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The Mystery of Golgoltha
GA 214

27 August 1922, Oxford

Translator Unknown

Mankind is reaching out to apprehend the Mystery of Golgotha once more with all the forces of the human soul; to understand it not only from the limited standpoint of present-day civilisation, but so as to unite with it all the forces of man's being. But this will only be possible if we are ready to approach the Mystery of Golgotha once more in the light of spiritual knowledge. Intellectualistic knowledge can never do justice to the full World-impulse of Christianity. For such knowledge only takes hold of the thinking life of man. So long as we have a Science whose only appeal is to our life of Thought, we must derive the sources of our Will (and these for Christianity are the most important) from our instinctive life, and cannot realise their true origin in spiritual Worlds.

Thus it will be indispensable to turn attention in our time once more to this the greatest question of mankind, inasmuch as the essence and meaning of the whole evolution of the Earth lies in the Mystery of Golgotha. I would fain express it in a parable, however strangely seeming. Imagine some Being descending from another planet to the Earth. Unable to become an earthly man, the Being would in all likelihood find the things on Earth quite unintelligible. Yet it is my deepest conviction, arising from a knowledge of the evolution of the Earth, that such a Being—even if he came from distant planets, Mars or Jupiter—would be deeply moved by Leonardo da Vinci's picture of the Last Supper. For in this picture he would discover that a far deeper meaning lies hidden in the Earth,—in earthly evolution. Beginning from this deeper meaning which belongs to the Mystery of Golgotha, the Being from a distant world could then begin to understand all other things on Earth.

We men of to-day little know how far we have gone in intellectual abstraction. We can no longer feel our way into the souls of those who lived a little while before the Mystery of Golgotha. They were very different from the souls of men to-day. We are apt to imagine the past history of mankind far too similar to the events and movements of our day. In reality the souls of men have undergone a tremendous evolution. In the times before the Mystery of Golgotha all human beings—even those who were primitive, more or less uncultured in their souls,—perceived in themselves something of the essence of the soul, which might be thus described: They had a memory of the time the human soul lives through, before he descends into an earthly body. As we in ordinary life remember our experiences since the age of three or four or five, so had the human soul in ancient time a memory of pre-existence in the world of soul and spirit. In a deeper psychological sense, man was as if transparent to himself. He knew with certainty: I am a soul, and I was a soul before I descended to the Earth. Notably in still more ancient times, he even knew of certain details of the life of soul and spirit which had preceded his descent to Earth. He experienced himself in cosmic pictures. Looking up to the stars, he saw them not in the mere abstract constellations which we see to-day. He saw them in dreamlike Imaginations. In a dreamlike way he saw the whole Universe filled with spiritual pictures or Imaginations, and as he saw it thus he could exclaim: “This is the last reflected glory of the spiritual World from which I am come down. Descending as a soul from yonder spiritual World, I entered the dwelling of a human body.” Never did the man of ancient time unite himself so closely with his human body as to lose this awareness of the real life of soul.

What was the real experience of the man of ancient time in this respect? It was such that he might have said: “I, before I descended to the Earth, was in a world where the Sun is no mere heavenly body spreading light around, but a dwelling-place of higher Hierarchies, of spiritual Beings. I lived in a world where the Sun not only pours forth light, but sends out radiant Wisdom into a space not physical but spiritual. I lived in that world where the stars are essences of Being—Beings who make felt their active will. From yonder world I descended.”

Now in this feeling two experiences were joined together for the man of ancient time: the experience of Nature, and the experience of Sin.

The old experience of Sin: the modern man has it no longer. Sin, for the man of modern time, lives in a world of abstract being. It is a mere transgression, a moral concept which he cannot really connect with the necessities or laws of Nature. For the ancients the duality was non-existent, of natural law upon the one hand, and moral on the other. All moral necessities were at the same time natural, likewise all natural [necessities] were moral. In those ancient times a man might say, “I had to descend out of the divinely spiritual World. Yet by my very entry into a human body—compared to the World from which I am descended—I am sick and ill.” Sickness and Sin: for the man of olden time these two ideas were interwoven. Here upon Earth man felt that he must find within himself the power to overcome his sickness. Increasingly the consciousness grew on the souls of olden time: We need an Education which is Healing. True Education is Medicine, is Therapy. Thus there appear upon the scene shortly before the Mystery of Golgotha such figures as the Therapeutæ, as the healers. Indeed in ancient Greece all spiritual life was somehow related to the healing of humanity. They felt that man had been more healthy in the beginning of Earth-evolution, and that he had evolved by degrees farther and farther from the Divine-spiritual Beings. “The sickness of humanity” was a widespread conception, forgotten as it is by modern History, in that ancient world in which the Mystery of Golgotha was placed.

It was by turning their gaze into the past that the men of those ancient times felt the reality of spiritual things. “I must look back beyond my birth, far into the past, if I would see the Spiritual. There is the Spirit; out of that Spirit I am born; that Spirit must I find again. But I have departed far from Him.”

Thus did man feel the Spirit from whom he had departed, as the Spirit of the Father God. The highest Initiate in the Mysteries was he who evolved in his heart and soul the forces whereby he could make manifest the Father in his own external human being. When the pupils crossed the threshold of the Mysteries and came into those sacred places which were institutions of Art and Science and of the sacred religious Rites at the same time, and when at length they stood before the highest Initiate, they saw in him the representative of the Father God. The “Fathers” were higher Initiates than the “Sun-Heroes.”

Thus, before the Mystery of Golgotha the Father Principle held sway. Yet it was felt how man had departed ever more and more from the Father, to whom as we look up we say. Ex Deo nascimur. Mankind stood in need of healing, and the seers and initiates lived in expectation of the Healer, the Hælend the healing Saviour.1German Heiland, Anglo-Saxon Hælend, meaning Christ the Saviour To us the conception of Christ as the Healer is no longer living. But we must find our way to it again, for only when we can feel His presence once more as the Cosmic Physician, shall we also realise His true place in the Universe.

Such was the deep-seated feeling in human souls before the Mystery of Golgotha, of their connection with the spiritual world of the Father. A strange saying coming down to us from ancient Greece—“Better to be a beggar upon Earth than a king in the realm of shades”—bears witness, how deeply humanity had learned to feel the estrangement of their being from the world of Spirit. Yet at the same time their souls were filled with a deep longing for that World.

But we must realise that if a man had gone on evolving with the old consciousness of the Father God alone and unimpaired, he could never have attained the full self-consciousness of the “ I ” and inner spiritual Freedom. Before he could attain true spiritual Freedom, something had to take place in man, which, in relation to his primæval state, appeared as sickness. All humanity was suffering as it were the sickness of Lazarus. But the sickness was not unto Death; it was unto liberation and redemption, unto a new knowledge of the Eternal within man.

Men had increasingly forgotten their past life of soul and spirit before birth. Their attention was directed more and more to the physical world around them. The physical environment was now the real thing. The souls of olden time, looking out through the body into their physical environment, had seen in all the stars the pictures of the world of spiritual Being which they had left behind when they descended to this life through birth. In the light of the Sun they saw the radiant Wisdom which they had indwelt, which had been their very breath of life. In the Sun itself they beheld the choirs of Divine Hierarchies by whom they had been sent down to Earth. These things mankind had now forgotten, and as the Mystery of Golgotha approached—in the 9th, 8th, 7th, 6th centuries B.C.—they felt that it was so. If external History says nothing of these things, that is its failing. He who can follow History with spiritual insight will find it as I have said. He will see at the beginning of human evolution a wonderful consciousness of the Father God; he will see this consciousness gradually weakened and paralysed, till man at length should only see around him a world of Nature, void of spiritual Beings.

Much of these things remained unspoken in the unconscious depths of the soul. Strongest of all, in the unconscious depths, was a question unexpressed in words, but felt the more deeply by the human heart. Around us is the world of Nature, but where is the Spirit whose children we are? In the best of human souls, in the 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st centuries B.C., this question lived, unconscious and unformulated. It was a time of questioning, when mankind felt their estrangement from the Father God,—when human souls knew in their very depths: “It must be so indeed: Ex Deo nascimur. But do we know it still? Can we still know it?”

If we look still more deeply into the souls of those who lived in the age when the Mystery of Golgotha was drawing near, the following is what we find:—First there were the more primitive and simple souls who felt, deeply in their subconscious life, their present separation from the Father. They were the descendants of primæval humanity, which was by no means animal-like as modern Science conceives; for within the outer form, however like the animal, primæval man had borne a soul, in the ancient dream-clairvoyance of which he knew full well: “We have come down from the Divine-spiritual world, and have assumed a human body. Into this earthly world the Father God has led us. Out of Him we are born.” But not only so; the souls of primæval humanity knew that they had left behind them, in the spiritual worlds, That which was afterwards called and which we now call the Christ. For this reason the earliest Christian authors said that the most ancient souls of humanity had been true Christians, for they too had looked up to the Christ and worshipped Him. In the spiritual worlds in which they dwelt before their descent to Earth, Christ had been the centre of their vision—the Central Being to whom they had looked with the vision of the soul. It was this communion with Christ in the pre-earthly life which they afterwards remembered when on Earth.

Then there were the regions of which Plato speaks so strangely, where pupils were initiated into the Mysteries—where the vision of super-sensible Worlds was awakened and the forces in the human being were liberated to gaze into the spiritual Worlds. Nor was it only in dim memory that the pupils of the initiates learned to know the Christ, with whom indeed all human beings lived before their descent to Earth. For by this time Christ was already a half-forgotten notion in the souls of men on Earth. But in the Mysteries the pupils learned to know Him once again in His full stature. Yet at the same time they knew Him as a Being who, if we may put it in these words, had lost His mission in the Worlds beyond the Earth. It was so in the Mysteries of the second and first centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, that as they looked up to the Being in super-sensible worlds who was afterwards called the Christ, they said: We still behold Him in the spiritual worlds, but His activity in those worlds grows ever less and less. For He was the Being who implanted in the souls of men what afterwards sprang forth within them as a memory of the time before their birth. The Christ-Being in the spiritual worlds had been the great Teacher of human souls, for what they would still bear in memory after their descent to Earth. Now that the souls of men on Earth were less and less able to kindle these memories to life, He who was afterwards called Christ appeared to the initiates as One who had lost His activity, His mission.

Thus as the initiates lived on, ever and increasingly there arose in them the consciousness: “This Being whom primæval humanity remembered in their earthly life—whom we can now behold, though with ever lessening activity, in spiritual worlds—He will seek a new sphere of His existence. He will come down to the Earth to re-awaken the super-sensible spirituality in man.” And they began to speak of the Being who was afterwards called Christ, as of Him who would in future time come down to Earth and take on a human body—as indeed He did, when the time was fulfilled, in Jesus of Nazareth. In the centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha it was one of the main contents of their speech, to speak of Christ as the Coming One. And in the beautiful picture of the Wise Men of the East—the three Kings or Magi—we see the typical figures of initiates who had learned in their several places of Initiation that Christ would come to Earth when the time should be fulfilled, and the signs in the Heavens would proclaim His coming. Then must they seek Him out at His hidden place. Indeed, there resounds throughout the Gospels what is made manifest as a deeper secret, a deeper Mystery in human evolution, when we approach it once more with spiritual vision.

Meanwhile the simple and primitive among mankind felt as it were forlorn when they looked up to Worlds beyond the realms of sense. Deep in the subconscious they said to themselves, we have forgotten Christ. They saw the world of Nature around them, and there arose in their hearts the question of which I spoke above: “How shall we find the spiritual World again?” But in the Mysteries the initiates knew that the Being who afterwards was called Christ, would come down and would take on a human form. And they knew that what human souls had formerly experienced in their pre-earthly life, they would now experience on Earth by looking up to the Mystery on Golgotha.

Thus, not in an intellectual or theoretic way, but by the greatest fact that ever took place on Earth, answer was given to the question: How shall we come once more to the Supersensible—to the Spiritual that transcends the world of sense? The men of that time, who had a certain feeling for what was taking place, learned from those who knew, that a real God dwelt in the human being Jesus. He had come down to Earth. He was the God whom mankind had forgotten because the forces of the human body were evolving towards Freedom. He, whom man on Earth had forgotten, appeared again in a new form, so that man could see Him and behold Him, and future History could tell of Him as of an earthly Being. The God who had only been known in yonder spiritual World, had descended and walked in Palestine, and sanctified the Earth inasmuch as He Himself had dwelt in a human body.

For those who were the educated men according to the culture of that age, the question was. How did Christ enter into Jesus, what path did He take? In the earliest times of Christianity the question about Christ was indeed a purely spiritual one. Their problem was not the earthly biography of Jesus. It was the descent of Christ. They looked up into the higher Worlds and saw the descent of Christ to Earth. They asked themselves, How did the super-sensible Being become an earth Being?

And the simple men who surrounded Jesus Christ as His disciples were able to converse with Him as a spiritual Being even after His Death. Nay, what He was able to tell them after His Death is the most important of all. Only a few fragments have been preserved, but spiritual Science can re-discover what Christ said to those who were nearest to Him after His Death, when He appeared to them in His purely spiritual being.

Then it was that He spoke to them as the great Healer—the Therapeut, the Comforter—to whom the great Mystery was known, how human beings had once upon a time remembered Him, because they had been with Him in super-sensible spiritual worlds before their earthly life. Now He could say to His disciples upon Earth: In former times I gave you the faculty to remember your spiritual life, your pre-earthly existence in higher worlds. But now, if you receive Me into your hearts and souls, I give you power to go forward through the Gate of Death, conscious of immortality. And you will no longer merely recognise the Father—Ex Deo Nascimur—you will feel the Son as Him with whom you can die and yet remain alive: In Christo morimur.

Such was the purport—though not of course expressed in the words I am now speaking—such was the meaning of what He taught to those who were near Him after His bodily Death. In primæval ages men had not known Death. Since ever they came to consciousness on Earth, they had an inner knowledge of the soul within them; they were aware of that which cannot die. They saw men die, but to them this Death was a mere semblance among the outer facts around them. They felt it not as Death. Only in later years, as the Mystery of Golgotha drew near, did men begin to feel the real fact of Death. For by degrees the soul within them had grown so closely united with the body that doubt could arise in their minds: How shall the soul live on when the body falls into decay? In olden times there could have been no such question, for men were aware of the living, independent soul.

But now there came the Christ Himself, and said: I will live with you on the Earth, that ye may have power to kindle your souls to life again, that ye may bear them, once more a living soul, through Death.

This was what St. Paul had not understood at first. But he understood it when the spiritual worlds were opened out before him and he received here upon Earth the living impressions of Christ Jesus. For this reason the Pauline Christianity is less and less valued in our time, for it requires us to recognise the Christ as One who comes from real worlds beyond the Earth, uniting with earthly man His cosmic power.

Thus in the course of human evolution, in the consciousness of man, the “Out of God—out of the Father God—we are born,” was supplemented by the word of life, of comfort and of strength, “In Christ we die”—that is to say, in Him we live.

In order to bring before our souls what came upon humanity through the Mystery of Golgotha, I shall best describe the present evolution of mankind, and that which we must hope for the future, from the standpoint of the initiate of modern time. I have already sought to place before you the standpoint of the initiate of olden time, and of the initiate of the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. I will now try to describe that of the initiate of our own time. The initiate is one who does not approach life with external natural Science alone, but in whom those deeper forces of knowledge have been awakened which can be kindled from depths of the human soul by proper methods. Such methods are indicated in the spiritual literature,2See especially “Knowledge of Higher Worlds and Its Attainment” (“The Way of Initiation”) by Rudolf Steiner. and I have referred to them in my other course of lectures in this College.

When the modern initiate enters into the Sciences of our time (which are the glory and triumph of the age, and in the study of which so many people, possessed even of a certain higher consciousness, feel the greatest satisfaction) he finds himself in a tragic situation. For when he unites his soul with that form of Science which is valued above all by the world to-day, the initiate feels it as a slow process of Death. A sphere of existence higher than all earthly things has risen up before his soul. And yet, the more he imbues himself with that which all the world to-day calls Science, the more he feels his soul to die within him. For the modern initiate, the Sciences are indeed the grave of the soul. While he acquires knowledge about the world in the manner of modern Science, he feels himself bound up, even in life, with Death. Again and again he feels this Death deeply and intensely. Then he may well seek the reason why, whenever he acquires knowledge in the modern sense, he dies. Why is it, he asks himself, that he has a feeling comparable even to the presence of a corpse—the odour of decay—just when he rises to the highest points of modern scientific knowledge, the greatness of which he is truly able to appreciate, though to him it is the premonition of Death.

From his knowledge of spiritual worlds he finds the answer, which I will try to convey to you this evening, my dear friends, in a picture.

Before we come down to Earth, we human beings live in a life of soul and spirit. Now of that life in full reality of soul and spirit, in yonder pre-earthly realms, here upon Earth we retain only our Thoughts—our concepts and ideas. These are in our soul: yet how are they there? Look at the human being as he stands before you in the life between birth and death. He is fully alive, filled with the living flesh and blood. We say, he is alive. Then he passes through the gate of death. Of the physical man, the corpse remains behind, and this is given over to the Earth—to the elements. We see the dead physical man; we have the dead corpse before us, all that is left of the man who was filled with living blood. Physically he is dead.

Now we look back, with the vision of Initiation, into our own souls. There we behold our thoughts—the thoughts we have in the present life between birth and death—the thoughts of modern Science, modern wisdom. And we recognise; These thoughts are the dead corpse of what we were before we descended to the Earth. As the dead body is to the human being in the fulness of his life, so are our thoughts (the thoughts which we respect above all things in this age, which bring us knowledge of external Nature)—so are our thoughts to what we were in soul and spirit before we came down to Earth.

This is what the modern initiate discovers, and it is a very real experience. He experiences in Thought, not his real life, but the dead corpse of the soul. I am stating a simple fact. It is not uttered out of any sentimental feeling: on the contrary, it comes before the soul in modern time with all intensity, just when the soul's knowledge is active and courageous. It is not what the sentimental mystic says to himself out of some dark and mystic depths of his being.

He who passes to-day through the Portals of Initiation discovers in his soul the real nature of the thoughts of man. For the very reason that they are unalive, they can make way for living spiritual Freedom. These thoughts are in truth the only ground on which man's spiritual Freedom grows. Because they are dead—because they are not alive—they have no power to compel. Man can become a free Being in our time because he has to do, not with living thoughts, but with dead ones. He can take hold of the dead thoughts and use them towards Freedom. And yet, it is with all the tragedy of Worlds that we experience these thoughts as the dead corpse of the soul—of the soul that was, before it came down to Earth. For in the pre-earthly life all this, which is a corpse in man to-day, was alive and filled with movement. In spiritual Worlds it lived and moved among other human souls—those who had passed through the gate of death and were now dwelling in those Worlds, and those who had not yet descended to the Earth. It lived and moved among the Beings of the Divine Hierarchies above humanity, and in the sphere of the elemental beings that underlie all Nature. There, everything in the soul was alive, while here, the soul possesses Thought as its heritage from spiritual worlds, and Thought is dead.

Yet if as initiates of modern time we fill ourselves with Christ, who made manifest His life in the Mystery of Golgotha; if we take hold in its deepest, inmost sense, of the word of St. Paul: Not I, but Christ in me,—then will Christ lead us even through this Death. We penetrate into Nature with our thoughts, yet as we do so Christ goes with us in the Spirit. He sinks our thoughts into the grave of Nature. For Nature does indeed become a grave, inasmuch as our thoughts are dead. Yet if, with these dead thoughts, accompanied by Christ Himself, we approach the minerals, the animals, the world of stars, the clouds, mountains and streams, then we experience in modern Initiation the resurrection of dead Thought as living Thought out of all Nature. With the dead Thought, we dive down into the crystal quartz, letting Christ be our companion, according to the word: Not I, but Christ in me. Then the dead Thought arises again as living Thought out of the crystal quartz, out of all Nature. As from the tomb of the mineral world, Thought is lifted up again as living Thought. Out of the mineral world the Spirit is resurrected. And as Christ leads us through the plant-world of Nature, here too, where otherwise only our dead thoughts would dwell, the living thoughts arise.

Truly we should feel that we are sick and ill as we go out into Nature, or gaze into the Universe of stars with the restricted calculating vision of the astronomer, thus sinking our dead thoughts into the world. We should feel that we are sick, and indeed it would be a sickness unto Death. But if we let Christ be our companion, if accompanied by Him we carry our dead thoughts into the world of the Sun, the Moon, the clouds, mountains and rivers, the minerals, plants and animals and the whole physical world of man, then in our vision of Nature it all becomes alive, and there arises from all creation, as from a tomb, the living, healing Spirit who awakens us from Death: the Holy Spirit. Accompanied by Christ, in all that we have hitherto experienced as Death we feel ourselves called to Life again. We feel the living and healing Spirit speaking to us out of all the creatures of this world.

These things must be regained in spiritual knowledge, in the new Science of Initiation. Then only shall we take hold of the Mystery of Golgotha as the true meaning of all Earth-existence. Then shall we know that in this age, when through the dead thoughts human freedom must be evolved, we need the Christ to lead us into a true Knowledge of Nature. For He not only placed His own destiny upon the Earth in the Mystery of Golgotha, but gave to the Earth the mighty liberation of Pentecost, in that He promised to mankind on Earth the living Spirit, which can arise through His help from all things on the Earth. Our Science remains dead—nay, our Science itself is Sin—until we are so awakened by the Christ that from all Nature, from all existence in the Cosmos, the living Spirit speaks to us again.

It is no formula devised by human cleverness: the Trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It is a reality deeply bound up with the whole evolution of the Cosmos, and it becomes for us a living, not a dead, dogmatic knowledge, when we bring to life within ourselves the Christ who as the Risen One is the Giver of the Holy Spirit.

Then do we understand how it is like an illness if man cannot see the Divine out of which he is born. Man must be secretly diseased to be an atheist, for, if he is healthy, his whole physical being will find as it were its summation in the spontaneous inner feeling which exclaims: Out of God I am born. And it is tragic destiny if in this earthly life he does not find the Christ who can lead him through the Death that stands at the end of life's way, and through the Death in Knowledge. But if we thus feel the In Christo morimur, then too we feel what is seeking to come near us through His guidance; we feel how the living Spirit arises again out of all things, even within this earthly life. We feel ourselves alive again even within this life on Earth, and we look through the gate of Death through which the Christ will lead us into yonder Life that lies beyond. We know now why Christ sent us the Holy Spirit, for if we let Christ be our guide we can unite ourselves to the Holy Spirit already in this life on Earth.

If we let Christ become our leader, we may surely say: We die in Christ, when we pass through the gate of Death. Our experience here on Earth, with our Science of the world of Nature, is indeed prophetic of the future. By the living Spirit, what would otherwise be a dead Science is resurrected. Thus we may also say, when the Death in Knowledge is replaced by that real Death which takes away our body:—Having understood the “Out of the Father we are born,” “In Christ we die,” we may say as we look forward through the gate of Death: “In the Holy Spirit we shall be reawakened.” Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus.

Zehnter Vortrag

[ 1 ] Die Menschheit muß wieder dazu kommen können, mit allen Kräften, die in der Seele des Menschen leben, das Mysterium von Golgatha zu begreifen, nicht bloß so zu begreifen, wie das aus der heutigen Zivilisation heraus möglich ist, sondern so, daß das ganze menschliche Wesen verbunden werden kann mit dem Mysterium von Golgatha. Das aber wird der Menschheit erst dann möglich sein, wenn sie von dem Gesichtspunkt einer spirituellen Erkenntis aus sich wiederum nähern kann dem Mysterium von Golgatha. Keine intellektualistische Erkenntnis ist in Wirklichkeit imstande, das Christentum mit seinem vollen Impuls in der Welt geltend zu machen, denn jede intellektualistische Erkenntnis ergreift bloß das menschliche Denken. Und wir müssen dann, wenn wir eine Erkenntnis haben, die bloß zu dem Denken spricht, unsere Willensimpulse - und das sind die wichtigsten Impulse innerhalb des wahren Christentums — aus unseren Instinkten heraus suchen; wir können sie nicht aus der Welt heraus empfinden, in der sie wirklich vorhanden sind, aus der spirituellen Welt. Es wird in der gegenwärtigen Zeit nicht anders möglich sein, als den Blick wiederum hinzuwenden auf die große Menschheitsfrage: Inwiefern ist das Mysterium von Golgatha der Sinn der ganzen Erdenentwickelung?

[ 2 ] Man möchte das, was damit ausgesprochen werden soll, am liebsten in ein Bild bringen, in ein vielleicht etwas paradoxes Bild. Wenn irgendein Wesen von einem anderen Planeten auf die Erde herunterkäme, würde dieses Wesen wahrscheinlich, weil es nicht ein Mensch im Erdensinne sein könnte, alles auf der Erde recht unverständlich finden; aber es ist meine tiefste Überzeugung, geschöpft aus der Erkenntnis der Erdenevolution heraus, daß ein solches Wesen, auch wenn es vom Mars oder Jupiter käme, tief ergriffen würde von dem Bilde Leonardo da Vincis, dem «Heiligen Abendmahl». Denn es würde ein solches Wesen in diesem Bilde etwas finden, was ihm sagt: Ein tieferer Sinn ist mit der Erde und ihrer Entwickelung verbunden. — Und von diesem Sinne aus, der umfaßt das Mysterium von Golgatha, würde ein Wesen aus einer ganz anderen Welt die Erde mit ihren sonstigen Erscheinungen verstehen können.

[ 3 ] Wir Menschen der Gegenwart wissen gar nicht, wie sehr wir in die intellektualistische Abstraktion hineingekommen sind. Daher können wir uns nicht mehr hineinfinden in die Seelen der Menschen, die eine Weile gelebt haben vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha. Diese Menschenseelen waren ganz anders als die heutigen Menschenseelen. Man stellt sich ja die Geschichte der Menschheit viel zu ähnlich denjenigen Vorgängen vor, die heute geschehen. Aber die Seelen der Menschen haben eine bedeutsame Entwickelung durchgemacht, und sie waren in den Zeiten vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha so, daß alle Menschen, selbst diejenigen, die nur primitive Bildung in ihrer Seele hatten, in sich selber etwas erblickten, was seelische Wesenheit war, was man nennen kann Erinnerung an die Zeit, welche die Menschenseele durchlebt, bevor sie in einen irdischen Leib, in einen irdischen Körper herabsteigt. So wie wir uns heute im gewöhnlichen Leben an das erinnern, was wir etwa seit unserem dritten, vierten, fünften Jahre erlebt haben, so hatte die alte Menschenseele eine Erinnerung an ihr vorgeburtliches Leben in der geistig-seelischen Welt. Der Mensch war sich in gewissem Sinne durchsichtig in seelischer Beziehung, er wußte: Ich bin eine Seele, und ich war eine Seele, bevor ich auf die Erde heruntergestiegen bin. Und er wußte auch, namentlich in älteren Zeiten, gewisse Einzelheiten seines geistig-seelischen Lebens vor seinem Niederstieg auf die Erde. Er erlebte sich selber in Weltenbildern. Er sah hinauf zu den Sternen, und er sah die Sterne nicht bloß in der abstrakten Konfiguration, wie wir heute die Sterne sehen, er sah sie in traumhaften Imaginationen. Er sah die ganze Welt durchsetzt von traumhaften Imaginationen, und er konnte sich sagen: Das ist der letzte Schein jener geistigen Welt, aus der ich heruntergestiegen bin, und indem ich als Seele aus dieser geistigen Welt heruntergestiegen bin, bin ich eingekehrt in einen menschlichen Leib. — Und niemals verband sich dieser Mensch der älteren Zeiten so intensiv mit seinem menschlichen Leibe, daß er nicht ein Erlebnis von dem Seelischen gehabt hätte.

[ 4 ] Was erlebte dieser Mensch der älteren Zeit? Er erlebte das, daß er sich sagen konnte: Da war ich, bevor ich auf die Erde heruntergestiegen war, in einer Welt, in welcher die Sonne nicht bloß ein lichtverbreitender Himmelskörper ist, in welcher die Sonne der Versammlungsort höherer geistiger Hierarchien ist. Ich lebte nicht in einem physischen, sondern in einem geistigen Raume, in einer Welt, in welcher nicht die Sonne bloß Licht verbreitet, sondern strahlende Weisheit aussendet. Ich lebte in einer Welt, in welcher die Sterne Wesenhaftigkeiten sind, die ihren Willen geltend machen. Aus dieser Welt bin ich herausgestiegen. — Und mit einer solchen Empfindung verbanden sich für diesen Menschen der älteren Zeit zwei Erlebnisse: das Erlebnis der Natur und das Erlebnis der Sünde.

[ 5 ] Dieses Erlebnis der Sünde, der moderne Mensch hat es nicht mehr, weil Sünde für ihn nur in der Welt des abstrakten Daseins lebt, weil Sünde für ihn nur eine Übertragung ist, etwas, was er als Moralisches nicht in Vereinigung bringt mit den Naturnotwendigkeiten. Für den alten Menschen gab es diese zwei Strömungen im Weltendasein nicht: Naturnotwendigkeit auf der einen Seite, moralische Notwendigkeit auf der anderen Seite. Alle moralische Notwendigkeit war für ihn auch eine Naturnotwendigkeit; alle Naturnotwendigkeit war auch eine moralische Notwendigkeit.

[ 6 ] So konnte sich der Mensch sagen: Ich mußte heruntersteigen aus der göttlich-geistigen Welt. Aber indem ich in einen menschlichen Leib eingezogen bin, bin ich gegenüber jener Welt, aus der ich heruntergestiegen bin, eigentlich krank. — Und der Begriff der Krankheit und der Sünde, sie banden sich zusammen für den alten Menschen. Der Mensch fühlte sich hier auf dieser Erde so, daß er in sich finden mußte die Überwindung der Krankheit. Deshalb kam immer mehr und mehr das Bewußtsein über diese älteren Seelen: Wir brauchen als Erziehung etwas, was Heilung ist. Die Erziehung ist Medizin, die Erziehung ist Therapie. Und es erschienen solche Gestalten, wie die Therapeuten, kurz vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha als die Heiler. Auch in Griechenland wurde in Verbindung gedacht alles geistige Leben mit einem Heilen der Menschen, weil man fühlte: Der Mensch war im Beginne der Erdenentwickelung mehr gesund, und er entwickelte sich allmählich so, daß er sich immer mehr von dem göttlich-geistigen Wesen entfernte. Das war der Begriff des Krankseins, der war — das ist vergessen worden - ein solcher, der sich verbreitete über diejenige Welt, in die sich dann geschichtlich das Mysterium von Golgatha hineinstellte. Denn der Mensch empfand in jenen älteren Zeiten alles Geistige durch einen Hinblick auf die Vergangenheit; er sagte sich: Vor meine Geburt muß ich hinblicken, wenn ich nach dem Geistigen sehen will, zurück in die Vergangenheit, da ist der Geist. Aus diesem Geiste bin ich geboren, und diesen Geist muß ich wieder finden. Aber von diesem Geiste habe ich mich entfernt.

[ 7 ] Und so empfand der Mensch der Vergangenheit den Geist, von dem er sich entfernt hatte, als den Geist des Vaters. Und in den Mysterien war der höchste Initiierte derjenige, der in sich selber, in seinem Herzen, in seiner Seele, jene Kräfte entwickelt hatte, durch die er äußerlich als Mensch den Vater darstellen konnte. Und wenn die Mysterienschüler die Pforte der Mysterien überschritten, hineintraten in diejenigen Anstalten, die zu gleicher Zeit Kunst-, Erkenntnis- und Weihekultanstalten waren, und wenn sie dann vor dem höchsten Initiierten standen, dann erblickten sie in dem höchsten Initiierten den Repräsentanten des Vatergottes. Die Väter waren höhere Initiierte als die «Sonnenhelden». Das Vaterprinzip herrschte vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha.

[ 8 ] Und die Menschheit fühlte, wie sie sich immer mehr und mehr von dem Vater — gegenüber dem man sagen kann: Ex deo nascimur entfernt hatte, und wie sie geheilt werden mußte. Die Menschheit erwartete in dem Erkennenden den Heiler, den Heiland. Uns ist der Christus nicht mehr lebendig als der Heiland; aber erst wenn man ihn wiederum als den Weltenarzt empfindet, als den großen Heiland, wird man ihn wieder richtig in die Welt hineinstellen können.

[ 9 ] Das war die Grundempfindung, welche die alten Seelen vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha hatten von ihrem Zusammenhange mit der übersinnlichen Welt des Vaters. Und was in Griechenland gefühlt wurde, was in dem merkwürdigen Ausspruche lebte: Besser ein Bettler zu sein auf Erden hier, als ein König im Reiche der Schatten -, das will sagen, daß die Menschheit hat tief fühlen lernen, wie weit sie sich entfernt hatte in ihrem ganzen Wesen von der übersinnlichen Welt. Eine tiefe Sehnsucht lebte zugleich in dem Menschen nach dieser übersinnlichen Welt.

[ 10 ] Aber niemals hätte die Menschheit, wenn sie sich so weiter entwickelt hätte mit dem Bewußtsein nur vom Vatergotte, zu dem vollen Selbstbewußtsein des Ich, der innerlichen Freiheit kommen können. Denn, um zu dieser innerlichen Freiheit zu kommen, mußte dasjenige in den Menschenwesen Platz greifen, was gegenüber vorigen Zuständen als eine Krankheit betrachtet wurde. Die ganze Menschheit fühlte in einem gewissen Sinne die Lazarus-Krankheit. Aber es war eben die Krankheit, die nicht zum Tode führt, sondern zur Befreiung und zum neuen Erkennen des Ewigen im Menschen.

[ 11 ] Man kann sagen: Immer mehr hatten die Menschen vergessen jene geistig-seelische Vergangenheit vor der Geburt, ihr Blick war immer mehr und mehr hingerichtet auf die physische Umwelt. Hatte eine ältere Seele durch den Leib in diese physische Umwelt geblickt, so sah sie eben in den Sternen überall die Bilder des Geistigen, das sie verlassen hatte, indem sie durch die Geburt auf die Erde gekommen war. Sie sah in dem Lichte der Sonne die strahlende Weisheit, in der sie als in ihrer Lebensatmosphäre gelebt hatte, sah in der Sonne selbst den Chorus der höheren Hierarchien, von denen sie herniedergeschickt worden war auf die Erde. Aber das hatte die Menschheit vergessen.

[ 12 ] Und das fühlte man, als das 8., das 7. und die folgenden Jahrhunhunderte vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha heranrückten. Wenn die äußere Geschichte davon nichts erzählt, so ist das eben ein Mangel der äußeren Geschichte. Wer die Geschichte spirituell zu verfolgen versteht, dem erscheint sie so, daß ein mächtiges Bewußtsein vom Vatergotte im Ausgangspunkte der Menschheitsentwickelung vorhanden war, und daß dieses Bewußtsein allmählich gelähmt worden ist, daß der Mensch um sich nurmehr die entgeistete Natur sehen sollte.

[ 13 ] Vieles wurde damals nicht ausgesprochen, vieles war in den unterbewußten Tiefen der Menschenseelen. Aber was am meisten in den unterbewußten Sphären der Menschenseele wirkte, das war eine Frage die Menschen faßten sie nicht in Worte, die fühlten sie nur mit ihren Herzen -, die Frage: Um uns ist die Natur, wo ist der Geist, dessen Kinder wir sind? Wo schauen wir den Geist, dessen Kinder wir sind? — In den besten Seelen des 4., 3., 2., 1. Jahrhunderts lebte unbewußt, ohne daß sie formuliert wurde, diese Frage.

[ 14 ] Es war eine Fragezeit, die Zeit, in der die Menschheit die Entfernung vom Vatergotte fühlte, gewissermaßen in den Tiefen der Seelen wußte: Es muß so sein — Ex deo nascimur! —, aber wissen wir es denn noch, können wir es wissen?

[ 15 ] Wenn wir noch tiefer hineinschauen in die Seelen der Menschen, die in dem Zeitalter lebten, als das Mysterium von Golgatha herannahte, so zeigt sich uns das Folgende. Da waren die einfacheren, primitiveren Seelen, welche nur tief in ihrem Unterbewußten empfinden konnten, wie sie nunmehr getrennt waren von dem Zusammenhang mit dem Vater. Denn sie waren die Nachkommen von jenen Urmenschen, die keineswegs so tierhaft waren, wie wir uns das heute naturwissenschaftlich vorstellen, sondern die innerhalb ihrer tierhaften Gestalt eine Seele trugen, durch die sie im alten traumhaften Hellsehen wußten: Wir sind heruntergestiegen aus der göttlich-geistigen Welt, haben einen menschlichen Leib angenommen. In die Erdenwelt herein hat uns geleitet der Vatergott. Aus ihm sind wir geboren.

[ 16 ] Aber die ältesten Seelen der Menschheit hatten gewußt: Sie haben verlassen in den geistigen Welten, aus denen sie heruntergestiegen waren, etwas, das wir nun nennen, oder das man später überhaupt nannte den «Christus». Deshalb sagten die ersten christlichen Schriftsteller, daß die ältesten Seelen Christen waren; diese Seelen haben wirklich auch den Christus anzubeten verstanden. Aber in den geistigen Welten, in denen sie waren, bevor sie auf die Erde heruntergestiegen waren, da war der Christus der Mittelpunkt ihres Anschauens, da war der Christus die zentrale Wesenheit, zu der sie ihre Seelenblicke hinwandten. Und an dieses Zusammensein mit dem Christus im vorirdischen Leben erinnerten sich die Menschen auf der Erde.

[ 17 ] Dann gab es andere Gegenden — und Plato zum Beispiel spricht von ihnen in einer ganz besonderen Art -, wo Schüler in den Mysterien eingeweiht wurden, in denen das Schauen der übersinnlichen Welten erweckt wurde, in denen aus der Menschenwesenheit die Kräfte losgebunden wurden, durch die man hineinschauen kann in die geistigen Welten. Diese Schüler der Initiierten lernten in der Tat nun nicht bloß aus einer dunklen Erinnerung ‚heraus den Christus kennen, mit dem alle Menschen gelebt hatten, bevor sie auf die Erde heruntergestiegen waren, der nun schon in den Menschenseelen wie eine halbvergessene Vorstellung war hier auf der Erde, sie lernten den Christus wiederum in der vollen Gestalt kennen. Aber sie lernten ihn kennen als eine Wesenheit, die in den überirdischen Welten gewissermaßen ihre Aufgabe verloren hatte.

[ 18 ] In den Mysterien des 2. und 1. Jahrhunderts vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha schaute man nämlich in einer ganz besonderen Weise zu jener Wesenheit der übersinnlichen Welten hin, die dann später die Christus-Wesenheit genannt worden ist. Man schaute so hin, daß man sagte: Diese Wesenheit, wir schauen sie in den überirdischen Welten, aber ihre Aktivität hat immer mehr und mehr abgenommen. — Sie war ja die Wesenheit, welche in die Seelen hineingepflanzt hat die Erinnerung an die vorgeburtlichen Zeiten, die dann im Erdendasein aufgelebt ist. Diese Wesenheit war in übersinnlichen Welten der große Lehrer für das, was die Seele noch in der Erinnerung hatte, nachdem sie auf die Erde heruntergestiegen war. Wie eine Wesenheit, die ihre Aktivität verloren hat, weil die Menschen diese Erinnerungen allmählich nicht mehr haben, nicht mehr bekommen konnten, so kam den Initiierten die Wesenheit vor, die man später die Christus-Wesenheit nannte.

[ 19 ] Und so lebten diese Initiierten weiter, indem in ihnen immer mehr und mehr das Bewußtsein aufstieg: Diese Wesenheit, an die sich die Urmenschheit im Erdendasein erinnert hat, diese Wesenheit, die wir jetzt sehen mit einer immer geringeren Aktivität in den geistigen Welten, die wird sich eine neue Lebenssphäre suchen. Sie wird auf die Erde herabkommen, um in den Menschen wiederum die übersinnliche Geistigkeit zu erwecken.

[ 20 ] Und man fing an, von jener Wesenheit, die man später als den Christus bezeichnete, als von jenem zu sprechen, der in der Zukunft kommen werde auf die Erde herunter, Menschenleib annehmen werde, wie er ihn dann angenommen hat in dem Jesus von Nazareth. Und dieses Sprechen von dem Christus als einem Zukünftigen, das war einer der Hauptinhalte des Sprechens in den letzten Jahrhunderten vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha. Wir sehen in der bildhaften Großartigkeit jener drei Magier oder drei Könige aus dem Morgenlande, Repräsentanten solcher Initiierter, die in ihren Initiationsstätten gelernt hatten: Der Christus wird kommen, wenn die Zeiten erfüllt sein werden und die Zeichen am Himmel ihn ankündigen werden. Dann müssen wir ihn suchen an seiner verborgenen Stätte. — Und in den Evangelien tönt überall durch als ein tieferes Geheimnis, als ein tieferes Mysterium, was in der Menschheitsevolution sich enthüllt, wenn man es wiederum mit dem spirituellen Blicke anschaut.

[ 21 ] So schauten die primitiven Menschen wie verloren nach dem Übersinnlichen auf. Sie sagten sich in ihrem Unterbewußten: Wir haben den Christus vergessen. — Und sie sahen die Natur um sich herum. Die Frage, die ich vorhin angedeutet habe, entstand in ihren Herzen: Wie finden wir die übersinnliche Welt wieder? — Und die Initiierten in den Mysterien wußten: Es wird diese Wesenheit, die man später den Christus nannte, kommen, menschliche Gestalt annehmen, und was vorher die Seelen in ihrem vorirdischen Dasein erlebt haben, das werden sie erleben in der Anschauung des Mysteriums von Golgatha.

[ 22 ] Dadurch ist nicht in einer intellektualistischen Art, sondern durch die gewaltigste Tatsache, die auf der Erde jemals geschehen ist, die Antwort gegeben auf die Frage: Wie kommen wir wieder zu dem Übersinnlichen? — Und die Menschen, die damals eine Empfindung entwickelt hatten für das, was geschah, die lernten von denen, die da wußten, daß in dem Menschen Jesus ein wirklicher Gott lebte, der heruntergestiegen ist, der Gott, den die Menschheit vergessen hatte, weil die Kräfte des Leibes, des Körpers sich nach der Freiheit hin entwickelten. Er erschien in einer neuen Gestalt, so daß man ihn schauen, ihn sehen konnte, und weiterhin die Geschichte von ihm reden konnte als von einem Erdenwesen. Der Gott, den man gekannt hatte nur drüben in der Geistwelt, war heruntergestiegen, war gewandelt in Palästina, hatte die Erde geheiligt dadurch, daß er selber in einen Menschenleib eingezogen war. Daher war die große Frage derjenigen, die in dem damaligen Sinne gebildete Menschen waren: Welchen Weg hat der Christus genommen, um zu dem Jesus hinzukommen?

[ 23 ] Die Frage nach dem Christus war in den ersten Zeiten des Christentums eine rein spirituelle. Man forschte nicht nach dem Jesus, man forschte nach dem Christus, wie er heruntergestiegen ist. Man sah zu den übersinnlichen Welten hinauf, man sah den Herabstieg des Christus auf die Erde, man fragte sich: Wie ist das überirdische Wesen ein irdisches geworden? — Und deshalb hatten die schlichten Menschen, die den Christus Jesus als Jünger umgaben, die Möglichkeit, mit ihm als Geist auch nach dem Tode zu sprechen. Und es ist das Wichtigste, was er sagen konnte nach dem Tode, nur in einigen Fragmenten erhalten. Aber die spirituelle Wissenschaft, die spirituelle Erkenntnis kann erkunden, was der Christus zu denen, die seine Nächsten waren, gesprochen hat nach dem Tode, da er ihnen in seiner Geistigkeit erschienen ist.

[ 24 ] Da hat er zu ihnen als der große Heiler gesprochen, als der 'Therapeut, der ein Tröster war, der da wußte um das Geheimnis, daß die Menschen einmal eine Erinnerung an ihn selbst gehabt haben, weil sie mit ihm zusammen waren in übersinnlichen Welten im vorirdischen Dasein. Und jetzt konnte er ihnen sagen: Ich habe euch früher gegeben die Fähigkeit, euch zu erinnern an euer übersinnliches, vorirdisches Dasein. Ich gebe euch jetzt, wenn ihr mich aufnehmt in eure Seelen, wenn ihr mich aufnehmt in eure Herzen, die Kraft, mit dem Bewußtsein der Unsterblichkeit durch die Pforte des Todes hindurchzugehen. Und ihr werdet nicht mehr allein den Vater erkennen — Ex deo nascimur -, ihr werdet den Sohn fühlen als denjenigen, mit dem ihr sterben könnt und doch lebendig bleibt — In Christo morimur.

[ 25 ] Das war natürlich nicht in die Worte getaucht, die ich jetzt ausspreche, aber dem Sinne nach war es das, was der Christus beibrachte denjenigen, die ihm nahestanden nach dem Leibestode. Die Menschen kannten ja das Sterben nicht, als sie Urmenschen waren, denn sie trugen von der Zeit an, in der sie das Bewußtsein erlangten, ein innerliches Erkennen ihres Seelischen; sie wußten von dem, was nicht sterben kann. Sie konnten die Menschen um sich herum sterben sehen — das Sterben war ihnen ein Schein in den Tatsachen um sie herum. Das Sterben haben die Menschen nicht empfunden. Erst als das Mysterium von Golgatha herannahte, fühlten die Menschen die Tatsache des Sterbens, denn ihr Seelisches war allmählich mit dem Körperlichen so verbunden, daß nun der Zweifel darüber entstehen konnte, wie die Seele weiterleben kann, wenn der Körper verfällt. Das wäre gar keine Frage in älteren Zeiten gewesen, weil die Menschen die Seele erkannten.

[ 26 ] Jetzt kam der Christus als derjenige, der da sagte: Ich will mit euch auf der Erde leben, damit ihr die Kraft habt, eure Seelen wieder so anzufachen, so innerlich zu impulsieren, daß ihr sie als eine lebendige Seele durch den Tod hindurchtraget. — Das war dasjenige, was Paulus nicht gleich begriffen hatte, was Paulus erst begriff, als ihm selber der Zugang zu den übersinnlichen Welten eröffnet worden war, als er hier auf dieser Erde die Impressionen des Christus Jesus erhalten hatte. Deshalb wird heute das Paulinische Christentum immer weniger geschätzt, weil es den Anspruch macht, daß man den Christus schaut als von überirdischen Welten kommend und seine überirdische Kraft mit dem irdischen Menschen verbindend.

[ 27 ] So fügte sich für die Evolution der Menschheit im Bewußtsein zu dem Worte: «Aus Gott» — nämlich aus dem Vatergotte — «sind wir geboren», das Lebens-, das Trostes-, das Kraftwort hinzu: «In Christo sterben wir», — das heißt: Wir leben in ihm.

[ 28 ] Was der Menschheit durch das Mysterium von Golgatha geworden ist, am besten wird es sich uns vor die Seele stellen, wenn ich nun die Evolution der Menschheit in der Gegenwart - und wie wir sie erhoffen müssen für die Zukunft -, von dem Gesichtspunkte des gegenwärtigen Initiierten schildere. Versucht worden ist von mir, den Gesichtspunkt des alten Initiierten, den Gesichtspunkt des Initiierten zur Zeit des Mysteriums von Golgatha vor Ihre Seele zu stellen; jetzt möchte ich versuchen, den Gesichtspunkt zu schildern des Initiierten der Gegenwart, desjenigen, der heute nicht bloß mit einer äußeren Erkenntnis von der Natur an das Leben herantritt, sondern in dem erwacht sind jene tieferen Erkenntniskräfte, die wir aus der Seele heraus erwecken können mit denjenigen Mitteln, die ja in der spirituellen Literatur angegeben sind.

[ 29 ] Wenn dieser Initiierte sich die Erkenntnisse erwirbt, die heute der Triumph der Zeit sind, der Glanz, in denen sich zahlreiche Menschen, wenn sie sie erwerben, auch mit einem gewissen höheren Bewußtsein wohlfühlen, dann fühlt er sich mit diesen Erkenntnissen in einer tragischen Situation. Denn der neuere, der moderne Initiierte fühlt diejenigen Erkenntnisse, die heute in der Welt besonders gelten und besonders wertvoll sind, wenn er sie mit seiner Seele verbindet, als ein Sterben. Und je mehr sich der moderne Initiierte, dem die Welt der überirdischen Sphäre vor der Seele auferstanden ist, durchdringt mit dem, was heute alle Welt Wissenschaft nennt, desto mehr fühlt er seine Seele ersterben. Die Wissenschaften sind für den modernen Initiierten das Grab der Seele; die fühlt sich schon lebend mit dem Tode verbunden, indem er nach Art der modernen Wissenschaft über die Welt sich Erkenntnisse erwirbt. Und er fühlt dieses Sterben oftmals tief und intensiv. Und dann sucht er wohl den Grund, warum er immer, wenn er im modernen Sinne erkennt, stirbt, warum er etwas wie eine Art von Leichengeruchsempfindung hat, gerade wenn er zu den höchsten modernen Erkenntnissen sich aufschwingt, die er wahrlich zu schätzen weiß, aber die ihm ein Vorgefühl sind des Todes.

[ 30 ] Dann sagt er sich aus seinen Erkenntnissen der übersinnlichen Welt etwas, was ich Ihnen ausdrücken möchte durch ein Bild. Wir leben geistig-seelisch, bevor wir auf die Erde heruntergestiegen sind. Von dem, was wir da in voller Realität geistig-seelisch durchleben im vorirdischen Dasein, haben wir in unserer Seele hier auf Erden nur Gedanken, Begriffe, Vorstellungen. Die sind in unserer Seele. Aber wie sind sie in unserer Seele?

[ 31 ] Sehen wir hin auf den Menschen, wie er im Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod steht, voll lebendig, mit Fleisch und Blut sein Leib durchzogen. Wir nennen ihn lebendig. Die Pforte des Todes wird von ihm durchschritten. Vom physischen Menschen ist der Leichnam da, der dann der Erde, den Elementen übergeben wird. Wir schauen den physisch toten Menschen an. Wir haben den Leichnam vor uns, den Rest des lebendigen, von lebendigem Blut durchzogenen Menschen. Der Mensch ist physisch tot. Wir schauen zurück, aber mit dem Blick der Initiation, in unsere eigene Seele. Wir schauen auf unsere Gedanken, die wir jetzt haben im Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod, auf die Gedanken, die wir haben als die heutige moderne Weisheit und Wissenschaft, und wir sehen: Sie sind der Leichnam desjenigen, was wir waren, bevor wir auf die Erde heruntergestiegen sind. Wie der Leichnam eines Menschen sich zum voll lebendigen Menschen verhält, so verhalten sich — das lernen wir erkennen - unsere Gedanken, die wir heute als die höchsten Reichtümer verehren, die uns die Erkenntnisse der äußeren Natur bringen, als die Leichname desjenigen in uns zu dem, was wir waren, bevor wir auf die Erde heruntergestiegen sind. Das ist dasjenige, was der Inititerte erleben kann. Er erlebt in dem Gedanken nicht sein wirkliches Leben, er erlebt in dem Gedanken den Leichnam seiner Seele. Das ist eine Tatsache, das ist etwas, was nicht aus Sentimentalität heraus gesprochen wird, sondern was gerade einer tatkräftigen Erkenntnis heute mit voller Stärke vor die Seele tritt. Das ist dasjenige, was sich heute nicht der sentimentale, mystische Träumer etwa sagt; der will gerade etwas empfinden aus irgendwelchen dunklen, mystischen Tiefen der eigenen Wesenheit heraus. Derjenige aber, der heute durch die Pforte der Initiation schreitet, der entdeckt in seiner Seele diese Gedanken, die allein, weil sie unlebendig sind, die lebendige Freiheit möglich machen können. Diese Gedanken, welche die ganze Grundlage der menschlichen Freiheit sind, zwingen den Menschen nicht, eben weil sie tot sind, weil sie nicht lebendig sind. Der Mensch kann heute ein freies Wesen werden, weil er es nicht mit lebendigen, sondern mit toten Gedanken zu tun hat. Die toten Gedanken können vom Menschen erfaßt und zur Freiheit verwendet werden. Aber man erlebt sie auch mit voller Weltentragik als Leichname der Seele. Bevor die Seele heruntergestiegen ist in die irdische Welt, da war alles, was heute Leichnam ist, voll lebendig, war regsam. In den geistig-übersinnlichen Welten bewegten sich zwischen den Menschenseelen, die entweder schon durch den Tod gegangen waren, nun auch in der geistigen Welt lebten, oder die noch nicht zur Erde heruntergestiegen sind, die Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien, die über dem Menschen stehen, bewegten sich auch innerhalb dieser Sphäre jene Elementarwesen, die der Natur zugrunde liegen. Da war alles in der Seele lebendig. Hier ist in der Seele die Erbschaft aus den geistigen Welten, der Gedanke ist tot.

[ 32 ] Aber verstehen wir als moderne Initiierte, mit dem Christus, wie er sich dargelebt hat in dem Mysterium von Golgatha, uns zu durchdringen, verstehen wir im tiefsten, innersten Sinne das Pauluswort: «Nicht ich, sondern der Christus in mir», dann führt uns der Christus auch durch diesen Tod; dann dringen wir mit unseren Gedanken in die Natur ein, aber der Christus wandelt geistig mit uns, und er versenkt unsere Gedanken in das Grab der Natur. Denn indem wir sonst die toten Gedanken haben, wird die Natur zu einem Grabe. Gehen wir aber mit diesen toten Gedanken an die Mineralien, die Tiere, die Sternenwelt, an die Welt der Wolken, an die Berge, an die Ströme, gehen wir an sie mit diesen toten Gedanken heran, aber begleitet von dem Christus nach dem Worte: «Nicht ich, sondern der Christus in mir», dann erleben wir in der modernen Initiation, wenn wir untertauchen in den Quarzkristall, daß der Gedanke aus der Natur, aus dem Quarzkristall nun als ein lebendiger aufsteigt. Wie aus dem mineralischen Grabe erhebt sich der Gedanke als ein lebendiger. Die mineralische Welt läßt in uns aufsteigen den Geist. Und führt uns der Christus durch die Pflanzennatur überall heraus aus dem, wo sonst nur die toten Gedanken leben würden, so erstehen die lebendigen Gedanken.

[ 33 ] Wir würden uns als krankhaft empfinden, wenn wir hingingen zu der Natur, in die Sternenwelt hinausschauten nur mit dem Blicke des rechnenden Astronomen, und diese toten Gedanken sich hineinsenken würden in die Welt, wir würden uns krank fühlen, und die Krankheit würde zum Tode führen. Lassen wir uns aber von dem Christus begleiten, tragen wir unsere toten Gedanken in Begleitung des Christus in die Sternenwelt hinein, in die Welt der Sonne, des Mondes, der Wolken, der Berge, der Flüsse, der Mineralien, der Pflanzen und der Tiere, tragen wir sie hinein in die ganze physische Menschenwelt, alles wird im Anschauen der Natur lebendig, und es ersteht wie aus einem Grabe aus allen Wesen der lebendige, der uns heilende, der uns vom Tode erweckende Geist, der Heilige Geist. Und wir fühlen uns, begleitet von dem Christus, mit dem, was wir als den Tod erlebt haben, wieder belebt. Wir fühlen den lebendigen, den heilenden Geist aus allen Wesen dieser Welt zu uns sprechen.

[ 34 ] Das müssen wir in einer spirituellen Erkenntnis, in einer neuen Initiationserkenntnis wieder gewinnen. Dann werden wir das Mysterium von Golgatha als den Sinn des ganzen Erdendaseins erfassen, werden wissen, wie wir geführt werden müssen in der Zeit, da sich durch die toten Gedanken die menschliche Freiheit entwickeln muß, wie wir geführt werden müssen zur Erkenntnis der Natur durch den Christus. Wir werden wissen, wie der Christus nicht nur sein eigenes Schicksal hingestellt hat auf die Erde in dem Sterben innerhalb des Mysteriums von Golgatha, sondern wie er die große Pfingstfreiheit der Erde beschieden hat, indem er der Erdenmenschheit verheißen hat den lebendigen Geist, der durch seine Hilfe aus allem, was auf der Erde ist, erstehen kann. Unsere Erkenntnis bleibt eine tote, bleibt selbst Sünde, wenn wir nicht durch den Christus so auferweckt werden, daß aus aller Natur, aus allem kosmischen Dasein zu uns wiederum der Geist spricht, der lebendige Geist.

[ 35 ] Es ist nicht bloß eine ausgeklügelte Formel, die Trinität von dem Vatergotte, von dem Sohnesgotte und von dem Gotte, dem Heiligen Geist, es ist etwas, was tief mit der ganzen Evolution des Kosmos verbunden ist und was uns wird als eine lebendige, nicht als eine tote Erkenntnis, wenn wir den Christus selber als einen Auferstandenen in uns lebendig machen, der der Bringer des Heiligen Geistes ist.

[ 36 ] Dann verstehen wir, daß es wie eine Krankheit wäre, wenn wir das Göttliche nicht sehen könnten, aus dem wir geboren sind. Der Mensch muß im Geheimen krank sein, wenn er Atheist ist. Er ist nur gesund, wenn seine physische Natur sich so zusammenfaßt, daß er das: «Aus Gott bin ich geboren!», als die Zusammenfassung seines eigenen Wesens aus dem Inneren erfühlen kann. Und es ist ein Schicksalsschlag, wenn der Mensch in seinem Erdenleben nicht findet den Christus, der ihn führen kann, der ihn durch den Tod am Ende des Erdenlebens führen kann, der ihn durch den Tod zur Erkenntnis führen kann. Denn fühlen wir also das «In Christo morimur», dann fühlen wir auch dasjenige, was an uns herankommen will durch die Geleitung des Christus, durch die Führung des Christus, dann fühlen wir, wie aus allem der Geist aufersteht, aufersteht noch in diesem Erdenleben. Wir fühlen uns wieder lebendig in diesem Erdenleben, schauen hin durch die Pforte des Todes, durch die uns der Christus führt, schauen hin auf jenes Leben, das jenseits des Todes liegt, und wissen jetzt, warum der Christus den Geist, den Heiligen Geist geschickt hat: weil wir uns verbinden können schon hier im Leben mit diesem Heiligen Geiste, wenn wir uns der Führung des Christus überlassen. Wir dürfen dann mit Sicherheit sagen: Wir sterben in dem Christus, indem wir durch die Pforte des Todes schreiten.

[ 37 ] Was wir mit unserer Erkenntnis hier in der Natur erlebt haben, ist schon eine Vorbedeutung für die Zukunft. Denn was sonst tote Wissenschaft wäre, wird auferweckt durch den lebendigen Geist. Haben wir recht verstanden das: Aus dem Vater sind wir geboren -, In dem Christus sterben wir -, so dürfen wir auch sagen, wenn an die Stelle des Todes der Erkenntnis der wirkliche Tod tritt, der uns den Körper nimmt — hindurchblickend durch die Pforte des Todes -: In dem Heiligen Geiste werden wir wiederum auferweckt — Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus.

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] Humanity must once again be able to comprehend the mystery of Golgotha with all the powers that live in the human soul, to understand the mystery of Golgotha, not merely as it is possible from the perspective of today's civilization, but in such a way that the whole human being can be connected with the mystery of Golgotha. But this will only be possible for humanity when it can approach the mystery of Golgotha again from the standpoint of spiritual knowledge. No intellectual knowledge is really capable of bringing Christianity with its full impulse into the world, for all intellectual knowledge grasps only human thinking. And when we have knowledge that speaks only to the mind, we must seek our impulses of will—which are the most important impulses within true Christianity—from our instincts; we cannot perceive them from the world in which they really exist, from the spiritual world. In the present time, there will be no other option than to turn our gaze once again to the great question of humanity: To what extent is the mystery of Golgotha the meaning of the entire evolution of the earth?

[ 2 ] One would like to express what is meant here in an image, perhaps a somewhat paradoxical one. If a being from another planet were to come down to Earth, this being would probably find everything on Earth quite incomprehensible, because it could not be a human being in the earthly sense; but it is my deepest conviction, drawn from the knowledge of Earth's evolution, that such a being, even if it came from Mars or Jupiter, would be deeply moved by Leonardo da Vinci's painting, “The Last Supper.” For such a being would find something in this painting that tells it: A deeper meaning is connected with the Earth and its development. — And from this meaning, which encompasses the mystery of Golgotha, a being from a completely different world would be able to understand the Earth with all its other phenomena.

[ 3 ] We people of the present age have no idea how deeply we have sunk into intellectual abstraction. That is why we can no longer find our way into the souls of people who lived for a time before the mystery of Golgotha. Those human souls were very different from the souls of people today. We imagine the history of humanity to be much too similar to the events that are happening today. But human souls have undergone a significant development, and in the times before the mystery of Golgotha, they were such that all people, even those who had only a primitive education in their souls, saw something within themselves that was a spiritual entity, which can be called the memory of the time that the human soul experiences before it descends into an earthly body. an earthly body. Just as we today remember in ordinary life what we experienced from about the age of three, four, or five, so the ancient human soul had a memory of its pre-birth life in the spiritual-soul world. In a certain sense, human beings were transparent in their soul relationship; they knew: I am a soul, and I was a soul before I descended to earth. And they also knew, especially in earlier times, certain details of their spiritual-soul life before their descent to Earth. They experienced themselves in world pictures. They looked up at the stars, and they did not see the stars merely in their abstract configuration, as we see them today, but in dreamlike imaginations. He saw the whole world permeated by dreamlike imaginations, and he could say to himself: This is the last glimmer of that spiritual world from which I have descended, and in descending from this spiritual world as a soul, I have entered a human body. — And never did this person of ancient times connect so intensely with his human body that he did not have an experience of the soul.

[ 4 ] What did this person of ancient times experience? He experienced that he could say to himself: Before I descended to Earth, I was in a world in which the sun is not merely a light-giving celestial body, but the gathering place of higher spiritual hierarchies. I did not live in a physical space, but in a spiritual space, in a world in which the sun does not merely give light, but radiates wisdom. I lived in a world in which the stars are beings that assert their will. I came out of this world. — And for this person of ancient times, two experiences were connected with this feeling: the experience of nature and the experience of sin.

[ 5 ] Modern man no longer has this experience of sin, because sin for him lives only in the world of abstract existence, because sin for him is only a transfer, something that he cannot reconcile as moral with the necessities of nature. For the ancient man, these two currents did not exist in world existence: natural necessity on the one hand, moral necessity on the other. For them, all moral necessity was also a natural necessity; all natural necessity was also a moral necessity.

[ 6 ] Thus, man could say to himself: I had to descend from the divine-spiritual world. But by entering into a human body, I am actually sick in relation to the world from which I descended. — And the concepts of illness and sin became bound together for the ancient human being. Human beings felt so here on earth that they had to find within themselves the means to overcome illness. That is why the awareness of these older souls grew more and more: we need something that is healing as education. Education is medicine; education is therapy. And shortly before the Mystery of Golgotha, figures such as therapists appeared as healers. In Greece, too, all spiritual life was thought of in connection with the healing of human beings, because it was felt that at the beginning of the Earth's evolution, human beings were healthier, and they gradually developed in such a way that they moved further and further away from their divine-spiritual nature. That was the concept of illness, which — and this has been forgotten — was widespread throughout the world into which the mystery of Golgotha then historically inserted itself. For in those earlier times, human beings perceived everything spiritual by looking back into the past; they said to themselves: If I want to see the spiritual, I must look back before my birth, back into the past, for there is the spirit. I was born out of this spirit, and I must find this spirit again. But I have distanced myself from this spirit.

[ 7 ] And so the people of the past perceived the spirit from which they had distanced themselves as the spirit of the father. And in the mysteries, the highest initiate was the one who had developed within himself, in his heart, in his soul, those forces through which he could outwardly represent the father as a human being. And when the mystery students crossed the threshold of the mysteries, entered those institutions which were at once places of art, knowledge, and initiation, and when they stood before the highest initiate, they saw in him the representative of the Father God. The fathers were higher initiates than the “sun heroes.” The father principle prevailed before the mystery of Golgotha.

[ 8 ] And humanity felt how it had distanced itself more and more from the Father — to whom one can say: Ex deo nascimur — and how it needed to be healed. Humanity expected the healer, the savior, in the one who knew. Christ is no more alive to us than the Savior; but only when we perceive him again as the world's physician, as the great Savior, will we be able to place him correctly in the world again.

[ 9 ] This was the basic feeling that the old souls had before the Mystery of Golgotha about their connection with the supersensible world of the Father. And what was felt in Greece, what lived in the remarkable saying: Better to be a beggar here on earth than a king in the realm of shadows — this means that humanity had learned to feel deeply how far it had strayed in its entire being from the supersensible world. At the same time, a deep longing for this supersensible world lived within human beings.

[ 10 ] But if humanity had continued to develop with only the awareness of God the Father, it would never have been able to attain full self-awareness of the I, of inner freedom. For in order to attain this inner freedom, something had to take hold in human beings that had previously been regarded as a disease. The whole of humanity felt, in a certain sense, the Lazarus disease. But it was precisely this disease that did not lead to death, but to liberation and to a new recognition of the eternal in human beings.

[ 11 ] One can say: People had increasingly forgotten their spiritual and soul life before birth, and their gaze was increasingly directed toward their physical environment. When an older soul looked through the body into this physical environment, it saw everywhere in the stars the images of the spiritual world it had left behind when it came to earth through birth. It saw in the light of the sun the radiant wisdom in which it had lived as its life atmosphere, and in the sun itself it saw the chorus of the higher hierarchies from which it had been sent down to earth. But humanity had forgotten this.

[ 12 ] And this was felt as the eighth, seventh, and following centuries approached the mystery of Golgotha. If external history tells us nothing of this, it is simply a deficiency of external history. Those who understand how to follow history spiritually see that a powerful consciousness of the Father God existed at the beginning of human development, and that this consciousness was gradually paralyzed, so that human beings could see only the de-spiritualized nature around them.

[ 13 ] Much was not spoken at that time; much lay in the subconscious depths of the human soul. But what was most active in the subconscious spheres of the human soul was a question that people could not put into words, that they felt only with their hearts—the question: Nature surrounds us, but where is the spirit whose children we are? Where can we see the spirit whose children we are? — This question lived unconsciously, without being formulated, in the best souls of the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st centuries.

[ 14 ] It was a time of questions, a time when humanity felt its distance from the Father God, knew in the depths of its soul that it must be so — Ex deo nascimur! — but do we still know it, can we know it?

[ 15 ] If we look even deeper into the souls of the people who lived in the age when the mystery of Golgotha was approaching, the following becomes apparent to us. There were the simpler, more primitive souls who could only feel deep in their subconscious that they were now separated from their connection with the Father. For they were the descendants of those primeval human beings who were by no means as animalistic as we imagine them to be today from a scientific point of view, but who carried within their animal form a soul through which they knew in the ancient dreamlike clairvoyance: We have descended from the divine-spiritual world and taken on a human body. The Father God has led us into the earthly world. We were born from him.

[ 16 ] But the oldest souls of humanity had known: They had left behind in the spiritual worlds from which they had descended something that we now call, or that was later called, “Christ.” That is why the first Christian writers said that the oldest souls were Christians; these souls truly understood how to worship Christ. But in the spiritual worlds where they were before they descended to earth, Christ was the center of their vision, Christ was the central being to whom they turned their soul's gaze. And people on earth remembered this togetherness with Christ in their pre-earthly life.

[ 17 ] Then there were other regions — and Plato, for example, speaks of them in a very special way — where disciples were initiated into the mysteries, where the vision of the supersensible worlds was awakened, where the forces were released from human nature that enable one to look into the spiritual worlds. These disciples of the initiates did not merely learn from a vague memory about the Christ with whom all human beings had lived before descending to Earth, who was now only a half-forgotten idea in human souls here on Earth. They learned about Christ again in his full form. But they came to know him as a being who had, in a sense, lost his task in the super-earthly worlds.

[ 18 ] In the mysteries of the 2nd and 1st centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, people looked in a very special way at that being of the supersensible worlds who was later called the Christ being. They looked at it in such a way that they said: We see this being in the super-earthly worlds, but its activity has diminished more and more. — It was, after all, the being that implanted in souls the memory of the pre-birth times, which then came to life in earthly existence. This being was the great teacher in the supersensible worlds for what the soul still had in its memory after it had descended to earth. Like a being that had lost its activity because human beings gradually lost these memories and could no longer receive them, the being that later came to be called the Christ being appeared to the initiates.

[ 19 ] And so these initiates lived on, with the awareness growing ever stronger within them that this being, which the first human beings remembered from their existence on earth, this being which we now see with ever less activity in the spiritual worlds, would seek a new sphere of life. It will descend to earth in order to awaken the supersensible spirituality in human beings once again."

[ 20 ] And people began to speak of that being, who was later called Christ, as the one who would come down to earth in the future and take on human form, as he did in Jesus of Nazareth. And this talk of Christ as one who was to come was one of the main themes of the last centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha. We see in the pictorial grandeur of those three magi or three kings from the East, representatives of such initiates who had learned in their places of initiation: The Christ will come when the times are fulfilled and the signs in the heavens announce him. Then we must seek him in his hidden place. — And throughout the Gospels there resounds as a deeper secret, as a deeper mystery, what is revealed in human evolution when one looks at it again with spiritual eyes.

[ 21 ] Thus, primitive people looked up to the supersensible world as if lost. They said to themselves in their subconscious: We have forgotten Christ. — And they looked at the nature around them. The question I mentioned earlier arose in their hearts: How can we find the supersensible world again? — And those initiated into the mysteries knew: This being, who would later be called Christ, would come, take on human form, and what the souls had experienced in their pre-earthly existence, they would experience in the contemplation of the mystery of Golgotha.

[ 22 ] Thus, the answer to the question, “How do we return to the supersensible?” is given, not in an intellectual way, but through the most powerful event that has ever occurred on earth. — And the people who had developed a feeling for what was happening at that time learned from those who knew that a real God lived in the man Jesus, that He had descended, the God whom humanity had forgotten because the forces of the body had developed toward freedom. He appeared in a new form so that people could see him and continue to speak of him as an earthly being. The God whom people had known only in the spirit world had descended, had walked in Palestine, had sanctified the earth by entering into a human body. Therefore, the great question for those who were educated in the spirit of that time was: What path did Christ take to become Jesus?

[ 23 ] In the early days of Christianity, the question about Christ was purely spiritual. People did not search for Jesus, they searched for Christ, how he had descended. People looked up to the supersensible worlds, they saw the descent of Christ to earth, they asked themselves: How did the superhuman being become an earthly being? — And that is why the simple people who surrounded Christ Jesus as disciples had the opportunity to speak with him as a spirit even after his death. And the most important things he could say after death have been preserved only in a few fragments. But spiritual science, spiritual knowledge, can explore what Christ said to those who were close to him after his death, when he appeared to them in his spirit.

[ 24 ] There he spoke to them as the great healer, as the ‘therapist’ who was a comforter, who knew the secret that human beings had once had a memory of him because they had been with him in supersensible worlds in their pre-earthly existence. And now he could say to them: I gave you earlier the ability to remember your supersensible, pre-earthly existence. I now give you, if you take me into your souls, if you take me into your hearts, the power to pass through the gate of death with the consciousness of immortality. And you will no longer recognize the Father alone — Ex deo nascimur — you will feel the Son as the one with whom you can die and yet remain alive — In Christo morimur.

[ 25 ] Of course, this was not expressed in the words I am now speaking, but in essence it was what Christ taught those who were close to him after his physical death. People did not know death when they were primitive humans, for from the time they attained consciousness they had an inner knowledge of their soul life; they knew of that which cannot die. They could see people dying around them — death was an illusion in the facts surrounding them. People did not feel death. Only when the mystery of Golgotha approached did people feel the reality of death, for their soul life had gradually become so connected with their physical life that doubt could now arise as to how the soul could live on after the body decayed. This would not have been a question in earlier times, because people recognized the soul.

[ 26 ] Now Christ came as the one who said: I will live with you on earth so that you may have the power to rekindle your souls, to stimulate them inwardly so that you may carry them through death as a living soul. That was what Paul did not immediately understand, what Paul only understood when he himself was given access to the supersensible worlds, when he received the impressions of Christ Jesus here on earth. That is why Pauline Christianity is less and less appreciated today, because it claims that Christ came from supernatural worlds and connected his supernatural power with earthly human beings.

[ 27 ] Thus, for the evolution of humanity in consciousness, the words “We are born of God” — namely, of the Father God — were supplemented by the words of life, comfort, and strength: “We die in Christ,” which means: We live in him.

[ 28 ] What has become of humanity through the Mystery of Golgotha will be best revealed to us if I now describe the evolution of humanity in the present — and how we must hope for it in the future — from the point of view of the present initiate. I have attempted to present to your soul the viewpoint of the ancient initiate, the viewpoint of the initiate at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha; Now I would like to try to describe the viewpoint of the initiate of the present, of those who today do not approach life merely with an external knowledge of nature, but in whom those deeper powers of knowledge have awakened which we can awaken from the soul with the means indicated in spiritual literature.

[ 29 ] When this initiate acquires the knowledge that is today the triumph of the age, the splendor in which many people feel comfortable when they acquire it, even with a certain higher consciousness, then he finds himself in a tragic situation with this knowledge. For the newer, modern initiate feels that the insights that are particularly valid and valuable in the world today are like death when he connects them with his soul. And the more the modern initiate, to whom the world of the super-earthly sphere has risen before his soul, is permeated by what the whole world today calls science, the more he feels his soul dying. For the modern initiate, the sciences are the grave of the soul; he already feels connected with death while he is still alive, because he acquires knowledge about the world in the manner of modern science. And he often feels this dying deeply and intensely. And then he seeks the reason why he always dies when he perceives things in the modern sense, why he has something like a sensation of the smell of a corpse, precisely when he rises to the highest modern insights, which he truly appreciates, but which are a premonition of death for him.

[ 30 ] Then, based on his insights into the supersensible world, he tells himself something that I would like to express to you through an image. We live spiritually and soulfully before we descend to earth. Of what we experience spiritually and soulfully in full reality in our pre-earthly existence, we have only thoughts, concepts, and ideas in our souls here on earth. These are in our soul. But how are they in our soul?

[ 31 ] Let us look at the human being as he stands in life between birth and death, fully alive, his body permeated with flesh and blood. We call him alive. He passes through the gate of death. What remains of the physical human being is the corpse, which is then handed over to the earth, to the elements. We look at the physically dead human being. We have the corpse before us, the remnants of the living human being, permeated by living blood. The human being is physically dead. We look back, but with the gaze of initiation, into our own soul. We look at the thoughts we now have in life between birth and death, at the thoughts we have as today's modern wisdom and science, and we see: they are the corpse of what we were before we descended to earth. Just as the corpse of a human being relates to the fully living human being, so do our thoughts, which we revere today as the highest riches brought to us by the insights of external nature, relate to what we were before we descended to earth. This is what the initiate can experience. He does not experience his real life in his thoughts; he experiences the corpse of his soul in his thoughts. This is a fact, something that is not spoken out of sentimentality, but something that today, with full force, comes before the soul as an active realization. This is not what the sentimental, mystical dreamer says to himself today; he wants to feel something out of some dark, mystical depths of his own being. But those who pass through the gate of initiation today discover in their souls these thoughts which, precisely because they are lifeless, can make living freedom possible. These thoughts, which are the whole foundation of human freedom, do not compel human beings, precisely because they are dead, because they are not alive. Human beings can become free beings today because they are dealing with dead thoughts rather than living ones. Dead thoughts can be grasped by human beings and used to achieve freedom. But they are also experienced with all the tragedy of the world as the corpse of the soul. Before the soul descended into the earthly world, everything that is now a corpse was full of life and activity. In the spiritual, supersensible worlds, between the human souls that had either already passed through death and now lived in the spiritual world, or those that had not yet descended to earth, there moved the beings of the higher hierarchies that stand above human beings, and within this sphere there also moved those elemental beings that form the basis of nature. Everything in the soul was alive. Here, in the soul, is the inheritance from the spiritual worlds; thought is dead.

[ 32 ] But as modern initiates, with Christ as he revealed himself in the Mystery of Golgotha permeating us, we understand in the deepest, innermost sense the words of Paul: “Not I, but Christ in me,” then Christ also leads us through this death; then we penetrate nature with our thoughts, but Christ walks spiritually with us and immerses our thoughts in the grave of nature. For otherwise, when we have dead thoughts, nature becomes a grave. But if we approach minerals, animals, the starry world, the world of clouds, mountains, and streams with these dead thoughts, if we approach them with these dead thoughts but accompanied by Christ, according to the words: “Not I, but Christ in me,” then in modern initiation, when we immerse ourselves in the quartz crystal, we experience that the thought from nature, from the quartz crystal, now rises as a living thought. As if from the mineral grave, the thought rises as a living thought. The mineral world allows the spirit to rise up within us. And when Christ leads us through the plant world out of the realm where only dead thoughts would otherwise live, living thoughts arise.

[ 33 ] We would feel sick if we went out into nature, looked up at the starry world with only the eyes of a calculating astronomer, and these dead thoughts sank into the world. We would feel sick, and the sickness would lead to death. But let us allow Christ to accompany us, let us carry our dead thoughts in the company of Christ into the world of the stars, into the world of the sun, the moon, the clouds, the mountains, the rivers, the minerals, the plants, and the animals, let us carry them into the entire physical world of man, everything comes alive in the contemplation of nature, and out of all beings arises, as from a grave, the living spirit that heals us, that awakens us from death, the Holy Spirit. And we feel ourselves, accompanied by Christ, revived with what we have experienced as death. We feel the living, healing spirit of all beings in this world speaking to us.

[ 34 ] We must regain this in spiritual knowledge, in a new initiatory knowledge. Then we will grasp the mystery of Golgotha as the meaning of the whole earthly existence, we will know how we must be guided in the time when human freedom must develop through dead thoughts, how we must be guided to the knowledge of nature through Christ. We will know how Christ not only laid down his own destiny on earth in his death within the mystery of Golgotha, but how he granted the earth the great freedom of Pentecost by promising earthly humanity the living Spirit, which through his help can arise from everything that is on earth. Our knowledge remains dead, remains itself sin, if we are not raised up through Christ in such a way that the Spirit, the living Spirit, speaks to us again from all of nature, from all cosmic existence.

[ 35 ] The Trinity of the Father God, the Son God, and the God, the Holy Spirit, is not merely a sophisticated formula. it is something deeply connected with the entire evolution of the cosmos and which becomes for us a living, not a dead knowledge, when we make Christ himself alive in us as the risen one who is the bringer of the Holy Spirit.

[ 36 ] Then we understand that it would be like a disease if we could not see the divine from which we are born. Man must be secretly ill if he is an atheist. He is only healthy when his physical nature is so unified that he can feel from within himself that “I am born of God” as the summary of his own being. And it is a stroke of fate if man does not find Christ in his earthly life, who can guide him, who can lead him through death at the end of his earthly life, who can lead him through death to knowledge. For if we feel the “In Christ we die,” then we also feel what wants to come to us through the guidance of Christ, through the leadership of Christ, then we feel how the spirit rises from everything, rises even in this earthly life. We feel alive again in this earthly life, we look through the gate of death through which Christ leads us, we look at the life that lies beyond death, and we now know why Christ sent the Spirit, the Holy Spirit: because we can already connect with this Holy Spirit here in life if we surrender ourselves to the guidance of Christ. We can then say with certainty: We die in Christ as we pass through the gate of death.

[ 37 ] What we have experienced here in nature with our knowledge is already a foreshadowing of the future. For what would otherwise be dead science is brought to life by the living Spirit. If we have understood correctly that we are born of the Father and die in Christ, then we may also say that when death is replaced by knowledge, the real death that takes our body away, looking through the gate of death, we will be raised again in the Holy Spirit—Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus.