Streaming Wisdom

We have now come so far in our considerations that we must take into account a possible objection, namely, that the organs of the human being and of animals and all plant forms do indeed arise out of the watery element, but their development takes place in an altogether different measure of time. The organ-like forms created by flowing water appear for a moment, only to recede again and become invisible. The forms of living organs seem to have arisen out of flowing movements, and to manifest the laws of water, but they take a long time to become actual visible forms in material substance. In organic formation there are no currents flowing with the speed of a stream, and all processes are completed with hardly any apparent movement. In water, forms appear and disappear in a moment; in the organs they are gradually created and transformed.

It is as though there were a world of forces creating and fashioning the organs, and certainly working according to the laws of water, but in the invisible; there is a world of forces which mould a form again and again in streaming repetition, while material substance becomes gradually assimilated into it. The organic form slowly and gently appears, as though surrounded and permeated by invisible streams. Observation of the development of living creatures points to such a world of forces. This world is concealed from direct sense observation, but we may perceive its signature, inscribed in and with water as though by an invisible hand. The spiritual science of Rudolf Steiner describes this invisible and therefore supersensible world of forces and calls them etheric formative forces, the forces imbued with life in the etheric bodies of living creatures.

The etheric body of the human being is the body of forces, hidden from the senses, on which the physical body is founded. It permeates the physical body at every moment and saves it from solid rigidity and death. If the etheric body leaves the physical body, the latter is immediately given over to the forces of disintegration of the dead mineral world and becomes once more a part of that world. Thus the etheric body is constantly engaged in a struggle with the purely earthly laws; it is described as that aspect of the living body which confronts weight with lightness or upthrust; it meets the physical forces of pressure with those of suction. It is the bearer of the universal forces of the cosmos, the counterpart of the centric forces of the earth.

The etheric body takes part in the gradual changes in the heavenly processes that hold sway in everlasting movement, creation and transformation of form in the eternal stream of time. The cosmic qualities and movements of water, which we have attempted to describe above, are images of the etheric stream and as such they are also its mediators in the material world. All the qualities of water are akin to this world of etheric forces, and constantly express it. The laws of the etheric world are mirrored in the world of water and these two carry on a constant creative dialogue. So we can understand from another angle how the element of water can also be an element of the cosmos, of the waters of the heavens, in which the ‘boats of the star gods’ trace their forms and shapes as though in a heavenly script.

All organic formation is based on this world of etheric forces that in turn receives formative impulses from the spiritual world. The etheric forces use the appropriate medium of water, which vibrates in resonance with them, thus passing on the formative impulses to the material world.

Withdrawn from waking consciousness, these forces are active when our body is being formed within the maternal organism; indeed they stream around our organs as long as we are alive. Part of them can be released once the organs have been formed and only need to be maintained. It is one of the great discoveries made by Rudolf Steiner that the forces needed for the creation of the organs are gradually freed during childhood and can then be seen to be at work in the conscious life of the human being. They appear as the powers that help the child to stand upright, to walk, to speak and finally to think.

In these activities of man, arising through the power of the etheric forces, we should be able to find the traces of those etheric forces, in which they are still entirely steeped, indeed of which they are to a great extent the expression. We shall discuss the realm of the forces of speech later; for the moment we will turn briefly to the connection of thinking with the etheric world.

The bodily instrument of thinking, the brain, in its spherical form, mirrors the planetary and cosmic laws. It rests in the ‘waters of the world’ and is to a great extent withdrawn from the earthly laws of gravity through the force of buoyancy. Its undulations are the movements of the etheric element of ‘water’ that have become organ; they have been laid down in flowing lines. We have here, in a play of repetition, the basic theme of the meander. Is it surprising if this formative force, once it has been freed from actually shaping the organ, should reappear in the flow of thought? Does not this etheric force, for ever multiplying, reappear in the ability of thinking to be able always to repeat what has once been thought? Constant repetition is characteristic of water and of the etheric, so also of thinking. Inherent in memory is the capacity of being able to rethink any number of times what has been thought before.

In the world of living creatures this principle of repetition appears in great variety, e.g. in the formation of segments, vertebrae, metameric organs, for instance in the primitive kidney, and in many other examples. Reproduction, repetition in propagation, appears in the organic world as well as in the flowing of water and in the spiritual life of the human being. When learning something by heart, the more often we repeat it rhythmically, again and again, the better it impresses itself upon us and becomes a permanent memory and ability. But also it is all the easier to understand something the more it is examined, felt and grasped from all sides. This spiritual activity too has its expression in the liquid element, which envelops objects from all sides, grasps and feels and goes thoroughly into every detail of a form.

The activity of thinking is essentially an expression of flowing movement. Only when thinking dwells on a particular content, a particular form, does it order itself accordingly and create an idea. Every idea—like every organic form—arises in a process of flow, until the movement congeals into a form. Therefore we speak of a capacity to think fluently when someone is skilfully able to carry out this creation of form in thought, harmoniously co-ordinating the stream of thoughts and progressing from one idea to another without digression—without creating ‘whirlpools’. We say of someone who is less successful in this that his thinking is languid and sluggish. An exercise suggested by Rudolf Steiner to help thinking to become fluent and mobile is to recreate and transform in thought, for instance, cloud formations. With this ability to enter thoughtfully into everything and to picture all things in the form of ideas, the process of thinking partakes in the laws of the formative processes of the universe. These are the same laws as those at work in the fluid element that renounces a form of its own and is prepared to enter into all things, to unite all things, to absorb all things.

Thinking that cannot enter deeply enough into every detail becomes a flight of ideas, torn along as though by an invisible torrent in which it can create no permanent forms. On the other hand, thinking that becomes solidified in fixed ideas remains a captive of form, without being able to develop towards further possibilities. Like water, thought can create forms, can unite and relate the forms to one another as ideas; it can unite, but also separate and analyse. The capacity of water in the realm of substance to dissolve and bind together reappears in thinking as a spiritual activity.

Water and this spiritual activity of the human being belong together; the nature of the one is a picture of the other. Both can unite with the earth, while at the same time receiving the ideas of the universe, uniting and co-ordinating them. In thinking there prevails the etheric life of the water forces; through water flows the wisdom of the universe. Is it not this wisdom itself that has created the element of water, a tool for its own activity?