Hartmann. The second law of thermodynamics states that whenever heat is changed into mechanical work some heat remains unchanged, and thus, finally, all energy must change into heat and the Earth come to a heat death. This view has been expressed by Eduard von Hartmann as follows: “The world process has the tendency to run down.”

Now suppose we assume such a running down of the world-process does take place in the direction indicated. What happens then?

When we make experiments to illustrate the second law of the mechanical theory of heat, heat appears. We see mechanical work used up and heat appearing. What we see appearing is susceptible to further change. For we can show likewise when we produce lights from heat that not all of the heat reappears as light, since heat simply reverses the mechanical process as it is understood in the sense of the second thermodynamic law of mechanical phenomena. This has, however, led us to say that we have to imagine the whole cosmic spectrum as closed into a circle.

Thus if it were really true, as examination of a certain series of phenomena indicates, that the entropy of the cosmos is striving to the maximum, and that the world process is running down, provision is made for re-energizing it. It runs out here, but it runs in again here (indicating figure) on the other side, for we have to think of it as a circle.

Thus even if the heat-death enters on one side, on the other side, there comes in that which re-establishes the equilibrium and which opposes the heat-death by a cosmic creating process.

Physics can orientate itself according to this fact if it will no longer observe the world process as we usually look at the spectrum, going off into infinity in the past we go from the red and again into infinity in the future as we go from the blue. Instead the world process must be symbolized as a circle. It is only thus that we can draw near to this process.

When now we have symbolized the world process as a circle then we can include in it what lies in the various realms.

Law of conservation of energy: symbol of a worldview problem

On entropy and law of conservation of energy as symbol of the mineral worldview, and consequences for the state of soul and moral world order

1908-05-14-GA056

If anybody has a piece of iron and says: this iron has magnetic force; touch it with another iron and you have a magnet—another may come and say, nonsense! The piece of iron is good for hammering down nails.—These are the true daydreamers who take the sensuous, the practical only in such a way as that man who hammers down nails only with the magnet.

The realists, the monists, the utilitarians, and others are the true daydreamers. They know the forces of the physical world only and triumph if the immense progress is done by merely revealing the forces of the physical world. Spiritual science has to argue nothing at all against this physical world. However, it also knows that it is high time that the human beings learn again that in the physical the spiritual is concealed, and that just the human beings become dreamy when they close their spiritual eye to the spiritual world. Today true realists, apostles of reality are those who point to the spiritual forces! What do these truthful realists want? They want that the real forces slumbering behind the sensuous are introduced in this world that they settle down in our whole development that we do not only introduce the telegraph, the telephone and the railway, the usual forces but also the spiritual forces.

If anybody goes into these matters, he is still twitted today; he does not care this twitting. He knows that even the great naturalists found few followers once; also, those who tell something of the spiritual worlds have to find the ways just in the big world. Even if only few people can create telegraphs, telephones and railroads, the other can use them, nevertheless. However, everybody must gain the spiritual world on his own accord.

The great physicists Thomson (William T., first Baron Kelvin, 1824–1907, British physicist), Clausius (Robert C., 1822–1888, German physicist and mathematician) and others have their successors who can recognise the physical principles. One of the biggest physical principles is at the same time that what the human being pushes to the spiritual world. For those who have dealt a little with physics I say nothing unknown if I draw the attention to the fact that there is a principle of entropy, this is due to Carnot (Nicolas Léonard Sadi C., 1796–1832), the uncle of the French president (Marie François Sadi C., 1837–1894).

What does it mean? It pronounces one of the most certain principles, which we have in the physical world, namely how the physical forces of the world change into each other. Hit with the hand on the table and measure the effect on the table with a sensitive thermometer. You will find that the place has become warm. You see the heat of the railroad engine being transformed into locomotion and this again into heat. A big principle forms the basis of all that, the principle of entropy. From the consideration of the world, it becomes clear that this conversion of energy shows, nevertheless, a certain guideline, a certain sense. The entropy principle shows that all energy must change into heat at last, and this heat scatters in the space. Today one has proved by the physical principle that the earth, our physical world, once experiences the heat death. This principle exists. That has to deny this principle who asserts that in our world only physical forces are; for this would have to say if he recognised the principle: then everything is over.

Therefore, also Haeckel takes the view that this principle of entropy is nonsense because it contradicts his principle of matter. It is a physical principle that the things are transformed perpetually. A Russian physicist has proved in a writing how firmly founded just this principle is which shows the physical end of our present world. Just in this writing of Professor Chwolson (Orest Ch., 1852–1934, Russian physicist), the “twelfth commandment” was put up (Hegel, Haeckel, Kossuth and the Twelfth Commandment, 1906). You can realise there how competent a physicist can be in the physical field, just as you can also realise how unknowing such scholars can be concerning the spiritual fields. The “twelfth commandment” is “you should never write about anything that you do not understand.” Chwolson obeys it in his field where he speaks about physics, but he does not obey it in the spiritual field. Everything that he says concerning the physical is excellent; however, what he says concerning the spiritual matters is of little value and a big sin against the principle: “you should never write about anything that you do not understand.”

A passage follows that the stenographer did not write down apparently in which Rudolf Steiner probably explained that Chwolson did not understand Hegel. However, Rudolf Steiner admits that Chwolson is correct concerning his remarks about an article by Kossuth in a scientific magazine. Kossuth claims that the law of mass conservation is nothing else as the sentence: the whole is like the sum of its parts, and the principle of energy conservation is nothing else than the sentence: the cause is like the effect.—With reference to the discoveries of Lavoisier Rudolf Steiner continues:

Someone who knows something of the spiritual research knows what it means that one has shown that if substances combine chemically with each other the weight is that of the sum of the parts. If one says then: this law contains nothing else than the old mathematical law: the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, one would already have to get clear about the fact that it concerns only the weight of the whole that is equal to the sum of the weight of its parts. Kossuth just forgets that if one proceeds to the spiritual the law does not apply at all there. So short is the thinking. Chwolson says, Mr. Kossuth may only take his pocket watch and crush it in the mortar; then he can see whether the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. Goethe also already pronounced the thought that is often repeated:

To understand some living thing and to describe it,

the student starts by ridding it of its spirit,

he then holds all its parts within his hand,

except, alas!, for the spirit that bound them together.

(Faust, Verses 1936–1939)

The fewest people who believe to stand on the ground of certain facts know that the natural sciences are often nothing else than taking no account of the spiritual tie. On one side, we realise if we survey all the circumstances and connect them with that what I have stated about the supersensible world that in many human souls the longing lives to penetrate into the supersensible world. However, they suspect those details of which someone has to speak who really knows something of these matters. We see the longing for the supersensible world stirring; but we do not see the strength and the energy to penetrate into these supersensible worlds according to the instructions of spiritual science. On the other side, we have the facts in our time. We have a competent physical science in our time: Thomson, Clausius, and Carnot have found good successors. If the development advances in spiritual science in the same spirit, the researchers in the spiritual field will find also capable successors like Thomson, Clausius and Carnot have found. Then the result will be that from this humanity which has almost shut itself off today from the heavenly world, another arises which draws the strength of the supersensible world into the sensuous one. Spiritual science does not want to alienate the human being from the world but to make him strong, energetic, and vigorous for existence, while it enriches reality.

We only need to join two things, and this will fit together: in the same strict way as now in the physical science, a big part of the human beings will have the possibility to satisfy the need of their hearts out of the spiritual world. It is the task of spiritual science as a cultural stream to bring together these two spiritual streams, the satisfaction of the sensuous needs by the natural sciences and the satisfaction of the longing for the spiritual.

1921-06-12-GA342

You see, the most that our study of nature has brought us is the law of the conservation of matter and the conservation of energy in the universe. You know that in the newer science of the soul, in psychology, this law of the conservation of energy has had a devastating effect. One cannot come to terms with the soul life and its freedom if one takes this law of the conservation of matter and the conservation of energy seriously. And the foundations that today's science gives us to understand the human being are such that we cannot help but think that this law of the conservation of matter and the conservation of energy seems to apply to the whole human being.

Now you know that spiritual science – not as a dogma of prejudice, but as a result of [spiritual research] – has the knowledge of repeated earthly lives. In the sense of this knowledge, we live in this life, for example, between birth and death, in such a way that, on the one hand, we have within us the impulses of physical inheritance (we will come back to these impulses of physical inheritance in more detail). The world in which we live between death and a new birth includes facts that are not subject to the laws of the conservation of matter and the conservation of energy. If we seek the spiritual connection between our present life and our next life on earth and further into the lives that no longer proceed physically, but that, after the end of our earthly existence, proceed spiritually, if we draw this connecting line, we encounter world contents that do not fall under our natural laws and therefore cannot be conceived under the law of the conservation of matter and the conservation of energy. What, then, is the connection between that which plays out from an earlier life into a later one, and that which a person then lives out in his deeds under the influence of earlier lives on earth? This connection is such that it cannot be grasped by natural laws, even if they extend into the innermost structure of the human body.

Every effect of that which was already present in me in earlier lives, in the present life, is such that its lawfulness has nothing to do with the universal laws of nature. This means that if we have ethical impulses in our present life on earth, we can say with certainty that these ethical impulses cannot be fully realized in the physical world, but they have the possibility of being realized from one life on earth to the next, because we pass through a sphere that is released from the laws of nature.

We thus arrive at a concept of miracle that is indeed transformed, but can certainly be retained in terms of knowledge. The concept of miracle in turn takes on meaning. The concept of miracle can only make sense if ethical impulses, and not just natural laws, are at work. But when we are completely immersed in the natural world, our ethical impulses do not flow into the natural order. But if we are lifted out of this natural context, if we place time between cause and effect, then the concept of miracle takes on a completely new meaning; indeed, it takes on a meaning in an even deeper sense.

If we look at the origin of the Earth from a spiritual scientific point of view, we do not see the same forces at work as in the universal context of nature today. Rather, we see the laws of nature being suspended during the transition from the pre-earthly metamorphosis to the present-day earthly metamorphosis of the earth. And when we go to the end of the Earth, when, so to speak, the Clausiussche formula is fulfilled and the entropy has increased so much that it has arrived at its maximum, when, therefore, the heat death has occurred for the Earth, then the same thing happens: we see how, at the beginning of the earth as well as at the end of the earth, natural causality is eliminated and a different mode of action is present. We therefore have the possibility of intervening precisely in such times of suspension, as they lie for us humans between death and a new birth, as they lie for the earth itself before and after its present metamorphosis, the possibility of intervention by that which is today simply rejected by natural causality, the possibility of intervention by ethical impulses.

You see, I would say that humanity has already taken one of the two necessary steps.

The first step is that all reasonable people, including religious people, have abandoned the old superstitious concept of magic, the concept of magic that presupposes the possibility of intervening in the workings of nature through this or that machination. In place of such a concept of magic, we now have the view that we must simply let natural processes run their course, that we cannot master natural causality with spiritual forces. Natural causality takes its course, we have no influence on it, so it is said, therefore magic in the old superstitious sense is to be excluded from our fields of knowledge.

But, as correct as this may be for certain periods of time, it is incorrect when we look at larger periods of time. If we look at the period of time that lies between death and a new birth for us humans, we simply pass through an area that, before spiritual scientific knowledge, appears in the following way: Imagine we die at the end of our present life; we first step out of the world in which we perceive the universal natural causality through our senses and our intellect. This universal natural causality continues to rule on Earth, which we have then left through death, and we can initially, after death, when we look down from the life in the beyond to this one, see nothing but that effects grow out of the causes that were active during our life; these effects, which then become causes again, become effects again. After our death, we see that this natural causality continues.

1921-07-02-GA205

You see the human being becomes a part of the whole world organism; and I should like to close these considerations by pointing out to you an idea, asking you to think about it rather thoroughly, and to make it a subject of meditation. Science today postulates a cosmic process, and within this cosmic process the earth once arose. In the end the earth, when the entropy is fulfilled, will be consumed in cosmic heat. If today we form for ourselves a concept such as the Copernican, or any modification of it, then we take into consideration only the forces which formed the earth out of the primeval nebula, and human life really becomes a sort of fifth wheel on the wagon; for the geologist and the astronomer do not consider mankind. It does not occur to them to seek in any sense within mankind itself the cause of a future world organism. The human being is everywhere present in this cosmic process, but he is the fifth wheel on the wagon. The world process takes its course, but he has nothing to do with it. Consider it in this way: the world process comes to an end, ceases, is dispersed in space. It stops, and the causes of what ensues are always within the human being himself, inside his skin; there they find their continuation.

The inception of what is now the world lies far back within man of primeval ages. It is thus in reality. The books of ancient wisdom tell us this in their own language, and the saying of Christ-Jesus points to these things: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. All that constitutes the material world is dissolved, but that which issues from the spirit and soul and is expressed in words survives the destruction of the earth and lives on into the future. The causes of the future exist within us, and need not be investigated by geologists. We should seek them among the inner forces of our organism which pass over into our next earth-life first, but then continue into other metamorphoses. Hence when you search for the future of the world you must look within man. Everything external perishes utterly.

The nineteenth century erected a barrier against this knowledge, and this barrier is called: the law of the conservation of energy. This law carries forward the forces of man's environment; but all these will dissolve and disappear. Only that which arises within humanity itself can create the future. The law of the conservation of energy is the most false imaginable. In reality its result is simply to make mankind a fifth wheel in the creative process of the cosmos. Not the statement of the law of the conservation of energy is correct, but that other saying: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. These two are in diametrical contrast; and it is simply thoughtlessness when today certain members of this or that positive denomination wish to be believers in the Bible and, at the same time, adherents of the theories of modern physics. This is sheer dishonesty which claims today to be something culturally creative. This dishonesty must be driven from the field of creative culture—which it actually opposes—if we are to emerge from these forces of decline into ascending powers.

1921-08-19-GA206

To live in the word as the Greeks lived in the word meant that instead of making calculations based on the results of experiments, they observed the changes and transformations taking place unceasingly in the life of Nature. Their attention was turned not to the world of minerals but chiefly to the world of the plants. Just as there is a certain affinity between abstract thought and the comprehension of the mineral world, so there is an affinity between the Greek attitude to the word and the comprehension of growth, of life, of constant change in living beings. When we conceive of a beginning and an ending of a mineral Earth to-day and build up our hypotheses, these hypotheses are an image of what we have measured, counted, weighed. We evolve a Kant-Laplace theory, or we conceive of the entropy of the Earth. All these things are abstractions, derived from what we have measured, counted and weighed.

1921-09-27-GA343

My dear friends, I must admit I don't really understand how these things can be indifferent, when they are understood.

The unbelievably important question of the present day is: How can the realm of morality be founded in the realm of natural necessities?

We live today on the one side within a scientifically acknowledged realm of natural necessities and one allows that within this realm of necessities, hypotheses are made which are not supported by direct observation.

[cosmogony]

One takes for instance the example of the development of the Earth according to geology and so on, spanning only a certain time in history and then according to these impressions arrive at the origin of the Earth as coming out of the ancient mists, or like the modified hypotheses in the sense of the Kant-Laplace theories which are no more valid these days; then out of this comes the imagining of the Earth's origin and out of the second main statement of the mechanical heat theory, the theory of entropy, the imagining how everything is heading for death through heat (Wärmetod).

Who constructs this hypothesis regarding the Earth's origin and evolution must say to himself—because according to the scientific point of view on which it is based, it can't be assumed otherwise—that this ancient mist was there as the sovereign entity with laws of aerodynamics and laws of aerostatics, and out of this the laws of hydrodynamics and hydrostatics were created, and then luckily such conditions arose through which connections were created as we find in the simplest cells, the amoebas, and then all that turned into complicated organisms, also humans, and in humans moral ideals rose through which human worth could be felt.

What would we be as humans if we hadn't had our moral ideals, and if through these moral ideals we didn't, through the acceptance of a divine world order in the entire global context, become ennobled? It is useless to just let it go; to say we will separate the realm of the certainty of faith which we have in moral ideals, from what we have as the natural order. Such a separation can only happen with those who aren't really inwardly serious about what they see presented in the natural order.

1921-12-01-GA079

If we study the human being in accordance with a natural-scientific mentality and in the sense of modern civilisation, we find on the one hand the rigid scientific necessity of Nature into which the human being is also inserted, and on the other hand, we find that man can only be conscious of his dignity and can only say: I am truly Man, if he can feel within him the moral-religious impulses. But if we honestly stand upon the foundation of natural science, we have pure hypotheses as to the beginning and the end of the earth, hypotheses which speak of the Kant-Laplace nebula for the beginning of the Earth and of a heat-death for the end of the Earth.

If in the face of the natural-scientific demands we now consider, in the sense of modern civilisation, the moral-religious world which reveals itself intuitively (I have shown this in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity), if we consider this world we must say: We really delude ourselves, we conjure up before us a fog. Is it possible to believe that when the earth passes through the death by heat, that there should still exist anything else in the sense of natural science than the death too of all ideals?

At this point spiritual science, or anthroposophy steps in, and shows that the soul-spiritual is a reality, that it is working upon the physical and that it has placed man in the human form, into the evolution of the world. It shows that we should look back upon animal-beings which are entirely different from the present animals, that it is possible to adhere to the methods of modern science, but that other results are obtained. anthroposophy thus inserts the moral element into the science of religion, and anthroposophy thus becomes moral-religious knowledge.

Now we no longer merely look towards the Kant-Laplace nebula, but we look at the same time to an original spiritual element, out of which the soul-spiritual world described in anthroposophy has just as much developed as the physical world has developed out of a physical-earthly origin. And we also look towards the end of the earth and since the laws of entropy are fully justified, we can show that the earth will end through a kind of death by heat. But we look towards the end just as from the anthroposophical standpoint we can view the end of the single human being: his corpse is handed over to the elements, the human being himself passes over into a spiritual world. This is how we envisage the end of the earth. The scientific results do not disturb us, for we know that everything of a soul-spiritual nature which men have developed will pass through the earth's portal of death when the earth no longer exists; it will pass over into a new world-development, even as the human being passes over into a new world-development when he passes through death.

By surveying the development of the earth in this way, we perceive in the middle of its development the event of Golgotha. We see how this event of Golgotha is placed in the middle of the earth's development, because formerly, there only existed forces which would have led man to a kind of paralysis of his forces. We really learn to recognise (I can only allude to this at the end of my lecture) that in the same way in which through the vegetable and animal fertilization a special element enters the fertilised organism, so the Mystery of Golgotha brought something into the evolution of the world from spiritual worlds outside the earth, and this continues to live, it accompanies the souls, until at the end of the earth, they pass on to new metamorphoses of earthly life. I should have to describe whole volumes were I to show the path leading in a strictly conscientious scientific way from what I have described to you to-day in connection with the evolution of humanity and of the universe, to the mystery of Golgotha, to the appearance of the Christ-Being within earthly existence.

1922-08-20-GA214

This experience intensifies our sense of responsibility with respect to the world. It gives us an altogether different consciousness, a consciousness much needed by modern humanity. Modern humanity looks at the beginning of the earth, how it was formed from a primal plasma in space, how life, man, and—much like a fata morgana—the world of ideas arose out of this primal matter. Our present-day humanity looks at the cold grave of the universe that entropy will bring us to. According to this materialistic idea, everything in which human beings live will again sink into a great graveyard. Humanity needs knowledge of the moral order in the world, the knowledge that can be achieved through super-sensible sources. This I can only touch on in this lecture.

1923-03-18-GA222

That will become, and indeed has become, a universal attitude of soul. And although men do not realize it in full clarity it is nevertheless present in them as vague feelings, as dissatisfaction with life; and it then passes over into action that must eventually bring about an era as chaotic as that in which we are now living. This is the anxious question facing modern humanity; it arises because man is obliged to say to himself: Here is the world of natural law, having issued from the primal nebula, reaching eventually total entropy, and therefore heading towards a condition where everything of the nature of soul and Spirit will have become submerged in a world which lacks all mobility and must inevitably become a great cemetery. All moral ideals proceeding from the individuality of man would have perished.

People do not acknowledge this today because they are not honest enough to do so. But all that they get from modern civilization would inevitably lead them to suffer on account of this immensely significant cleavage in their world-view, to suffer—only they do not realize it—from being subject to a natural world and also from being obliged to assume the existence of a moral world, yet having no power, because of the modern outlook, to ascribe any reality to moral ideas.

It was not so for an older humanity. An older humanity felt that its moral ideas came from the Gods. That was in the days when the Exousiai, the Spirits of Form, instilled the thoughts into man—including, of course, moral ideas. At that time man knew that even if the Earth did indeed perish, the divinespiritual Beings who draw the world-thoughts out of the cosmos would be there in the future. Man knew that it was not he who made the thoughts, that they were there in the same way as processes of Nature are there; they must therefore always have been in existence, like the external processes of Nature.

We must be quite clear that many people—in greater and greater numbers—simply cannot come to terms with life. Some admit this to themselves—they are possibly the best. Others do not admit it, and the world-chaos into which we have fallen is due to their actions.

All the chaos, the disorder that exists today, is the direct consequence of this inner cleavage, this ignorance of the extent to which the moral world has reality. Men prefer to blunt their understanding of the great world-problems since they are unwilling to force themselves to admit where the cleavage actually lies. They prefer to ignore it.

Related pages

• The elementary kingdoms
• Overview on etheric research and the plant kingdom
• Spectrum of ethers and elements
• Mathematics of the etheric
• Planetary hours
• Cosmic breathing
• Three mothers

References and further reading

• Rama Prasad: Nature's Finer Forces, The Theosophist 1887-1889
  • published as 'The Science of Breath & the Philosophy of the Tatwas' in 1897 - see online here
• George Adams: 'Potentization and the peripheral forces of nature' (lecture, 1961) - PDF download here

Tattvas

• Karl Brandler-Pracht (pseudonym Johannes Balzli (1864-1939))
  • 'Tattwische- und Astrale Einflüsse' (1922)

• Arnold Krumm-Heller (1876-1949)
  • Los Tatwas y sus aplicaciones en la vida diaria (1911)
  • El Tatwámetro o las vibraciones del éter (1927 in ES) - see online in PDF

On Number, Form, Geometry

• J.B. Pettigrew: Design in nature (1908)
• John Blackwood (1940-2015): Geometry in nature' (explaining the morphology of the natural world through projective geometry) (2012)

Spirals

• Kinko Tsuji, Stefan C. Müller (editors): Spirals and Vortices: In Culture, Nature, and Science (2019)

General on geometry, pi, golden ratio

• Matila Ghyka: The geometry of art and life (1946)
• Peter S. Stevens: Patterns in nature (1974)
• Keith Critchlow:
  • Islamic patterns: An analytical and cosmological approach (1976)
  • Order in Space: A Design Source Book (1994)
• Renwick A. Sheen: Geometry and the imagination (1994)

Fibonacci

• Trudi Hammel Garland: Fascinating Fibonaccis (1987)

Pi

• David Blatner: The joy of Pi (1997)
• Patrick Mulcahy: The Metaphysical Significance of Pi (2008) - see online in PDF

Golden ratio

• H.E. Huntley: The divine proportion (1970)
• Mario Livio: The golden ratio (2002)
• Gary B. Meisner: The Golden Ratio: The Divine Beauty of Mathematics (2018)

Furthermore, see also:

• References and further reading section on 'Spectrum of elements and ethers'