Sense of smell

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A human nose
The nose of a dog

The sense of smell is one of the twelve physical senses Rudolf Steiner spoke of in his theory of the senses and mediates olfactory perception, the perception of odours with the help of the nose. The specific smell of certain substances or mixtures of substances is also called aroma (Greek: ἄρωμα ároma "spice, fragrance, perfume"). Like sounds and colours, odours, also called odor (Latin: "smell, stench, fragrance"), have their soul reality in the soul world in the so-called region of region of mobile sensitivity and spiritual beings live and work in them. The World Aroma is a revelation of the first Logos.

„The first Logos flows forth as a world-aroma, as a clearly perceptible odour. In every odour dwells a spiritual being of a higher or lower nature. Very high good entities dwell in incense; they draw us directly upwards to God. Beings of the lowest nature are incarnate in the odour of musk. In earlier times, when people understood more about these things, they used musk for lower sensual stimulation.“ (Lit.:GA 266a, p. 198)

Patchouli, for example, is also regarded as an odour in which lower spirits incarnate[1].

„That sublime being who is creative for our world as the second Logos, that is the creative light. That which passes through the universe as the highest revelation, that is the world-aroma. This is a still higher principle of creation than world tone and world light. World-sound is the third Logos. World light is the second Logos, and world aroma is the first Logos. This is the highest. When the highest creating turns into the opposite, then it is the destroying. Here we have the opposite of the world's aroma; when in folk tales the devil is given the bad smell, this is meant to indicate that the destructive nature of the world is being referred to.“ (Lit.:GA 266a, p. 210)

Rudolf Steiner associates the "diabolical" smells in particular with the Asuras, who did not reach their full goal of development on Old Saturn and thus became dangerous adversaries. They are also the cause of today's sunspots.

„Now, while all the beings that were on the Sun were luminous, as everything that is fixed star is today, the Old Saturn realm of those beings that remained behind acted like a dark enclosure, like dark places opposite the light, like dull caves within the body of the Sun that disturbed its harmony. Particularly with regard to the world's aroma, sensations mingled in from the beings that had remained behind, spreading all kinds of bad smells. Our myth has retained this, saying that the devil stinks and leaves behind an evil odour. With the progress of the Sun, a dark inclusion has really also been left behind, and the sunspots of today are really the stragglers of the Old Saturn Empire on the Sun. For this reason, however, they are hypothetically to be explained exactly as they are today; all this is true.“ (Lit.:GA 100, p. 115)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

References

  1. ↑ cf. Weltenäther - Elementarwesen - Naturreiche, Texte aus der Geisteswissenschaft Rudolf Steiners, edited by Dr. Ernst Hagemann, Oratio Vlg., Schaffhausen 2000, p. 159
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