Cosmic and Human Metamorphoses
GA 175
20 February 1917, Berlin
III. The Human Soul and the Universe
What we possess as the first fruit of Spiritual Science is in its most practical and noble sense able to lead us to feel that there is within the ordinary outer man an inner man, who to the ordinary idea is really a second man. In this respect all men in reality consist of two beings; one composed more of our physical body and etheric body and belonging to that which is the external world: external in the sense that this physical body and to some extent the etheric body too are forms and images—manifestations—of the divine Spiritual beings by which we are always surrounded. Our physical and etheric bodies are I in their true essence—though not as we as men at first know them,—images, neither of ourselves, nor of our real being, but of the Gods whose whole life is spent in producing our physical and etheric bodies and bringing about their full development; just as we men bring about the actions and deeds we accomplish. The inner man is of such a nature that he is more closely related to the astral body and ego. To the universe the astral body and ego are younger than the physical body and etheric body. This we know, from what has been given out in the book Occult Science. The physical body and etheric body compose that which, as it were, reposes when we sleep and is made ready for us by the divine-spiritual beings that permeate the outer universe and make it manifest; and the ego and astral body, by the experiences, testings and shiftings which they undergo in the physical and etheric bodies, are to ascend gradually through the stages of development with which we have also become familiar.
Now, as I indicated in the last lecture, we are in connection with the universe, with the whole Cosmos; and this connection is such that—as I merely hinted in the last lecture—it can even be reckoned and expressed in numbers. This connection of ours with the universe can of course be expressed and shown in many other ways, but—I might say—to our great astonishment it can be expressed by the fact that the number of breaths a man draws in a day equals the number of years required for the Vernal Point to return to its original point of departure. These discoveries in the realm of numbers can, if we permeate them with feeling, fill us with awe, with a holy awe; if we reflect that we too belong to the divine Spiritual universe which is manifested in all external phenomena.
The fact that we are the Microcosm, the little world formed and manifested out of the Macrocosm, the great world, is felt as still more profound when we visualise such facts as will be brought before our minds today, and which I may enumerate as follows: the three meetings of the Human Soul with the Being of the Universe: and this is the subject I shall speak about today. We all know that as earth-men we bear within us the physical body and etheric body, the astral body and ego. Each of the two beings I have referred to bears within him what I might call two sub-beings. The more external man the physical and etheric body, the more inner man the ego and astral body. Now we know moreover that man is to undergo further development. The earth as such will some day come to an end. It will then evolve further, through a Jupiter, Venus, and a Vulcan planetary evolution. Man during this time will rise stage by stage; to his ego will, as we know, be added a higher being—the Spirit-Self which will manifest within him. This will reach full manifestation during the Jupiter evolution, which will follow that of our earth. The Life-Spirit will attain full manifestation in man during the Venus period; and the actual Spirit-Man during the Vulcan period. When, therefore, we look forward to the great cosmic future of man, to these three stages of evolution, we look forward to the Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man. But these three which in a sense await us in our future evolution are even now in a certain respect related to us, although they are as yet not in the least developed; for they are still enclosed in the bosom of the divine-Spiritual Beings whom we have learnt to know as the Higher Hierarchies. They will come forth to us from out of the Higher Hierarchies; and we today are already in relation with these Higher Hierarchies, who will endow us with the Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man. So that today, instead of using the more complicated expression and saying: ‘We are in connection with the Hierarchy of the Angeloi’; we can simply say: ‘We are in connection with that which is to come to us in the future—our Spirit-Self.’ And instead of saying that we are in connection with the Archangels, we can say: ‘We are in connection with what is to come to us in the future, as our Life-Spirit,’ and so on.
Indeed we human beings are already in a certain respect, though at present only in rudiment—(and in the Spiritual world rudiments are something much higher than they are in the physical world)-more than merely four-principled beings consisting of physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego. We already bear the germ of the Spirit-Self within us, as well as that of the Life-Spirit and Spirit-Man; they will evolve out of us in the future, though at present we only have them in germ within us. This is no mere abstract saying, it has quite a concrete significance, for we have meetings, real meetings with these higher principles of our being. These meetings take place in the following way. We, as human beings, would as time went on feel ourselves increasingly estranged from everything Spiritual—a state of things very difficult to endure—did we not from time to time encounter our Spirit-Self. Our ego must meet that higher Self,—the Spirit-Self which we have yet to develop, and which in a Spiritual respect is of like nature to the Hierarchy of Angels. So therefore we may say in simple language, and speaking in the Christian sense: we must from time to time meet with a being of the Hierarchy of the Angels, a being closely related to ourselves; and when it comes to us, it brings about in us a Spiritual change, which will enable us some day to take in a Spirit-Self. We must also meet with a being of the Hierarchy of the Archangels, for this being then so affects us that something is prepared which will some day lead to our developing the Life-Spirit.
Whether in the Christian sense we place this being in the Hierarchy of Angels, or whether we refer to it in the older sense understood by the ancients when they spoke of their genius as the guiding genius of man, makes no difference. We know that we are living at a time when but few people—though this will soon alter—few can gaze into the Spiritual World and perceive the things and the beings therein. The time has now gone by when the beings and even the various processes of evolution in the Spiritual-world could be perceived in a much wider and more comprehensive sense; for at the time when one spoke of the genius of a man, there was a direct, concrete perception of that being.
In a not very distant past this vision was still so strong that men were able to describe it quite concretely and objectively; describing it in terms now looked upon as poetic fancies, although they were not intended as such. Thus Plutarch describes the relation of man to his genius, as follows,—I should like to quote the passage literally. Plutarch, the Roman writer, says that besides the portion of the soul embedded in the earthly body, there is a purer part outside, soaring above man's head, in appearance like a star, and which is rightly called a man's daimon, who guides him, and whom the wise man willingly follows, In this concrete way does Plutarch describe what he does not wish to be taken as a poetic fancy, but as a concrete external reality. Indeed so concretely does he describe it that he expressly states: ‘The rest of the Spiritual part of man can to a certain extent be perceived at the same time as the physical body, inasmuch as it normally fills the same space; but the genius, the leading and guiding genius of man is something apart and can be seen outside the head of every man'. Paracelsus too, one of the last who, without special training, or without special gifts, was able to give forceful information about these things, said very much the same from his own knowledge of this phenomenon. Many others also said the same.
This genius is none other than the Spirit-Self in process of evolution, though borne by a being belonging to the Hierarchy of Angels. It is of great importance that one should enter somewhat deeply into these things; for when this genius becomes perceptible it has its own special conditions. This subject can be considered from another very different point of view, but we will now consider it from the following one.
Let us take the subject of the mutual intercourse between man and man, for we can learn much from that; it teaches us what is by no means without significance in the perception of the Spiritual principles of the human being.
If a man is only capable of observing the meeting of two persons with his physical, sense vision, he merely notices that they come together, greet one another, and so on. But when he becomes able to observe such an event Spiritually, he will find that each time two human beings meet a Spiritual process is established, which, among other things, is also expressed outwardly in the fact that the part of their etheric bodies which forms the head becomes the expression of every feeling of sympathy and antipathy which the two persons feel for each other; and this continues as long as they are together. Suppose two people were to meet who could not bear each other:—an extreme case, but there are such in life. Suppose two persons meet who dislike each other, and that this feeling of antipathy is mutual. It can then be seen that that part of the etheric body which forms the head projects beyond the head in both cases, and that both the etheric heads incline towards each other. A mutual antipathy between persons meeting is expressed as a continual bowing and inclining of the etheric head of each towards the other. When two persons come together who love each other, a similar process can be observed; but then the etheric head inclines back, it bends backwards. -Now whether the etheric head bends forward as though in greeting when antipathy is felt, or bends backward where love is felt, in both cases the physical head then becomes freer than it is wont to be. This is of course always relative; the etheric body does not entirely emerge but extends in length, so that a continuation can be observed. A more rarified etheric body then fills the physical body than is normally the case, and the result of this, by reason of the exceptional transparency of the etheric body, is that the astral body remaining inside the head becomes more clearly visible to clairvoyant vision. So that not only is there a movement of the etheric body but also an alteration in the astral light of the head. This then, my dear friends,—which is no poetic imagination but an actual fact—is the reason that in places where such things are understood, persons who are capable of selfless love are represented with an aura round their heads, which is known as a halo. When two people meet, with simply a strong tinge of egotism in their love, this phenomenon is not so apparent; but if a man comes in contact with humanity at certain times when he is not concerned with himself and his own personal relation to another, but is filled with a universal human love for all humanity, such phenomena appear. At such times the astral body in the vicinity of the head becomes clearly visible. If there are persons then present who are able to see this in a man clairvoyantly, they can see the halo and cannot do otherwise than paint or represent it as a reality. These things are absolutely in connection with the objective facts of the Spiritual world; but that which is thus objectively present, and which is a lasting reality in the evolution of humanity, is connected with something else.
Man must necessarily from time to time enter into inner communion with his Spirit-Self, with the Spirit-Self which is visible in the astral aura in rudimentary form as I have described; but it still has to be developed; it will be rayed down, as it were, from above, and stream in from the future. Man must from time to time be brought into touch with his Spirit-Self. When does this occur?
We now come to the first meeting of which we have to speak. When does it take place? It takes place quite simply in normal sleep, on almost every occasion, between sleeping and waking. With simple country people, who are nearer to the life of nature, and who go to bed with the setting sun and get up at sunrise, this meeting takes place in the middle of their sleeping time, which as a rule is the middle of the night. With people who have detached themselves from their connections with nature, this is not so much the case. But this depends on man's free will. A man of modern culture can regulate his life as he pleases, and though this fact is bound to affect his life, still he can regulate it as he likes, within certain limits. None the less he too can experience in the middle of a long sleep, what may be called an inner union with the Spirit-Self—that is, with the Spiritual qualities from which the Spirit-Self will be extracted; he can have a meeting with his genius. Thus this meeting with one's genius takes place every night, that is, during every period of sleep—though this must not be taken too literally. This meeting is important for man. For all the feelings that gladden the soul with respect to its connection with the Spiritual world proceed from this meeting with one's genius during sleep. The feeling, which we may have in our waking state, of our connection with the Spiritual world, is an after-effect of this meeting with our genius. That is the first meeting with the higher world; and it may be said that most people are at first unconscious of it, though they will become more and more conscious the more they realise its after-effects by refining their waking conscious life, through absorbing the ideas and conceptions of Spiritual Science, until their souls become refined enough to observe carefully these after-effects. It all depends on whether the soul is refined enough, sufficiently acquainted with its inner life, to be able to observe these. This meeting with the genius is brought to the consciousness of every man in some form or other; but the materialistic surroundings of the present day which fill the mind with ideas coming from the materialistic view of the world and especially the life of today, permeated as it is by materialistic opinions, prevent the soul from paying attention to what comes as the result of the meeting. As people gradually fill their minds with more Spiritual ideas than those set forth by materialism, the perception of the nightly meeting with the genius will become more and more self-evident to them.
The second meeting of which we now have to speak is higher. From the indications already given it may be gathered that the first meeting with the genius is in connection with the course of the day. If we had not, through modern civilisation, become free to adjust our lives according to our own convenience, this meeting would take place at the hour of midnight. A man would meet his genius every night at midnight. But on account of man's exercise of free will the time of this meeting has become movable; the hour when the ego meets the genius is now not fixed. The second meeting is however not so movable; for that which is more connected with the astral body and etheric body is not so apt to get out of its place in the cosmic order. That which is connected with the ego and the physical body is very greatly displaced in present-day man. The second meeting is already more in connection with the great macro-cosmic order. Even as the first meeting is connected with the course of the day, the second meeting is connected with the course of the year. I must here call attention to various things I have already indicated in this connection from another point of view. The life of man in its entirety does not run its course quite evenly through the year. When the sun develops its greatest heat, man is much more dependent upon his own physical life and the physical life around him than in the winter when, in a sense, he has to struggle with the external phenomena of the elements, and is more thrown back on himself; but then his Spiritual nature is more freed, and he is more in connection with the Spiritual world—both his own and that of the earth—with the whole Spiritual environment. Thus the peculiar sentiment we connect with the Mystery of Christmas and with its Festival is by no means arbitrary, but hangs together with the fixing of the Festival of Christmas. At that time in winter which is appointed for the Festival, man, as does indeed the whole earth, gives himself up to the Spirit. He then passes, as it were, through a realm in which the Spirit is near him. The consequence is that at about Christmas-time and on to our present New Year, man goes through a meeting of his astral body with the Life-Spirit, in the same way as he goes through the first meeting, that of his ego with the Spirit-Self. Upon this meeting with the Life-Spirit depends the nearness of Christ Jesus. For Christ Jesus reveals Himself through the Life-Spirit. He reveals Himself through a being of the Realm of the Archangels. He is, of course, an immeasurably higher Being than they, but that is not the point with which we are concerned at the moment; what we have to consider is that He reveals Himself through a Being of the order of the Archangeloi. Thus through this meeting we draw specially near to Christ Jesus at the present stage of development—which has existed since the Mystery of Golgotha—and in a certain respect we may call the meeting with the Life-Spirit: the meeting with Christ Jesus in the very depths of our soul. Now when a man either through developing Spiritual consciousness in the domain of religious meditation or exercises, or, to supplement these, has accepted the concepts and ideas of Spiritual Science, when he has thus deepened and spiritualised his life of impression and feeling, then, just as he can experience in his waking life the after-effects of the meeting with his Spirit-Self, so he will also experience the after-effects of the meeting with the Life-Spirit, or Christ. It is actually a fact, my dear friends, that in the time following immediately on Christmas and up to Easter the conditions are particularly favourable for bringing to a man's consciousness this meeting with Christ Jesus. In a profound sense and this should not be blotted out by the abstract materialistic culture of today—the season of Christmas is connected with processes taking place in the earth; for man, together with the earth, takes part in the Christmas changes in the earth. The season of Easter is determined by processes in the heavens. Easter Sunday is fixed for the first Sunday after the first full-moon after the Vernal Equinox. Thus, whereas Christmas is fixed by the conditions of the earth, Easter is determined from above. Just as we, through all that has just been described, are connected with the conditions of the earth, so are we connected, through what I shall now describe, with the conditions of the heavens—with the great Cosmic conditions. For Easter is that season in the concrete course of the year, in which all that is aroused in us by the meeting with Christ at Christmas, really unites itself with our physical earth manhood. The great Mystery that now brings home to man the Mystery of Golgotha at the Easter Season—the Good Friday Mystery—signifies among other things, that the Christ, who, as it were, has been moving beside us, at this season comes still closer to us. Indeed, roughly speaking, in a sense He disappears into us and permeates us, so that He can remain with us during the season that follows the Mystery of Golgotha—the season of summer—during which, in the ancient Mysteries, men tried to unite themselves to John in a way not possible after the Mystery Of Golgotha.
In that respect we are, as we see, the Microcosm, and we are attached to the Macrocosm in a profoundly significant way. There is a continual union with the Macrocosm in the seasons of the year, and this union, being a more inner process in man, is connected with the year's course. Thus does Spiritual Science endeavour gradually to reveal the ideas, the spiritually scientific conceptions, that man may acquire as to the way in which Christ is now able to penetrate and permeate our earth-life, since the Mystery of Golgotha.
At this point I feel obliged to make an interpolation which is of importance and which ought to be thoroughly understood, particularly by the friends of Spiritual Science. It ought never to be represented that our attempts at Spiritual Science are a substitute for the life and exercise of religion. Spiritual Science may in the highest sense, and particularly as regards the Mystery of Christ, be taken as a support, as a foundation for the life and exercise of religion; but it should not be made a religion, for we ought to be clear that religion in its living form and living practice enkindles the Spiritual consciousness of the human community. If this Spiritual consciousness is to become a living thing in man, he cannot possibly remain at a standstill, stopping at the merely abstract ideas of God or Christ, but must stand renewed amidst the religious practices and activities (which in different people may take various forms) as something which provides him with a religious centre and appeals to him as such. If this religious sentiment is only deep enough, and finds means of stimulating the soul, it will soon feel a longing—a real longing—for the very ideas that can be developed in Spiritual Science. If Spiritual Science may be said to be a support for a religious life, as, objectively speaking, it certainly is—subjectively the time has come today when we may say that a man with true religious feelings is driven by these feelings to seek knowledge. For Spiritual consciousness is acquired through religious feeling and Spiritual knowledge by Spiritual Science, just as knowledge of nature is acquired by Natural Science. Spiritual consciousness leads to the impulse to acquire Spiritual knowledge. It may be said that an inner religious life may today subjectively drive a man to Spiritual Science.
A third meeting is that in which a man approaches the Spirit-Man, which will only be developed in the far future and which is brought near to him by a being belonging to the Hierarchy of the Archai. We may say that the ancients were sensitive to this, as are even the people of the present day, although the latter, in speaking of such things, no longer have a consciousness of the deeper truth of the subject. The ancients felt this meeting as a meeting with that which permeates the world, and which we can now hardly distinguish in ourselves or in the world, but in which we merge in the world as in an unity. Just as we can speak of the second as a meeting with Christ Jesus, so can we speak of the third as a meeting with the Father-Principle, with the Father, with that which lies at the foundation of the world, and which we experience when we have the right feeling for what the various religions mean by ‘the Father.’ This meeting is of such a nature that it reveals our intimate connection with the Macrocosm, with the Divine-Spiritual Universe. The daily course of universal processes, of world processes, includes our meeting with our genius: the yearly course includes our meeting with Christ Jesus: and the course of a whole human life, of this human life of ours, my dear friends—which can normally be described as the patriarchal life of seventy years—includes the meeting with the Father-Principle. For a certain time, our physical earth-life is prepared—and rightly so—by education—at the present day to a great extent unconsciously, yet it is prepared; and most people experience unconsciously, between the ages of twenty-eight and forty-two—and though unconsciously, yet fully appreciated in the intimate depths of the soul—the meeting with the Father-Principle. The after-effects of this may extend into later life, if we develop sufficiently fine perceptions to note that which thus comes into our life from within ourselves, as the after-effects of our meeting with the Father-Principle.
During a certain period of our life—the period of preparation—education ought, in the many different ways this can be done, to make the meeting with the Father-Principle as profound an experience as possible. One way is to arouse in a man, during his years of education, a strong feeling of the glory of the world, of its greatness, and of the sublimity of the world-processes. We are withholding a great deal from the growing boy and girl if we fail to draw their attention to all the revelations of beauty and greatness in the world, for then, instead of having a devoted reverence and respect for these, they may pass them by unobserved. If we fill the minds of the young with thoughts connecting the feelings of their hearts with the beauty and greatness of the world, we are then preparing them for the right meeting with the Father-Principle. For this meeting is of great significance for the life spent between death and a new birth. This meeting with the Father Principle, which normally occurs between the above-mentioned ages, can be a strong force and support to a man, when he has, as we know, to recapitulate his life on earth retrospectively after having passed through the portals of death, and while he passes through the soul-world. This retrospective journey, which as we know, lasts one-third as long as the time spent between birth and death, can be made strong and forceful; as indeed it ought to be, if a man can see himself at a certain point and place meeting with that Being, whom he can only dimly guess at and express in stammering words, when he speaks of the Father of the Cosmic Order. This is an important Picture, which after a man has passed through the gates of death, should always be present with him, together with the picture of death itself.
Now it is natural that a certain question should arise in connection with this. There are people who die before they reach the middle of life, when they would normally have the meeting with the Father-Principle. We must consider the case of those whose death is brought about by some outer cause, such as illness (which is an outer cause) or weakness of some kind. If then, through this early death, the meeting with the Father-Principle has not yet taken place in the subconscious depths of the soul—it will take place at the hour of death. At the moment of death this meeting occurs. Here we may express, somewhat differently, what has indeed already been expressed in another form in a like connection, in the book Theosophy in reference to the always deplorable phenomenon of a man bringing his life to an end by his own will. No man would do this if he could see the significance of his deed; and when once Spiritual Science has really been taken into people's feelings and thoughts, there will be no more suicides. For the meeting with the Father-Principle at the hour of death, when death occurs before middle-life, depends upon that death approaching a man from outside, not being brought about by himself. The difficulty then encountered by the soul and which is described from another standpoint in the book Theosophy, might be described from that from which we are speaking today, and we might say: Through his self -chosen death a man may eventually deprive himself of the meeting with the Father-Principle in this incarnation.
Thus, my dear friends, since the truths which Spiritual Science has to tell us concerning human life as a whole, affect our life so deeply, they are indeed serious in cases of special importance. These truths can provide serious explanations of life, which man needs in an age when he must find his way out of the materialism which rules the present world ordering and the current point of view, in so far as these depend on man himself. Stronger forces will be required to overcome the strong connection with the purely material powers which rule over man today, and to give him once again the possibility of recognising his connection with the Spiritual world from the immediate experiences of life.
If we speak in a more abstract way of the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies we can speak in a more concrete way of the fact that man himself—in the experiences at first passed through unconsciously, but which even during his life between birth and death may be brought to his consciousness—may ascend in three stages: through the meeting with his genius, through the meeting with Christ Jesus, and through the meeting with the Father.
Of course a great deal depends on our gaining as many concepts as possible which force themselves into our feelings, concepts that so refine our inner soul-life that we do not carelessly and inattentively pass things by, which in reality, if we are but attentive, play a part in our lives. In this respect education will have a very great deal to do in the near future. I should just like to bring forward one such concept. Just think how infinitely life would be deepened, if to the general knowledge concerning karma such details could be added, as the fact that when a man's life comes to an end in early youth the meeting with the Father-Principle occurs at the hour of death. This shows that the particular karma of this man made an early death necessary, so that an abnormal meeting with the Father-Principle should take place. For what actually occurs in such a case? The man is destroyed from without; his physical being is undermined from without. In illness, too, this is really the case. For the scene of action of the meeting with the Father-Principle is really here in the physical earth-world. When it happens that this external physical earth-world has destroyed a man, the meeting with the Father-Principle can be seen at that very place, and of course it is always to be seen again in the retrospect. This however makes it possible for a man throughout the whole of his life after death to hold firmly, the thought of the place on earth where, descending from heavenly heights, the Father-Principle came to the meeting which then took place. The recollection of this makes him want to be as active as he possibly can to work down into the physical earth-world from the Spiritual world. Now if we consider our present time from this standpoint and try to arouse the same feeling of solemnity as we have just tried to do with respect to the meeting with the Father-Principle, trying not merely to look upon the numerous premature deaths now occurring in the light of feeling or abstract conception, we shall be driven to admit that these were predestined in preparation for the coming need for a great activity to be directed from the Spiritual world to the physical earth-world. This is another aspect of what I have often said with reference to the tragic events of the last few years: that those who today pass so early through the portals of death will become special helpers in the future development of humanity, which will indeed require strong forces to disentangle itself from materialism. But all this must be brought to men's consciousness; it must not take place unconsciously. Therefore it is necessary that even now, souls here on the earth should make themselves receptive—I have already mentioned this—otherwise the forces developed in the Spiritual world may go in other directions. In order that these forces, these predestined forces, may become fruitful to the earth, it is necessary that there should be souls on the earth permeated with the knowledge of the Spiritual world. And there must be more and more of such souls on the earth. Let us therefore try to make fruitful the content of Spiritual Science, which must once be given out in words. By the help of the language (I mentioned this in the last lecture but one) the language we learn through Spiritual Science—let us try to re-animate the old conceptions which are, not without purpose, interwoven in our present life. Let us try to quicken anew what we have heard from Plutarch: that man, even as mere physical man, is permeated by the Spiritual man, and that in a peculiar but normal way a man has a higher Spiritual principle outside his head which represents his genius and which, if he be wise, he obeys. Let us try, as I have said, to take the feelings acquired by Spiritual Science to our assistance—so that the phenomena of life may not pass us by unnoticed.
In conclusion, we will today take one feeling, one conception, which may be of great help to our souls. Unfortunately many people in our modern materialistic age find it very difficult to feel what I might call the holiness of sleep. (The materialistic life is being somewhat softened by this period of trial, and not only ought it to remain softened thereby—which can hardly be hoped if materialism remains at its present strength—but it ought even to be enormously and increasingly softened.) It is indeed a curious phenomenon of man's intelligence today that he is entirely devoid of respect for the holiness of sleep. We need only consider how many people who spend the evening hours in purely materialistic ways, go to sleep without developing the realisation—which indeed can never become a living thing in a materialistic mind—that sleep unites us with the Spiritual world, that sleep sends us across into the Spiritual world. (These things are not mentioned by way of blame, nor intended to drive people to asceticism: we must live with the world, but we must at the same time have our eyes open, for only thus can we wrench our bodily nature away from the lower and lift it higher.) People should at least become gradually able to develop a feeling which can be expressed somewhat as follows: ‘I am going to sleep; until I wake, my soul will be in the Spiritual world. There it will meet with the guiding-power of my earth-life, who lives in the Spiritual world, and who soars round and surrounds my head. My soul will have the meeting with my genius. The wings of my genius will come in contact with my soul.’
Yes, my dear friends, as regards the overcoming of the materialistic life, a great deal, a very great deal, depends on whether one can create a strong feeling of what this means, when one thinks over one's relation to sleep. The materialistic life can only be overcome by stimulating intimate feelings such as these, which are themselves in correspondence with the Spiritual world. Only when we intensify such feelings and make them active, will the life of sleep become so intense, that the contact with the Spiritual world will on the other hand be gradually able to strengthen our waking life too. We shall then have around us not merely the sense-world, but also the Spiritual world, which is the true, the truly real world. For this world that we generally call the real one, is, as I expounded in the last open lecture, nothing but a reflection, an image of the actual real one. The real world is the world of spirit. The small community which is today devoted to Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science, will better be able to grasp the earnest signs of the times and undergo the severe trials of the times, if besides all the other trials to which man is subject today, it learns to consider this time as a time of trial, of testing and probation, whether we are able with sufficient strength of soul and warmth of heart to unite our whole being with the Spiritual Science which we must take in through our reason and our intellect.
In these words, I wished once more to emphasise what I have often said here before: that Spiritual Science will only find its right place in the hearts of men, when it is not merely theory and knowledge, but when—symbolically speaking—it constantly permeates and penetrates the soul; just as our physical blood, our heart's blood, constantly permeates and gives life to our bodily nature.
(Continued in Lecture 5).
Dritter Vortrag
So recht praktisch gestalten im edelsten Sinne, was wir als Frucht der Geisteswissenschaft haben können, das kann dazu führen, zu empfinden, wie der Mensch in seinem gewöhnlichen äußeren Menschen den inneren Menschen, für die gewöhnliche Vorstellung einen durchaus zweiten Menschen, trägt. In dieser Beziehung bestehen wir wirklich alle als Menschen aus zwei Wesenheiten, wovon die eine Wesenheit, welche sich zusammensetzt mehr aus unserem physischen Leib und aus unserem ätherischen Leib, demjenigen angehört, was Außenwelt ist; Außenwelt in dem Sinne, daß dieser physische Leib und in gewissem Sinne auch der ätherische Leib Ausgestaltungen und Abbilder, Offenbarungen sind der uns immer umgebenden göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten. Unser physischer Leib und unser Ätherleib in ihrer wahren Wesenheit, nicht wie wir sie als Menschen zunächst kennen, sind Bilder, nicht von uns, nicht von unserer Wirklichkeit, sondern Bilder, können wir sagen, der Götter, die sich ausleben, indem sie so, wie wir Menschen unsere Handlungen hervorbringen, hervorbringen unseren physischen Leib und unseren Ätherleib und diese beiden zur Entwickelung bringen. Der innere Mensch ist so, daß ihm näherliegt der astralische Leib und das Ich. Dieses Ich und der Astralleib sind für das Weltenall jünger als der physische Leib und Ätherleib. Das wissen wir ja aus den Mitteilungen, die auch in der «Geheimwissenschaft» verzeichnet sind. Dieses Ich und der Astralleib, sie sind dasjenige, was gleichsam ruht in dem Bette, das uns zubereitet wird von den göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten, die das äußere Universum durchdringen und offenbaren. Und dieses Ich und der Astralleib sollen durch die Erfahrungen, durch die Erlebnisse, durch die Prüfungen, durch die Schicksalswendungen, die sie durchmachen durch den physischen und ätherischen Leib, allmählich aufsteigen zu den Entwickelungsstufen, die wir ja auch schon kennengelernt haben.
Nun stehen wir, wie ich Ihnen schon angedeutet habe das letzte Mal, in innigsten Beziehungen zu dem ganzen Universum, zu dem ganzen Kosmos; in solchen Beziehungen, die, wie wir aus einer flüchtigen Rechnungsskizze das letzte Mal gesehen haben, sogar berechnet werden können, in Zahlen ausgedrückt werden können; die sich natürlich in vielem, vielem anderen noch äußern, aber, ich möchte sagen, zu unserer Überraschung in solchen Zahlen sich ausdrücken lassen, wie diese ist, daß die Zahl der Atemzüge, die der Mensch in einem Tage macht, gleichkommt der Zahl, welche der Frühlingspunkt der Sonne braucht an Jahren, um wiederum an seine alte Stelle zurückzukommen. Solche zahlenmäßigen Entdeckungen, wenn wir sie gefühlsmäßig durchdringen, können uns erfüllen mit einem Schauer, mit einem heiligen Schauer über unsere Zusammengehörigkeit mit dem göttlich-geistigen Universum, wie es sich in allen äußeren Erscheinungen offenbart.
Viel tiefer aber zeigt sich aus dieser Tatsache, daß wir der Mikrokosmos, die kleine Welt sind, die herausgestaltet, herausgeoffenbart ist aus dem Makrokosmos, aus der großen Welt, wenn wir solche Tatsachen ins Auge fassen, wie wir sie heute vor unsere Seele rücken wollen, solche Tatsachen, die ich nennen möchte die drei Begegnungen der Menschenseele mit den Wesen des Universums. Also sprechen möchte ich Ihnen heute von den drei Begegnungen der Menschenseele mit den Wesen des Universums.
Wir wissen ja alle, daß wir zunächst, so wie wir als Erdenmenschen wandeln, an uns tragen den physischen Leib und den Ätherleib, den Astralleib und das Ich. Jede von diesen zwei Wesenheiten, die wir angeführt haben, trägt wiederum, ich möchte sagen, zwei Unterwesenheiten in sich: der mehr äußere Mensch den physischen Leib und Ätherleib, der mehr innere Mensch das Ich und den Astralleib. Nun wissen wir aber, daß der Mensch sich weiterentwickeln wird. Die Erde wird einen Abschluß erlangen. Die Erde wird sich weiterentwickeln durch eine Jupiter-, Venus-, durch eine Vulkan-Planetenentwickelung. Da wird der Mensch von Stufe zu Stufe aufsteigen. Zu seinem Ich, wissen wir, wird sich hinzuentwickeln eine höhere Wesenheit, die sich in ihm offenbaren wird: das Geistselbst, das so recht sich offenbaren wird während der Jupiterentwickelung, die auf unsere Erdenentwickelung folgen wird. Der Lebensgeist wird sich voll offenbaren im Menschen während der Venuszeit, und der eigentliche Geistesmensch wird sich offenbaren während der Vulkanzeit. Wir sehen also, indem wir der großen kosmischen Menschenzukunft entgegenblicken, auf diese dreistufige Entwickelung des Geistselbst, des Lebensgeistes, des Geistesmenschen. Aber diese drei, die uns gewissermaßen erwarten in unserer Zukunftsentwickelung, sie stehen heute schon in einer gewissen Beziehung zu uns, wenn sie auch noch gar nicht entwickelt sind; denn sie liegen beschlossen im Schoße der göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten, die wir als höhere Hierarchien kennen gelernt haben. Sie werden uns herausgespendet aus diesen höheren Hierarchien. Und heute schon stehen wir in Beziehung zu diesen höheren Hierarchien, die uns in der Zukunft das Geistselbst, den Lebensgeist, den Geistesmenschen bescheren werden. So daß wir einfach sagen können, statt daß wir den komplizierten Ausdruck gebrauchen «Wir stehen in Beziehung zur Hierarchie der Angeloi»: «Wir stehen in Beziehung zu dem, was da kommen soll in der Zukunft, zu unserem Geistselbst.» Und statt daß wir sagen: «Wir stehen in Beziehung zu den Archangeloi», sagen wir: «Wir stehen in Beziehung zu dem in der Zukunft kommenden Lebensgeist» und so weiter.
Und in der Tat, wir Menschen sind in einer gewissen Beziehung mehr, jetzt schon der Anlage nach mehr - und in der geistigen Welt bedeuten Anlagen etwas weit Höheres als in der physischen Welt -, als bloß dieser viergliedrige Mensch: physischer Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib und Ich. Wir tragen als Keim schon das Geistselbst in uns, auch den Lebensgeist, auch den Geistesmenschen. Entwickeln aus uns werden sie sich später, aber wir tragen sie als Keim in uns. Und nicht nur so abstrakt, daß wir sie als Keim in uns tragen, ist das zu sagen, sondern dieses In-uns-Tragen ist ganz konkret gemeint, denn wir haben mit diesen höheren Gliedern unserer Wesenheit Begegnungen, wirkliche Begegnungen. Und diese Begegnungen, die liegen in der folgenden Weise: Wir würden als Menschen immer mehr und mehr dahin kommen, eine gewisse für die gegenwärtige Entwickelung des Menschen schwer erträgliche Entfremdung von allem Geistigen zu fühlen, wenn wir nicht von Zeit zu Zeit begegnen könnten unserem Geistselbst. Unser Ich muß jenem Höheren, jenem Geistselbst begegnen, das wir erst entwikkeln werden und das in einer gewissen Beziehung gleichartig ist mit Wesenheiten aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi. So daß man in der populären Sprache auch sagen kann, wenn wir christlich sprechen: Wir müssen von Zeit zu Zeit begegnen einem Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi, das uns besonders nahesteht, weil dieses Wesen, indem es uns begegnet, an uns geistig dasjenige vornimmt, was uns in die Lage versetzt, einstmals ein Geistselbst aufzunehmen. Und wir müssen eine Begegnung haben mit einem Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Archangeloi, weil dieses Wesen dann mit uns etwas vornimmt, was dazu führt, daß der Lebensgeist einstmals entwickelt wird und so weiter.
Ob wir im christlichen Sinne dieses Wesen versetzen in die Hierarchie der Angeloi, oder ob wir mehr im antiken Sinne sprechen von dem, was die älteren Völker gemeint haben, wenn sie von dem Genius, von dem führenden Genius des Menschen sprachen, das ist im Grunde genommen ganz gleich. Wir wissen, wir leben in einer Zeit, wo es nicht vielen, sondern nur wenigen Menschen gestattet ist — aber diese Zeit wird bald anders werden -, hineinzuschauen in die geistige Welt, die Dinge und Wesenheiten der geistigen Welt zu schauen. Die Zeit ist vorbei, aber sie war da, wo man in einem viel umfänglicheren Sinne allgemein die Wesenheiten der geistigen Welt und auch die verschiedenen Entwickelungsvorgänge der geistigen Welt geschaut hat. Und in der Zeit, in der man gesprochen hat von dem Genius eines jeden Menschen, da hat man auch ein unmittelbar konkretes Anschauen von diesem Genius gehabt. Dieses konkrete Anschauen war in einer nicht so fern zurückliegenden Vergangenheit so stark noch, daß die Menschen es beschreiben konnten in aller Konkretheit, in aller Sachlichkeit; in einer Sachlichkeit, die die gegenwärtige Menschheit für Dichtung hält, die aber nicht als Dichtung gemeint ist. So schildert Plutarch - und ich möchte die Stelle wörtlich mitteilen — das Verhältnis des Menschen zu seinem Genius in der folgenden Art [Siehe Hinweise]. Plutarch, der griechische Schriftsteller, sagt, daß außer dem in den irdischen Leib versenkten Teil der Seele ein anderer, reiner Teil derselben außerhalb, über dem Haupte des Menschen schwebend bleibt, als ein Stern sich darstellend, der mit Recht sein Dämon, sein Genius, genannt wird, welcher ihn leitet, und dem der Weise willig folgt. -— Also so konkret schildert Plutarch das, was er nicht als eine Dichtung, sondern als eine konkrete äußere Wirklichkeit meint, daß er ausdrücklich darauf hinweist: Für das übrige ist der geistige Teil des Menschen gewissermaßen mit dem physischen Leibe zugleich zu schauen, so daß der geistige Teil den physischen in demselben Raume normalerweise ausfüllt; aber, was den Genius betrifft, den leitenden, führenden Geist des Menschen, der ist noch als etwas Besonderes außerhalb des Hauptes für jeden Menschen zu sehen. — Und Paracelsus, einer der letzten, die ohne besondere Anleitung oder ohne besondere Veranlagung kräftige Kunde von diesen Dingen hatten, sagte aus sich heraus ungefähr das gleiche über diese Erscheinung. Und viele andere. Dieser Genius ist nichts anderes als das werdende Geistselbst, getragen allerdings von einem Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi.
Es ist sehr bedeutsam, sich ein wenig in diese Dinge zu vertiefen; denn mit dem Sichtbarwerden dieses Genius hat es seine besondere Bewandtnis, und die lernt man verstehen, wenn man unter anderem - es könnte auch von einem ganz anderen Gesichtspunkte zu der Sache geführt werden, aber nehmen wir den einen Gesichtspunkt — das Verhältnis der Menschen in ihrem gegenseitigen Verkehr untereinander auffaßt. Dieses Verhältnis der Menschen in ihrem gegenseitigen Verkehr untereinander, das lehrt uns etwas. Es lehrt uns etwas keineswegs Unbedeutsames im Hinblick auf die geistigen Glieder der menschlichen Wesenheit. Wenn zwei Menschen sich begegnen, und der Mensch nur imstande ist, mit seinem physisch-sinnlichen Auge diese Begegnung zu beobachten —- nun, da merkt er, daß sie aufeinander loskommen, daß sie sich vielleicht begrüßen und dergleichen. Wenn der Mensch aber in der Lage ist, den Vorgang geistig zu beobachten, so findet er, daß mit jeder menschlichen Begegnung wirklich verknüpft ist ein geistiger Vorgang, der sich unter anderem darin äußert, daß der Teil des Ätherleibes, der den Kopf bildet, so lange als zwei Menschen nebeneinander stehen, ein Ausdruck wird für die auch feinste Sympathie und Antipathie, welche diese zwei Menschen, die zusammenkommen, einander entgegenbringen. Nehmen wir an, zwei Menschen begegnen einander, die einander nicht ausstehen können. Nehmen wir den extremen Fall, aber er kommt ja vor im Leben: Zwei Menschen begegnen einander, die sich nicht ausstehen können, und zwar sei dieses Gefühl der hervorragenden Antipathie gegenseitig. Da tritt das ein, daß der Teil des Ätherleibes, der den Kopf bildet, bei beiden Menschen sich aus dem Kopf herausneigt, und die Ätherleiber des Kopfes sich zusammenneigen. Gleichsam wie ein fortdauerndes Kopfneigen mit Bezug auf den ätherischen Menschen, so stellt sich die Antipathie heraus, wenn zwei Menschen sich begegnen, die sich eben nicht ausstehen können. — Wenn zwei Menschen zusammenkommen, die sich lieben, so merkt man einen ähnlichen Vorgang. Dann tritt nur der Ätherkopf zurück, beugt sich ab nach rückwärts. Und auf diese Weise entsteht in beiden Fällen — ob sich dann, wenn man sich nicht ausstehen kann, der Ätherleib gleichsam grußartig nach vorne neigt, oder ob er sich nach rückwärts neigt, wenn man sich liebt —, in beiden Fällen entsteht gewissermaßen das, daß durch das Herausneigen des Ätherleibes des Kopfes der physische Kopf freier wird, als er sonst ist. Es ist immer nur relativ; es geht der Ätherleib nicht ganz heraus, aber er verlagert sich und geht zurück, so daß man eine Fortsetzung erblickt. Aber dadurch füllt jetzt ein dünnerer Ätherleib das Haupt aus, als wenn man allein steht. Das hat zur Folge, daß durch diesen dünneren Ätherleib, der den Kopf ausfüllt, im Haupte der Astralleib, der dableibt, deutlicher sichtbar wird für das hellsichtige Anschauen. So daß nicht nur diese Bewegung des Ätherleibes eintritt, sondern daß tatsächlich mit dem Haupte des Menschen eine astralische Lichtveränderung vor sich geht. Darauf, wiederum nicht auf einer Dichtung, sondern auf einer tatsächlichen Wahrheit, beruht das, daß man, wo man von den Dingen etwas versteht, Menschen, die in der Lage sind, vieles selbstlos zu lieben, abbilden muß mit einer Kopfaura, was man einen Heiligenschein nennt. Denn wenn zwei Menschen einander einfach begegnen, wobei in der Liebe immer ein starker Einschlag von Egoismus ist, so ist die Erscheinung nicht so auffällig. Wenn aber ein Mensch der Menschheit sich gegenüberstellt in Augenblicken, wo er es nicht mit sich und seiner persönlichen Beziehung zu einem anderen Menschen zu tun hat, sondern mit etwas allgemein Menschlichem, mit etwas, das mit ällgemeiner Menschenliebe zusammenhängt, so treten auch die Dinge ein. Dann aber wird der Astralleib in der Hauptesgegend mächtig sichtbar. Und sind Leute da, die imstande sind, selbstlose Liebe an einem Menschen hellsichtig zu schauen, dann sehen sie den Heiligenschein und sind gedrängt, den Heiligenschein als eine Realität zu malen, oder wie man es eben dann macht. Diese Dinge hängen durchaus mit objektiven Tatsachen der geistigen Welt zusammen. Was da objektiv vorhanden ist, was als fortdauernde Wirklichkeit der Menschheitsentwickelung vorhanden ist, das ist aber noch mit etwas anderem verbunden.
Der Mensch muß wirklich von Zeit zu Zeit eine innigere Gemeinschaft mit seinem Geistselbst eingehen, mit dem Geistselbst, das nun auch in der astralischen Aura, die so sichtbar wird in dem, was ich Ihnen angedeutet habe, veranlagt, nicht entwickelt ist, die gleichsam von oben, von dem Zukünftigen überstrahlt wird, der Mensch muß mit seinem Geistselbst von Zeit zu Zeit zusammentreffen. Und wann geschieht dieses?
Da kommen wir auf die erste Begegnung, von der wir zu sprechen haben. Wann geschieht dies? Es geschieht einfach jedesmal ungefähr beim normalen Schlafe in der Mitte zwischen Einschlafen und Aufwachen. Bei den Menschen, die dem Naturleben näherstehen, bei den einfachen Landleuten, die mit der sinkenden Sonne schlafen gehen und entsprechend mit der aufgehenden Sonne aufstehen, fällt diese Mitte der Schlafenszeit auch wiederum mit der Mitte der Nacht mehr oder weniger zusammen. Bei dem Menschen, der sich herausreißt aus den Naturzusammenhängen, ist das weniger der Fall. Aber darauf beruht ja die menschliche Freiheit, daß dies möglich ist. Der Mensch der modernen Kultur kann sich sein Leben einrichten, wie er will; zwar nicht, ohne daß das von einem gewissen Einfluß ist auf dieses Leben, aber er kann es sich in gewissen Grenzen einrichten, wie er will. Dann kann er doch in der Mitte einer längeren Schlafenszeit das erleben, was man nennt ein innigeres Zusammensein mit dem Geistselbst, also mit den geistigen Qualitäten, aus denen das Geistselbst genommen sein wird, eine Begegnung mit dem Genius. Diese Begegnung mit dem Genius findet also beim Menschen, cum grano salis gesprochen, jede Nacht, das heißt jede Schlafenszeit, statt. Und dies ist wichtig für den Menschen. Denn was wir auch haben können an einem die Seele befriedigenden Gefühl über den Zusammenhang des Menschen mit der geistigen Welt, es beruht darauf, daß diese Begegnung während der Schlafenszeit mit dem Genius nachwirkt. Das Gefühl, das wir im wachen Zustand bekommen können von unserem Zusammenhang mit der geistigen Welt, ist eine Nachwirkung dieser Begegnung mit dem Genius. Das ist die erste Begegnung mit der höheren Welt, von der man als zunächst etwas Unbewußtem für die meisten Menschen heute sprechen kann, das aber immer bewußter und bewußter werden wird, je mehr die Menschen die Nachwirkung gewahr werden dadurch, daß sie ihr waches Bewußtseinsleben in den Empfindungen durch Aufnahme der Ideen und Vorstellungen der Geisteswissenschaft so verfeinern, daß die Seele eben nicht zu grob ist, um die Nachwirkung aufmerksam zu betrachten. Denn nur darauf kommt es an, daß die Seele fein genug ist, in ihrem inneren Leben intim genug ist, um diese Nachwirkungen zu betrachten. In irgendeiner Form kommt diese Begegnung mit dem Genius bei jedem Menschen oftmals zum Bewußtsein, nur ist die heutige materialistische Umgebung, das Erfülltsein mit den Begriffen, die aus der materialistischen Weltanschauung kommen, namentlich das von der materialistischen Gesinnung durchzogene Leben, nicht geeignet, die Seele aufmerksam sein zu lassen auf dasjenige, was durch diese Begegnung mit dem Genius hergestellt wird. Es wird einfach dadurch, daß die Menschen sich mit geistigeren Begriffen, als der Materialismus ihnen liefern kann, vertiefen, die Anschauung von dieser Begegnung mit dem Genius in jeder Nacht etwas mehr und mehr Selbstverständliches für den Menschen.
Eine höhere Begegnung ist die zweite, von der wir nun zu sprechen haben.
Sehen Sie, schon aus der Andeutung, die ich gegeben habe, können Sie entnehmen, daß diese erste Begegnung mit dem Genius zusammenhängt mit dem Tageslauf. Sie würde, wenn wir unser äußeres Leben ganz anpassen würden als mehr unfreie Menschen, als wie wir sie sind während der modernen Kultur, zusammenfallen mit der Mitternachtsstunde. In jeder Mitternachtsstunde würde der Mensch diese Begegnung mit dem Genius haben. Aber darauf beruht die Freiheit des Menschen, daß sich das verschiebt. Also das, wo das Ich sich mit dem Genius begegnet, das verschiebt sich. Dagegen kann sich viel weniger verschieben die zweite Begegnung. Denn dasjenige, was mehr an den astralischen Leib und Ätherleib gebunden ist, das verschiebt sich weniger gegenüber der makrokosmischen Ordnung. Was mit dem Ich und physischen Leib verbunden ist, das verschiebt sich für den heutigen Menschen sehr stark. Die zweite Begegnung ist daher schon mehr an die große makrokosmische Ordnung gebunden. Diese zweite Begegnung ist nun ebenso an den Jahreslauf gebunden, wie die erste an den Tageslauf gebunden ist. Und da muß ich aufmerksam machen auf manches, was ich ja über diese Sache schon von anderen Gesichtspunkten aus angedeutet habe.
Das Leben des Menschen in seiner Ganzheit verläuft tatsächlich nicht im ganzen Jahreslauf in gleichmäßiger Art, sondern der Mensch macht Veränderungen durch während des Jahreslaufes.
In der Sommerzeit, wenn die Sonne ihre höchste Wärmeentfaltung hat, da ist der Mensch viel mehr seinem physischen Leben anheimgegeben, und damit auch dem physischen Leben der Umgebung, als wäh rend der Winterzeit, wo der Mensch gewissermaßen kämpfen muß ge‘gen die äußeren elementarischen Erscheinungen, wo er mehr auf sich angewiesen ist. Da reißt sich auch mehr sein Geistiges los — von sich und auch von der Erde -, und er ist mit der geistigen Welt, mit der ganzen geistigen Umgebung verbunden.
Daher ist die eigentümliche Empfindung, die wir mit dem Weihnachtsmysterium und dem Weihnachtsfest verbinden, keineswegs etwas "Willkürliches, sondern sie hängt zusammen mit der Festsetzung des Weihnachtsfestes. In jenen Wintertagen, an denen das Fest angesetzt ist, da ist der Mensch in der Tat, wie die ganze Erde, dem Geiste hingegeben. Da durchlebt der Mensch gewissermaßen ein Reich, wo der Geist ihm nahesteht. Und die Folge davon ist eben das, daß um die Weihnachtszeit, so bis zu unserem heutigen Neujahr hin, der Mensch ebenso eine Begegnung seines Astralleibes mit dem Lebensgeist durchmacht, wie er für die erste Begegnung die Begegnung des Ich mit dem Geistselbst durchmacht. Und auf dieser Begegnung mit dem Lebensgeist beruht das Nahesein dem Christus Jesus. Denn durch den Lebensgeist offenbart sich der Christus Jesus. Er offenbart sich durch ein Wesen aus dem Reiche der Archangeloi. Selbstverständlich ist er ein unendlich viel höheres Wesen, aber nicht darauf kommt es jetzt an, sondern darauf, daß er sich offenbart durch ein Wesen aus dem Reiche der Archangeloi. So daß wir durch diese Begegnung für die heutige Entwickelung, für die Entwickelung seit dem Mysterium von Golgatha, eben dem Christus Jesus besonders nahestehen, und daß wir die Begegnung mit dem Lebensgeist in gewisser Beziehung auch die in den tiefen Untergründen der Seele vor sich gehende Begegnung mit dem Christus Jesus nennen können. Wenn nun der Mensch - sei es durch die Entwickelung des Geistesbewußtseins im Bereiche der religiösen Vertiefung und der religiösen Übung, oder sei es, diese religiöse Übung und religiöse Empfindung ergänzend, auch noch durch Aufnahme von Vorstellungen der Geisteswissenschaft —, wenn nun der Mensch sein Empfindungsleben vertieft, vergeistigt auf die geschilderte Weise, dann wird er ebenso, wie er im wachen Leben die Nachwirkung der Begegnung mit dem Genius erleben kann, erleben die Nachwirkung der Begegnung mit dem Lebensgeist, beziehungsweise mit dem Christus. Und es ist tatsächlich so, daß in der Zeit, die nun auf die angedeutete Weihnachtszeit folgt, bis zur Osterzeit hin, die Verhältnisse ganz besonders günstig liegen, um sich zum Bewußtsein zu bringen die Begegnung des Menschen mit dem Christus Jesus.
In tiefsinniger Weise — und man sollte das nicht durch eine abstrakte materialistische Kultur heute verwischen - ist die Weihnachtszeit gebunden an Vorgänge der Erde, weil der Mensch mit der Erde die Weihnachtsveränderung der Erde durchmacht. Die Osterzeit ist bestimmt nach den Vorgängen am Himmel. Der Ostersonntag soll festgesetzt werden auf den ersten Sonntag, der folgt auf den ersten Vollmond nach der Frühlingstagundnachtgleiche-Zeit. Während also die Weihnachtszeit durch Verhältnisse der Erde festgesetzt ist, ist von oben herunter bestimmt die Festsetzung der Osterzeit. Denn ebenso wahr, wie wir durch all dasjenige, was wir geschildert haben, mit den Erdenverhältnissen zusammenhängen, ebenso wahr hängen wir zusammen durch dasjenige, was ich jetzt zu schildern habe, mit den Himmelsverhältnissen, mit den großen, kosmisch-geistigen Verhältnissen. Denn die Osterzeit, das ist diejenige Zeit im konkreten Jahresablauf, in der alles dasjenige, was durch die Begegnung mit dem Christus in der Weihnachtszeit in uns veranlaßt worden ist, wiederum sich mit unserem physischen Erdenmenschen so recht verbindet. Und das große Mysterium, das Karfreitagsmysterium, das dem Menschen das Mysterium von Golgatha zur Osterzeit vergegenwärtigt, hat neben allem anderen auch noch diese Bedeutung, daß der Christus, der gleichsam neben uns einherwandelt, in der Zeit, die ich beschrieben habe, sich nun uns am meisten nähert, gewissermaßen, grob gesprochen, in uns selber verschwindet, uns durchdringt, so daß er bei uns bleiben kann für die Zeit nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha, in der Zeit, die jetzt kommt als Sommerzeit, in der sich in alten Mysterien zu Johanni die Menschen mit dem Makrokosmos haben verbinden wollen auf eine andere Weise, als das nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha sein muß.
Sie sehen, wir sind in dieser Beziehung der Mikrokosmos, der eingegliedert ist in den Makrokosmos in einer tief bedeutsamen Weise. Und es ist jedesmal ein Zusammengehen mit dem Makrokosmos im Jahreslebenslauf da, das aber gebunden ist, weil es mehr innerlich ist im Menschen, an den Jahreslebenslauf. So versucht uns nach und nach die Geisteswissenschaft zu enthüllen, was der Mensch an Vorstellungen, an geisteswissenschaftlichen Vorstellungen sich aneignen kann über den seit dem Mysterium von Golgatha unser Erdenleben durchsetzenden und durchdringenden Christus.
Und ich glaube an dieser Stelle eine Einschaltung machen zu sollen, die wichtig ist, und die gerade von den Freunden unserer Geisteswissenschaft recht gut verstanden werden sollte.
Man sollte nicht die Sache so darstellen, als ob geisteswissenschaftliche Bestrebungen ein Ersatz sein sollten für die religiöse Übung und das religiöse Leben. Geisteswissenschaft kann im höchsten Maße und insbesondere auch mit Bezug auf das Christus-Mysterium eine Stütze, eine Unterbauung des religiösen Lebens und der religiösen Übung sein; aber man sollte Geisteswissenschaft nicht geradezu zur Religion machen, sondern man sollte sich klar sein darüber, daß Religion in ihrem lebendigen Leben, in ihrem lebendigen Geübtwerden innerhalb der menschlichen Gemeinschaft das Geistbewußtsein der Seele entfacht. Soll dieses Geistbewußtsein im Menschen lebendig werden, so kann der Mensch nicht bei abstrakten Vorstellungen von Gott oder Christus stehen bleiben, sondern er muß immer erneut in der religiösen Übung, in der religiösen Betätigung, die ja für die verschiedenen Menschen die verschiedensten Formen annehmen kann, darinnenstehen als in etwas, was ihn als ein religiöses Milieu umgibt, was als ein religiöses Milieu zu ihm spricht. Und ist dieses religiöse Milieu tief genug, findet dieses religiöse Milieu die Mittel, die Seele genügend anzuregen, so wird diese Seele schon Sehnsucht empfinden, gerade dann Sehnsucht empfinden auch zu jenen Vorstellungen hin, welche in der Geisteswissenschaft entwickelt werden. Ist in objektiver Beziehung Geisteswissenschaft ganz sicherlich eine Stütze der religiösen Erbauung, so ist in subjektiver Beziehung heute die Zeit gekommen, von der wir sagen müssen, daß ein recht religiös empfindender Mensch gerade durch das religiöse Empfinden hingetrieben wird, auch zu erkennen. Denn im religiösen Empfinden wird das Geistbewußtsein, in der Geisteswissenschaft die Geist-Erkenntnis, so wie in der Naturwissenschaft die Naturerkenntnis, errungen; und das Geistbewußtsein führt zu dem Drange, GeistErkenntnis sich zu erwerben. Subjektiv kann man sagen, daß gerade ein inniges religiöses Leben den heutigen Menschen zur Geisteswissenschaft treiben kann.
Eine dritte Begegnung ist diejenige, in welcher der Mensch herankommt, nahekommt dem ganz spät in der Zukunft zu entwickelnden eigentlichen Geistesmenschen, vermittelt durch ein Wesen der Hierarchie der Archai. Wir können sagen: Die Alten, und auch noch die Menschen der Gegenwart — nur daß die Menschen der Gegenwart meist, wenn sie von diesen Dingen sprechen, nicht mehr ein Bewußtsein von der tieferen Wahrheit der Sache haben -, sie empfanden und empfinden diese Begegnung als die Begegnung mit dem, was die Welt durchdringt, was wir kaum mehr unterscheiden können in uns selbst und in der Welt, sondern wo wir aufgehen mit unserem Selbst in der Welt als in einer Einheit. Und so wie man bei der zweiten Begegnung zugleich sprechen kann von einer Begegnung mit dem Christus Jesus, so kann man bei der dritten Begegnung sprechen von der Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip, mit dem «Vater» als dem der Welt zugrunde Liegenden; mit dem, was man empfindet, wenn man richtig empfindet, als das, was in den Religionen mit dem «Vater» gemeint ist. Diese Begegnung, die ist nun wiederum so, daß sie unser intimes Verhältnis zum Makrokosmos, zum göttlich-geistigen Universum offenbart. Der tägliche Verlauf der universellen Vorgänge, der Weltenvorgänge, schließt ein für uns die Begegnung mit dem Genius. Der jährliche Verlauf schließt ein für uns die Begegnung mit dem Christus Jesus. Und der Verlauf des ganzen Menschenlebens, dieses Menschenlebens, das normalerweise eben als das Patriarchenleben von 70 Jahren bezeichnet werden kann, schließt sich zusammen mit der Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip. Wir werden eine gewisse Zeit unseres physischen Erdenlebens, mit Recht durch die Erziehung heute vielfach unbewußt, aber doch eben darauf vorbereitet und erleben dann — zumeist für die Menschen zwischen dem 28. und 42. Jahre unbewußt, aber in den intimen Tiefen der Seele vollwertig — die Begegnung mit diesem Vater-Prinzip. Dann kann die Nachwirkung .in das spätere Leben hineinragen, wenn wir feine Empfindungen genug entwickeln, um auf das zu achten, was so in unser Leben aus uns selber "kommend als Nachwirkung der Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip her_ einspielt.
Eine gewisse Zeit unseres Lebens, wo wir vorbereitet werden, sollte daher die Erziehung dahin wirken — durch die mannigfaltigsten Mittel kann das geschehen -, dem Menschen recht tief möglich zu machen diese Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip. Es kann dadurch geschehen, wenn der Mensch während seiner Erziehungszeit angetrieben wird, so recht das Gefühl zu entwickeln von der Herrlichkeit der Welt, der Größe der Welt, der Erhabenheit der Weltvorgänge. Wir entziehen dem heranwachsenden Menschen viel, wenn wir ihn zu wenig merken lassen, so daß es auf ihn übergeht, daß wir für all das, was sich offenbart an Schönheit und Größe in der Welt, die hingebungsvollste Ehrfurcht und Ehrerbietung haben. Und indem wir so recht den Gefühlszusammenhang des menschlichen Herzens mit der Schönheit, mit der Größe der Welt den heranwachsenden Menschen fühlen lassen, bereiten wir ihn vor für eine rechte Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip. Denn diese Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip bedeutet viel für das Leben, das zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt verläuft. Dieses Begegnen mit dem Vater-Prinzip, das in den angedeuteten Jahren normalerweise eintritt, bedeutet, daß der Mensch eine starke Kraft und Stütze hat, wenn er, wie wir wissen, zurückzuleben hat, nachdem er durch die Todespforte geschritten ist, im Rücklauf seelisch seinen Lebensgang, sein Erdenleben, indem er durch die Seelenwelt geht. Und stark und kräftig, wie es eigentlich der Mensch soll, kann er diese Rückwanderung — die, wie wir wissen, einen dritten Teil der Zeit bedeutet, die wir zubringen zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode erleben, wenn er immer wieder schaut: Da, an dieser Stelle bist du begegnet demjenigen Wesen, das der Mensch stammelnd, ahnend ausdrückt, wenn er von dem Vater der Weltenordnung spricht. Das ist eine wichtige Vorstellung, die neben der Vorstellung des Todes selber der Mensch, nachdem er durch die Todespforte geschritten ist, immer haben soll.
Natürlich entsteht in Anbetracht dessen, was wir gerade besprochen haben, eine wichtige Frage. Es gibt Menschen, welche, bevor sie des Lebens Mitte, wo normalerweise die Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip geschieht, durchlaufen haben, sterben. Wir müssen den Fall ins Auge fassen, daß der Mensch eben dann durch Veranlassung von außen, durch Krankheit - die ja auch eine Veranlassung von außen ist —, durch Schwäche stirbt. Wenn durch dieses frühe Sterben die Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip in den tiefen unterbewußten Seelengründen noch nicht hat stattfinden können, dann findet sie in der Todesstunde statt. Mit dem Tode wird diese Begegnung zugleich erlebt. Und hier ist es, wo wir anders ausdrücken können etwas, was ja, eben wieder anders, im entsprechenden Zusammenhang schon ausgedrückt ist zum Beispiel in meiner «Theosophie», wo von der ja immer im höchsten Grade betrüblichen Erscheinung gesprochen ist, daß Menschen durch ihren eigenen Willen ihrem Leben ein Ende machen. Das würde keiner tun, der die Bedeutung einer solchen Tat einsieht. Und wenn einmal Geisteswissenschaft wirklich in die Empfindungen der Menschen übergegangen sein wird, wird es keinen Selbstmord mehr geben. Denn daß der Mensch in der Todesstunde, wenn dieser Tod vor der Lebensmitte eintritt, zugleich wahrnehmen kann das Vater-Prinzip, das hängt davon ab, daß eben der Tod von außen an ihn herankommt, nicht daß er ihn sich selbst gibt. Und die Schwierigkeit, die die Menschenseele hat, die von einem anderen Gesichtspunkt in meiner «Theosophie» geschildert wird, könnte nun von dem Gesichtspunkt, von dem wir heute sprechen, auch so geschildert werden, daß wir sagen könnten: Der Mensch entzieht sich durch den eigenwilligen Tod eventuell der Begegnung mit dem VaterPrinzip in der entsprechenden Inkarnation.
Deshalb, weil sie so intim in das Leben eingreifen, sind die Wahrhei-ten, welche uns die Geisteswissenschaft über das Menschenleben selbst zu sagen hat, so unendlich ernst in besonders wichtigen Fällen. Sie klären uns in ernster Weise über das Leben auf, und dieses ernste Aufklären über das Leben, das braucht der Mensch in der Zeit, in der er sich wiederum wird herauswinden müssen aus dem Materialismus, der die heutige Weltordnung und Weltanschauung, insofern sie von Menschen abhängt, beherrscht. Es wird starker Kräfte bedürfen, um die starke Verbindung mit den bloß materiellen Mächten, die in der Gegenwart die Menschen ergriffen hat, zu überwinden, um dem Menschen wieder die Möglichkeit zu geben, aus der unmittelbaren Lebenserfahrung heraus seinen Zusammenhang mit der geistigen Welt zu erkennen.
Und wenn man in mehr abstrakter Weise von den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien spricht, so kann man in konkreterer Weise sprechen davon, daß der Mensch selber, in zunächst unbewußten, aber zum Bewußtsein zu bringenden Erlebnissen schon während seines Lebens zwischen Geburt und Tod aufsteigen, drei Stufen hinaufschreiten kann: durch die Begegnung mit dem Genius, durch die Begegnung mit dem Christus Jesus, durch die Begegnung mit dem Vater. Natürlich hängt sehr viel davon ab, daß wir möglichst viele zur Empfindung drängende Vorstellungen gewinnen, die unser Leben, unser inneres Seelenleben so verfeinern, daß wir nicht achtlos und unaufmerksam an diesen Dingen vorbeigehen, die einfach als Realität, wenn wir aufmerksam sind, in unser Leben hereinspielen. In dieser Beziehung wird insbesondere die Erziehung viel, viel, gerade in der nächsten Zeit zu tun haben.
Eine Vorstellung möchte ich noch erwähnen. Denken Sie, wie unendlich das Leben vertieft wird, wenn man zu dem allgemeinen Wissen über das Karma solche Einzelheiten hinzufügen kann wie diese, daß bei einem verhältnismäßig frühen Lebensende der Mensch im Tode die Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip hat. Denn dann zeigt sich, daß eben im Karma des Menschen es notwendig gewesen ist, den frühen Tod herbeizuführen, damit eine abnorme Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip stattfindet. Denn was findet denn eigentlich statt, wenn eine solche anormale Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip stattfindet? Der Mensch wird ja dann von außen zerstört; sein physisches Wesen wird von außen untergraben. Auch bei einer Krankheit ist das in Wahrheit der Fall. Dann ist der Schauplatz, auf dem sich die Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip abspielt, hier noch die physische Welt. Dadurch, daß diese äußere physische Erdenwelt den Menschen zerstört hat, dadurch offenbart sich an der Zerstörungsstätte selbst, im Rückblick natürlich später immer wieder sichtbar, die Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip. Dadurch aber auch gewinnt der Mensch die Möglichkeit, durch sein ganzes Leben, das er durchschreitet, nachdem er durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, festzuhalten den Gedanken an die Stätte hin, das heißt an die Erde, von Himmelshöhen herunter, wo die Begegnung mit dem Vater-Prinzip stattgefunden hat. Das aber bringt den Menschen dazu, von der geistigen Welt viel hereinzuwirken in die physische Erdenwelt.
Betrachten wir von diesem Gesichtspunkte einmal unsere heutige Zeit und versuchen wir, eine solch wichtige Empfindung, wie wir sie heute auch wieder in der Erwähnung der Begegnung mit dem VaterPrinzip entwickelt haben, als Empfindung zu erleben, nicht bloß als abstrakte Vorstellung, versuchen wir mit dieser Empfindung auf die zahlreichen frühzeitigen Tode hinzublicken, dann müssen wir sagen: In ihnen liegt die Prädestination, die Vorbereitung dazu, daß in der kommenden Zeit viel gewirkt werden kann von der geistigen Welt herunter in die physische Erdenwelt. Und da haben Sie von einem anderen Gesichtspunkte dasjenige, was ich jetzt unter den Eindrücken der traurigen Ereignisse schon seit Jahren gesagt habe, daß diejenigen Menschen, die frühzeitig heute durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, ganz besondere Helfer werden sollen für die künftige Entwickelung der Menschheit, die starke Kräfte braucht, um sich aus dem Materialismus herauszuwinden. Aber das alles muß uns zum Bewußtsein gebracht werden; das alles soll ja nicht im Unbewußten oder Unterbewußten vor sich gehen. Und es ist deshalb schon notwendig, daß hier auf der Erde die Seelen sich dafür empfänglich machen - ich habe es schon einmal angedeutet -, sonst gehen die Kräfte, die entwickelt werden aus der geistigen Welt, nach anderen Seiten hin. Damit der Erde fruchtbar werden können diese Kräfte, die prädestiniert sind, die da sein können, dazu ist notwendig, daß auf der Erde Seelen sind, welche sich mit Erkenntnis der geistigen Welt durchdringen. Und immer mehr und mehr müssen Seelen sein, die sich mit der Erkenntnis der geistigen Welt durchdringen. Versuchen wir deshalb fruchtbar zu machen dasjenige, was ja schon einmal durch Worte gesagt werden muß, nämlich den Inhalt der Geisteswissenschaft. Und versuchen wir mit Hilfe der Sprache - ich habe das Wort im vorletzten Vortrage hier gebraucht -, die wir durch die Geisteswissenschaft lernen, wieder zu beleben solche alten Vorstellungen, die nicht umsonst hereinverwoben werden in unser gegenwärtiges Leben - versuchen wir zu beleben, was wir hören von so einem Plutarch: daß der Mensch, sonst eben als physischer Mensch, durchdrungen ist von dem geistigen Menschen, daß aber noch im besonderen normalerweise ein höheres Glied außerhalb des Hauptes zum Menschen dazugehört geistig, das seinen Genius darstellt, dem der Weise willig folgt. Versuchen wir zu, ich möchte sagen, Hilfsempfindungen zu kommen, um nicht in Unaufmerksamkeit diesen Erscheinungen des Lebens gegenüberzustehen.
Und zum Schlusse lassen Sie uns heute eine Hilfsvorstellung, eine Hilfsempfindung unserer Seele besonders nahegelegt sein: Es ist leider schwierig für viele Menschen heute in unserem modernen materialistischen Leben, etwas zu empfinden, das ja die traurige Prüfungszeit mildert, aber die nicht nur gemildert bleiben sollte - was ja kaum zu hoffen ist, wenn der Materialismus in der Stärke andauern sollte, in der er da ist, das sehr, sehr erhöht und mehr und mehr erhöht werden sollte -, es ist für viele Menschen in unserer materialistischen Zeit sehr, sehr . schwierig, dasjenige zu empfinden, was ich nennen möchte: die Heiligkeit des Schlafes. Wenn erlebt wird, daß geradezu die in der Menschheit geltende Intelligenz allen Respektes entbehrt für die Heiligkeit des Schlafes, so ist das eine weittragende Kulturerscheinung. Solche Dinge sollen ja nicht getadelt werden, sie sollen auch nicht in dem Sinne hier aufgezählt werden, daß sie zu einer nun einmal nicht durchzuführenden Asketik führen. Wir müssen mit der Welt leben, aber wir müssen sehend mit der Welt leben. Denn nur dadurch reißen wir unsere Körperlichkeit... [Lücke im Stenogramm]. Man denke nur, wieviele Menschen, die mit rein dem Materiellen Zugewendeten die Abendstunden verbringen, sich dann dem Schlafe übergeben, ohne die Empfindung zu entwickeln — sie wird ja nicht recht lebendig aus der materialistischen Gesinnung heraus -, ohne die Empfindung zu entwickeln: Der Schlaf vereinigt uns mit der geistigen Welt, der Schlaf schickt uns hinüber in die geistige Welt. - Und wenigstens sollten die Menschen nach und nach dasjenige entwickeln, was sie sich mit den Worten sagen können: Ich schlafe ein. Bis zum Aufwachen wird meine Seele in der geistigen Welt sein. Da wird sie der führenden Wesensmacht meines Erdenlebens begegnen, die in der geistigen Welt vorhanden ist, die mein Haupt umschwebt, da wird sie dem Genius begegnen. Und wenn ich aufwachen werde, werde ich die Begegnung mit dem Genius gehabt haben. Die Flügel meines Genius werden herangeschlagen haben an meine Seele.
Ob man eine solche Empfindung lebendig macht, wenn man an sein Verhältnis zum Schlafe denkt, oder ob man es nicht tut, davon hängt sehr, sehr viel ab in bezug auf die Überwindung des materialistischen Lebens. Diese Überwindung des materialistischen Lebens kann nur durch die Erregung intimer, aber auch der geistigen Welt entsprechender Empfindungen geschehen. Nur wenn wir recht rege machen solche Empfindungen, dann wird das Leben im Schlafe so intensiv sein, daß anderseits die Berührung mit der geistigen Welt so stark ist, daß nach und nach auch unser waches Leben sich erkraften kann, und wir da nicht bloß die sinnliche Welt, sondern die geistige Welt um uns haben, die doch die wirkliche, die wahrhaft wirkliche Welt ist. Denn diese Welt, die wir gewöhnlich die wirkliche nennen, ist ja, wie ich selbst in dem letzten öffentlichen Vortrage ausgeführt habe, nur ein Abbild der wirklichen Welt. Die wirkliche Welt ist die des Geistes. Und die kleine Gemeinde, die sich heute der anthroposophisch orientierten Geisteswissenschaft widmet, die wird die ernsten Symptome unserer Zeit, die schweren Leiden unserer Zeit dann unter dem besten Eindruck empfangen, wenn sie zu allem übrigen, mit dem der Mensch heute geprüft werden kann, noch das hinzutut, daß sie diese Zeit als eine Prüfung empfindet, ob man mit genügender Seelenstärke und mit wahrem Herzensmut, mit seinem ganzen Menschen vereinigen kann dasjenige, was wir aufnehmen müssen durch unseren Verstand, durch unsere Vernunft, als Geisteswissenschaft.
Mit diesen Worten wollte ich heute noch einmal bekräftigen, was ich schon öfter hier gesagt habe: Geisteswissenschaft findet erst ihre rechte Stelle im Menschenherzen, wenn sie nicht bloß Theorie, nicht bloß Wissen ist, sondern wenn sie — symbolisch gesprochen — wie das Herzblut der Seele unser ganzes Wesen so innig durchdringt und lebendig macht, wie unser physisches Blut unser leibliches Wesen innig durchdringen und lebendig machen muß.
Third Lecture
To shape in the noblest sense what we can gain from spiritual science can lead us to feel how the human being in his ordinary outer human nature carries within himself the inner human being, who is, to ordinary perception, a completely second human being. In this respect, we all truly consist of two beings, one of which, composed more of our physical body and our etheric body, belongs to the external world; external world in the sense that this physical body and, in a certain sense, also the etheric body are manifestations and images, revelations of the divine-spiritual beings that always surround us. Our physical body and our etheric body in their true essence, not as we initially know them as human beings, are images, not of ourselves, not of our reality, but images, we might say, of the gods who live out their lives by bringing forth, just as we humans bring forth our actions, our physical body and our etheric body, and develop these two. The inner human being is such that the astral body and the I are closer to him. This I and the astral body are younger for the universe than the physical body and the etheric body. We know this from the communications that are also recorded in “The Secret Science.” This ego and the astral body are what rest, as it were, in the bed prepared for us by the divine-spiritual beings who permeate and reveal the outer universe. And this ego and the astral body are to ascend gradually through the experiences, through the trials, through the vicissitudes of fate that they undergo through the physical and etheric bodies, to the stages of development that we have already learned about.
Now, as I already indicated last time, we stand in the most intimate relationship with the entire universe, with the entire cosmos; in such relationships which, as we saw last time from a rough calculation, can even be calculated, can be expressed in numbers; which, of course, are expressed in many, many other ways, but I would say, to our surprise, can be expressed in numbers such as this: the number of breaths a human being takes in a day is equal to the number of years it takes the vernal equinox to return to its former position. Such numerical discoveries, when we penetrate them emotionally, can fill us with a shiver, a holy shiver about our belonging to the divine-spiritual universe as it reveals itself in all external phenomena.
But this fact reveals something much deeper: that we are the microcosm, the small world that has been formed and revealed from the macrocosm, the large world, when we consider such facts as we want to bring before our minds today, facts that I would like to call the three encounters of the human soul with the beings of the universe. So today I would like to speak to you about the three encounters of the human soul with the beings of the universe.
We all know that, as we walk here on earth, we carry within us the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. Each of these two entities that we have mentioned carries within itself, I would say, two sub-entities: the more external human being carries the physical body and the etheric body, while the more internal human being carries the I and the astral body. Now, however, we know that human beings will continue to evolve. The Earth will reach a conclusion. The earth will continue to evolve through a Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan planetary evolution. Man will ascend from stage to stage. We know that a higher entity will develop alongside his ego and reveal itself in him: the spirit self, which will reveal itself during the Jupiter evolution that will follow our earth evolution. The life spirit will reveal itself fully in humans during the Venus period, and the actual spirit-human will reveal itself during the volcanic period. So, as we look forward to the great cosmic future of humanity, we see this three-stage development of the spirit self, the life spirit, and the spirit-human. But these three, which in a sense await us in our future development, already stand in a certain relationship to us today, even though they are not yet developed; for they lie decided in the bosom of the divine-spiritual beings whom we have come to know as higher hierarchies. They will be bestowed upon us from these higher hierarchies. And already today we stand in relationship to these higher hierarchies, which will bestow upon us in the future the spirit self, the life spirit, the spirit man. So that instead of using the complicated expression, “We stand in relationship to the hierarchy of the Angeloi,” we can simply say, “We stand in relationship to what is to come in the future, to our spirit self.” And instead of saying, “We are connected to the archangels,” we say, “We are connected to the life spirit that will come in the future,” and so on.
And indeed, we humans are, in a certain sense, already more than just this fourfold human being: physical body, etheric body, astral body, and I. We already carry within us the seed of the spirit self, the life spirit, and the spirit human being. They will develop out of us later, but we carry them within us as seeds. And this is not to be understood in an abstract sense, that we carry them within us as seeds, but in a very concrete sense, for we have encounters with these higher members of our being, real encounters. And these encounters take place in the following way: As human beings, we would increasingly come to feel a certain alienation from everything spiritual that is difficult to bear in the present stage of human development if we were not able to encounter our spiritual self from time to time. Our ego must encounter that higher being, that spiritual self, which we are only just developing and which is, in a certain sense, similar to beings from the hierarchy of the angeloi. So that in popular language, when we speak as Christians, we can also say: From time to time we must encounter a being from the hierarchy of the angeloi who is particularly close to us, because this being, in encountering us, undertakes spiritually what enables us to one day take in a spiritual self. And we must have an encounter with a being from the hierarchy of the Archangeloi, because this being then undertakes something with us that leads to the development of the life spirit at some point in time, and so on.
Whether we place this being in the hierarchy of the Angeloi in the Christian sense, or whether we speak more in the ancient sense of what the older peoples meant when they spoke of the genius, the guiding genius of man, is basically the same thing. We know that we live in a time when not many, but only a few people are allowed — but this time will soon change — to look into the spiritual world, to see the things and beings of the spiritual world. The time is past, but there was a time when people generally saw the beings of the spiritual world and also the various processes of development in the spiritual world in a much more comprehensive sense. And in the time when people spoke of the genius of every human being, they also had a direct, concrete view of this genius. This concrete perception was still so strong in the not-too-distant past that people could describe it in all its concreteness, in all its objectivity; in an objectivity that present-day humanity considers fiction, but which is not meant as fiction. Plutarch, for example, describes the relationship between human beings and their genius in the following way [see references]. Plutarch, the Greek writer, says that apart from the part of the soul immersed in the earthly body, another, pure part of it remains outside, hovering above the human head, appearing as a star, which is rightly called his demon, his genius, which guides him and which the wise man willingly follows. Plutarch describes what he means not as fiction but as concrete external reality in such concrete terms that he expressly points out: For the rest, the spiritual part of man is, in a sense, to be seen together with the physical body, so that the spiritual part normally fills the physical part in the same space; but as for the genius, the guiding spirit of man, it is still to be seen as something special outside the head of each individual. — And Paracelsus, one of the last who had powerful knowledge of these things without special instruction or special predisposition, said roughly the same thing about this phenomenon. And many others. This genius is nothing other than the becoming spirit itself, carried, however, by a being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi.
It is very important to delve a little deeper into these things, for there is something special about the manifestation of this genius, and one learns to understand this when one considers, among other things—it could also be approached from a completely different angle, but let us take this one angle—the relationship between people in their mutual interaction. This relationship between people in their mutual interactions teaches us something. It teaches us something that is by no means insignificant with regard to the spiritual members of the human being. When two people meet, and the person is only able to observe this encounter with their physical, sensory eyes, they notice that the two are approaching each other, that they may greet each other, and so on. But if the person is able to observe the process spiritually, he finds that every human encounter is actually connected with a spiritual process, which expresses itself, among other things, in the fact that the part of the etheric body that forms the head becomes, as long as two people stand next to each other, an expression of the finest sympathy and antipathy that these two people who come together towards each other. Let us assume that two people meet who cannot stand each other. Let us take an extreme case, but one that does occur in life: two people meet who cannot stand each other, and this feeling of intense antipathy is mutual. What happens then is that the part of the etheric body that forms the head leans out of the head in both people, and the etheric bodies of the head lean toward each other. Just as if one were constantly bowing one's head in relation to the etheric human being, this antipathy manifests itself when two people meet who simply cannot stand each other. When two people who love each other come together, one notices a similar process. Then only the etheric head recedes, bending backward. And in this way, in both cases — whether the etheric body bows forward in a kind of greeting when people dislike each other, or whether it bows backward when they love each other — in both cases, the physical head becomes freer than it otherwise would be through the leaning out of the etheric body of the head. It is always only relative; the etheric body does not go out completely, but it shifts and recedes so that one sees a continuation. But as a result, a thinner etheric body now fills the head than when one stands alone. The result is that through this thinner etheric body filling the head, the astral body remaining in the head becomes more clearly visible to clairvoyant observation. So that not only does this movement of the etheric body take place, but an actual astral change of light occurs in the human head. This, again not based on fiction but on actual truth, is the reason why, when one understands something about things, one must depict people who are capable of selfless love with a head aura, which is called a halo. For when two people simply meet each other, in which there is always a strong element of egoism in love, the phenomenon is not so noticeable. But when a person stands before humanity at moments when he is not concerned with himself and his personal relationship to another person, but with something generally human, with something connected with general love for humanity, then these things also occur. Then the astral body becomes powerfully visible in the head region. And if there are people who are able to see selfless love in a person with clairvoyance, they see the halo and are compelled to paint the halo as a reality, or however they do it. These things are definitely connected with objective facts of the spiritual world. But what is objectively present, what exists as a continuing reality of human development, is connected with something else.
From time to time, human beings must truly enter into a more intimate communion with their spiritual self, with the spiritual self that is now also present in the astral aura, which becomes so visible in what I have indicated to you, is predisposed, not developed, which is, as it were, illuminated from above, from the future, human beings must meet with their spiritual self from time to time. And when does this happen?
This brings us to the first encounter we have to talk about. When does this happen? It happens simply every time during normal sleep, halfway between falling asleep and waking up. For people who are closer to nature, for simple country folk who go to sleep when the sun goes down and get up when the sun rises, this middle of the sleep period also coincides more or less with the middle of the night. This is less the case for people who have torn themselves away from the natural environment. But it is precisely this possibility that forms the basis of human freedom. People in modern culture can organize their lives as they wish; not without this having a certain influence on their lives, but they can organize them as they wish within certain limits. Then, in the middle of a longer period of sleep, they can experience what is called a more intimate communion with the spirit self, that is, with the spiritual qualities from which the spirit self is taken, an encounter with the genius. This encounter with the genius takes place in humans, cum grano salis, every night, that is, every time they go to sleep. And this is important for humans. For whatever we may have in the way of a soul-satisfying feeling about the connection between human beings and the spiritual world is based on the after-effect of this encounter with the genius during sleep. The feeling we can get in the waking state from our connection with the spiritual world is an after-effect of this encounter with the genius. This is the first encounter with the higher world, which for most people today can be described as something initially unconscious, but which will become more and more conscious as people become more aware of the after-effects through they refine their waking consciousness in their feelings by taking in the ideas and concepts of spiritual science, so that the soul is not too coarse to observe the after-effects attentively. For it is only important that the soul is fine enough, intimate enough in its inner life, to observe these after-effects. In some form or another, this encounter with the genius often comes to consciousness in every human being, but today's materialistic environment, the filling of the soul with concepts derived from the materialistic worldview, especially a life permeated by a materialistic attitude, is not conducive to making the soul attentive to what is brought about by this encounter with the genius. Simply by immersing themselves in more spiritual concepts than materialism can provide, people's view of this encounter with genius becomes more and more self-evident to them every night.
The second encounter we are now going to discuss is a higher one.
You can already see from the hint I have given that this first encounter with genius is connected with the course of the day. If we were to adapt our outer life completely as more unfree human beings than we are in modern culture, it would coincide with the midnight hour. At every midnight hour, human beings would have this encounter with genius. But human freedom is based on the fact that this shifts. So the place where the ego encounters the genius shifts. The second encounter, on the other hand, can shift much less. For that which is more bound to the astral body and etheric body shifts less in relation to the macrocosmic order. What is connected with the ego and the physical body shifts very strongly for people today. The second encounter is therefore already more bound to the great macrocosmic order. This second encounter is now just as bound to the course of the year as the first is bound to the course of the day. And here I must draw attention to a number of things that I have already hinted at from other points of view.
Human life in its entirety does not actually proceed in a uniform manner throughout the course of the year, but rather, human beings undergo changes during the course of the year.
In summer, when the sun is at its hottest, human beings are much more at the mercy of their physical life, and thus also of the physical life of their surroundings, than in winter, when they have to fight, as it were, against the external elemental phenomena and are more dependent on themselves. Their spiritual nature also breaks free more — from themselves and from the earth — and they are connected with the spiritual world, with the entire spiritual environment.
Therefore, the peculiar feeling we associate with the mystery of Christmas and the Christmas festival is by no means something “arbitrary,” but is connected with the establishment of the Christmas festival. During those winter days when the festival is celebrated, human beings are indeed, like the whole earth, devoted to the spirit. During this time, human beings experience, in a sense, a realm where the spirit is close to them. And the result of this is that during the Christmas season, until our present New Year, human beings undergo an encounter of their astral body with the life spirit, just as they undergo the encounter of the I with the spirit self during their first encounter. And this encounter with the life spirit is the basis for our closeness to Christ Jesus. For Christ Jesus reveals himself through the life spirit. He reveals himself through a being from the realm of the archangels. Of course, he is an infinitely higher being, but that is not what matters now. What matters is that he reveals himself through a being from the realm of the archangels. So that through this encounter, for the present stage of development, for the development since the Mystery of Golgotha, we are particularly close to Christ Jesus, and that we can also call the encounter with the life spirit, in a certain sense, the encounter with Christ Jesus that takes place in the deepest depths of the soul. When human beings deepen their feeling life in the way described, whether through the development of spiritual consciousness in the realm of religious deepening and religious practice, or by supplementing this religious practice and religious feeling with the reception of ideas from spiritual science, then they experience the after-effects of their encounter with the genius in their waking life in the same way as they experience the after-effects of their encounter with the spirit of life, or with Christ. just as in waking life he can experience the after-effects of an encounter with genius, he will experience the after-effects of an encounter with the life spirit, or with Christ. And it is indeed the case that in the period following the Christmas season, up to Easter, conditions are particularly favorable for bringing to consciousness the encounter of human beings with Christ Jesus.
In a profound way — and this should not be obscured by today's abstract materialistic culture — the Christmas season is linked to events on Earth, because human beings undergo the Christmas transformation of the Earth together with the Earth. The Easter season is determined by events in the heavens. Easter Sunday is to be fixed on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. So while the Christmas season is determined by conditions on earth, the Easter season is determined from above. For just as we are connected with earthly conditions through all that we have described, so too are we connected with heavenly conditions, with the great cosmic-spiritual conditions, through what I am now about to describe. For the Easter season is the time in the concrete course of the year when everything that has been brought about in us through the encounter with Christ during the Christmas season is once again truly connected with our physical earthly human being. And the great mystery, the mystery of Good Friday, which brings the mystery of Golgotha to life for human beings at Easter, has, among other things, the significance that Christ, who walks alongside us, as it were, during the time I have described, now comes closest to us, disappears, so to speak, into ourselves, penetrates us so that he can remain with us for the time after the mystery of Golgotha, in the time that is now coming as summertime, in which, in ancient mysteries at St. John's, people wanted to connect with the macrocosm in a different way than must be the case after the mystery of Golgotha.
You see, in this respect we are the microcosm, which is integrated into the macrocosm in a deeply meaningful way. And each time there is a coming together with the macrocosm in the course of the year, but this is bound because it is more internal in the human being, to the course of the year. In this way, spiritual science gradually attempts to reveal to us what human beings can acquire in terms of ideas, spiritual scientific ideas, about Christ, who has permeated and penetrated our earthly life since the mystery of Golgotha.
And at this point, I believe I should make an important interjection, which should be well understood by the friends of our spiritual science.
One should not present the matter as if spiritual scientific endeavors were a substitute for religious practice and religious life. Spiritual science can be a support, a foundation for religious life and religious practice in the highest degree, especially in relation to the Christ mystery; but spiritual science should not be turned into a religion. Rather, we should be clear that religion, in its living life, in its living practice within the human community, kindles the spiritual consciousness of the soul. If this spiritual consciousness is to become alive in human beings, they cannot remain with abstract ideas of God or Christ, but must always stand anew in religious practice, in religious activity, which can take the most diverse forms for different people, as something that surrounds them as a religious milieu, that speaks to them as a religious milieu. And if this religious environment is deep enough, if this religious environment finds the means to sufficiently stimulate the soul, then this soul will already feel a longing, precisely then a longing also for those ideas that are developed in spiritual science. If, in an objective sense, spiritual science is most certainly a support for religious edification, then in a subjective sense the time has come today when we must say that a truly religious person is driven precisely by their religious feeling to also seek knowledge. For in religious feeling, spiritual consciousness is attained, in spiritual science spiritual knowledge is attained, just as in natural science knowledge of nature is attained; and spiritual consciousness leads to the urge to acquire spiritual knowledge. Subjectively, one can say that it is precisely an intimate religious life that can drive people today to spiritual science.
A third encounter is that in which human beings come close to the actual spiritual human beings who will develop very late in the future, mediated by a being of the hierarchy of the archai. We can say: The ancients, and also the people of the present — except that the people of the present, when they speak of these things, no longer have an awareness of the deeper truth of the matter — they felt and feel this encounter as an encounter with what permeates the world, what we can hardly distinguish anymore in ourselves and in the world, but where we merge with our self in the world as in a unity. And just as in the second encounter one can speak of an encounter with Christ Jesus, so in the third encounter one can speak of an encounter with the Father principle, with the “Father” as the foundation of the world; with what one feels, if one feels correctly, as what is meant by “Father” in the religions. This encounter, in turn, reveals our intimate relationship with the macrocosm, with the divine-spiritual universe. The daily course of universal processes, of world processes, includes for us the encounter with the genius. The annual course includes for us the encounter with Christ Jesus. And the course of the whole human life, this human life, which can normally be described as the patriarchal life of 70 years, comes to a close with the encounter with the father principle. We spend a certain period of our physical life on earth, often unconsciously due to today's education, but nevertheless prepared for it, and then we experience — mostly unconsciously for people between the ages of 28 and 42, but fully in the intimate depths of the soul — the encounter with this Father principle. Then the after-effects can extend into later life if we develop enough sensitivity to pay attention to what comes into our lives from within ourselves as the after-effects of the encounter with the father principle.
A certain period of our life, during which we are being prepared, should therefore be devoted to education — this can be achieved by a wide variety of means — to enable human beings to experience this encounter with the father principle as deeply as possible. This can happen if, during their education, human beings are encouraged to develop a sense of the glory of the world, the greatness of the world, and the sublimity of world events. We deprive the growing human being of much when we allow him to notice too little, so that it passes him by, that we have the most devoted reverence and respect for all that is revealed in the beauty and greatness of the world. And by allowing young people to feel the emotional connection between the human heart and the beauty and greatness of the world, we prepare them for a proper encounter with the father principle. For this encounter with the father principle means a great deal for the life that passes between death and a new birth. This encounter with the Father principle, which normally occurs in the years indicated, means that human beings have a strong force and support when, as we know, they have to live again after passing through the gate of death, in the return journey of their soul, passing through the soul world. And strong and powerful, as human beings should be, they can experience this return journey — which, as we know, means a third part of the time we spend between birth and death — if they keep looking back: There, at this point, you encountered the being that human beings express stammeringly, intuitively, when they speak of the Father of the World Order. This is an important idea which, alongside the idea of death itself, human beings should always have after they have passed through the gates of death.
Of course, in view of what we have just discussed, an important question arises. There are people who die before they have reached the middle of life, when the encounter with the father principle normally takes place. We must consider the case that a person dies through external causes, through illness — which is also an external cause — or through weakness. If, due to this early death, the encounter with the Father principle has not yet taken place in the deep subconscious depths of the soul, then it takes place at the hour of death. With death, this encounter is experienced at the same time. And here we can express in a different way something that has already been expressed in a different way in the corresponding context, for example in my Theosophy, where I speak of the always most sad phenomenon of people ending their lives of their own free will. No one who understands the significance of such an act would do it. And once spiritual science has truly entered into people's feelings, there will be no more suicide. For the fact that the human being, at the hour of death, if this death occurs before the middle of life, can at the same time perceive the Father principle, depends precisely on the fact that death comes to him from outside, not that he gives it to himself. And the difficulty that the human soul has, which is described from a different point of view in my “Theosophy,” could now also be described from the point of view we are talking about today, so that we could say: Through self-willed death, the human being possibly withdraws from the encounter with the Father principle in the corresponding incarnation.
Because they intervene so intimately in life, the truths that spiritual science has to tell us about human life itself are so infinitely serious in particularly important cases. They enlighten us in a serious way about life, and this serious enlightenment about life is what human beings need at a time when they must once again extricate themselves from the materialism that dominates the present world order and worldview, insofar as it depends on human beings. Strong forces will be needed to overcome the strong connection with the purely material forces that have taken hold of people in the present, in order to give people back the opportunity to recognize their connection with the spiritual world out of their immediate life experience.
And when we speak in a more abstract way about the beings of the higher hierarchies, we can speak in a more concrete way about the fact that human beings themselves, in experiences that are initially unconscious but can be brought to consciousness, can already ascend during their lives between birth and death, climbing three steps: through the encounter with the genius, through the encounter with Christ Jesus, through the encounter with the Father. Of course, much depends on our gaining as many compelling ideas as possible that refine our life, our inner soul life, so that we do not pass by these things carelessly and inattentively, which, if we are attentive, simply play into our life as reality. In this respect, education will have a great deal to do, especially in the coming period.
I would like to mention one more idea. Think how infinitely life is deepened when one can add to the general knowledge about karma such details as this: that at a relatively early end of life, the human being encounters the Father principle in death. For then it becomes clear that it was necessary in the karma of the human being to bring about an early death so that an abnormal encounter with the father principle could take place. For what actually happens when such an abnormal encounter with the father principle takes place? The human being is then destroyed from outside; his physical being is undermined from outside. This is also true in the case of illness. Then the scene on which the encounter with the father principle takes place is still the physical world. Through the fact that this external physical world has destroyed the human being, the encounter with the father principle is revealed at the very place of destruction, which of course becomes visible again and again in retrospect. But this also gives human beings the opportunity, throughout their entire life after passing through the gate of death, to hold fast to the thought of the place, that is, of the earth, from the heights of heaven, where the encounter with the father principle took place. This, in turn, leads human beings to bring much of the spiritual world into the physical world of Earth.
Let us consider our present time from this point of view and try to experience such an important feeling as we have developed again today in mentioning the encounter with the Father Principle, not merely as an abstract idea, but as a real feeling. Let us try to look at the numerous early deaths with this feeling, and then we must say: In them lies the predestination, the preparation for the fact that in the coming time much can be accomplished from the spiritual world down into the physical world. And there you have, from another point of view, what I have been saying for years now under the impression of sad events, that those people who pass through the gate of death at an early age today are to become very special helpers for the future development of humanity, which needs strong forces to extricate itself from materialism. But we must be made aware of all this; it must not remain in the unconscious or subconscious. And that is why it is necessary for souls here on earth to make themselves receptive to this—I have already hinted at this—otherwise the forces that are developed from the spiritual world will go elsewhere. In order for these forces, which are predestined to be here, to become fruitful on Earth, it is necessary that there be souls on Earth who are imbued with knowledge of the spiritual world. And there must be more and more souls who permeate themselves with knowledge of the spiritual world. Let us therefore try to make fruitful that which must first be expressed in words, namely the content of spiritual science. And let us try, with the help of language — I used this word in the penultimate lecture here — which we learn through spiritual science, to revive such old ideas that are not woven into our present life for nothing — let us try to revive what we hear from someone like Plutarch: that the human being, apart from being a physical being, is permeated by the spiritual human being, but that, in addition, there is normally a higher member outside the head that belongs to the human being spiritually, which represents his genius, which the wise man willingly follows. Let us try, I would say, to arrive at auxiliary feelings so that we do not stand in inattention before these phenomena of life.
And finally, let us today allow ourselves to be particularly open to an auxiliary idea, an auxiliary feeling of our soul: Unfortunately, it is difficult for many people today in our modern materialistic life to feel something that mitigates the sad time of trial, but that should not remain merely mitigated — which is hardly to be hoped for if materialism continues in the strength in which it exists, which is very, very great and increasing more and more — it is very, very difficult for many people in our materialistic age to feel what I would like to call the sanctity of sleep. difficult for many people in our materialistic times to feel what I would like to call the sanctity of sleep. When we experience that the intelligence prevailing in humanity has no respect for the sanctity of sleep, this is a far-reaching cultural phenomenon. Such things should not be condemned, nor should they be listed here in the sense that they lead to asceticism, which is simply not feasible. We must live with the world, but we must live with our eyes open. For only in this way can we break away from our physicality... [gap in the stenogram]. Just think how many people who spend their evenings devoted purely to material things then surrender themselves to sleep without developing the feeling—it does not really come alive from a materialistic mindset—without developing the feeling that sleep unites us with the spiritual world, that sleep sends us over into the spiritual world. - And at least people should gradually develop what they can say to themselves with the words: I am falling asleep. Until I wake up, my soul will be in the spiritual world. There it will encounter the guiding power of my earthly life, which exists in the spiritual world, which surrounds my head, there it will encounter the genius. And when I wake up, I will have had the encounter with the genius. The wings of my genius will have touched my soul.
Whether one brings such a feeling to life when thinking about one's relationship to sleep, or whether one does not, depends very, very much on overcoming materialistic life. This overcoming of materialistic life can only happen through the arousal of intimate feelings that also correspond to the spiritual world. Only if we really stir up such feelings will life in sleep be so intense that, on the other hand, contact with the spiritual world will be so strong that, little by little, our waking life will also be strengthened, and we will have around us not only the sensory world, but also the spiritual world, which is, after all, the real, the truly real world. For this world, which we usually call the real world, is, as I myself explained in my last public lecture, only a reflection of the real world. The real world is that of the spirit. And the small community that today devotes itself to anthroposophically oriented spiritual science will then receive the serious symptoms of our time, the grave sufferings of our time, under the best impression if, in addition to everything else with which human beings can be tested today, it adds that it perceives this time as a test of whether we can unite with sufficient strength of soul and true courage of heart, with our whole being, that which we must take in through our intellect, through our reason, as spiritual science.
With these words, I wanted to reaffirm today what I have said here many times before: Spiritual science only finds its rightful place in the human heart when it is not merely theory, not merely knowledge, but when it — symbolically speaking — like the heart's blood of the soul, permeates our whole being so intimately and enlivens it, just as our physical blood must intimately permeate and enliven our physical being.