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The Cycle of the Year
GA 223

1 April 1923, Dornach

Lecture II

I have sought out of the esoteric aspect of the Easter thought to speak to you about how, when the course of Nature is permeated by spirit, it must come about that an autumn festival is added to the festivals of the year. This should be a kind of Michael festival, placed in relation to the fall equinox approximately in the same way as Christmas is to the winter solstice, Easter to the spring equinox, and St. John's to the summer solstice.

I should like to try to bring closer to you the Easter thought appropriate to the present age, particularly in its feeling content, so that tomorrow I can lay before you the whole significance of such a contemplation.

When we celebrate the Easter festival today, if we look about us into the consciousness of contemporary humanity and are honest with ourselves, we shall have to admit that the Easter thought is actually very little true for the greater part of humanity! On what does the truth of the Easter thought depend? The truth depends on a man's being able to link with this thought a mental image showing the Christ Being as having gone through death, having conquered Death, and then when He had undergone death and the succeeding Resurrection, having thereafter so united Himself with mankind that He could still give revelations to those who had formerly been His disciples, to the Apostles. But the Resurrection thought has more and more faded away, whereas when Christianity was in its inception it had been so living that Paul's words could sound across the ages from this epoch: “And if the Christ be not risen, then is... your faith vain!”

Paul has here linked Christianity directly with the Easter thought, that is with the thought of the Resurrection. People who have received the education of the present day call the Resurrection a miracle, and as miracle it is excluded from the realm of what is or can be reality. So that for all those who can no longer penetrate to the Resurrection thought, the Easter festival merely reflects an ancient custom, as do the rest of the Christian festivals. In the course of the years we have mentioned this from the most varied points of view.

It will first be necessary for mankind to reacquire a knowledge of the spiritual world as such in order to understand events which do not belong to the realm of sense reality; and what is connected with the Resurrection thought must be regarded as such an event. Then it will be possible for the Easter thought to become truly living again, which it cannot be for a humanity that relegates the Resurrection to the realm of unreal miracles.

The Easter thought arose in those epochs of mankind in which there were still remnants of the ancient primitive human knowledge of the spiritual world. We know that at the beginning of human earth-evolution, man had a certain instinctive clairvoyance by means of which he could gain glimpses of the spiritual world which led him to view this world as of equal validity with the physical sense world. This original instinctive clairvoyance is lost for earthly humanity. But in the first three centuries of the Christian era, the last remnants of it at least still existed. Hence in these centuries a certain understanding of the Easter thought based upon ancient human insight could still take root.

Such an understanding became blunted in the fourth century, when preparation began for what has come to full expression since the first third of the fifteenth century; namely, man's life in abstract, dead thoughts, which we have often mentioned. In these abstract, dead thoughts, in which natural science attains greatness, the Easter thought soon died. Today the time has come when it must again awaken as a living thought. But in order to awaken, it must pass over out of the state of death into a state of livingness.

That which is living is characterized by the fact that it puts forth something other than itself out of itself. In the early Christian centuries, when the Easter thought was spreading throughout Christendom, the “Gemuets”1The Gemüt, or feeling soul, together with the intellectual soul forms the centermost of the three soul elements in Rudolf Steiner's picture of man. This soul element was predominant in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, in which the event of Golgotha took place. of men were still sensitive enough to experience inwardly something very powerful when they pictured the grave of Christ and, rising out of the grave, that Being Who was now united with mankind. The Gemuets could experience with great inner force what appeared before their souls in this powerful image. And this inner experience was a reality in the human soul life.

Only that is a reality in the human soul life which this soul really lays hold of, just as the senses ordinarily lay hold of the outer sense world. The people of the early centuries felt that they were changed by beholding the event of the Death and the Resurrection of Christ. They felt that by this sight their souls were transformed, just as a man feels that he is changed by physical events in the course of his life on earth.

The human being is transformed at about the seventh year by the change of teeth, and again at about the fourteenth or fifteenth year by the onset of puberty. These are bodily transformations. In the contemplation of the Easter thought the early Christians felt themselves transformed in their inner soul life. They felt themselves thereby lifted out of one stage of human existence and transported into another.

In the course of time the Easter thought has lost this force, this power, and it can regain it only when the Resurrection, which cannot be understood according to natural laws, regains reality through spiritual science, a science which comprehends the spiritual. But what is spiritually conceived attains reality, not when this spiritual is conceived merely in abstract thoughts but only when it is also grasped in lively connection with the world appearing before the senses.

Anyone who wants to cling to the spiritual only in its abstraction, who says, for example, that we should not pull down the spiritual into the physical sense world, should at the same time maintain that the Divine Being is degraded when He is represented as having created the world. The Divine is comprehended in its greatness and power, not when we place it outside and beyond the sensible, but when we ascribe to it the power to work in this sensible world, to permeate this sensible world creatively. It is a debasing of the Divine to want to set it up yonder in abstract heights, in a “cloud-cuckoo-land.” And we will never live in spiritual realities if we conceive the spiritual only in its abstractness, if we cannot bring it into connection with the whole course of the world as this comes to meet us.

And this cosmic course, as far as our earthly life is concerned, meets us first of all in the fact that this earthly life comprises a certain number of years, and that these years present the return of certain events in a regular rhythm, as I indicated yesterday. After a year we return to approximately the same conditions of weather, of sun-position, and so forth. The course of the year thus enters into our earthly life in a rhythmical way.

We saw yesterday that this course of the year represents an in-and-out-breathing by the Earth itself of soul-spiritual elements. If we picture to ourselves once more the four high points of this Earth breathing-process, as we allowed them to come before our souls, we must say to ourselves: The time of the Christmas festival represents the time when the Earth holds its breath within it. The soul-spiritual part of the Earth is completely absorbed. Deep in the bosom of the Earth there rests all that the Earth unfolded during summer in order to let it be stimulated by the cosmos. All that opened up to the cosmos and was yielded up to its forces during the summertime has now been completely drawn in by the Earth, to rest in her deeps at Christmas time. Man of course does not dwell in the earthly depths; physically he lives on the surface of the Earth. Soul-spiritually also, he does not dwell in the depths of the Earth, for he lives actually in the Earth's periphery; he lives in the atmosphere that surrounds the Earth.

Therefore esoteric wisdom has always recognized the essential being of the Earth at the time of the winter solstice, at Christmas time, as something concealed at first, as something which cannot be penetrated by the ordinary forces of human knowledge, something which belongs in the sphere of the esoteric mysteries. And in all ancient times when something comparable to our present Christmas festival existed, it was recognized that what goes on in connection with the Earth at Christmas time could be grasped only by initiation into mystery-knowledge, by the initiation still known in Greece as the Chthonian Mysteries. By means of this initiation, man forsook in a certain way the periphery of the Earth in which he lived with his ordinary consciousness, to immerse himself in something into which he could not submerge physically. He immersed himself in the soul-spiritual element, and thus he learned to know what the Earth becomes during midwinter, when she draws her soul-spiritual element into herself.

And then a man came to know through this Mystery initiation, that at the time of the winter solstice the Earth is especially receptive to permeation by the Moon forces. This was regarded as the secret—if I may express myself in the modern sense—as the Christmas secret of the ancient mysteries: that just at Christmas time one comes to know how the Earth, by being permeated and saturated by her spirit-soul-being, becomes especially receptive in her inner being to the activity of the Moon forces.

In certain ancient times, for example, no one was entrusted with a knowledge of healing science unless he was initiated in the Winter Mysteries, and understood how the Earth, through the holding of her breath, becomes especially susceptible inwardly to the activity of the Moon forces, how at this time she permeates especially the plants with healing forces, how at this time she makes the plant world, and to a certain extent also the world of the lower animals into something entirely different.

The Christmas initiation was felt as a descent into the depths of the earthly world. But something else was connected with this Christmas initiation; namely, something that was felt in a certain sense to be a danger for the human being. A man said to himself: “When anyone really observes his consciousness in connection with what lives in the Earth as Moon forces at Christmastime, he comes into a state of consciousness in which he must be inwardly very strong, must have inwardly fortified himself, in order to withstand the attack from all sides of the Ahrimanic powers, who live in the Earth precisely because of its having taken in the Moon activity.” And only in the strength which a man had himself developed in his soul-spiritual being, in the strength to break the opposition of these forces, did he see what makes it possible to endure his earth existence over the long run.

But then some time after the celebration of these Christmas Mysteries, the teachers of the Mysteries gathered their pupils together, and as a sort of revelation, said to them the following: “Certainly, through initiation one can, in full consciousness, behold what is at work within the Earth at the time of the winter solstice. But with the oncoming of spring, when the plant world starts to grow, something rises up out of the depths of the Earth which permeates all that is growing and sprouting, permeates also man himself; namely, what the Ahrimanic powers bring about. At a time when man was still endowed with divine forces, as he was at the Earth's beginning, then through this primordial divine heritage men could still resist the attack of the Ahrimanic powers which broke over mankind in this way during the time of the winter moon. But (so the initiates told their pupils) a time will come when mankind will be rendered insensible to the spiritual through the agency of the Moon forces which the Earth takes up in the wintertime. With the growing and sprouting in the spring, a kind of intoxication with regard to the spiritual will come over mankind, depriving men of any consciousness that anything spiritual exists. Then, should mankind not find it possible to resist these intoxicating forces, the humanity of the Earth will go into decline and not be able to develop further with the Earth to future higher stages of earth evolution.”

The initiates painted in gloomy colors the age which had to break in for humanity in the fifteenth century, when mankind will excel to be sure in abstract, dead thoughts, but when man can again acquire spiritual capacities only by gaining new strength to overcome the intoxicating forces that rise out of the Earth. This he can do by developing the particular spiritual force now accessible to mankind.

When we form such visualizations, we transpose ourselves, so to speak, into the connection that exists between the course of the year in nature and what lives in the spirit. We bring together what is otherwise abstract, merely thought-out, with what is the natural sensible course as it confronts us, for example, in the seasons.

The polar opposite of this Christmas Mystery is the St. John's Mystery, at the time of the summer solstice. Then the Earth has completely exhaled. The spirit-soul element of the Earth is then utterly surrendered to the super-earthly powers, to the cosmic powers. Then the spirit-soul element of the Earth takes in all that is extraterrestrial. Just as the ancient initiates had said of the Christmas Mystery, so they said also of the St. John's Mystery (we use modern forms of expression, but there were appropriate forms in the ancient Mysteries also)—the initiates said that it was necessary to attain initiation in order to penetrate the secrets of the St. John's Mystery, that is, the secrets of the heavens. For man belongs to the periphery of the Earth; he belongs neither within the Earth, nor as earthly man does he belong to the heavens. Hence he must be initiated into the secrets of the sub-earthly in order to come to know the secrets of the super-earthly.

In a certain way, the Easter Mystery and the Michael or Autumn Mystery were seen as holding the balance between the super-earthly and the sub-earthly. And the Michael Mystery, as we have said, will first attain its proper significance in the time that is still future to our own.

The Easter Mystery in its full magnitude entered into the evolution of mankind through the Mystery of Golgotha. And this Easter Mystery was understood, as I have already said, because remnants of the ancient clairvoyance still existed. At that time people could still raise themselves up in their Gemuets or feeling souls to the resurrected Christ. The Easter Mystery was therefore woven into that ritual which was not an initiation ritual, but a ritual for mankind in general; it was woven into the ritual of the celebration of the Mass.

But with the retreat of primitive clairvoyance, the understanding of the Easter Mystery was lost. People begin to discuss a matter only when they no longer understand it. All the discussion that began after the first Christian centuries about how the Easter thought is to be understood derive from the fact that people could no longer comprehend it in a direct elementary way.

Now we have often been able to apply to the Easter thought what anthroposophical spiritual science gives to us. What is essential here is that this anthroposophical spiritual research points again to forms of life which are not exhausted between birth and death in the sense world; that it places what can be spiritually investigated over against what can be sensibly investigated; that it makes comprehensible how the Christ could converse with His disciples, even after the physical body was turned to dust. In the light of spiritual research, the Resurrection thought becomes alive again. But this Resurrection thought will be fully understood only if it is linked to what I might call its counter-pole. What then does the Resurrection thought really portray? The Christ Being descended from spiritual heights, entered into the body of Jesus and lived on Earth in this body, thereby bringing into the earthly sphere forces in themselves super-terrestrial. And these super-earthly forces which the Christ Being brought into the earthly sphere were from the time of the Mystery of Golgotha on, united with the forces of mankind's evolution. Since then that which the men of ancient times could behold only outside in cosmic space is to be feelingly perceived within the evolution of earthly humanity. Following the Resurrection, the Christ united Himself with mankind, and since then He lives, not only in the super-earthly heights, but also within the earth-existence; He lives in evolution, in the stream of mankind's evolution.

Above all, this event must be regarded not from the earthly point of view alone, but also from the super-earthly viewpoint. We can say that we should not view the Christ only in the way He comes to Earth out of heavenly worlds and becomes man, in the way He is given to men, but we should view this Christ Event also from the standpoint that the Christ actually departs from the spiritual world when He descends to the Earth.

Human beings saw the Christ arise in their realm. The Gods saw the Christ forsake the heavenly world and plunge down among mankind. For men the Christ appeared; for certain spiritual beings He vanished. Only when He passed through the Resurrection did He appear again to certain extraterrestrial spiritual beings, now shining out to them from the Earth like a star, a star which radiates out from the Earth into the spiritual world. Spiritual beings mark the Mystery of Golgotha by saying: “A star began to shine out from the Earth into the spiritual realm.” And it was felt to be of immense importance for the spiritual world that the Christ had submerged into a human body, and had gone through death in this body. For by partaking in death in a human body He was enabled immediately after this death to undertake something which His former divine companions could by no means have accomplished.

These former divine companions confronted, as an inimical world, what even in earlier times was called “hell.” But the efficacy of these spiritual beings stopped short at the gates of hell. These spiritual beings worked upon man. The forces of man extend even into hell. This signifies nothing other than man's subconscious projection into the Ahrimanic forces in the wintertime and also into the ascent of these Ahrimanic forces in the spring. The divine spiritual beings felt this as a world opposed to them. They saw it rise up out of the Earth and felt it to be an exceedingly problematic world. But they themselves had only a roundabout connection with it through man. They could only observe it in a certain way. But because the Christ had descended to the Earth, had Himself become man, He could descend into the realm of these Ahrimanic powers and overcome them. This is expressed in the Creed as “the Descent into Hell.”

This Descent into Hell provides the opposite pole to the Resurrection. This is what Christ has done for mankind: By descending from the divine heights and taking on the form of man, He became able actually to descend into the realm to whose dangers man is exposed, into which the other Gods, who had not been exposed to human death could not descend. In His way the Christ gained the victory over death. And therewith entered, I might say, as the opposite pole of the Descent into Hell, the ascent into the spiritual world, in spite of the fact that the Christ remained on Earth. For Christ had so united Himself with mankind that he had descended to that to which mankind is exposed. During the winter and spring seasons, He could win for man that which works out of extraterrestrial regions into the Earth again from St. John's to autumn. Thus in the Easter thought we see united in a certain way the Descent into the region of Hell, and through this descent the winning of the heavenly region for the further evolution of mankind.

All this belongs to a right conception of the Easter thought. But what would this Easter thought be if it could not become living! It was possible in ancient times to connect the right feeling awareness with the thought of the winter solstice only because they had on the other hand the St. John's thought. Schematically drawn: If one had the earthly with its deeply concealed winter nature (orange), then its counterpart was what in summer lay in the super-earthly periphery (orange). Both were to be reached only through initiation, yet they were connected by what was in the atmosphere surrounding the Earth, in the Earth's periphery (green), Christmas calls for St. John's. St. John's calls for Christmas. Man would rigidify under the influence of the Ahrimanic powers if he could not be exposed to the loosening Luciferic powers, who again give wings to thought, so that it need not remain rigid but can thaw again under the influence of the light.

Figure 1

At first humanity in its evolution had only the one pole, the Easter pole, and this Easter pole became paralyzed. The Easter festival lost its inner vitality. It will regain its inner life only when man can think about this festival in such a way that he can say to himself: “Through what is symbolically expressed in the Descent into Hell—which in reality can be understood as the Resurrection—a counterweight was given against something which had to come; namely, the paralyzing of all spiritual vision, its dying away in the earthly life. Prophetically, Christ Jesus wanted to prepare for what had to come; namely, the circumstance that man during his life on Earth between birth and death would have to forget the super-earthly, the spiritual, that he would in a certain way die to the spiritual. Opposed to this dying away of man in earthly life stands the Easter thought of the victory of super-earthly life over the earthly.”

On the one side is this: Man descends from his pre-earthly life; but in the period that dawned in the first half of the fifteenth century, he will in his earthly life more and more forget his super-earthly origin; as to his soul-being he will die away, as it were, in the earthly life. That stands on the one side.

On the other stands this: There was a spiritual, heavenly Being, Who by His deed, working out of the heavens into the Earth, set forth the counter-image. That spiritual Being descended into a human body, and in the Resurrection has, through His own being, placed the super-earthly spiritual among the men of Earth. In remembrance of this we have the Easter festival, which puts before mankind the picture of the burial of Christ Jesus and the Resurrection of Christ Jesus.

He was laid in the grave and thereafter He arose—this is the Easter thought, as it stands in cosmic records... “Look upon thyself, O Man; thou descendest out of the super-earthly worlds; thou art threatened by the danger that thy soul will die away in the earthly life. Therefore the Christ appears, Who sets before thine eyes how that from which thou also didst arise, how that super-earthly spiritual conquers death. There stands before thee in mighty images such as could be placed before mankind: the entombment of Christ Jesus, the Resurrection of Christ Jesus. He was laid in the grave. He rose from the grave and appeared to those who could behold Him.”

But with the paralyzed soul forces of man today, this image can no longer become living. Where could it become alive? In a traditional faith man can still look upon what the Easter festival gives him: Upon the sublime picture of the burial and the Resurrection. But out of the inner force of his soul, he can no longer, of himself, find anything to connect with this Easter thought, with the thought of the entombment and the Resurrection. It is out of spiritual knowledge that he must again unite something with it.

And this something is another thought, to which there can be no alternative. It is, however, possible for a human being to let spiritual knowledge approach him so that he may understand this “other.” Let us place this “other” before ourselves, so as to inscribe it deeply within our souls. Easter thought: He has been laid in the grave; He is risen. Now let us place before ourselves the other thought which must come over mankind: He is risen and can confidently be laid in the grave. Easter thought: He has been laid in the grave; He is risen. Michaelmas thought: He is risen and can confidently be laid in the grave.

The first thought, the Easter thought, pertains to the Christ; the second thought pertains to the human being. It pertains to the man who directly comprehends the power of the Easter thought, comprehends how when spiritual knowledge enters into the earthly life of the present, in which his soul-spiritual is dying away, his soul can resurrect, so that he becomes living between birth and death, so that in the earthly life he becomes inwardly alive.

The human being must through spiritual knowledge comprehend this inner resurrection, this inner awakening; then will he confidently be laid in the grave. Then he may be laid in the grave, through which he otherwise would fall prey to those Ahrimanic powers who work within the earth realm at the time of the winter solstice.

And the festival which contains this thought: “He is risen and can confidently be laid in the grave”—this festival must fall in the time when the leaves are beginning to turn yellow and fall from the trees, when the fruits have ripened, when the Sun has received that power which brings to maturity what in the spring was budding and sprouting, full of the forces of growth, but which also brings withering and the inclination to seek again the inner part of the Earth; when what is developing on the Earth begins to be a symbol of the grave.

If we place the Easter festival at the time when life begins to bud and to sprout, when the forces of growth attain their highest point, then the other festival, which contains: “He is risen and can confidently be laid in the grave,” we must place at the time when Earth nature begins to wither, when the mood of the grave is spreading abroad in Earth nature, when the symbol of the grave can appear before the soul of man. Then the Michael thought begins to stir in man, that thought which is not, like the Easter thought in the earliest centuries of Christianity, directed toward a kind of inner perceiving (Anschauung).2It is assumed that Anschauung here is intended to describe the way man's Gemuet could inwardly experience the Entombment and Resurrection, as was indicated earlier. This would be perceptively, feelingly, rather than through logic.

In the first centuries of Christianity, this feeling perception was directed to the Christ laid in the grave and risen. In this perception the soul was made strong, was filled with its strongest forces. In the festival-thought at the time of the fall equinox, the soul must feel its strength when appeal is made not to its perceiving, but to its will. “Take into thyself the Michael thought which confers the Ahrimanic powers, that thought which makes thee strong to gain here on Earth knowledge of the spirit, so that thou canst overcome the powers of Death.”—As the Easter thought is directed to the perception, this thought is directed to the will-powers: to take up the Michael force, which means to take the force of spiritual knowledge into the will-forces. And so the Easter thought can become living, can be brought directly to the human soul and spirit, when now the Michael thought, the thought of the Michael festival in the autumn, is felt to be the counter-pole of the Easter thought—just as the St. John's thought was perceived to be the counter-pole of the Christmas thought. As the Christmas thought by its inner livingness, has brought forth the St. John's thought after a half-year, so must the Easter thought bring forth the Michael thought. Mankind must attain an esoteric maturity, so as to think, not merely abstractly, but to be able again to think so concretely that men can again become festival-creating. Then it will be possible again to unite something spiritual with the cycle of sense phenomena.

All our thoughts are so abstract! But no matter how remarkable they are, how intelligent, if they remain abstract, life will not be able to penetrate them. When today men reflect that Easter might be set abstractly on any day, no longer according to the constellations of the stars, when today all higher knowledge is darkened, when man no longer sees any relation between insight into the soul-spiritual and the natural-physical forces, the force must once more awaken in man which will be able to unite something spiritual directly with the sense phenomena of the world.

Wherein then did the spiritual strength of man consist, making him able to create festivals in the course of the year, in accordance with the yearly phenomena? It consisted in the primal spiritual force. Today men can continue to celebrate festivals according to the ancient traditional custom, but they must gain once more the esoteric force out of themselves to “speak” something into Nature that accords with natural events. It must become possible to grasp the Michael thought as the blossom of the Easter thought. While the Easter thought stems from physical blossoming, it will become possible to place the blossom of the Easter thought—the Michael thought—into the course of the year as the outcome of physical withering.

People must learn once more to “think” the spiritual “together with” the course of nature. It is not admissible today for a person merely to indulge in esoteric speculations; it is necessary today to be able once again to do the esoteric. But people will be able to do this only when they can conceive their thoughts so concretely, so livingly that they don't withdraw from everything that is going on around them when they think, but rather that they think with the course of events: “think together with” the fading of the leaves, with the ripening of the fruits, in a Michaelic way, just as at Easter one knows how to think with the sprouting, springing, blossoming plants and flowers.

When it is understood how to think with the course of the year, then forces will intermingle with the thoughts that will let men again hold a dialogue with the divine spiritual powers revealing themselves from the stars. Men have drawn down from the stars the power to establish festivals which have an inner human validity. Festivals must be founded out of inner esoteric force. Then from the dialogue with the fading, ripening plants, with the dying Earth, by finding the right inward festival mood, men will also again be able to hold converse with the Gods and link human existence with divine existence.

Zweiter Vortrag

Ich habe gestern versucht, aus dem Esoterischen des Ostergedankens heraus Ihnen zu sprechen davon, wie eine Art Anknüpfung an den Naturlauf von seiten des geistig Durchdrungenen dadurch wird geschehen müssen, daß aufgenommen werde gewissermaßen eine Herbstesfeier in die Jahresfeste, eine Herbstesfeier als eine Art Michael-Fest, welches in die Herbstsonnenwende ungefähr so hineinfallen müßte, wie das Weihnachtsfest in die Wintersonnenwende, das Osterfest in die Frühlingssonnenwende, das Johannifest in die Sommersonnenwende.

Heute möchte ich versuchen, diesen dem heutigen Zeitalter angemessenen Ostergedanken mehr nach seinem Gefühlsgehalt näher auszuführen, um Ihnen dann morgen die ganze Bedeutung gerade einer solchen Betrachtung darzulegen.

Wenn wir heute das Osterfest feiern und um uns blicken in das Bewußtsein der zeitgenössischen Menschheit, dann müssen wir uns doch, wenn wir ehrlich mit unserem eigenen menschlichen Inneren sind, gestehen, wie wenig wahr heute für einen großen Teil der Menschheit der Ostergedanke eigentlich ist. Denn wovon hängt die Wahrheit des Ostergedankens ab? Diese Wahrheit hängt doch davon ab, wie der Mensch eine Vorstellung damit verknüpfen kann, daß die Christus-Wesenheit durch den Tod gegangen ist, den Tod besiegt hat, durch die Auferstehung gegangen ist und nach dem Erleiden des Todes, nach der erfolgten Auferstehung, sich zunächst mit der Menschheit so verbunden hat, daß sie noch Offenbarungen geben konnte denjenigen, welche vorher die Apostel, die Jünger waren.

Aber der Auferstehungsgedanke ist ja immer mehr und mehr abgeblaßt. Er war so lebendig in der ersten Entstehungszeit des Christentums, daß uns aus dieser Epoche die Paulus-Worte herüberklingen: «Und wäre der Christus nicht auferstanden, so wäre euer Glaube eitell!» Paulus hat geradezu das Christentum geknüpft an den Ostergedanken, das heißt an den Gedanken der Auferstehung. Für diejenigen Menschen, welche die Bildung der heutigen Zeit aufgenommen haben, ist ja die Auferstehung etwas, was man ein Wunder nennt, und wird als Wunder aus dem Bereich dessen, was Wirklichkeit ist, Wirklichkeit sein kann, hinausverwiesen, so daß für alle diejenigen, für welche der Auferstehungsgedanke nicht mehr zu durchdringen ist, das Osterfest eigentlich nur einer alten Gewohnheit entspricht, wie auch die übrigen christlichen Feste.

Nun, wir haben das ja von den verschiedensten Gesichtspunkten im Laufe der Jahre erwähnt. Es wird erst wiederum notwendig sein, daß eine Erkenntnis der geistigen Welt als solcher an die Menschheit herankommt, um Ereignisse, die nicht in den Bereich der sinnlichen Wirklichkeit gehören, zu verstehen. Und als eine solche Tatsache wird angesehen werden müssen dasjenige, was mit dem Auferstehungsgedanken verknüpft ist. Dann wird auch wiederum der Ostergedanke wirklich lebendig werden können. Für ein Menschengeschlecht, das die Auferstehung in den Bereich der unwirklichen Wunder versetzt, kann der Ostergedanke nichts Lebendiges sein. Dieser Ostergedanke ist ja entstanden in derjenigen Epoche der Menschheit, in welcher noch Reste des alten ursprünglichen menschlichen Erkennens der geistigen Welt vorhanden waren.

Wir wissen, daß im Ausgangspunkt der menschlichen Erdenentwickelung die Menschen gewissermaßen eine instinktive Hellsichtigkeit gehabt haben, durch die sie in die geistige Welt Einblicke gewinnen konnten, durch die sie die geistige Welt so betrachteten, daß sie ihnen der physisch-sinnlichen Welt ebenbürtig war. Diese instinktive ursprüngliche Hellsichtigkeit ist der Erdenmenschheit abhanden gekommen. Sie war etwa in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten der christlichen Entwickelung wenigstens in ihren letzten Resten noch vorhanden. Daher konnte noch in diesen ersten Jahrhunderten ein gewisses, auf alte menschliche Einsichten begründetes Verstehen des Ostergedankens Platz greifen. Ein solches Verstehen wurde abgelähmt im 4. Jahrhundert, wo sich vorbereitete, was ja dann im vollsten Maße aufgetreten ist seit dem ersten Drittel des 15. Jahrhunderts: das Leben der Menschen in den abstrakten toten Gedanken, wie wir das des öfteren erörtert haben. In diesen abstrakten Gedanken, in denen die Naturwissenschaft groß werden konnte, mußte auch der Ostergedanke zunächst ersterben.

Heute ist die Zeit gekommen, wo dieser Ostergedanke wiederum als ein lebendiger Gedanke erwachen muß. Aber er muß, um zu erwachen, eben aus dem Zustande des Todes in den Zustand der Lebendigkeit übergehen. Das Lebendige ist dadurch charakterisiert, daß es anderes Lebendiges aus sich hervortreibt. Als der Ostergedanke in den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten in der Christenheit sich ausbreitete, da waren die Gemüter noch empfänglich genug, um innerlich Gewaltiges zu erleben im Anblick des Grabes Christi und im Anblick der aus dem Grabe ersteigenden, nunmehr mit der Menschheit verbundenen Wesenheit. Die Gemüter konnten innerlich kräftig erleben, was sie in diesem gewaltigen Bilde sich vor die Seele hingestellt fanden. Und dieses innerliche Erleben war eine Realität im menschlichen Seelenleben. Nur das ist eine Realität im menschlichen Seelenleben, was diese menschliche Seele wirklich in einer Weise ergreift, wie sonst die sinnliche Außenwelt eben die Sinne ergreift. Die Menschen fühlten sich anders geworden dadurch, daß sie das Ereignis des Todes und der Auferstehung Christi anschauten. Sie fühlten sich seelisch durch diese Anschauung so verwandelt, wie sich sonst der Mensch durch physische Ereignisse im Laufe seines Lebens auf der Erde verändert fühlt.

Der Mensch wird verwandelt um das siebente Jahr herum durch den Zahnwechsel, der Mensch wird verwandelt um das vierzehnte, fünfzehnte Jahr herum durch die Geschlechtsreife. Das sind leibliche Verwandlungen. In der Anschauung des Ostergedankens fühlten sich die ersten Christen innerlich-seelisch verwandelt. Sie fühlten sich dadurch also aus einem gewissen Stadium des Menschseins herausgehoben und in ein anderes Stadium versetzt.

Diese Kraft, diese Gewalt hat der Ostergedanke im Laufe der Zeit verloren. Und er kann sie nur wiederum gewinnen, wenn das, was ja nach Naturgesetzen nicht eingesehen werden kann, die Auferstehung, innerhalb einer geistigen Wissenschaft, einer das Geistige begreifenden Wissenschaft wiederum eine Realität gewinnt. Aber eine Realität wird für das, was geistig erfaßt wird, nur gewonnen, wenn dieses Geistige nicht bloß in abstrakten Gedanken erfaßt wird, sondern wenn es im lebendigen Zusammenhange mit der auch vor die Sinne tretenden Welt begriffen wird.

Wer das Geistige nur in seiner Abstraktion festhalten will, wer zum Beispiel sagt, man soll das Geistige nicht hinunterziehen in die physisch-sinnliche Welt, der sollte nur gleich auch von dem Gedanken ausgehen, daß die göttliche Wesenheit verunziert werde, wenn man vorstellt, daß sie die Welt erschaffen habe. Das Göttliche wird ja doch nur dann in seiner Größe und Gewalt begriffen, wenn man es nicht hinausversetzt über das Sinnliche, sondern wenn man ihm die Kraft zuschreibt, in diesem Sinnlichen zu wirken, dieses Sinnliche schöpferisch zu durchdringen. Es ist eine Herabwürdigung des Göttlichen, wenn man dieses Göttliche gewissermaßen bloß in abstrakte Höhen, in ein Wolkenkuckucksheim hinausversetzen will. Und so wird man niemals in geistigen Realitäten leben, wenn man das Geistige nur in seiner Abstraktheit erfaßt, wenn man es nicht mit dem ganzen Weltenlaufe, wie er uns entgegentritt, in Zusammenhang bringen kann.

Der Weltenlauf tritt uns ja für unser irdisches Leben zunächst so entgegen, daß dieses irdische Leben eine Anzahl von Jahren umfaßt, daß diese Jahre in einem regelmäßigen Rhythmus die Wiederkehr gewisser Ereignisse darstellen, wie ich schon gestern angedeutet habe. Nach einem Jahre kommen wir ungefähr auf dieselben Geschehnisse der Witterung, der Sonnenkonstellation und so weiter zurück. Der Jahreslauf ist gewissermaßen etwas, was sich in unser irdisches Leben in rhythmischer Weise hineinstellt. Wir haben gestern gesehen, daß dieser Jahreslauf eine Aus- und Einatmung des Seelisch-Geistigen der Erde durch diese Erde selber darstellt. Wenn wir die vier Hauptpunkte dieses Erdenatmungsprozesses, wie wir sie gestern vor unsere Seele haben treten lassen, noch einmal uns vergegenwärtigen, so müssen wir sagen: Die Weihnachtsfesteszeit stellt uns dar das innere Atemhalten der Erde. Das Seelisch-Geistige ist von der Erde völlig aufgesogen. Tief im Inneren der Erde ruht alles das, was die Erde entfaltet hat während der Sommerzeit, um es vom Kosmos anregen zu lassen. Alles was sich öffnete und hingab den kosmischen Kräften während der Sommerzeit, ist von der Erde eingesogen, ruht in den Tiefen der Erde zur Weihnachtszeit. Der Mensch lebt ja nicht in den Tiefen des Irdischen, er lebt physisch auf der Oberfläche der Erde. Er lebt aber auch geistig-seelisch nicht in den Tiefen der Erde, sondern er lebt eigentlich mit dem Umkreis der Erde. Er lebt auch geistig-seelisch mit der die Erde umkreisenden Atmosphäre.

Daher hat alle esoterische Wissenschaft immer anerkannt das Wesentliche der Erde zur Wintersonnenwendezeit, zur Weihnachtszeit, als ein zunächst Verborgenes, als etwas, was mit gewöhnlichen menschlichen Erkenntniskräften nicht durchschaut werden kann, was in den esoterischen Mysterienbereich gehört. Und in allen älteren Zeiten, in denen auch etwas Ähnliches da war wie unser heutiges Weihnachtsfest, galt es, daß dasjenige, was sich mit der Erde zur Weihnachtszeit abspielt, nur begriffen werden könne durch die Einweihung in die Mysterienerkenntnis, durch die Einweihung, wie man es noch in Griechenland nannte, in die chthonischen Mysterien. Durch diese Einweihung in die Mysterienerkenntnis entfremdete sich gewissermaßen der Mensch von dem Umkreis der Erde, in dem er mit seinem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein lebt, so weit, daß er untertauchte in etwas, in das er physisch nicht untertauchen konnte: daß er in das GeistigSeelische untertauchte und kennenlernte, was die Erde während der Vollwinterzeit dadurch wird, daß sie ihr Geistig-Seelisches einsaugt. Und kennen lernte dann der Mensch durch diese Mysterieneinweihung, daß die Erde zur Wintersonnenwendezeit ganz besonders empfänglich wird für die Durchdringung mit den Mondenkräften. Das galt als das Geheimnis, wenn ich mich im modernen Sinne ausdrücken darf, als das Weihnachtsgeheimnis der alten Mysterien: daß man eben zur Weihnachtszeit die Art und Weise kennen lernt, wie die Erde dadurch, daß sie mit ihrem Seelisch-Geistigen durchtränkt und durchdrungen ist, besonders empfänglich wird für die Wirksamkeit der Mondenkräfte im Inneren der Erde.

Man traute zum Beispiel in gewissen älteren Zeiten niemandem eine Erkenntnis der Heilwissenschaft zu, der nicht in die Wintergeheimnisse eingeweiht war, der nicht verstand, wie die Erde durch ihr Atemhalten für die Wirksamkeit der Mondenkräfte in ihrem Inneren besonders empfänglich ist, wie sie zu dieser Zeit insbesondere die Pflanzen mit den Heilkräften durchdringt, wie sie etwas ganz anderes aus der Pflanzenwelt, aber auch aus der Welt namentlich der niederen Tiere macht.

Wie ein Hinuntersteigen in die Tiefen des Irdischen empfand man die Weihnachtseinweihung. Aber man verknüpfte mit dieser Weihnachtseinweihung noch etwas anderes. Man verknüpfte mit dieser Weihnachtseinweihung etwas, was man in einem gewissen Sinne als eine Gefahr für die menschliche Wesenheit empfand. Man sagte sich etwa: Wenn man wirklich liebend anschaute, sein Bewußtsein damit erfüllend, dasjenige, was in der Erde als Mondenkräfte zur Weihnachtszeit lebt, dann kommt man in eine Art von Bewußtseinszustand, in dem man innerlich sehr stark sein muß, sich sehr gekräftigt haben muß, um auszuhalten den von allen Seiten herkommenden Anprall der ahrimanischen Mächte, die in der Erde gerade durch die Aufnahme der Mondenwirksamkeit leben. Und nur in der Stärke, die man in sich selber in seinem Seelisch-Geistigen entwickelte, um den Widerstand dieser Kräfte zu brechen, nur in dieser Stärke sah man dasjenige, was den Menschen auf die Dauer sein Erdendasein aushalten lassen kann.

Aber dann, einige Zeit nach der Feier dieser Weihnachtsmysterien, versammelten die Mysterienlehrer ihre Schüler, und wie eine Art Offenbarung teilten sie ihnen das Folgende mit. Sie sagten ihnen: Ja, gewiß, mit vollem Bewußtsein durchschauen, was zur Wintersonnenwende innerhalb der Erde wirkt, das kann man durch die Einweihung. Aber es steigt ja, namentlich wenn der Frühling heraufkommt, mit der wachsenden Pflanzenwelt dasjenige aus den Tiefen der Erde und durchdringt alles Wachsende, Sprießende, durchdringt auch den Menschen selber, was da die ahrimanischen Mächte bewirken. In der Zeit, in der dem Menschen noch göttliche Kräfte mitgegeben waren, wie sie ihm eben mitgegeben waren im Erdenbeginne, da konnten durch dieses ursprüngliche göttliche Erbe die Menschen den Anprall der ahrimanischen Mächte, die sich auf diese Weise durch die Wintermondeszeit über die Menschheit ergossen, aushalten. Aber - so sagten die Eingeweihten ihren Schülern — es wird eine Zeit über die Menschheit kommen, wo gewissermaßen die Menschen betäubt sein werden über das Geistige durch das, was die Erde an Mondenkräften aufnimmt zur Winterzeit. Mit dem Wachsen und Sprießen im Frühling wird es wie ein Berauschtsein gegenüber dem Geistigen über die Menschheit kommen und der Menschheit das Bewußtsein nehmen, daß es überhaupt ein Geistiges gibt. Dann wird die Menschheit, wenn sie nicht die Möglichkeit findet, diesen berauschenden Kräften Widerstand zu leisten, der Erde verfallen und nicht sich mit der Erde weiter entwickeln können zu künftigen andern, höheren Stadien der Erdenentwickelung. - In düsteren Farben malten die Eingeweihten das Zeitalter, das mitdem 15. Jahrhunderte anbrechen mußte für die Menschheit, wo die Menschheit allerdings groß sein wird in abstrakten toten Gedanken, wo die Menschheit aber nur dadurch wiederum geistfähig werden kann, daß sie neue Kraft gewinnt, um das Berauschende, das aus der Erde aufsteigt, zu besiegen durch die eigengeistige Kraft, welche die Menschheit entwickeln kann.

Wenn wir uns solche Vorstellungen machen, versetzen wir uns ungefähr in den Zusammenhang des natürlichen Jahreslaufes mit dem, was im Geist lebt. Wir bringen zusammen das, was sonst abstrakt, was nur nachgedacht wäre, mit demjenigen, was der natürlich-sinnliche Verlauf ist, wie er uns zum Beispiel in den Jahreszeiten entgegentritt.

Das Entgegengesetzte dieses Weihnachtsmysteriums ist das Johannimysterium bei der Sommersonnenwende. Da hat die Erde ganz und gar ausgeatmet. Da ist das Geistig-Seelische der Erde ganz hingegeben den überirdischen Mächten, den kosmischen Mächten. Da nimmt das Geistig-Seelische der Erde auf alles das, was außerirdisch ist. Ebenso wie vom Weihnachtsmysterium, so sagten die alten Eingeweihten vom Johannimysterium, daß es gilt - die Ausdrücke sind natürlich modern, aber es hat für diese Mysterien auch immer alte Formen gegeben -, daß es nötig sei, um die Geheimnisse des Johannimysteriums, das heißt die Geheimnisse der Himmel, zu durchdringen, die Einweihung, Initiation zu erlangen. Denn der Mensch gehört dem Umkreis der Erde an; er gehört weder dem Inneren der Erde an, noch gehört er den Himmeln an als irdischer Mensch. Daher muß er eingeweiht sein in die Geheimnisse des Unterirdischen, um die Geheimnisse des Überirdischen kennenzulernen.

Gewissermaßen als etwas, wo sich Überirdisches und Unterirdisches die Waage halten, wurden angesehen das Ostermysterium und das Michael-Mysterium, das Herbstesmysterium, das aber, wie gesagt, erst eine rechte Bedeutung in der Zeit gewinnen soll, die der unsrigen gegenüber als Zukunft erscheint.

Das Ostermysterium trat in seiner vollen Größe in die Menschheitsentwickelung herein durch das Geheimnis von Golgatha. Das Ostermysterium wurde verstanden, wie ich schon sagte, in der Zeit, als noch die Reste des alten Hellsehens vorhanden waren. Da konnten die Menschen sich noch erheben in ihrem Gemüte zu dem auferstandenen Christus. Das Ostermysterium wurde daher in denjenigen Kultus verwoben, der nun nicht ein Initiationskultus, sondern ein Kultus für die allgemeine Menschheit wurde: das Ostermysterium wurde verwoben in den Messekultus, in den Kultus der Messehandlung. Aber mit dem Zurückgehen der alten primitiven Hellsichtigkeit ging auch das Verständnis für das Ostermysterium verloren. Zu diskutieren beginnt man ja über eine Sache erst dann, wenn man sie nicht mehr versteht. Alle die Diskussionen, die dann eingesetzt haben nach dem ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte über die Art und Weise, wie man den Ostergedanken zu fassen hat, die rühren schon davon her, daß man den Ostergedanken nicht mehr in das unmittelbare elementare Verständnis hereinbringen kann.

Nun, wir haben ja oftmals auch auf den Ostergedanken anwenden können dasjenige, was uns die anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft gibt. Und das ist das Wesentliche, daß diese anthroposophische Geistesforschung wiederum hinweist auf Lebensformen, die nicht innerhalb Geburt und Tod der sinnlichen Welt sich erschöpfen, und daß sie auch gegenüber dem, was sinnlich erforschbar ist, das geistig Erforschbare stellt, daß sie begreiflich macht, wodurch der Christus mit seinen Jüngern verkehren konnte, auch nachdem der physische Leib zerstäubt war. Der Auferstehungsgedanke gewinnt wiederum Lebendigkeit im Lichte der Geistesforschung. Aber vollständig begriffen wird dieser Auferstehungsgedanke nur dann, wenn er, ich möchte sagen, auch mit seinem Gegenpol verbunden wird.

Was stellt denn eigentlich der Auferstehungsgedanke dar? Die Christus-Wesenheit ist aus geistigen Höhen herabgestiegen, untergetaucht in den Leib des Jesus, lebte auf der Erde in dem Leib des Jesus, trug dadurch gewissermaßen die Kräfte des Außerirdischen in die Erdensphäre herein; und indem sie die Kräfte des Außerirdischen in die Erdensphäre hereintrug, waren von diesem Zeitpunkte, von dem Zeitpunkte des Mysteriums von Golgatha an, diese überirdischen Kräfte mit den Kräften der Menschheitsentwickelung verbunden. Seither ist das, was die Menschen in der alten Zeit nur draußen in den Weltenweiten schauen konnten, zu empfinden innerhalb der Menschheitsentwickelung der Erde. Der Christus hat sich nach der Auferstehung mit der Menschheit verbunden, lebt seither nicht nur in außerirdischen Höhen, lebt innerhalb des Erdendaseins, lebt in der Entwickelung, in der Entwickelungsströmung der Menschheit.

Dieses Ereignis muß vor allen Dingen angesehen werden nicht nur vom Gesichtspunkte des Irdischen aus, sondern auch vom Gesichtspunkte des Überirdischen. Man kann sagen: Man soll den Christus nicht nur so betrachten, wie er aus Himmelswelten herankommt an die Erde und Mensch wird, also den Menschen gegeben wird, sondern man soll dieses Christus-Ereignis auch so betrachten, wie der Christus fortgeht aus der geistigen Welt auf die Erde hinunter. - Die Menschen sahen gewissermaßen den Christus in ihrem Bereiche ankommen. Die Götter sahen den Christus die himmlische Welt verlassen und untertauchen in die Menschheit. Für die Menschen erschien der Christus; für eine gewisse geistige Welt entschwand er. Und indem er durch die Auferstehung ging, erschien er, ich möchte sagen, von der Erde aus leuchtend gewissen geistigen Wesenheiten des Außerirdischen wie ein Stern, der jetzt ihnen in die geistige Welt von der Erde aus hineinscheint. Geistige Wesenheiten verzeichnen das Mysterium von Golgatha so, daß sie sagen: Es begann von der Erde aus ein Stern hereinzuleuchten in das geistige Reich. — Und als etwas außerordentlich Wesentliches für die geistige Welt wurde es empfunden, daß der Christus in einen menschlichen Leib untergetaucht ist, mitgemacht hat in einem menschlichen Leib den Tod. Denn indem er in einem menschlichen Leib den Tod mitmachte, konnte er unmittelbar nach diesem Tode etwas unternehmen, was zunächst seine früheren Göttergenossen nicht haben unternehmen können.

Diese früheren Göttergenossen hatten wie eine feindliche Welt gegen sich dasjenige, was man auch in älteren Zeiten Hölle nannte. Aber die Wirksamkeit dieser geistigen Wesenheiten hatte ihre Grenze an den Pforten der Hölle. Diese geistigen Wesenheiten wirkten auf den Menschen. Des Menschen Kräfte ragen auch hinein in die Hölle; das ist ja nichts anderes als das Hineinragen, das unterbewußte Hineinragen des Menschen in die ahrimanischen Kräfte zur Winterzeit und beim Aufstieg dieser ahrimanischen Kräfte in der Frühlingszeit. Die göttlich-geistigen Wesen empfanden das als eine ihnen gegenüberstehende Welt. Sie sahen das aus der Erde aufsteigen, sie empfanden dieses als eine außerordentlich schwierige Welt; aber sie standen mit dieser Welt in Verbindung nur auf dem Umwege durch den Menschen, sie konnten sie gewissermaßen nur anschauen. Dadurch, daß heruntergestiegen war der Christus auf die Erde, selber Mensch geworden war, konnte er hinuntersteigen in den Bereich dieser ahrimanischen Kräfte und sie besiegen, was eben in den Glaubensformeln mit dem Hinuntersteigen in die Hölle ausgedrückt wird.

Damit ist der andere Pol der Auferstehung gegeben. Das hat Christus für die Menschheit getan, daß er, von göttlichen Höhen heruntersteigend, Menschengestalt annehmend, in die Lage versetzt wurde, wirklich hinunterzusteigen in den Bereich, dessen Gefahren der Mensch ausgesetzt ist, in den früher Götter, die sich nicht dem Menschentode ausgesetzt hatten, nicht hinuntersteigen konnten. Damit hat er auf seine Art den Sieg über den Tod errungen, und damit trat, ich möchte sagen, wie der andere Pol dieses Hinabsteigens in die Hölle das Aufsteigen in die geistige Welt hinzu, trotzdem er auf der Erde bleibend war: weil der Christus sich mit der Menschheit so vereinigt hatte, daß er zu dem hinuntergestiegen war, dem die Menschheit ausgesetzt ist. Während der Winterzeit und Frühlingszeit konnte er das für die Menschen erobern, was aus außerirdischen Regionen wiederum in die Erde von der Johannizeit ab zum Herbste hin hereinwirkt. Und so sehen wir in dem Ostergedanken gewissermaßen vereinigt das Hinuntersteigen in die höllische Region, und durch dieses Hinuntersteigen das Erobern der himmlischen Region für die weitere Menschheitsentwickelung.

Das alles gehört zu einem richtigen Begreifen des Ostergedankens. Aber was wäre dieser Ostergedanke, wenn er nicht lebendig werden könnte! Es war nur möglich, in alten Zeiten die richtige Empfindung mit dem Gedanken der Wintersonnenwende zu verbinden dadurch, daß man auf der andern Seite den Johannigedanken hatte. Schematisch gezeichnet: Hatte man das Irdische mit seinem tief verborgenen Winterlichen (orange), so war das Dazugehörige dasjenige, was zur Sommerzeit im überirdischen Umkreise war (orange), beides nur durch die Einweihung erreichbar, aber verbunden durch das, was im irdischen Umkreise, im Atmosphärenumkreise war (grün).

Weihnachten fordert Johanni, Johanni fordert Weihnachten. Der Mensch müßte erstarren unter den ahrimanischen Mächten, wenn er nicht den auflösenden luziferischen Mächten ausgesetzt sein könnte, welche dem Gedanken wiederum Flügel geben, so daß er nicht erstarren muß, sondern unter der Einwirkung des Lichtes wiederum auftauen kann.

Zunächst hat die Menschheit in ihrer Entwickelung nur den einen Pol, den Osterpol, und dieser Osterpol ist abgelähmt worden, Das Osterfest hat nicht mehr seine innere Lebendigkeit. Es wird seine innere Lebendigkeit wieder bekommen, wenn man über dieses Osterfest in der folgenden Weise denken kann, wenn man sich wird sagen

Tafel 3 können: Durch das, was symbolisch ausgedrückt wird in dem Herabsteigen zur Hölle- was in Wirklichkeit verstanden werden kann als die Auferstehung -, wurde dem Menschen ein Gegengewicht gegeben gegen etwas, was herankommen mußte, gegen das Abgelähmtwerden aller geistigen Anschauung, gegen das Ersterben im irdischen Leben. Prophetisch vorbauen wollte der Christus Jesus demjenigen, was kommen mußte: daß der Mensch eigentlich während seines Lebens auf der Erde zwischen Geburt und Tod das Überirdische, das Geistige so vergißt, daß er diesem überirdischen Geistigen gewissermaßen abstirbt. Diesem Absterben des Menschen im irdischen Leben steht gegenüber der Ostergedanke von dem Sieg des überirdischen Lebens über das irdische Leben.

Auf der einen Seite steht dieses: Der Mensch steigt herunter aus seinem vorirdischen Leben. Aber in dem Zeitalter, das mit der ersten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts angebrochen ist, wird der Mensch im irdischen Leben immer mehr und mehr vergessen seinen überirdischen Ursprung, wird gewissermaßen für sein Seelisches im irdischen Leben ersterben. Das steht auf der einen Seite. Auf der andern Seite aber steht: Da gab es ein geistig-himmlisches Wesen, das hat durch seine Tat, die aus den Himmeln in die Erde hereinwirkte, das Gegenbild hingestellt: jenes geistige Wesen, das hinunterstieg in einen Menschenleib und das durch seine eigene Wesenheit das Überirdisch-Geistige in der Auferstehung unter die Menschen der Erde hereingesetzt hat. Zum Andenken dafür haben wir das Osterfest, das im Bilde hinstellt vor die Menschheit die Grablegung des Christus Jesus, die Auferstehung des Christus Jesus.

Er ist ins Grab gelegt worden und nachher auferstanden - das ist der Ostergedanke; das ist def Ostergedanke, wie er sich in die kosmischen Weistümer hineinstellt. -— Siehe hin auf dich, o Mensch, du steigst herunter aus überirdischen Welten; dir droht die Gefahr, zu ersterben für deine Seele in dem irdischen Leben. Da aber erscheint der Christus, der dir vor Augen stellt, wie dasjenige, in dem auch du urständest, das Überirdisch-Geistige, wie das den Tod besiegt. Das steht vor dir in dem größten der Bilder, die vor die Menschheit haben hingestellt werden können: die Grablegung des Christus Jesus, die Auferstehung des Christus Jesus. Er ist hineingelegt worden in das Grab. Er ist auferstanden aus dem Grab und denjenigen, die ihn schauen konnten, erschienen.

Aber mit den herabgelähmten Seelenkräften kann dieses Bild nicht mehr lebendig werden. Wo kann es heute noch lebendig werden in den abgelähmten Seelenkräften, wie sie heute sind? In einem traditionellen Glauben kann der Mensch noch hinschauen auf das, was ihm die Osterfesteszeit gibt: auf das grandiose Bild der Grablegung und Auferstehung. Aus der inneren Kraft der Seele heraus kann er von sich selber nichts mehr verbinden mit diesem Ostergedanken, mit dem Gedanken der Grablegung und der Auferstehung. Aus der geistigen Erkenntnis heraus muß er wiederum etwas damit verbinden. Und das kann kein anderes sein als dieses: Ja, es ist möglich, daß der Mensch Geist-Erkenntnis an sich herankommen lasse und daß er begreife das andere. Stellen wir es vor uns hin, damit wir es uns tief in die Seele einschreiben, dieses andere!

Der Ostergedanke: Er ist ins Grab gelegt, er ist erstanden. Stellen wir dagegen den andern Gedanken vor uns hin, der über die Menschheit kommen muß: Er ist erstanden und kann beruhigt ins Grab gelegt werden. — Ostergedanke: Er ist ins Grab gelegt, er ist erstanden. Michael-Festgedanke: Er ist erstanden und kann beruhigt ins Grab gelegt werden.

Der erste Gedanke, der Ostergedanke, bezieht sich auf den Christus, der zweite Gedanke bezieht sich auf den Menschen, auf den Menschen, der gerade die Kraft des Ostergedankens begreift: wie durch GeistErkenntnis, wenn er eingetreten ist in das irdische Leben der Gegenwart, wo sein Seelisch-Geistiges erstirbt, seine Seele auferstehen kann, so daß er lebendig wird zwischen Geburt und Tod, so daß er im irdischen Leben innerlich lebendig wird. Dieses innerliche Erstehen, dieses innerliche Auferwecktwerden, das muß der Mensch begreifen durch Geisteswissenschaft; dann wird er beruhigt ins Grab gelegt. Dann wird er in das Grab gelegt, durch das er sonst denjenigen Mächten verfallen müßte, die als ahrimanische Mächte innerhalb des Erdenbereiches zur Wintersonnenwendezeit wirken.

Und das Fest, das diesen Gedanken enthält: Er ist erstanden und kann beruhigt ins Grab gelegt werden -, dieses Fest muß hineinfallen in die Zeit, wenn die Blätter beginnen gelb zu werden, von den Bäumen zu fallen, wenn die Früchte reifen, wenn die Sonne jene Gewalt bekommen hat, durch die sie das, was im Frühling Sprießendes, Sprossendes, Wachstumkräftiges war, zur Reife bringt, aber auch zum Welken bringt und wiederum hinneigen läßt zum Inneren der Erde; wenn das, was auf der Erde sich entwickelt, beginnt ein Symbolum des Grabes zu werden.

Stellen wir das Osterfest hinein in die Zeit, wo das Leben beginnt zu sprießen und zu sprossen, wo die Wachstumskräfte ihre höchste Höhe erreichen, so müssen wir das andere Fest, das da enthält: Er ist erstanden und kann beruhigt ins Grab gelegt werden -, hinverlegen in diejenige Zeit, wo es beginnt, in der Erdennatur welk zu werden, wo Grabesstimmung sich ausbreitet innerhalb der Erdennatur, wo vor des Menschen Seele treten kann das Symbolum des Grabes. Da wird rege in dem Menschen der Michael-Gedanke: jener Gedanke, der sich nun aber nicht wie der Ostergedanke in den ersten Jahrhunderten des Christentums an das Anschauen richtet. In den ersten Jahrhunderten des Christentums wurde die Anschauung hingerichtet auf den ins Grab gelegten und auferstandenen Christus. Im Anschauen wurde die Seele mit ihren stärksten Kräften erfüllt, kräftig gemacht. In dem Festesgedanken der Herbstessonnenwende muß die Seele ihre Stärke fühlen, indem nun nicht appelliert wird an ihr Anschauen, sondern an ihren Willen: Nimm den die ahrimanischen Mächte besiegenden Michael-Gedanken in dich auf, jenen Gedanken, der dich kräftig macht, Geisteserkenntnis hier auf Erden zu erwerben, damit du die Todesmächte besiegen kannst.

Wie der Ostergedanke sich an die Anschauung richtet, so richtet sich dieser Gedanke an die Willensmächte: aufzunehmen die MichaelKraft, das heißt, aufzunehmen die Kraft der geistigen Erkenntnis in die Willenskräfte. Und so kann der Ostergedanke lebendig werden, unmittelbar herangebracht werden an das menschlich Seelisch-Geistige, indem ebenso, wie der Johannigedanke empfunden wurde als der Gegenpol des Weihnachtsgedankens, nun der Michael-Gedanke, der Gedanke des Michael-Festes zur Herbsteszeit als der Gegenpol des Ostergedankens empfunden wird. Wie der Weihnachtsgedanke hervorgetrieben hat durch innere Lebendigkeit den Johannigedanken nach einem halben Jahre, so muß hervortreiben der Ostergedanke den Michael-Gedanken. Die Menschheit muß eine esoterische Reife erlangen dazu, nun wiederum nicht bloß abstrakt zu denken, sondern so konkret denken zu können, daß sie wieder Feste-schöpfend werden kann. Dann wird sie mit dem sinnlichen Erscheinungsverlaufe wiederum etwas Geistiges verbinden können.

Unsere Gedanken bleiben alle abstrakt. Aber unsere Gedanken mögen noch so großartig, noch so geistvoll sein — wenn sie abstrakt bleiben, werden sie nicht das Leben durchdringen können. Heute, wo die Menschheit nachdenkt darüber, wie sie das Osterfest aufirgendeinen abstrakten Tag setzen könne, nicht mehr nach der Sternenkonstellation, heute, wo alles höhere Erkennen verdunkelt ist, wo man keinen Zusammenhang mehr hat zwischen der Einsicht in die moralisch-geistigen und naturalistisch-physischen Kräfte, heute muß wiederum die Kraft in dem Menschen erwachen, unmittelbar mit der sinnlichen Erscheinung der Welt etwas Geistiges verbinden zu können.

Worin bestand denn die geistige Kraft des Menschen, Feste schaffen zu können im Laufe des Jahres je nach dem Verlauf der Jahreserscheinungen? Sie bestand in der ursprünglichen geistigen Kraft. Heute können die Menschen nach der alten traditionellen Gewohnheit Feste fortfeiern, aber die Menschheit muß wiederum die esotetische Kraft gewinnen, von sich aus etwas in die Natur hineinsagen zu können nach dem natürlichen Ablauf. Gefunden werden muß die Möglichkeit, den Herbstes-Michael-Gedanken als Blüte des Ostergedankens zu fassen. Während der Ostergedanke der Ausfluß der sinnlichen Blüte ist, muß die Blüte des Ostergedankens, der MichaelGedanke, als der Ausfluß des physischen Abwelkens in den Jahreslauf hineingestellt werden können.

Die Menschen müssen wiederum lernen, das Geistige mit dem Naturlauf zusammendenken zu können. Es ist heute dem Menschen nicht bloß gestattet, esoterische Betrachtungen anzustellen; es ist heute notwendig für den Menschen, Esoterisches wiederum tun zu können. Das aber werden die Menschen nur tun können, wenn sie imstande sind, ihre Gedanken so konkret, so lebendig zu fassen, daß sie wiederum nicht nur denken, indem sie sich zurückziehen von allem Geschehen, sondern indem sie denken mit dem Lauf des Geschehens, zusammen denken mit den welkenden Blättern, mit den reifenden Früchten so michaelisch, wie man österlich zu denken verstand mit den blühenden Pflanzen, mit den sprossenden Pflanzen, mit den sprießenden Blüten.

Wenn man verstehen wird, mit dem Jahreslauf zu denken, dann werden sich in die Gedanken diejenigen Kräfte mischen, welche den Menschen wiederum Zwiesprache werden halten lassen mit den göttlich-geistigen Kräften, die sich aus den Sternen offenbaren. Aus den Sternen herunter haben sich die Menschen die Kraft geholt, Feste zu begründen, die innerliche menschliche Gültigkeit haben. Feste müssen die Menschen aus innerer esoterischer Kraft begründen. Dann werden sie aus den Zwiesprachen mit welkenden, mit reifenden Pflanzen, mit der absterbenden Erde, indem sie die rechte innerliche Festesstimmung dazu finden, wiederum auch Zwiesprache halten können mit den Göttern und menschliches Dasein an Götterdasein anknüpfen können. Dann wird auch der richtige Ostergedanke wieder da sein, wenn dieser Ostergedanke so lebendig sein wird, daß er den Michael-Gedanken aus sich hervortreiben kann.

Second Lecture

Yesterday I tried to speak to you from the esoteric aspect of the Easter idea about how a kind of connection to the course of nature on the part of the spiritually imbued will have to take place through the inclusion of a kind of autumn celebration in the annual festivals, an autumn celebration as a kind of Michaelmas, which would have to coincide with the autumn solstice in roughly the same way as Christmas coincides with the winter solstice, Easter with the spring solstice, St. John's with the summer solstice.

Today I would like to try to elaborate on this Easter idea, which is appropriate for today's age, more according to its emotional content, so that tomorrow I can explain to you the full significance of just such an observation.

When we celebrate Easter today and look around us at the consciousness of contemporary humanity, then, if we are honest with our own human inner selves, we must admit to ourselves how little true the Easter idea actually is for a large part of humanity today. For on what does the truth of the Easter idea depend? This truth depends on how man can link an idea with the fact that the Christ-being has gone through death, has conquered death, has gone through the resurrection and, after suffering death, after the resurrection that has taken place, has initially connected itself with humanity in such a way that it could still give revelations to those who were previously the apostles, the disciples.

But the idea of resurrection faded more and more. It was so alive in the early days of Christianity that Paul's words ring out to us from this era: “And if Christ had not risen, your faith would be vain!” Paul actually linked Christianity to the idea of Easter, that is, to the idea of the resurrection. For those people who have absorbed the education of the present day, the resurrection is something that is called a miracle and, as a miracle, is relegated from the realm of what is reality, what can be reality, so that for all those for whom the idea of the resurrection can no longer be penetrated, Easter is actually just an old custom, like the other Christian festivals.

Now, we have mentioned this from various points of view over the years. It will first be necessary again that a realization of the spiritual world as such comes to mankind in order to understand events that do not belong to the realm of sensual reality. And that which is connected with the idea of resurrection will have to be regarded as such a fact. Then, in turn, the Easter idea can really come to life. For a human race that places the resurrection in the realm of unreal miracles, the Easter idea cannot be something alive. After all, this Easter idea arose in that epoch of humanity in which remnants of the old original human recognition of the spiritual world were still present.

We know that at the starting point of human development on earth people had, so to speak, an instinctive clairvoyance through which they were able to gain insights into the spiritual world, through which they viewed the spiritual world in such a way that it was equal to the physical-sensual world. This instinctive original clairvoyance has been lost to earthly mankind. It was still present, at least in its last remnants, in the first three centuries of Christian development. Therefore, a certain understanding of the Easter idea, based on ancient human insights, could still take hold in these first centuries. Such an understanding was paralyzed in the 4th century, when preparations were made for what then occurred to the fullest extent since the first third of the 15th century: the life of men in abstract dead thoughts, as we have often discussed. In these abstract thoughts, in which natural science could become great, the Easter idea also had to die at first.

Today the time has come when this Easter thought must awaken again as a living thought. But in order to awaken, it must pass from the state of death into the state of vitality. The living is characterized by the fact that it drives other living things out of itself. When the Easter idea spread throughout Christianity in the first Christian centuries, minds were still receptive enough to experience something powerful inwardly at the sight of Christ's tomb and at the sight of the being rising from the tomb, now united with humanity. The minds could inwardly experience powerfully what they found placed before the soul in this mighty image. And this inner experience was a reality in the life of the human soul. Only that is a reality in the life of the human soul which really takes hold of the human soul in the same way that the sensual outer world takes hold of the senses. People felt different when they saw the event of Christ's death and resurrection. They felt transformed in their souls by this contemplation in the same way that people usually feel changed by physical events in the course of their life on earth.

The human being is transformed around the seventh year through the change of teeth, the human being is transformed around the fourteenth, fifteenth year through sexual maturity. These are bodily transformations. In the contemplation of the Easter idea, the first Christians felt transformed inwardly and spiritually. They felt that they had been lifted out of a certain stage of humanity and transferred to another stage.

This power, this force, the Easter idea has lost over time. And it can only regain it if that which cannot be understood according to the laws of nature, the resurrection, regains a reality within a spiritual science, a science that understands the spiritual. But a reality is only gained for that which is grasped spiritually if this spiritual is not grasped merely in abstract thoughts, but if it is grasped in a living connection with the world that also appears before the senses.

Whoever wants to hold on to the spiritual only in its abstraction, whoever says, for example, that one should not draw the spiritual down into the physical-sensual world, should only immediately also start from the thought that the divine entity is adorned when one imagines that it has created the world. After all, the divine is only understood in its greatness and power if it is not placed beyond the sensual, but if one ascribes to it the power to work in this sensual, to permeate this sensual creatively. It is a degradation of the divine if one wants to transfer this divine to abstract heights, to cloud cuckoo land, so to speak. And so we will never live in spiritual realities if we only grasp the spiritual in its abstractness, if we cannot relate it to the whole course of the world as it presents itself to us.

For our earthly life the course of the world first of all confronts us in such a way that this earthly life comprises a number of years, that these years represent the return of certain events in a regular rhythm, as I already indicated yesterday. After a year we return to approximately the same events of the weather, the constellation of the sun and so on. The course of the year is, so to speak, something that rhythmically intervenes in our earthly life. We saw yesterday that this course of the year represents an exhalation and inhalation of the soul-spiritual of the earth through this earth itself. If we once again visualize the four main points of this earthly breathing process, as we allowed them to appear before our souls yesterday, then we must say: The Christmas festival season represents to us the inner breath-holding of the earth. The soul-spiritual is completely absorbed by the earth. Deep within the earth rests everything that the earth has unfolded during the summertime in order to be stimulated by the cosmos. Everything that opened up and surrendered to the cosmic forces during the summertime has been absorbed by the earth and rests in the depths of the earth at Christmas time. Man does not live in the depths of the earthly, he lives physically on the surface of the earth. But he also does not live spiritually and mentally in the depths of the earth, he actually lives with the earth's surroundings. He also lives spiritually and mentally with the atmosphere orbiting the earth.

Therefore all esoteric science has always recognized the essence of the earth at winter solstice time, at Christmas time, as something initially hidden, as something that cannot be seen through with ordinary human powers of cognition, something that belongs in the esoteric mystery realm. And in all older times, in which there was something similar to our present Christmas, it was believed that what happens to the earth at Christmas time could only be understood through initiation into the knowledge of the mysteries, through initiation, as it was still called in Greece, into the chthonic mysteries. Through this initiation into the knowledge of the Mysteries, man became, as it were, alienated from the environment of the earth, in which he lives with his ordinary consciousness, to such an extent that he immersed himself in something into which he could not physically immerse himself: that he immersed himself in the spiritual-soul and learned to know what the earth becomes during the full winter time by sucking in its spiritual-soul. And through this initiation into the Mysteries, man then learned that the earth becomes particularly receptive to the penetration of the lunar forces at the time of the winter solstice. This was regarded as the secret, if I may express myself in the modern sense, as the Christmas secret of the ancient mysteries: that at Christmas time one gets to know the way in which the earth, by being imbued and permeated with its soul-spirituality, becomes particularly receptive to the effectiveness of the lunar forces within the earth.

In certain older times, for example, no one was trusted with a knowledge of healing science who was not initiated into the secrets of winter, who did not understand how the earth is particularly receptive to the effectiveness of the lunar forces within it through its breath-holding, how at this time it permeates the plants in particular with the healing forces, how it makes something quite different out of the plant world, but also out of the world of the lower animals in particular.

The Christmas initiation was perceived as a descent into the depths of the earthly. But something else was associated with this Christmas initiation. This Christmas initiation was associated with something that was perceived in a certain sense as a danger to the human being. They said to themselves: If one really looked lovingly, filling one's consciousness with that which lives in the earth as lunar forces at Christmas time, then one comes into a kind of state of consciousness in which one must be very strong inwardly, must have strengthened oneself very much in order to withstand the onslaught of the ahrimanic forces coming from all sides, which live in the earth precisely through the absorption of the lunar activity. And only in the strength that one developed in oneself in one's soul-spiritual being in order to break the resistance of these forces, only in this strength could one see that which could allow man to endure his earthly existence in the long run.

But then, some time after the celebration of these Christmas Mysteries, the Mystery Teachers gathered their pupils together and, like a kind of revelation, they told them the following. They told them: Yes, certainly, one can see through with full consciousness what is at work within the earth at the winter solstice through initiation. But when spring comes, in particular, that which the Ahrimanic powers bring about rises from the depths of the earth with the growing plant world and permeates everything that grows and sprouts, and also permeates man himself. In the time when man was still endowed with divine powers, as they had been given to him at the beginning of his life on earth, this original divine inheritance enabled mankind to withstand the onslaught of the ahrimanic powers that poured over mankind in this way during the winter moon period. But - so the initiates told their disciples - a time will come over mankind when people will be, as it were, stunned by the spiritual through what the earth absorbs of the lunar forces in the winter time. With the growth and sprouting in spring it will come over mankind like an intoxication towards the spiritual and take away mankind's consciousness that there is a spiritual at all. Then mankind, if it does not find the possibility to resist these intoxicating forces, will become a slave to the earth and will not be able to develop further with the earth to other, higher stages of earthly development in the future. - The initiates painted in gloomy colors the age that had to dawn for humanity with the 15th century, where humanity will indeed be great in abstract dead thoughts, but where humanity can only become spiritually capable again by gaining new strength to defeat the intoxicating forces that rise from the earth through the self-spiritual power that humanity can develop.

When we form such ideas, we place ourselves roughly in the context of the natural course of the year with that which lives in the spirit. We bring together what would otherwise be abstract, what would only be thought about, with that which is the natural, sensual course of events as it appears to us in the seasons, for example.

The opposite of this Christmas mystery is the mystery of St. John at the summer solstice. Here the earth has completely exhaled. There the spiritual-soul of the earth is completely surrendered to the supernatural powers, the cosmic powers. The spiritual-soul of the earth absorbs everything that is extraterrestrial. Just as of the Christmas Mystery, so the ancient initiates said of the Mystery of St. John - the expressions are of course modern, but there have always been ancient forms for these mysteries - that it is necessary to attain initiation in order to penetrate the mysteries of the Mystery of St. John, that is, the mysteries of the heavens. For man belongs to the circumference of the earth; he neither belongs to the interior of the earth, nor does he belong to the heavens as an earthly man. Therefore, he must be initiated into the mysteries of the subterranean in order to learn the secrets of the supramundane.

The Easter Mystery and the Michael Mystery, the Autumn Mystery, were regarded as something where the supernatural and the subterranean are in balance, but which, as I said, is only to gain a real meaning in the time that appears as the future in relation to ours.

The Easter Mystery entered the development of mankind in its fullness through the Mystery of Golgotha. The Easter Mystery was understood, as I have already said, at the time when the remnants of the old clairvoyance were still present. People could still rise up in their minds to the risen Christ. The Easter Mystery was therefore interwoven into that cult which now became not an initiatory cult, but a cult for humanity in general: the Easter Mystery was interwoven into the cult of the Mass, into the cult of the Mass. But with the decline of the old primitive clairvoyance, the understanding of the Easter Mystery was also lost. One only begins to discuss a matter when one no longer understands it. All the discussions that began after the first Christian century about how to grasp the Easter idea stemmed from the fact that the Easter idea could no longer be brought into the immediate elementary understanding.

Well, we have often been able to apply to the Easter idea what anthroposophical spiritual science gives us. And that is the essential thing, that this anthroposophical spiritual research again points to forms of life that are not exhausted within the birth and death of the sensory world, and that it also places that which can be investigated spiritually opposite that which can be investigated sensually, that it makes it comprehensible through which the Christ was able to communicate with his disciples, even after the physical body had been atomized. The idea of the resurrection comes to life again in the light of spiritual research. But this idea of resurrection is only fully understood when it is, I would say, also connected with its antithesis.

What does the idea of resurrection actually represent? The Christ-being descended from spiritual heights, immersed itself in the body of Jesus, lived on earth in the body of Jesus, and thereby carried the forces of the extraterrestrial into the earthly sphere; and by carrying the forces of the extraterrestrial into the earthly sphere, from this point in time, from the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, these supernatural forces were connected with the forces of human development. Since then, what people in ancient times could only see outside in the vastness of the world can be felt within the development of humanity on earth. After the resurrection the Christ has united himself with humanity and since then has not only lived in extraterrestrial heights, but lives within the earthly existence, lives in the development, in the developmental current of humanity.

This event must above all be seen not only from the point of view of the earthly, but also from the point of view of the supernatural. One can say: The Christ should not only be viewed as he comes from the heavenly worlds to earth and becomes man, that is, as he is given to men, but one should also view this Christ-event as the Christ goes down from the spiritual world to earth. - In a sense, people saw the Christ arrive in their realm. The gods saw the Christ leave the heavenly world and immerse himself in humanity. For men the Christ appeared; for a certain spiritual world he disappeared. And as he passed through the resurrection, he appeared, I would say, shining from the earth to certain spiritual beings of the extraterrestrial like a star, which now shines to them into the spiritual world from the earth. Spiritual beings describe the Mystery of Golgotha in such a way that they say: A star began to shine from the earth into the spiritual realm. - And it was felt to be something extraordinarily essential for the spiritual world that the Christ was immersed in a human body, that he participated in death in a human body. For by participating in death in a human body, he was able to do something immediately after this death that his earlier fellow gods had not been able to do at first.

These former companions of the gods had against them like a hostile world that which was also called hell in older times. But the effectiveness of these spiritual beings had its limit at the gates of hell. These spiritual entities had an effect on man. Man's powers also reach into hell; this is nothing other than man's subconscious reaching into the ahrimanic powers in wintertime and during the ascent of these ahrimanic powers in springtime. The divine-spiritual beings perceived this as a world facing them. They saw this rising out of the earth, they felt it to be an extraordinarily difficult world; but they were only in contact with this world in a roundabout way through the human being, they could only look at it, so to speak. By descending to earth, by becoming man himself, the Christ was able to descend into the realm of these ahrimanic forces and defeat them, which is expressed in the formulas of faith with the descent into hell.

This is the other pole of the resurrection. This is what Christ did for mankind, that he, descending from divine heights and assuming human form, was placed in a position to really descend into the realm to whose dangers man is exposed, into which earlier gods who had not exposed themselves to human death could not descend. Thus in his own way he gained the victory over death, and thus, I might say, as the other pole of this descent into hell, the ascent into the spiritual world was added, even though he remained on earth: because the Christ had so united himself with mankind that he had descended to that to which mankind is exposed. During the time of winter and spring he was able to conquer for mankind that which from extraterrestrial regions in turn works into the earth from the time of St. John towards autumn. And so we see in the Easter thought, united as it were, the descent into the infernal region, and through this descent the conquest of the heavenly region for the further development of mankind.

All this is part of a correct understanding of the Easter idea. But what would this Easter thought be if it could not come to life! In ancient times it was only possible to combine the right feeling with the idea of the winter solstice by having the idea of St. John on the other side. Drawn schematically: If one had the earthly with its deeply hidden winterly (orange), then that which belonged to it was that which was in the supernatural orbit at summertime (orange), both only accessible through initiation, but connected through that which was in the earthly orbit, in the atmospheric orbit (green).

Christmas demands St. John, St. John demands Christmas. Man would have to freeze under the Ahrimanic powers if he could not be exposed to the dissolving Luciferic powers, which in turn give wings to the thought so that it does not have to freeze but can thaw again under the influence of the light.

For the time being humanity has only one pole in its development, the Easter pole, and this Easter pole has been paralyzed, Easter no longer has its inner vitality. It will regain its inner vitality when we can think about this Easter in the following way, when we can say to ourselves

Panel 3 can be said: Through that which is symbolically expressed in the descent to hell-which in reality can be understood as the resurrection-man was given a counterweight against something that had to come, against the paralyzing of all spiritual contemplation, against dying in earthly life. Christ Jesus wanted to prophetically prevent what had to come: that man would actually forget the supernatural, the spiritual during his life on earth between birth and death in such a way that he would, as it were, die to this supernatural spiritual. This dying off of man in earthly life is contrasted with the Easter idea of the victory of supernatural life over earthly life.

On the one hand, there is this: Man descends from his pre-earthly life. But in the age that began in the first half of the 15th century, man will increasingly forget his supernatural origin in earthly life and will, so to speak, die for his soul in earthly life. That is on the one hand. But on the other hand: There was a spiritual, celestial being who, through his deed, which worked from the heavens into the earth, set up the antitype: that spiritual being who descended into a human body and who, through his own being, placed the supernatural-spiritual among the people of the earth in the resurrection. In remembrance of this we have the Easter feast, which depicts the burial of Christ Jesus, the resurrection of Christ Jesus, before humanity.

He was laid in the grave and then rose again - that is the Easter idea; that is the Easter idea as it is presented in the cosmic wisdom. — Look at yourself, O man, you are descending from supernatural worlds; you are in danger of dying for your soul in earthly life. But there appears the Christ, who shows you how that in which you also originate, the supernatural-spiritual, conquers death. This stands before you in the greatest of images that could have been placed before mankind: the burial of Christ Jesus, the resurrection of Christ Jesus. He was laid in the tomb. He rose from the grave and appeared to those who were able to see him.

But with the paralyzed powers of the soul, this image can no longer come to life. Where can it still come alive today in the paralyzed powers of the soul as they are today? In a traditional faith, people can still look to what the Easter season gives them: the grandiose image of the burial and resurrection. From the inner strength of his soul, he can no longer connect anything of himself with this Easter thought, with the thought of the burial and resurrection. Out of spiritual knowledge he must again connect something with it. And that can be no other than this: Yes, it is possible for man to allow spiritual knowledge to come to him and for him to comprehend the other. Let us place it before us so that we can inscribe it deep into our souls, this other!

The Easter thought: He is laid in the grave, he is risen. On the other hand, let us place before us the other thought that must come over mankind: He is risen and can be laid in the grave with peace of mind. - Easter thought: He is laid in the grave, he is risen. Michael feast thought: He is risen and can be laid in the grave with peace of mind.

The first thought, the Easter thought, refers to the Christ, the second thought refers to man, to the man who just understands the power of the Easter thought: how through spirit realization, when he has entered into the earthly life of the present, where his soul-spiritual dies, his soul can resurrect, so that he becomes alive between birth and death, so that he becomes inwardly alive in earthly life. This inner arising, this inner resurrection, man must understand through spiritual science; then he is laid in the grave in peace. Then he is laid in the grave, through which he would otherwise have to fall prey to those powers that work as ahrimanic forces within the earth realm at the time of the winter solstice.

And the feast that contains this thought: He is risen and can be laid in the grave with peace of mind - this feast must fall into the time when the leaves begin to turn yellow, to fall from the trees, when the fruits ripen, when the sun has gained that power by which it brings to maturity what was sprouting, sprouting, growth-powerful in spring, but also brings it to wither and again lets it lean towards the interior of the earth; when what develops on earth begins to become a symbolum of the grave.

If we place Easter at the time when life begins to sprout and grow, when the forces of growth reach their highest heights, then we have to consider the other feast that contains it: He is risen and can be laid in the grave with peace of mind - must be moved to the time when the earthly nature begins to wither, when the atmosphere of the grave spreads within the earthly nature, when the symbol of the grave can appear before the human soul. Then the thought of Michael is aroused in the human being: the thought that is not, however, like the Easter thought in the first centuries of Christianity, directed towards the contemplation. In the first centuries of Christianity, contemplation was directed towards the Christ who was laid in the grave and resurrected. In contemplation, the soul was filled with its strongest powers, made strong. In the festive thought of the autumn solstice, the soul must feel its strength by appealing not to its contemplation but to its will: Take into yourself the Michael-thought that defeats the ahrimanic powers, that thought that makes you strong to acquire spiritual knowledge here on earth so that you can defeat the powers of death.

As the Easter thought is directed towards the perception, so this thought is directed towards the powers of will: to absorb the Michael power, that is, to absorb the power of spiritual knowledge into the powers of will. And so the Easter thought can become alive, can be brought directly to the human soul-spiritual, in that just as the St. John thought was felt as the antipole of the Christmas thought, now the Michael thought, the thought of the Michael festival at autumn time is felt as the antipole of the Easter thought. Just as the Christmas thought has driven forth the St. John thought through inner vitality after half a year, so must the Easter thought drive forth the Michael thought. Mankind must attain an esoteric maturity to be able to think not merely abstractly, but so concretely that it can again become festival-creating. Then it will again be able to connect something spiritual with the sensual course of appearances.

Our thoughts all remain abstract. But no matter how great, how spiritual our thoughts may be - if they remain abstract, they will not be able to penetrate life. Today, when mankind is thinking about how it can set Easter on an abstract day, no longer according to the constellation of the stars, today, when all higher cognition is obscured, when there is no longer any connection between the insight into the moral-spiritual and naturalistic-physical forces, today the power must awaken in man again to be able to connect something spiritual directly with the sensual appearance of the world.

What then was the spiritual power of man to be able to create festivals in the course of the year according to the course of the annual phenomena? It consisted in the original spiritual power. Today people can continue to celebrate festivals according to the old traditional custom, but mankind must again gain the spiritual power to be able to say something into nature of its own accord according to the natural course of events. The possibility must be found to grasp the autumnal Michael thought as the blossoming of the Easter thought. While the Easter thought is the outflow of the sensual blossom, the blossom of the Easter thought, the Michael thought, must be able to be placed in the course of the year as the outflow of the physical withering away.

People must again learn to think the spiritual together with the course of nature. Today man is not only permitted to make esoteric observations; today it is necessary for man to be able to do esoteric things again. But people will only be able to do this if they are able to grasp their thoughts so concretely, so vividly, that they do not only think by withdrawing from all events, but by thinking with the course of events, thinking together with the withering leaves, with the ripening fruits as Michaelically as one knew how to think paschally with the blossoming plants, with the sprouting plants, with the sprouting flowers.

When one will understand to think with the course of the year, then those forces will mix into the thoughts, which will let man again hold dialogue with the divine-spiritual forces, which reveal themselves from the stars. From the stars, people have drawn the strength to establish festivals that have inner human validity. People must establish festivals from their inner esoteric power. Then, from the dialogues with withering and ripening plants, with the dying earth, by finding the right inner festive mood, they will in turn also be able to hold dialogues with the gods and link human existence to the existence of the gods. Then the right Easter thought will also be there again, when this Easter thought will be so alive that it can drive the Michael thought out of itself.