{"id":73251,"date":"2026-07-01T22:42:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=73251"},"modified":"2026-07-01T22:42:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:42:31","slug":"in-the-clockwork-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/in-the-clockwork-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Clockwork of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>A contemplation on soul.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>The great clockwork\u2014inscribed in the heavens and tracing its tracks with planets and stars\u2014transforms this world and the heavens. It raises mountains from the seas and shifts valleys; causes forests to grow and decay; changes nature through the seasons and affects human history. The soul beholds a grand, wondrous, and marvelous performance. Spirit has assigned the soul a role: to journey through time from the beginning of the world to its end. The soul moves swiftly, like a bird diving through the tunnel of the ages that rush past: faces, smiles, sobs, solemnity, wit, joy, pain, children, people, men, women, poor, rich\u2014all pass before her. She does not know these figures, yet she feels strangely familiar and close to them. They are human beings, destinies, life stories through which the soul flies\u2014some long past, some not yet lived. The soul does not see them unfolding from without, but rather from within\u2014as if she were standing on a spinning top rotating upon its own axis. The most hidden and innermost parts, the self\u2014most familiar to ourselves and invisible to everyone else\u2014the soul witnesses on her flight through time. She does not know these people or their destinies. She merely senses what moves them, what they wish for; she senses their fears and worries, their struggles and joys. She sees all these sides of humanity from within, in the depths of a clockwork that turns in upon itself: cries, mouths shut, gazes from brown eyes, hoods, ornate hairstyles\u2014the soul surveys countless peoples and cultures and sees the great cultural figures striding above\u2014mighty spirits who teach humanity the sciences and the arts. Some of these spirits wear blue armor and command shadows and wispy mists; others are entirely green, wrapped in vibrant robes and cloaks, drawing sap from the plants; still others are light brown and slender as bamboo forests. They fell invisible trees in the spirit realm and pass them on to the peoples who build civilizations and pursue the sciences on Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Translation <\/strong>Joshua Kelberman<br><strong>Photo <\/strong>Mathew Schwartz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A contemplation on soul. The great clockwork\u2014inscribed in the heavens and tracing its tracks with planets and stars\u2014transforms this world and the heavens. It raises mountains from the seas and shifts valleys; causes forests to grow and decay; changes nature through the seasons and affects human history. The soul beholds a grand, wondrous, and marvelous performance. Spirit has assigned the soul a role: to journey through time from the beginning of the world to its end. The soul moves swiftly, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20621,"featured_media":73171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8793,8789],"tags":[11812,11814,8814],"class_list":["post-73251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy","category-research","tag-ausgabe-25-26-2026-en","tag-english-issue-27-28-2026","tag-musings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20621"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73251"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73265,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73251\/revisions\/73265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}