Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz
GA 130
29 January 1912, Cassel
X. The Dawn of Occultism in the Modern Age II
Today we will lead on from the lecture of the day before yesterday to certain matters which can promote a deep personal understanding of Anthroposophical life. If we survey our life and make real efforts to get to the roots of its happenings, very much can be gained. We shall recognise the justice of many things in our destiny and realise that we have deserved them. Suppose someone has been superficial and thoughtless in the present incarnation and is subsequently struck by a blow of fate. It may not be possible, externally, to connect the blow of fate directly with the thoughtlessness, but a feeling arises, nevertheless, that there is justice in it. Then again, looking back on our life, we find blows of fate which we can only attribute to chance, for there seems no explanation for them whatever. These two categories of experience are to be discovered as we survey our life.
Now it is important to make a clear distinction between apparent chance and obvious necessity. When a man reviews his life with reference to these two kinds of happenings, he will fail to reach any higher stage of development unless he endeavours to have a very clear perception of everything that seems to him to be due to chance. We must try, above all, to have a clear perception of those things we have not wished for, which go right against the grain. It is possible to induce a certain attitude of soul and to say to ourselves: How would it be if I were to take those things which I have not desired, which are disagreeable to me, and imagine that I myself actually really wanted them? In other words we imagine with all intensity that we ourselves willed our particular circumstances.
In regard to apparently fortuitous happenings we must picture the possibility of having ourselves put forth a deliberate and strong effort of will in order to bring them about. Meditatively as it were, we must induce this attitude to happenings which, on the face of them, seem to be purely fortuitous in our lives. Every human being today is capable of this mental exercise. If we proceed in this way, a very definite impression will gradually be made upon the soul; we shall feel as though something were striving to be released from us. The soul says to itself: ‘Here, as a mental image, I have before me a second being; he is actually there.’ We cannot get rid of this image and the being gradually becomes our ‘double.’ The soul begins to feel a real connection with this being who has been imagined into existence, to realise that this being does actually exist within us. If this conception deepens into a vivid and intense experience, we become aware that this imagined being is by no means without significance. The conviction comes to us: this being was already once in existence and at that time you had within you the impulses of will which led to the apparently chance happenings of today. Thereby we reach a deeply rooted conviction that we were already in existence before coming down into the body. Every human being today can have this conviction.
And now let us consider the question of the successive incarnations of the human being. What is it that reincarnates? How can we discover the answer to this question?
There are three fundamental and distinct categories of experiences in the life of the soul Firstly our mental pictures, our ideas, our thoughts. In forming a mental picture our attitude may well be one of complete neutrality; we need not love or hate what we picture inwardly, neither need we feel sympathy or antipathy towards it. Secondly there are the moods and shades of feelings which arise alongside the ideas or the thoughts; the cause of these moods in the life of feeling is that we like or love one thing, dislike or abhor another, and so forth. The third kind of experience in the life of the soul are the impulses of the will. There are, of course, transitional stages, but speaking generally these are the three categories. Moreover it is fundamentally characteristic of a healthy life of soul to be able to keep these three kinds of experiences separate and distinct from one another. Our life of thought and mental presentation arises because we receive stimuli from outside. Nobody will find it difficult to realise that the life of thought is the most closely bound up with the present incarnation. This, after all, is obvious when we bear in mind that speech is the instrument whereby we express our thoughts; and speech, or language, must, in the nature of things, differ in every incarnation. We no more bring language with us at the beginning of a new incarnation than we bring thoughts and ideas. The language as well as the thoughts must be acquired afresh in each incarnation. Hebbel51Hebbel ... diary: ‘After his soul journey Plato is now possibly being caned at school for—not understanding Plato.’ Hebbel's diaries Nr. 1335. once wrote something very remarkable in his diary. The idea occurred to him that a scene in which the reincarnated Plato was being soundly chastised by the teacher for his lack of understanding of Plato would produce a very striking effect in a play! A man does not carry over his thought and mental life from one incarnation to another, and he takes practically nothing of it with him into his postmortem existence. After death we evolve no thoughts or mental pictures but have direct perceptions, just as our physical eyes have perceptions of colour. After death the world of concepts is seen as a kind of net stretching across existence. But our feelings, our moods of heart and feeling these we retain after death, and we also bring their forces with us as qualities and tendencies of soul into a new earthly life. For example, even if a child's life of thought is undeveloped, we shall be able to notice quite definite tendencies in his life of feeling. And because our impulses of will are linked with feelings we also take them with us into our life after death. If, for instance, a man succumbs to a mistaken idea, the effect upon his life of feeling is not the same as if he devotes himself to the truth. For a long time after death we suffer from the consequences of false mental presentations and ideas. Our attention must therefore turn to the qualities and moods of feeling and the impulses of will when we ask ourselves what actually passes on from one incarnation to another.
Suppose something painful happened to us ten or twenty years ago. In thought today we may be able to remember it quite distinctly and in detail. But the actual pain we felt at the time has all but faded away; we cannot re-experience the stirrings of feelings and impulses of will by which it was accompanied. Think for a moment of Bismarck52Bismarck: ‘Gedanken und Erinnerungen’ (Thoughts and Memories), 1898, 2 volumes. and the overwhelming difficulties we know he had to face when he took his decision to go to war in 1866; think of what tumultuous feelings, what teeming impulses of will were working in Bismarck at that time! But even when writing his memoirs, would Bismarck have been conscious of these emotions and resolves with anything like the same intensity? Of course not! Man's memory between birth and death is composed of thoughts and mental pictures. It may be, of course, that even after ten or twenty years a feeling of pain comes over us at the recollection of some sorrowful event, but generally speaking the pain will have greatly diminished after this lapse of time; in thought, however, we can remember the very details of the event. If we now picture to ourselves that we actually willed certain painful events, that in reality we welcomed things which in our youth we may have hated, the very difficulty of this exercise rouses the soul and thus has an effect upon the life of feeling. Suppose, for example, a stone once crashed down upon us. We now try with all intensity to picture that we ourselves willed it so. Through such mental pictures—that we ourselves have willed the chance events in our life—we arouse, in the life of feeling, memory of our earlier incarnations. In this way we begin to realise that we are rooted in the spiritual world, we begin to understand our destiny. We have brought with us, from our previous incarnation, the will for the chance events of this life.
To devote ourselves in meditation to such thoughts and elaborate them, is of the highest importance. Between death and a new birth too, much transpires, for this period is infinitely rich in experiences—purely spiritual experiences, of course. We therefore bring with us qualities of feeling and impulses of will from the period between death and a new birth, that is to say, from the spiritual world. Upon this rests a certain occurrence of very great importance in the modern age, but one of which little notice is taken. The occurrence is to be found in the lives of many people today, but it is usually passed by unnoticed. It is, however, the task of Anthroposophy to point to such an occurrence and its significance. Let me make it clear by an example.
Suppose a man has occasion to go somewhere or other and his path takes him in the wake of another human being, a child perhaps. Suddenly the man catches sight of a yawning chasm at the edge of the path along which the child is walking. A few steps further and the child will inevitably fall over the edge into the chasm. He runs to save the child, runs and runs, entirely forgetting about the chasm. Then he suddenly hears a voice calling out to him from somewhere: ‘Stand still!’ He halts as though nailed to the spot. At that moment the child catches hold of a tree and also stops, so that no harm befalls. If no voice had called at that moment the man would inevitably have fallen into the chasm. He wonders where the voice came from. He finds no single soul who could have called, but he realises that he would quite certainly have lost his life if he had not heard this voice; yet, however closely he investigates he cannot find that the warning came from any physical voice.
Through close self-observation many human beings living at the present time would be able to recognise a similar experience in their lives. But far too little attention is paid to such things. An experience of this kind may pass by without leaving a trace—then the impression fades away and no importance is attached to the experience. But suppose a man has been attentive and realises that it was not without significance. The thought may then occur to him: At that point in your life you were facing a crisis, a karmic crisis; your life should really have ended at that moment, for you had forfeited it. You were saved by something akin to chance, and since then a second life has as it were been grafted onto the first; this second life is to be regarded as a gift bestowed upon you and you must act accordingly. When such an experience makes a man feel that his life from that time onwards has been bestowed upon him as a gift, this means that he can be accounted a follower of Christian Rosenkreutz. For this is how Christian Rosenkreutz calls the souls whom he has chosen. A man who can recall such an occurrence—and everyone sitting here can discover something of the kind in their lives if they observe closely enough—has the right to say to himself: Christian Rosenkreutz has given me a sign from the spiritual world that I belong to his stream. Christian Rosenkreutz has added such an experience to my karma. This is the way in which Christian Rosenkreutz chooses his pupils; this is how he gathers his community. A man who is conscious of this experience knows with certainty that a path has been pointed out to him which he must follow, trying to discover how he can dedicate himself to the service of rosicrucianism. If there are some people who have not yet recognised the sign, they will do so later on; for he to whom the sign has once been given will never again be free from it.
Such an experience comes to a man because during the period between his last death and his present birth he was in contact with Christian Rosenkreutz in the spiritual world. It was then that Christian Rosenkreutz chose us, imparting an impulse of will which leads us now to such experiences. This is the way in which spiritual connections are established. Materialistic thought will naturally regard all these things as hallucinations, just as it regards the experience of Paul at Damascus as having been an hallucination. The logical conclusion to be drawn from this is that the whole of Christianity is based upon an hallucination, therefore upon error. For theologians are perfectly well aware that the event at Damascus is the foundation stone of the whole of subsequent Christianity. And if this foundation stone itself is nothing but an illusion, then, if thought is consistent, everything built upon it must obviously be fallacy.
An attempt has been made today to show that certain happenings, certain experiences in life may indicate to us how we are interwoven in the spiritual fabric of world existence. If we develop the memory belonging to our life of feeling, then we live our way into the spiritual life which streams and pulses through the world. Theoretical knowledge alone does not make men true Anthroposophists; those who understand their own life and the life of other human beings in the sense indicated today—they and they alone are true Anthroposophists. Anthroposophy is a basic power which can transform our life of soul. And the goal of the work in our groups must be that the intimate experiences of the soul change in character, that through the gradual development of the memory belonging to the life of feeling we become aware of immortality. The true theosophist or Anthroposophist must have this conviction: If you really will, if you apply the forces within you in all their strength, then you can utterly transform your character. We must learn to feel and experience that an immortal element holds sway in ourselves and in everything else. An Anthroposophist becomes an Anthroposophist because his faculties remain receptive his whole life long, even when his hair is white. And this realisation that progress is possible always and forever will transform our whole spiritual life today.
One of the consequences of materialism is that human beings become prematurely old. Thirty years ago, for example, children looked quite different; there are children today of ten or twelve years of age who give the impression almost of senility. Human beings have become so precocious, especially the grown-ups. They maintain that lies such as that of babies being brought by the stork should not be told to children, that children should be enlightened on such matters. But this enlightenment itself is really a lie. Those who come after us will know that the souls of our children hover down as bird-like spirit forms from the higher worlds. To have an imaginative conception of many things still beyond our comprehension is of very great importance. As regards the fact in question it might be possible to find a better imaginative picture than the story of the stork. What matters is that spiritual forces operate between the child and his parents or teachers, a kind of secret magnetism must be there. We must ourselves believe in any imaginative picture we give to the children. If it is a question of explaining death to them, we must point to another happening in nature. We can say: ‘See how the butterfly flies out of the chrysalis. The same thing happens to the human soul after death’ But we must ourselves believe that the world is arranged in such a way that the forces in the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis present us with an image of the soul going forth from the body. The world-spirit has inscribed such a picture in nature to draw our attention to the process. It is tremendously important to be always capable of learning, of remaining young, independently of our physical body. And that is the great task of theosophy that has become Anthroposophy: to bring to the world the rejuvenation which it needs. We must get beyond the banal and the purely material. To recognise soul and spirit as powers operating in life—this must be the aim of the work in our groups. We must be permeated more and more with the knowledge that the soul can gain mastery over the external world.
Die Morgenröte des Neueren Okkultismus
Heute wollen wir an die Betrachtung von vorgestern etwas anknüpfen, was uns zu tief persönlicher Auffassung theosophischen Lebens führen kann. Wenn wir unser Leben überblicken, wenn wir versuchen, uns in seinen Einzelheiten zurechtzufinden, so können wir durch eine solche Lebensbetrachtung viel gewinnen. Da werden wir sehen an manchen Dingen, die uns als unser Schicksal getroffen haben oder treffen, dass wir sie als gerecht anerkennen müssen, dass wir es so verdient haben. Sagen wir, ein Mensch ist in dieser Inkarnation etwas leichtsinnig gewesen und es trifft ihn später dann ein Schicksalsschlag, so kann man vielleicht nicht mehr äußerlich den Schicksalsschlag mit dem Leichtsinn zusammenbringen, aber man hat doch das Gefühl dafür, dass dieser Schlag uns in gerechter Weise zukommt. Andere Schicksalsschläge finden wir, weiterblickend, die uns wie Zufall dünken müssen, für die wir keine Erklärung finden. Diese zwei Kategorien von Erlebnissen finden wir, wenn wir zurückblicken auf unser Leben.
Es handelt sich nun darum, dass wir recht sehr unterscheiden zwischen dem, was uns als Zufall erscheint, und demjenigen, was als Notwendigkeit wirkt. Wenn der Mensch sein Leben auf diese zwei Kategorien von Erlebnissen hin betrachtet, dann kann er eine höhere Entwicklung nicht durchmachen, ohne dass er versucht, auf alles zu schauen, was ihm als Zufall erscheint. Wir müssen besonders versuchen zu schauen auf die Dinge, die wir nicht gewollt haben, die dem entgegenstehen, was uns gefällt. Es gibt eine gewisse Möglichkeit der Seelenverfassung, sich auf einen hypothetischen Möglichkeitsstandpunkt zu stellen und sich zu sagen: Wie wäre es, wenn ich mir vorstellte, dass ich dasjenige, was ich nicht gewollt habe, was mir gar nicht angenehm ist, was mir nicht gefällt, gerade so recht gewollt hätte, das was mir damals gerade nicht gefiel, und was ich nicht wollte? Dies muss man sich intensiv vorstellen: Wir selbst hätten diese unsere Lage aufs Energischste gewollt.
Von dem, was uns Zufall dünkt, müssen wir uns vorstellen: Wie wäre es, wenn wir den energischsten Willen angewendet hätten, um das alles zu wollen? Gleichsam meditierend muss der Mensch sich in diese Seelenstimmung versetzen gegenüber dem, was uns in unserem Leben als zufällige Ereignisse erscheint. Und jeder Mensch der Gegenwart kann dieses tun. Wenn wir so vorgehen, dann macht das nach und nach einen ganz besonderen Eindruck auf unsere Seele, wir fühlen, als ob sich etwas loslösen wollte von uns. Ich habe mir da einen zweiten, einen anderen Menschen vorgestellt, sagt sich die Seele, der ist nun da. Und man kann nicht mehr loskommen von dieser Vorstellung, sondern ein solcher ausgedachter Mensch wird nach und nach zu unserem Doppelgänger. Mit diesem ausgedachten Menschen hast du eigentlich etwas zu tun, sagt sich die Seele. Man steigt auf zu der Vorstellung: Dieser Mensch lebt eigentlich in dir. Und wenn man sich recht intensiv hineinlebt in diese Vorstellung, dann wird man gewahr, dass dieser ausgedachte Mensch nicht so ganz ohne Bedeutung ist. Die Überzeugung wird in uns wach: Das ist schon einmal dagewesen, und damals hast du die Willenskräfte zu den scheinbaren Zufälligkeiten von heute in dir gehabt. - Auf diese Weise verschaffen wir uns eine gründliche Überzeugung davon, dass wir schon einmal da waren, bevor wir in diese Leibeshülle untertauchten. Und jeder Mensch der Gegenwart kann diese Überzeugung sich verschaffen.
Wir müssen nun ins Auge fassen, wie die aufeinanderfolgenden Inkarnationen des Menschen sind. Was reinkarniert sich denn eigentlich? Wie können wir das finden?
Im menschlichen Seelenleben haben wir vorzugsweise drei Arten von Seelenerlebnissen zu unterscheiden. Erstens unsere Vorstellungen, unsere Gedanken. Wenn wir uns etwas vorstellen, so kann das ja in ganz neutraler Weise geschehen. Wir brauchen das, was wir uns vorstellen, nicht zu lieben oder zu hassen, ihm weder sympathisch noch antipathisch gegenüberzutreten. An die Vorstellungen reiht sich das Leben in den Gemütsstimmungen, die dadurch entstehen, dass wir das eine gerne haben, lieben, das andere verabscheuen, hassen und so weiter. Eine dritte Art von Seelenerlebnissen bilden die Willensimpulse. Es gibt wohl Übergänge, aber im Großen und Ganzen sind es diese drei Kategorien von Seelenerlebnissen. Und es ist ein Grundzug eines gesunden Seelenlebens, diese drei Erlebnisarten gesondert haben zu können. Unser Vorstellungsleben entsteht dadurch, dass wir äußere Anregungen empfangen. Nun wird jeder leicht einsehen können, dass dieses Vorstellungsleben am engsten zusammenhängt mit der gegenwärtigen Inkarnation. Es wird schon daraus klar, wenn wir bedenken, dass uns die Sprache zum Ausdruck der Vorstellungen dient. Und die Sprache kann natürlich in jeder Inkarnation nur eine andere sein. Ebenso wenig wie wir die Sprache mitbringen, wenn wir eine neue Inkarnation beginnen, ebenso wenig bringen wir die Vorstellungen mit. Beides, sowohl die Sprache als auch die Vorstellungen, müssen wir in jeder Inkarnation neu erringen. Hebbel hat einmal in sein Tagebuch einen merkwürdigen Eintrag gemacht. Er meinte, wie drastisch etwa ein Stück wirken müsste, in dem der wiederverkörperte Plato am meisten kujoniert wird von seinem Lehrer wegen schlechten Plato-Verständnisses. — Also das Vorstellungsleben geht nicht hinüber von einer Inkarnation zur anderen, und vom Vorstellungsleben nimmt der Mensch am wenigsten mit in die nachtodliche Welt. Wir bilden uns keine Vorstellungen nach dem Tode, sondern nehmen die Dinge unmittelbar wahr, wie unser physisches Auge die Farbe wahrnimmt. Das, was wir als Begriffswelt kennen, sehen wir nach dem Tode wie ein Netz, das über die Welt ausgespannt ist. Das aber, was uns bleibt, wenn wir durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten sind, und was wir auch bei einer neuen Erdengeburt wieder mitbringen als seelische Anlagen, das sind unsere Gemütsbewegungen, unsere Gemütsstimmungen. Und wir werden bei einem Kinde zum Beispiel, das in Bezug auf sein Vorstellungsleben noch sehr wenig weit ist, bemerken können, wie dagegen sein Empfindungsleben schon ganz bestimmte Linien zeigt. Und weil unsere Willensimpulse an die Gemütsverfassung geknüpft sind, so gehen auch sie mit uns durch die Pforte des Todes. Wenn zum Beispiel der Mensch sich einem Irrtum hingibt, so bewirkt das in seinem Gemüt etwas anderes, als wenn er sich einer Wahrheit hingibt. An diesen Folgen falscher Vorstellungen leiden wir noch lange nach dem Tode. Daher müssen wir sagen, dass wir auf das sehen müssen, was unsere Gemütsstimmungen und Willensimpulse sind, wenn wir uns fragen, was denn eigentlich von Inkarnation zu Inkarnation geht.
Nehmen wir nun einmal an, es habe uns vor zehn oder zwanzig Jahren ein schmerzliches Ereignis getroffen. Wir werden uns heute in unseren Vorstellungen noch ganz gut daran erinnern können, sogar an alle Einzelheiten. Aber wie verblasst ist der Schmerz, den wir damals empfunden haben, und wie wenig ist der Mensch imstande, die damaligen Gemütsbewegungen und Willensimpulse nachzuerleben. Denken wir einmal an Bismarck, von dem ja bekannt ist, unter wie außerordentlich schwierigen Verhältnissen er 1866 zum Kriege geschritten ist. Welche Gemütsbewegungen, welche ungeheure Fülle von Willensimpulsen hat sich da in Bismarcks Seele abgespielt! Aber wird Bismarck auch beim Schreiben seiner Lebenserinnerungen diese seelischen Erregungen und Willensentschlüsse wieder durchlebt haben in annähernd derselben Stärke? Gewiss nicht! Das menschliche Gedächtnis ist so beschaffen zwischen Geburt und Tod, dass es als Vorstellungsgedächtnis vorhanden ist. Natürlich kann es sein, dass auch noch nach zehn oder zwanzig Jahren uns Schmerz überkommt bei der Erinnerung an ein damals stattgehabtes, für uns schmerzliches Ereignis, aber im Allgemeinen wird der Schmerz stark verblasst sein im Laufe der Jahre, während sich in unserer Vorstellung die Erinnerung bis auf Einzelheiten erstrecken kann. Wenn wir uns nun vorstellen, wir hätten solche schmerzlichen Ereignisse gewollt, wir hätten sympathisch gefunden, was wir als junger Mensch vielleicht ganz unsympathisch gefunden haben, dann rüttelt die Schwierigkeit dieser Tätigkeit die Seele auf; sie wirkt hinüber in unser Gemüt. Wenn uns früher vielleicht ein Stein auf den Kopf gefallen ist, so versuchen wir jetzt mit aller Kraft, uns vorzustellen, dass wir das selbst so gewollt hätten. Durch solche Vorstellungen, dass wir den Zufall, der uns betroffen, selbst gewollt hätten, bekommen wir ein Gemütsgedächtnis für unsere früheren Inkarnationen. Auf diese Weise erhalten wir eine Vorstellung davon, wie wir hineingestellt sind in die geistige Welt. Unser Schicksal fangen wir an zu verstehen. Den Willen zu den Zufälligkeiten dieses Lebens haben wir aus unserer vorigen Inkarnation mitgebracht.
Wenn wir uns solchen Gedanken in der Meditation hingeben und sie weiter ausbilden, so kann das von außerordentlicher Wichtigkeit sein. Auch zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt geschieht etwas, ja unendlich reich ist diese Zeit an Erlebnissen, die jedoch rein geistiger Art sind. Daher bringen wir auch Gemütsstimmungen und Willensimpulse mit aus der Zeit zwischen dem letzten Tod und der letzten Geburt, also aus der rein geistigen Welt. Darauf beruht eine Tatsache der neueren Zeit, die außerordentlich wichtig ist, die aber im Ganzen wenig beachtet wird. Eine Tatsache, die im Leben vieler Menschen da ist heute, nur die meisten merken es nicht. Aber unsere theosophische Geistesströmung hat die Aufgabe, hinzuweisen auf diese Tatsache und ihre Bedeutung. Lassen Sie mich an einem Beispiel anschaulich machen, um was es sich handelt.
Ein Mensch, sagen wir, hat Veranlassung, irgendwohin zu gehen, und dieser Weg bringt es mit sich, dass er der Spur eines anderen Menschen folgt, eines Kindes vielleicht. Da sieht der Mensch plötzlich, dass am Rand des Weges, den das Kind geht, ein Abgrund gähnt. Unfehlbar wird das Kind hinabstürzen, wenn es noch einige Schritte weiter tut. Er läuft dem Kinde nach, um es zu retten, läuft und läuft und vergisst dabei ganz den Abgrund. Da plötzlich hört der Betreffende von irgendwoher eine Stimme kommen, die ihm zuruft: Bleibe stehen! - Wie angenagelt steht er still. In dem Moment fasst das Kind einen Baum und bleibt auch stehen, sodass nichts Übles passiert. Wäre die Stimme nicht in diesem Augenblick gekommen, der Mensch wäre unfehlbar in den Abgrund gestürzt. Der Mensch fragt sich nun: Woher kam die Stimme? Er findet niemanden, der gerufen haben könnte. Aber er hat ein Bewusstsein, dass er unfehlbar verloren gewesen wäre, wenn er nicht diese Stimme gehört hätte. Er kann nicht entdecken, dass irgendein physisches Wesen ihn gerufen hat, so genau er auch forscht.
Ein ähnliches Erlebnis könnten viele Menschen der Gegenwart in ihrem Leben finden bei intimer Selbstbetrachtung. Man beachtet solche Dinge heute nur zu wenig. Entweder wird nun ein solches Erlebnis spurlos an dem betreffenden Menschen vorübergehen, dann verwischt sich der Eindruck, er hält dieses Erlebnis nicht für wichtig. Aber nehmen wir an, der Mensch wird aufmerksam, er hält dieses Erlebnis nicht für bedeutungslos. Dann kommt er vielleicht zu dem Gedanken: Eigentlich standest du da vor einer Krisis, einer karmischen Krisis, eigentlich sollte dein Leben enden in diesem Augenblick, du hattest dein Leben verwirkt. Nur durch etwas Zufallähnliches bist du gerettet, und es ist seit jener Stunde gleichsam ein zweites Leben auf das erste draufgepflanzt. Dieses zweite Leben musst du als dir geschenkt betrachten, und demgemäß hast du dich auch zu benehmen. - Wenn ein solches Erlebnis in einem Menschen diese innere Stimmung auslöst, dass er sein Leben von jener Stunde an als Geschenk betrachtet, so macht dies heute diesen Menschen zu einem Bekenner des Christian Rosenkreutz. Denn so ist seine Art, die Seelen zu sich zu rufen. Und derjenige, der sich zurückerinnern kann an ein solches Erlebnis - und alle, die hier sitzen, können etwas derartiges in ihrem Leben finden bei genügend intimer Betrachtung -, ein solcher kann sich sagen: Christian Rosenkreutz hat mir einen Wink gegeben aus der spirituellen Welt, dass ich seiner Strömung angehöre. Christian Rosenkreutz hat zu meinem Karma hinzugefügt die Möglichkeit eines solchen Erlebnisses. Das ist die Art, wie Christian Rosenkreutz die Wahl seiner Schüler trifft. So wählt er seine Gemeinde. Wer solches bewusst erlebt, der sagt sich: Da ist mir ein Weg gewiesen; ich muss dem nachgehen und sehen, inwiefern ich meine Kräfte in den Dienst des Rosenkreuzertums stellen kann. Die aber, die den Wink nicht verstanden haben, werden später dazu kommen, denn an wen der Wink einmal ergangen ist, der wird auch nicht wieder davon loskommen.
Dass der Mensch ein Erlebnis der geschilderten Art haben kann, das rührt daher, dass dieser Mensch in der Zeit zwischen seinem letzten Tode und seiner letzten Geburt zusammengertroffen ist in der geistigen Welt mit Christian Rosenkreutz. Damals hat uns Christian Rosenkreutz erwählt. Er hat einen Willensimpuls in uns hineingelegt, der uns nun zu solchen Erlebnissen führt. Das ist die Art, wie geistige Zusammenhänge herbeigeführt werden. Für eine materialistische Auffassung gilt dieses natürlich alles als Halluzination, wie ja auch das Erlebnis des Paulus vor Damaskus als eine Halluzination angesehen wird. Die Konsequenz davon würde natürlich sein, dass das ganze Christentum auf einer Halluzination, also auf einem Irrtum beruht. Denn die Theologen wissen ganz gut, dass eigentlich für das ganze spätere Christentum das Ereignis von Damaskus die Grundlage bildet. Und wenn diese Grundlage auf einer Täuschung beruht, so müsste man natürlich, wenn man konsequent weiterdächte, auch alles, was sich darauf aufbaut, als falsch betrachten.
So ist heute versucht worden, klarzulegen, wie gewisse Dinge, die uns im Leben etwas angehen, wie gewisse Erlebnisse uns zeigen können, wie wir in die geistigen Zusammenhänge der Welt hineingehören. Wenn wir unser Gemütsgedächtnis ausbilden, wie das heute geschildert wurde, dann leben wir uns ein in das, was als spirituelles Leben die Welt durchströmt und durchpulst. Daher ist noch nicht der ein wahrer Theosoph, der theoretisch die Lehren kennt, sondern erst der, der sein Leben und das der anderen Menschen zu deuten weiß in dem Sinne, wie heute angegeben worden ist. Dann wird Theosophie eine Grundkraft, welche unser Seelenleben umgestaltet. Und das muss ja auch das Ziel der Arbeit in unseren Zweigen sein: dass unsere inneren Seelenerlebnisse andere werden, dass wir das Unsterbliche empfinden lernen durch allmähliche Entwicklung unseres Gemütsgedächtnisses. Der Theosoph muss den Glauben haben: Wenn du nur willst, wenn du nur deine starken inneren Kräfte anwendest, dann kannst du deinen Charakter umgestalten. Man muss fühlen, empfinden lernen, dass in uns selber und in allem anderen ein Unsterbliches waltet. Der Theosoph wird dadurch ein Theosoph, dass er sein ganzes Leben lang aufnahmefähig bleibt, auch mit grauen Haaren. Und dieses Bewusstsein, dass man immer und immer fortschreiten kann, das wird unser ganzes jetziges Geistesleben umgestalten.
Durch den Materialismus werden die Menschen vorzeitig alt. Vor dreißig Jahren zum Beispiel, ja da haben die Kinder anders ausgeschaut als heute. Heute sieht man schon zehn-, zwölfjährige alte Leute, Kinder, die geradezu einen greisenhaften Eindruck machen, gibt es heute. Die Menschen sind so altklug geworden und ganz besonders die Erwachsenen. Sie sagen: Wir wollen unsere Kinder nicht mehr anlügen, zum Beispiel damit, dass der Storch die Kinder bringe. Die Kinder müssen aufgeklärt werden. Aber so lügen sie die Kinder in Wahrheit an. Unsere Nachkommen werden wieder wissen, dass tatsächlich unsere Kinderseelen als vogelartige geistige Gebilde herunterschweben aus den höheren Welten. Es ist außerordentlich wichtig, dass man eine imaginative Vorstellung hat für manche Dinge, die noch nicht begreiflich sind. Es ist allerdings wohl möglich für die Tatsache, um die es sich handelt, eine bessere Imagination zu finden als die Storchgeschichte. Darauf kommt es an, dass spirituelle Kräfte spielen zwischen Kind und Eltern oder Erzieher, etwas wie ein geheimer Magnetismus muss da sein. Man muss selbst an die Imagination glauben, die man den Kindern gibt. Wenn man den Kindern den Tod erklären will, so muss man hinweisen auf ein anderes Naturereignis. Man kann sagen: Sich dir den Schmetterling an, wie er aus der Puppe herausfliegt: also ist es auch mit der Menschenseele nach dem Tode. - Aber erst muss man selbst glauben, die Welt sei so angeordnet, dass die Mächte in dem Schmetterling, der aus der Puppe herausfliegt, uns ein Bild für den Vorgang des Hervorgehens der Seele aus dem Körper hingezeichnet haben. Der Weltengeist hat uns aufmerksam machen wollen, wie das geschieht, deshalb hat er uns ein solches Bild in die Natur eingezeichnet. Das ist ungeheuer wichtig, dass wir immer lernen können, immer jung bleiben können, unabhängig von unserem physischen Leibe. Und das ist die ungeheuer wichtige Aufgabe der Theosophie: der Welt die Verjüngung zu bringen, die sie braucht. Wir müssen hinauskommen über das banal Sinnliche. Seelisches und Geistiges in der Praxis anzuerkennen, das muss das Ziel unseres Zweiglebens sein. Die Erkenntnis muss uns immer mehr durchdringen, dass wir von der Seele aus Herrscher werden können über das Äußere.
The Dawn of Modern Occultism
Today we want to pick up where we left off the day before yesterday, which can lead us to a deeply personal understanding of theosophical life. When we look back on our lives and try to make sense of its details, we can gain a lot from such a reflection. We will see that some things that have happened or will happen to us as our fate must be recognized as just, that we have deserved them. Let us say that a person has been somewhat reckless in this incarnation and is later struck by a stroke of fate. Perhaps it is no longer possible to externally link the stroke of fate with the recklessness, but one still has the feeling that this blow is justly deserved. Looking further ahead, we find other strokes of fate that seem like chance to us, for which we can find no explanation. We find these two categories of experiences when we look back on our lives.
The point is that we must distinguish very clearly between what appears to us as chance and what appears to us as necessity. If we look at our lives in terms of these two categories of experiences, we cannot develop further without trying to look at everything that seems to us to be chance. We must especially try to look at the things we did not want, the things that stand in the way of what we like. There is a certain possibility in the state of the soul to take a hypothetical position of possibility and say to oneself: What would it be like if I imagined that I had wanted precisely what I did not want, what is not at all pleasant to me, what I do not like, what I did not like at the time and what I did not want? You have to imagine this intensely: we ourselves would have wanted our situation with the utmost energy.
We must imagine what we consider to be chance: what would it be like if we had applied the most energetic will to want all of this? As if meditating, we must put ourselves in this state of mind toward what appears to us as random events in our lives. And every person in the present can do this. If we proceed in this way, it gradually makes a very special impression on our soul; we feel as if something wants to detach itself from us. I have imagined a second, different person, says the soul to itself, who is now here. And one cannot escape this idea; instead, this imaginary person gradually becomes our doppelganger. You actually have something to do with this imaginary person, says the soul. You rise to the idea that this person actually lives within you. And if you immerse yourself intensively in this idea, you become aware that this imaginary person is not entirely without meaning. The conviction awakens in us: this has happened before, and at that time you had within you the willpower to bring about the apparent coincidences of today. In this way, we gain a thorough conviction that we were here before we immersed ourselves in this physical shell. And every person in the present can gain this conviction.
We must now consider what the successive incarnations of human beings are like. What actually reincarnates? How can we find out?
In human soul life, we can distinguish between three main types of soul experiences. First, there are our ideas, our thoughts. When we imagine something, this can happen in a completely neutral way. We do not need to love or hate what we imagine, nor do we need to feel sympathy or antipathy toward it. Imagination is followed by moods, which arise from the fact that we like or love one thing and dislike or hate another, and so on. A third type of soul experience is formed by the impulses of the will. There are certainly transitions, but on the whole there are these three categories of soul experiences. And it is a fundamental feature of a healthy soul life to be able to have these three types of experience separately. Our life of imagination arises from our reception of external stimuli. Now everyone can easily see that this life of imagination is most closely connected with the present incarnation. This becomes clear when we consider that language serves as the means of expressing our ideas. And language can, of course, only be different in each incarnation. Just as we do not bring language with us when we begin a new incarnation, neither do we bring our ideas with us. We must acquire both language and ideas anew in each incarnation. Hebbel once made a curious entry in his diary. He said how drastic a play would have to be in which the reincarnated Plato is severely reprimanded by his teacher for his poor understanding of Plato. — So the life of the imagination does not pass over from one incarnation to another, and it is the life of the imagination that humans take least with them into the afterlife. We do not form ideas about death, but perceive things directly, just as our physical eyes perceive color. What we know as the world of concepts, we see after death as a net stretched over the world. But what remains with us when we pass through the gate of death, and what we bring back with us as spiritual dispositions when we are reborn on earth, are our emotions, our moods. And we can observe, for example, in a child who is still very limited in its imaginative life, how its sensory life, on the other hand, already shows very definite lines. And because our impulses of will are linked to our state of mind, they also pass with us through the gate of death. When a person indulges in error, for example, this has a different effect on their mind than when they indulge in truth. We suffer from the consequences of false ideas long after death. Therefore, we must say that we must look at what our moods and impulses of the will are when we ask ourselves what actually passes from incarnation to incarnation.
Let us suppose that a painful event happened to us ten or twenty years ago. We will still be able to remember it quite well in our imagination today, even all the details. But how faded is the pain we felt at that time, and how little is man capable of reliving the emotions and impulses of will he felt then. Let us think of Bismarck, who, as we know, went to war in 1866 under extremely difficult circumstances. What emotions, what tremendous impulses of will must have been going on in Bismarck's soul! But did Bismarck, when writing his memoirs, relive these emotional turmoil and decisions with nearly the same intensity? Certainly not! Between birth and death, human memory is such that it exists as a memory of ideas. Of course, it is possible that even after ten or twenty years, we may still feel pain when we remember an event that took place at that time and was painful for us, but in general, the pain will have faded considerably over the years, while the memory can extend to details in our imagination. If we now imagine that we had wanted such painful events to happen, that we had found appealing what we perhaps found completely unappealing as young people, then the difficulty of this activity shakes our soul; it has an effect on our mind. If a stone fell on our head in the past, we now try with all our might to imagine that we ourselves had wanted it to happen. Through such ideas, that we ourselves wanted the accident that affected us, we gain a mental memory of our previous incarnations. In this way, we gain an idea of how we are placed in the spiritual world. We begin to understand our destiny. We have brought the will to accept the accidents of this life with us from our previous incarnation.
If we give ourselves over to such thoughts in meditation and develop them further, this can be of extraordinary importance. Something also happens between death and a new birth; indeed, this time is infinitely rich in experiences, which are, however, of a purely spiritual nature. Therefore, we also bring moods and impulses of will with us from the time between our last death and our last birth, that is, from the purely spiritual world. This is the basis for a fact of recent times that is extremely important but generally little noticed. It is a fact that is present in the lives of many people today, but most do not realize it. However, our theosophical spiritual movement has the task of pointing out this fact and its significance. Let me illustrate what this is about with an example.
Let us say that a person has reason to go somewhere, and this path leads him to follow in the footsteps of another person, perhaps a child. Suddenly, the person sees that there is a precipice at the edge of the path where the child is walking. The child will inevitably fall if it takes a few more steps. He runs after the child to save it, running and running and completely forgetting the precipice. Suddenly, he hears a voice calling to him from somewhere, saying, “Stop!” He stands still, as if nailed to the spot. At that moment, the child grabs hold of a tree and also stops, so that nothing bad happens. If the voice had not come at that moment, the man would undoubtedly have fallen into the abyss. The man now asks himself: Where did the voice come from? He finds no one who could have called out. But he is aware that he would undoubtedly have been lost if he had not heard that voice. No matter how hard he searches, he cannot discover that any physical being called out to him.
Many people today could find a similar experience in their lives when they look closely at themselves. We don't pay enough attention to these things nowadays. Either such an experience will pass without leaving a trace on the person concerned, and then the impression will fade, and they will not consider the experience important. But let's assume that the person pays attention and does not consider the experience meaningless. Then they might come to think: Actually, you were facing a crisis, a karmic crisis; your life should have ended at that moment; you had forfeited your life. Only by something resembling chance were you saved, and since that hour, a second life has been grafted onto the first, as it were. You must regard this second life as a gift, and behave accordingly. If such an experience triggers this inner mood in a person, that they regard their life from that moment on as a gift, then this makes them a follower of Christian Rosenkreutz. For this is his way of calling souls to himself. And anyone who can remember such an experience—and all of you sitting here can find something like this in your lives if you look closely enough—can say to themselves: Christian Rosenkreutz has given me a sign from the spiritual world that I belong to his stream. Christian Rosenkreutz has added the possibility of such an experience to my karma. This is how Christian Rosenkreutz chooses his disciples. This is how he chooses his community. Those who consciously experience this say to themselves: A path has been shown to me; I must follow it and see to what extent I can place my powers at the service of Rosicrucianism. But those who have not understood the hint will come to it later, for once the hint has been given to someone, they will not be able to escape it.
The fact that a person can have an experience of the kind described above stems from the fact that this person encountered Christian Rosenkreutz in the spiritual world between his last death and his last birth. At that time, Christian Rosenkreutz chose us. He placed an impulse of will within us that now leads us to such experiences. This is how spiritual connections are brought about. From a materialistic point of view, all this is of course considered a hallucination, just as Paul's experience before Damascus is regarded as a hallucination. The consequence of this would naturally be that the whole of Christianity is based on a hallucination, that is, on an error. For theologians know very well that the event at Damascus actually forms the basis for all of later Christianity. And if this basis is based on a deception, then, if one thinks it through consistently, one would of course have to consider everything built upon it to be false.
Today, an attempt has been made to clarify how certain things that concern us in life, how certain experiences can show us how we belong to the spiritual connections of the world. If we train our mind's memory as described today, then we live ourselves into what flows and pulsates through the world as spiritual life. Therefore, it is not yet the true theosophist who knows the teachings theoretically, but only the one who knows how to interpret his own life and that of other people in the sense indicated today. Then theosophy becomes a fundamental force that transforms our soul life. And that must also be the goal of the work in our branches: that our inner soul experiences become different, that we learn to feel the immortal through the gradual development of our mind's memory. The theosophist must have faith: if you only want to, if you only apply your strong inner powers, then you can transform your character. One must learn to feel, to sense that something immortal reigns within us and in everything else. Theosophists become theosophists by remaining receptive throughout their entire lives, even when their hair turns gray. And this awareness that one can always progress further will transform our entire present spiritual life.
Materialism causes people to age prematurely. Thirty years ago, for example, children looked different than they do today. Today, you see ten- and twelve-year-olds who look like old people, children who give a downright senile impression. People have become so precocious, especially adults. They say: We don't want to lie to our children anymore, for example, by telling them that the stork brings babies. Children must be enlightened. But in reality, they are lying to the children. Our descendants will know again that our children's souls actually float down from higher worlds as bird-like spiritual beings. It is extremely important to have an imaginative conception of some things that are not yet comprehensible. However, it is certainly possible to find a better imagination for the fact in question than the story of the stork. What matters is that spiritual forces are at work between the child and the parents or educators; there must be something like a secret magnetism. One must believe in the imagination one gives to children. If one wants to explain death to children, one must point to another natural phenomenon. You can say: Look at the butterfly as it flies out of the chrysalis: so it is with the human soul after death. But first you must believe yourself that the world is arranged in such a way that the forces in the butterfly flying out of the chrysalis have given us a picture of the process of the soul emerging from the body. The world spirit wanted to make us aware of how this happens, so it drew such an image in nature for us. It is immensely important that we can always learn, always remain young, regardless of our physical body. And that is the immensely important task of theosophy: to bring the world the rejuvenation it needs. We must go beyond the banal sensual. Recognizing the soul and spirit in practice must be the goal of our branch life. We must become increasingly aware that we can become rulers over the external world through the soul.