"What is Man?", Page Two

In regard to the metamorphosis that permitted Adam to stand erect with a skull encasing a brain that mirrored the spherical heavens above (cf. I-20), Steiner continues his discussion of how the essential bones developed through these respective radial and spherical forces.

We only begin to perceive the principle of metamorphosis applicable to the long bone and skull if we simply compare the inner surface of a long bone (Figure 1) with the outer surface of a skull bone. It is somewhat like turning a glove inside out, but the simile is not perfect, for when the inversion is made certain forces of tension come into play that alter the shape and distribution of the bone surface—accounting for their differences. The bones in between the long bone and the skull, namely, the vertebrae, are intermediary forms between the two opposite extremes. The long tubular bone and skull bone represent a remarkable polarity (Figures 2 and 3). If you think of what envelopes the human skull, you have what corresponds to the central line of the long bone. But how can we draw the counterpart of this line as it applies to the skull? It must be drawn as a circle—a spherical surface—far away at some indeterminate distance (see Figure 4). All the lines that can be drawn from the center line of the long bone toward its inner surface (Figure 3) correspond, for the skull bone, to all the lines that can be drawn from a spherical surface as though to meet in the center of the Earth (Figure 4).
FIGURE 1
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 4

In other words, the radius of the Earth has the same cosmic value in regard to the vertical posture of the human organism, perpendicular to the surface of the Earth, as a cosmic spherical surface has in regard to the skull organization. The radial applies to the metabolic/limb system where the will is active but the consciousness is asleep, while the spherical applies to the head/nervous system where the thinking is active in wakeful state.10 The rhythmic/circular system mediates between the two.

Again and again Steiner relates these principles to the human organism showing in it the interplay between Earth and the heavens. Embryology in particular reflects this interrelationship, and does so most strongly with the spherical where the head formation is the dominant aspect of embryonic life. The cycles of the solar bodies relate to the gestation period and what is being implanted, under karmic necessity, by the incarnating soul in the bodily structure during these ten lunar months (nine calendar months).

While the Moon, to whose cycle the female organism is so finely attuned, clocks the various stages of embryonic development, the other planets also bring their forces to bear during the gestation period. The scope and depth of these matters is beyond adequate treatment in this essay, but we will look at a few examples.11

To study embryology only in the context of what happens within the womb is like studying magnetism by looking only at the compass needle. As stated in earlier essays herein, any phenomenon can be properly studied only by considering the whole of which it is a part. The forming of mental images (a spherical or Sun influence) and the life of will (radial or Earth influence) are adequately studied only when the contrast between sphere and radius is considered. So it is with psychology. Just as we take the Earth's magnetism into account in connection with the magnet, so also we must look for the genesis of human embryonic life by finding a resultant between what takes place in the starry world (sphere) and what takes place in the human being as a result of the radial Earth activity. Just as there is a relationship between muscle (radial/unconsciousness) and nerve (spherical/consciousness), so also is there a relationship between what is developing in the embryo and its fading when the human being is born, into the experience of consciousness. In the study of these polarities, we are led out into the life of the cosmos. The metabolic system relates to the radial (Earth) influence while the human head system relates to the spherical (Sun). These two realms of activity and influence fall apart in the human being, as though they represent two Ice Ages, with the rhythmic system in the middle mediating between them, between heaven and Earth.

The human being mirrors this polarity in another way. The genesis of the Earth itself must be distinguished between two phases, one in which active forces work in such a way that the Earth itself is created, and then a later phase of evolution in which the forces work so as to create the human faculty for understanding the realities of the Earth. To understand this deeply is to begin to understand the Bible in its fullness from beginning to end. It is no less a book of science than a book of religion, for what is holy encompasses both. Thus far, neither science nor religion has come to the point of studying the whole. When they do, they will come together.

Only in this way do we really come near an understanding of the universe. It may be complex, but if things are such that we cannot reach the realities with the methods in favor today, then we are faced with the absolute necessity of comprehending the reality with other modes of understanding.

Steiner devotes several lectures at this point to showing again certain relationships between the heavens and Earth, on the one hand, and human consciousness and bodily conditions on the other. To some extent these have already been covered in the earlier essays, especially in "Blood," as well as in charts I-86 (etheric body) and I-21 (astral and physical bodies). We can focus here only upon a few observations that point us in the direction we must go if we are to plumb the depths in our quest.

To assist us in conceptualizing these vital points, we will consider certain geometric figures, particularly the lemniscate and the line involved in the Cassini curve. First, however, let us jump ahead to a most incisive observation Steiner gave illustrating the interplay between Sun and Earth as a mental image of the interplay between the spherical (heavenly) and radial (earthly) forces. We can then transfer it to the similar interplay between these forces in the human being. Here we see a polarity that swings back and forth from one to the other, a sort of rhythmic dance pattern. All three elements, solar/spherical, earthly/radial and mediating/lemniscate, are part of the archetypal pattern for what is being created in the divine image in the human being (see Figure 5). The progressive separation of the Sun and Moon and various planets in the development of our solar system (see I-27) accommodated the progressive development of the Earth's three lower kingdoms as receptacles, so to speak, for the descending human kingdom ("the first shall be last").

FIGURE 5

Steiner shows how both the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems have validity and are merely different ways of describing the relationships within the solar system. It makes no difference which system is used insofar as the relationship between Sun and Earth is concerned, for in a manner of speaking it can be said that each journeys around the other. The portrayal of our solar system in two-dimensional schematic is totally unrealistic, for it is far more complex than that. The concepts brought forward by Kepler are themselves deeply rooted in the ancient mysteries and perceive the planetary interrelationships far differently than commonly thought. These relationships involve incommensurate numbers12 so that calculations must be made ever anew to bring them in line with reality. The elliptical orbits are constantly changing so that no instant of time involves a pattern precisely like that of any other instant of time either before or after. If it were not so, the system would be fixed and would die. As it is, it constantly renews itself with ever-changing pattern.

FIGURE 6
FIGURE 7
FIGURE 8

Even the zodiac, the "twelve stars" (Rev 12,1) that Abraham was to number so that his descendants would be twelvefold like them (Gen 15,5), is constantly changing, though much more gradually. Steiner illustrates this by showing how the Great Bear (Job 9,9 and 38,32) has and will change through the ages from fifty thousand years ago to the present to fifty thousand years in the future (Figures 6, 7 and 8, respectively). The influences from the heavens will differ in the future from what they are today and have been in the past. But in reality neither the Sun nor the Earth revolves around the other. Rather they take turns following each other through space. Steiner portrays this in the form of a moving lemniscate (Figure 9) that moves through the heavenly ecliptic (twelvefold zodiac).13 But to derive the lemniscate, it is necessary to think of their journey not in plane (two-dimensional) but in solid (three-dimensional) geometrical form, as though the lemniscate rotates on its polar axis as it moves forward through space—like two hot-air balloons joined linearly at their baskets.

FIGURE 9
 

What is Man?, Page 1

What is Man? Page 3