Karmic Relationships IV
GA 238
19 September 1924, Dornach
Lecture VIII
During the past weeks we have been seeking to understand more and more what it means to say that the present age stands in the sign of the dominion of Michael. Thus we were led last time to show how the karma of a human being may work itself out in reality. We showed how difficulties of karma may even go so far that a human being cannot find the way between death and a new birth to live through all that is necessary for the weaving of karma by partaking in the events of the starry world.
So long as our conception is really limited to what happens here in the physical life on earth it is of course difficult for us to receive what we must receive if we are to take the idea of karma in real earnest. But we are living in the age of great decisions and great decisions must take place to begin with in the spiritual field. And in the spiritual field they will be rightly prepared, if out of the deeper anthroposophical spirit, single human beings have the courage to take their study of the spiritual world in real earnest—so much so that they can receive what is brought from the spiritual world and make use of it to understand the phenomena of the outer, physical life.
Hence for a number of months past I have not recoiled from bringing to you detailed facts out of the spiritual life, facts well fitted to enable you to understand the spiritual configuration of the present time.
To-day I will bring forward a few more things as it were to illustrate what I shall then have to say next Sunday, probably in conclusion, showing the whole karma of the spiritual life of the present time in its connection with the tasks and aims of the Anthroposophical Movement.
To begin with, however, I shall bring forward to-day certain facts whose connection with our main subject you will not at once perceive. Nevertheless you will recognise at once how deeply they characterise the spiritual life of the past. Many of these things will seem strange and far-fetched, but life in its totality bears many a paradox, seen from an earthly point of view.
The examples I shall choose to-day are not ordinary ones. For as a rule, a succession of earthly lives is not a continuous succession of historic personalities. It is not generally such that the continuous chain would be visible at all to superficial observation. Nevertheless there are certain successive earthly lives such that if we describe them one after another, we are at the same time giving descriptions of history.
It is seldom the case in such a high degree. But if we do find individualities for whom it is the case, if we can point to the several incarnations as to historic personalities, such an individuality enables us to learn a very great deal about karma. I have already given isolated cases of this kind as you know.
To-day I will tell you about a personality who lived at the end of the first Christian century. Already at that time he was a philosopher. As a philosopher he was most evidently one of the Sceptics, that is to say, he was one of those who really think nothing in the world is certain.
He belonged to that sceptical School which though it already saw the dawn of Christianity, stood altogether on the ground that it is impossible to gain certain knowledge, and above all that it is quite impossible to say with certainty whether a Divine Being could assume a human form or the like.
This individuality—his name in that incarnation is of no great importance, he was a certain “Agrippa”—this individuality in his incarnation in that time, gathered up into himself as it were, the whole of Greek Scepticism. Indeed if we use the word not in a contemptuous sense, but as a technical term, he was one whom we should even call a Cynic. I mean a Cynic not in his conception of life, for in that he was a Sceptic, but a Cynic in his way of taking things. For he was really very fond of making light and joking about most important things that met him in the world. In that life Christianity passed him by, leaving no trace. But a certain mood remained with him as he passed through the gate of death. This mood was not so much a result of his scepticism, for that was his philosophic conviction, a thing that one does not carry very far after one's death. But it lay in the deeper habits of his soul and spirit as an easy-going way of taking important events of life, a certain mischievous delight when things in the world which look important turn out to be not quite so important. This fundamental mood he carried with him into the life after death. Now as I told you yesterday, having passed through the gate of death, man first enters a sphere which leads him by and by into the region of the Moon, where there is the colony of the primeval wise Teachers of mankind. They had once lived on Earth though not in a physical body, nor had they taught in the way we conceive the teaching of later times. They had wandered over the Earth in an etheric body only. And their teaching was such that one man or another who was to receive instruction from them in the Mysteries felt it like an indwelling of these wise Beings of primeval times. He had the feeling: the wise Being has been with me just now. And as an outcome of this indwelling he then felt an inner inspiration. Such was the manner of the teaching given to a human being in those times.
We are referring to the most ancient time of earthly evolution, when the great primeval Teachers wandered upon Earth in their etheric bodies. Then, if we may put it so, they followed the Moon which had already separated as a heavenly body from the Earth. And it is their region which the human being passes, like the first station in his cosmic path of evolution after death. It is they who explain the laws of karma to him, for they have to do with all the wisdom of the past.
Now when the above-mentioned personality, the philosopher“Agrippa,” came into that region, it happened that there dawned upon him most intensely, the meaning of a former incarnation. The characteristic of that former incarnation which now made so great an impression on him as he looked back after death, was this, that in it he had still been able to see a very great deal of how the cults of Asia Minor and Africa proceeded out of the ancient Mysteries.
Now in this Christian time in his super-sensible life, this individuality went once more, with great intensity, through all that he had once undergone on earth in connection with many a decadent system of the Mysteries in Asia Minor. And so it came about that he now saw supersensibly, how in the ancient Mysteries the Christ had been expected (you must remember what I said, that in his life on earth he had not been touched by Christianity).
Now the Mysteries which he had witnessed—I mean the cults that proceeded from the Mysteries—had already grown external. He had in fact received the impressions of cults and religious institutions which were transmitted in the first centuries A.D., in a Christianised metamorphosis of course, to Roman Christianity. Please observe very carefully what I now mean. The point is that in this region after his death, there was prepared in this individuality an understanding for the external features of the cults and clerical institutions which had formerly been Pagan but were arising again in the first Christian centuries and passing over into the clearly defined Roman cult and ceremony with all the ecclesiastical conceptions that were connected with it.
Now this brought about in him a very peculiar spiritual configuration. In the further course of the life between death and a new birth we see him again, elaborating his karma most especially in the region of Mercury, so that he is able to see many things, not in an inward sense but in the sense of being gifted with outward intelligence. He gains a wide sweep of vision for many facts and relationships.
As we follow this individuality further, we find him again on earth. We find him as the Cardinal who carried on the Government of Louis XIV when Louis XIV was still a child, Cardinal Mazarini. We may study the Cardinal in all his greatness and splendour and with the external conception of Christianity into which he finds his way so readily, so naturally, under the woman who was Louis XIV's guardian.
He absorbs of Christianity all the external institutions, the Christian cult, the Christian pomp and grandeur. For him all these things are surrounded, as it were, with an Eastern glamour as of Asia Minor. Indeed we may say he rules Europe like one who in a former incarnation had strongly absorbed the character of Asia Minor.
But in this life Cardinal Mazarini did indeed have occasion to be more powerfully touched by the facts and circumstances. You need only remember that it was the time of the Thirty Years' War. Remember all the things that took place proceeding from Louis XIV. There was indeed a peculiar quality in this Cardinal Mazarini. He was a great statesman with a wide sweep of vision, yet on the other hand in the midst of a certain noise and confusion. We might say that he was intoxicated by his own deeds so that they seemed deeds of magnificent skill, but not coming out of the depths of the heart.
Now this life took a peculiar course in passing through the time between death and a new birth. We can actually see how in passing again through the region of Mercury, all that this personality had done was dissolved as in a cloud of mist. But there remained with him the ideas he had absorbed about Christianity and all he had undergone by way of scepticism in relation to knowledge. These things were transformed in his life between death and a new birth.“Science can never lead us to the final truths.” An intense feeling for knowledge of which there was a suggestion already in his former passage through Mercury, came and passed away again. And there was karmically developed in his life a peculiar mentality. It was a mentality which held fast with great tenacity to penetrating ideas which he had passed through before. But while he held fast to them, he could evolve for his next life on earth very few concepts with which to master and express them. As this personality passes through the life between death and a new birth one has the feeling: Whatever will he try to do in his next incarnation? Is there anything with which he is really united? One has the feeling: he may be more or less intensely united with all kinds of things and yet again with nothing. All the antecedents are there: the preceding life of scepticism, followed by his intense life in a Christianity with all its external details along the paths by which one becomes a Cardinal. All these things are deeply embedded in him. He will become a man rich in knowledge, yet able to come forward with concepts by no means profound. Moreover the map of Europe which he once ruled over is as though blotted out. One does not know how he will find his way to it again. What will he do with it? He will be altogether at a loss with it.
Yes, my dear friends, we have to enter into such things as these; we have to study what was undergone in passing through the life between death and a new birth in order that we may not err; in order that at length exact and true knowledge may be the outcome.
This personality is re-born in the approaching age of Michael, showing, if I may put it so, a strangely double countenance. He cannot be quite a statesman, nor quite a cleric, but is drawn strongly in both directions. I am referring to Hertling, who became Chancellor of the German Reich at a great age. In karmic sequence he had to use up in this way the remnants of his Mazarini nature. All the peculiar qualities with which he came to Christianity, and entered into it, came forth again in his Christian professorship at the present time.
By this example you may see in what strange ways the men of the present time built up their present individualities in past existences.
Anyone who did not research, but merely thought things out, would of course come to absolutely different conclusions. But we only understand karma when we can take these most extreme cases and connections, seeming almost paradoxical in the world of sense. They are there none the less in the spiritual world, even as that other fact is there, which I have often mentioned—I mean that Ernst Haeckel, who so violently fought against the Church, is the re-incarnation of Abbot Hildebrand, who became Pope Gregory the Great. Here we see how indifferent a matter is the external content of a man's belief or theory in earthly life, for all these things are his thoughts. But if you study Haeckel, especially in connection with what he was as Abbot Hildebrand, as Gregory—(I believe he too is included among these pictures from Chartres)—you will see that there is in fact a real dynamic sequence.
I chose the above example in order that you might see how present individualities carry the past into this present time.
If you will afterwards observe the features of the Monk Hildebrand, who became Gregory the Great and whom you know from history, you will see how wonderfully the soul-configuration of Haeckel is contained in this countenance of Hildebrand, of Gregory the Great.
I will now take another example, which will probably be of great and deep value to you all. Though I almost shudder to speak of it in any easy way, yet I cannot but choose it, for it leads so infinitely deeply into the whole spiritual texture of the present time.
I will now mention another personality, of whom as I said, I almost shudder to speak in this way. And yet he is infinitely characteristic of all that is carried from the past into the present and of the way in which this happens. I have often referred—and it will be known to you from external history—to the Council of Nicæa, which was held in the 4th century, where the decision was made for Western Europe as between Aryanism and Athanasianism, and Aryanism was condemned.
It was a Council in which the important personalities were imbued with all the high scholarship of the first Christian centuries, and brought it forth. They did indeed dispute with deep and far-reaching ideas. For in that time the human soul still had quite a different mood and constitution. It was as a matter of course for the human soul to live directly within the spiritual world. And they were well able to dispute with real content and meaning as to whether Christ was the Son, of the same essence with the Father, or only of like essence with the Father. The latter was the standpoint of Aryanism. To-day we will not go into the dogmatic differences of the question. We will only bear in mind that it was a question of immensely deep and sharp-witted controversies, which were, however, fought out with the peculiar intellectualism of that time. When we to-day are clever and sharp-witted we are so as human beings. Indeed to-day, as I have often said, almost all men are clever. They are really dreadfully clever—that is to say, they can think. Is it not so? It is not saying much, but it is a fact that they can think: I may indeed be very stupid and still be able to think ... but the fact is the men of to-day can think. In those times it was not so. It was not that men could simply think, but they felt their thoughts as inspiration. He who was sharp-witted felt himself gifted by the grace of God, and his thinking was a kind of clairvoyance. It was still so even in the 4th century A.D., and those who listened to a thinker still had some feeling of the living evolution of his thought. Now there was present at the Council of Nicæa a certain personality who took an active part in these discussions, but at the end of the Council he was in a high degree disappointed and depressed. His main effort had been to bring forward the arguments for both sides. He brought forward weighty reasons both for Aryanism and for Athanasianism. And if things had gone as he wished, undoubtedly the result would have been quite different. Not a wretched compromise, but a kind of synthesis of Aryanism and Athanasianism would have been the outcome.—One should not construct history in thought, but this may be said by way of explanation.—It would probably have been a very much more intimate way of relating the divine in the inner being of man to the divine in the universe. For, in the way in which Athanasianism afterwards evolved these things, the human soul was very largely separated from its divine origin. Indeed, it was thought heretical to speak of the god in the inner being of man.
If, on the other hand, Aryanism alone had won the day, there would of course have been much talk of this god in the inner being of man. But it would not have been spoken of with the necessary depth of reverence, and above all, not with the necessary inward dignity. Aryanism alone would indeed have come to regard man at every stage as an incarnation of the god who dwells within him. But the same may be said of any animal, indeed of the whole world, of every plant, of every stone. This conception only has real value if it contains at the same time the active impulse to rise ever higher and higher in spiritual development, for then only do we find the god within. The statement that there is a divine within us at any and every stage of life can have a meaning only if we take hold of this divine in a perpetual upward striving of the self, by whom it is not yet attained.
But a synthesis of the two conceptions would undoubtedly have been the outcome if the personality to whom I now refer had been able to gain any decisive influence at the Council of Nicæa. He failed. Deeply dissatisfied, he withdrew into a kind of Egyptian hermitage, lived a most ascetic life, and was deeply imbued at that time in the 5th century with all that was the real spiritual substance of Christianity during that age. Indeed he was probably one of the best informed of Christians in his time, but he was not a wrangler. This is evident from the very way in which he came forward at the Council. He spoke as a man who quietly weighs and judges all aspects of the question, and is yet deeply enthusiastic for his cause, though not for this or that one-sided detail. He spoke as a man who—I cannot say was disgusted, that would not be the true expression—but as a man who felt his failure with extraordinary bitterness, for he was deeply convinced that good would only come for Christianity if the view for which he stood won its way through.
Thus he withdrew into a kind of hermitage. For the rest of his life he became a hermit, following however, in response to the inner impulses of his soul, a quite definite course of the inner life. It was that of investigating the origin of the inspiration of thought. His mystic penetration was in the effort to perceive whence thinking receives its inspiration. It became one great longing in him to find the source of thinking in the spiritual world, until at length he was filled through and through with this longing. And with this longing he died, without having reached any real conclusion, any concrete answer during that earthly life. No answer was forthcoming. The time was after all unfavourable.
Then, passing through the gate of death, he underwent a peculiar experience. For several decades after his death he could still look back upon his earthly life, and he saw it forever coloured by that element to which he had come at last. He saw it forever in the atmosphere of that which, looking backwards, came immediately next his death. He saw the human being thinking.
Still this was no fulfilment of the question. And this is most important. There was as yet no thought in answer to the question. But though there was no answer, he was able, after his death, to look, in marvellously clear imaginations, into the cosmic intelligence of the universe. The thoughts of the universe he did not see. He would have seen them if his longing had reached fulfilment. He did not see the thoughts of the universe, but he saw in pictures the Thinking of the universe.
Thus there lived through the journey between death and a new birth an individuality who was as in a state of equilibrium between mystic imaginative vision and his former sharp-witted thinking—a thinking, however, in perpetual flow, that had not reached its conclusion.
In the elaboration of the karma, his mystic tendency won the day to begin with. He was born again in the Middle Ages as a visionary, a woman, who unfolded truly wonderful insight into the spiritual world. For a time, the tendency of the thinker fell entirely into the background; the quality of spiritual vision was in the foreground. For this woman had wonderful visions, while at the same time she gave herself up mystically to the Christ. Her soul was penetrated, with infinite depth, by a visionary Christianity. They were visions in which the Christ appeared as the leader of peaceful hosts, not quarrelsome or contentious, but like the hosts of peace, who would spread Christianity abroad by their very gentleness—a thing which had never yet been realised on earth. It was there in the visions of this nun. It was a deep, intensive Christianity, but it found no place at all in what afterwards evolved as Christianity in its more modern form. Nevertheless during her life this nun, the seeress, came into no conflict with positive dogmatic Christianity. She herself grew out of it and grew into a deeply personal Christianity, which was afterwards simply non-existent on the earth. And thus, if I might put it so, the whole universe then faced her with the question: how should this Christianity be realised in a physical body in a new incarnation? And at the same time, long after the seeress had passed through the gate of death, there came over her again the echoes of the old intellectualism, the inspired intellectualism. The after-echoes of her visions were now, if I might put it so, idealised through and through, filled with ideas.
Then, seeking for a new human body, this individual became the individuality of Solovioff, Vladimir Solovioff.
Read the writings of Solovioff!—I have frequently described the impression they make upon a modern man and have said it again in my introduction to the German edition of his works. You may well try to feel it in his writing. You will feel how much there lies between the lines, how much of a mysticism which we may often feel even sultry and oppressive. It is a Christianity quite individual in its forms of expression. It shows quite clearly how it had to seek for a pliable, in all directions supple body, such as can be obtained only out of the Russian people.
Looking at these examples, I think one may indeed preserve the holy awe and reverence before the truths of karma, which should indeed be held sacred and virginal in the inmost depths of life. For one who has a true feeling for the contemplation of the spiritual world, these deep truths are, verily, not unworthily unveiled. I mean this in the sense of what is so often said about the sacred veils of truth, of which people say that they should never be drawn aside.
Anthroposophy has been reproached again and again, notably in theological circles, for drawing aside the veil of sacred mystery from secret and mysterious truths, and thus making them profane. But the more deeply we enter into the esoteric portions of the anthroposophical conception, the more do we feel that there can truly be no talk of profanation. On the contrary the world itself will fill us with a holy awe when we behold the lives of man one after another in the marvellous working of former into later lives. We must only not be profane in our inner life or in our way of thinking and then we shall not make such objections.
Read the writings of Solovioff against the background of the previous nun, with her wonderful visions and infinite devotion to the Being of Christ. See that ancient personality going forth with deep and bitter feelings from the Council where he had brought forward such great and important things. Discover in the soul and in the heart of this individual what I may call the twofold background of Christianity, now in its rationalistic, but inspired rationalistic form, and now again in its visionary form of seership. See all this in the background, and of a truth the lifting of the veil will not profane the secret.
A German romanticist once had the courage to think differently from all others about the famous saying of Isis:“I am that which was, that which is, and that which is to come, and my veil has no mortal yet lifted.”—To which the German romanticist replied: Then we must become immortal, that we may lift the veil!—While others all took the saying as it stood.
When we discover the truly immortal within us, the divine and spiritual, then may we draw near to many a secret without profaning it, to many a secret to which, with a lesser faith in the divine in our own being, we might indeed not draw near.
And this indicates the spirit which should go abroad ever more and more under the influence of such studies as our last and as this present one. For these spiritual studies are meant to work upon the life and action of those who bear their karma, in the way I have described, into the Anthroposophical Society.
Achter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Die Betrachtungen, die wir hier angestellt haben, um immer besser zu begreifen, was es heißt, daß die Gegenwart im Zeichen der Michael-Herrschaft steht, sie haben uns ja das letztemal dazu geführt, zu zeigen, wie eigenartig das Karma von Menschen wirken kann; und sie haben uns in einem gewissen Sinne gezeigt, wie diese Schwierigkeiten selbst darauf sich erstrecken können, daß irgendeine Persönlichkeit nicht den Weg findet zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt, um dasjenige zu durchleben, was zum Weben des Karma durch Teilnahme an den Ereignissen der Sternenwelt nötig ist.
[ 2 ] Es wird ja selbstverständlich für eine Anschauung, die noch ganz mit dem nur verwoben ist, was hier im physischen Erdenleben vor sich geht, schwierig, die Dinge in sich aufzunehmen, die wirklich aufgenommen werden müssen, wenn mit der Karma-Idee Ernst gemacht werden soll. Aber wir leben nun einmal im Zeitalter großer Entscheidungen, und diese Entscheidungen müssen zunächst auf geistigem Felde da sein. Und auf geistigem Felde werden diese Entscheidungen in der richtigen Weise dadurch vorbereitet, daß gerade aus dem tieferen anthroposophischen Geiste heraus einzelne Menschen den Mut fassen, mit der Betrachtung der geistigen Welt soweit Ernst zu machen, daß sie hinnehmen können dasjenige, was herangetragen wird aus dieser geistigen Welt, um die Erscheinungen des äußeren physischen Lebens zu begreifen.
[ 3 ] Deshalb habe ich mich auch nicht gescheut, schon seit einer Reihe von Monaten einzelne Tatsachen des geistigen Lebens heranzutragen, welche geeignet sind, die geistige Konfiguration der Gegenwart zu verstehen. Und ich werde heute einiges weitere vorbringen zur Illustrierung, möchte ich sagen, dessen, was ich dann am Sonntag wohl zum Abschlusse bringen werde, um das ganze Karma des geistigen Lebens der Gegenwart in Verbindung mit dem, was anthroposophische Bewegung soll, zu zeigen.
[ 4 ] Zunächst werde ich allerdings heute einiges vorzubringen haben, bei dem Sie nicht gleich einsehen werden, wie es mit unserem Hauptthema zusammenhängt, bei dem Sie aber sofort erkennen werden, daß es das geistige Leben der Gegenwart im eminentesten Sinne charakterisiert aus den Untergründen des geistigen Lebens der Vergangenheit.
[ 5 ] Manches wird recht paradox erscheinen, aber das totale Leben hat eben für die irdische Betrachtung Paradoxien. Die Beispiele, die ich heute wähle, sind so, daß sie nicht gewöhnlich sind, denn gewöhnliche Aufeinanderfolgen von Erdenleben zeigen uns in der Regel nicht historische Persönlichkeiten, zeigen uns auch nicht Persönlichkeiten so, daß wir mit oberflächlicher Betrachtung eine fortlaufende Kette sehen würden. Aber es gibt tatsächlich Erdenleben, die so aufeinanderfolgen, daß man, indem man sie zusammenfaßt, gleichzeitig Geschichte darstellt.
[ 6 ] Es ist das bei wenigen Individualitäten in so ausgesprochenem Sinne der Fall; aber gerade solche Individualitäten, bei denen wir gewissermaßen auf die einzelne Inkarnation als eine historische hindeuten können, wie ja das schon der Fall war bei einzelnen, die ich im Laufe der Zeit angeführt habe, gerade bei solchen Individualitäten können wir über das Karma außerordentlich viel lernen. Und da möchte ich denn zunächst von einer Persönlichkeit erzählen, die gelebt hat am Ende des ersten christlichen Jahrhunderts, schon dazumal Philosoph war, ein Philosoph, der im ausgesprochensten Sinne zu den Skeptikern gehörte, das heißt zu denen, die eigentlich nichts in der Welt für gewiß halten. Er gehörte zu derjenigen skeptischen Schule, welche zwar schon das Christentum hereinbrechen sah, aber die durchaus auf dem Boden stand, daß man sichere Erkenntnisse überhaupt nicht gewinnen könne, daß man also vor allen Dingen nicht irgendwie sagen könne, ob irgendein göttliches Wesen menschliche Gestalt annehmen könne oder dergleichen.
[ 7 ] Diese Individualität — der Name der damaligen Zeit tut nicht viel zur Sache, er war ein Agrippa —, diese Individualität, die dazumal verkörpert war, faßte sozusagen alles, was die griechische Skepsis aufgebracht hatte, in ihrer Persönlichkeit zusammen und war in gewissem Sinne eine Persönlichkeit, die wir, wenn wir das Wort nicht in verächtlichem Sinne, sondern mehr als einen Terminus technicus nehmen, sogar einen Zyniker nennen würden; einen Zyniker nicht in bezug auf die Lebensanschauung, da war er Skeptiker, aber Zyniker in bezug auf die Art und Weise, wie er die Dinge der Welt hingenommen hat: nämlich so, daß er eigentlich sehr gern, selbst über recht wichtige Dinge, scherzte. Und es ging dazumal das Christentum an ihm ganz spurlos vorüber. Aber es blieb, als er durch die Pforte des Todes ging, eine Stimmung, die weniger ein Ergebnis seiner Skepsis war — denn das war ja eine philosophische Anschauung, die trägt man nicht sehr weit nach dem Tode mit —, aber dasjenige, was in den inneren Seelen- und Geistgewohnbheiten liegt, dieses leichte Hinnehmen von wichtigen Ereignissen des Lebens, dieses Sich-Freuen darüber, wenn sich manches, was wichtig ausschaut, nicht als wichtig erweist: das war so die Grundstimmung. Und so wurde denn diese Grundstimmung in das Leben nach dem Tode hineingetragen.
[ 8 ] Nun habe ich ja schon gestern angedeutet: Zunächst tritt der Mensch, wenn er die Pforte des Todes durchlaufen hat, in eine Sphäre ein, welche ihn nach und nach in das Gebiet des Mondes führt. Und ich habe angedeutet, wie da eigentlich die Kolonie der Urweisen der Menschheit ist, jener Urlehrer, die einstmals auf der Erde gelebt haben, dazumal aber nicht in einem physischen Leibe waren, daher auch nicht so lehrten, wie man sich das Lehren von später vorzustellen hat, sondern die nur im ätherischen Leibe wandelten auf der Erde, die so lehrten, daß der eine oder der andere, der von ihnen belehrt sein sollte in den Mysterien, dies empfand wie ein Innewohnen dieser Urweisen. Er hatte das Gefühl: Der Urweise war nun bei mir. — Und als Erfolg dieses Innewohnens des Urweisen empfand er dann eine innere Inspiration, durch welche eben in der damaligen Zeit gelehrt wurde. Das waren die ältesten Zeiten der Erdenentwickelung, wo die großen Urlehrer auf der Erde in ihren ätherischen Leibern wandelten. Diese Urlehrer sind es, die dann sozusagen dem Monde, der sich da als Weltenkörper schon von der Erde getrennt hatte, nachzogen und deren Gebiet nun der Mensch passiert, als erste Station gewissermaßen seiner kosmischen Entwickelung. Sie sind es, die ihn über das Karma aufklären, denn sie haben es ja namentlich mit der Weisheit der Vergangenheit zu tun.
[ 9 ] Und als die betreffende Persönlichkeit, Agrippa, in dieses Gebiet eintrat, da war es, daß ihr sehr stark der Sinn einer früheren Inkarnation aufging, die sie gehabt hatte, die besonders charakteristisch war und jetzt gewissermaßen im Rückblick nach dem Tode einen großen Eindruck machte, weil in dieser Inkarnation von der betreffenden Individualität noch viel hatte gesehen werden können von der Art und Weise, wie die Kulte Vorderasiens und Afrikas aus den alten Mysterien hervorgingen.
[ 10 ] Diese Individualität machte dann recht intensiv wieder neuerdings durch, übersinnlich, in christlicher Zeit, dasjenige, was sie durchgemacht hatte auf Erden im Zusammenhange mit manchem untergehenden Mysterienwesen Vorderasiens. Und das bewirkte dann, daß sie — sie war ja nicht vom Christentum berührt, wie ich gesagt habe —, daß diese Individualität jetzt sah, übersinnlich sah, wie in den alten Mysterien der Christus erwartet wurde.
[ 11 ] Aber da die Mysterien — ich meine die Kulte aus den Mysterienstätten, die diese Persönlichkeit sah — schon veräußerlicht waren an den Orten, wo sie gelebt hatte, nahm diese Persönlichkeit Kulte, Einrichtungen auf, die sich im Laufe der ersten Jahrhunderte der christlichen Entwickelung in verchristlichter Metamorphose eben auf das römische Christentum übertrugen.
[ 12 ] Also merken Sie wohl auf, meine lieben Freunde, um was es sich da handelt. Es handelt sich darum, daß in dieser Region nach dem Tode bei dieser Individualität ein Verständnis für das Äußerliche der Kulte und für das Äußerliche der Kircheneinrichtungen vorbereitet wurde, die ehedem heidnische waren, die aber wieder erstanden innerhalb der ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte und zum ausgesprochen römischen Kultus übergingen mit all den Auffassungen des kirchlichen Wesens, das mit dem römischen Kultus zusammenhing.
[ 13 ] Sehen Sie, das bewirkte eine ganz besondere Geisteskonfiguration bei der betreffenden Persönlichkeit. Nun sehen wir wiederum in diesem Verlauf, den da der Mensch durchmacht zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, diese Individualität ganz besonders das Karma ausarbeiten in der Merkur-Region, so daß sie nicht im innerlichen Sinne, aber im Sinne der Begabung mit äußerer Intelligenz, große Überschau bekommt über Verhältnisse.
[ 14 ] Und wenn wir dann diese Individualität weiter verfolgen, treffen wir sie auf der Erde wiederum als jenen Kardinal, der die Regietung Ludwigs XIV. besorgte, während Ludwig XIV. selber noch ein Kind war: als Kardinal Mazarin. Und wenn wit nun den Kardinal Mazarin studieren in alle dem, was er Glänzend-Splendides, Großes hat, und in alle dem, was er an äußerlicher Auffassung des Christentums hat, das ihm sogleich eingeht — auch in dem, wie er sich gewohnheitsmäßig einlebt in die Art jener Frau, welche die Vormundschaft über Ludwig XIV. führt —, da sehen wir: Er nimmt all dasjenige vom Christentum auf, was christliche Einrichtungen sind, christlicher Kultus, christlicher Prunk: er nimmt das alles auf, indem es sich ihm umgibt mit dem Glanze des vorderasiatisch-orientalischen Wesens. Und er regiert Europa im Grunde genommen so wie jemand, der vorderasiatisches Wesen stark aufgenommen hat in einer viel früheren Inkarnation.
[ 15 ] Aber dieser Kardinal Mazarin hatte schon Gelegenheit, nun ein wenig stark berührt zu werden von den Verhältnissen. Sie müssen nur das Zeitalter in Betracht ziehen: das Auslaufen des Dreißigjährigen Krieges, all die Dinge, die sich abspielten als von Ludwig XIV. ausgehend.
[ 16 ] Kardinal Mazarin war mit einer großen Überschau begabt, ein großer Staatsmann, aber auch wiederum wie im 'Taumel, betäubt eigentlich von den eigenen Taten; so daß diese Taten, man möchte sagen, wie grandiose Geschicklichkeiten abliefen, aber nicht wie etwas, was aus dem tiefen Herzen kommt.
[ 17 ] Dies Leben wird ganz merkwürdig, indem es nun wiederum durch die Zeit hindurchgeht zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt. Da kann man geradezu sehen, wie beim weiteren Passieren der Merkur-Region, man möchte sagen, alles das, was diese Persönlichkeit getan hat, sich wie in einen Nebel auflöst. Es bleibt alles, was diese Persönlichkeit aufgenommen hat an Ideen über das Christentum, es bleibt alles, was diese Persönlichkeit durchgemacht hat an Skepsis gegenüber der Wissenschaft, und alles das bildet sich nun um in diesem Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt: Die Wissenschaft liefert nicht die letzten Wahrheiten; ein intensiver Erkenntnissinn, der im Anfluge eigentlich schon da war beim vorigen Passieren des Merkur, der vergeht wiederum, und es bildet sich in diesem Leben karmisch eine eigentümliche Mentalität aus; eine Mentalität, welche eindringliche Anschauungen, die diese Individualität durchgemacht hat, mit großer Zähigkeit festhält, die aber wenig Begriffe entwickeln kann für das nächste Leben, um sie zu beherrschen. Man hat das Gefühl, indem sie da durchgeht durch das Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt: Was soll denn diese Individualität eigentlich in der neuen Inkarnation, die sie nun anstreben will? Mit was ist sie denn nun eigentlich richtig verbunden? Man hat das Gefühl: Die kann mehr oder weniger intensiv verbunden werden mit allem möglichen und mit nichts. Alle Antezedenzien sind dazu da. Die Intensität, mit der — nach vorangegangener Skepsis — auf all den Wegen, auf denen man zum Kardinal wird, das Christentum mit allen einzelnen Äußerlichkeiten durchlebt wird, das sitzt tief in der Persönlichkeit: Diese Persönlichkeit muß kenntnisreich werden, doch mit leichtgeschürzten Begriffen auftreten können. Aber außerdem: Wie ausgelöscht ist, ich möchte sagen, die europäische Landkarte, die sie einmal beherrscht hat. Man weiß nicht: Wie soll sie wieder zu der sich finden? Was wird sie anfangen mit dieser europäischen Landkarte? — Sie wird ganz gewiß nichts damit anzufangen wissen.
[ 18 ] Ja, meine lieben Freunde, man muß diese Dinge beim Durchgehen des Lebens zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt durchmachen, damit man sich nur ja nicht irrt, damit nun wirklich ein exaktes Wissen herauskommt. Diese Persönlichkeit wird wiedergeboren als eine solche, die wirklich in ihrem physischen Leben, als die MichaelZeit heranrückt und da ist, ein merkwürdiges Doppelgesicht zeigt. Eine Persönlichkeit, die nicht recht Staatsmann sein kann, nicht ganz Staatsmann sein kann, nicht ganz Kleriker sein kann, die aber intensiv in beides hereingezogen wird: Das ist Hertling, der noch in seinem hohen Alter deutscher Reichskanzler geworden ist und die Reste seines Mazarintums in dieser Weise dann in karmischer Folge zu verwerten hatte; der all die Eigentümlichkeiten, mit denen er an das Christentum herangekommen ist, in seinem christlichen Professorentum zur Darstellung bringt.
[ 19 ] Es ist ein Beispiel, an dem Sie sehen können, wie eigentümlich die Menschen der Gegenwart in der Vergangenheit zu ihren gegenwärtigen Individualitäten gekommen sind. Derjenige, der nicht forscht, sondern sich etwas ausdenkt, würde natürlich auf ganz etwas anderes kommen. Aber erst dann versteht man das Karma, wenn man eben anknüpfen kann an diese extremsten Zusammenhänge, die in der sinnlichen Welt sich fast als paradox ausnehmen, die aber in der geistigen Welt da sind. So wie eben da ist, was ich öfter auch schon hier erwähnt habe, die Tatsache: daß der die Kirche so wütend bekämpfende Ernst Haeckel der wiederverkörperte Mönch Hildebrand war, der als Gregor der große Papst war in der vorigen Inkarnation.
[ 20 ] Da sehen wir, wie gleichgültig der äußere Inhalt des Glaubens oder der Anschauung eines Menschen im Erdenleben ist; denn das sind seine Gedanken. Aber studieren Sie einmal Haeckel, und studieren Sie namentlich im Zusammenhange mit dem, was er als Abt Hildebrand war, den Gregor — ich glaube, er ist auch unter diesen Bildern von Chartres —, dann werden Sie sehen, daß in der Tat da dynamisch ein Fortwirken vorhanden ist.
[ 21 ] Ich habe dieses Beispiel angeführt, damit Sie sehen, wie prominente Persönlichkeiten der Gegenwart die Vergangenheit in diese Gegenwart hereintragen. Ich möchte nun ein anderes Beispiel wählen, das Ihnen allen sehr, sehr wert sein kann, bei dem ich fast zurückschaudere, es irgendwie leicht zu sagen, das aber gerade so ungeheuer tief hineinführt in das ganze geistige Gefüge der Gegenwart, daß ich nicht umhin kann, gerade dieses Beispiel zu wählen.
[ 22 ] Wenn Sie sich nachher das Gesicht des Mönchs Hildebrand anschauen, der Papst Gregor VII. wurde, den Sie ja aus der Geschichte kennen, Sie werden sehen, wie die Seelenkonfiguration des Haeckel gerade in diesem Antlitz des Hildebrand, des späteren Gregor, in einer wunderbaren Weise enthalten ist.
[ 23 ] Aber ich möchte eben eine andere Persönlichkeit erwähnen, eine Persönlichkeit — wie gesagt, ich schrecke fast zurück, sie zu erwähnen, aber sie ist ungeheuer charakteristisch für dasjenige, was aus der Vergangenheit in die Gegenwart herübergetragen wird, und wie es herübergetragen wird. Ich habe ja öfter hingewiesen, und es wird Ihnen auch aus der äußeren Geschichte bekannt sein, daß im vierten Jahrhundert jenes Konzil stattgefunden hat, das Konzil von Nicäa, in dem für Westeuropa die Entscheidung getroffen worden ist zwischen Arianismus und Athanasianismus, wo der Arianismus verurteilt worden ist.
[ 24 ] Es war ein Konzil, auf dem alle hohe Gelehrsamkeit, die in den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten bei den maßgebenden Persönlichkeiten vorhanden war, zutage trat, wo wirklich mit tiefgehenden Ideen gestritten worden ist, wo eigentlich die menschliche Scele noch eine ganz andere Verfassung hatte, wo die menschliche Seele es als selbstverständlich nahm, in einer geistigen Welt unmittelbar drinnen zu leben und wo schon gestritten werden konnte mit Gehalt darüber, ob Christus, der Sohn, gleicher Wesenheit ist mit dem Vater oder nur ähnlicher Wesenheit ist mit dem Vater, welch letzteres der Arianismus behauptete. Wir wollen uns heute nicht einlassen auf die dogmatische Verschiedenheit der beiden, aber wir wollen im Auge behalten, daß es sich da um ungeheuer scharfsinnige Auseinandersetzungen, um großartige scharfsinnige Auseinandersetzungen handelte, die aber mit dem Intellektualismus der damaligen Zeit ausgefochten wurden.
[ 25 ] Wenn wir heute scharfsinnig sind, sind wir es halt als Menschen. Heute sind ja fast alle Menschen scharfsinnig. Ich habe das schon öfter gesagt: Die Menschen sind furchtbar gescheit, das heißt, sie können halt denken, nicht wahr? Das ist nicht viel, aber die Menschen können es heute. Ich kann auch sehr dumm sein und denken können; aber die Menschen können eben heute denken. Dazumal aber war es nicht so, daß die Menschen denken konnten, sondern sie empfanden die Gedanken als Inspiration. Wer also scharfsinnig war, empfand sich als gottbegnadet, und es war das Denken eine Art Hellsehen. Das war es durchaus noch im vierten nachchristlichen Jahrhundert. Und diejenigen, die einem Denker zuhörten, empfanden auch noch etwas über die Evolution seines Denkens. Nun war gerade auf diesem Konzil eine Persönlichkeit anwesend, die mit teilnahm an jenen Diskussionen, die aber über den Ausgang des Konzils im höchsten Grade verstimmt war, die vorzugsweise damals bemüht war, für beide Teile die Argumente aufzubringen. Diese Persönlichkeit brachte sowohl für den Arianismus wie für den Athanasianismus die bedeutsamsten Gründe auf, und wäre es nach dieser Persönlichkeit gegangen, so wäre ganz zweifellos etwas ganz anderes herausgekommen. Es wäre nicht eine Art fauler Kompromiß zwischen Arianismus und Athanasianismus herausgekommen, sondern etwas wie eine Synthese herausgekommen, eine solche Synthese, die wahrscheinlich etwas sehr Großes — man soll nicht Geschichte konstruieren, aber man kann zur Erläuterung dieses sagen —, die wahrscheinlich etwas sehr Großes gewesen wäre, die dahin geführt hätte, das menschliche innere Göttliche viel intimer mit dem Göttlichen des Universums zusammenzuknüpfen. Denn so wie der Athanasianismus die Sache dann ausgestaltet hat, wurde eigentlich die menschliche Seele so recht getrennt von dem göttlichen Ursprung, und es wurde sogar als ketzerisch angesehen, wenn man von dem Gott im Innern des Menschen sprach.
[ 26 ] Hätte der Arianismus allein gesiegt, so hätte man natürlich viel von dem Gott im Innern des Menschen gesprochen, aber man würde niemals das mit der nötigen inneren Ehrfurcht und namentlich nicht mit der nötigen inneren Würde getan haben. Der Arianismus allein hätte eben den Menschen auf jeder Stufe als eine Verkörperung des in ihm seienden Gottes angesehen. Das ist aber jedes Tier auch, das ist die ganze Welt, das ist jeder Stein, das ist jede Pflanze. Einen Wert hat diese Ansicht nur, wenn sie zu gleicher Zeit den Antrieb in sich enthält, daß man immer höher und höher in der Entwickelung steige, um den Gott erst zu finden. Die Behauptung, man habe ein Göttliches in sich auf irgendeiner Stufe des Lebens, hat nur dann einen Sinn, wenn man dieses Göttliche in einem fortwährenden Aufstreben «zu sich selbst», bei dem es noch nicht ist, auffaßt. Aber eine Synthese der beiden Anschauungen wäre ganz zweifellos zustande gekommen, wenn diese Persönlichkeit, die ich meine, dazumal auf dem Konzil irgendeinen maßgeblichen Einfluß hätte gewinnen können.
[ 27 ] Diese Persönlichkeit ging tief unbefriedigt in eine Art ägyptischer Einsiedelei, lebte in einer außerordentlich asketischen Weise, gründlich bekannt — damals im vierten Jahrhundert — mit alledem, was eigentlich die wirklichen, spirituellen Substanzen des Christentums dazumal waren; vielleicht einer der bestunterrichteten Christen, die es dazumal gab, aber nicht ein Kämpfer.
[ 28 ] Schon die Art und Weise, wie der Betreffende auf dem Konzil aufgetreten ist, war die eines allseitig abwägenden, ruhigen, aber außerordentlich begeisterten, nur nicht für die Einzelheiten und Einseitigkeiten begeisterten Menschen; eines Menschen, der — ich kann nicht sagen, angeekelt war, das würde nicht der richtige Ausdruck sein —, aber der außerordentlich bitter berührt war davon, daß er mit gar nichts durchgedrungen war, weil er so ganz überzeugt war davon, daß dem Christentum nur Heil erwachsen könne, wenn seine Anschauung durchdringen würde.
[ 29 ] Und so zog er sich denn in eine Art Einsiedelei zurück, wurde für den Rest seines Lebens ein Eremit, der aber eine ganz besondere Laufbahn verfolgte aus dem inneren Drang seiner Seele heraus, der gerade dieser Laufbahn, den Ursprung der Denk-Inspiration zu erforschen, sich widmete. Das mystische Vertiefen dieser Persönlichkeit ging dahin, dahinterzukommen, von woher das Denken seine Inspiration bekommt. Wie in eine einzige, große Sehnsucht ging das: den Ursprung des Denkens in der geistigen Welt zu finden. Und ganz erfüllt wurde diese Persönlichkeit zuletzt mit dieser Sehnsucht. Sie starb auch mit dieser Sehnsucht, ohne daß sie während dieses damaligen Erdenlebens dadurch einen konkreten Abschluß gefunden hätte, daß Antwort dagewesen wäre. Die war nicht da. Dazumal war schon die Zeit doch ungünstig.
[ 30 ] Und so machte diese Persönlichkeit im Durchgange durch den Tod etwas Eigentümliches durch. Jahrzehnte nach dem Tode konnte sie gerade zurückschauen auf das Erdenleben und immer dieses Erdenleben tingiert sehen mit demjenigen, wozu sie zuletzt gekommen war. Diese Persönlichkeit konnte in dem, was da unmittelbar in der rückwärtigen Betrachtung sich an den Tod anschloß, sehen, wie der Mensch denkt.
[ 31 ] Nun war noch keine Erfüllung dieser Frage da. Das ist wichtig. Und ohne daß ein Gedanke da war als Antwort auf diese Frage, sah diese Persönlichkeit gerade nach dem Tode in einer wunderbar hellen, imaginativen Art in die Intelligenz des Weltalls hinein. Nicht die Gedanken des Weltalls sah sie — die hätte sie gesehen, wenn das, was sie ersehnt hatte, zum Abschluß gekommen wäre -, nicht die Gedanken des Weltalls er sah sie, wohl aber in Bildern das Denken des Weltalls.
[ 32 ] Und so lebte sich durch zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt hier eine Individualität, die in einer Art von Gleichgewichtszustand war zwischen mystischer imaginativer Anschauung und scharfsinnigem Denken von früher, das aber im Fluß war, das noch nicht zum Abschluß gekommen war.
[ 33 ] Zunächst siegte in dem, was sich da karmisch ausgestaltete, die mystische Anlage. Die betreffende Individualität wird im Mittelalter als eine Visionärin geboren, als eine Visionärin, die wunderbare Einblicke in die geistige Welt entwickelte. Die denkerische Anlage trat zunächst ganz zurück, das Anschauungsmäßige trat in den Vordergrund. Wunderbare Visionen mit gleichzeitigem mystischem Sich-Hingeben an den Christus, ungeheuer tiefes Durchdringen der Seele mit einem visionär anschaulichen Christentum, Visionen, in denen der Christus wie der Anführer erschien von milden, nicht streitbaren Scharen, von Scharen, die durch ihre Milde das Christentum verbreiten wollten, wie es in keinem Zeitalter noch in der Realität auf der Erde da war — aber das war in den Visionen dieser Nonne da: ein ganz intensives Christentum, das gar nicht hereinpaßte in dasjenige, was dann in der neueren Form als das Christentum sich entwickelte.
[ 34 ] Zur Zeit ihres Lebens kam diese Nonne, diese Visionärin, diese Seherin, in keinen Konflikt mit dem positiven Christentum. Aber sie wuchs heraus aus dem positiven Christentum; sie wuchs hinein in ein zunächst ganz persönlich geartetes Christentum, in ein Christentum, das es eigentlich auf Erden späterhin gar nicht gab. So daß dieser Persönlichkeit, ich möchte sagen, vom Weltenall die Frage gestellt war, wie dieses Christentum in einer neuen Inkarnation in einem physischen Leibe zu verwirklichen ist.
[ 35 ] Und gleichzeitig stellten sich jetzt, nachdem die betreffende Seherin, Visionärin, durch die Pforte des Todes schon längere Zeit gegangen war, wiederum die Nachklänge des alten Intellektualismus, des inspirierten Intellektualismus ein. Die Nachwirkungen der Visionen wurden «durchideeisiert», möchte ich sagen. Und auf der Suche nach einem Menschenleibe wurde diese Individualität die des Solowjow, Wladimir Solowjow.
[ 36 ] Und lesen Sie die Schriften des Solowjow. Ich habe es ja hier schon öfter geschildert, welchen Eindruck sie auf einen heutigen Menschen machen, ich habe es auch ausgesprochen in der Einleitung zur Solowjow-Ausgabe. Versuchen Sie zu fühlen, was da alles zwischen den Zeilen steckt, steckt von einer Mystik, die uns oftmals sehr schwül erscheint, steckt von einem Christentum, das einen individuellen Ausdruck hat, das aber deutlich zeigt: Das mußte suchen nach einem so weichen Leib, nach einem nach allen Seiten biegsamen Leib, wie man ihn nur aus dem russischen Volk heraus haben kann.
[ 37 ] Ich denke, man kann schon, wenn man diese Beispiele anschaut, meine lieben Freunde, die heilige Scheu vor den ja wirklich nur im Innersten keusch zu bewahrenden Wahrheiten des Karma behalten, denn wer Sinn für Betrachtung der geistigen Welt hat, bei dem wird dasjenige, was man oftmals will: daß die Wahrheit etwas Heiliges hat, etwas Verhülltes hat, wahrhaftig nicht in unwürdiger Weise enthüllt.
[ 38 ] Der Anthroposophie hat man ja immer wieder und wiederum vorgeworfen, namentlich von theologischer Seite aus vorgeworfen, sie ziehe den Schleier des Heiligen, Mysteriösen von den geheimnisvollen Wahrheiten hinweg, mache sie dadurch profan. Wenn man aber gerade in die tieferen, mehr esoterischen Glieder des anthroposophischen Anschauens hineingeht, dann wird man empfinden, daß wahrhaftig von einer solchen Profanierung nicht die Rede sein kann, sondern daß die Welt einen mit einer heiligeren Scheu erfüllt, wenn man die Menschenleben hintereinander schaut und die wunderbare Art des Hineinwirkens früherer Menschenleben in spätere Menschenleben. Man muß nur selbst nicht innerlich profaniert sein oder mit seinem Denken profanierend wirken, dann wird man nicht solche Einwände machen.
[ 39 ] Man kann schon sagen: Wer Solowjows Schriften liest und im Hintergrunde die fromme Nonne sieht mit ihren wunderbaren Visionen, mit ihrer unendlichen Hingabe an die Wesenheit des Christus, wer diese Persönlichkeit herausschreiten sieht mit dem bittersten Gefühle aus dem Konzil, wo so Großes und Bedeutsames von ihr vorgebracht worden ist, wer sozusagen das Christentum zweimal — in seiner rationalistischen Gestalt, aber in der inspiriert rationalistischen Gestalt, und dann in seiner visionären Gestalt — in der Seele und in dem Herzen dieser Individualität entdeckt als den Hintergrund: für den wird wahrhaftig durch das Hinwegheben des Schleiers von dem Geheimnis nichts profaniert.
[ 40 ] Ein deutscher Romantiker hat einmal den Mut gehabt, über den berühmten Isis-Spruch anders zu denken als alle anderen. Dieser berühmte Isis-Spruch heißt ja: Ich bin, was da war, was da ist, was da sein wird; meinen Schleier hat noch kein Sterblicher gelüftet. — Darauf hat dieser deutsche Romantiker geantwortet: Dann müssen wir eben Unsterbliche werden, um ihn zu lüften! — Die anderen haben den Spruch nur hingenommen.
[ 41 ] Entdecken wir das wirkliche Unsterbliche in uns, das GeistigGöttliche, dann dürfen wir an so manches Geheimnis herantreten, ohne es zu profanieren, an das wir mit einem geringeren Vertrauen zu der eigenen Göttlichkeit unserer Wesenheit eben nicht herantreten dürfen.
[ 42 ] Das aber ist skizziert die Gesinnung, die sich immer mehr und mehr verbreiten sollte unter dem Einflusse solcher Betrachtungen, wie sie die vorige und diese waren, und die dann wirken sollten auf das Tun und Leben derjenigen, die in der Art, wie es geschildert worden ist, ihr Karma hinzutragen zur Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft.
Eighth Lecture
[ 1 ] The considerations which we have made here in order to understand better and better what it means that the present is under the sign of the Michael rule, they have led us last time to show how peculiarly the karma of human beings can work; and they have shown us in a certain sense how these difficulties can extend even to the fact that some personality does not find the way between death and new birth in order to live through that which is necessary for the weaving of karma through participation in the events of the starry world.
[ 2 ] It naturally becomes difficult for an outlook that is still completely interwoven with what is going on here in physical life on earth to absorb the things that must really be absorbed if the idea of karma is to be taken seriously. But we are living in an age of great decisions, and these decisions must first be made in the spiritual realm. And in the spiritual field, these decisions are prepared in the right way by the fact that it is precisely from the deeper anthroposophical spirit that individual people take the courage to take the contemplation of the spiritual world seriously to the extent that they can accept what is brought in from this spiritual world in order to understand the phenomena of outer physical life.
[ 3 ] That is why I have not shied away from bringing forward individual facts of spiritual life for a number of months now, which are suitable for understanding the spiritual configuration of the present. And today I will present a few more to illustrate, I would like to say, what I will probably conclude on Sunday in order to show the whole karma of the spiritual life of the present in connection with what the anthroposophical movement is supposed to be.
[ 4 ] First of all, however, I will have a few things to say today that you will not immediately see how they relate to our main theme, but which you will recognize at once as characterizing the spiritual life of the present in the most eminent sense from the foundations of the spiritual life of the past.
[ 5 ] Some things will appear quite paradoxical, but total life has paradoxes for earthly observation. The examples I choose today are such that they are not ordinary, for ordinary successions of earth lives do not as a rule show us historical personalities, nor do they show us personalities in such a way that we would see a continuous chain when we look at them superficially. But there are indeed earth lives that follow one another in such a way that, by summarizing them, one simultaneously represents history.
[ 6 ] It is the case with few individualities in such a pronounced sense; but it is precisely those individualities in which we can, so to speak, point to the individual incarnation as a historical one, as was already the case with some of those I have mentioned in the course of time, precisely with such individualities we can learn an extraordinary amount about karma. And I would like to begin by telling you about a personality who lived at the end of the first Christian century, who was already a philosopher at that time, a philosopher who belonged to the skeptics in the most pronounced sense, that is, to those who actually consider nothing in the world to be certain. He belonged to the skeptical school that had already seen the advent of Christianity, but which stood firmly on the ground that one could not gain certain knowledge at all, that one could not, above all, somehow say whether any divine being could take on human form or the like.
[ 7 ] This individuality - the name of the time does not matter much, he was an Agrippa - this individuality, which was embodied at that time, summarized, so to speak, everything that Greek skepticism had raised in its personality and was in a certain sense a personality that we would even call, if we take the word not in a contemptuous sense but more as a terminus technicus, a cynic; not a cynic in terms of his outlook on life, as he was a skeptic, but a cynic in terms of the way he accepted things in the world: namely that he was actually very fond of joking, even about quite important things. And at that time Christianity passed him by without a trace. But when he passed through the gate of death, a mood remained that was not so much the result of his skepticism - for that was a philosophical view that one does not carry very far after death - but that which lies in the inner habits of soul and spirit, this easy acceptance of important events in life, this rejoicing when some things that seem important turn out not to be important: that was the basic mood. And so this basic mood was carried into life after death.
[ 8 ] Now I already indicated yesterday: First, when a person has passed through the gate of death, he enters a sphere that gradually leads him into the realm of the moon. And I have indicated how there is actually the colony of the primal sages of mankind, those primal teachers who once lived on earth, but who were not in a physical body at that time, and therefore did not teach in the way one has to imagine the teaching of later, but who only walked in the etheric body on earth, who taught in such a way that one or the other, who was to be taught by them in the mysteries, felt this as an indwelling of these primal sages. He had the feeling that the original wise man was now with me. - And as a result of this indwelling of the Primordial Wise One, he felt an inner inspiration, through which the teaching took place at that time. Those were the earliest times of earthly development, when the great primal teachers walked the earth in their etheric bodies. It is these primal teachers who then, so to speak, followed the moon, which had already separated from the earth as a world body, and whose territory man now passes through as the first station, so to speak, of his cosmic development. It is they who enlighten him about karma, for they are dealing specifically with the wisdom of the past.
[ 9 ] And when the personality in question, Agrippa, entered this realm, it was that the sense of an earlier incarnation which he had had, which was particularly characteristic and now, as it were, made a great impression in retrospect after death, was very strongly impressed upon him, because in this incarnation much could still be seen by the individuality in question of the way in which the cults of the Near East and Africa emerged from the ancient Mysteries.
[ 10 ] This individuality then went through again quite intensively, supersensibly, in Christian times, that which it had gone through on earth in connection with many a declining mystery being of the Near East. And this then caused her - she was not touched by Christianity, as I have said - that this individuality now saw, supersensibly saw, how the Christ was expected in the ancient mysteries.
[ 11 ] But since the Mysteries - I mean the cults from the Mystery places that this personality saw - were already externalized in the places where it had lived, this personality took up cults, institutions, which in the course of the first centuries of Christian development were transferred to Roman Christianity in a Christianized metamorphosis.
[ 12 ] So pay attention, my dear friends, to what this is all about. It is about the fact that in this region, after death, an understanding was prepared in this individuality for the outward appearance of the cults and for the outward appearance of the church institutions, which were formerly pagan, but which rose again within the first Christian centuries and passed over to the distinctly Roman cult with all the conceptions of the ecclesiastical being that was connected with the Roman cult.
[ 13 ] You see, this brought about a very special mental configuration in the personality concerned. Now again, in this process that the human being undergoes between death and a new birth, we see this individuality working out karma in the Mercury region in a very special way, so that it gains a great overview of circumstances, not in the inner sense, but in the sense of being gifted with outer intelligence.
[ 14 ] And if we then pursue this individuality further, we meet it again on earth as the cardinal who was in charge of the regency of Louis XIV while Louis XIV himself was still a child: as Cardinal Mazarin. And if we now study Cardinal Mazarin in all that he has that is brilliant, splendid and great, and in all that he has in his outward conception of Christianity, which immediately enters into him - also in the way he habitually lives into the manner of the woman who has the guardianship of Louis XIV - we see that he takes all that is of Christianity: He absorbs everything from Christianity that is Christian institutions, Christian cult, Christian splendor: he absorbs it all by surrounding himself with the splendor of the Near Eastern-Oriental essence. And he basically governs Europe like someone who has strongly absorbed the essence of the Near East in a much earlier incarnation.
[ 15 ] But this Cardinal Mazarin has already had the opportunity to be touched a little by the circumstances. You only have to consider the age: the end of the Thirty Years' War, all the things that took place when Louis XIV took office.
[ 16 ] Cardinal Mazarin was gifted with a great overview, a great statesman, but also again as if in a 'stupor, actually stunned by his own deeds; so that these deeds, one might say, proceeded like grandiose skills, but not like something that comes from the deep heart.
[ 17 ] This life becomes quite strange as it passes through time again between death and new birth. One can almost see how, as it continues to pass through the Mercury region, one might say, everything that this personality has done dissolves as if into a mist. Everything that this personality has absorbed in terms of ideas about Christianity remains, everything that this personality has gone through in terms of skepticism towards science remains, and all of this is now transformed in this life between death and new birth: Science does not provide the ultimate truths; an intense sense of knowledge, which was actually already there in the beginning at the previous passing of Mercury, passes away again, and a peculiar mentality is formed karmically in this life; a mentality which holds on to insistent views which this individuality has gone through with great tenacity, but which can develop few concepts for the next life in order to master them. One has the feeling as it passes through the life between death and a new birth: What is this individuality actually supposed to do in the new incarnation that it now wants to strive for? What is it really connected to now? You get the feeling that it can be connected more or less intensively with all kinds of things and with nothing. All antecedents are there for this purpose. The intensity with which - after previous skepticism - Christianity with all its individual outward appearances is lived through on all the paths to becoming a cardinal, is deeply rooted in the personality: this personality must become knowledgeable, yet be able to appear with lightly seasoned concepts. But moreover, how erased, I would say, is the map of Europe that it once dominated. We don't know: how will she find her way back to it? What will it do with this European map? - It will certainly not know what to do with it.
[ 18 ] Yes, my dear friends, one must go through these things when passing through life between death and a new birth, so that one is not mistaken, so that an exact knowledge really emerges. This personality is reborn as one who really shows a strange double face in his physical life when the Michael time approaches and is there. A personality who cannot quite be a statesman, cannot quite be a statesman, cannot quite be a cleric, but who is intensely drawn into both: This is Hertling, who became Chancellor of the German Empire in his old age and then had to utilize the remnants of his Mazarinism in this way in karmic succession; who brings all the peculiarities with which he approached Christianity to bear in his Christian professorship.
[ 19 ] It is an example by which you can see how peculiarly the people of the present have come to their present individualities in the past. Those who do not research, but make things up, would of course come up with something completely different. But only then do we understand karma, when we can tie in with these most extreme connections, which in the sensory world appear almost paradoxical, but which are present in the spiritual world. Just as there is, what I have often mentioned here, the fact that Ernst Haeckel, who fought the Church so furiously, was the reincarnated monk Hildebrand, who as Gregory was the great pope in the previous incarnation.
[ 20 ] There we see how indifferent the external content of a person's faith or view is in earthly life; for these are his thoughts. But study Haeckel once, and study Gregory, especially in connection with what he was as Abbot Hildebrand - I believe he is also among these pictures of Chartres - then you will see that there is indeed a dynamic continuation.
[ 21 ] I have given this example so that you can see how prominent personalities of the present carry the past into this present. I would now like to choose another example that may be very, very valuable to you all, which I almost shudder to say lightly, but which leads so deeply into the whole spiritual fabric of the present that I cannot help but choose this particular example.
[ 22 ] If you look later at the face of the monk Hildebrand, who became Pope Gregory VII. whom you know from history, you will see how the soul configuration of Haeckel is contained in this face of Hildebrand, the later Gregory, in a wonderful way.
[ 23 ] But I would like to mention another personality, a personality - as I said, I almost shy away from mentioning it, but it is tremendously characteristic of what is carried over from the past into the present, and how it is carried over. I have often pointed out, and you will also know from external history, that the Council of Nicaea took place in the fourth century, in which the decision was made for Western Europe between Arianism and Athanasianism, where Arianism was condemned.
[ 24 ] It was a council at which all the high erudition that was present among the leading personalities in the first Christian centuries came to light, where really profound ideas were debated, where the human soul actually still had a completely different constitution, where the human soul took it for granted that it lived directly in a spiritual world and where it was already possible to argue with substance about whether Christ, the Son, was of the same essence as the Father or only of a similar essence to the Father, which is what Arianism claimed. Today we do not want to get involved in the dogmatic differences between the two, but we do want to keep in mind that these were tremendously perceptive disputes, great perceptive disputes, but they were fought out with the intellectualism of the time.
[ 25 ] If we are perceptive today, we are perceptive as human beings. Today, almost everyone is astute. I've said this before: people are terribly clever, which means they can think, can't they? That's not much, but people can do it today. I can also be very stupid and be able to think, but people can think today. In those days, however, it was not that people could think, but that they perceived thoughts as inspiration. So those who were perceptive felt that they were blessed by God, and thinking was a kind of clairvoyance. This was certainly still the case in the fourth century AD. And those who listened to a thinker also felt something about the evolution of his thinking. Now there was a personality present at this very council who took part in those discussions, but who was extremely disgruntled about the outcome of the council, who preferably tried to put forward arguments for both sides at the time. This personage put forward the most important reasons for both Arianism and Athanasianism, and if this personage had had his way, something quite different would undoubtedly have emerged. The result would not have been a kind of rotten compromise between Arianism and Athanasianism, but something like a synthesis, a synthesis which would probably have been something very great - one should not construct history, but one can say this to explain it - which would probably have been something very great, which would have led to a much more intimate linking of the human inner divine with the divine of the universe. For the way Athanasianism then framed the matter, the human soul was actually quite separated from the divine origin, and it was even considered heretical to speak of the God within man.
[ 26 ] If Arianism alone had prevailed, there would of course have been much talk of the God within man, but it would never have been done with the necessary inner reverence and especially not with the necessary inner dignity. Arianism alone would have regarded man at every level as an embodiment of the God within him. But so is every animal, so is the whole world, so is every stone, so is every plant. This view is only of value if it also contains the impulse to climb higher and higher in development in order to find God. The assertion that one has a divine within oneself at some stage of life only makes sense if one understands this divine in a continual striving “towards oneself”, where it is not yet. But a synthesis of the two views would undoubtedly have come about if the personality I am referring to had been able to gain any significant influence at the Council at that time.
[ 27 ] This personality went deeply unsatisfied into a kind of Egyptian hermitage, lived in an extraordinarily ascetic way, thoroughly acquainted - at that time in the fourth century - with all that was actually the real, spiritual substance of Christianity at that time; perhaps one of the best-instructed Christians there was at that time, but not a fighter.
[ 28 ] The very manner in which the person in question appeared at the Council was that of someone who was all-round, calm, but extraordinarily enthusiastic, just not enthusiastic about the details and one-sidedness; a man who - I cannot say disgusted, that would not be the right expression - but who was extremely bitterly touched by the fact that he had gotten away with nothing at all, because he was so utterly convinced that Christianity could only be saved if his views were accepted.
[ 29 ] And so he withdrew into a kind of hermitage, became a hermit for the rest of his life, but pursued a very special career out of the inner urge of his soul, which devoted itself to precisely this career of exploring the origin of the inspiration of thought. The mystical deepening of this personality was aimed at finding out where thinking gets its inspiration from. It was like a single, great longing: to find the origin of thought in the spiritual world. And in the end, this personality was completely filled with this longing. He also died with this longing, without it having found a concrete conclusion during his life on earth at that time, without there having been an answer. It was not there. At that time, the time was already unfavorable.
[ 30 ] And so this personality went through something peculiar in its passage through death. Decades after death it could look back on its life on earth and always see this life on earth tinged with what it had come to in the end. This personality could see in what immediately followed death in the retrospective observation how the human being thinks.
[ 31 ] Now there was still no fulfillment of this question. That is important. And without there being a thought as an answer to this question, this personality saw into the intelligence of the universe just after death in a wonderfully bright, imaginative way. She did not see the thoughts of the universe - she would have seen them if what she had longed for had come to a conclusion - she did not see the thoughts of the universe, but she did see the thinking of the universe in images.
[ 32 ] And so, between death and a new birth, an individuality lived through here that was in a kind of state of equilibrium between mystical imaginative contemplation and acute thinking from earlier times, but which was in flux, which had not yet come to a conclusion.
[ 33 ] First of all, the mystical disposition prevailed in what was taking shape karmically. The individual in question was born in the Middle Ages as a visionary, a visionary who developed wonderful insights into the spiritual world. The intellectual disposition initially receded completely, the visual came to the fore. Wonderful visions with a simultaneous mystical surrender to the Christ, tremendously deep penetration of the soul with a visionary, vivid Christianity, visions in which the Christ appeared as the leader of mild, non-contentious multitudes, of multitudes who wanted to spread Christianity through their mildness in a way that had never been seen in any age or in reality on earth - but that was there in the visions of this nun: A very intense Christianity that did not fit in at all with that which then developed in the newer form as Christianity.
[ 34 ] At the time of her life, this nun, this visionary, this seer, came into no conflict with positive Christianity. But she grew out of positive Christianity; she grew into a Christianity that was initially very personal, into a Christianity that did not actually exist on earth later on. So that this personality, I would like to say, was asked by the universe how this Christianity could be realized in a new incarnation in a physical body.
[ 35 ] And at the same time, after the visionary in question had already passed through the gate of death for some time, the echoes of the old intellectualism, the inspired intellectualism, reappeared. The after-effects of the visions were “ideologized”, I would say. And in the search for a human life, this individuality became that of Solovyov, Vladimir Solovyov.
[ 36 ] And read the writings of Solovyov. I have often described here the impression they make on people today, and I have also said so in the introduction to the Solovyov edition. Try to feel what is between the lines, what is there of a mysticism that often seems very sultry to us, what is there of a Christianity that has an individual expression but shows it clearly: That had to search for a body so soft, for a body flexible in all directions, as one can only have from the Russian people.
[ 37 ] I think that when one looks at these examples, my dear friends, one can retain a holy reverence for the truths of karma, which can really only be preserved chastely in their innermost depths, for anyone who has a sense for contemplating the spiritual world will truly not reveal in an unworthy manner that which one often wants: that the truth has something sacred, something veiled.
[ 38 ] Anthroposophy has been accused again and again, especially from the theological side, of removing the veil of the sacred and mysterious from the mysterious truths, thereby making them profane. But if one enters into the deeper, more esoteric parts of the anthroposophical view, then one will feel that there can truly be no question of such profanation, but that the world fills one with a holier awe when one looks at the human lives one after the other and the wonderful way in which earlier human lives work into later human lives. You only have to be inwardly profane yourself or have a profane effect with your thinking, then you will not make such objections.
[ 39 ] One can already say: Whoever reads Solovyov's writings and sees in the background the pious nun with her marvelous visions, with her infinite devotion to the essence of Christ, whoever sees this personality striding out of the Council with the most bitter feelings, where such great and significant things were put forward by her, whoever discovers Christianity twice, so to speak - in its rationalistic form, but in the inspired rationalistic form, and then in its visionary form - in the soul and in the heart of this individuality as the background: for whom, truly, nothing is profaned by the lifting away of the veil from the mystery.
[ 40 ] A German Romantic once had the courage to think differently than everyone else about the famous Isis saying. This famous Isis saying means: I am what was there, what is there, what will be there; no mortal has ever lifted my veil. - To which this German Romantic replied: Then we must become immortals in order to lift it! - The others just accepted the saying.
[ 41 ] If we discover the real immortal within us, the spiritual-divine, then we can approach many a secret without profaning it, which we are not allowed to approach with less confidence in the divinity of our own being.
[ 42 ] But this outlines the attitude that should spread more and more under the influence of such contemplations as the previous one and this one, and which should then have an effect on the actions and lives of those who carry their karma to the Anthroposophical Society in the way that has been described.