“Life in the physical world is part of the cosmic order of things. While the human soul is living in the physical world, it is passing through a development which is part of the conditions of its existence. Its being woven into the physical world is a result of the activity of beings whom one learns to know in the higher world.”
— Rudolf Steiner, The Threshold of the Spiritual World.
Last month, in Busy Babies, we saw how enormous are the invisible forces needed for a child to walk, talk, and think. As we explore this further, we acknowledge that these forces emanate from beings we have discussed periodically in the past eight years, the beings of Third Hierarchy: angels (the angeloi), archangels (archangeloi) and Archai. (The term angels is derived from the Greek angelos, meaning messengers.)
Many people who claim to be spiritual, feel comfortable acknowledging that a “force” or a “power” beyond our understanding exists, especially when we encounter our babies. Anthroposophy tells us that every force or power belongs to a spiritual being. No random force rules the universe; spiritual beings are the forces. And we live within and among them but remain unconscious of them during our earthly lives until we achieve clairvoyance. Proving their existence is as difficult as disproving it because these beings are not physical. They simply are not physical. It isn’t a big stretch to feel ourselves as spiritual beings living in physical bodies. It is more challenging, however, to believe that purely spiritual beings living in spiritual bodies are interacting with us all the time.
“The whole Earth and its creations, including humankind, was formed from the cosmos; one part of the creative principle, however, was born in human beings. Therefore, it is not just the natural, sense-perceptible connection between Earth and cosmos that appears as given; the spiritual association between Earth and cosmos in the activity of the spiritual beings also makes itself felt on the stage of the inner human being.”
— Carl Unger.
Thus, we can get a sense for how the forces necessary for the young child to master the three skills of walking, talking and thinking are radiating from spiritual beings. The same spiritual beings can be observed clairvoyantly as they work on us all while we sleep and while we are in the spiritual world between death and a new life. Steiner gives us an outline of their work in the excerpt below, which continues from last month.
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
While encompassed by this dream and sleep state, the child passes through three stages: walking, speaking, and thinking…The child’s development during these three stages can be correctly estimated only by someone observing the adult human being during his sleep. Here we can observe how we, when sleep puts a stop to our thoughts—for our thoughts are silenced by sleep—let our thought-forces be nurtured, between falling asleep and awaking, by those beings known to us as angels, as Angeloi (angels). These beings, approaching us during sleep, nurture our thought forces while we cannot do so ourselves.
During sleep, the human being also ceases to talk. Only in abnormal cases, which could be explained, does he talk in his sleep. At present, however, we may disregard these things. The normal human being ceases to talk after going to sleep. Would it not be altogether too dreadful, if people kept on chattering while asleep? Hence speech ceases at that time. And what makes us speak is nurtured during the time between falling asleep and awaking by beings belonging to the hierarchy of the Archangeloi (archangels).
If we disregard the sleepwalker, who is also in an abnormal condition, human beings are quiet while asleep. They do not walk, they grasp no objects, they do not move. That which pertains to man’s waking forces which call forth the movements out of his will is nurtured, between going to sleep and awaking, by beings belonging to the hierarchy of the Archai.
By comprehending the manner in which the hierarchical beings above the human kingdom—Angels, Archangels, Archai—approach the ego and astral body, approach the entire human being during sleep, we can also understand how the little child masters the three activities of walking, speaking, and thinking. We recognize how it is the work of the Archai that brings to the little child, as he masters the dynamics of life, as he masters the faculty of walking and handling objects, what the human being has experienced, between death and a new birth, by coming into contact with spirit and soul beings. Now, the counterpart of these experiences comes forth with the learning to walk of the little child. It is the Archai, the primeval powers, who transmit to the child that learns how to walk the counterpart of all the spiritual movements emanating, between death and a new birth, from spirit and soul beings.
And it is the Archangels that transmit what the human being experiences, between death and a new birth, by means of revelation; they are at work when the child masters speech. And the Angels carry down the forces developed by the human being when, out of the whole world ether, he gathered the substance for his etheric body. The angels, bringing down these forces, mold their counterparts within the thought-organs, which are plastically formed in order that the child may learn thinking by means of language.
Excerpt from: Man’s Being, His Destiny, and World Evolution. Lecture 3: Our Experiences of Night, Life after Death by Dr. Rudolf Steiner. 18 May1923, Oslo.
Even though we have discussed the work of these angelic beings in previous posts, the ideas expressed by Dr. Steiner here are incredibly difficult to capture with our intellectual thoughts. Nevertheless, they appear here in his lecture, which has been preceded and followed by over 6000 works assembled in his collected works. Perhaps being unable to understand something no matter how hard we try can give us a feeling for the profound and significant mystery of walking, speaking, and thinking—the achievements of mere babies.
We can gain more spiritual scientific knowledge by reading one Steiner’s basic books: Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path, Theosophy, or An Outline of Esoteric Science. It’s a big deal to tackle one of these books, but that’s where more answers reside. Meanwhile,
suffice it to say that we human beings and the world/cosmos we live in are very, very much more complicated than we presume. Which is why we shouldn’t disparage spiritual knowledge that we don’t yet understand or haven’t yet acquired. It’s a demanding process no matter when we start. We may not want to “do the math,” yet, but being open to a spiritual world idea is a great start.