Karmic Relationships VI
GA 240
16 April 1924, Berne
Lecture II
Anthroposophical friends in Berne have already heard that the aim of the Christmas Foundation Meeting at the Goetheanum was to bring a new trend into the Anthroposophical Movement. The importance of becoming conscious of this new trend cannot be stressed too often, for the gist of the matter is this: before the Christmas Foundation Meeting—in practice at any rate, even if not invariably—the Anthroposophical Society was regarded as a sort of administrative centre for the content and the impulse of Anthroposophy. This, essentially, has been the position since the Anthroposophical Society made itself independent of the Theosophical Society.
You know that I myself had no place on the Society's Executive, but have so to say held a completely free position within the Society. And in this situation the Society's development has not proceeded as it certainly could have done. The fact is that Members have been too little alive to what might have developed on this basis. What happened was that from about the year 1919 onwards—after the War, during which the problem of leadership of the Society was a very difficult one—all kinds of efforts were made and undertakings set on foot within the Society. These undertakings were the outcome of ambitions among the Membership and proved to be detrimental to the real anthroposophical work—detrimental in the sense that they aroused very strong hostility from the outside world. Naturally, when such undertakings are set on foot in a Society resting upon occult foundations, one must, for esoteric reasons, let them be. For think of it—if from the beginning I had stood in the way of all these undertakings, most of those engaged in them would have been saying to-day that if only this or that had happened it would have led to favourable results. But there is no doubt at all that these things made the position of the Anthroposophical Movement in the world increasingly difficult.
I do not want to go into details but to take a more positive line: let me say only that the time had come to counteract by something positive the negative trend that had gradually appeared in the Society. Before the Christmas Foundation Meeting I often found it necessary to emphasise that a real foundation like the Anthroposophical Movement—which is in truth a spiritual stream guided and led from the super-sensible worlds by spiritual Powers and spiritual Forces which are reflected here in the physical worlds—should not be identified with the Anthroposophical Society, which is simply an administrative body for the cultivation—as far as it is capable of this—of the anthroposophical impulse.
But since the Christmas Foundation Meeting at the Goetheanum this has completely changed. And it was only because of this change that there was reason and purpose in my taking over the Presidency myself, in cooperation with an Executive which as a unified organism can work with great intensity for the Anthroposophical Movement. This means that the Anthroposophical Movement and the Anthroposophical Society are now one. Therefore what was not the position before the Christmas Foundation Meeting has changed fundamentally since that Meeting. Henceforward the Anthroposophical Society is to be identical with the Anthroposophical Movement as presented in the world. But it has thus become essential that the esoteric impulse flowing through the Anthroposophical Movement shall also find expression in the whole constitution of the Anthroposophical Society. Therefore since this Christmas Foundation Meeting in Dornach it must be recognised, unconditionally, that the establishment of the Dornach Executive is itself an esoteric matter, that a stream of true esotericism must flow through the Society, and that the institution of the Executive is to be regarded as an esoteric deed. This was the premise on which the Executive was formed.
Further, it must always be remembered that from now onwards the Anthroposophical Society will no longer exist merely as a body for the administration of Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy itself must be practised in everything that happens in the Anthroposophical Society. What is done must itself be anthroposophical. That, apparently, is what it is so difficult to realise. Nevertheless friends must gradually get it into their consciousness that this fundamental change has taken place.
As a first step, in the News Sheet appended to the Goetheanum Weekly, an effort has been made to introduce into the Society something that can provide unified substance for the membership, can further a unified flow of spiritual reality through the Movement. A unified trend of thought is made possible, particularly through the weekly ‘Leading Thoughts’ which should be a kind of basic seed for work in the Groups. It is really remarkable that so much misunderstanding still exists as to what the Anthroposophical Movement really is.
A short while ago I received a letter from a fairly recent Member of the Anthroposophical Society. This letter expatiated on the alleged incorporation of the Christian Community into the Anthroposophical Society. (The matter is of no importance here in Switzerland, but I mention it as an example.) At a certain point I had made it quite clear from the Goetheanum in Dornach how the relationship between this Christian Community and the Anthroposophical Society is to be thought of. I emphasised that I cannot in any way be regarded as the Founder of the Christian Community on the basis of the Anthroposophical Society, but that the Christian Community formed itself, through me, by the side of the Anthroposophical Society. At the time I used the expression “through me as a private individual.” The letter referred to seizes hold of this expression, “private individual,” after saying that a renewal of religion cannot come about through a human being but only from the higher spheres, for a renewal of religion can be achieved only by divine-spiritual Powers. That is quite right, but something has been overlooked ... and it is essential for this ‘something’ to be fully grasped in the Anthroposophical Society. What must be grasped is that the Anthroposophical Movement as such—in which moreover there also lies the source for a renewal of religion—certainly does not owe its origin to a human impulse alone but has been sent into the world under the influence of divine-spiritual Powers and by their impulse. Only when Anthroposophy itself is seen to be a spiritual reality which flows as an esoteric impulse through civilisation will it be possible to have the right point of view when some other body comes into being with its source in Anthroposophy ... and an objection like that contained in the letter cannot arise. The consciousness must be there that henceforward the Anthroposophical Society will be led from the Goetheanum on an esoteric basis.
Connected with this is the fact that a completely new trend will pervade the Anthroposophical Movement as it must now be conceived. Therefore you too, my dear friends, will notice how differently it has been possible to speak since that time. In the future it will amount to this: in all measures taken by the Anthroposophical Movement, which is now identical with the Anthroposophical Society, the responsibility is to the spiritual Powers themselves. But this must be correctly understood. It must be realised that the title “General Anthroposophical Society” may not be used in connection with any event or fixture organised without understanding having first been reached with the Dornach Executive; that anything inaugurated by Dornach may not be made further use of without corresponding agreement with the Executive. I am obliged to speak of this because it is constantly happening that lectures, for instance, are given under the alleged auspices of the General Anthroposophical Society without any application for permission having been made to Dornach. Matters which have an esoteric foundation, formulae and the like, are sometimes adopted without obtaining the agreement of the Dornach Executive ... and this is absolutely essential, for we have to do with realities, not with administrative measures or formalities. So for all these and similar matters, agreement must be sought from or a request made to the Dornach Executive. If agreement is not forthcoming, the arrangements in question will not be regarded as issuing from the Anthroposophical Movement. This would have in some way to be made plain.
Everything that savours of bureaucracy, all administrative formalities must in the future be eliminated from the Anthroposophical Society. Relationship within the Anthroposophical Society is a purely human relationship; everything is based upon the human reality. Perhaps I may mention here too that this is already indicated by the fact that every one of the 12,000 Membership Cards now being issued are personally signed by me. I was advised to have a rubber stamp made for the signature, but I shall not do so. It is only a minor point but there is, after all, a difference when I have let my eyes rest on the name of a Member; thereby the personal relationship—abstract though it be—has been made. Even if it is an external detail it should nevertheless be an indication that in future we shall endeavour to make relationships personal and human. Thus, for example, when it was recently asked in Prague whether the Bohemian Landesgesellschaft can become a member of the Anthroposophical Society, the decision had to be that this is not possible; individual human beings alone can become members of the Anthroposophical Society; they can then join together to form Groups. But they become Members as individuals and have the Membership Card as such. Legal entities—in other words, non-human entities—will have no such Card. Similarly the Statutes are not official regulations but a simple statement of what the esoteric Executive in Dornach wishes, out of its own initiative, to do for the Anthroposophical Movement. In future, all these things must be taken with the utmost seriousness. Only so will it be possible to bring into being in the Anthroposophical Society the attitude which, if it were absent, would make it impossible for me to take over the Presidency of the Society.
Through the Christmas Foundation, a new character and impulse is to enter into all our work. In the future, whatever is said will have a spiritual source—so that many things that have happened recently, can happen no longer. A great deal of the hostility, for instance, has arisen as a result of provocative actions in the Society. Naturally, all kinds of questionable elements play a part, but in the future we can no longer adopt towards the hostility the attitude we have adopted in the past. For the Lecture-Courses are available for everyone and can be obtained from the Anthroposophisch-Philosophischer Verlag. We shall not let them be advertised in the Book Trade; their release is not to be taken to mean that they will be handed over to the Book Trade, but they will be accessible to everyone. This fact in itself refutes the statement that the Anthroposophical Society is a secret society with secret literature. In the future, however, a very great deal will flow through the Anthroposophical Movement in respect of which no kind of relation with a hostile outside world will be possible. Much of what will be introduced into the teachings of the Anthroposophical Society in the future will be of such a nature that it will inevitably evoke hostility in the outside world; but we shall not worry about it because it is a matter of course.
And so I want to speak to you to-day in this spirit, to speak particularly of how different a light is shed upon the historical evolution of mankind when the study of karmic relationships in world-existence is pursued in real earnest.
At the very first gathering held in Berlin for the purpose of founding the German Section of the Theosophical Society, I chose for a lecture I proposed to give, the title: Practical Questions of Karma. I wanted to introduce then what I intend to achieve now, namely, the serious and earnest study of Karma.
In the German Section of the Theosophical Society at the time there were several old Members of the Society. They literally quaked at my intention to begin in such an esoteric way. And in actual fact the attitude and mood for it were not there. It was quite obvious how little the people were prepared in their souls for such things. It was impossible at that time to proceed with the theme ‘Practical Questions of Karma’ in the form that had been intended. Conditions made it necessary to speak in a much more exoteric way. But now, with more than two decades of preparatory work behind us, a beginning must be made with real esotericism. The Christmas Foundation Meeting, when the esoteric impulse came into the Society, has actually taken place, and so now a link can be made with that time when the intention was to introduce this esoteric trend into the Society.
What is the historical evolution of humanity, when we consider what is revealed by the fact of repeated earthly lives? When some personality appears as a leading figure in the evolution of humanity, we must say: This personality is the bearer of an Individuality of soul-and-spirit who was already present many times in earthly existence and who carries over into this earthly life the impulses from earlier incarnations. Only in the light of his earlier earthly lives can we really understand such a personality. From this we see at once how what was working in earlier epochs of world-history is carried over from those earlier epochs by human beings themselves. The civilisation of to-day has developed out of the human beings who belong to the present in the wider sense. But they, after all, are the same souls who were there in earlier epochs and assimilated what those earlier civilisations brought into being; they themselves have carried it over into the present. The same applies to epochs other than the present. Only when we can discover what has been carried over by human souls from one epoch into the other can we understand this onflowing stream of the impulses working in civilisation. But then we have history in the concrete, not in the abstract. People usually speak only about ideas working in world-history, about moral will or moral impulses in general which carry over the fruits of civilisation from one epoch into the others. But the bearers of these fruits of earlier civilisations are the human souls themselves, for they incarnate again and again. Moreover it is only in this way that an individual realises what he has himself become, how he has carried over that which forms the basis of his bodily destiny, his destiny in good and evil alike. When, as a first step, we ponder how history has been carried from one epoch into another by the human beings themselves in their repeated earthly lives, then, and only then are the secrets, the great enigmas of historical evolution, unveiled.
To-day I want to show by three examples how karma works through actual personalities. One of these examples leads us into the wide arena of history; the other two deal more with the reincarnations of particular individuals.
Our modern civilisation contains a great many elements that are really not altogether in keeping with Christianity, with true Christian evolution. Natural science is brought even into the elementary schools, with the result that it has an effect upon the thinking even of people who have no scientific knowledge. These impulses are really not Christian. Whence do they originate?
You all know that about six hundred years after the founding of Christianity, Arabism, inspired by Mohammed, began to spread abroad. In Arabism, Mohammed founded a body of doctrine which in a certain sense was at variance with Christianity. To what extent at variance? The concept of the three forms of the Godhead—Father, Son, Spirit—is of the very essence of Christianity. The origin of this lies away back in the ancient Mysteries in which a man was led through four preparatory stages and then through three higher stages. When he had reached the fifth stage, he came forth as a representative of the Christ; at the seventh and highest stage as a representative of the Father. I want only to make brief mention of this.
It is the Trinity that makes it possible for the impulse of freedom to have its place in the evolution of Christianity. We look upwards to the Father God, seeing in the Father God the spirituality implicit in all those forces of the Universe which go out from the Moon to Earth existence. All those forces which in Earth existence have to do with the impulses of physical germination—in man, therefore, with propagation—proceed from the Moon. It must, of course, always be remembered that the human process of reproduction has its spiritual side. From the pre-earthly existence of spirit-and-soul we come down to earthly existence, uniting with a physical body. But everything that is responsible for placing the human being, from birth onwards, into earthly life, is a creative act of the Father God, a creative act for the Earth through the Moon forces. Therefore inasmuch as throughout an earthly life man is subject to the working of the Moon forces, he is already predestined when he enters earthly existence to be exposed to impulses of a very definite kind. Hence, too, it is the essential characteristic of a Moon religion, a religion like that of the ancient Hebrews, in which the Father Principle is predominant, always to attach value in the human being only to what has been bestowed upon him through the forces of the Father God, through the Moon forces. When Christianity was founded, ancient Mystery-truths were still current in Christ's environment—truths deriving, for example, from specific phenomena of life in the earliest period of post-Atlantean evolution. Grotesque as they seem to-day, these phenomena were grounded in the very nature of man.
During the first epoch of post-Atlantean civilisation, the ancient Indian epoch, when a man had reached the age of thirty a radical change, a complete metamorphosis, took place in his earthly life. So radical was the change that, expressed in modern words, it would have been perfectly possible for a man who had passed his thirtieth year to meet a younger man whom he had known quite well, perhaps as a friend, but when this younger man greeted him the other would simply not understand what he was trying to do. ... When the older man had passed the age of thirty he had forgotten everything he had hitherto experienced on the Earth! And whatever impulse worked in him in the later years of his life was imparted to him by the Mysteries. This is how things were in the earliest period after the Atlantean catastrophe. If he wanted to know what his life had been before his thirtieth year, a man was obliged to enquire about it from the little community around him. At the age of thirty the soul was so completely transformed that the man was veritably a new being; he began a new existence, just as he had done at birth. In those days it was known that until the thirtieth year of life the forces of youth were at work: thereafter, it was the task of the Mysteries, with the very real impulses they contained, to see to it that a genuinely human existence should continue in the man's soul. And this the Mysteries were able to do because they were in possession of the secret of the Son.
Christ lived in an age when the secrets of the Son—I can do no more than touch upon them here—had been lost, were known only to small circles of men. But because of the experience undergone in His thirtieth year, Christ was able to reveal that He, as the last to do so, had received the Son-impulse directly from the Cosmos—in the way it must be received if after his thirtieth year a man is to be dependent upon the Sun forces just as hitherto he was dependent upon the Moon forces. Christ has enabled men to understand that the Son-principle within him is the Sun Being once awaited in the Mysteries but then as a Being not yet on the Earth. And so, just as in the ancient Mysteries men had gazed into the secrets of the Sun, it was made clear to them that their gaze must now turn to the Christ, realising that now the Sun Mystery had entered into man. In the first centuries of Christianity this wisdom was completely exterminated. Star-wisdom, cosmic wisdom, was exterminated and a materialistic conception of the Mystery of Golgotha gradually took shape; Christ was thought of as nothing more than a being who had dwelt in Jesus but men were unwilling to realise what had actually come to pass.
Those who were true knowers in the first Christian centuries were able to say: As well as the Father God there is God the Son, the Christ God. The Father God rules over whatever is predetermined in man because it is born with him and works in him as the forces of Nature. It is upon this principle that the Hebrew religion is based. But by the side of it, Christianity places the power of the Son which during the course of man's life draws into his soul as a creative force, making him free and enabling him to be reborn, realising that in his earthly life he can become something that was not predetermined by the Moon forces at birth.—Such was the essential impulse of Christianity in the first centuries of its existence.
Mohammedanism set its face against this impulse in its far-reaching decree: There is no God save the God proclaimed by Mohammed. It is a retrogression to the pre-Christian principle, but clothed in a new form—as was inevitable six hundred years after the founding of Christianity. The God of Nature, the Father God—not a God of freedom by whom men are led on to freedom—was proclaimed as the one and only God. Within Arabism, where Mohammedanism was making headway, this was favourable for a revival and renewal of the fruits of ancient cultures, and such a revival, with the exclusion of Christianity, did indeed take place in the Orient, on a magnificent scale. Together with the warlike campaigns of Arabism there spread from East towards the West—in Africa as it were enveloping Christianity—an impulse to revive ancient culture.
Over in Asia, Arabism was cultivated with great brilliance at the Court of Haroun al Raschid—at the time when Charles the Great was reigning in Europe. But whereas Charles the Great hardly progressed beyond the stage of being able to read and write, of developing the most primitive rudiments of culture, great and illustrious learning flourished at the Court of Haroun al Raschid. It cannot, perhaps, be said that Haroun al Raschid in himself was an entirely good man, but he possessed a comprehensive, penetrating and ingenious mind—a universal mind in the best sense. He gathered at his Court all the sages who were the bearers of whatever knowledge was available at that time: poets, philosophers, doctors, theologians, architects—all these branches of learning flourished at the Court of Haroun al Rashid, brought thither by his genius.
At this Court there lived a most distinguished and significant personality, one who—in an incarnation earlier than the one at the Court of Haroun al Raschid—had been an Initiate in the true sense. You will ask: Does an Initiate, then, not remain an Initiate as he passes through his incarnations? It is possible for a man to have been a deep Initiate in an earlier epoch and then, in a new epoch, he must use the body and receive the education which this later epoch has to offer. In such a case the forces deriving from the earlier incarnation will have to be held in the subconsciousness and whatever is in keeping with the current civilisation will have to be developed. There are men who seem, outwardly, to be products of the particular civilisation in which they are living; but their manner of life enables one to perceive in them the existence of deeper impulses; in earlier times they were Initiates. Nor do they lose the fruits of Initiation; out of their subconsciousness they act in accordance with its principles. But they cannot do otherwise than adapt themselves to the conditions of the existing civilisation.
The personality of whom tradition says that he made magnificent provision for all the sciences at the Court of Haroun al Raschid was only one of the most eminent sages of his time, with a genius for organisation so outstanding that he was virtually the source of much that was achieved at the Court of Haroun al Raschid.
The spread of Arabism continued for many centuries, as we know from the wars waged by Europe in an attempt to keep it within bounds. But that was not the end of it: the souls who were once active in Arabism passed through the gate of death, developed onwards in the spiritual world and remained connected, in a sense, with their work. This was what happened in the case of the Individualities of Haroun al Raschid and of the wise Counsellor who lived at his Court.
To begin with, let us follow Haroun al Raschid. He passes through the gate of death and develops onwards in the spiritual world. In its external form, Arabism is repulsed; Christianity implants itself into Middle and Western Europe in the exoteric form it has gradually acquired. But although it is impossible to continue to be active in the old form of Mohammedanism, of Arabism, in Europe, it is very possible for the souls who once shared in this brilliant culture at the Court of Haroun al Raschid and there received the impulse for further achievements, to work on. And that is what they do.
We find that Haroun al Raschid himself reincarnates in the renowned personality of Francis Bacon, Lord Bacon—the distinguished Englishman whose influence has affected the whole of modern scientific thinking, and therewith much that is to be found in the minds of human beings to-day. Haroun al Raschid could not disseminate from London, from England, a form of culture strictly aligned with Arabism ... this soul was obliged to make use of the form of Arabism that was possible in the West. But the fundamental trend and tendency of what Bacon poured into European thinking is the old Arabism in the new form. And so Arabism lives in the scientific thinking of to-day, because Francis Bacon was the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid.
The sage who had lived at his Court also passed through the gate of death, but he took a different path. He could not come down into a stream of culture as materialistic as that into which Francis Bacon could enter; he had inevitably to remain within a more spiritual stream. And so it came about that in the epoch when the influence of Francis Bacon was also taking effect, another individuality was working—in this case in Middle Europe—one who in his life of soul encountered what had issued from the soul of the reborn Haroun al Raschid. We see the Bacon stream pouring out from England to Middle Europe, from West to East, bringing Arabism in the form it had acquired in its sweep across Spain and France. It is comprehensible, therefore, that the tenor and content of this soul should differ from the tenor and content of that other soul—who passed through the gate of death, during the period of existence in the spiritual world directed its gaze toward Eastern and Middle Europe, and was reborn in Middle Europe as Amos Comenius. He resuscitated what he had learned from oriental wisdom at the Court of Haroun al Raschid inasmuch as in the seventeenth century he was the one who with much forcefulness promulgated the thought that the evolution of mankind is pervaded by organised spirituality. It is often said, superficially, that Comenius believed in the Kingdom of a Thousand Years. That is a trivial way of putting it. The truth is that Comenius believed in definite epochs in the evolution of humanity; he believed that historical evolution is organised from the spiritual world. His aim was to show that spirituality surges and weaves through the whole of Nature; he wrote a “Pan-Sophia.” There is a deeply spiritual trend in what he achieved. He became an educational reformer. As is known, his aim in education was to achieve concrete perceptibility (Anschaulichkeit) but a thoroughly spiritual perceptibility, not as in materialism. I cannot deal with this in detail but can only indicate how Arabism in its Western form and in its Oriental form issued from what arose in Middle Europe from the meeting of the two spiritual impulses connected with Bacon and Comenius.
Many aspects of the civilisation of Middle Europe can become intelligible to us only when we see how Arabism—in the form in which it could now be re-cast—was actually brought over from Asia by individuals who had once lived at the Court of Haroun al Raschid. This shows us how human Individuality is an active factor in the evolution of history. And then, by studying examples as striking as these, we can learn from them how karma works through the incarnations. As I have said on various occasions, what we learn from this study can be applied to our own incarnation. But to begin with we must have concrete examples.
Let us now take an example in which this country will be particularly interested. Let us take the example of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, the Swiss poet. The very personality of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, apart from his poetry, may well arouse interest. He is certainly a remarkable personality. When he was composing his poems which flow along in wonderful rhythms, one can perceive how at every moment the soul was prone to slip out of the body. In the wonderful forms of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's poems and of his prose-poems too, there is a quality belonging intrinsically to the soul. Many times in his earthly life he was destined to suffer from a clouding of consciousness when this separation of the soul-and-spirit from the physical body became too pronounced. There was only a loose connection between the soul-and-spirit and the physical body—this is quite apparent when we study the poems or the personality of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. We say to ourselves at once that this Individuality which in the Conrad Ferdinand Meyer incarnation was only loosely connected with the physical body, must surely have passed through very remarkable experiences in earlier earthly lives.
Now investigation of earlier earthly lives is by no means always easy. Disillusionments and set-backs of every description have to be encountered in the course of such investigation. For this reason, what I say about reincarnations is most emphatically not for the purpose of satisfying cravings for sensation but always in order to shed deeper illumination upon the course of history.
As we follow the life of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, particularly in the light of this loose connection between the soul-and-spirit and the body, we are led back to a very early incarnation in the sixth century A.D. We are led to an Individuality who, to begin with, eludes the spiritual intuition with which these things are investigated. Spiritually we are thrust back from this Individuality who in his life in Italy was finding his way into Christianity in the form in which it was spreading at that time ... we can never get really near him. And then we seem to be thrown back again to the Conrad Ferdinand Meyer-incarnation, so that when in this investigation of an earlier incarnation we really seem to have got hold of the incarnation in the sixth century, we have to come back again to the later Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, without having properly understood the connection between these two incarnations. .. until at last the solution of the riddle dawns. We notice that in the mind of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer there is a thought that puzzles and misleads us—a thought which was also expressed in his story The Saint, dealing with Thomas Becket, the Chancellor-Archbishop of Canterbury in the twelfth century at the Court of Henry (II) of England.
It is not until we follow the connections of the thoughts and feelings working in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer while he was writing this narrative that we gain any real insight into how his mind was working. We are led as it were from a clouding of consciousness into clarity, then again a clouding, and so on. And finally we come to the conclusion that there must be some special significance in the thought that runs through Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's story; it must have deep roots. And then we hit upon the clue: this thought comes from an impulse in an earlier earthly life, the life when the Individuality of the later Conrad Ferdinand Meyer lived at a minor Court in Italy and played an important part in the development of Christianity. In that life he had an unusual experience. Gradually we discover that this Individuality was sent with a Christian Mission from Italy to England and this Mission founded the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The Individuality who later became Conrad Ferdinand Meyer was, on the one side, deeply affected by that form of art which has since died out but was prevalent in Italy in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. and subsequently elaborated in the Italian mosaics. The Individuality of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer lived and worked in this environment and then, filled with the impulse of contemporary Christianity, accompanied the Mission to England. After having participated in the founding of the Archbishopric of Canterbury, this individual was murdered, in strange circumstances, by an Anglo-Saxon chieftain.
This happening lived on as an impulse in the soul. And when this soul was born as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, the destiny of that earlier time was still alive in the subconscious ... the murder in England ... it has something to do with the Archbishopric of Canterbury! Just as a remembrance is often evoked by the sound of a word, so it was in this case ... “I once had something to do with Canterbury.” And the impulse becomes an urge in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's soul to describe, not his own destiny, for that remains in the subconscious, but the similar destiny of Thomas Becket, the Chancellor of Henry II of England and at the same time Archbishop of Canterbury.
The strange infirmity of soul suffered by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer also causes experience of his own destiny to slip over into that of the other personality known to him from history.
During the period of the Thirty Years' War, when such chaotic conditions prevailed in Middle Europe, this Individuality had been incarnated as a woman. And all the chaos of those times profoundly affected the Individuality now incarnate in a female body. This woman married a rather uncouth, unpolished personality who fled from the conditions then prevailing in Germany to the region of Graubünden in Switzerland. And there this couple lived ... the woman deeply sensitive to the chaos of the impressions around her, the man more plebeian.
From the far-reaching events of that time the soul had absorbed all that struggles to come forth again in Jürg Jenatsch. The thoughts and emotions rise up again in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer from what he had experienced in those earlier circumstances. The difficulty is that the impressions welled up in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's soul but that he felt compelled to transform them, because his life in the world was such that impulses were constantly rising up into his soul-and-spirit which then, in the Conrad Ferdinand Meyer-incarnation, were responsible for the very loose connection between his soul-and-spirit and his physical body.
This will indicate to you how impulses from olden times work over in a remarkable way into a man's thinking, feeling, perception and artistic achievements. The truth of such things will quite certainly never be discovered by speculation or intellectual thinking but only in genuine spiritual vision.
Personalities who attract one's attention in some earthly life are especially interesting from the point of view of their reincarnations. There is a personality who is greatly loved and held in high esteem, above all in this country, through whom we can discern how souls pass through their earthly lives. When we have real knowledge of these matters they turn out to be different from what one would naturally assume.
There is a soul ... I was able to find this soul for the first time occupying a kind of priestly office in ancient Mysteries. I say, a kind of priestly office, for although he was not a priest of the highest rank his position in the Mysteries enabled him to do a great deal for the education of souls. In that incarnation he was a noble character, full of goodness of heart which his connection with the Mysteries had developed in him. About a hundred years before the birth of Christ it was the destiny of this personality, in line with the customs of the times, to serve under a cruel slave-owner as the foreman or manager of a host of slaves whose work was hard and heavy and who could only be handled in the way that was the accepted practice in those days. This personality must not be misjudged or misunderstood. The conditions prevailing in ancient civilisations must be seen in a different light from those of to-day; we must understand above all what it meant for this fundamentally noble personality to have been incarnated a hundred years before the founding of Christianity as a kind of foreman-manager of a host of slaves. It was impossible for him always to act in accordance with his own impulses—that was his hard destiny. But at the same time he had established a definite relationship with the souls living in the hard-worked slaves. He obeyed the crueller personality of whom I have spoken (his ‘chief’ we should say to-day) but in such circumstances antipathies and sympathies are formed. ... And when the one who often with a bleeding heart had carried out the orders he received, passed through the gate of death, his soul encountered the souls who had felt, for him too, a certain hatred. This lived itself out in the life between death and rebirth and established connections of soul-and-spirit which then worked as impulses, preparing for the next earthly life.
In the nature of things, karmic connections are formed between all human beings who have to do with one another. It was also destiny that the Individuality of whom I am speaking, who was a kind of slave-overseer and connected karmically with the chief whose orders he was bound to obey, should have made himself guilty in a certain way—it was really innocence and guilt at the same time—of all the misery caused by the cruelty of his chief. He acquiesced in it, not out of any impulse of his own but impelled by the force majeure of customs and circumstances. Thus a karmic tie was established between the two. In the life between death and rebirth this took shape in such a way that the former slave-overseer was born again in the ninth century A.D. as a woman: she became the wife of the one who had been the cruel chief—and in this relationship lived through much that constituted the karmic adjustment of what I have described as a kind of ‘innocent guilt’ in connection with the cruelties that had been committed. But these experiences deepened the soul: much of what had been present in the ancient, priestly incarnation emerged once again, but overshadowed by great tragedy. Circumstances in the ninth century brought this wedded couple into connection with many human beings in whom there were living the souls, now reincarnated, of those who had been together with them as slaves. As a general rule, human souls are reborn during the same time-period. And again in this case there was a connection in the life on the Earth.
The souls who had once worked under the slave-overseer now lived together in spatial proximity as a fairly extensive community. The official servant of the community—but a servant of fairly high rank—was the individual who had once been the cruel slave-owner. He had dealings with all the inhabitants of the community and experienced from them nothing but trouble; he was not their governor but it was his duty to look after many of their affairs. The wife lived through all this at his side. We find, therefore, that a number of human beings are associated with these two personalities. But the karma that had bound the two together—the erstwhile slave-owner and his overseer—this karmic tie was thereby done with. The ancient priest-individuality was no longer bound to the other; but the tie with the other souls remained, precisely because in the incarnation about 100 B.C. he had been at least the instrument for much that had been their lot. As a woman, this Individuality brought only blessing to the community, for her deeds were performed with the greatest goodness and kindness, despite the infinitely tragic experiences she was obliged to undergo.
All these shared experiences, all that wove the threads of karma—it all went on working, and during the next period of life between death and rebirth (after the ninth century and on into the modern age) impulses took shape once again whereby these human beings were held together. And now, the souls who had once been the slaves and later on came together in a village community—these souls were born again, not in any kind of external community but at least during the same period of time. So that there was again the possibility of relationship with the Individuality—now reborn—who had been the slave-overseer a hundred years before the Christian era, and the woman in the ninth century A.D. For this Individuality was reborn as Pestalozzi. The souls who were also reborn more or less as contemporaries in order that karma might be fulfilled—these souls whose relationship to him was as I have described, became the pupils for whom Pestalozzi now performed deeds of untold blessing!
When one studies life and behind life as it presents itself perceives the working of souls from incarnation to incarnation ... certainly it is disturbing and astounding, for things are always different from what the intellect might conjecture. Yet life's content is immeasurably deepened when it is studied in this kind of context. I think, moreover, that a man himself has really gained something when he has studied such connections. If they are drawn forth—often with very great difficulty—from their spiritual backgrounds, and if one points, as I have only been able to do in sketchy outline to-day, to what is present in visible existence, one perceives how karma works through the course of human life. Verily, life acquires serious backgrounds when we pay attention to studies of this kind; and they can be understood if with unprejudiced minds we observe what then presents itself in the external world.
Anthroposophy does not exist in order to expound theories about repeated earthly lives or to give tabulated details of every kind, but to reveal, in all their concrete reality, the spiritual foundations of life. Men will look into the world with quite different eyes once the veils are lifted from these things. One day, if destiny permits, we shall have to speak of how they can play a part, too, in the actual deeds of men. Such knowledge will certainly show that concrete studies of karma are needed by our civilisation as an impetus and a deepening. I wanted to-day merely to lay before you these actual examples of karma. The personalities in question are well-known figures in history. Study them closely and you will find confirmation of much that I have said.
Zweiter Vortrag
Es ist schon einmal hier in den Kreisen unserer Berner anthroposophischen Freunde ausgesprochen worden, wie die Weihnachtstagung am Goetheanum dazu bestimmt war, einen neuen Zug in die anthroposophische Bewegung hineinzubringen. Es kann das Bewußtsein von diesem neuen Zug nicht oft genug eingeschärft werden. Denn es handelt sich ja darum, daß vor dieser Weihnachtstagung — wenigstens in der Praxis, wenn vielleicht auch nicht überall — die Auffassung so war, daß die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft eine Art Verwaltungsgesellschaft für das darstellte, was Anthroposophie als Inhalt und als Lebensimpuls hat. Das hat sich ja im wesentlichen so herausgestellt, seit die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft sich aus der Theosophischen Gesellschaft heraus verselbständigt hat.
Und die Entwickelung dieser Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft ist ja nicht so gegangen, wie sie gerade hätte gehen können unter der Voraussetzung, daß ich selbst nicht irgendeine Vorstandsstelle oder dergleichen inne hatte, sondern gewissermaßen in einer völlig freien Position innerhalb der Gesellschaft stand. Dennoch hat man eigentlich wenig Notiz genommen von alldem, was unter dieser Voraussetzung sich hätte entwickeln können. Und so ist es denn gekommen, daß etwa vom Jahre 1919 ab - nachdem ja während der Kriegsjahre die Führung der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft schwierig war — allerlei Bestrebungen innerhalb der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft aufgetreten sind, Bestrebungen, hervorgegangen aus den und jenen Ambitionen innerhalb des Mitgliederkreises, welche im Grunde der eigentlichen anthroposophischen Sache gegenüber abträglich gewirkt haben, abträglich in dem Sinne, daß dadurch gerade, ich möchte sagen, die Feindseligkeit der Außenwelt in besonderem Maße hervorgetreten ist. Es ist ja ganz naturgemäß, meine lieben Freunde, daß, wenn solche Bestrebungen innerhalb einer Gesellschaft auftreten, die auf einem okkulten Boden steht, man zuletzt — aus der Esoterik heraus — diese Dinge entstehen lassen muß. Denn denken Sie sich, wenn all dasjenige, was da sich bilden wollte, von Anfang an von mir verwehrt worden wäre, so würden heute die meisten der Beteiligten sagen: Ja, wenn das oder jenes nur geschehen wäre, würde es zu etwas Günstigem geführt haben! — Nun kann man schon sagen: die Stellung der anthroposophischen Bewegung wurde in der Welt dadurch immer schwieriger und schwieriger.
Einzelheiten will ich nicht erwähnen, sondern auf das Positive mehr hinarbeiten; will nur sagen, daß eben notwendig geworden ist, all dem Negativen, das in der Gesellschaft nach und nach aufgetreten ist, das Positive gegenüberzusetzen. Eine solche positive Gründung — ich mußte das oftmals vor der Weihnachtstagung am Goetheanum erwähnen wie die anthroposophische Bewegung, die eigentlich eine geistige Strömung ist, geleitet von geistigen Mächten und geistigen Kräften aus der übersinnlichen Welt, die ihre Erscheinung nur haben hier in der physischen Welt, durfte nicht zusammengeworfen werden mit der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft, die eben eine Verwaltungsgesellschaft ist — so weit sie das vermag — zur Pflege des anthroposophischen Impulses.
Nun, seit der Weihnachtstagung am Goetheanum ist das durchaus anders geworden. Und nur unter dem Gesichtspunkte des Anderswerdens hatte es einen Sinn, daß ich selber — mit einem Vorstande zusammen, mit dem als einem einheitlichen Organismus ganz intensiv für die anthroposophische Bewegung gearbeitet werden kann und muß - den Vorsitz übernahm. Diese Voraussetzung ist diejenige, daß nunmehr die anthroposophische Bewegung eins werde mit der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft. Was also nicht wahr war vor der Weihnachtstagung, ist gründlich verändert seit der Weihnachtstagung. Es muß nunmehr zusammenfallen die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft mit der anthroposophischen Bewegung, wie sie sich in der Welt darstellt. Dadurch aber ist notwendig geworden, daß der esoterische Impuls, welcher durch die anthroposophische Bewegung fließt, auch wirklich in der ganzen Verfassung der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft zum Vorschein kommt. Daher muß seit dieser Weihnachtstagung in Dornach unbedingt anerkannt werden, daß die Einsetzung des Dornacher Vorstandes selber ein Esoterisches ist, daß es sich darum handelt, daß wahre esoterische Strömung durch die Gesellschaft geht und daß die Einsetzung des Vorstandes als esoterische Tat anzusehen ist. Unter dieser Voraussetzung ist der Vorstand gebildet worden.
Ferner muß festgehalten werden, daß nunmehr die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft nicht bloß als Verwaltungsgesellschaft für die Anthroposophie da sein kann, sondern daß nunmehr Anthroposophie selber getan werden muß in alldem, was in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft geschieht. Das Tun selber muß anthroposophisch sein. Das ist dasjenige, was, wie es scheint, recht schwer sich in das Bewußtsein einlebt. Aber es müßte sich nach und nach diese gründliche Umwandlung in das Bewußtsein unserer lieben Freunde einleben.
Und zunächst ist ja versucht worden, in dem dem «Goetheanum» beigegebenen Mitteilungsblatt, das in die Gesellschaft hineinzubringen, was dieser Gesellschaft eine einheitliche Substanz geben kann, was sozusagen einen einheitlichen Gedankenzug bringen kann, der dem Strömen des Geistigen durch die Bewegung dienen kann; was einen einheitlichen Gedankenzug möglich macht, insbesondere durch die wöchentliche Formulierung von Leitsätzen, die sozusagen der Grundkeim sein sollen für das, was in den einzelnen Zweigen geschieht. Es ist ja merkwürdig, wie verkannt noch wird, was mit der anthroposophischen Bewegung da ist.
Ich bekam vor einiger Zeit einen Brief von einem jüngeren Mitglied der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft. Dieser Brief verbreitete sich über die Eingliederung - für hier, für die Schweiz, hat das keine Bedeutung, aber ich erwähne es als Beispiel -, über die Eingliederung der Gemeinschaft für christliche Erneuerung in die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft. Ich habe nun in einem gewissen Zeitpunkt vom Goetheanum in Dornach aus betont, wie diese Gemeinschaft für christliche Erneuerung aufzufassen ist im Verhältnis zur Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft. Ich habe dazumal betont, daß ich nicht aus der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft heraus irgendwie als Begründer der Christengemeinschaft aufgefaßt werden kann, sondern daß diese Christengemeinschaft neben der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft durch mich - ich brauchte dazumal den Ausdruck «als Privatmann» - gebildet worden ist. An diesen Ausdruck «Privatmann» knüpft nun dieser Brief an, nachdem gesagt wird, daß eine religiöse Erneuerung nicht durch einen Menschen geschehen könne, sondern einzig und allein dadurch, daß ein geistiger Impuls aus den oberen Sphären in die Erdenimpulse wieder einfließt: Nur von göttlich-geistigen Mächten selber kann eine religiöse Erneuerung erhofft werden. Das ist ganz richtig. Aber eines wird dabei vielleicht vergessen — und notwendig ist, daß dieses eine vollständig begriffen werde in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft. Was begriffen werden muß, ist dieses: daß die anthroposophische Bewegung als solche - und in ihr liegen auch die Quellen für die christliche Erneuerungsbewegung — ja nicht einem bloß menschlichen Impulse ihren Ursprung verdankt, sondern daß sie eben gerade dasjenige ist, was unter dem Einflusse und aus dem Impuls von geistig-göttlichen Mächten heraus in die Welt gesetzt ist. Wenn man in der Anthroposophie selber ein geistig Eingesetztes sieht, das esoterisch durch die Zivilisation fließt, dann nur wird man auch, wenn aus den Quellen der Anthroposophie etwas anderes entsteht, die richtige Ansicht haben können, und ein solcher Einwand wie der in dem Brief kann sich nicht ergeben. Das Bewußtsein muß da sein, daß fernerhin vom Goetheanum aus die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft esoterisch geleitet wird.
Damit steht in Verbindung, daß ein völlig neuer Zug durch alles dasjenige geht, was nunmehr als anthroposophische Bewegung aufgefaßt wird. Deshalb ist es, daß Sie auch bemerken werden, meine lieben Freunde, wie anders seit jener Zeit gesprochen werden kann, als das vorher der Fall war. Es kommt in der Zukunft auf gar nichts weiteres an, als daß bei allen Maßnahmen der anthroposophischen Bewegung, die identisch ist mit der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft, künftighin eben die Verantwortlichkeit vorliegt gegenüber den geistigen Mächten selber. Aber das muß richtig verstanden werden. Und so muß namentlich aufgefaßt werden, daß schon die Überschrift «Allgemeine Anthroposophische Gesellschaft» nicht gebraucht werden darf für irgendeine Veranstaltung, ohne daß man sich mit dem Dornacher Vorstand erst verständigt; daß nicht irgend etwas, was von Dornach inauguriert wird, irgend weiterverwendet werden kann, ohne sich mit dem Dornacher Vorstand in entsprechendes Verhältnis zu setzen. Ich muß das erwähnen, weil immer solche Dinge vorgehen, daß zum Beispiel Vorträge gehalten werden unter dem Titel der Allgemeinen Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft, ohne daß in Dornach angefragt wird. Es werden Dinge, die esoterischen Grundzug haben, wie Formeln und dergleichen, verwendet, ohne das durch eine Verständigung mit dem Vorstand zu begründen, was durchaus notwendig ist, denn wir haben es mit Realitäten zu tun, nicht mit irgendwelchen Verwaltungsmaßnahmen oder Formalien. So ist also für alle diese und ähnliche Dinge eine Verständigung zu suchen oder eine Anfrage zu richten an den Schriftführer des Dornacher Vorstandes. Wenn die Verständigung nicht vorliegt, wird die betreffende Veranstaltung als nicht von der anthroposophischen Bewegung ausgehend angesehen. Das würde in irgendeiner Weise zutage treten müssen.
Es ist nun so, daß alles irgend Bürokratische, formal Verwaltungsmäßige aus der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft in Zukunft ausscheiden muß. Das Verhältnis, das besteht innerhalb der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft, ist ein rein menschliches, alles auf das Menschliche abstellendes. Vielleicht darf ich auch hier erwähnen, daß dieses schon dadurch zutage tritt, daß nunmehr alle die zwölftausend Mitgliederzertifikate, die ausgestellt werden, von mir persönlich unterschrieben werden. Ich habe auch den Rat bekommen, ich solle einen Stempel machen lassen und aufdrücken. Ich tue das nicht. Es ist nur eine kleine Maßregel, aber es ist etwas anderes, wenn ich mein Auge habe ruhen lassen auf dem Namen eines Mitgliedes und dadurch das, wenn auch abstrakte, so doch immerhin persönliche Verhältnis eingetreten ist. Wenn es auch eine Äußerlichkeit ist, so soll es doch anzeigen, daß in Zukunft angestrebt wird, die Verhältnisse zu persönlichen, zu menschlichen zu machen. Daher mußte zum Beispiel neulich in Prag, als gefragt wurde, ob die böhmische Landesgesellschaft Mitglied werden könne der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft, dahingehend entschieden werden, daß sie das nicht könne: es können nur einzelne Menschen Mitglied der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft werden; die können sich dann zusammenschließen zu irgendwelchen Gruppen. Aber als einzelne Menschen werden sie Mitglieder und tragen das Zertifikat als einzelne Menschen. Juristische Personen, also nichtmenschliche Persönlichkeiten, werden das nicht haben. Ebenso sind die Statuten nicht Feststellungen, sondern eine einfache Erzählung desjenigen, was der im esoterischen Sinne aufzufassende Vorstand in Dornach aus seiner Initiative heraus für die anthroposophische Bewegung tun will, Alle diese Dinge müssen in der Zukunft mit dem höchsten Ernste genommen werden; nur dadurch wird es möglich sein, in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft dasjenige zu schaffen, ohne dessen Schöpfung es mir unmöglich gewesen wäre, die Leitung der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft selber zu übernehmen.
Nun soll auch durchaus in all unser Wirken und Schaffen durch die Weihnachtstagung ein neuer Zug kommen. Und deshalb wird in der Zukunft ganz aus dem Geistigen heraus auch gesprochen werden, gesprochen werden so, daß Dinge, wie sie sich zugetragen haben durch dasjenige, was eben in der letzten Zeit geschehen ist, sich nicht mehr zutragen können. Sehen Sie, ein großer Teil der Feindseligkeiten ist zum Beispiel entstanden durch manches, was provozierend war in der Gesellschaft. Gewiß, dazu kommen alle möglichen unlauteren Dinge, aber in Zukunft wird man gar nicht mehr so zu den Feindseligkeiten sich stellen können wie in der Vergangenheit. Denn die Zyklen sind so, daß sie für jeden zu haben sind, daß sie vom Philosophisch-Anthroposophischen Verlag zu beziehen sind. Wir werden sie nicht im Buchhandel anpreisen lassen, die Freigabe ist auch nicht so aufzufassen, daß sie dem Buchhandel eingefügt werden, aber sie werden jedem zugänglich sein. Schon dadurch ist die Behauptung weggeschafft, daß die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft eine Geheimgesellschaft sei mit Geheimschriften. Aber es wird in Zukunft gar manches durch die anthroposophische Bewegung fließen, demgegenüber man gar kein Verhältnis zu irgendeiner feindlichen Außenwelt gewinnen kann. Vieles von dem, was in die Lehren der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft in Zukunft einfließen wird, wird so sein, daß es die selbstverständliche Feindseligkeit hervorrufen wird derjenigen, die draußen stehen, aber eine Feindseligkeit, um die man sich nicht kümmern wird, weil sie eine selbstverständliche ist.
So möchte ich aus diesem Geiste heraus einiges zu Ihnen sprechen, möchte namentlich darüber sprechen, wie das Begreifen der geschichtlichen Entwickelung der Menschheit ein ganz anderes Licht bekommt, wenn man Ernst macht mit der Betrachtung der Karmaverhältnisse im Weltenwerden.
Sehen Sie, ich habe bei der allerersten Versammlung, die in Berlin zur Begründung der damaligen Deutschen Sektion der Theosophischen Gesellschaft war, für einen Vortrag, den ich damals halten wollte, einen bestimmten Titel gewählt. Der Titel hieß: «Praktische KarmaÜbungen». Ich wollte damals dasjenige einleiten, was jetzt geschehen soll. Ich will Ernst machen mit der Betrachtung des Karma.
Dazumal waren in der Deutschen Sektion der Theosophischen Gesellschaft einzelne ältere Mitglieder der Theosophischen Gesellschaft; die fingen an förmlich zu beben davor, daß ich die Absicht hätte, in einer so esoterischen Weise anzufangen. Und in der Tat war keine Stimmung dazu da. Man konnte konstatieren, wie wenig vorbereitet die Seelen für so etwas waren. Es konnte in der Form, wie es damals beabsichtigt war, das Thema «Praktische Karma-Übungen» überhaupt nicht zur Geltung kommen. Die Verhältnisse machten es dazumal notwendig, daß eigentlich in einer viel exoterischeren Weise gesprochen wurde, als es damals beabsichtigt war. Aber es muß einmal mit dem wirklichen Esoterischen begonnen werden, nachdem mehr als zwei Jahrzehnte vorbereitender Arbeit geschehen ist. So konnte die Weihnachtstagung in Dornach stattfinden, wo das Esoterische in die Gesellschaft hineinkam, und so kann eigentlich jetzt dort angeknüpft werden, wo damals beabsichtigt war, diesen esoterischen Zug in die Gesellschaft hineinzutragen.
Geschichtliche Entwickelung der Menschheit, was ist sie eigentlich, wenn wir hinschauen auf dasjenige, was sich enthüllt für den Menschen als wiederholte Erdenleben? Bedenken Sie doch, meine lieben Freunde, wenn irgendeine Persönlichkeit irgendwie leitend, führend in der Entwickelung der Menschheit auftritt, müssen wir sagen: diese Persönlichkeit trägt iu sich eine seelische Individualität, die oftmals schon da war im Erdenleben und die in dieses Erdenleben hineinbringt die Impulse aus früheren Erdenleben. Wir verstehen sie in Wirklichkeit nur, wenn wir sie aus ihrem früheren Erdenleben heraus begreifen. Wir sehen daraus zugleich, wie dasjenige, was in früheren Epochen der Weltgeschichte wirkte, herübergetragen wird aus früheren Epochen der Weltgeschichte durch die Menschen selber. Dasjenige, was in der heutigen Zivilisation lebt, ist herausgewachsen aus den Menschen der weiteren Gegenwart. Diese Menschen der weiteren Gegenwart aber sind ja dieselben Seelen, die in früheren Epochen da waren, die das aufgenommen haben, was frühere Zivilisationsepochen gebracht haben. Das haben diese Menschen selber herübergetragen in die Gegenwart. Und so ähnlich ist es für die anderen Epochen. So daß man dieses Fortströmen der Zivilisationsimpulse nur begreifen kann, wenn man eingehen kann auf dasjenige, was durch die Seelen aus einer Zeitepoche in die andere herübergebracht wird. Dann ergibt sich aber eine konkrete Geschichte gegenüber der abstrakten. Sonst spricht man nur immer davon, daß Ideen in der Weltgeschichte wirken oder moralischer Wille, überhaupt Moralimpulse, welche die Dinge von einem Zeitraum in den anderen hinübertragen. Die Träger dessen, was aus anderen Kulturepochen stammt, sind die Menschenseelen selber, denn sie verkörpern sich immer von neuem. Nur dann auch begreift man, wie man selber geworden ist, wie man hereingetragen hat dasjenige, was zugrunde liegt dem Schicksal des Leibes, dem Schicksal im Guten wie im Bösen, wenn man zunächst einmal hinschaut auf die Art und Weise, wie das, was Geschichte geworden ist, von den Menschen selbst, die in wiederholten Erdenleben gelebt haben, von einer Epoche in die andere getragen worden ist. Dann enthüllensicherst dieGeheimnisse, die großen Rätselfragen des geschichtlichen Werdens.
Nun möchte ich einmal heute an drei Beispielen zeigen, wie Karma durch konkrete Persönlichkeiten wirkt: ein Beispiel, das mehr auf den großen Schauplatz der Geschichte führt, und zwei weitere Beispiele, die mehr die Wiederverkörperungen von einzelnen Menschen ins Auge fassen.
Sehen Sie, in unserer modernen Zivilisation ist sehr viel von dem drin, was eigentlich heute nicht ganz zum Christentum, zur christlichen Entwickelung stimmt: die neuere Naturwissenschaft mit alldem, was von ihr aus schon bis in die Volksschule hineingetragen wird, so daß die Menschen, die auch nichts von Naturwissenschaft wissen, ein im Sinne der Naturwissenschaft gehaltenes Denken haben. Diese Impulse sind eigentlich nicht christlich. Woher stammen sie?
Nun, Sie alle wissen, daß sich etwa ein halbes Jahrtausend nach der Begründung des Christentums der Arabismus, inspiriert durch Mohammed, ausgebreitet hat. Zunächst verfolgt man diesen Arabismus so, daß Mohammed eine Lehre begründete, die sich in einem gewissen Sinne dem Christentum entgegenstellte. Inwiefern dem Christentum entgegenstellte? Sehen Sie, es gehört schon einmal zum Christentum, daß in dem Kern des Christentums leben die drei Formen des Göttlichen: der Vater, der Sohn und der Geist. Das führt zurück auf die alten Mysterien, die den Menschen hinaufgeführt haben durch vier Vorstufen, dann durch die drei oberen Stufen. Wenn der Mensch die fünfte Stufe erreicht hat, erscheint er als der Repräsentant des Geistes, in der sechsten als der Repräsentant des Christus, in der siebenten, der höchsten, als der Repräsentant des Vaters. Das will ich nur erwähnen.
Diese Trinität macht es möglich, daß in der Entwickelung des Christentums der Impuls der Freiheit liegt. Da schaut man hinauf zum Vatergott. Was hat man da? Wenn man hinaufschaut zum Vatergott, so ist der Vatergott jene Geistigkeit, die in all den Kräften des Weltenalls lebt, die für das Erdensein vom Monde ausgehen. Nun gehen innerhalb des Erdenseins vom Monde alle diejenigen Kräfte aus, die es mit den Impulsen der physischen Keimung, also beim Menschen der physischen Menschwerdung zu tun haben. Natürlich muß man sich immer klar sein darüber, daß diese physische Menschwerdung ihre geistige Seite hat. Wir steigen herunter vom vorirdischen Dasein, das ein geistig-seelisches ist, in das irdische Dasein, wir vereinigen uns mit dem physischen Leib. Aber alles, was da geschieht, was den Menschen von der Geburt aus ins Erdenleben hineinstellt, ist Vatergott-Schöpfung, ist für die Erde Schöpfung durch Mondenkräfte. Dadurch ist der Mensch, indem er durch ein Erdenleben hindurch den Mondenkräften unterworfen ist, schon vorher bestimmt, wenn er in die Erdentwickelung hereintritt, ganz bestimmten Impulsen unterworfen zu sein. Daher ist auch zum Beispiel eine Mondreligion, eine ausgesprochene Vaterreligion — wie es die hebräisch-jüdische des Altertums war -, durchaus darauf aus, nur dasjenige im Menschen gelten zu lassen, was in ihm veranlagt ist durch die Vatergott-Kräfte, durch die Mondkräfte. Als nun aber das Christentum begründet wurde, waren in der Umgebung des Christus durchaus noch alte Mysterienwahrheiten vorhanden, die zum Beispiel zurückgewiesen haben auf ganz bestimmte Einrichtungen, die in der ältesten Zeit der nachatlantischen Kulturentwickelung bestanden haben, Einrichtungen, die heute dem Menschen ganz grotesk erscheinen, die aber in der Menschennatur begründet waren.
Sehen Sie, wenn der Mensch in der ersten nachatlantischen Kulturperiode, die wir die urindische genannt haben, so dreißig Jahre alt geworden war, trat mit ihm eine ganz radikale Umwandlung, eine Metamorphose im Erdenleben ein. Eine so radikale Umwandlung, daß, in heutiger, moderner Form ausgesprochen, folgendes passieren konnte: Der Mensch, der das dreißigste Lebensjahr überschritten hatte, begegnete einem anderen, den er sehr gut kannte, mit dem er vielleicht befreundet war, und der noch nicht das dreißigste Lebensjahr überschritten hatte. Der redet ihn an, will ihn begrüßen. Der das dreißigste Jahr überschritten hat, versteht gar nicht, was er will: Er hat alles auf der Erde Erfahrene mit dem dreißigsten Lebensjahr vergessen! Und dasjenige, was in ihm weiter im Leben als Impuls wirkt, das wurde ihm durch die Mysterien verliehen. So war es in den ältesten Zeiten der Entwickelung nach der atlantischen Katastrophe. Um das, was er vorher erlebt hatte, zu erfahren, mußte er sich erst erkundigen: das mußte er erst aus der kleinen Gemeinde, die da war, erfahren. Mit dreißig Jahren wurde die Seele so umgewandelt, daß der Mensch ein ganz neuer Mensch war. Er fing ein neues Dasein an, so wie er als Kind mit der Geburt angefangen hatte. Damals war ihm ganz klar: Bis zum dreißigsten Lebensjahr wirken die Jugendkräfte; dann mußten die Mysterien, die reale Impulse in sich schlossen, dafür sorgen, daß der Mensch weiter in seiner Seele Menschendasein hatte. Das taten die Mysterien, weil sie Besitzer des Sohnesgeheimnisses waren.
Der Christus lebte nun schon in einer Zeit, in der die Sohnesgeheimnisse, wie ich sie hier nur andeuten kann, vollständig zerstoben waren, nur in kleinen Kreisen noch gewußt wurden. Der Christus konnte sich aber offenbaren durch sein Erlebnis im dreißigsten Lebensjahr dahin, daß er nun als der letzte den Sohnesimpuls, und zwar vom Weltenall unmittelbar empfangen hatte, wie man ihn empfangen muß, um nach dem dreißigsten Jahr ebenso von den Sonnenkräften abhängig zu sein wie vorher von den Mondenkräften. Christus hat begreiflich gemacht den Menschen: dieSohneswesenheit in ihm ist jene Sonnenwesenheit, die einstmals in den Mysterien erwartet worden war, aber als etwas, was nicht auf der Erde war. Damit ist die Menschheit hingewiesen worden, so wie man in den alten Mysterien in die Geheimnisse der Sonnenkraft hineingeschaut hat, so jetzt auf den Christus, um zu sagen, daß nun das Sonnengeheimnis in den Menschen eingetreten ist. Das ist ja dann in den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten vollständig ausgerottet worden. Sternenweisheit, kosmische Weisheit ist ausgerottet worden, und eine materialistische Auffassung des Mysteriums von Golgatha hat sich allmählich gebildet, die den Christus nur kennt als etwas, was allerdings in Jesus gelebt hat, im übrigen aber von dem ganzen Zusammenhang nichts wissen will.
Nun konnten diejenigen, die das wußten, in den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten sagen: Neben dem Vatergott besteht der Sohnes- oder der Christus-Gott. Der Vatergott ist der Regierer dessen, was in den Menschen fatalistisch veranlagt ist, weil es mit ihm geboren ist und in ihm wirkt wie Naturkräfte. So ist auch die hebräische Religion konstituiert. Das Christentum setzt die Sohneskraft daneben, die während des menschlichen Lebenslaufes einzieht als ein Schöpfer in seine Seele, die ihn frei macht und ihn vor sich selbst wiedergeboren werden läßt, daß er etwas im Erdenleben werden könne, was noch nicht vorherbestimmt ist mit der Geburt durch die Mondenkräfte. Das war der Hauptimpuls des Christentums in den ersten Jahrhunderten.
Gegen diesen Impuls hat sich der Mohammedanismus aufgelehnt mit seinem Satze, der weithin wirkt: Da ist kein Gott außer Gott, den da Mohammed zu verkünden hat. — Es ist ein Zurückgehen auf Vorchristliches, nur in der Erneuerung, wie es eintreten mußte, weil es eintrat ein halbes Jahrtausend nach der Begründung des Christentums. Damit war der Naturgott, der Vatergott zu dem alleinigen gemacht, nicht ein Freiheitgott, ein die Menschen zur Freiheit führender Gott. Das begünstigt innerhalb des Arabismus, wo sich der Mohammedanismus ausbreitet, eine Wiedererneuerung alter Kulturen. Eine Wiedererneuerung uralter Kulturen mit Ausschluß des Christentums findet in der Tat in grandioser Weise statt in verschiedenen Zivilisationszentren des Orientes. Es breitete sich zugleich mit den kriegerischen Strömungen des Arabismus aus von Osten nach Westen, in Afrika, ich möchte sagen, das Christentum umfangend, ein Zug von Wiedererneuerung alter Kultur im Arabismus.
Eine glänzende Stätte für diesen Arabismus war in Asien drüben am Hofe des Harun al Raschid, so in dem Zeitalter, in dem in Europa Karl der Große herrschte. Aber während Karl der Große kaum darüber hinauskam, schreiben und lesen zu können, die primitivsten Anfänge der Kultur zu entfalten, lebte eine höchst großartige Kultur am Hofe Harun al Raschids. Harun war vielleicht kein ganz guter, aber ein umfassender Geist, ein eindringlicher, genialer Geist, im besten Sinne des Wortes ein universeller Geist. Er versammelte am Hofe alle diejenigen Weisen, welche Träger waren desjenigen, was dazumal gewußt werden konnte: Dichter, Philosophen, Mediziner, Theologen, Architekten, alles das lebte, hergeführt von seinem großen Geiste, am Hofe Harun al Raschids.
Nun lebte an diesem Hofe Harun al Raschids ein ganz eminenter, bedeutsamer Geist, ein Geist, der — nicht dazumal in der Inkarnation am Hofe Harun al Raschids, sondern in einer früheren Inkarnation ein wirklicher Eingeweihter gewesen war. Sie werden sich fragen: Bleibt denn ein Eingeweihter, durch die Inkarnationen gehend, nicht ein Eingeweihter? Man kann ein tief Eingeweihter in einer früheren Epoche gewesen sein, und man muß in einer neuen Epoche denjenigen Körper benützen, man muß diejenige Erziehung durchmachen, welche aus dieser Epoche herauskommen kann. Dann muß man die Kräfte, die zunächst aus der früheren Inkarnation kommen, im Unterbewußtsein halten. Es muß sich dasjenige, was der entsprechenden Zivilisation gemäß ist, in einem Menschen dann entwickeln. So leben durchaus Menschen, die äußerlich eben wie Ergebnisse ihrer Zivilisation erscheinen; aber durch die Art, wie sie draußen leben, sieht man tiefere Impulse in ihnen: Sie waren früher Eingeweihte, verlieren das auch nicht, handeln auch in ihrem Unterbewußtsein darnach; sie können aber nicht anders, als sich anpassen dem, was das Leben der Kultur eben gewährt.
So war die Persönlichkeit, von der die Überlieferung sagt, daß sie großartige Einrichtungen für alle die Wissenschaften am Hofe Harun al Raschids getroffen hat, dazumal eben nur einer der größten Weisen seiner Zeit, mit einem im Geiste so überragenden Organisationstalent, daß viel von dem, was am Hofe Harun al Raschids gewirkt hat, von diesem Geiste ausging.
Nun breitete sich der Arabismus durch Jahrhunderte aus. Wir wissen ja von den Kriegen, die Europa geführt hat, um den Arabismus in seine Schranken zurückzuweisen. Damit war es nicht abgetan: Die Seelen, die gewirkt haben im Arabismus, gehen durch die Pforte des Todes, entwickeln sich durch die geistige Welt weiter und bleiben in einer gewissen Art bei ihrem Wirken. So ist es bei den zwei Individualitäten des Harun al Raschid und seines weisen Ratgebers, der an seinem Hofe gelebt hat.
Folgen wir zunächst Harun al Raschid. Er geht durch die Pforte des Todes, entwickelt sich durch die geistige Welt weiter. Die äußere Form des Arabismus wird zurückgedrängt; das Christentum pflanzt seinen exoterischen Charakter, den es allmählich angenommen hat, Mittel- und Westeuropa ein. Aber so wenig es möglich ist, in der alten Form des Mohammedanismus, des Arabismus in Europa weiterzuwirken, so sehr wird es möglich, daß die Seelen derjenigen, die am Hofe des Harun al Raschid in dieser glänzenden Zivilisation einmal gelebt und den Impuls empfangen haben, darin weiterzuwirken, eben weiterwirken.
So sehen wir, daß Harun al Raschid selber wiederverkörpert wird in der vielgenannten Persönlichkeit des Baco von Verulam, jenes englischen führenden Geistes, von dem die ganze moderne wissenschaftliche Denkweise und damit vieles von dem, was jetzt in den Menschen lebt, beeinflußt ist. Harun al Raschid konnte nicht von London, von England aus eine im strengen Sinne des Arabismus geformte Kultur und Zivilisation verbreiten, diese Seele mußte sich der Form bedienen, die im westlichen Abendlande möglich war. Aber der ganze Grundzug, der Grundduktus desjenigen, was Baco von Verulam über die europäische Denkweise ergossen hat, das ist der alte Arabismus in der neuen Form. Und so lebt gerade in dem, was naturwissenschaftliche Denkweise heute ist, der Arabismus, weil Baco von Verulam der wiederverkörperte Harun al Raschid war.
Der Weise, der an seinem Hofe gelebt hat, er ging ebenfalls durch die Pforte des Todes; aber er ging einen anderen Weg. Er konnte nicht untertauchen in eine solche materialistisch gesinnte Geistesströmung, in die Baco untertauchen konnte, er mußte bei einer mehr spirituellen Geistesströmung bleiben. Und so kam es denn, daß in dem Zeitalter, in dem auch Baco von Verulam wirkte, ein anderer Geist — aber jetzt in Mitteleuropa — wirkte, der sich gewissermaßen der Seele nach begegnete mit dem, was ausging von der Seele des wiedergeborenen Harun al Raschid. Wir sehen gewissermaßen die Baco-Strömung von England gegen Mitteleuropa herüber sich ergießen, von Westen nach Osten. Dadurch, daß die Seele, ich möchte sagen, von Spanien und Frankreich herüber zurückgebracht hat diese Anschauung des Arabismus, dadurch ist schon zu begreifen, daß sie einen anderen Inhalt bekam als jene Seele, die durch die Pforte des Todes geht, den Blick während des Durchgangs durch die geistige Welt gerichtet hat auf das, was in Ost- und Mitteleuropa war, und in Mitteleuropa wiedergeboren wurde als Amos Comenius. Er hat dasjenige, was er ausgelebt hat am Hofe Harun al Raschids aus orientalischer Weisheit heraus, wieder erneuert dadurch, daß er dann im 17. Jahrhundert diejenige Persönlichkeit war, welche ganz energisch den Gedanken vertreten hat: Ein Geistiges, ein gegliedertes Geistiges geht durch die Menschheitsentwickelung. — Trivial sagt man oftmals, Comenius habe geglaubt an das «Tausendjährige Reich». Das ist trivial gesprochen. In Wahrheit bedeutet das, daß Comenius an Epochen in der Menschheitsentwickelung geglaubt hat, daß er eine geistige, von der geistigen Welt aus gegliederte weltgeschichtliche Entwickelung angenommen hat. Er will zeigen, daß ein Geistiges die ganze Natur durchwallt und durchwebt: er schreibt eine «Pansophia», eine Allweisheit. Es ist eigentlich ein tiefer geistiger Zug in dem, was Amos Comenius wirkte. Dabei ist er ein Erneuerer des Erziehungswesens. Das ist bekannt: er strebte nach Anschaulichkeit; aber nach einer anderen Anschaulichkeit als der Materialismus, nach einer durch und durch geistigen Anschaulichkeit. Ich kann das nicht in Einzelheiten auseinandersetzen, ich kann nur hinweisen, wie Arabismus in westlicher Form, Arabismus in orientalischer Form, ausgeflossen ist von dem, was in Mitteleuropa aus dem Zusammenströmen dieser beiden Geistesimpulse entstanden, hervorgegangen ist.
Wir begreifen vieles von dem, was in der Zivilisation Mitteleuropas lebt, nur, wenn wir so sehen, wie Geister, die am Hofe Harun al Raschids lebten, selber - in der Form, wie es erneuert werden konnte - herübertragen aus Asien das, was aus dem Arabismus fließt. So sehen wir, wie im geschichtlichen Werden die Individualität des Menschen wirkt. Und wir können dann, wenn wir hinblicken auf solche signifikante Beispiele, an diesen lernen, wie Karma durch die Inkarnationen wirkt. Dann kann es schon, wie ich das bei verschiedenen Gelegenheiten besprach, angewendet werden auf das, was unsere eigene Inkarnation ist. Aber zunächst müssen wir konkrete Beispiele haben.
Nun betrachten wir zunächst ein solches Beispiel - und da ist wohl vor allen Dingen Interesse dazu vorhanden hier in diesem Lande -, betrachten wir den schweizerischen Dichter Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. Wenn wir außer auf seine Dichtungen noch auf die Persönlichkeit Conrad Ferdinand Meyers blicken, so kann er schon ein großes Interesse erwecken. Er ist eine merkwürdige Persönlichkeit, dieser Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. Es ist eigentlich bei ihm immer so gewesen: Wenn er seine in wunderbaren Rhythmen einherschreitenden Dichtungen komponierte, sieht man, wenn man diese Dinge beobachten kann, wie seine Seele in jedem Augenblick etwas Neigung dazu hatte, aus dem Körper herauszutreten. Es hat schon etwas rein Seelisches, was in den wunderbaren Formen der Dichtungen, auch den Prosadichtungen Conrad Ferdinand Meyers lebt. Er hat auch wiederholt in seinem Leben unter dem Schicksal zu leiden gehabt, daß, wenn diese Trennung vom GeistigSeelischen und Physisch-Leiblichen zu stark wurde, eine Trübung in seinem Erdenleben eintrat. Aber dieses nur lose Ineinanderwirken des Geistig-Seelischen und des physischen Leibes - man merkt es, wenn man sich mit den Dichtungen oder der Persönlichkeit des Conrad Ferdinand Meyer beschäftigt. Diese Individualität, die in der Conrad Ferdinand Meyer-Inkarnation nur lose in dem physischen Leibe drinnen lebt, die muß — so sagt man sich zunächst - in früheren Erdenleben ganz Besonderes durchgemacht haben.
Nun sind Forschungen in bezug auf frühere Erdenleben wahrhaftig nicht immer leicht. Man muß die mannigfaltigsten Enttäuschungen, das mannigfaltigste Zurückgeworfenwerden in bezug auf das, was man geistig durchdringen will, durchmachen. Zur Befriedigung des Sensationswütigen ist darum das, was ich sage über die Wiederverkörperungen, durchaus nicht da, sondern um immer tiefer in das geschichtliche Werden hineinzuleuchten.
Wenn man Conrad Ferdinand Meyers Leben verfolgt, gerade wenn man ausgeht von dieser losen Verbindung des Geistig-Seelischen mit dem Physisch-Leiblichen, dann wird man zurückgeleitet zu einer sehr frühen Inkarnation, einer Inkarnation im 6. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert. Da wird man auf eine Individualität geführt, bei der man zunächst mit der geistigen Intuition, mit der man solche Dinge verfolgt, nicht ganz zurechtkommt. Man wird eigentlich geistig von dieser Individualität, die in Italien lebte, in Italien sich hineinfindet in die damals sich ausbreitende Form des Christentums, wiederum abgebracht. Man kann nicht recht an sie heran, und man wird dann auf die Conrad Ferdinand Meyer-Inkarnation zurückgeworfen, so daß man eigentlich bei dieser Untersuchung einer früheren Inkarnation, wenn man schon glaubt, in dieser Inkarnation des 6. Jahrhunderts angekommen zu sein, wieder zurück muß zu dem späteren Conrad Ferdinand Meyer und jetzt den Zusammenhang zwischen diesen beiden Inkarnationen nicht ordentlich versteht, bis man darauf kommt, was des Rätsels Lösung ist. Man merkt, in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer lebt ein Gedanke, der einen beirrt, ein Gedanke, der auch künstlerisch geworden ist, ein Gedanke, der übergegangen ist in seine Erzählung «Der Heilige», in welcher Thomas Becket, der Kanzler-Bischof von Canterbury im 12. Jahrhundert am Hofe Heinrichs von England, behandelt wird.
Aber nun, wenn man dasjenige verfolgt, was an Gedanken- und Empfindungszusammenhängen in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer lebte, indem er an dieser Erzählung schrieb, dann kommt man erst so recht hinein in die Art und Weise, wie Conrad Ferdinand Meyers Geist wirkte. Man wird gewissermaßen von einer Verdunkelung des Bewußtseins in die Erhellung geführt und wieder zurück. Man sagt sich zuletzt: Mit diesem Gedanken in Conrad Ferdinand Meyers Erzählung hat es eine ganz besondere Bewandtnis; der ist nicht so ohne weiteres erklärbar, er muß eigentlich tief sitzen. Dann kommt man darauf, daß er hervorgeht aus einem Impuls in einem früheren Erdenleben, in welchem die Individualität des Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in Italien war, an einem kleineren Hofe gelebt hat, innerhalb der christlichen Entwickelung eine große Rolle gespielt hat: da hat diese Individualität erwas Besonderes erlebt. Man kommt allmählich darauf, daß diese Individualität mit einer christlichen Mission von Italien ausgeschickt worden ist nach England. Diese Mission hat dazumal das Erzbistum von Canterbury gegründet. Die Individualität, die später zu Conrad Ferdinand Meyer geworden ist, war auf der einen Seite tief berührt von jener Kunst, die ausgestorben ist, die im 4., 5. Jahrhundert in Italien vorhanden war, die dann in den Mosaiken Italiens ihre weitere Ausgestaltung gefunden hat. In dem wirkte die Individualität Conrad Ferdinand Meyers darinnen. Dann ging sie, impulsiert vom damaligen Christentum, mit der Mission nach England. Nachdem sie dann das Erzbistum von Canterbury mitbegründet hatte, wurde sie von einem angelsächsischen Häuptling unter merkwürdigen Umständen ermordet.
Dieser Umstand lebte als Impuls in der Seele weiter. Und als diese Seele als Conrad Ferdinand Meyer geboren wurde, lebte im Unterbewußtsein dieses Schicksal von dazumal: Das Ermordetwerden in England - es hat etwas zu tun mit dem Erzbistum von Canterbury! So wie manchmal ein Erinnerungsimpuls heraufgeholt wird, wenn ein Wort anklingt, so wirkt dieser Impuls «ich habe einmal etwas zu tun gehabt mit Canterbury» nach, und das treibt Conrad Ferdinand Meyers Seele dahin, nicht sein Schicksal zu schildern -— das bleibt im Unterbewußtsein —, aber das ähnliche Schicksal des Thomas Becket, des Kanzlers Heinrichs von England, der zu gleicher Zeit Erzbischof von Canterbury war.
Dieses merkwürdige seelische Leiden des Conrad Ferdinand Meyer bewirkt auch das Herüberrutschen des eigenen Schicksals in das andere, das er als Conrad Ferdinand Meyer aus der Geschichte kennenlernt.
In der Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges, wo so viele chaotische Verhältnisse in Mitteleuropa herrschten, wurde diese Individualität wiedergeboren, und zwar als Frau. Und als weibliche Persönlichkeit wirkte nun das Chaotische im Zeitalter des Dreißigjährigen Krieges ganz besonders tief auf diese Individualität. Diese Frau verheiratete sich mit einer Persönlichkeit, die eigentlich etwas ungeschliffen war, ein Haudegen, der den deutschen Verhältnissen entfloh ins Graubündner Land in der Schweiz. So verbrachte dieses Ehepaar — die Frau empfänglich für die gewaltigen Eindrücke der Gegenwart, die zwar chaotisch waren, der Mann mehr philiströs —, so verbrachten sie die Zeit im Graubündner Lande.
Da wurde aufgenommen aus den weltwirkenden Vorgängen der Zeit das, was wieder hervorzusprießen sucht in «Jürg Jenatsch». Also die Gedanken und Empfindungen leben wiederum auf bei Conrad Ferdinand Meyer aus demjenigen, was er erlebt hat in dieser Weise. Das Schwierige ist, daß Conrad Ferdinand Meyer diese Eindrücke in die Seele aufnahm, aber sie zur Verwandlung treiben mußte, aus dem Grunde, weil er in der Welt so lebte, daß eigentlich sein Geistig-Seelisches immer Impulse aufnahm, die dann bewirkten, daß in der Conrad Ferdinand Meyer-Inkarnation es nur in loser Weise mit dem Leiblich-Physischen verbunden war.
Nun, Sie sehen darin etwas, woran man zeigen kann, wie in das Denken, Fühlen, Empfinden und künstlerische Schaffen einer Persönlichkeit die alten Impulse herüberwirken auf eine ganz merkwürdige Weise. Durch Spekulation, durch Nachdenken auf irgendeine intellektuelle Weise ergibt sich die Wahrheit darüber ganz gewiß nicht, sondern wirklich nur in der geistigen Anschauung.
Von ganz besonderem Interesse mit Bezug auf ihre wiederholten Erdenleben sind dann Persönlichkeiten, die in irgendeinem Erdenleben den Blick anziehen. Sehen Sie, da ist eine Persönlichkeit, die ja ganz besonders hier den Menschen lieb und wert ist und die so recht hineinschauen läßt in die Art und Weise, wie Seelen durch die Erdenleben durchgehen. Lernt man diese Dinge wirklich kennen, so nehmen sie sich anders aus, als man eigentlich voraussetzt.
Da haben wir eine Seele - ich konnte sie zuerst treffen in einer Art priesterlicher Funktion innerhalb alter Mysterien. In einer Art priesterlicher Mission; nicht gerade ein an erster Stelle leitender Priester, aber ein Priester, der durch seine Position innerhalb der Mysterien die Seelen in hohem Grade bilden konnte. Eine edle Persönlichkeit voller Güte in der damaligen Inkarnation, wie sie durch die Mysterien eben einmal herangewachsen ist.
Diese Persönlichkeit hatte nun das Schicksal, in dem ersten Jahrhundert vor der Begründung des Christentums, also etwa hundert Jahre vor Christi Geburt, durch Sitten, wie sie damals üblich waren, einem Sklavenhändler zu dienen, unter einer ziemlich grausamen Persönlichkeit Führer zu sein einer Schar von Sklaven, die hart arbeiten mußten und die eben nicht anders behandelt werden konnten, als sie behandelt wurden nach den Sitten der damaligen Zeit. Diese Persönlichkeit muß man nun nicht verkennen, nicht mißverstehen. Man muß die Zusammenhänge in alten Kulturen anders auffassen als in unseren. Man muß durchaus verstehen, daß eine solch edle Persönlichkeit, wie diejenige war, von der ich spreche, wiederverkörpert werden konnte etwa hundert Jahre vor der Begründung des Christentums als eine Art Sklavenhalter für ein großes Sklavenheer. Sie konnte nicht viel aus eigenem Impuls heraus handeln, das war ihr schweres Schicksal. Aber zu gleicher Zeit hatte sie ein eigentümliches Verhältnis begründet zu den Seelen, die in den Sklaven waren, die hart arbeiten mußten. Sie gehorchte, diese Persönlichkeit, eben jener mehr grausamen Persönlichkeit, von der ich gesprochen habe — heute würden wir sagen: ihrem Vorgesetzten. Aber in solchen Dingen, solchen Zusammenhängen bilden sich Antipathien und Sympathien. Und als dann diese Persönlichkeit, die manchmal mit schwerem, blutendem Herzen dasjenige getan hat, was ihr zu tun oblag nach den Befehlen, die sie erhalten hatte, durch die Pforte des Todes ging, traf sie dort zusammen mit den Seelen, die auch auf diese Persönlichkeit einen gewissen Haß geworfen hatten. Das lebte sich dann aus in dem Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt und begründete so seelisch-geistige Zusammenhänge, die dann als Impulse vorbereitend wirkten für das nächste Erdenleben.
Nun bilden sich natürlich zwischen allen Menschen, die miteinander zu tun haben, karmische Zusammenhänge. Es ist schon auch einmal schicksalsgemäß, daß diese Individualität, von der ich hier spreche, die eine Art Sklavenführer und karmisch verbunden war mit ihrem Vorgesetzten, dessen Befehlen sie gehorchen mußte, sich auch in einer gewissen Weise schuldig machte — ich möchte sagen: unschuldig-schuldig — alles desjenigen, was die Grausamkeit des Vorgesetzten bewirkt hat. Sie tat eben mit, wenn auch aus keinem ursprünglichen Impulse heraus, so doch durch die Sitten und den ganzen Zusammenhang veranlaßt, und so bestand ein karmisches Band zwischen den beiden. Das bereitete sich so zu in dem Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt, daß diese Persönlichkeit, die da Sklavenführer war, wiedergeboren wurde im 9. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert als Frau. Sie wurde die Frau jenes grausamen Vorgesetzten und erlebte in dieser Gemeinschaft mancherlei, was ein karmischer Ausgleich war für das, was ich als eine Art Unschuldig-Schuldigwerden an den begangenen Grausamkeiten bezeichnet habe. Aber was erlebt wird, vertieft die Seele weiter: Manches von dem tauchte wieder auf, was in der alten Priesterinkarnation da war, aber mit einer tiefen Tragik tauchte es wieder auf. Die Verhältnisse im 9. Jahrhundert brachten es dazu, daß dieses Ehepaar in Zusammenhang kam mit vielen Menschen, welche die wiederverkörperten Seelen waren derer, die mit ihnen gelebt hatten als die Sklavenseelen und die jetzt auch wiedergeboren wurden. Menschenseelen werden ja in der Regel im gleichen Zeitalter zusammen wiedergeboren. Und es entstand wiederum auf Erden ein Lebensverhältnis.
Die Seelen, die zusammengehalten wurden einstmals von dem Sklavenführer, lebten in einer mehr oder weniger großen Gemeinde jetzt räumlich zusammen. Der Gemeindediener, möchte man sagen — aber Diener in einem etwas höheren Sinne -, war jener grausame Mann. Und da er mit allen Bewohnern zu tun hatte, erlebte er nur Schlimmes von dieser Gemeinde, deren Vorsteher er nicht war, aber für die er viele Dinge zu besorgen hatte. Die Frau lebte dies immer mit. So sehen wir, wie eine Anzahl Menschen zusammenwachsen mit diesen beiden Persönlichkeiten. Aber das Karma, das nun die beiden Persönlichkeiten, den einstigen Vorgesetzten und den Sklavenführer, verbunden hatte, dieses karmische Band ist damit erfüllt. An diese Persönlichkeit war jene alte Priesterindividualität nicht mehr gebunden; aber mit den anderen blieb sie verbunden, weil eben doch vieles vorgekommen ist mit diesen Seelen, für das diese Individualität wenigstens das Werkzeug war in der Verkörperung etwa hundert Jahre vor Christus. Als Frau brachte sie nur Segen durch ihre Taten, als die Gemeinde versorgt wurde, allerdings in vieler Gutmütigkeit, aber in einer Gutmütigkeit, die doch vereinbar war damit, daß die Frau wiederum unendlich Tragisches litt.
Alles das, was als ein Gemeinsames entstand, was da karmische Fäden knüpfte, all das setzte sich fort, und beim weiteren Durchschreiten des Lebens zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt, jetzt nach dem 9, Jahrhundert bis in die neuere Zeit herauf, bildeten sich wiederum Impulse, die diese Menschen zusammenhielten. Und sie wurden jetzt, zwar nicht in irgendeiner äußeren Gemeinschaft, aber doch so wiedergeboren, daß die, die einstmals Sklavenseelen und dann in einer Dorfgemeinde verbunden waren, wenigstens in der gleichen Zeit wiedergeboren wurden, so daß die Möglichkeit da war, wieder in eine Beziehung zu treten zu der gleichzeitig geborenen Priesterindividualität aus der alten Mysterienstätte, der Sklavenführerindividualität in dem Zeitalter hundert Jahre vor Christus, der Frauenindividualität im 9. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert. Denn wiedergeboren wurde diese Individualität als Pestalozzi. Diejenigen, die auch ungefähr gleichzeitig wiedergeboren wurden, um das Karma zu erfüllen, diese Seelen, die ein so geartetes Verhältnis zu ihm hatten, wie ich es jetzt geschildert habe, die mußten die Schüler, die Zöglinge werden, denen Pestalozzi in Erfüllung seines Karma jetzt so ungeheure Wohltaten zukommen ließ.
Nun, meine lieben Freunde, es ist wirklich so: Wenn man das Leben betrachtet, und hinter dem Leben, wie es einem entgegentritt, sieht das Wirken der Seelen von Inkarnation zu Inkarnation — gewiß, es muß bestürzen, muß überraschen, denn es ist immer anders, als es der Verstand haben möchte. Aber dennoch, es bekommt das Leben etwas von einer ungeheuren Vertiefung seines Inhaltes, wenn man es in diesem Zusammenhang betrachtet. Und ich denke, der Mensch hat schon etwas gewonnen dadurch, daß er solche Zusammenhänge betrachtet. Werden ‚sie hervorgeholt - manchmal auf eine recht schwierige Weise — aus den geistigen Hintergründen, und weist man, wie ich heute nur skizzenhaft tun konnte, auf dasjenige hin, was dann im offenbaren Dasein da ist, dann zeigt sich allerdings, wie Karma durch die menschlichen Leben hindurch wirkt. Damit gewinnt schon, wenn man eine solche Betrachtung hört, das Leben ernste Hintergründe, und man kann eine solche Betrachtung verstehen, wenn man das im Äußerlichen sich Darbietende wirklich unbefangen ins Auge faßt.
Anthroposophie ist nicht da, um bloß Theorien von wiederholten Erdenleben zu entwickeln und allerlei Schemata zu geben, sondern um die ganz konkreten geistigen Untergründe des Lebens zu zeigen. Die Menschen werden ganz anders in die Welt blicken, wenn wir diese Dinge zur Enthüllung bringen. Wenn es einmal sein soll, werden wir darauf hinzuweisen haben, wie das nun auch in die Taten der Menschen eingreifen kann. Wenn Sie solches wissen, wird sich schon zeigen, daß derlei wirkliche praktische Karmabetrachtungen dasjenige sind, was unsere Zivilisation als Einschlag, als Vertiefung braucht. Heute wollte ich Ihnen nur diese praktischen Karmabeispiele ans Herz legen. Betrachten Sie die Persönlichkeiten, die bekannt sind, genauer, Sie werden schon manches von dem, was ich ausgesprochen habe, bewahrheitet finden.
Second Lecture
It has already been said here in the circles of our Bernese anthroposophical friends how the Christmas Conference at the Goetheanum was intended to bring a new feature into the anthroposophical movement. The awareness of this new trait cannot be emphasized often enough. For before this Christmas Conference - at least in practice, if perhaps not everywhere - the view was that the Anthroposophical Society was a kind of management organization for the content and life impulse of anthroposophy. This has essentially been the case since the Anthroposophical Society became independent from the Theosophical Society.
And the development of this Anthroposophical Society has not proceeded as it could have, given that I myself did not hold any position on the board or anything like that, but was in a completely free position within the Society, so to speak. Nevertheless, little notice was actually taken of everything that could have developed under these conditions. And so it came about that from about the year 1919 onwards - after the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society had been difficult during the war years - all kinds of endeavors arose within the Anthroposophical Society, endeavors that arose from such and such ambitions within the circle of members, which basically had a detrimental effect on the actual anthroposophical cause, detrimental in the sense that, I would say, the hostility of the outside world came to the fore to a particular degree. It is quite natural, my dear friends, that when such endeavors arise within a society that stands on occult ground, one must ultimately - out of esotericism - allow these things to arise. For think of it, if all the things that wanted to form there had been denied by me from the beginning, most of those involved today would say: Yes, if only this or that had happened, it would have led to something favorable! - It is fair to say that the anthroposophical movement's position in the world became more and more difficult as a result.
I don't want to mention the details, but rather work more towards the positive; I just want to say that it has become necessary to contrast all the negative things that have gradually appeared in society with the positive. Such a positive foundation - I often had to mention this before the Christmas Conference at the Goetheanum - as the anthroposophical movement, which is actually a spiritual current, guided by spiritual powers and spiritual forces from the supersensible world, which only have their manifestation here in the physical world, should not be thrown together with the Anthroposophical Society, which is precisely an administrative society - as far as it is able - for the cultivation of the anthroposophical impulse.Now, since the Christmas conference at the Goetheanum, things have certainly changed. And it was only from the point of view of becoming different that it made sense for me to take over the chairmanship myself - together with a board with which, as a unified organism, we can and must work quite intensively for the anthroposophical movement. This prerequisite is that the anthroposophical movement should now become one with the Anthroposophical Society. So what was not true before the Christmas Conference has changed radically since the Christmas Conference. The Anthroposophical Society must now coincide with the anthroposophical movement as it presents itself in the world. But this has made it necessary for the esoteric impulse that flows through the anthroposophical movement to really come to the fore in the whole constitution of the Anthroposophical Society. Therefore, since this Christmas meeting in Dornach, it must be recognized without fail that the appointment of the Dornach Board is itself an esoteric act, that it is a matter of a true esoteric current running through the Society and that the appointment of the Board is to be regarded as an esoteric act. It is on this premise that the Board has been formed.
Furthermore, it must be noted that the Anthroposophical Society cannot now exist merely as an administrative body for anthroposophy, but that anthroposophy itself must now be practiced in everything that happens in the Anthroposophical Society. The activity itself must be anthroposophical. That is what, it seems, is quite difficult to settle into consciousness. But this thorough transformation should gradually settle into the consciousness of our dear friends.
And first of all an attempt has been made, in the newsletter attached to the “Goetheanum”, to bring into the Society that which can give this Society a unified substance, which can bring a unified train of thought, so to speak, which can serve the flow of the spiritual through the movement; which makes a unified train of thought possible, especially through the weekly formulation of guiding principles, which should be the basic germ, so to speak, for what happens in the individual branches. It is strange how little is still recognized about the anthroposophical movement.
Some time ago I received a letter from a younger member of the Anthroposophical Society. This letter was about the incorporation - for here, for Switzerland, this has no significance, but I mention it as an example - about the incorporation of the Community for Christian Renewal into the Anthroposophical Society. At a certain point I emphasized from the Goetheanum in Dornach how this Community for Christian Renewal is to be understood in relation to the Anthroposophical Society. At that time I emphasized that I could not somehow be understood as the founder of the Christian Community from within the Anthroposophical Society, but that this Christian Community was formed by me alongside the Anthroposophical Society - at that time I used the expression “as a private individual”. This letter now ties in with this expression “private man”, after it is said that a religious renewal cannot happen through a human being, but only through a spiritual impulse from the upper spheres flowing back into the earthly impulses: Only from divine-spiritual powers themselves can a religious renewal be hoped for. That is quite right. But one thing is perhaps forgotten - and it is necessary that this one thing be fully understood in the Anthroposophical Society. What must be understood is this: that the anthroposophical movement as such - and in it also lie the sources for the Christian renewal movement - does not owe its origin to a merely human impulse, but that it is precisely that which is brought into the world under the influence and out of the impulse of spiritual-divine powers. If one sees in anthroposophy itself a spiritually instituted thing that flows esoterically through civilization, then only if something else arises from the sources of anthroposophy can one have the right view, and such an objection as that in the letter cannot arise. There must be an awareness that the Anthroposophical Society will continue to be guided esoterically from the Goetheanum.
This is connected with the fact that a completely new course is running through everything that is now understood as an anthroposophical movement. That is why you will also notice, my dear friends, how differently one can speak since that time than was the case before. In the future, nothing else will matter except that in all measures taken by the anthroposophical movement, which is identical with the Anthroposophical Society, there will in future be a responsibility towards the spiritual powers themselves. But this must be understood correctly. In particular, it must be understood that the title “General Anthroposophical Society” must not be used for any event without first reaching an agreement with the Dornach Board; that nothing initiated by Dornach can be used in any way without establishing a corresponding relationship with the Dornach Board. I must mention this because there are always such things going on, for example, that lectures are given under the title of the General Anthroposophical Society without Dornach being asked. Things of an esoteric nature, such as formulas and the like, are used without being justified by an agreement with the Board, which is absolutely necessary, because we are dealing with realities, not with some administrative measures or formalities. So for all these and similar matters, an understanding must be sought or a request made to the Secretary of the Dornach Board. If there is no agreement, the event in question will be regarded as not emanating from the anthroposophical movement. This would have to come to light in some way.
It is now the case that anything bureaucratic or formally administrative must be eliminated from the Anthroposophical Society in the future. The relationship that exists within the Anthroposophical Society is a purely human one, one that focuses everything on the human. Perhaps I may also mention here that this is already evident in the fact that all of the twelve thousand membership certificates that are issued are now signed by me personally. I have also been advised that I should have a stamp made and affixed. I don't do that. It's only a small measure, but it's something else if I've let my eye rest on a member's name and the, albeit abstract, personal relationship has been established. Even if it is an externality, it should indicate that in future the aim is to make the relationships personal, human. That is why, for example, the other day in Prague, when it was asked whether the Bohemian National Society could become a member of the Anthroposophical Society, it had to be decided that it could not: only individuals can become members of the Anthroposophical Society; they can then unite to form groups of some kind. But as individual people they become members and carry the certificate as individual people. Legal persons, i.e. non-human personalities, will not have this. Similarly, the statutes are not statements, but a simple narrative of what the Board in Dornach, which is to be understood in the esoteric sense, wants to do for the anthroposophical movement on its own initiative, All these things must be taken with the utmost seriousness in the future; only in this way will it be possible to create in the Anthroposophical Society that without whose creation it would have been impossible for me to take over the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society myself.
Now, through the Christmas Conference, a new impetus will certainly be given to all our work and creations. And that is why in the future we will speak entirely from the spiritual, speak in such a way that the things that have happened recently can no longer happen. You see, a large part of the hostility, for example, has arisen from many provocative things in society. Of course, there are all kinds of unfair things, but in the future it will no longer be possible to deal with hostilities in the same way as in the past. For the cycles are such that they are available to everyone, that they can be obtained from the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House. We will not have them advertised in the book trade, nor is the release to be understood in such a way that they will be inserted into the book trade, but they will be accessible to everyone. This alone dispels the claim that the Anthroposophical Society is a secret society with secret writings. But in the future many things will flow through the anthroposophical movement which cannot be related to any hostile outside world. Much of what will flow into the teachings of the Anthroposophical Society in the future will be such that it will arouse the natural hostility of those who are outside, but a hostility that will not be cared for because it is a natural one.
So I would like to speak to you from this spirit, I would like to speak in particular about how the understanding of the historical development of humanity takes on a completely different light when one takes seriously the contemplation of the karma relationships in the world becoming.
You see, at the very first meeting that was held in Berlin to found the then German Section of the Theosophical Society, I chose a certain title for a lecture that I wanted to give at that time. The title was: “Practical Karma Exercises”. At that time I wanted to introduce what is to happen now. I want to get serious with the contemplation of karma.
At that time there were some older members of the Theosophical Society in the German Section of the Theosophical Society; they began to tremble that I had the intention of starting in such an esoteric way. And in fact there was no mood for it. You could see how little prepared souls were for such a thing. The subject of “Practical Karma Exercises” could not be presented in the form that was intended at the time. The circumstances at that time made it necessary to speak in a much more exoteric way than was intended at the time. However, after more than two decades of preparatory work, it was necessary to begin with the real esoteric. Thus the Christmas Conference could take place in Dornach, where the esoteric came into the Society, and so now we can actually take up where it was intended at that time to bring this esoteric trait into the Society.
Historical development of mankind, what is it actually when we look at what is revealed to man as repeated earth lives? Consider, my dear friends, that when any personality appears in a leading or guiding role in the development of humanity, we must say that this personality carries within it a spiritual individuality which was often already there in earth life and which brings into this earth life the impulses from earlier earth lives. In reality, we only understand them if we understand them from their earlier earthly life. At the same time we see from this how that which was effective in earlier epochs of world history is carried over from earlier epochs of world history by the people themselves. That which lives in today's civilization has grown out of the people of the wider present. But these people of the wider present are the same souls who were there in earlier epochs, who have absorbed what earlier epochs of civilization brought. These people themselves have carried this over into the present. And it is similar for the other epochs. So that one can only understand this flowing forth of the impulses of civilization if one can enter into that which is carried over by the souls from one epoch into another. Then, however, a concrete history emerges in contrast to the abstract one. Otherwise one only ever speaks of ideas working in world history or of moral will, moral impulses in general, which carry things over from one period to another. The carriers of what comes from other cultural epochs are the human souls themselves, for they always embody themselves anew. Only then can one understand how one has become oneself, how one has brought in that which underlies the fate of the body, the fate of good and evil, if one first looks at the way in which that which has become history has been carried from one epoch to another by the people themselves, who have lived in repeated lives on earth. Then the secrets, the great mysteries of historical development are revealed.
Now I would like to use three examples today to show how karma works through concrete personalities: one example that leads more to the great arena of history, and two further examples that focus more on the reincarnations of individual people.
You see, our modern civilization contains a great deal of what is actually not quite right for Christianity today, for Christian development: the newer natural science with everything that is already carried from it into the elementary school, so that people who also know nothing of natural science have a way of thinking in the sense of natural science. These impulses are not actually Christian. Where do they come from?
Well, you all know that Arabism, inspired by Mohammed, spread about half a millennium after Christianity was founded. First of all, this Arabism is traced back to the fact that Mohammed founded a doctrine that in a certain sense opposed Christianity. Opposed Christianity in what way? You see, it is already part of Christianity that the three forms of the divine live in the core of Christianity: the Father, the Son and the Spirit. This leads back to the ancient mysteries, which led man up through four preliminary stages, then through the three upper stages. When man has reached the fifth stage, he appears as the representative of the Spirit, in the sixth as the representative of the Christ, in the seventh, the highest, as the representative of the Father. I just want to mention that.
This trinity makes it possible for the impulse of freedom to lie in the development of Christianity. One looks up to God the Father. What do we have there? If one looks up to the Father God, then the Father God is that spirituality that lives in all the forces of the universe that emanate from the moon for being on earth. Now within the earthly being all those forces emanate from the moon which have to do with the impulses of physical germination, that is, in the case of the human being, the physical incarnation. Of course, one must always be aware that this physical incarnation has its spiritual side. We descend from the pre-earthly existence, which is a spiritual-soul existence, into the earthly existence, we unite with the physical body. But everything that happens there, that places the human being from birth into earthly life, is God the Father's creation, is creation for the earth through lunar forces. Thus man, by being subject to the lunar forces throughout his earthly life, is already predestined to be subject to certain impulses when he enters earthly development. That is why, for example, a moon religion, a pronounced father religion - as was the Hebrew-Jewish religion of antiquity - is quite intent on allowing only that to be valid in man which is predisposed in him by the Father God forces, by the moon forces. But when Christianity was founded, ancient mystery truths were still present in the environment of Christ, which, for example, pointed back to very specific institutions that existed in the oldest period of post-Atlantean cultural development, institutions that seem quite grotesque to man today, but which were founded in human nature.
You see, when man had reached the age of thirty in the first post-Atlantean cultural period, which we have called the primeval Indian period, a quite radical transformation, a metamorphosis occurred in his life on earth. A transformation so radical that, expressed in today's modern form, the following could happen: The person who had passed the age of thirty met another person whom he knew very well, with whom he was perhaps friends, and who had not yet passed the age of thirty. He spoke to him, wanted to greet him. He who has passed his thirtieth year does not understand what he wants: he has forgotten everything he has experienced on earth by the time he is thirty! And that which continues to act as an impulse in his life was given to him through the Mysteries. So it was in the earliest times of development after the Atlantean catastrophe. In order to experience what he had experienced before, he first had to inquire: he first had to learn it from the small community that was there. At the age of thirty, his soul was so transformed that he was a completely new person. He began a new existence, just as he had begun as a child at birth. At that time it was quite clear to him that up to the age of thirty the forces of youth were at work; then the Mysteries, which contained real impulses, had to ensure that the human being continued to exist as a human being in his soul. The Mysteries did this because they were the owners of the Mystery of the Son.
The Christ now lived at a time when the mysteries of the Son, as I can only hint at them here, had completely disappeared and were only still known in small circles. But the Christ was able to reveal himself through his experience in the thirtieth year of his life in such a way that he was now the last to receive the Son impulse directly from the universe, just as one must receive it in order to be as dependent on the solar forces after the thirtieth year as he was before on the lunar forces. Christ made man understand that the Son-being in him is that solar being which had once been expected in the Mysteries, but as something which was not on earth. Thus mankind has been pointed out, just as in the ancient mysteries one looked into the secrets of the solar power, so now to the Christ, to say that now the solar mystery has entered into man. This was completely eradicated in the first Christian centuries. Star wisdom, cosmic wisdom has been eradicated, and a materialistic view of the Mystery of Golgotha has gradually formed, which only knows the Christ as something that lived in Jesus, but otherwise wants to know nothing of the whole context.
Now those who knew this were able to say in the first Christian centuries: The Son God or Christ God exists alongside God the Father. The Father God is the governor of that which is fatalistically inclined in man, because it is born with him and works in him like natural forces. This is also how the Hebrew religion is constituted. Christianity places next to it the power of the Son, which enters into the human life course as a creator in his soul, which makes him free and allows him to be reborn before himself, so that he can become something in earthly life that is not yet predestined by birth through the lunar forces. This was the main impulse of Christianity in the first centuries.
Muhammadanism rebelled against this impulse with its sentence, which has a far-reaching effect: There is no god but God, whom Mohammed has to proclaim. - It is a return to pre-Christianity, only in the renewal that had to occur because it happened half a millennium after the foundation of Christianity. Thus the god of nature, the father god, was made the only god, not a god of freedom, a god who leads people to freedom. Within Arabism, where Mohammedanism is spreading, this favors a renewal of ancient cultures. A renewal of ancient cultures with the exclusion of Christianity is indeed taking place in a grandiose way in various civilization centers of the Orient. At the same time as the warlike currents of Arabism spread from East to West, in Africa, I would like to say, embracing Christianity, a procession of renewal of ancient culture in Arabism was taking place.
A brilliant place for this Arabism was over in Asia at the court of Harun al Raschid, in the age in which Charlemagne reigned in Europe. But while Charlemagne could barely get beyond being able to write and read, to develop the most primitive beginnings of culture, a most magnificent culture lived at the court of Harun al Rashid. Harun was perhaps not an entirely good mind, but a comprehensive mind, a penetrating, ingenious mind, a universal mind in the best sense of the word. He gathered at court all the wise men who were the bearers of all that could be known at that time: Poets, philosophers, physicians, theologians, architects, all of whom lived at the court of Harun al Rashid, led by his great spirit.
Now at this court of Harun al Rashid lived a very eminent, significant spirit, a spirit who - not at that time in the incarnation at the court of Harun al Rashid, but in an earlier incarnation - had been a real initiate. You will ask yourself: Doesn't an initiate who passes through incarnations remain an initiate? One can have been a deep initiate in an earlier epoch, and one must use that body in a new epoch, one must undergo that education which can come out of that epoch. Then one must keep the forces that first come from the earlier incarnation in the subconscious. That which is in accordance with the corresponding civilization must then develop in a person. This is certainly how people live who outwardly appear to be the results of their civilization; but through the way they live outside, one sees deeper impulses in them: they were formerly initiates, do not lose this, act accordingly in their subconscious; but they cannot help but adapt themselves to what the life of culture grants them.
So the personage of whom tradition says that he made great arrangements for all the sciences at the court of Harun al Rashid was at that time just one of the greatest sages of his time, with a talent for organization so outstanding in spirit that much of what worked at the court of Harun al Rashid emanated from this spirit.
Now Arabism spread through the centuries. We know of the wars that Europe waged to put Arabism in its place. But that was not the end of it: the souls that were active in Arabism pass through the gate of death, develop further through the spiritual world and remain active in a certain way. This is the case with the two individualities of Harun al Rashid and his wise counselor who lived at his court.
First, let us follow Harun al Rashid. He passes through the gate of death and continues to develop through the spiritual world. The outward form of Arabism is being pushed back; Christianity is implanting its exoteric character, which it has gradually assumed, into Central and Western Europe. But as little as it is possible to continue to work in the old form of Mohammedanism, of Arabism in Europe, it is possible for the souls of those who once lived at the court of Harun al Raschid in this brilliant civilization and received the impulse to continue to work in it to continue to work.
So we see that Harun al Rashid himself is re-embodied in the much-mentioned personality of Baco of Verulam, that leading English spirit from whom the whole modern scientific way of thinking and thus much of what now lives in people is influenced. Harun al Rashid could not spread from London, from England, a culture and civilization formed in the strict sense of Arabism; this soul had to make use of the form that was possible in the Western Occident. But the whole basic trait, the basic style of what Baco of Verulam poured over the European way of thinking is the old Arabism in its new form. And so Arabism lives on in what scientific thinking is today, because Baco of Verulam was Harun al Rashid reincarnated.
The wise man who lived at his court also passed through the gate of death, but he took a different path. He could not immerse himself in such a materialistic current of thought as Baco could, he had to remain with a more spiritual current of thought. And so it came about that in the age in which Baco of Verulam also worked, another spirit was at work - but now in Central Europe - which in a sense met in soul with that which emanated from the soul of the reborn Harun al Raschid. We see, as it were, the Baco current flowing from England towards Central Europe, from west to east. The fact that the soul, I might say, brought this view of Arabism back from Spain and France, makes it understandable that it received a different content than the soul that passes through the gate of death, that during its passage through the spiritual world turned its gaze to what was in Eastern and Central Europe, and was reborn in Central Europe as Amos Comenius. He renewed what he had lived out at the court of Harun al Raschid out of oriental wisdom by being the personality in the 17th century who vigorously defended the idea: A spiritual, a structured spiritual goes through the development of mankind. - It is often said trivially that Comenius believed in the “millennial kingdom”. That is a trivial statement. In truth, it means that Comenius believed in epochs in the development of mankind, that he assumed a spiritual world-historical development structured from the spiritual world. He wanted to show that a spiritual force permeates and interweaves the whole of nature: he writes a “Pansophia”, an all-wisdom. It is actually a deep spiritual trait in what Amos Comenius did. He was an innovator in the field of education. This is well known: he strove for clarity, but a different clarity than materialism, a thoroughly spiritual clarity. I cannot go into this in detail, I can only point out how Arabism in Western form, Arabism in Oriental form, flowed out of what emerged in Central Europe from the confluence of these two intellectual impulses.
We can only understand much of what lives in the civilization of Central Europe if we see how the spirits who lived at the court of Harun al Rashid themselves - in the form in which it could be renewed - carried over from Asia that which flows from Arabism. Thus we see how the individuality of man works in historical development. And when we look at such significant examples, we can learn from them how karma works through the incarnations. Then it can be applied, as I have discussed on various occasions, to what our own incarnation is. But first we need to have concrete examples.
Now let us first look at one such example - and there is probably a great deal of interest in this here in this country - let us look at the Swiss poet Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. If we look not only at his poetry but also at the personality of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, he can arouse great interest. He is a strange personality, this Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. It has always been like that with him: When he composed his poems, which moved along in wonderful rhythms, you can see, if you can observe these things, how his soul had a tendency to emerge from his body at any given moment. There is something purely spiritual in the wonderful forms of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's poetry, including his prose poems. He also suffered repeatedly in his life from the fate that, when this separation of the spiritual and the physical-bodily became too strong, a clouding occurred in his earthly life. But this only loose interaction of the spiritual-mental and the physical body - one notices it when one occupies oneself with the poems or the personality of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. This individuality, which in the Conrad Ferdinand Meyer incarnation lives only loosely within the physical body, must - so one says at first - have gone through something very special in earlier earthly lives.
Now it is true that research into previous earthly lives is not always easy. One has to go through the most varied disappointments, the most varied setbacks in relation to what one wants to penetrate spiritually. What I say about reincarnations is therefore by no means intended to satisfy the sensationalist, but rather to illuminate ever deeper into historical development.
If you follow Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's life, especially if you start from this loose connection of the spiritual-soul with the physical-bodily, then you are led back to a very early incarnation, an incarnation in the 6th century AD. There you are led to an individuality with which you initially cannot quite come to terms with the spiritual intuition with which you pursue such things. One is actually spiritually led away from this individuality, which lived in Italy and found its way into the form of Christianity that was spreading at that time. One cannot really get to it, and one is then thrown back to the Conrad Ferdinand Meyer incarnation, so that one actually has to return to the later Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in this investigation of an earlier incarnation, when one already believes to have arrived in this incarnation of the 6th century, and now does not properly understand the connection between these two incarnations, until one comes to the solution of the riddle. One realizes that a thought lives in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer that is disturbing, a thought that has also become artistic, a thought that has passed over into his story “The Saint”, in which Thomas Becket, the 12th century Chancellor-Bishop of Canterbury at the court of Henry of England, is treated.
But now, if you follow the thoughts and feelings that lived in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer while he was writing this story, then you really get into the way Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's spirit worked. One is led, as it were, from a darkening of consciousness into illumination and back again. In the end, one says to oneself: There is something very special about this thought in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's story; it cannot be explained so easily, it must actually be deep-seated. Then one comes to the conclusion that it emerges from an impulse in an earlier life on earth, in which the individuality of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer was in Italy, lived at a smaller court, played a great role in Christian development: this individuality experienced something special. One gradually comes to the conclusion that this individuality was sent from Italy to England on a Christian mission. This mission founded the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The individuality that later became Conrad Ferdinand Meyer was, on the one hand, deeply touched by the art that had died out in Italy in the 4th and 5th centuries, which then found its further development in the mosaics of Italy. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's individuality was at work in it. Then, inspired by the Christianity of the time, she went on a mission to England. After co-founding the Archbishopric of Canterbury, she was murdered by an Anglo-Saxon chieftain under strange circumstances.
This circumstance lived on as an impulse in her soul. And when this soul was born as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, this fate of that time lived on in the subconscious: being murdered in England - it has something to do with the Archbishopric of Canterbury! Just as sometimes a memory impulse is brought up when a word resonates, so this impulse “I once had something to do with Canterbury” continues to have an effect, and this drives Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's soul to describe not his fate -- that remains in the subconscious - but the similar fate of Thomas Becket, the Chancellor of Henry of England, who was Archbishop of Canterbury at the same time.
This strange mental suffering of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer also causes his own fate to slip into the other, which he learns from history as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer.
In the time of the Thirty Years' War, when so many chaotic conditions prevailed in Central Europe, this individuality was reborn, as a woman. And as a female personality, the chaotic nature of the Thirty Years' War had a particularly profound effect on this individuality. This woman married a personality who was actually somewhat unpolished, a warhorse who escaped from German circumstances to the Grisons in Switzerland. This is how this couple - the wife receptive to the powerful impressions of the present, which were chaotic, the husband more philistine - spent their time in the Graubünden countryside.
There they absorbed from the worldly events of the time that which seeks to spring forth again in “Jürg Jenatsch”. So Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's thoughts and feelings come to life again from what he experienced in this way. The difficult thing is that Conrad Ferdinand Meyer absorbed these impressions into his soul, but had to drive them to transformation for the reason that he lived in the world in such a way that his spiritual-soul always absorbed impulses, which then had the effect that in the Conrad Ferdinand Meyer incarnation it was only loosely connected with the physical-bodily.
Well, you can see in this something that shows how the old impulses work their way into the thinking, feeling, sensibility and artistic creation of a personality in a very strange way. By speculation, by thinking about it in some intellectual way, the truth about it certainly does not emerge, but really only in spiritual contemplation.
Of particular interest in relation to their repeated lives on earth are personalities who attract the eye in some earthly life. You see, there is a personality who is especially dear and valuable to people here and who allows us to really look into the way souls pass through earth lives. If you really get to know these things, they turn out to be different from what you actually assume.
There we have a soul - I was able to meet it first in a kind of priestly function within ancient mysteries. In a kind of priestly mission; not exactly a leading priest, but a priest who was able to educate souls to a high degree through his position within the Mysteries. A noble personality full of goodness in the incarnation of that time, as it had grown through the Mysteries.
This personality now had the fate, in the first century before the foundation of Christianity, that is about a hundred years before the birth of Christ, to serve a slave trader through customs as they were usual at that time, to be the leader of a group of slaves under a rather cruel personality, who had to work hard and who could not be treated differently than they were treated according to the customs of that time. This personality must not be misjudged or misunderstood. One must understand the relationships in ancient cultures differently than in ours. It must be understood that such a noble personality as the one I am talking about could be reincarnated about a hundred years before the foundation of Christianity as a kind of slave owner for a large army of slaves. She could not act much on her own impulse, that was her difficult fate. But at the same time she had established a peculiar relationship with the souls that were in the slaves who had to work hard. She obeyed, this personality, precisely that more cruel personality of which I have spoken - today we would say: her superior. But in such things, such contexts, antipathies and sympathies are formed. And when this personality, who sometimes did what he had to do with a heavy, bleeding heart according to the orders he had received, went through the gate of death, he met there together with the souls who had also cast a certain hatred on this personality. This then lived out in the life between death and the new birth and thus established soul-spiritual connections, which then acted as impulses in preparation for the next earthly life.
Now, of course, karmic connections are formed between all people who are involved with each other. It is also a matter of destiny that this individuality of which I speak here, which was a kind of slave leader and karmically connected with its superior, whose orders it had to obey, also made itself guilty in a certain way - I would like to say: innocently guilty - of everything that the superior's cruelty brought about. She was involved, even if not out of any original impulse, but prompted by the customs and the whole context, and so there was a karmic bond between the two. This took place in the life between death and rebirth in such a way that this personality, who was the slave leader, was reborn as a woman in the 9th century AD. She became the wife of that cruel superior and experienced many things in this community, which was a karmic compensation for what I have described as a kind of becoming innocent of the atrocities committed. But what is experienced deepens the soul further: some of what was there in the old priestly incarnation reappeared, but with a deep tragedy. The circumstances in the 9th century meant that this couple came into contact with many people who were the reincarnated souls of those who had lived with them as slave souls and who were now also reborn. Human souls are usually reborn together in the same age. And a life relationship arose again on earth.
The souls that were once held together by the slave leader now lived together spatially in a more or less large community. The community servant, one might say - but servant in a somewhat higher sense - was that cruel man. And since he had to deal with all the residents, he only experienced bad things from this community, of which he was not the head, but for which he had to take care of many things. The woman always lived with him. So we see how a number of people grow together with these two personalities. But the karma that had now connected the two personalities, the former superior and the slave leader, this karmic bond is thus fulfilled. The old priestly individuality was no longer bound to this personality, but it remained connected to the others, because many things happened with these souls for which this individuality was at least the instrument in the embodiment about a hundred years before Christ. As a woman she only brought blessing through her deeds when the church was provided for, albeit in many good-natured ways, but in a good-natured way that was compatible with the fact that the woman in turn suffered infinitely tragic things.
All that which arose as a commonality, which knotted karmic threads, all that continued, and in the further passage of life between death and new birth, now after the 9th century up to more recent times, impulses were again formed which held these people together. And they were now reborn, not in any external community, but nevertheless in such a way that those who had once been slave souls and then united in a village community were at least reborn at the same time, so that there was the possibility of entering into a relationship again with the simultaneously born priestly individuality from the old Mystery Place, the slave leader individuality in the age a hundred years before Christ, the women's individuality in the 9th century after Christ. For this individuality was reborn as Pestalozzi. Those who were also reborn at about the same time to fulfill the karma, those souls who had such a relationship to him as I have now described, they had to become the pupils, the pupils to whom Pestalozzi now bestowed such tremendous benefits in fulfillment of his karma.
Now, my dear friends, it is really so: if you look at life, and behind life as it confronts you, you see the working of the souls from incarnation to incarnation - certainly, it must astonish, must surprise, for it is always different from what the mind would like it to be. But nevertheless, life acquires something of a tremendous deepening of its content if you look at it in this context. And I think man has already gained something by looking at such connections. If 'they are brought out - sometimes in a quite difficult way - from the spiritual backgrounds, and if one points, as I have only been able to do sketchily today, to that which is then there in manifest existence, then it becomes apparent how karma works through human life. Thus, when one hears such a contemplation, life already gains a serious background, and one can understand such a contemplation if one really takes an unbiased view of what is presented in the external.
Anthroposophy is not there merely to develop theories of repeated earth lives and to give all kinds of schemes, but to show the very concrete spiritual background of life. People will look at the world quite differently when we reveal these things. When the time comes, we will have to point out how this can also affect people's actions. When you know this, it will become clear that such real practical considerations of karma are what our civilization needs as an impact, as a deepening. Today I just wanted to recommend these practical examples of karma to you. If you take a closer look at the personalities who are known, you will find some of what I have said to be true.