The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Chapter XXVI

[ 1 ] In contradiction with the descriptions I later gave of Christianity, there appear to be individual assertions that I wrote down at the time and expressed in lectures. The following comes into consideration. When I wrote the word "Christianity" at that time, I had in mind the doctrine of the afterlife that was at work in the Christian confessions. All the content of religious experience referred to a spiritual world that is supposed to be beyond the reach of man in the unfolding of his spiritual powers. What religion has to say, what it has to give as moral commandments, comes from revelations that come to man from outside. My spiritual view, which wanted to experience the spiritual world in the same way as the sensory world, in the praying of truth in man and in nature, turned against this. This was also opposed by my ethical individualism, which did not want the moral life to be held from the outside by commandments, but to emerge from the unfolding of the soul-spiritual human being, in whom the divine lives.

[ 2 ] What was going on in my soul at that time in the contemplation of Christianity was a strong test for me. The time between my departure from the Weimar work and the writing of my book "Das Christenturn als mystische Tatsache" (Christianity as a mystical fact) was filled with this trial. Such tests are the obstacles given by fate (karma) that spiritual development has to overcome.

[ 3 ] I saw in the thinking that can follow from the knowledge of nature - but did not follow at that time - the basis on which people could gain insight into the spiritual world. I therefore strongly emphasized the knowledge of the basis of nature, which must lead to the knowledge of the spirit. For those who, like me, are not experiencing the spirit world, this kind of immersion in one direction of thought is mere mental activity. For the one who experiences the spirit world, it means something essentially different. He is brought close to beings in the spirit world who want to make such a school of thought the only dominant one. There one-sidedness in knowledge is not merely the cause of abstract aberration; there is spiritual intercourse with beings, which is error in the human world. I spoke later of ahrimanic beings when I wanted to point in this direction. For them it is an absolute truth that the world must be a machine. They live in a world that is directly adjacent to the sensory world.

[ 4 ] With my own ideas, I have never for a moment fallen prey to this world. Not even in the unconscious. For I was careful to ensure that all my cognition took place in conscious awareness. My inner struggle against the demonic powers that did not want to turn the knowledge of nature into a spiritual view, but into a mechanistic - materialistic way of thinking, was all the more conscious.

[ 5 ] The seeker of spiritual knowledge must experience these worlds; it is not enough for him to merely think about them theoretically. At that time I had to save my spiritual view in inner storms. These storms were behind my outer experience. I could only make progress in this time of trial if I placed the development of Christianity before my soul with my spiritual view. This led to the realization that was expressed in the book "Christianity as a Mystical Fact". Before that, I always pointed to a Christian content that lived in the existing confessions. Nietzsche did that too.

[ 6 ] In an earlier part of this biography (p. 126 ff), I describe a conversation about Christ that I had with the learned Cistercian and professor at the Catholic theological faculty in Vienna. I was in a skeptical mood. I found the Christianity I was looking for nowhere to be found in the confessions. I had to immerse myself in Christianity myself, after the examination period had exposed me to hard struggles of the soul, in the world in which the spiritual speaks about it.

[ 7 ] My position on Christianity clearly illustrates how I have sought and found nothing in spiritual science in the way that some people attribute to me. They present the matter as if I had compiled spiritual knowledge from ancient traditions. I would have processed Gnostic and other teachings. The spirit knowledge gained in "Christianity as a mystical fact" is taken directly from the spirit world itself. Only in order to show listeners at the lecture, readers of the book, the harmony of the spiritually seen with the historical traditions, did I take these and add them to the content. But nothing that is in these documents I have added to this content if I have not first had it before me in my mind.

[ 8 ] It was also at the time when I made the statements about Christianity that were so contradictory to the content of my words that its true content began to unfold in me as an inner manifestation of knowledge. At the turn of the century, the germ was unfolding more and more. Before this turn of the century stood the described trial of the soul. My soul's development depended on having stood spiritually before the Mystery of Golgotha in the most serious celebration of knowledge.