The Work of the Angels In Mans Astral Body
GA 182
9 October 1918, Zürich
Translated by D. S. Osmond with the help of Owen Barfield
Anthroposophical understanding of the spirit must not be a merely theoretical view of the world, but a leaven, an actual power in life. Only when we manage to investigate this view of the world so fundamentally that it really comes alive in us does it properly fulfill its mission. For by linking our souls with this anthroposophical conception of the spirit we have become custodians, as it were, of very definite and significant processes in the evolution of humanity.
Whatever their view of the world, men are generally convinced that thoughts and ideas have no status in it except as the contents of their own souls. Those who hold such views believe that thoughts and mental pictures are “ideals” which will be embodied in the world only to the extent that man succeeds in ratifying them by his physical deeds.
The anthroposophical attitude posits the conviction that our thoughts and ideas must find other ways of taking effect besides the way through our deeds in the physical world. Recognition of this essential principle implies that the anthroposophist must play his part in watching out for the signs of the times. A very great deal is happening all the time in the evolution of the world; and it is incumbent upon men, particularly the men of our own time, to acquire real understanding of what is going on in the evolutionary process in which they themselves are placed.
In the case of an individual human being, everybody knows that account must be taken of his stage of development, not only of the outer facts and occurrences around him. Think of it quite crudely for a moment. Outer, physical happenings are going on around human beings of five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy years of age. But nobody in his senses will expect the same reaction to these happenings from the five-year-olds, the ten-year-olds, the twenty-year-olds, the fifty-year-olds, the seventy-year-olds! How human beings may be expected to react to their environment can be determined only by taking account of their stage of development. Everybody will admit this in the case of the individual.
But just as there are definite stages in the evolution of the individual human being, just as the nature of his powers and faculties differs in childhood, middle life and old age, so too are the powers and faculties possessed by humanity in general constantly changing in the course of evolution. Not to take account of the fact that the character of humanity is different in the 20th century from what it was in the 15th century, let alone before and at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, is to sleep through the process of world-evolution. One of the greatest defects, one of the principal sources of aberration and confusion in our time, is its failure to pay heed to this, as well as the prevalent notion that it is possible to speak of man or of humanity in terms of abstract generalisations, that there is no need to regard humanity as being involved in a continuous process of evolution.
How can a more exact insight into these things be acquired? As you know, mention has often been made of an important phase in the evolution of humanity. The Greco-Latin epoch of civilisation, lasting from the 8th century B.C. to approximately the 15th century, was the period of the development of the Intellectual Soul, or Mind-Soul; the development of the Consciousness-Soul (the Spiritual Soul) has been in progress since the 15th century. This is a factor in the evolution of humanity which essentially concerns our own times. The paramount force in human evolution from the 15th century until the beginning of the fourth millennium, is the spiritual Soul.
But in true Spiritual Science we must never stop at generalisations and abstractions; everywhere and at all times it must be our endeavour to grasp concrete facts. Abstractions are, at the highest, useful to curiosity in the most ordinary sense of the term. If Spiritual Science is to become the very leaven and essential force of life, earnestness must outweigh curiosity and we must not stop at abstractions such as those of which I have just spoken. It is both true and important that because we are living in the epoch of the Spiritual Soul we must take account of its development; but we must not stop there.
To arrive at a clear conception of these things, we must above all consider in greater detail the nature of man himself. In the sense of Spiritual Science, the members of man's being, beginning from above downwards, are: Ego, astral body, etheric body—which latterly I have also called the body of formative forces—and physical body. The Ego is the only one of these members in which we live and function as beings of spirit-and-soul. The Ego has been implanted in us by the Earth-evolution and the spirits of Form who direct it. Fundamentally speaking, everything that enters into our consciousness enters it through our Ego. And unless the Ego, as it unfolds itself, can remain connected—connected through the bodies—with the outer world, we have as little consciousness as we have during sleep. It is the Ego that connects us with our environment; the astral body is the legacy of the Moon-evolution, the etheric body of the Sun-evolution, the physical body, in its first rudiments, of the Saturn-evolution.
But if you study the description of these bodies given in the book, An Outline of Occult Science, you will realise by what a complicated process this fourfold constitution of man came into being. It is not evident from the facts presented in that book that Spirits belonging to all the Hierarchies participated in the formation of the three sheaths of man's being? Is it not evident that our threefold sheath composed of physical body, etheric body, astral body, is extremely complicated? It is not simply that these sheaths owe their origin to the co-operation of the Hierarchies; the Hierarchies are still constantly working within them. And those who believe that man is merely the apparatus of bones, blood, flesh and so forth, of which natural science, physiology, biology and anatomy speak, have no understanding of his nature.
If we genuinely study these sheaths of man, we realise that spiritual Beings of the higher Hierarchies are working together with wisdom and set purpose in everything that takes place, without our being conscious of it, in our bodily sheaths. From the brief outline I have given in Occult Science about the co-operation that took place between particular Beings of the Hierarchies in order that man should come into existence, you will have realised how intricate the details must be. Nevertheless if man is to be understood, these things too must be studied more and more concretely.
In this domain it is extremely difficult even to formulate a concrete question, because of the tremendous complexity of all such questions. Suppose for a moment that someone were to ask: What is the Hierarchy, let us say, of the Seraphim or of the Dynamis (Mights) doing in man's etheric body in the year 1918 of the present cycle of evolution? For we can certainly ask this question, just as we can ask whether it is raining or not raining in Lugano at the present time. Neither question can be answered by mere reflection or theorising, but only by ascertaining the facts. Just as we should have to find out, by means perhaps of a telegram, whether or not it is raining at Lugano, so it is necessary to investigate the facts themselves, in order to get the answer to a question such as: What is the task of the Spirits of Wisdom or of the Thrones in the etheric body of man during the present cycle of evolution? Only, this latter kind of question is indescribably complex and we can never do more than make an approach to the domains where such questions arise. Good care is taken that man shall not soar too far aloft and become arrogant and supercilious in his endeavours to attain knowledge of such things.
Roughly speaking, it is the prospects nearest to us—those that directly concern us—of which we can get a clear view. But such a view we must get, if we are not to remain asleep at our stations in the evolution of humanity.
I will therefore speak about a question that is less vague and indefinite than the question as to what the Dynamis or the Thrones are doing in our etheric body. I will speak of another question that is of immediate concern to men at the present time. It is the question: What are the Angels—the spiritual Beings nearest to men—doing in the human astral body in the present cycle of evolution?
The astral body is the member nearest to the Ego; obviously, therefore, the answer to this question will vitally concern us. The Angels are the Hierarchy immediately above the Human Hierarchy itself. So the question is not unduly arrogant and we shall see how it can be answered. What are the Angels doing in man's astral body in this present epoch which began in the 15th century and will last until the beginning of the fourth millennium?
What is there to be said in the general sense when it comes to answering a question such as this? It can only be said that spiritual investigation, when earnestly pursued, is not a matter of juggling with ideas or words, but works its way into the actual sphere where the spiritual world becomes perceptible ... but this question can, in reality, be fruitfully answered only in the age of the Spiritual Soul itself.
You may think that if this question had been asked in other epochs, an answer would probably have been forthcoming. But neither in the epoch of atavistic clairvoyance nor in that of Greco-Latin civilisation could this question have been answered, because the pictures arising in man's soul from atavistic clairvoyance obscured his observation of the deeds of the Angels in his astral body. Nothing could be seen of this, precisely because he had in him the pictures given by the atavistic clairvoyance. And in the Greco-Latin period, thought was not as strong as it is today. Thought has been strengthened as the direct consequence of natural science. Hence it is in the epoch of the Spiritual Soul that such questions can be the subject of conscious study. The fruitfulness of Spiritual Science for life must be shown by the fact that we do not just browse on theories but know how to say things of incisive significance for life.
What are the Angels doing in our astral body? Conviction of what they are doing can come to us only when we have achieved a certain degree of clairvoyance and are able to perceive what is actually going on in our astral body. A certain degree at least of Imaginative Knowledge must therefore have been attained if this question is to be answered.
It is then revealed that these Beings of the Hierarchy of the Angels—particularly through their concerted work, although in a certain sense each single Angel also has his task in connection with every individual human being—these Beings form pictures in man's astral body. Under the guidance of the Spirits of Form (Exusiai) the Angels form pictures. Unless we reach the level of Imaginative Cognition we do not know that pictures are all the time being formed in our astral body. They arise and pass away, but without them there would be for mankind no evolution into the future in accordance with the intentions of the Spirits of Form. The Spirits of Form are obliged, to begin with, to unfold in pictures what they desire to achieve with us during Earth-evolution and beyond. And then, later on, the pictures become reality in a humanity transformed.
Through the Angels, the Spirits of Form are already now shaping these pictures in our astral body. The Angels form pictures in man's astral body and these pictures are accessible to thinking that has become clairvoyant. If we are able to scrutinise these pictures, it becomes evident that they are woven in accordance with quite definite impulses and principles. Forces for the future evolution of mankind are contained in them. If we watch the Angels carrying out this work of theirs—strange as it sounds, one has to express it in this way—it is clear that they have a very definite plan for the future configuration of social life on earth; their aim is to engender in the astral bodies of men such pictures as will bring about definite conditions in the social life of the future.
People may shy away from the notion that Angels want to call forth in them ideals for the future, but it is so all the same. And indeed in forming these pictures the Angels work on a definite principle, namely, that in the future no human being is to find peace in the enjoyment of happiness if others beside him are unhappy. An impulse of Brotherhood in the absolute sense, unification of the human race in Brotherhood rightly understood—this is to be the governing principle of the social conditions in physical existence.
That is the one principle in accordance with which the Angels form the pictures in man's astral body.
But there is a second impulse in the work of the Angels. The Angels have certain objectives in view, not only in connection with the outer social life but also with man's life of soul. Through the pictures they inculcate into the astral body their aim is that in future time every human being shall see in each and all of his fellow-men a hidden divinity.
Quite clearly, then, according to the intention underlying the work of the Angels, things are to be very different in future. Neither in theory nor in practice shall we look only at man's physical qualities, regarding him as a more highly developed animal, but we must confront every human being with the full realisation that in him something is revealing itself from the divine foundations of the world, revealing itself through flesh and blood. To conceive man as a picture revealed from the spiritual world, to conceive this with all the earnestness, all the strength and all the insight at our command—this is the impulse laid by the Angels into the pictures.
Once this is fulfilled, there will be a very definite consequence. The basis of all free religious feeling that will unfold in humanity in the future will be the acknowledgment, not merely in theory but in actual practice, that every human being is made in the likeness of the Godhead. When that time comes there will be no need for any religious coercion; for then every meeting between one man and another will of itself be in the nature of a religious rite, a sacrament, and nobody will need a special Church with institutions on the physical plane to sustain the religious life. If the Church understands itself truly, its one aim must be to render itself unnecessary on the physical plane, as the whole of life becomes the expression of the super-sensible.
The bestowal on man of complete freedom in the religious life—this underlies the impulses, at least, of the work of the Angels.
And there is a third objective: To make it possible for men to reach the Spirit through thinking, to cross the abyss and through thinking to experience the reality of the Spirit.
Spiritual Science for the spirit, freedom of religious life for the soul, brotherhood for the bodily life—this resounds like cosmic music through the work wrought by the Angels in the astral bodies of men.
All that is necessary is to raise our consciousness to a different level and we shall feel ourselves transported to this wonderful site of the work done by the Angels in the human astral body.
We are living in the age of the Spiritual Soul, and in this age the Angels work in the astral bodies of men as I have described. Man must gradually come to understand this in his wideawake consciousness. It is part of the process of human evolution itself. How can such a statement be made? Where are we to look for this work of the Angels?
It is still to be discovered in man while he is sleeping, in the conditions prevailing between the moments of falling asleep and waking—also in somnolent waking states. I have often said that although men are awake, they actually sleep through the most important concerns in life. And I can give you the not very heartening assurance that anyone who goes through life with alert consciousness to-day finds numbers and numbers of human beings who are really asleep. They let events happen without taking the slightest interest in them, without troubling about them or associating themselves with these happenings in any way. Great world-events often pass men by just as something that is taking place in the city passes a sleeper by ... although people are apparently awake. At such times, while men, in spite of being awake, are sleeping through some momentous event, it can be seen how in their astral bodies—quite independently of what they want or do not want to know—this important work of the Angels continues.
Such things proceed in a way which must necessarily seem highly enigmatic and paradoxical. A man may be considered entirely unworthy of having any connections at all with the spiritual world. But the truth about such a man may well be that in this incarnation he is just a terrible dormouse who sleeps through everything that goes on around him. Yet one of the choir of the Angels is working in his astral body at the future of mankind. Observation of his astral body shows that it is being made use of, in spite of these conditions.
What really matters, however, is that men shall become conscious of these things. The Spiritual Soul must rise to the level where it is able to recognise what can be discovered only in this way.
After all this, you will understand me when I point out that this epoch of the Spiritual Soul is heading towards the definite event, and that—just because it is the Spiritual Soul that is involved—it will depend upon men themselves how this event takes effect in the evolution of humanity. It may come a century earlier or a century later, but it is bound to form part of the evolutionary process. It can be characterised by saying: Purely through the Spiritual Soul, purely through their conscious thinking, men must reach the point of actually perceiving what the Angels are doing to prepare the future of humanity. The teachings of Spiritual Science in this domain must become practical wisdom in the life of humanity—practical, because men can be convinced that it belongs to their own wisdom to recognise the aims of the Angels, as I have described them.
But the progress of the human race towards freedom has already gone so far that it depends upon man himself whether he will sleep through this event or face it with fully wideawake consciousness. What would this entail? To face this event with wideawake consciousness would entail the study of Spiritual Science, which is possible to-day. Indeed nothing else is really necessary. The practice of meditations of various kinds and attention to the guidance given in the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, will be an additional help. But the essential step has already been taken when Spiritual Science is studied and really consciously understood. Spiritual Science can be studied to-day without developing clairvoyance faculties. Everyone can do so, who does not bar his own way with his prejudices. And if people study Spiritual Science more and more thoroughly, if they assimilate its concepts and ideas, their consciousness will become so alert that instead of sleeping through certain events, they will be fully aware of them.
These events can be characterised in greater detail, for to know what the Angel is doing is only the preparatory stage. The essential point is that at a definite time—depending, as I have said, upon the attitude men themselves adopt it will be earlier or later or at worst not at all—a threefold truth will be revealed to mankind by the Angels.
Firstly, it will be shown how his own genuine interest will enable man to understand the deeper side of human nature. A time will come—and it must not pass unnoticed—when out of the spiritual world men will receive through their Angel an impulse that will kindle a far deeper interest in every individual human being than we are inclined to have to-day. This enhanced interest in our fellow-men will not unfold in the subjective, leisurely way that people would prefer, but by a sudden impetus a certain secret will be inspired into man from the spiritual side, namely, what the other man really is. By this I mean something quite concrete—not any kind of theoretical consideration. Men will learn something whereby their interest in every individual can be kindled. That is the one point—and that is what will particularly affect the social life.
Secondly: From the spiritual world the Angel will reveal to man that, in addition to everything else, the Christ Impulse postulates complete freedom in matters of religious life, that the only true Christianity is the Christianity which makes possible absolute freedom in the religious life.
And thirdly: Unquestionable insight into the spiritual nature of the world.
As I have said, this event ought to take place in such a way that the Spiritual Soul in man participates in it. This is impending in the evolution of humanity, for the Angel is working to this end through the pictures woven in man's astral body.
But let it be emphasised that this impending event confronts the will of man. Many things that should lead to conscious awareness of this event may be and indeed are being left undone.
But as you know, there are other beings working in world-evolution, beings who are interested in deflecting man from his proper course: these are the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic beings. What I have just said belongs to the divinely-willed evolution of mankind. If man were to follow the dictates of his own proper nature, he could not very well fail to perceive what the Angel is unfolding in his astral body; but the aim of the Luciferic beings is to tear men away from insight into the work of the Angels. And they set about doing this by curbing man's free will. They try to cloud his understanding of the exercise of his free will. True, they desire to make him good—far from the aspect of which I am now speaking, Lucifer desires that there shall be goodness, spirituality, in man—but automatic goodness, automatic spirituality—without free will. Lucifer desires that man shall be led automatically, in accordance with perfectly good principles, to clairvoyance—but he wants to deprive him of his free will, to remove from him the possibility of evil-doing. Lucifer wants to make man into a being who, it is true, acts out of the spirit, but acts as a reflection, as an automaton, without free will.
This is connected with certain specific secrets of evolution. As you know, the Luciferic beings have remained stationary at other stages of evolution and they introduce an element that is foreign to the normal evolutionary process. They are deeply interested in so seizing hold of man that he does not unfold free will, because they themselves have not acquired free will. Free will can be acquired only on the Earth but the Luciferic beings want to have nothing to do with the Earth; they want only Saturn-, Sun-, Moon-evolution, and to remain at those stages. In a sense they hate the free will of man. Their manner of acting is highly spiritual, but it is automatic—that is a point of great significance—and they want to lift man to their own spiritual heights, to make him an automaton—a spiritual, but an automatically spiritual, being. Thereby on the one side the danger would arise that prematurely, before his Spiritual Soul is in full function, man would become a being whose actions are those of a spiritual puppet and he would sleep through the impending revelation.
But the Ahrimanic beings too are working to obscure this revelation. They are not at pains to make man particularly spiritual, but rather to kill out in him the consciousness of his own spirituality. They endeavour to instill into him the conviction that he is nothing but a completely developed animal. Ahriman is in truth the teacher par excellence of materialistic Darwinism. He is also the great teacher of all those technical and practical pursuits in Earth-evolution where there is refusal to acknowledge the validity of anything except the external life of the senses, where the only desire is for a widespread technology, so that with somewhat greater refinement, men shall satisfy their hunger, thirst and other needs in the same way as the animal. To kill, to darken in man the consciousness that he is an image of the Godhead—this is what the Ahrimanic beings are endeavouring by subtle scientific means of every kind to achieve in our age of the Spiritual Soul.
In earlier epochs it would have been of no avail to the Ahrimanic beings to obscure the truth from men by theories in this way. And why? Even during the Greco-Latin age, but still more so in the earlier epoch when man still had the pictures of atavistic clairvoyance, how he thought was entirely a matter of indifference: he had his pictures and these pictures were windows through which he looked into the spiritual world. Whatever Ahriman might have insinuated to man concerning his relation to the animals would have had no effect at all upon his way of life. Thought has for the first time become really powerful—one could also say, powerful in its ineptitude—in our Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch, since the 15th century. Only since then has thinking been competent to bring the Spiritual Soul into the realm of the spirit, but at the same time also to hinder it from entering the spiritual world. Only now are we experiencing the age when a theory or a science, by the path of consciousness, robs man of his divinity, of his knowledge of the Divine. Only in the age of the Spiritual or Consciousness Soul is this possible. Hence the Ahrimanic spirits endeavour to spread teachings which obscure man's divine origin.
From this mention of the streams which run counter to the normal, god-willed evolution of man it can be gathered how he must conduct his life, lest the impending revelation finds him in a state of sleep. A great danger may arise and men must be alert to it. If they are not, instead of the event that should play a momentous part in shaping the future evolution of the Earth, a great danger to this evolution will supervene.
Now certain spiritual beings achieve their development through men who evolve together with them. The Angels who unfold their pictures in the human astral body are not doing this as a game but in order to achieve something. But because this aim must be achieved in earthly humanity itself, the whole matter would become a game if, having reached the stage of the Spiritual Soul, men deliberately ignore it. It would become a game! The Angels would be playing a game in the evolution of man's astral body! Only when this activity is realised in humanity itself is it not a game but serious business.
From this you can realise that the work of the Angels is, and under all circumstances must remain, serious. Just imagine what conditions would be behind the scenes of existence if through their somnolence men were able to turn the work of the Angels into a game!
And what if this should happen after all? What if humanity on earth should persist in sleeping through the momentous spiritual revelation of the future? If this were to happen in respect of the freedom of the religious life, for example, if men were to sleep through the repetition of the Mystery of Golgotha on the etheric plane, the reappearance of the etheric Christ, or other matters as well, then the Angels would have to try different means of achieving what the pictures they weave in the astral body of man are intended to achieve. If men do not allow this to be achieved in the astral body while they are awake, the Angels would, in this case, endeavour to fulfill their aims through their sleeping bodies. Therefore what the Angels could not achieve, because in their waking life men slept through it, would be achieved with the help of the physical and etheric bodies of men during actual sleep. It is there that the Angels would seek forces required for the fulfillment of what could not be achieved through men in their wideawake consciousness when the souls were within the etheric and physical bodies in the waking state. It would be achieved by means of the etheric and physical bodies in the sleeping state, when human beings who ought to be awake to what is going on were outside these bodies with their Ego and astral body.
Here lies the great danger for the age of the Spiritual Soul. This is what might still happen if, before the beginning of the third millennium, men were to refuse to turn to the spiritual life. The third millennium begins with the year 2000, so it is only a short time ahead of us. It might still happen that the aim of the Angels in their work would have to be achieved by means of the sleeping bodies of men—instead of through men wideawake. The Angels might still be compelled to withdraw their whole work from the astral body and to submerge it in the etheric body in order to bring it to fulfillment. But then, in his real being, man would have no part in it. It would have to be performed in the etheric body while man himself was not there, just because if he were there in the waking state, he would obstruct it.
I have now given you a general picture of these things. But what would be the outcome if the Angels were obliged to perform this work without man himself participating, to carry it out in his etheric and physical bodies during sleep?
The outcome in the evolution of humanity would unquestionably be threefold. Firstly, something would be engendered in the sleeping human bodies—while the Ego and astral body were not within them—and man would meet with it on waking in the morning ... but then it would become instinct instead of conscious spiritual activity and therefore baleful. It is so indeed: certain instinctive knowledge that will arise in human nature, instinctive knowledge connected with the mystery of birth and conception, with sexual life as a whole, threatens to become baleful if the danger of which I have spoken takes effect. Certain Angels would then themselves undergo a change—a change of which I cannot speak, because this is a subject belonging to the higher secrets of Initiation-Science which may not yet be disclosed. But this much can certainly be said: The effect in the evolution of humanity would be that certain instincts connected with the sexual life would arise in a pernicious form instead of wholesomely, in clear waking consciousness. These instincts would not be mere aberrations but would pass over into and configure the social life, would above all prevent men—through what would then enter their blood as the effect of the sexual life—from unfolding brotherhood in any form whatever on the earth, and would rather induce them to rebel against it. This would be a matter of instinct.
So the crucial point lies ahead when either the path to the right can be taken—but that demands wakefulness—or the path to the left, which permits of sleep. But in that case instincts come on the scene—instincts of a fearful kind.
And what do you suppose the scientific experts will say when such instincts come into evidence? They will say that it is a natural and inevitable development in the evolution of humanity. Light cannot be shed on such matters by natural science, for whether men become angels or devils would be equally capable of explanation by scientific reasoning. Science will say the same in both cases: the later is the outcome of the earlier ... so grand and wise is the interpretation of nature in terms of causality! Natural science will be totally blind to the event of which I have told you, for if men become half devils through their sexual instincts, science will as a matter of course regard this as a natural necessity. Scientifically, then, the matter is simply not capable of explanation, for whatever happens, everything can be explained by science. The fact is that such things can be understood only by spiritual, super-sensible cognition. That is the one aspect.
The second aspect is that from this work which involves changes affecting the Angels themselves, still another result accrues for humanity: instinctive knowledge of certain medicaments—but knowledge of a baleful kind!
Everything connected with medicine will make a great advance in the materialistic sense. Men will acquire instinctive insights into the medicinal properties of certain substances and certain treatments—and thereby do terrible harm. But the harm will be called useful. A sick man will be called healthy, for it will be perceived that the particular treatment applied leads to something pleasing. People will actually like things that make the human being—in a certain direction—unhealthy.
Knowledge of the medicinal effects of certain processes and treatments will be enhanced, but this will lead into very baleful channels. For man will come to know through certain instincts, what kind of illnesses can be induced by particular substances and treatments. And it will then be possible for him either to bring about or not to bring about illnesses, entirely as suits his egotistical purposes.
The third result will be this. Man will get to know of definite forces which, simply by means of quite easy manipulations—by bringing into accord certain vibrations—will enable him to unleash tremendous mechanical forces in the world. Instinctively he will come to realise in this way the possibility of exercising a certain spiritual guidance and control of the mechanistic principle—and the whole of technical science will sail into desolate waters. But human egoism will find these desolate waters of tremendous use and benefit.
This, my friends, is a fragment of concrete knowledge of the evolution of existence, a fragment of a conception of life which can be truly assessed only by those who realise that an unspiritual view of life can never grow clear about these things. If a form of medicine injurious to humanity were ever to take root, if a terrible aberration of the sexual instincts were to arise, if there were baleful doings in the sphere of the purely mechanistic forces of the world, in the application of the forces of nature by means of spiritual powers, an unspiritual conception of life would see through none of these things, would not perceive how they deviate from the true path ... The sleeper, as long as sleep lasts, does not see the approach of a thief who is about to rob him; he is unaware of it and at most he finds out later on, when he wakes, what has been done to him. But it would be a bad awakening for humanity! Man would pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of certain processes and substances and would experience such satisfaction in obeying certain aberrations of the sexual impulses that he would regard them as evidence of a particularly high development of superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of broad-mindedness! In a certain respect, ugliness would be beauty and beauty, ugliness. Nothing of this would be perceived because it would all be regarded as natural necessity. But it would denote an aberration from the path which, in the nature of humanity itself, is prescribed for man's essential being.
If a feeling has been acquired of how Spiritual Science penetrates into and affects our whole attitude of mind, I believe that there can also arise the earnestness required for receiving such truths as have been presented today. From this earnestness there can stem what ought indeed to stem from all Spiritual Science: the acknowledgment of definite obligations, of definite responsibilities in life. Whatever our position may be, whatever we have to do in the world, the essential thing is to foster the thought that our conduct must be permeated and illumined by our anthroposophical consciousness. Then we contribute something towards the true progress of humanity.
If a man ever believes that true Spiritual Science, earnestly and worthily pursued, may divert him from practical and necessary activity in life, he is entirely misguided. True Spiritual Science begets vigilance—an awakening in regard to matters such as those I have presented today. It may be asked: Is waking life, then, really harmful to sleep? If we choose to draw this parallel—namely that insight into the spiritual world is itself a greater awakening from ordinary waking life, just as the ordinary waking is an awakening from sleep, then in order to follow the comparison, we can indeed ask the question: Can waking life ever be harmful to sleep?
Yes—if waking life is not what it ought to be! If a man spends his waking life as it ought to be spent, his sleep will also be healthy, and if in his waking life he is drowsy or lazy, happy-go-lucky or indolent, then his sleep too will be unhealthy. And it is the same in regard to the waking life we acquire as the result of our study of Spiritual Science. If Spiritual Science enables us to establish a true relation to the spiritual world, our interest in the familiar facts of physical life will be guided into the right channels—just as a healthy waking life brings order and direction into sleep.
Anyone who looks at life, particularly in our own age, must himself be asleep if he does not notice a number of things. How men have preened themselves on their conduct of life, particularly during the last few decades! Things have finally come to the point where the leading positions everywhere are held by those who are most contemptuous of the ideal, of the spiritual. People managed to go on declaiming about their conduct of this life as long as mankind had not actually been dragged into the abyss. Now a few—mostly out of instinct—are actually beginning to croak that a new age must come, with all kinds of new ideals. But it is all so much croaking. And if things have to come about instinctively, without conscious penetration into Spiritual Science on the part of men, they would lead to the decline of what ought to be experienced in the waking state rather than to any wholesome transition in evolution.
One who today makes impassioned speeches to men in the words they have so long been accustomed to hear can still usually count on some applause. But men will have to get used to listening to different words, different ways of putting things, if social cosmos is again to arise out of chaos.
If, in some epoch, the men who ought to be vigilant fail in this respect and do not discern what really ought to happen then nothing real does happen. Instead, the ghost of the preceding epoch walks-as the ghosts of the past are walking in many religious communities today, and as the ghost of ancient Rome still haunts the sphere of jurisprudence. In the age of the Spiritual Soul, Spiritual Science must make men free in just this way, must lead them to perception of a spiritual fact: What the Angel is doing in our astral body. To speak abstractly about Angels and so on, can at most be the beginning; progress requires that we speak concretely—which means that in reference to our own epoch we find the answer to the question nearest to us. This question concerns us most nearly, for the simple reason that in our astral body the Angel is weaving pictures that are to determine our future form, and this determination is to be brought about through the Spiritual Soul.
If we had not the Spiritual Soul, there would be no need to exert ourselves, for then other Spirits, other Hierarchies, would certainly step in to bring to fulfillment what the Angel is weaving. But because our task is to unfold the Spiritual Soul, no other Spirits step in to carry the work of the Angels into effect.
Other Angels, of course, were at work in the Egyptian epoch. But other Spirits soon made their entry and the work of the Angel was obscured from men through their own atavistic clairvoyance. Their clairvoyance wove a veil, a dark veil over the pictures. But now man must unveil them. Therefore it behooves him not to sleep through what is being inculcated into his conscious life in the epoch that will end before the third millennium does. Let us draw from anthroposophical Spiritual Science not only teachings, but resolutions as well! They will give us strength to be vigilant and alert. We can season ourselves to be watchful human beings by paying heed to many things. We can make a beginning in this direction now; we can discover that in reality no single day passes without a miracle happening in our life. This last sentence can be turned, and we can also say: If on some day we find no miracle in our life, then we have merely overlooked it. Try one evening to survey your life and you will find in it some event of slight or great or middling importance of which you will be able to say: It came into my life and took effect in a truly remarkable way. You can realise this provided only that you think comprehensively enough, provided only that you have in your mind's eye a sufficiently comprehensive picture of the circumstances and connections of life. But in the ordinary course this does not happen, because as a rule we do not ask ourselves: What was it that was prevented from happening by this or that occurrence?
We do not usually trouble about the things that have been prevented but which, if they had happened, would have fundamentally changed our life. Behind these things which in some way or other have been kept out of our lives there is very, very much that educates us into becoming vigilant human beings. What manner of things might have happened to me today? If we ask ourselves this question every evening and then think of particular occurrences which could have had this or that result, observations will couple themselves with such questions and introduce the element of vigilance into the exercise of self-discipline. This is something that can be a beginning, and of itself leads on and on, until finally we do not explore only into what it meant in our life when, for example, we wanted to go out, say, at half-past ten one morning and at the last moment somebody turned up and stopped us ... we are annoyed at being stopped, but we do not enquire what might have happened if we had actually gone out as we had planned. What is it that has been changed?
I have already spoken here in greater detail about such matters. From observation of the negative in our life—which can, however, bear witness to the wisdom guiding it—to observation of the Angel weaving and working in our astral body there is a direct path, a direct and unerring path that can be trodden.
Was Tut der Engel in Unserem Astralleib?
Anthroposophische Geist-Erfassung soll nicht bloß sein eine theoretische Weltansicht, sondern sie soll sein ein Lebensinhalt und eine Lebenskraft. Und nur, wenn wir uns in die Lage versetzen, unsere anthroposophische Weltauffassung in uns so zu erkraften, daß sie wirklich voll lebendig in uns wird, dann erfüllt sie eigentlich ihre Aufgabe. Denn wir sind dadurch, daß wir unsere Seelen vereinigen mit der anthroposophischen Geisteserfassung, in einer gewissen Beziehung zu Wächtern über ganz bestimmte, bedeutungsvolle Entwickelungsvorgänge der Menschheit geworden.
Menschen, die sonst nach der einen oder anderen Weltanschauung hinstreben, sind ja in der Regel überzeugt, daß Gedanken, Vorstellungen, außer dem, was sie in ihren menschlichen Seelen sind, nicht noch etwas anderes im Weltenzusammenhange sind, sondern Menschen mit solchen Weltanschauungen glauben: Gedanken, Vorstellungen als Ideale werden sich eben in die Welt so einleben, wie es dem Menschen, insofern er sinnenfällige Taten nur vollbringt, gelingt, sie in der Welt zur Geltung zu bringen. Anthroposophische Gesinnung setzt voraus, daß wir uns klar darüber sind, daß unsere Gedanken und Vorstellungen, um sich zu verwirklichen, noch andere Wege finden müssen, als dasjenige ist, was durch unsere sinnenfälligen Taten, durch unsere Taten in der Sinneswelt geschieht. In der Erkenntnis dieser Lebensnotwendigkeit liegt schon die Aufforderung, daß der Anthroposoph in einer gewissen Weise sich beteiligen müsse an dem Wachen über die Zeichen der Zeit. Es geschieht in der Weltentwickelung gar manches; dem Menschen, insbesondere dem Menschen unseres Zeitalters obliegt es, sich wirkliches Verständnis zu verschaffen von dem, was in der Weltentwickelung, in die er selbst hineingestellt worden ist, geschieht.
Mit Bezug auf den einzelnen Menschen weiß jeder, daß man seine Entwickelung berücksichtigen muß, nicht bloß die äußeren Tatsachen, die um ihn herum sind. Bedenken Sie nur einmal, ich möchte sagen, ganz grob gedacht: Die äußeren sinnenfälligen Tatsachen, die jetzt geschehen, die sind rundherum um die Menschen, die fünf Jahre, zehn Jahre, zwanzig Jahre, dreißig Jahre, fünfzig Jahre, die siebzig Jahre alt sind. Dennoch wird kein einziger Mensch, der vernünftig ist, verlangen, daß man dasselbe Verhältnis des Menschen zu den Tatsachen bei den Fünfjährigen, bei den Zehnjährigen, bei den Zwanzigjährigen, bei den Fünfzigjährigen, bei den Siebzigjährigen herstellen soll. Wie die Menschen sich verhalten sollen zu der äußeren Umgebung, das kann nur bestimmt werden, wenn man auf die Entwickelung des Menschen selbst Rücksicht nimmt. Beim einzelnen Menschen wird das jeder zugeben. Aber so wie der einzelne Mensch einer ganz bestimmten Entwickelung unterliegt, wie er gewissermaßen eine andere Art von Kräften hat als Kind, in der Mitte des Lebens, als Greis, so hat die Menschheit im Lauf ihrer Entwickelung auch immer andere und andere Kräfte, und man steht gewissermaßen nur schlafend in der Weltentwickelung drinnen, wenn man nicht beachtet, daß die Menschheit in ihrem Wesen etwas anderes ist im 20. Jahrhundert, als sie im 15. Jahrhundert war oder gar in der Zeit des Mysteriums von Golgatha oder vorher. Es gehört zu den größten Mängeln und Verirrungen und Verwirrungen gerade unserer Zeit, daß man das, was ich eben gesagt habe, nicht beachten will, daß man der Meinung ist, man könne von dem Menschen oder von der Menschheit im allgemeinen ganz abstrakt sprechen und müsse nicht wissen, daß diese Menschheit einer Entwickelung unterworfen ist.
Nun frägt es sich: Wie kommt man genauer zu einer Einsicht in diese Dinge? - Sie wissen, ein Wichtiges über diese Entwickelung haben wir ja oftmals besprochen. In der griechisch-lateinischen Zeit, vom 8. vorchristlichen Jahrhundert bis ungefähr ins 15. Jahrhundert der christlichen Zeitrechnung herein, da rechnen wir mit dem sogenannten Kulturzeitalter der Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele, und seit dem 15. Jahrhundert rechnen wir mit dem Kulturzeitalter der Bewußtseinsseele. Damit haben wir ein Wesentliches charakterisiert in der Entwickelung der Menschheit, gerade insofern es unsere Zeit betrifft. Wir wissen dadurch, daß die hauptsächlichste Kraft, auf welche gerechnet wird in der Menschheitsentwickelung vom 15. Jahrhundert bis in das 4. Jahrtausend hinein, bis zu dem Anfang des 4. Jahrtausends, die Bewußtseinsseele ist. Aber man darf in der Geisteswissenschaft, in der wirklichen Geisteswissenschaft nirgends bei Allgemeinheiten und Abstraktionen stehenbleiben; man muß überall sehen, konkrete Tatsachen zu erfassen. Die Abstraktionen nützen einem höchstens, wenn man neugierig ist in einem sehr gewöhnlichen Sinne. Will man Geisteswissenschaft zum Lebensinhalt, zur Lebenskraft machen, so muß man ernster sein als neugierig, so muß man nicht bei solchen Abstraktionen stehenbleiben, wie ich sie eben ausgesprochen habe. Daß wir im Zeitalter der Bewußtseinsseele leben, daß vorzugsweise auf die Ausbildung der Bewußtseinsseele gerechnet wird, das ist ganz richtig, das ist außerordentlich wichtig auch, aber man darf nicht dabei stehenbleiben.
Wollen wir nun zu einer bestimmten Anschauung über die Dinge kommen, so müssen wir vor allen Dingen einmal etwas genauer auf das Wesen des Menschen selber hinsehen. So wie wir Menschen sind, gliedern wir uns im geisteswissenschaftlichen Sinne, wenn wir gewissermaßen von oben heruntersteigen, in das Ich, in den astralischen Leib, in den Ätherleib, den ich in neuerer Zeit auch den Bildekräfteleib genannt habe, und den physischen Leib. Von diesen Gliedern der menschlichen Natur ist eigentlich nur das Ich dasjenige, in dem wir seelisch-geistig zunächst leben und weben. Das Ich ist uns ja auch durch unsere Erdenentwickelung und die sie dirigierenden Geister der Form gegeben. Alles im Grunde, was in unser Bewußtsein eintritt, tritt durch unser Ich in unser Bewußtsein ein. Und wenn das Ich nicht sich so entfaltet, daß es in Verbindung stehen kann wenn auch durch die Leiber - mit der äußeren Welt, so haben wir ebensowenig Bewußtsein wie vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen. Das Ich ist dasjenige, was uns mit unserer Umgebung verbindet. Der astralische Leib ist uns durch die unserer Erdenentwickelung vorangehende Mondenentwickelung zugeteilt worden, unser Ätherleib durch die weiter vorangehende Sonnenentwickelung, der physische Leib seiner ersten Anlage nach durch die Saturnentwickelung.
Aber wenn Sie die Schilderung dieser Leiber in der «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» durchgehen, da werden Sie sehen, in welch komplizierter Weise dies zustande gekommen ist, was heute der Mensch ist in seiner Zusammenfügung aus den vier charakterisierten Gliedern. Sehen wir nicht aus den Tatsachen, die uns die «Geheimwissenschaft» überliefert, daß an dieser Gliederung in die drei Hüllen des Menschenwesens Geister aller möglichen Hierarchien mitgewirkt haben? Sehen wir nicht, daß dasjenige, was uns als physischer Leib, als Ätherleib, als astralischer Leib umhüllt, sehr, sehr komplizierter Natur ist? Aber nicht nur, daß diese Hierarchien mitgearbeitet haben an dem Zustandekommen unserer Hüllen, sie arbeiten noch immer darinnen. Und der versteht den Menschen nicht, der glaubt, daß dieser Mensch bloß die Zusammenfügung ist von Knochen, Blut, Fleisch und so weiter, von denen uns die gewöhnliche Naturwissenschaft, die Physiologie oder Biologie oder Anatomie erzählen.
Nähert man sich der Wirklichkeit dieses menschlichen Hüllenwesens, sieht man dieses menschliche Hüllenwesen in seiner Wahrheit, dann sieht man, wie ineinanderarbeiten, planvoll, weisheitsvoll ineinanderarbeiten in alle dem, was in unseren Leibeshüllen ohne unser Bewußtsein vorgeht, geistige Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien. Sie können aus den, ich möchte sagen, skizzenhaft gehaltenen Umrissen, die ich in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» gegeben habe über das Zusammenwirken der einzelnen Geister der höheren Hierarchien, damit der Mensch zustande komme, entnehmen, wie kompliziert sich diese Sache im einzelnen ausnehmen muß. Aber dennoch: will man den Menschen verstehen, so muß man auch diesen Dingen immer mehr im einzelnen, immer mehr im Konkreten beikommen.
Nun ist es ungeheuer schwierig, auf diesem Felde eine konkrete Frage auch nur ins Auge zu fassen. Sie sind ungeheuer kompliziert, diese konkreten Fragen. Denken Sie einmal, daß jemand fragen wollte: Was tut im gegenwärtigen Entwickelungszyklus der Menschheit, im Jahre 1918, in dem menschlichen Ätherleib, nun, sagen wir die Hierarchie der Seraphim oder der Dynameis? - Denn diese Frage kann man ebenso aufwerfen, wie man aufwerfen kann die Frage, ob es, sagen wir, in Lugano jetzt regnet oder nicht. Allerdings wird man das eine wie das andere ebensowenig durch ein bloßes Nachdenken oder eine bloße Theorie herausbekommen, sondern dadurch, daß man an die Tatsachen herantritt. Wie man sich erkundigen muß, meinetwillen durch ein Telegramm oder einen Brief oder dergleichen, ob es jetzt in Lugano regnet oder nicht, so muß man auch durch wirkliches Eindringen in die Tatsachen sich über so etwas erkundigen, wie: Was haben gerade die Geister der Weisheit oder die Throne im gegenwärtigen Menschheitszeitalter für eine Aufgabe, sagen wir im menschlichen Ätherleib? - Aber nun ist eine solche Frage wie die gerade aufgeworfene von einer außerordentlichen Kompliziertheit, und wir können uns gewissermaßen nur immer nähern solchen Gebieten, auf denen solche Fragen wachsen. Es ist wirklich eigentlich auf diesem Gebiete dafür gesorgt, daß dem Menschen seine Schwingen nicht in den Himmel hineinwachsen und er übermütig und stolz wird, wenn er nach wirklicher Erkenntnis strebt.
Gewissermaßen die nächsten Wesenheiten, die uns unmittelbar etwas angehen, sind diejenigen, über die wir klar sehen können. Aber über die sollen wir auch klar sehen, wenn wir nicht schlafen wollen in bezug auf das Hineingestelltsein in die menschliche Entwickelung. Und so will ich Ihnen von einer Frage sprechen, die nicht so vage, nicht so unbestimmt ist - obwohl sie sehr konkret ist wie diese Frage: Was machen die Dynameis oder die Throne in unserem Ätherleib? - Ich will Ihnen eine andere Frage sagen, die nicht so vage, nicht so unbestimmt ist, sondern sogar den Menschen der Gegenwart angehen soll. Diese Frage ist: Was machen die allernächst an dem Menschen tätigen Wesen der Angeloi im gegenwärtigen Menschheitszeitalter innerhalb des Astralleibes?
Der Astralleib liegt unserem Menschen-Ich, wenn wir in unser inneres Wesen schauen, am nächsten. Es ist also zu hoffen, daß die Beantwortung der eben gestellten Frage uns recht viel angehen könnte. Die Angeloi sind die nächste Hierarchie über der Menschenhierarchie selber. Also wir stellen eine bescheidene Frage, und wir werden nachher sehen, daé die Beantwortung dieser Frage: Was machen gerade jetzt in unserem Lebensalter der Menschheit, die das 20. Jahrhundert durchläuft, in diesem Lebensalter der Menschheit, das begonnen hat im 15. Jahrhundert und bis in den Beginn des 4. Jahrtausends dauern wird, was machen die Angeloi in dem menschlichen astralischen Leibe? - für uns sehr wichtig sein wird.
Nun, was kann man denn überhaupt darüber sagen, wie sich eine solche Frage beantworten läßt? Man kann nur sagen: Geistesforschung, wenn sie ernsthaft getrieben wird, ist nicht eine Spielerei mit Vorstellungen oder eine Spielerei mit Worten, sondern sie arbeitet wirklich hinein in die Gebiete, wo die geistige Welt anschaulich wird. Und so etwas Nächstliegendes kann eben angeschaut werden. Aber es kann eigentlich diese Frage fruchtbar nur beantwortet werden im Zeitalter der Bewußtseinsseele selbst.
Sie könnten sich denken: Würde in anderen Zeitaltern diese Frage haben aufgeworfen werden können und beantwortet werden sollen, so würde wahrscheinlich Antwort da [gewesen] sein. - Aber weder im Zeitalter des atavistischen Hellsehens noch im Zeitalter der griechisch-lateinischen Kultur konnte diese Frage beantwortet werden, aus dem Grunde nicht, weil die Bilder, die man im atavistischen Hellsehen in der Seele bekommen hat, die Beobachtungen über die Taten der Engel in unserem astralischen Leibe verdunkelten. Da war nichts zu sehen, gerade dadurch, daß? man die Bilder hatte, die das atavistische Hellsehen gab. Und im griechisch-lateinischen Zeitalter war das Denken noch nicht so stark, wie es Jetzt ist. Das Denken hat schon eine Verstärkung erfahren, gerade durch das naturwissenschaftliche Zeitalter eine Verstärkung erfahren, so daß das Zeitalter der Bewußtseinsseele dasjenige ist, in dem bewußt auch eingedrungen werden kann in eine solche Frage wie die eben aufgestellte. Darinnen muß sich gerade die Fruchtbarkeit unserer Geisteswissenschaft für das Leben zeigen, daß wir nicht bloß mit Theorien abspeisen, sondern daß wir Dinge zu sagen wissen, die für das Leben eine eingreifende Bedeutung haben.
Was tun die Engel in unserem astralischen Leibe? Wir können nur dann uns überzeugen, was sie da tun, wenn wir bis zu einem gewissen Grade hellsichtiger Beobachtung aufsteigen, so daß wir sehen, was in unserem astralischen Leibe drinnen sich abspielt. Also bis zu einem gewissen Grade wenigstens der imaginativen Erkenntnis muß aufgestiegen werden, wenn die angedeutete Frage beantwortet werden soll. Dann zeigt sich, daß diese Wesenheiten aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi - und in gewisser Weise jeder einzelne der Angeloi, der für jeden Menschen gewissermaßen seine Aufgabe hat, aber auch namentlich durch ihr Zusammenwirken - Bilder im menschlichen astralischen Leibe formen. Unter der Anleitung der Geister der Form formen sie Bilder. Wenn man nicht aufsteigt zur imaginativen Erkenntnis, so weiß man nicht, daß fortwährend in unserem Astralleib Bilder geformt werden. Sie entstehen und vergehen, diese Bilder. Würden diese Bilder nicht geformt, so gäbe es keine Entwickelung der Menschheit in die Zukunft hinein, die den Absichten der Geister der Form entspricht. Was die Geister der Form mit uns bis zum Ende der Erdenentwickelung weiter erreichen wollen, das müssen sie zuerst in Bildern entwickeln, und aus diesen Bildern wird dann später die umgestaltete Menschheit, die Wirklichkeit. Und diese Bilder in unserem astralischen Leibe formen heute schon die Geister der Form durch die Engel. Die Engel formen im menschlichen astralischen Leib Bilder, Bilder, die man mit dem zur Hellsichtigkeit entwickelten Denken erreichen kann. Und man kann diese Bilder, welche die Engel in unserem astralischen Leibe formen, verfolgen. Dann zeigt sich, daf3 diese Bilder nach ganz bestimmten Impulsen, nach ganz bestimmten Prinzipien geformt werden. Und zwar so werden sie geformt, daß in der Art, wie diese Bilder entstehen, gewissermaßen Kräfte für die zukünftige EntwickeJung der Menschheit liegen. Wenn man - so sonderbar es klingt, man muß das so ausdrücken - die Engel bei dieser ihrer Arbeit betrachtet, so haben diese Engel bei dieser ihrer Arbeit eine ganz bestimmte Absicht für die künftige soziale Gestaltung des Menschenlebens auf Erden; und sie wollen solche Bilder in den menschlichen astralischen Leibern erzeugen, welche ganz bestimmte soziale Zustände im menschlichen Zusammenleben der Zukunft herbeiführen.
Die Menschen können sich sträuben, anzuerkennen, daß Engel in ihnen Zukunftsideale auslösen wollen, aber es ist doch so. Und zwar wirkt ein ganz bestimmter Grundsatz bei dieser Bilderformung der Angeloi. Es wirkt der Grundsatz, daß in der Zukunft kein Mensch Ruhe haben soll im Genusse von Glück, wenn andere neben ihm unglücklich sind. Es herrscht ein gewisser Impuls absolutester Brüderlichkeit, absolutester Vereinheitlichung des Menschengeschlechtes, richtig verstandener Brüderlichkeit mit Bezug auf die sozialen Zustände im physischen Leben. Das ist das eine, der eine Gesichtspunkt, nach dem wir sehen, daß die Angeloi die Bilder im menschlichen astralischen Leibe formen.
Aber es gibt noch einen zweiten Impuls, unter dessen Gesichtspunkt diese Angeloi formen; das ist: sie verfolgen nicht nur gewisse Absichten mit Bezug auf das äußere soziale Leben, sondern sie verfolgen auch gewisse Absichten mit Bezug auf die menschliche Seele, auf das seelische Leben der Menschen. Mit Bezug auf das seelische Leben der Menschen, da verfolgen sie durch ihre Bilder, die sie dem astralischen Leibe einprägen, das Ziel, daß in der Zukunft jeder Mensch in jedem Menschen ein verborgenes Göttliches sehen soll.
Also wohlgemerkt: Anders soll es werden nach der Absicht, die in der Arbeit der Angeloi liegt. Es soll werden so, daß wir nicht den Menschen gewissermaßen wie ein höherentwickeltes Tier nur seinen physischen Qualitäten nach betrachten, weder in der Theorie noch in der Praxis, sondern daß wir jedem Menschen entgegentreten mit dem voll ausgebildeten Gefühl: In dem Menschen erscheint etwas, was aus den göttlichen Weltengründen heraus sich offenbart, durch Fleisch und Blut sich offenbart. - Den Menschen zu erfassen als Bild, das sich aus der geistigen Welt heraus offenbart, so ernst als möglich, so stark als möglich, so verständnisvoll als möglich, das wird in die Bilder durch die Angeloi gelegt.
Das wird einmal, wenn es verwirklicht wird, eine ganz bestimmte Folge haben. Alle freie Religiosität, die sich in der Zukunft innerhalb der Menschheit entwickeln wird, wird darauf beruhen, daß in jedem Menschen das Ebenbild der Gottheit wirklich in unmittelbarer Lebenspraxis, nicht bloß in der Theorie, anerkannt werde. Dann wird es keinen Religionszwang geben können, dann wird es keinen Religionszwang zu geben brauchen, denn dann wird die Begegnung jedes Menschen mit jedem Menschen von vornherein eine religiöse Handlung, ein Sakrament sein, und niemand wird durch eine besondere Kirche, die äußere Einrichtungen auf dem physischen Plan hat, nötig haben, das religiöse Leben aufrechtzuerhalten. Die Kirche kann, wenn sie sich selber richtig versteht, nur die eine Absicht haben, sich unnötig zu machen auf dem physischen Plane, indem das ganze Leben zum Ausdruck des Übersinnlichen gemacht wird.
Das liegt wenigstens den Impulsen der Arbeit der Engel zugrunde: vollständige Freiheit des religiösen Lebens über die Menschen hin auszugießen. Und ein drittes liegt zugrunde: den Menschen die Möglichkeit zu geben, durch das Denken zum Geist zu gelangen, durch das Denken über den Abgrund hinweg zum Erleben im Geistigen zu kommen. Geisteswissenschaft für den Geist, Religionsfreiheit für die Seele, Brüderlichkeit für die Leiber, das tönt wie eine Weltenmusik durch die Arbeit der Engel in den menschlichen astralischen Leibern. Man braucht, möchte ich sagen, nur sein Bewußtsein bis zu einer gewissen anderen Schichte hinaufzuheben, dann fühlt man sich hineinversetzt in diese wunderbare Arbeitsstätte der Angeloi in dem menschlichen astralischen Leibe.
Nun ist es so, daß wir im Zeitalter der Bewußtseinsseele leben, und in diesem Zeitalter der Bewußtseinsseele tun die Angeloi im menschlichen astralischen Leibe das, was ich eben erzählt habe. Die Menschen sollen nach und nach bewußt zum Erfassen dessen kommen, was ich eben erzählt habe. Das gehört in die menschliche Entwickelung hinein. Wie kommt man denn überhaupt dazu, so etwas zu sagen, wie das, was ich jetzt eben ausgesprochen habe? Wo findet man gewissermaßen diese Arbeit? Nun, heute findet man sie noch in dem schlafenden Menschen. Man findet sie in den Schlafzuständen der Menschen vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen. Man findet sie auch in den wachenden Schlafzuständen. Ich habe oft davon gesprochen, wie die Menschen, trotzdem sie wach sind, in den wichtigsten Angelegenheiten eigentlich ihr Leben verschlafen. Und ich kann Ihnen die allerdings nicht sehr erfreuliche Versicherung geben, daß man wirklich, wenn man bewußt durchs Leben geht, heute viele, viele schlafende Menschen findet. Sie lassen geschehen, was in der Welt geschieht, ohne sich dafür zu interessieren, ohne sich darum zu bekümmern, ohne sich damit zu verbinden. Dasjenige, was vorbeigeht an großen Weltereignissen, das geht an den Menschen oftmals so vorbei, wie dasjenige, was sich in der Stadt abspielt, vor einem Schlafenden vorbeigeht, trotzdem die Leute scheinbar wach sind. Dann aber, wenn die Menschen gerade wachend so etwas Besonderes verschlafen, dann zeigt sich, wie in ihren astralischen Leibern ganz unabhängig von dem, was sie wissen wollen oder nicht wissen wollen - diese wichtige Arbeit der Angeloi sich abspielt, von der ich gesprochen habe.
Solche Dinge spielen sich vielfach ab in einer Weise, die den Menschen recht rätselvoll, recht paradox erscheinen muß. Da hält man manchen für ganz unwürdig, das oder jenes an Verbindungen mit der geistigen Welt einzugehen. Aber in Wahrheit ist der Betreffende nichts anderes als zunächst in dieser Inkarnation eine furchtbare Schlafmütze, die alles verschläft, was um ihn herum vorgeht; in seinem astralischen Leib aber arbeitet der Engel aus der Gemeinschaft der Engel heraus an der Zukunft der Menschheit. Der astralische Leib wird trotzdem benutzt, und man kann an seinem astralischen Leib so etwas beobachten. Aber darauf kommt es an, daß so etwas sich gerade hereindrängt in das menschliche Bewußtsein. Die Bewußtseinsseele muß erhoben werden zu der Anerkennung desjenigen, was nur auf diese Weise gefunden werden kann.
Indem wir diese Voraussetzungen gemacht haben, werden Sie begreifen, wenn ich Sie nun aufmerksam mache darauf, daß eben dieses Zeitalter der Bewußtseinsseele zudrängt einem ganz bestimmten Ereignisse, und daß es, weil wir es mit der Bewußtseinsseele zu tun haben, von den Menschen abhängen wird, wie dieses Ereignis sich in der Menschheitsentwickelung vollzieht. Das Ereignis kann um ein Jahrhundert früher oder später kommen, aber eigentlich müßte es in das Gebiet der Menschheitsentwickelung hereinkommen. Und dieses Ereignis kann man eben so charakterisieren, daé man sagt: Die Menschen müssen rein durch ihre Bewußtseinsseele, durch ihr bewußtes Denken dazu kommen, daß sie schauen, wie es die Engel machen, um die Zukunft der Menschheit vorzubereiten. - Dasjenige, was Geisteswissenschaft auf diesem Gebiete lehrt, muß praktische Lebensweisheit der Menschheit werden, solche praktische Lebensweisheit, daß die Menschen die feste Überzeugung haben können: es ist ihr eigenes Weisheitsgut, indem sie anerkennen, daß die Engel dies wollen, was ich charakterisiert habe.
Nun ist aber das Menschengeschlecht in bezug auf die Annäherung zu seiner Freiheit so weit fortgeschritten, daß es von dem Menschengeschlecht schon selber abhängt, ob es das betreffende Ereignis verschlafen oder mit voller Bewußtheit ihm entgegengehen will. Was würde es heißen: ihm mit voller Bewußtheit entgegengehen? Mit voller Bewußtheit ihm entgegengehen, heißt das Folgende: Man kann heute Geisteswissenschaft studieren, sie ist da, man braucht wahrhaftig nicht einmal etwas anderes zu tun als Geisteswissenschaft zu studieren. Wenn man außerdem noch allerlei Meditationen macht, wenn man berücksichtigt dasjenige, was an praktischen Anleitungen durch so etwas gegeben ist wie in «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten ?», so unterstützt man die Sache weiter. Aber das Nötige geschieht schon, wenn man nur Geisteswissenschaft studiert und richtig bewußt versteht. Man kann, ohne hellseherische Fähigkeiten sich anzueignen, Geisteswissenschaft heute studieren; jeder Mensch kann es, der sich nicht selber Vorurteile in den Weg legt. Und wenn die Menschen immer mehr und mehr Geisteswissenschaft studieren, wenn sie sich die Begriffe und Ideen aneignen, die in der Geisteswissenschaft gegeben sind, dann werden sie in ihrem Bewußtsein soweit erwachen, daß gewisse Ereignisse eben nicht verschlafen werden, sondern bewußt vorübergehen.
Und diese Ereignisse, wir können sie noch genauer charakterisieren. Denn im Grunde ist, daß wir wissen, was der Engel tut, nur die Vorbereitung. Die Hauptsache ist, daß eben in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte ein Dreifaches eintreten wird. Wie gesagt, je nachdem sich die Menschen verhalten, wird der Zeitpunkt früher oder später oder im allerschlimmsten Falle gar nicht eintreten. Aber dasjenige, was eintreten soll, ist eben das, daß der Menschheit durch ihre Engelwelt ein Dreifaches gezeigt wird. Erstens wird gezeigt, wie man wirklich die tiefere Seite der Menschennatur mit seinem unmittelbarsten menschlichen Interesse erfassen kann. Ja, es wird ein Zeitpunkt kommen, den die Menschen nicht verschlafen sollen, wo die Menschen einen anregenden Impuls aus der geistigen Welt heraus durch ihren Engel empfangen werden, der dahin gehen wird, daß wir ein viel tieferes Interesse an jedem Menschen haben werden, als wir geneigt sind, heute zu haben. Diese Erhöhung des Interesses an unserem Mitmenschen soll sich nicht bloß etwa so subjektiv entwickeln, wie dies die Menschen so bequem in sich entwickeln, sondern mit einem Ruck, indem tatsächlich dem Menschen eingeflößt wird von spiritueller Seite ein gewisses Geheimnis, was der andere Mensch ist. Ich meine damit etwas ganz, ganz Konkretes, nicht irgendwelche theoretische Erwägung, sondern: Die Menschen erfahren etwas, was sie an jedem Menschen interessieren kann.
Das ist das eine, und das wird das soziale Leben ganz besonders erringen. Und das zweite wird sein, daß von der geistigen Welt aus der Engel unwiderleglich dem Menschen zeigen wird, daß der ChristusImpuls außer allem übrigen auch völlige Religionsfreiheit für die Menschen bedingt, daß nur das das rechte Christentum ist, welches absolute Religionsfreiheit möglich macht. Und das dritte ist eben die unwiderlegliche Einsicht in die geistige Natur der Welt.
Dieses Ereignis, wie gesagt, es soll so eintreten, daß die Bewußtseinsseele des Menschen ein gewisses Verhältnis dazu erhält. Das steht einmal der Menschheit in ihrer Entwickelung bevor. Denn darauf arbeitet der Engel durch seine Bilder im menschlichen astralischen Leibe hin. Nun mache ich Sie aber darauf aufmerksam, daß dieses Ereignis, das da bevorsteht, schon in den menschlichen Willen gestellt ist. Die Menschen können ja manches unterlassen. Und viele unterlassen heute noch vieles, was hinführen soll zum wachenden Erleben des angedeuteten Zeitpunktes.
Nun gibt es aber, wie Sie wissen, andere Wesen in der Weltentwickelung, die ein Interesse daran haben, den Menschen aus seiner Bahn hinauszubringen: das sind die ahrimanischen und die luziferischen Wesenheiten. Das, was ich eben gesagt habe, liegt in der göttlichen Entwickelung des Menschen. Es müßte eigentlich der Mensch, wenn er sich so recht seiner eigenen Natur überließe, zu der Anschauung desjenigen kommen, was der Engel in seinem astralischen Leibe entfaltet. Aber die luziferische Entwickelung, sie geht dahin, den Menschen abzudrängen von der Einsicht in die Arbeit der Angelos-Hierarchie. Und diese luziferischen Wesen, sie machen es in folgender Weise, um den Menschen abzudrängen: sie machen es so, daß sie den freien Willen des Menschen hemmen. Sie versuchen, dem Menschen Dunkelheit zu geben über die Praxis seines freien Willens, indem sie ihn zwar zu einem guten Wesen machen - Luzifer will von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus, den ich jetzt berühre, beim Menschen eigentlich das Gute, das Geistige -, aber er will ihn automatisch machen, ohne freien Willen; es soll der Mensch ins Hellsehen nach guten Prinzipien hineinversetzt werden, aber gewissermaßen automatisch; die luziferischen Wesenheiten wollen dem Menschen seinen freien Willen, die Möglichkeit zum Bösen, nehmen. Sie wollen ihn so machen, daß er zwar aus dem Geiste heraus, aber wie ein geistiges Abbild handelt, nämlich ohne freien Willen. Automatisch wollen sie ihn machen, die luziferischen Wesen.
Das hängt mit ganz gewissen Geheimnissen der Entwickelung zusammen. Die luziferischen Wesen, Sie wissen es, sind auf anderen Entwickelungsstufen stehengebliebene Wesenheiten, die Fremdartiges in die normale Entwickelung hereinbringen. Diese luziferischen Wesen haben ein hohes Interesse daran, den Menschen so zu ergreifen, daß er nicht zum freien Willen kommt, weil sie selbst den freien Willen sich nicht errungen haben. Der freie Wille kann nur auf der Erde errungen werden. Aber sie wollen mit der Erde nichts zu tun haben, sie wollen nur Saturn-, Sonnen-, Mondenentwickelung, und da stehenbleiben, nichts mit der Erdenentwickelung zu tun haben. Sie hassen gewissermaßen den freien Willen des Menschen. Sie handeln hoch-geistig, aber sie handeln automatisch - das ist außerordentlich bedeutsam -, und sie wollen zu ihrer Höhe, zu ihrer geistigen Höhe den Menschen erheben. Sie wollen ihn automatisch machen; geistig, aber automatisch. Dadurch würde auf der einen Seite die Gefahr erzeugt, daß der Mensch, wenn er zu früh, bevor seine volle Bewußtseinsseele funktioniert, zum geistig automatisch handelnden Wesen wird, jene Offenbarung verschläft, die kommen soll und die ich eben charakterisiert habe.
Aber auch die ahrimanischen Wesen arbeiten dieser Offenbarung entgegen. Sie streben nicht danach, den Menschen besonders geistig zu machen, aber sie streben danach, in dem Menschen das Bewußtsein seiner Geistigkeit zu ertöten. Sie streben danach, dem Menschen die Anschauung beizubringen, daß er eigentlich nur ein vollkommen ausgebildetes Tier ist. Ahriman ist in Wahrheit der große Lehrer des materialistischen Darwinismus. Ahriman ist auch der große Lehrer all derjenigen technischen und praktischen Betätigung innerhalb der Erdenentwickelung, die nichts gelten lassen will als das äußere sinnenfällige menschliche Leben, die nur eine ausgebreitete Technik haben will, damit in raffinierterer Weise der Mensch dieselben Eß- und Trinkbedürfnisse und sonstigen Bedürfnisse befriedigt, die auch das Tier befriedigt. In dem Menschen ertöten, verdunkeln das Bewußtsein, daß er ein Abbild der Gottheit ist, das streben für die Bewußtseinsseele durch allerlei raffinierte wissenschaftliche Mittel die ahrimanischen Geister in unserer Zeit an.
In früheren Zeitaltern würde es den ahrimanischen Geistern nichts genützt haben, durch Theorien den Menschen die Wahrheit in dieser Weise zu verdunkeln. Warum? Noch während des griechisch-lateinischen Zeitalters, aber noch mehr in dem älteren Zeitalter, in dem der Mensch noch das atavistische Hellsehen, die Bilder hatte, da war es ganz gleichgültig, wie der Mensch dachte. Da hatte er seine Bilder. Durch seine Bilder sah er in die geistige Welt hinein. Was ihm Ahriman beigebracht hätte über seine Beziehung zu den Tieren, das würde gar keine Bedeutung gehabt haben für seine Lebenshaltung. Das Denken ist erst mächtig geworden - in seiner Ohnmacht mächtig geworden, könnte man sagen - in unserem fünften nachatlantischen Zeitalter, seit dem 15. Jahrhundert. Erst seit jener Zeit ist das Denken geeignet, die Bewußtseinsseele hineinzubringen in das geistige Gebiet, damit aber auch, sie zu verhindern, hineinzukommen in die geistige Welt. Erst jetzt erleben wir die Zeit, wo eine Theorie durch Wissenschaft auf bewußte Weise dem Menschen seine Göttlichkeit und die Erfahrungen über das Göttliche raubt. Das ist eben nur im Zeitalter der Bewußtseinsseele möglich. Daher streben die ahrimanischen Geister an, solche Lehren über den Menschen zu verbreiten, die den göttlichen Ursprung des Menschen verdunkeln.
Aus der Anführung dieser der normal-göttlichen Entwickelung des Menschen entgegenstrebenden Strömungen kann man entnehmen, wie man sich einrichten muß im Leben, damit man eben das, wovon gesprochen worden ist, was da kommen soll als eine Offenbarung in die Menschenentwickelung, nicht verschlafe. Sonst entsteht eine große Gefahr. Und der Mensch muß aufmerksam sein auf diese Gefahr, sonst wird statt des bedeutungsvollen Ereignisses, das mächtig eingreifen soll in die zukünftige Gestaltung der Erdenentwickelung, dasjenige eintreten, was recht gefährlich werden kann dieser Erdenentwickelung.
Sehen Sie, gewisse geistige Wesenheiten erlangen ja ihre Entwickelung durch den Menschen, indem sich der Mensch mitentwickelt. Die Engel, die in dem menschlichen astralischen Leibe ihre Bilder entwickeln, entwickeln diese Bilder natürlich nicht als Spiel, sondern damit etwas erreicht wird. Da aber das, was erreicht werden soll, gerade innerhalb der Erdenmenschheit erreicht werden soll, so würde ja die ganze Geschichte zum Spiel, wenn die Menschen, nachdem sie die Bewußtseinsseele erlangt haben, bewußt die ganze Sache außer acht ließen. Es würde das Ganze zum Spiel! Die Engel würden nur ein Spiel treiben in der Entwickelung des astralischen Leibes des Menschen. Nur dadurch, daß das sich in der Menschheit verwirklicht, dadurch ist es kein Spiel, sondern Ernst. Daraus aber werden Sie entnehmen können, daß die Arbeit der Engel unter allen Umständen ernst bleiben muß. Bedenken Sie, was das wäre hinter den Kulissen des Daseins, wenn die Menschen einfach durch ihre Schlafmützigkeit die Arbeit der Engel zum Spiel machen könnten!
Und wenn das nun doch geschähe, wenn doch die Erdenmenschheit dabei beharren würde, das wichtige geistige Offenbarungsereignis der Zukunft zu verschlafen? Wenn die Menschen zum Beispiel den mittleren Teil - die auf die Religionsfreiheit bezügliche Sache verschlafen würden, wenn sie die Wiederholung des Mysteriums von Golgatha auf dem Ätherplane, von der ich oft gesprochen habe, die Wiedererscheinung des ätherischen Christus, wenn sie das verschlafen würden, oder die anderen Dinge verschlafen würden, dann müßte dasjenige, was mit den Bildern im astralischen Leibe des Menschen erreicht werden soll, auf einem anderen Wege von den Engeln angestrebt werden. Und das, was die Menschen in ihrem Astralleibe nicht erreichen lassen, indem sie wach werden, das würde in diesem Falle angestrebt dadurch, daß die Engel ihre Absichten verwirklichen durch die schlafenden Menschenleiber. Also dasjenige, was die Menschen verschlafen würden im Wachzustande und die Engel dadurch nicht erreichen können, das würde erreicht werden mit Hilfe der in dem Bette liegenbleibenden menschlichen physischen Leiber und Ätherleiber während des Schlafens. Dort würden die Kräfte gesucht werden, um das zu erreichen. Was mit den wachen Menschen, wenn die wachen Seelen in dem Ätherleib und in dem physischen Leib drinnen sind, sich nicht erreichen läßt, das wird mit den schlafenden Ätherleibern und physischen Leibern erreicht, wenn die Menschen, die wachen sollten, dann schlafend heraußen sind mit ihrem Ich und ihrem astralischen Leibe.
Das ist die große Gefahr für das Bewußtseinszeitalter. Das ist dasjenige Ereignis, welches sich noch vollziehen könnte, wenn die Menschen sich nicht zu dem geistigen Leben hinwenden wollten, vor dem Beginne des 3. Jahrtausends. Wir stehen nur noch eine kurze Zeit entfernt vor dem Beginne des 3. Jahrtausends. Es beginnt ja das 3. Jahrtausend bekanntlich mit dem Jahre 2000. Es könnte sich noch vollziehen, daß, statt mit dem wachenden Menschen, mit den schlafenden Leibern der Menschen das erreicht werden müßte, was erreicht werden soll für die Engel durch ihre Arbeit; daß die Engel ihre ganze Arbeit aus dem astralischen Leib des Menschen herausholen müßten, um sie unterzutauchen in den Ätherleib, damit sie sich verwirklichen könne. Aber der Mensch würde nicht drinnen sein! So müßte es sich im Ätherleib verwirklichen, wenn der Mensch nicht dabei ist, denn wenn der Mensch dabei wäre im wachen Zustande, so würde er das hindern.
Jetzt habe ich Ihnen die allgemeine Idee von der Sache entwickelt. Aber was würde denn damit eintreten, daß die Engel eine solche Arbeit, ohne daß der Mensch dabei ist, in den Ätherleibern und in den physischen Leibern der Menschen, während sie schlafen, verrichten müßten? Dadurch würde unweigerlich ein Dreifaches in der Menschenentwickelung eintreten. Erstens würde in den schlafenden Menschenleibern, während der Mensch eben schläft, ohne daß er mit seinem Ich und seinem astralischen Leib dabei ist, etwas erzeugt, was er dann findet nicht durch Freiheit, sondern was er vorfindet, wenn er morgens aufwacht. Immer findet er es dann vor. Es wird Instinkt statt Freiheitsbewußtsein, aber es wird dadurch schädlich. Und zwar drohen schädlich zu werden gewisse instinktive Erkenntnisse, die in die Menschennatur kommen sollen und die zusammenhängen mit dem Mysterium der Geburt und der Empfängnis, der Konzeption, mit dem ganzen sexuellen Leben, wenn die Gefahr eintreten sollte, von der ich gesprochen habe, durch gewisse Engel, die dann selber eine gewisse Veränderung durchmachen würden, von der ich nicht sprechen kann, weil diese Veränderung zu jenen höheren Geheimnissen der Initiationswissenschaft gehört, von denen heute noch nicht gesprochen werden darf. Wohl aber kann man sagen: Was innerhalb der Menschheitsentwickelung geschieht, das würde darin bestehen, daß, statt in hellem, wachem Bewußtsein in nützlicher Weise, dann in schädlicher Weise, in zerstörerischer Weise gewisse Instinkte aus dem Sexualleben und Sexualwesen auftreten würden, Instinkte, die nicht bloß Verirrungen bedeuten würden, sondern die übergehen würden ins soziale Leben, die Gestaltungen hervorbringen würden im sozialen Leben; vor allen Dingen die Menschen veranlassen würden durch das, was dann in ihr Blut kommen würde infolge des Sexuallebens, jedenfalls nicht irgendwelche Brüderlichkeit auf der Erde zu entfalten, sondern sich immer aufzulehnen gegen die Brüderlichkeit. Das aber würde Instinkt sein.
Also es kommt der entscheidende Punkt, wo gewissermaßen nach rechts gegangen werden kann: dann aber muß gewacht werden; oder nach links gegangen wird: dann kann geschlafen werden; aber Instinkte treten dann auf, Instinkte, die grauenvoll sein werden. Was werden die Naturgelehrten dann sagen, wenn solche Instinkte auftauchen? Die Naturgelehrten werden sagen: Das ist eine Naturnotwendigkeit. Das mußte so kommen, das liegt eben in der Menschheitsentwickelung.
Man kann durch Naturwissenschaft auf solche Dinge nicht aufmerksam machen, denn naturwissenschaftlich würde erklärbar sein, wenn die Menschen Engel werden, und würde es auch sein, wenn die Menschen Teufel werden. Über beides hat die Naturwissenschaft dasselbe zu sagen: Es ist das Folgende aus dem Früheren hervorgegangen - die große Weisheit der Kausal-Naturerklärungen! Die Naturwissenschaft wird nichts bemerken von dem Ereignis, von dem ich Ihnen gesagt habe, denn sie wird selbstverständlich, wenn die Menschen zu halben Teufeln werden durch ihre sexuellen Instinkte, das als eine Naturnotwendigkeit ansehen. Also naturwissenschaftlich kann die Sache gar nicht erklärt werden, denn, wie es auch kommt: alles ist nach der Naturwissenschaft erklärlich. Solche Dinge sind eben nur im geistigen Erkennen, im übersinnlichen Erkennen durchschaubar.
Das ist das eine. Das zweite ist, daß aus dieser Arbeit, aus dieser für die Engel Veränderungen hervorrufenden Arbeit noch ein zweites für die Menschheit erfolgen wird: die instinktive Erkenntnis gewisser Heilmittel, aber eine schädliche Erkenntnis gewisser Heilmittel. Alles dasjenige, was mit Medizin zusammenhängt, wird eine ungeheure, im materialistischen Sinne ungeheure Förderung erfahren. Man wird instinktiv Einsichten bekommen in die Heilkraft gewisser Substanzen und gewisser Verrichtungen, und man wird ungeheuren Schaden anrichten dadurch, aber man wird den Schaden nützlich nennen. Man wird das Kranke gesund nennen, denn man wird sehen, daß man da in eine gewisse Verrichtung hineinkommt, die einem dann gefallen wird. Es wird einem einfach gefallen, was die Menschen nach einer gewissen Richtung hin ins Ungesunde hineinführt. Also gerade die Erkenntnis der Heilkraft gewisser Vorgänge, gewisser Verrichtungen, die wird erhöht werden, aber sie wird in ganz schädliches Fahrwasser gelangen. Denn vor allen Dingen wird man erfahren durch gewisse Instinkte, was gewisse Substanzen und was gewisse Verrichtungen für Krankheiten hervorrufen, und man wird ganz nach egoistischen Motiven einrichten können, Krankheiten hervorzubringen, oder sie nicht hervorzubringen.
Das dritte, was sich ergeben wird, das wird sein, daß man ganz bestimmte Kräfte kennenlernen wird, durch die man, ich möchte sagen, nur durch ganz leichte Veranlassungen, durch Harmonisierung von gewissen Schwingungen, in der Welt große Maschinenkräfte wird entfesseln können. Eine gewisse geistige Lenkung des maschinellen, des mechanischen Wesens wird man gerade auf diese Weise instinktiv erkennen lernen, und die ganze Technik wird in ein wüstes Fahrwasser kommen. Aber dem Egoismus der Menschen wird dieses wüste Fahrwasser außerordentlich gut dienen und gefallen.
Das ist ein Stück konkreter Erfassung der Entwickelung des Daseins, ein Stück Lebensauffassung, das im Grunde genommen nur derjenige recht würdigen kann, der durchschaut, wie eine ungeistige Lebensauffassung gar nicht zur Klarheit über die Sache kommen kann. Eine ungeistige Lebensauffassung würde, wenn einmal kommen würde eine menschheitsschädigende Medizin, eine furchtbare Verirrung der sexuellen Instinkte, ein furchtbares Getriebe im reinen Weltmechanismus in der Verwertung der Naturkäfte durch Geisteskräfte, eine ungeistige Weltanschauung würde ja das alles nicht durchschauen, würde nicht sehen, wie sie abirrt vom wahren Pfade, geradesowenig wie der Schlafende, solange er schläft, sehen kann, wenn ihm der Räuber nahekommt, der ihn bestehlen will, sondern das geht an ihm vorüber. Er sieht höchstens später, wenn er aufwacht, was angerichtet worden ist. Aber das würde ein sehr schlimmes Aufwachen sein für den Menschen: Er würde sich ergötzen an einer instinktiven Erweiterung in der Kenntnis der Heilkräfte gewisser Vorgänge und gewisser Substanzen, würde ein solches Wohlgefühl empfinden in dem Verfolgen gewisser Verirrungen sexueller Instinkte, er würde preisen diese Verirrung als eine besonders hohe Ausgestaltung der Übermenschlichkeit, der Vorurteilslosigkeit, der Unbefangenheit. Häßlich würde schön und schön häßlich in gewisser Beziehung, und man würde nichts davon merken, weil man alles als eine Naturnotwendigkeit ansehen würde. Aber es würde eine Abirrung sein von demjenigen Wege, der in der Menschheit selbst der Eigenwesenheit des Menschen vorgeschrieben ist.
Ich glaube, man kann, wenn man sich ein Gefühl dafür erworben hat, wie Geisteswissenschaft in die Gesinnung hereindringt, auch den Ernst aufbringen für solche Wahrheiten wie die heute angeführten, und man kann daraus das schöpfen, was eigentlich aus aller Geisteswissenschaft geschöpft werden soll: in dieser Geisteswissenschaft anzuerkennen eine gewisse Verpflichtung, eine gewisse Lebensverpflichtung. Wo wir auch stehen, was wir auch zu tun haben in der Welt, darauf kommt es an, daß wir den Gedanken hegen können: unser Tun muß durchtränkt und durchleuchtet sein von unserem anthroposophischen Bewußtsein. Dann tragen wir etwas dazu bei, daß die Menschheit in richtigem Sinne in ihrer Entwickelung vorwärtskommt.
Der Mensch geht ganz irre, wenn er glaubt, wahre Geisteswissenschaft, ernst und würdig erfaßt, könne ihn jemals von der praktischen, intensiven Arbeit im Leben abbringen. Wahre Geisteswissenschaft macht eben erwachen, erwachen über solche Dinge, die ich heute angeführt habe. Meine lieben Freunde, man kann fragen: Ist denn eigentlich das wache Leben dem Schlafe schädlich? - Wenn wir den Vergleich wählen wollen, daß das Hineinschauen in die geistige Welt gegenüber dem gewöhnlichen Wachen ein weiteres Aufwachen ist, wie das gewöhnliche Aufwachen ein Aufwachen aus dem Schlafe ist, dann können wir auch, um den Vergleich zu verstehen, die Frage aufwerfen: Kann denn jemals das Wachleben dem Schlafe schädlich sein? - Ja, wenn es nicht ordentlich ist! Wenn einer das Wachleben ordentlich zubringt, dann wird er auch einen gesunden Schlaf haben, und wenn einer das wache Leben dösend oder faul oder bequem, ohne Arbeit zubringt, dann wird auch sein Schlaf ungesund sein. Und so ist es auch mit Bezug auf das Leben, das wir durch die Geisteswissenschaft als waches Leben uns aneignen. Begründen wir durch Geisteswissenschaft in uns ein ordentliches Verhältnis zur geistigen Welt, so wird ebenso, wie durch ein gesundes Wachleben der Schlaf geregelt wird, durch dieses rechte Verhältnis zur geistigen Welt auch unser Interesse an dem gewöhnlichen sinnenfälligen Leben in richtige Bahnen gelenkt.
Wer das Leben gerade in unserer Zeit betrachtet, der muß selber schlafen, wenn er nicht auf verschiedenes aufmerksam wird. Wie haben sich die Menschen gebrüstet, besonders in den letzten Jahrzehnten, mit ihrer «Lebenspraxi»! Man hat es endlich dahin gebracht in den letzten Jahrzehnten, daß diejenigen, die das Ideelle, das Geistige, das Spirituelle am meisten verachten, überall gerade in die führenden Stellen hineingekommen sind. Und man konnte so lange deklamieren von der Praxis dieses Lebens, solange man nicht die Menschheit in den Abgrund hineingezerrt hatte. Jetzt eben fangen einige - aber die meisten, die es tun, ganz instinktiv - an zu krächzen: Es muß eine neue Zeit kommen, es müssen allerlei neue Ideale auftreten! - Aber es ist ein Krächzen. Und würden die Dinge instinktiv auftreten, ohne bewußtes Sich-Hineinleben in die Geisteswissenschaft, dann würden sie eher zum Verfall dessen, was im Wachzustande erlebt werden soll, hinführen, denn zu irgendeinem gedeihlichen Entwickelungsübergang. Wer den Menschen heute vordeklamiert mit denselben Worten, die sie seit langer Zeit gewöhnt sind, der findet manchmal noch einigen Beifall. Aber die Menschen werden sich dazu bequemen müssen, andere Worte, andere Wendungen zu hören, damit aus dem Chaos wiederum ein sozialer Kosmos komme.
Wenn nämlich in irgendeinem Zeitalter die Menschen, die wachen sollten, versäumen zu wachen und nicht herausfinden, was wirklich geschehen sollte, dann geschieht überhaupt nichts Wirkliches, sondern das Gespenst der vorhergehenden Epoche geht dann herum, so wie in vielen religiösen Gemeinschaften heute einfach die Gespenster der Vergangenheit herumgehen, und so wie zum Beispiel in unserem juristischen Leben vielfach das Gespenst vom alten Rom noch herumgeht. Geisteswissenschaft soll gerade in dieser Beziehung im Zeitalter der Bewußtseinsseele den Menschen frei machen, wirklich hineinführen in die Beobachtung einer geistigen Tatsache: Was tut der Engel in unserem astralischen Leib? - Abstrakt zu reden über Angeloi und so weiter, das kann höchstens der Anfang sein; der Fortschritt muß dadurch erzielt werden, daß wir konkret reden, das heißt, mit Bezug auf unser bestimmtes Zeitalter uns die nächste Frage beantworten, die uns angeht. Sie geht uns an, weil einfach in unserem astralischen Leib der Engel Bilder webt, diese Bilder unsere Gestaltung in der Zukunft bringen sollen und diese Gestaltung durch die Bewußtseinsseele herbeigeführt werden soll. Hätten wir nicht die Bewußtseinsseele, dann brauchten wir uns nicht zu kümmern, dann würden schon andere Geister, andere Hierarchien eintreten, um das zu bewirken, was der Engel webt. Aber da wir die Bewußtseinsseele entwickeln sollen, so treten keine anderen Geister ein, um das zu verwirklichen, was der Engel webt.
Natürlich haben auch Engel gewoben im ägyptischen Zeitalter. Aber bald traten andere Geister ein, und dem Menschen verdunkelte sich gerade dadurch sein atavistisch-hellseherisches Bewußtsein. Also die Menschen woben, weil sie das sahen in ihrem atavistischen Hellsehen, einen Schleier, einen dunklen Schleier über die Taten der Engel. Aber jetzt soll der Mensch sie enthüllen. Deshalb soll er nicht verschlafen, was in sein bewußtes Leben hereingetragen wird in dem Zeitalter, das noch schließen wird vor dem 3. Jahrtausend. Nehmen wir aus der anthroposophisch orientierten Geisteswissenschaft nicht nur allerlei Lehren, nehmen wir auch Vorsätze! Und die werden uns Stärke geben, wachende Menschen zu sein. (Siehe Hinweis)
Wir können uns angewöhnen, wachende Menschen zu sein. Wir können mancherlei beachten. Wir können gleich einmal anfangen mit der Wachsamkeit, können finden, daß eigentlich im Grunde genommen kein Tag vergeht, in dem nicht in unserem Leben ein Wunder geschieht. Wir können diesen Satz, den ich jetzt sprach, umkehren, wir können sagen: Wenn wir an irgendeinem Tag kein Wunder finden in unserem Leben, so haben wir es nur aus dem Auge verloren. - Versuchen Sie einmal, Ihr Leben am Abend zu überblicken; Sie werden ein kleines oder ein großes oder ein mittleres Ereignis darinnen finden, von dem Sie sich werden sagen können: Es ist ja ganz merkwürdig in mein Leben hereingetreten, es hat sich ganz merkwürdig vollzogen. - Sie können dies erreichen, wenn Sie nur umfassend genug denken, wenn Sie nur Zusammenhänge des Lebens umfassend genug ins seelische Auge fassen. Aber das tut man im gewöhnlichen Leben gar nicht, weil man sich gewöhnlich nicht frägt: Was ist zum Beispiel durch irgend etwas verhindert worden?
Wir kümmern uns meistens nicht um die Dinge, die verhindert worden sind, die, wenn sie eingetreten wären, unser Leben gründlich verändert hätten. Hinter diesen Dingen, die aus unserem Leben fortgeschafft werden auf irgendeine Weise, sitzt ungeheuer viel von dem, was uns zu wachsamen Menschen erzieht. Was hätte mir heute alles passieren können? - Wenn ich diese Frage mir an jedem Abend stelle und dann einzelne Ereignisse betrachte, die dies oder jenes hätten herbeiführen können, so knüpfen sich an solche Fragen Lebensbetrachtungen, die Wachsamkeit in die Selbstzucht hereinbringen. Das ist etwas, was einen Anfang machen kann und was schon von selbst immer weiter und weiter führt, endlich dazu führt, daß wir nicht nur auskundschaften, was es in unserem Leben bedeutet, daß wir zum Beispiel um halb elf Uhr vormittags einmal ausgehen wollten und daß gerade im letzten Augenblicke noch irgendein Mensch kam, der uns aufhielt; wir sind ärgerlich, daß er uns aufhielt, aber wir fragen nicht nach, was hätte geschehen können, wenn wir wirklich zur rechten Zeit ausgegangen wären, wie wir es geplant haben. Wir fragen nicht: Was hat sich da verändert?
Ich habe über solche Dinge auch hier einmal schon ausführlicher gesprochen. Von der Beobachtung des Negativen in unserem Leben, das aber von der weisheitsvollen Führung unseres Lebens Zeugnis ablegen kann, bis zu der Beobachtung des webenden und wirkenden Engels in unserem astralischen Leibe ist ein gerader Weg, ein recht gerader Weg und ein sicherer Weg, den wir einschlagen können. Davon wollen wir dann heute in acht Tagen, wenn wir den zweiten Zweigvortrag haben, weitersprechen.
What is the Angel Doing in our Astral Body?
Anthroposophical understanding of the spirit should not merely be a theoretical worldview, but rather a purpose in life and a life force. And only when we put ourselves in a position to strengthen our anthroposophical worldview within ourselves so that it truly becomes alive in us, does it actually fulfill its purpose. For by uniting our souls with anthroposophical spiritual understanding, we have entered into a certain relationship with guardians of very specific, meaningful processes of human development.
People who otherwise strive toward one worldview or another are generally convinced that thoughts and ideas, apart from what they are in their human souls, are not something else in the world, but people with such worldviews believe that Thoughts and ideas as ideals will become established in the world to the extent that human beings, insofar as they perform acts that are perceptible to the senses, succeed in bringing them to fruition in the world. Anthroposophical thinking presupposes that we are clear about the fact that our thoughts and ideas must find other ways of realising themselves than those which occur through our sensory deeds, through our deeds in the sensory world. Recognizing this necessity of life already implies that anthroposophists must participate in a certain way in watching for the signs of the times. Many things are happening in the evolution of the world; it is incumbent upon human beings, especially those of our age, to gain a real understanding of what is happening in the evolution of the world into which they themselves have been placed.
With regard to the individual human being, everyone knows that one must take into account their development, not just the external facts that surround them. Just consider, I would say, in very broad terms: the external, sense-perceptible facts that are happening now are all around people who are five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, or seventy years old. Nevertheless, no reasonable person would demand that the same relationship between human beings and these facts should be established for five-year-olds, ten-year-olds, twenty-year-olds, fifty-year-olds, and seventy-year-olds. How people should behave toward their external environment can only be determined by taking into account the development of human beings themselves. Everyone will admit this when it comes to individual human beings. But just as individual human beings are subject to a very specific development, just as they have, so to speak, a different kind of power as children, in middle life, and as old people, so too does humanity have different powers in the course of its development, and we are, so to speak, only asleep in the world's development if we do not take into account that humanity is something different in its essence in the 20th century than it was in the 15th century or even in the time of the Mystery of Golgotha or before. It is one of the greatest shortcomings, errors, and confusions of our time that people do not want to take note of what I have just said, that they believe one can speak quite abstractly about human beings or humanity in general and do not need to know that humanity is subject to development.
Now the question arises: How can we gain a more precise insight into these things? You know that we have often discussed something important about this development. In the Greek-Latin period, from the 8th century BC to about the 15th century AD, we reckon with the so-called cultural age of the intellectual or emotional soul, and since the 15th century we reckon with the cultural age of the conscious soul. This characterizes an essential aspect of human development, particularly as it relates to our time. We know that the most important force to be reckoned with in human development from the 15th century to the beginning of the 4th millennium is the consciousness soul. But in spiritual science, in real spiritual science, one must never stop at generalities and abstractions; one must always seek to grasp concrete facts. Abstractions are useful at most if one is curious in a very ordinary sense. If one wants to make spiritual science the content of one's life, the life force of one's life, one must be more serious than curious; one must not remain with such abstractions as I have just expressed. It is quite correct that we live in the age of the consciousness soul, that we rely primarily on the development of the consciousness soul; this is also extremely important, but we must not stop there.
If we now want to arrive at a definite view of things, we must first of all take a closer look at the nature of the human being itself. As we humans are, we are divided in the spiritual scientific sense, if we descend from above, so to speak, into the I, into the astral body, into the etheric body, which I have also called the image-forming body in more recent times, and into the physical body. Of these members of human nature, only the I is actually that in which we initially live and breathe spiritually and soulfully. The I is given to us through our earthly evolution and the spirits of form that direct it. Basically, everything that enters our consciousness enters through our I. And if the I does not unfold in such a way that it can connect with the outer world, even through the bodies, we have as little consciousness as we do between falling asleep and waking up. The ego is what connects us to our environment. The astral body was assigned to us through the lunar evolution that preceded our earthly evolution, our etheric body through the further preceding solar evolution, and the physical body, in its initial form, through the Saturn evolution.
But if you go through the description of these bodies in “The Secret Science in Outline,” you will see how complicated it is that what we are today, in our combination of the four characterized members, has come about. Do we not see from the facts handed down to us by “The Secret Science” that spirits of all possible hierarchies have contributed to this division into the three sheaths of the human being? Do we not see that what surrounds us as the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body is of a very, very complex nature? But not only have these hierarchies contributed to the formation of our sheaths, they are still working within them. And anyone who believes that this human being is merely the combination of bones, blood, flesh, and so on, as ordinary natural science, physiology, biology, or anatomy tell us, does not understand the human being.
If we approach the reality of this human shell being, if we see this human shell being in its truth, then we see how spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies work together, purposefully and wisely, in everything that goes on in our physical shells without our consciousness. From the, I would say, sketchy outlines I have given in my “Secret Science” about the interaction of the individual spirits of the higher hierarchies in order for the human being to come into being, you can see how complicated this matter must be in detail. But nevertheless, if one wants to understand the human being, one must also approach these things more and more in detail, more and more concretely.
Now it is extremely difficult to even begin to address a concrete question in this field. These concrete questions are extremely complicated. Just imagine that someone wanted to ask: What is happening in the human etheric body in the current cycle of human development, in the year 1918, in, say, the hierarchy of the seraphim or the dynameis? For this question can be raised just as one might ask whether it is raining in Lugano at this moment. Of course, neither question can be answered by mere reflection or theory, but only by approaching the facts. Just as one must inquire, for my sake, by telegram or letter or the like, whether it is raining in Lugano now or not, so one must also inquire, by really penetrating the facts, about such things as: What is the task of the spirits of wisdom or the thrones in the present age of humanity, let us say in the human etheric body? But now, a question such as the one just raised is of extraordinary complexity, and we can, so to speak, only ever approach areas in which such questions arise. In this area, it is actually ensured that human beings do not grow wings and fly up into the sky, becoming arrogant and proud when they strive for real knowledge.
In a sense, the beings that are most immediately relevant to us are those we can see clearly. But we must also see them clearly if we do not want to remain asleep with regard to our place in human evolution. And so I want to talk to you about a question that is not so vague, not so indefinite — although it is very concrete, like this question: What do the dynameis or the thrones do in our etheric body? I want to ask you another question that is not so vague, not so indefinite, but is actually relevant to people today. This question is: What are the beings of the Angeloi, who are closest to human beings, doing in the astral body in the present age of humanity?
The astral body is closest to our human ego when we look into our inner being. It is therefore to be hoped that the answer to the question just posed will be of great interest to us. The Angeloi are the next hierarchy above the human hierarchy itself. So we are asking a modest question, and we will see later that the answer to this question: What are the Angeloi doing right now in our age of humanity, which is passing through the 20th century, in this age of humanity that began in the 15th century and will last until the beginning of the 4th millennium, what are the Angeloi doing in the human astral body? - will be very important for us.
Well, what can one say at all about how such a question can be answered? One can only say: Spiritual research, when pursued seriously, is not a game with ideas or a game with words, but really works its way into the realms where the spiritual world becomes visible. And something so obvious can be seen. But this question can only be answered fruitfully in the age of the consciousness soul itself.
You might think: If this question could have been raised and answered in other ages, there would probably have been an answer. But neither in the age of atavistic clairvoyance nor in the age of Greek-Latin culture could this question be answered, for the reason that the images received in the soul through atavistic clairvoyance obscured the observations of the deeds of the angels in our astral body. There was nothing to see, precisely because one had the images provided by atavistic clairvoyance. And in the Greek-Latin age, thinking was not yet as strong as it is now. Thinking has already undergone a strengthening, precisely through the scientific age, so that the age of the consciousness soul is the age in which one can consciously penetrate into a question such as the one just posed. It is precisely here that the fruitfulness of our spiritual science for life must show itself, in that we do not merely fob people off with theories, but that we know how to say things that have a profound meaning for life.
What do the angels do in our astral body? We can only convince ourselves of what they do there if we rise to a certain degree of clairvoyant observation, so that we see what is happening inside our astral body. So, at least to a certain degree, we must rise to imaginative knowledge if the question indicated is to be answered. Then it becomes apparent that these beings from the hierarchy of the Angeloi—and in a certain sense each individual Angeloi, who has a specific task for each human being, but also collectively through their interaction—form images in the human astral body. Under the guidance of the spirits of form, they form images. If one does not ascend to imaginative knowledge, one does not know that images are constantly being formed in our astral body. These images arise and pass away. If these images were not formed, there would be no development of humanity into the future that corresponds to the intentions of the spirits of form. What the spirits of form want to achieve with us until the end of Earth's development, they must first develop in images, and from these images the transformed humanity, reality, will later emerge. And these images in our astral body are already being formed today by the spirits of form through the angels. The angels form images in the human astral body, images that can be attained with thinking developed to clairvoyance. And one can follow these images that the angels form in our astral body. Then it becomes apparent that these images are formed according to very specific impulses, according to very specific principles. They are formed in such a way that, in the manner in which these images arise, there lie, as it were, forces for the future development of humanity. If one observes the angels at work, strange as it may sound, one must express it in this way: these angels have a very specific intention for the future social organization of human life on earth; and they want to create images in the human astral bodies that will bring about very specific social conditions in human coexistence in the future.
People may resist acknowledging that angels want to awaken future ideals in them, but it is nevertheless true. A very specific principle is at work in the formation of these images by the angels. The principle at work is that in the future no human being should be able to enjoy happiness while others beside them are unhappy. There is a certain impulse toward absolute brotherhood, absolute unification of the human race, correctly understood brotherhood with regard to social conditions in physical life. That is one aspect, the one aspect from which we see that the Angeloi form images in the human astral body.
But there is a second impulse from which these Angeloi form; that is: they do not only pursue certain intentions with regard to external social life, but they also pursue certain intentions with regard to the human soul, to the soul life of human beings. With regard to the soul life of human beings, they pursue, through the images they imprint on the astral body, the goal that in the future every human being should see a hidden divinity in every other human being.
So mark well: things are to become different according to the intention that lies in the work of the Angeloi. It should be so that we do not regard human beings as higher animals, judging them solely by their physical qualities, either in theory or in practice, but that we approach every human being with the fully developed feeling that something appears in human beings that reveals itself from the divine foundations of the world, revealing itself through flesh and blood. To grasp human beings as images that reveal themselves from the spiritual world, as seriously as possible, as strongly as possible, as understandingly as possible, is what is laid down in the images by the Angeloi.
Once this is realized, it will have a very specific consequence. All free religiosity that will develop within humanity in the future will be based on the recognition that the image of the divine is truly present in every human being in their immediate life experience, not just in theory. Then there will be no religious coercion, then there will be no need for religious coercion, because then every encounter between human beings will be a religious act, a sacrament, and no one will need a special church with external institutions on the physical plane to maintain their religious life. If the church understands itself correctly, it can have only one intention: to make itself unnecessary on the physical plane by making the whole of life an expression of the supersensible.
This is at least the basis of the work of the angels: to pour out complete freedom of religious life upon human beings. And there is a third basis: to give human beings the opportunity to reach the spirit through thinking, to come to experience the spiritual by thinking across the abyss. Spiritual science for the spirit, religious freedom for the soul, brotherhood for the bodies—this sounds like the music of the worlds through the work of the angels in the human astral bodies. I would say that one need only raise one's consciousness to a certain other level, and then one feels transported into this wonderful workplace of the Angeloi in the human astral body.
Now it is so that we live in the age of the consciousness soul, and in this age of the consciousness soul, the Angeloi do in the human astral body what I have just described. Human beings should gradually come to a conscious understanding of what I have just said. This is part of human development. How does one come to say something like what I have just said? Where can one find this work, so to speak? Well, today one still finds it in sleeping human beings. One finds it in the sleep states of human beings from falling asleep to waking up. One also finds it in the waking sleep states. I have often spoken of how people, even though they are awake, actually sleep through the most important matters of their lives. And I cannot give you the very pleasant assurance that, if you go through life consciously, you will find many, many sleeping people today. They let what happens in the world happen without taking an interest in it, without worrying about it, without connecting with it. The great events of the world often pass people by just as what happens in the city passes by a sleeping person, even though people appear to be awake. But then, when people are awake and miss something special, it becomes apparent how, in their astral bodies, quite independently of what they want to know or do not want to know, the important work of the Angeloi, of which I have spoken, is taking place.
Such things often happen in a way that must seem quite mysterious and paradoxical to people. Some people consider others completely unworthy of entering into this or that connection with the spiritual world. But in truth, the person concerned is nothing more than a terrible sleepyhead in this incarnation, who sleeps through everything that is going on around him; but in his astral body, the angel from the community of angels is working on the future of humanity. The astral body is nevertheless used, and one can observe something like this in the astral body. But what matters is that something like this forces its way into human consciousness. The consciousness soul must be raised to the recognition of that which can only be found in this way.
Having made these preliminary remarks, you will understand when I now draw your attention to the fact that this very age of the consciousness soul is pushing toward a very specific event, and that, because we are dealing with the consciousness soul, it will depend on human beings how this event unfolds in human evolution. The event may come a century earlier or later, but it must actually enter the realm of human development. And this event can be characterized by saying that human beings must, purely through their consciousness soul, through their conscious thinking, come to see how the angels work to prepare the future of humanity. What spiritual science teaches in this area must become practical wisdom for humanity, such practical wisdom that people can be firmly convinced that it is their own wisdom to recognize that the angels want what I have described.
Now, however, the human race has progressed so far toward its freedom that it is up to the human race itself whether it wants to sleep through the event in question or meet it with full consciousness. What would it mean to meet it with full consciousness? To approach it with full consciousness means the following: one can study spiritual science today; it is available; one really needs to do nothing else but study spiritual science. If one also does all kinds of meditation, if one takes into account the practical instructions given in something like How to Know Higher Worlds, one further supports the cause. But what is necessary already happens when one studies spiritual science and understands it correctly and consciously. One can study spiritual science today without acquiring clairvoyant abilities; anyone can do it who does not allow prejudices to stand in their way. And if people study spiritual science more and more, if they acquire the concepts and ideas given in spiritual science, then they will awaken in their consciousness to such an extent that certain events will not be slept through, but will pass consciously.
And we can characterize these events even more precisely. For basically, our knowledge of what the angel does is only the preparation. The main thing is that at a certain point in time, a threefold event will occur. As I said, depending on how people behave, this event will occur sooner or later, or in the worst case, not at all. But what is to happen is that humanity will be shown a threefold event through its angelic world. First, it will be shown how one can truly grasp the deeper side of human nature with one's most immediate human interest. Yes, a time will come when people should not sleep through it, when people will receive a stimulating impulse from the spiritual world through their angels, which will lead to our having a much deeper interest in every human being than we are inclined to have today. This increase in interest in our fellow human beings should not develop in a merely subjective way, as people so conveniently develop within themselves, but with a jolt, by actually instilling in people from the spiritual side a certain mystery about what other people are. I mean something very, very concrete, not some theoretical consideration, but rather that people experience something that can interest them in every human being.
That is one thing, and it will be achieved in social life in a very special way. And the second will be that the angels from the spiritual world will irrefutably show people that the Christ impulse, apart from everything else, also requires complete freedom of religion for people, that only Christianity that makes absolute freedom of religion possible is true Christianity. And the third is precisely the irrefutable insight into the spiritual nature of the world.
This event, as I said, is to occur in such a way that the consciousness soul of human beings will attain a certain relationship to it. This is what lies ahead for humanity in its development. For this is what the angel is working toward through his images in the human astral body. Now, however, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this event that lies ahead is already placed in the human will. Human beings can refrain from doing many things. And many today still refrain from doing many things that should lead to the conscious experience of the time indicated.
Now, as you know, there are other beings in the evolution of the world who have an interest in bringing human beings off their course: these are the Ahrimanic and Luciferic beings. What I have just said lies in the divine development of the human being. If human beings were to truly surrender themselves to their own nature, they would actually come to see what the angel unfolds in their astral body. But the Luciferic evolution tends to push human beings away from insight into the work of the angelic hierarchy. And these Luciferic beings do this in the following way in order to push human beings away: they do so by inhibiting the free will of human beings. They try to give human beings darkness about the practice of their free will, by making them good beings—from the point of view I am now touching upon, Lucifer actually wants the good, the spiritual, in human beings—but he wants to make them automatic, without free will; human beings are to be placed in clairvoyance according to good principles, but in a kind of automatic way; the Luciferic beings want to take away human beings' free will, their possibility of doing evil. They want to make him act out of the spirit, but like a spiritual image, namely without free will. The Luciferic beings want to make him automatic.
This is connected with certain secrets of evolution. The Luciferic beings, as you know, are beings that have remained at other stages of development and bring foreign elements into normal development. These Luciferic beings have a keen interest in seizing human beings in such a way that they do not attain free will, because they themselves have not attained free will. Free will can only be attained on Earth. But they want nothing to do with the earth; they only want Saturn, Sun, and Moon development, and to remain there, having nothing to do with the development of the earth. They hate, in a sense, the free will of human beings. They act in a highly spiritual manner, but they act automatically—this is extremely significant—and they want to raise human beings to their level, to their spiritual level. They want to make them automatic; spiritual, but automatic. This would create the danger that, if humans become spiritually automatic beings too early, before their conscious soul is fully functioning, they will sleep through the revelation that is to come and that I have just characterized.
But the Ahrimanic beings also work against this revelation. They do not strive to make human beings particularly spiritual, but they strive to kill the consciousness of their spirituality in human beings. They strive to teach human beings that they are actually only perfectly developed animals. Ahriman is in truth the great teacher of materialistic Darwinism. Ahriman is also the great teacher of all those technical and practical activities within the evolution of the earth that want to accept nothing but the outer, sense-perceptible human life, that want only an expanded technology so that human beings can satisfy in a more refined way the same needs for food, drink, and other necessities that animals satisfy. In human beings, the Ahrimanic spirits of our time are killing and obscuring the consciousness that they are images of the Godhead, the striving for the consciousness soul, by all kinds of sophisticated scientific means.
In earlier ages, it would have been of no use to the Ahrimanic spirits to obscure the truth from human beings in this way through theories. Why? Even during the Greek-Latin age, but even more so in the older age, when human beings still had atavistic clairvoyance, images, it was completely irrelevant how human beings thought. They had their images. Through their images they saw into the spiritual world. What Ahriman might have taught them about their relationship to animals would have had no significance whatsoever for their way of life. Thinking only became powerful – powerful in its powerlessness, one might say – in our fifth post-Atlantean age, since the 15th century. Only since that time has thinking been able to bring the consciousness soul into the spiritual realm, but also to prevent it from entering the spiritual world. Only now are we experiencing a time when a theory, through science, consciously robs human beings of their divinity and their experiences of the divine. This is only possible in the age of the consciousness soul. That is why the Ahrimanic spirits strive to spread teachings about human beings that obscure their divine origin.
From this description of the currents working against the normal divine development of human beings, we can see how we must organize our lives so that we do not sleep through what has been spoken of, what is to come as a revelation in human development. Otherwise, a great danger arises. And human beings must be attentive to this danger, otherwise, instead of the significant event that is to intervene powerfully in the future shaping of Earth's evolution, something will occur that could be quite dangerous for Earth's evolution.
You see, certain spiritual beings attain their development through human beings, in that human beings develop alongside them. The angels who develop their images in the human astral body do not, of course, develop these images as a game, but in order to achieve something. But since what is to be achieved is to be achieved within the human race on Earth, the whole story would become a game if, after attaining the consciousness soul, human beings consciously disregarded the whole thing. The whole thing would become a game! The angels would only be playing a game in the development of the human astral body. It is only because this is realized in humanity that it is not a game, but serious. From this you can see that the work of the angels must remain serious under all circumstances. Consider what would happen behind the scenes of existence if human beings, through their sleepiness, could simply turn the work of the angels into a game!
And if that were to happen, if the human race on Earth were to persist in sleeping through the important spiritual revelation of the future? If, for example, people were to sleep through the middle part—the matter relating to religious freedom—if they were to sleep through the repetition of the mystery of Golgotha on the etheric plane, of which I have often spoken, the reappearance of the etheric Christ, if they were to sleep through that, or if they were to sleep through the other things, then what is to be achieved with the images in the astral body of the human being would have to be strived for by the angels in another way. would have to be sought by the angels in another way. And what people do not allow to be achieved in their astral body by waking up would, in this case, be sought by the angels realizing their intentions through the sleeping human bodies. So what people would miss out on while awake and the angels would not be able to achieve would be achieved with the help of the human physical bodies and etheric bodies remaining in bed during sleep. The forces would be sought there to achieve this. What cannot be achieved with the waking people, when the waking souls are in the etheric body and in the physical body, will be achieved with the sleeping etheric bodies and physical bodies, when the people who should be awake are then asleep with their ego and their astral body.
This is the great danger for the age of consciousness. This is the event that could still take place if people do not turn toward spiritual life before the beginning of the third millennium. We are only a short time away from the beginning of the third millennium. As is well known, the third millennium begins with the year 2000. It could still happen that, instead of with the waking human beings, it will be with the sleeping bodies of human beings that what is to be achieved for the angels through their work will have to be achieved; that the angels would have to take all their work out of the astral body of man in order to immerse it in the etheric body so that it could be realized. But man would not be inside! So it would have to be realized in the etheric body when man is not present, because if man were present in the waking state, he would prevent it.
Now I have developed the general idea of the matter for you. But what would happen if the angels had to carry out such work in the etheric bodies and physical bodies of human beings while they were asleep, without human beings being present? This would inevitably lead to a threefold development in human evolution. First, something would be created in the sleeping human bodies while the human being is asleep, without his ego and astral body being present, which he would then find not through freedom, but which he would find when he wakes up in the morning. He would always find it then. It would become instinct instead of freedom consciousness, but it would become harmful as a result. Certain instinctive insights that are supposed to enter human nature and are connected with the mystery of birth and conception, with the whole of sexual life, threaten to become harmful if the danger I have spoken of should arise through certain angels who would then themselves undergo a certain change of which I cannot speak, because this change belongs to those higher mysteries of the science of initiation which cannot yet be spoken of today. But one can say this: what would happen within human evolution would be that, instead of appearing in a useful way in clear, conscious awareness, certain instincts from the sexual life and sexual nature would appear in a harmful, destructive way, instincts which would not merely be aberrations, but would spill over into social life, giving rise to formations in social life; above all, they would cause human beings, through what would then enter their blood as a result of sexual life, not to develop any kind of brotherhood on earth, but always to rebel against brotherhood. But that would be instinct.
So the decisive point comes when one can, as it were, turn to the right: but then one must be vigilant; or turn to the left: then one can sleep; but then instincts arise, instincts that will be horrible. What will natural scientists say when such instincts appear? Natural scientists will say: This is a natural necessity. It had to happen this way; it is simply part of human development.
Natural science cannot draw attention to such things, because it would be scientifically explainable if humans became angels, and it would also be explainable if humans became devils. Natural science has the same thing to say about both: it is the result of what came before — the great wisdom of causal explanations of nature! Natural science will not notice anything about the event I have told you about, because it will naturally regard it as a natural necessity when people become half-devils through their sexual instincts. So the matter cannot be explained scientifically, because, however it comes about, everything is explainable according to science. Such things can only be understood through spiritual knowledge, through supersensible knowledge.
That is one thing. The second is that this work, this work that brings about changes for the angels, will also have a second effect on humanity: the instinctive recognition of certain remedies, but also the harmful recognition of certain remedies. Everything related to medicine will experience tremendous advancement, tremendous in the materialistic sense. People will instinctively gain insight into the healing power of certain substances and certain actions, and they will cause tremendous harm by doing so, but they will call the harm useful. They will call what is sick healthy, because they will see that they are engaging in a certain activity that they will then enjoy. They will simply enjoy what leads people in a certain direction toward what is unhealthy. So it is precisely the knowledge of the healing power of certain processes, certain activities, that will be increased, but it will lead into very harmful waters. For above all, one will learn through certain instincts what certain substances and certain activities cause in the way of illnesses, and one will be able to act entirely out of selfish motives to bring about illnesses or not to bring them about.
The third thing that will happen is that people will become aware of very specific forces through which, I would say, only through very slight means, through the harmonization of certain vibrations, they will be able to unleash great mechanical forces in the world. In this way, one will instinctively learn to recognize a certain spiritual control of the mechanical, and the whole of technology will enter a period of turmoil. But this turmoil will serve and please human egoism extremely well.
This is a concrete understanding of the development of existence, a view of life that, in essence, can only be appreciated by those who see how an unspiritual view of life cannot lead to clarity about the matter. An unspiritual view of life would not see through all this if a medicine harmful to humanity were to emerge, a terrible aberration of sexual instincts, a terrible mechanism in the pure world mechanism in the utilization of natural forces by spiritual forces; an unspiritual worldview would not see how it is straying from the true path, just as the sleeper, as long as he sleeps, cannot see the robber approaching to steal from him, but the robber passes him by. At most, he sees later, when he wakes up, what has been done. But that would be a very bad awakening for man: He would delight in an instinctive expansion of his knowledge of the healing powers of certain processes and certain substances, would feel such a sense of well-being in pursuing certain aberrations of sexual instincts, he would praise this aberration as a particularly high form of superhumanity, of impartiality, of impartiality. Ugly would become beautiful and beautiful ugly in a certain sense, and one would not notice it because one would regard everything as a natural necessity. But it would be a deviation from the path that is prescribed for humanity itself, for the very nature of human beings.
I believe that once one has acquired a feeling for how spiritual science penetrates into the mind, one can also summon up the seriousness required for truths such as those mentioned today, and one can draw from them what should actually be drawn from all spiritual science: the recognition of a certain obligation, a certain commitment to life, in this spiritual science. Wherever we stand, whatever we have to do in the world, what matters is that we can cherish the thought that our actions must be permeated and illuminated by our anthroposophical consciousness. Then we contribute to the progress of humanity in the right sense.
People are completely mistaken if they believe that true spiritual science, understood seriously and worthily, could ever distract them from practical, intensive work in life. True spiritual science awakens us to the things I have mentioned today. My dear friends, one might ask: Is waking life actually harmful to sleep? If we want to make the comparison that looking into the spiritual world is a further awakening compared to ordinary waking, just as ordinary waking is an awakening from sleep, then we can also ask, in order to understand the comparison: Can waking life ever be harmful to sleep? Yes, if it is not proper! If someone spends their waking life properly, they will also have healthy sleep, and if someone spends their waking life dozing or being lazy or comfortable, without work, then their sleep will also be unhealthy. And so it is with the life that we acquire through spiritual science as a waking life. If we establish a proper relationship with the spiritual world through spiritual science, then just as a healthy waking life regulates sleep, this right relationship with the spiritual world will also steer our interest in ordinary sensory life in the right direction.
Anyone who observes life in our time must sleep themselves if they do not become aware of various things. How people have boasted, especially in recent decades, about their “life practice”! In recent decades, we have finally reached the point where those who most despise the ideal, the spiritual, have found their way into leading positions everywhere. And it was possible to declaim about the practicality of this life for as long as humanity had not been dragged into the abyss. Now some people are beginning to croak—but most of them do so quite instinctively—that a new era must come, that all kinds of new ideals must emerge! But it is only croaking. And if things were to arise instinctively, without conscious immersion in spiritual science, they would lead more to the decay of what is to be experienced in the waking state than to any fruitful transition of development. Those who preach to people today using the same words they have been accustomed to hearing for a long time will sometimes still find some applause. But people will have to get used to hearing other words, other phrases, so that a social cosmos can emerge from the chaos.
For if, in any age, the people who should be awake fail to wake up and do not find out what really should happen, then nothing real happens at all, but the ghost of the previous epoch goes around, just as in many religious communities today the ghosts of the past simply walk around, and just as, for example, in our legal life the ghost of ancient Rome still walks around in many ways. In this respect, in the age of the consciousness soul, spiritual science should free people and really lead them into the observation of a spiritual fact: What is the angel doing in our astral body? To speak abstractly about angels and so on can at best be the beginning; progress must be achieved by speaking concretely, that is, by answering the next question that concerns us in relation to our particular age. It concerns us because angels weave images in our astral body, and these images are to shape our future, which is to be brought about by the consciousness soul. If we did not have the consciousness soul, we would not need to worry, for other spirits, other hierarchies, would step in to bring about what the angel weaves. But since we are to develop the consciousness soul, no other spirits step in to realize what the angel weaves.
Of course, angels also wove in the Egyptian age. But soon other spirits stepped in, and this very thing darkened man's atavistic clairvoyant consciousness. So people wove because they saw in their atavistic clairvoyance a veil, a dark veil over the deeds of the angels. But now man is to unveil them. Therefore, they must not sleep through what is being brought into their conscious life in the age that will come to a close before the third millennium. Let us not only take all kinds of teachings from anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, let us also take resolutions! And these will give us the strength to be awake human beings. (See note)
We can get into the habit of being alert people. We can pay attention to many things. We can start right away with vigilance and discover that, basically, not a day goes by without a miracle happening in our lives. We can reverse the sentence I just said and say: If we don't find a miracle in our lives on any given day, it's only because we've lost sight of it. Try reviewing your life in the evening; you will find a small, large, or medium-sized event in it about which you can say: 'That was quite remarkable in my life, it happened in a very remarkable way.' You can achieve this if you think comprehensively enough, if you grasp the connections in life comprehensively enough with your spiritual eye. But we don't do that in ordinary life, because we don't usually ask ourselves: 'What, for example, has been prevented by something?
We usually do not concern ourselves with things that have been prevented, things that, if they had happened, would have changed our lives completely. Behind these things that are removed from our lives in some way lies an enormous amount of what educates us to be vigilant human beings. What could have happened to me today? If I ask myself this question every evening and then consider individual events that could have brought about this or that, such questions give rise to reflections on life that bring vigilance into self-discipline. This is something that can make a start and that continues to develop on its own, ultimately leading us not only to explore what it means in our lives that, for example, we wanted to go out at half past ten in the morning and at the last moment someone came along and delayed us; we are annoyed that they delayed us, but we do not ask what might have happened if we had actually left at the right time, as we had planned. We do not ask: What has changed?
I have already spoken about such things in more detail here. From observing the negative in our lives, which can testify to the wise guidance of our lives, to observing the weaving and working angel in our astral body, there is a straight path, a very straight path and a safe path that we can take. We will talk more about this in eight days' time, when we have the second branch lecture.