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Bees – Lectures by Rudolf Steiner

Excerpt from a lecture given in Berlin,  September 29, 1905

We have been speaking about the consciousness of the various realms of nature. The organs of the human body also have a consciousness unique to each organ. This type of consciousness manifests itself abnormally in the case of [the mentally ill] and is an astral consciousness that insects, ants, spiders, etc. also possess. A very different type of consciousness exists in bees. We'll use the bees as an example of how you can arrive at such truths and use them to understand the world around us.

One does not train in matters hidden from ordinary consciousness in the way currently used in schools; it is not directed toward stuffing information into the heads of students. A student does not receive a mass of material that must be learned in a strict manner when learning about hidden spiritual matters, but rather he or she is given a profound statement containing an inner power. That is the way it was done in earlier times. The student had to meditate on this statement while maintaining a complete inner calm. In this way the student would be illumined from within, would experience Light within.

When human beings arrive at a point where they are able to see through themselves, they are able to immerse personal consciousness in other beings. For this to happen, one must have taken hold of exactly the point behind the midpoint between the eyes, and must have directed this point of consciousness all the way down into the heart. One will then be able to place one's consciousness into other things; for example, one should then be able to find out what really lives inside an anthill.