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Karmic Relationships V
GA 239

5 April 1924, Prague

Lecture IV

Previous studies in the Anthroposophical Society here in Prague will have made it clear to you that the evolution of mankind is governed by the spirit—or perhaps it is better to say, by spiritual Beings—and that human souls, themselves filled with spirit, carry over their achievements from one epoch to another, including, of course, whatever burden of guilt they have accumulated in a particular epoch. All these things enable us to gaze deeply into the life of the Cosmos both from the physical aspect and from the aspect of soul and spirit, and only in this way is it possible for us to understand our real nature and being. For without yielding to pride we must acknowledge that in our own human nature we are united with the spiritual fount of the Cosmos and that we can understand our own being and constitution only through a spiritual understanding of the Cosmos.

Now since the Christmas Foundation Meeting it is not only a matter of conducting the affairs of Anthroposophy within the Anthroposophical Society; the conduct of these affairs must in itself be Anthroposophy. And this must also come to expression in the re casting of Anthroposophical work. In these lectures, therefore, I have not been afraid to lead our study from exoteric into more esoteric domains, and in this respect I want to add something to-day to what has already been said—something that provides concrete evidence of how the human soul passes over from one epoch into another. The general principle applies equally to individuals, and through an understanding of the karma of personalities known to us all, light can be shed upon our own karma. To-day, therefore, we will continue our study of karma in more concrete detail.

In the course of these lectures I have mentioned the name of an individual who is a remarkable example of how a certain visionary quality can reveal itself in one who is preeminently a man of will. I have mentioned the name of Garibaldi, the hero of the cause of freedom in Italy, and I have also spoken of certain of his outstanding characteristics. Everything about him gives expression to will, to impulses of will. What a tremendous power of will was in evidence when as a young man during the twenties and early thirties of the 19th century he set out again and again, quite voluntarily, on perilous voyages through the Adriatic, and after having been taken prisoner several times was always able, through his strength and courage, to escape. What a tremendous power of will was at work when, having seen that for the time being there was no field for his activity in Europe, he went over to South America where he became one of the most intrepid fighters in the cause of freedom there. I have spoken, too, of how in the circumstances of his betrothal and marriage he disregarded the usual customs and determined his own life as he saw fit. Then, on his return to Europe, he became the one to whom, in reality, modern Italy owes everything.

When the question was put to me one day: “What could have been the karmic connections of this personality?” two aspects came into consideration. For the finding of karmic connections is by no means a simple but a very complicated task. I have said already that one must often start from details which although clearly in evidence seem to be of minor importance and be led by them to the principles according to which the facts of the one earthly life are carried over into the later life.

The case of Garibaldi is strange in that although at heart and in sentiment he was a republican, through and through a republican, he laid the whole force of his will into the task of consolidating the Italian monarchy under Victor Emanuel. Simply by studying the biography of Garibaldi one can perceive a fundamental contradiction between this inner trend of feeling and his actual deeds. One perceives, too, that he felt a bond with men like Mazzini and Cavour, with whose ideas and convictions he was manifestly at variance and whose trend of thought differed so radically from his own. Then there is the striking fact that Garibaldi was born, in the year 1807, quite near to the birthplaces of the other three: the later King Victor Emanuel, Cavour the statesman, and Mazzini the philosopher. Their birthplaces were really in close proximity. And then one is led to investigate the connection between the karma of such personalities.

The other aspect—a very far reaching one—is the following. In studying Spiritual Science we must always have in our minds that in olden times there were Initiates, seers, men of vision in the widest sense. And the question may be asked: Since these wise men of times gone by must reincarnate, where are they working now, in the modern age? Where are they, these great personalities who worked as Initiates in the past?—They have indeed come again but it must be remembered that when a human being is born in a particular epoch he is obliged to use the body provided by that epoch. The bodies of olden days were more pliant, more flexible, yielding more readily to the spirit; and in earthly existence man must use the body to transform into earthly shape and earthly activity what was imbued into him before he came down to the Earth. Faced with conditions that are so full of riddles, we must remember—and no criticism is here implied—that for centuries now the effect of the whole of education upon the human organism has been such that what was once alive in an Initiate simply cannot come to expression. Much has to remain concealed in the deep substrata of existence. And for this reason, many Initiates of bygone days appear again as personalities who with the concepts and notions prevailing to-day cannot be recognised as former Initiates because they are obliged to use the body which their epoch provides.

Garibaldi is just such an example. If we go far back into the past, we find deep and profound Mysteries, great Initiates, in ancient Ireland. But the Irish Mysteries survived right on into the Christian era. Even to-day there is still much living spirituality in Ireland—not of an abstract, conceptual kind, but alive, spiritually potent. Chaotic as conditions in that country appear to-day, there is in Ireland much real spiritual life. But it is only the very last vestige of what once existed. In Hibernia, in Ireland, there were deep and penetrating Mysteries whose influences still made their way across to Europe in the early centuries of the spread of Christianity. And there one finds an Initiate whose path in the 8th to 9th centuries after the founding of Christianity led him from Ireland to the region corresponding approximately to modern Alsace. Under the stormy conditions then prevailing, this Initiate achieved much for the cause of true Christianity, for which, if the truth be told, Boniface accomplished very little. To this Initiate came three pupils from different quarters of the world—three pupils who entrusted themselves to him. These three pupils came to him—one from far away, another from nearer at hand. But in the Irish Mysteries there was an inviolable decree that an Initiate to whom pupils had entrusted themselves must not abandon them in the later incarnation but must accomplish in earthly life something that will hold them to him, something that establishes a bond between him and these pupils. The Initiate of whom I am speaking was born again as Joseph Garibaldi, with that visionary quality of will which in olden times had been able to express itself in a quite different form from that possible in a body belonging to the 19th century. Garibaldi received only a very inferior education, quite unlike the education that was typical of the 19th century. The three others I have named were the pupils who in the past had come to him from different parts of the world. But the impulse working from the one incarnation over into the other was far deeper and more potent than external principles of action. In comparison with the link stretching across the incarnations between man and man, it is a triviality to contend: I am a Republican, you are a Monarchist. In these things one must realise how greatly earthly Maya, the great illusion, the semblance of being, deviates from the spiritual reality which is in truth the motive power behind the phenomena of existence. And so in spite of the radical difference in sentiment and conviction, Garibaldi could not abandon, for example, Victor Emanuel. Sentiment and conviction in connection with earthly matters and not with human beings belong to the epoch, not to the individuality who passes from one earthly life to another.

I want to give another example, one with which I came into close personal contact. I had a geometry teacher1Gregory VII, Pope from 1053 to 1085. who was of enormous help to me. My autobiography will have indicated to you that geometry is one of the subjects to which I owe most because of the impulses it quickened in me. This geometry teacher himself played a very valuable part in my life. The fact that he was an excellent constructor might well have led to my great affection for him because I myself loved geometrical construction and because he expressed everything with genuine independence of mind and also with all the exclusiveness belonging to geometrical thinking. His mind was focused so exclusively upon geometry that in the real sense of the word he was no mathematician; he was a geometrician and nothing else. In this sphere he was brilliant but it could not be said that he was deeply versed in mathematics. He lived at a time when all descriptive geometry—his special subject—underwent changes. Characteristically, however, he kept to the old forms. But something else about him provided a far more revealing clue for occult investigation: he had what is called a club foot. Now the strange thing is that the force—not, of course, the physical substance—the force which a man has in his feet in one incarnation, the character of his tread, how his feet lead him into wrong-doing or well doing—this force is metamorphosed. Whatever is connected with the feet may live itself out in a subsequent incarnation in the head organisation; whereas what we now bear in our head may come to expression, in the later incarnation, in the organisation of the legs. Metamorphosis takes a peculiar form here. One who is conversant with these things can discern from the style and manner of a man's gait, how he treads with his toes and heels, what quality of thinking characterised him in an earlier incarnation. And one who observes the qualities of a man's thinking—whether his thoughts are quick, fleeting, cursory, or deliberate and cautious—will be able to picture how he actually walked in a previous incarnation.

In the earlier incarnation, a man whose thoughts are fleeting and cursory walked with short, rapid steps, as though tapping over the ground, whereas the gait of a man who thinks cautiously and with deliberation was firm and steady in the earlier life. It is just these apparently minor characteristics that lead further when one is looking for the deeper, spiritual connections and not those of an external, abstract kind. And so when time and time again I called up the picture of this greatly loved teacher, I was guided to his earlier incarnation. With this picture another associated itself—also of a man with a club foot: Lord Byron.2Lord Byron, 1788–1824. The two men were there before me in this inner picture. And the karma of my teacher, as well as the peculiarity of which I have told you, led me to the discovery that in the 10th or 11th century, both these souls had lived in their earlier incarnations far over in the East of Europe where they came one day under the influence of a legend, a prophecy. This legend was to the effect that the Palladium, which in a certain magical way helped to sustain the power of Rome, had been brought to that city from ancient Troy, and hidden. When the Emperor Constantine conceived the wish to carry Roman culture to Constantinople he caused the Palladium to be transported with the greatest pomp and pageantry to Constantinople and hidden under a pillar, the details of which gave expression to his overweening pride. For he ordered an ancient statue of Apollo to be set at the top of this pillar, but altered in such a way as to be a portrait of himself. He caused wood to be brought from the Cross on which Christ had been crucified and shaped into a kind of crown which was then placed on the head of this statue. It was the occasion for indulging in veritable orgies of pride!

The legend went on to prophesy that the Palladium would be transferred from Constantinople to the North and that the power embodied in it would be vested eventually in a Slavonic Empire. This prophecy came to the knowledge of the two men of whom I have been speaking and they resolved to go to Constantinople and to carry off the Palladium to Russia. They did not succeed. But in one of them especially—in Byron—the urge remained, and was then transformed in the later life into the impulse to espouse the cause of freedom in Greece. This impulse led Byron, in the 19th century, to the very region, broadly speaking, where he had searched for the Palladium in an earlier incarnation.

It is a question, you see, of finding the threads which lead back into earlier ages. On another occasion my attention fell on a personality who lived about the 9th century in the north east of France as France is to-day, and who during the first part of his life was the owner of extensive landed estates. He was, for those times, a wealthy man, and being of a warlike nature he engaged in many rather quixotic military adventures not on a large but on a small scale. When he had reached a certain age, this personality gathered around him people who then accompanied him on a campaign which ended in disaster and brought bitter disillusionment in its train. Without having achieved anything at all, he was obliged to return home. But meanwhile—as was a common practice in those days—another had taken possession of his house, land and people during his absence. On his arrival he found that his own estates were in other hands strange as the story is, it actually happened so and he was obliged thereafter to serve in his own manor as a kind of helot or serf. Many a meeting took place there with people of the neighbourhood, usually by night, and in a rather uncultured, rough and ready way, ideas were elaborated for seizing power—although beyond the fact that such ideas were worked out, nothing could possibly come of them. These ideas for rebelling against the overlords—almost as in the days of Rome—were the subject of much heated and fervid dialectic. Our interest may well be roused by this personality who had been ousted from estates, possessions and authority but who with an inflexible will stirred up the whole district, particularly against the one who had usurped the property. The personality of whom I am speaking was born again in the 19th century, when inwardly, in mind and soul, he became the kind of character one would expect from the circumstances of the earlier incarnation: he became Karl Marx3Karl Marx, 1818–1883. the socialist leader. Just think what a light is shed upon world history when one can study it in this way, when one can actually follow the souls passing from one epoch into the other, observing how what these souls bear within them is carried over from epoch to epoch. History and the evolution of mankind are seen in this way in their real and concrete setting.

In Dornach recently I was able to call attention to another connection of karma, one which caused me repeatedly during the War, and especially at the end of the War, to warn people against allowing themselves to be blinded by a certain outstanding figure of modern times. In the Helsingfors4Helsingfors lecture course: 'The Occult Foundations of the Bhagavad-Gita.' 9 lectures, May/June, 1913. lectures of 1913 I had already spoken of the very limited abilities of the person in question. This was because the connection between Muawiyah,5Muawiyah, Caliph in Syria from 661 to 680. Founded the dynasty of the Omayyads. a follower of Mohammed in the 7th century, and Woodrow Wilson, was clear to me. All the fatalism which characterised the personality of Muawiyah, came out in the otherwise inexplicable fatalism of Woodrow Wilson—in his case, fatalism of will. And if anyone wants to find corroboration, to discover the origin of the well known Fourteen Points, he has only to turn to the Koran. Such are the connections. These things must be kept absolutely free from sympathy or antipathy; it is not a question of criticism but only of the purest objectivity. But this very objectivity leads from one point in history at which a soul has appeared, to another such point. When humanity outsteps in some degree the still surviving heritage of materialism, people will be willing to listen to such things and observe for themselves. And then they will feel quite differently about their place in modern civilisation because they will be able to see it not in a dead but in a living setting. That is the important point. The whole process of historical development will be imbued with life. And if man is to get beyond the blind alley in which he is now standing in his civilisation, he needs the living spirit and not the dead spirit of abstract concepts and ideas.

In their study of history, people will probably be very reluctant to approach the spiritual in the way indicated in my public lecture here a few days ago, but nevertheless they will ultimately be obliged to do so. For ordinary historical study which has only documentary evidence to go upon is full of insoluble enigmas. Things of which the origins cannot be explained are forever cropping up. Why is it so? It is because the origins are not understood, they have been completely obscured. When such things are investigated, a great deal in history becomes living reality. But it also becomes apparent that men themselves have done a great deal to garble and falsify history in important respects.

It will certainly seem strange and perplexing when in connection with a relatively near past, the spiritual investigator is forced to assert that a wonderful work of art has been wiped out of existence by the hostility of a certain stream of spiritual life. In the early centuries of Christendom there was extant in the more southerly regions of European civilisation a literary work of art setting forth the nature of advancing culture immediately after Christianity had taken root in the evolution of humanity in Europe. This work of art—it was an epic drama, a dramatic epos—narrated how since the recent revelation of Christianity man cannot draw near to the true Being of Christ unless he undergoes a definite preparation similar to that given in the Mysteries.

In order to understand the real import of this, the following must be clear to us. To His intimate disciples Christ had made it abundantly clear that He, as a Sun Being, a Cosmic Being, had come down into the one born in the East as Jesus, in the thirtieth year of his life. Jesus of Nazareth was born into a Moon religion. What was the nature of the Jahve, the Jehovah religion, and of the Being Jahve himself? In looking upwards to Jahve, men were gazing, in reality, at the human ‘I,' the ‘I' that is directly dependent upon the physical human configuration that is born with us. But what is born with us, what has taken shape and developed inasmuch as in the mother's body we were moulded into a vessel for the human ‘I' this is dependent upon the Moon forces. Jahve is a Moon God. And in lifting their eyes to Jahve, men said to themselves: Jahve is the Regent of the Moon Beings, from whom proceed those forces which bear man into his physical existence on Earth.—But if Moon forces alone were at work, man would never be able to transcend what is laid into him in the life that belongs to the Earth. This he can no longer do of himself, but in earlier times it was different. If we go back into prehistoric ages we find something very remarkable, something that to the modern mind sounds extremely strange. We find that in the thirtieth year of life, human beings experienced a complete transformation of soul. This was the case in the great majority of people belonging to a certain class. Strange as it sounds to modern ears, it was really the case in an age of which the Vedas are mere echoes. There were men in ancient India to whom the following might happen.—When another man whom they had seen a few years previously came up to them, he might find that although they saw him, they did not recognise who he was; they had forgotten everything that had happened to them during the previous thirty-years, they had forgotten it all—even their own identity. And there was an actual institution—we should call it, as we call every such institution to-day, an official department or board of authorities—to which such a person must apply in order to be informed who he was and where he had been born. Only when, in the Mysteries, these people had been given the necessary training were they able to remember their lives up to the age of thirty. They were men who at a later time, were called the ‘twice born,' who owed the first period of their existence to the Moon forces, the second to the forces of the Sun.

The metamorphosis which in ancient times came about in so radical a way in the course of earthly life, the ‘being born a second time,' was ascribed to the Sun—and rightly so, for the Sun forces have to do with what a human being is able, by dint of his own free will, to make of himself. But as the evolution of humanity progressed, this gradually ceased to be part of the process of development; man no longer brought down into the physical realm any consciousness of having gazed into the cosmic worlds. Julian the Apostate wished to revive the knowledge of these things and had to pay for the attempt with his death. But through the power enshrined in His words, Christ wished to bring to men through morality, through a deepening of the moral and religious life, what nature does not bring. It was Christ Who taught: “When you learn to feel as I feel, when instead of turning your eyes to the Sun you behold what is alive in me—who was the very last to receive the Sun Word in the thirtieth year—then you will find the way to the essence of the Sun once again!” The teachers in the Mysteries during the early period of Christianity knew with certainty that the development of the intellect, of intellectuality, was then beginning; intellectuality does indeed bring man freedom but deprives him of the ancient clairvoyance which leads him into the cosmic spirituality. Therefore these wise men of the old Christian Mysteries instituted teaching which was then set forth in that epic drama of which I spoke. It was the narration of the experiences of a pupil in the Christian Mysteries, who by the sacrifice of intellect at a certain point in his youth was to be led to true Christianity when the realisation had dawned in him that Christ is a Sun Being Who came to dwell in Jesus of Nazareth from his thirtieth year onwards.

This epic was a moving and impressive narration of how a human being seeking the inmost truth of Christianity makes the sacrifice of intellect in early years—that is to say, he vows to the higher Spiritual Powers that intellectuality shall not be his mainstay but that he will so deepen his inner life that he may come to know Christianity not as mere history or tradition but in its cosmic reality and setting, seeing in Christ the Bearer of the spirituality of the Sun. A scene of dramatic grandeur and impressive content was presented by this transformation in a human being by the sacrifice of intellectuality. A human being who, to begin with, received Christianity merely according to the letter of the Gospels—as was customary later on—became one who learned to behold the cosmic realities and Christ's living connection with the Cosmos. The awakening of clairvoyant vision of Christianity as cosmic reality—such was the content of that ancient epic drama. The Catholic Church took care to ensure that every trace of this epic should be exterminated. Nothing has remained—the Catholic Church has had power enough for that. It is only by accident that a transcript has been preserved of which, too, nothing would be known, had it not been from the hand of a personage living at the Court of Charles the Bald—from the hand of Scotus Erigena.

Those who realise the import of these things will not think it so strange when spiritual investigation urges one to speak of this epic story of a man who by vowing to sacrifice intellectuality was transformed in such a way that the heavens were opened to him. But in the form of tradition many a fragment from that ancient epic has survived, in substance largely unchanged, but no longer understood—above all its great setting and its imagery were no longer understood. The content of this work of poetic art became the subject of numerous paintings. These paintings too were exterminated and only traditions survived. Fragments of these traditions were known in a circle to which Brunetto Latini, the teacher of Dante, belonged. From this teacher Dante heard something of the traditions—not of course in precision of detail, but in aftermath—and in his Divine Comedy echoes from that old epic still live on. But the work existed, as truly and as surely as the Divine Comedy itself exists.

Recorded history, you see, does not tally with the realities and a great deal of what was exterminated by enemies will have to be discovered again through spiritual investigation. For it was all to the interests of a certain side to root out every indication that Christ comes from the Cosmos. The birth of Christ which actually took place in Jesus' thirtieth year has been confounded with the physical birth. What then became a Christian doctrine could never have been established had the epic drama of which I have spoken not been exterminated. The time will come when spiritual investigation will have to play a part if human civilisation is to make real progress.

You know the devastating effect of illnesses of the kind which befell someone I once knew well. He held a post of considerable authority but one day he left his home and family, went to the railway station and took a ticket for a far distant place, having suddenly forgotten everything about his life hitherto—his intellect was in order but his memory was completely clouded. When he arrived at his first destination he took another ticket, travelling in this way through Germany, Austria, Hungary, Galicia, and finally, when his memory came back to him, he found himself in an asylum for the homeless in Berlin.

It is in truth the ruin of the whole Ego when a man forgets what he has lived through and experienced. It would also mean the ruin of the Ego of civilisation, the Ego of European humanity, were men to forget completely the things that were part of their historical experience, those things which have been rooted out. Spiritual Science alone can bring back the power of remembrance.

But even to men who, comparatively speaking, are kindly disposed, Spiritual Science still seems strange and foreign. One cannot read without a certain irony what a man, who is in other respects so promising, says about me as the founder of Anthroposophy. In The Great Secret, Maurice Maeterlinck6Maurice Maeterlinck on Rudolf Steiner. See Le Grand Secret, p. 253 (Bibliothèque Charpentier, Paris, 1921). The words referred to are as follows: ‘Steiner ... nous décrit les transformations successives des entités qui deviendront des hommes, et il le fait avec tant d'assurance qu'on se demande, après l'avoir suivi avec intérêt à travers des préliminaires qui dénotent un esprit très pondéré, très logique et très vaste, s'il devient subitement fou ou si l'on a affaire à un mystificateur ou à un véritable voyant. ...’ seems unable to deny that the introductions to my books contain much that is reasonable. He is struck by this. But then he finds things which leave him in a state of bewilderment and of which he can make absolutely nothing.—We might vary slightly one of Lichtenberg's remarks, by saying: “When books and an individual come into collision and there is a hollow sound, this need not be the fault of the books!” But just think of it—Maurice Maeterlinck is certainly a high light in our modern culture and yet he writes the following—I quote almost word for word: ‘In the introductions to his books, in the first chapters, Steiner invariably shows himself possessed of a thoughtful, logical and cultured mind, and then, in the later chapters he seems to have gone crazy' (See note, p109). What are we to deduce from this? First chapter—thoughtful, logical, cultured; last chapter—crazy. Then another book comes out. ‘Again, to begin with, thoughtful, logical, cultured; and finally—crazy!' And so it goes on. As I have written quite a number of books I must be pretty expert at this sort of thing! According to Maurice Maeterlinck a kind of juggling must go on in my books But the idea that this happens voluntarily ... such a case has yet to be found in the lunatic asylums!

The books of writers who think one crazy are really more bewildering still The very irony with which one is bound to accept many things to-day shows how difficult it still is for men of the present age to understand genuine spiritual investigation Nevertheless such investigation will have to come. And in order that we shall not have been found wanting in the strength to bring about this deepening of the spiritual life, the Christmas Foundation Meeting was held as a beacon for the further development of the Anthroposophical Society in the direction I have indicated. The Christmas Foundation Meeting was intended, first and foremost, to inaugurate in the Anthroposophical Movement an epoch when concrete facts of the spiritual life are fearlessly set forth—as has been the case to-day and in the preceding lectures. For if the spirit needed by mankind is to find entrance, a stronger impetus is required than that which has prevailed hitherto.

It has been for me a source of real gladness that in the lectures here, given either to the public or to a smaller circle, the opportunity has been afforded me to lead a little further into the depths of spiritual life. And with this inner gladness let me express my heartfelt thanks for the cordial words addressed to me by Professor Hauffen at the beginning of this evening's session. I thank you for your welcome and for the way in which your souls have responded during my presence here. And you may rest assured that Professor Hauffen's words will remain with me as a wellspring of the thoughts which I shall constantly send you and which will be with you alike when you achieve your aims and when you are working here. Even when we are separated from one another in space we are, as Anthroposophists, together in our hearts, and this should be known and remembered. For many years I have been privileged to speak in Prague of different aspects of the spiritual life and it has always been a source of satisfaction to me. Particularly is it so on this occasion, because the demands made upon your hearts and souls have been relatively new, because this time you have had to receive with an even greater open mindedness what I had to say to you in discharging a spiritual commission. When I say ‘spiritual commission,' let us take these words to imply that in the spirit we remain together. The aim before us will be achieved if friends work together with all their hearts, if, above all, they remain united in Anthroposophical thinking, feeling and willing.

Together with my thanks, please take this as a cordial farewell—betokening no separation but rather the establishment of a spiritual communion. This feeling of communion should flow through every word that is spoken among us. Everything that is said among us should serve to unite us more and more closely. In this sense let me assure you with all my heart that my thoughts will be with you, seeking to find among you one of those places where true Anthroposophical will and the Anthroposophical stream of spiritual life are able to work. And so we will go our ways, but in the body only, remaining spiritually and in our hearts together.

Vierter Vortrag

Bevor ich mir erlaube, auf die so lieben Worte des Herrn Professor Hauffen hin, die in Ihrem Namen gesprochen worden sind, Ihnen meinen Abschiedsgruß zu sagen, lassen Sie mich vorher noch die Betrachtungen des heutigen Abends anstellen.

Es wird ersichtlich geworden sein aus den vorangehenden Betrachtungen hier in der Prager Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft, wie ein Wirken des Geistes — oder vielleicht besser gesagt von geistigen Wesenheiten — über der Menschheitsentwickelung waltet, und wie die Menschenseelen selber geisterfüllt von Epoche zu Epoche dasjenige hinübertragen, was sie in einer Epoche sich erarbeitet haben, allerdings auch dasjenige, was sie als Schuld in der einen Epoche auf ihre Seelen gehäuft haben. Aber all das läßt uns ja einen tiefen Blick in das’ Leben des physisch-seelisch-geistigen Kosmos hineintun, und erst dadurch begreifen wir unser Menschenwesen, wenn wir einen solchen Blick tun. Denn ohne daß wir dabei in irgendeinen Hochmut verfallen, müssen wir uns gestehen, daß wir dem geistigen Urquell des Kosmos mit unserer eigenen Menschennatur verbunden sind und wir unsere eigene menschliche Natur nur verstehen, wenn wir den Kosmos geistig durchdringen. Nun soll seit der Weihnachtstagung ja nicht nur die Anthroposophie verwaltet werden innerhalb der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft, sondern das Verwalten soll selbst Anthroposophie sein. Und das muß ja auch in der Umgestaltung des anthroposophischen Wirkens zum Ausdruck kommen. Ich habe mich daher nicht gescheut, in diesen Vorträgen vom Exoterischen weg mehr ins Esoterische hinein die Betrachtung strömen zu lassen, und einiges von dem möchte ich heute noch zu diesem Gesagten hinzufügen. Ich möchte hinzufügen etwas, was anschaulich machen kann, wie die menschliche Seele aus der einen Zeitepoche in die andere hinübergetragen wird. Dasjenige, was im Großen und Ganzen geschieht, geschieht ja auch für den Einzelnen, und wenn wir das Karma begreifen von Persönlichkeiten, die uns allen bekannt sind, so können wir auch ein Licht werfen auf unser eigenes Karma. Deshalb lassen Sie uns heute die Betrachtung über Karma noch etwas im Konkreten fortsetzen.

Ich habe schon im Verlaufe dieser Betrachtungen den Namen eines Mannes genannt, der in einer merkwürdigen Weise zeigt, wie in einer Willensnatur etwas Visionäres zur Offenbarung kommen kann. Ich habe den Namen des italienischen Freiheitshelden Garibaldi genannt, habe auch einige charakteristische Züge von ihm angegeben. Alles dasjenige, was sich in diesem Garibaldi äußert, ist Willensregung. Welcher ungeheure Wille gehört dazu, daß er als junger Mann oft und oft in einer gefährlichen Zeit, im zweiten, am Beginne des dritten Jahrzehntes des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, die Adria auf eigene Verantwortung hin durchschiffte, wiederholt gefangen genommen wurde, immer wiederum durch seine Kraft und seinen Mut freikam. Welch ungeheure Willensentfaltung liegt datin, daß er, als er gesehen hat, wie zunächst in Europa für ihn kein Feld ist, nach Südamerika hinüberging und dort einer der kühnsten Menschen wurde für die Entfaltung des Freiheitslebens. Ich habe auch wohl aufmerksam darauf gemacht, wie er in bezug auf seine Verheiratung eigentlich über die gewöhnlichen irdischen Verhältnisse hinaus das eigene Leben entfaltete; und als er dann wiederum nach Europa zurückgekehrt war, war er ja derjenige, dem eigentlich das Italien der Gegenwart alles verdankt.

Als eines Tages an mich die Frage herantrat: Wie könnte es mit den karmischen Zusammenhängen dieser Persönlichkeit beschaffen sein?, da traten zwei Fragen auf. Denn das Erleben karmischer Zusammenhänge ist nicht etwas ganz Einfaches, sondern etwas Kompliziertes. Ich habe schon gesagt, daß man manchmal bei scheinbaren Geringfügigkeiten des Lebens einsetzen muß, um von diesen Geringfügigkeiten, die aber anschaulich konkret sind, dann überzugehen zu demjenigen, was die Tatsachen des einen Erdenlebens hinüberträgt in die Tatsachen des anderen Erdenlebens.

Und so war es bei Garibaldi besonders der Umstand, daß er seiner Gesinnung nach Republikaner war, durch und durch Republikaner war, aber in Italien mit aller Kraft seines Willens das Königreich unter Viktor Emanuel verwirklichte. Und eigentlich sieht man, wenn man nur die äußere Biographie Garibaldis ins Auge faßt, einen gründlichen Widerspruch zwischen dieser seiner innersten Gesinnung und demjenigen, was er getan hat. Auf der anderen Seite sieht man, wie er sich verbunden fühlte mit Männern wie Mazzini und Cavour, mit denen er in Gedanken durchaus nicht übereinstimmte, die ganz andere Gedankenrichtungen hatten. Da fällt einem dann auf, wie es merkwürdig ist, daß der im Jahre 1807 geborene Garibaldi seine Geburtszeit und seinen Geburtsort eigentlich in unmittelbarer Nähe der Geburtsorte dieser drei anderen Persönlichkeiten hat: des späteren Königs Viktor Emanuel, Cavours, des Staatsmannes, und des Philosophen Mazzini. Sie sind sozusagen in unmittelbarer Nähe voneinander geboren. Da wird man geführt darauf, zu suchen, wie das Karma solcher Persönlichkeiten zusammenhängt.

Die andere Frage, auf die so etwas führt, ist diese — wahrhaftig eine tiefgehende Frage! Wir müssen ja immer darauf aufmerksam machen, wenn wir geisteswissenschaftliche Betrachtungen anstellen, wie es in alten Zeiten Eingeweihte, Initiierte, Besitzer und Eigentümer der Weltenschau im weitesten Sinne gegeben hat. Die Frage kann nun entstehen: Da ja auch diese Weisen der alten Zeiten sich wiederverkörpern müssen, wo sind sie dann in der neueren Zeit? Und mancher könnte fragen: Wo sind denn die großen Persönlichkeiten der alten Zeit, die als Initiierte gewirkt haben, in späteren Zeiten wirksam? Sehen Sie, sie sind wiedergekommen, diese großen Eingeweihten, aber Sie müssen bedenken, meine lieben Freunde, wie der Mensch, wenn er in irgendeinem Zeitalter erscheint, darauf angewiesen ist, den Körper zu benutzen, den ihm irgendein Zeitalter gibt. Die Körper der alten Zeiten waren gefügiger, waren für den Geist plastischer, biegsamer; und innerhalb des Erdenlebens braucht man den Körper, um dasjenige, was man in sich aufgenommen hat, bevor man heruntergestiegen ist in das Erdenleben, auch wirklich in Erdenoffenbarung und Erdentun umzusetzen. Und so müssen wir gerade bei einer solchen Rätselfrage bedenken —- und damit soll gar keine Kritik geübt werden -, wie ja die ganze Erziehung der ganzen neueren Zeit schon seit Jahrhunderten so ist, daß der menschliche Organismus so wird, daß in unserem Leben gar nicht zur Erscheinung kommen kann, was im Eingeweihten gelebt hat. Es muß vieles ganz in den Untergründen des Daseins bleiben. Und deshalb erscheinen manche Eingeweihte alter Zeiten als Persönlichkeiten, denen man dann mit den Begriffen, die man heute hat, gar nicht ansieht, daß sie einmal Eingeweihte gewesen sind, weil sie den Körper ihres Zeitalters benützen müssen.

Gerade einen solchen Fall haben wir in Garibaldi vor uns. Wenn wir im europäischen Leben weit zurückgehen, so finden wir Mysterien und Eingeweihte der tiefsten Art im uralten Irland. Aber die irischen Mysterien haben sich bis in die christliche Zeit wirklich erhalten. Selbst noch heute ist in Irland viel geistiges Leben — nicht abstraktes, begriffliches, sondern wirkliches - geistig wirksam. So chaotisch sich das äußere Irland heute ausnimmt, es ist in Irland viel wirkliches geistiges Leben; aber das ist ja doch nur der letzte Rest desjenigen, was einst dagewesen ist. In Hybernia, in Irland waren tief eingreifende Mysterien, die noch in den ersten Jahrhunderten unter Aufnahme des Christentums bis nach Europa hineingewirkt haben. Und da findet sich dann ein Eingeweihter, der den Weg nahm von Irland ungefähr bis in die Gegend des heutigen Elsaß im achten bis neunten Jahrhundert nach der Begründung des Christentums. Dieser Eingeweihte hat viel getan dazumal, um unter Stürmen für das wirkliche Christentum zu wirken, für das ja Bonifatius sehr wenig gewirkt hat in Wirklichkeit. Und zu diesem Eingeweihten sind aus drei Weltgegenden drei Schüler gekommen, drei Schüler, die sich ihm anvertraut haben. Diese drei Schüler sind — der eine mehr, der andere weniger — weit gekommen. Aber es war gerade in den irischen Mysterien die strenge Regel, daß Schüler, die sich einem Eingeweihten anvertraut hatten, von ihm im künftigen Erdenleben nicht wieder verlassen werden, sondern daß von ihm etwas vollbracht wird im Erdenleben, was diese Schüler mit ihm zusammenhält, was ein Band begründet zwischen diesen Schülern und ihm. Der Eingeweihte, den ich meine, ist im neunzehnten Jahrhundert wiederum erschienen als Giuseppe Garibaldi, mit diesem visionären Willen, der eben in älteren Zeiten auf ganz andere Weise zur Offenbarung gekommen ist, sich ausleben konnte, als in einem Körper des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, der eine ganz andere Erziehung als die des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, eine sehr geringe Erziehung sogar, durchgemacht hat. Und die drei anderen, die ich erwähnt habe, waren die Schüler, die als Schüler aus drei verschiedenen Erdgegenden gekommen sind. Dasjenige aber, was als Gewalt gewirkt hat von einer Inkarnation in die andere, das wirkte tiefer als äußere Prinzipien. Gegenüber dem, was Mensch an Mensch kettet über die Inkarnationen hinweg, ist das eine Geringfügigkeit, wenn man sagt: Ich bin Republikaner, du bist Monarchist. - Man muß sich in diesen Dingen schon klar sein darüber, wie weit entfernt die irdische Maja, die große Illusion, der Schein des Daseins ist von der geistigen Wirklichkeit, die hinter den Erscheinungen des Daseins geistig impulsierend tätig ist. Und so konnte Garibaldi zum Beispiel Viktor Emanuel nicht verlassen, trotzdem er ganz anderer Gesinnung war als er. Gesinnungen gehören, wenn sie sich auf Äußeres beziehen und nicht auf Menschen, doch dem Zeitalter an, nicht der Individualität, die von Erdenleben zu Erdenleben geht.

Ich möchte ein anderes Beispiel wählen, das mir auf eine merkwürdige Weise nahegetreten ist. Ich hatte einen Geometrielehrer, der mir außerordentlich wertvoll war. Vielleicht werden Sie aus meiner Lebensbeschreibung wissen, daß ja Geometrie überhaupt zu demjenigen gehört, dem ich im Leben am meisten an Anregungen verdanke. So wurde mir dieser Geometrielehrer auch besonders wertvoll. Aus dem, daß er ein ausgezeichneter Konstrukteur war, konnte zwar folgen, daß ich ihn sehr liebte, weil ich das Konstruieren liebte, und weil er, was er vorbrachte, mit einer wirklichen Unabhängigkeit und auch mit aller Einseitigkeit des geometrischen Denkens vorbrachte. Er war so einseitig aufs Geometrische hin geschult, daß er zum Beispiel kein Mathematiker war, sondern nur ein Geometriker. Darin war er genial, hatte aber keine Kenntnisse, keine wirklichen Kenntnisse in der Mathematik. Und er lebte gerade in einer Zeit, wo gerade alle Darstellende Geometrie, die sein Fach war, umgestaltet wurde. Er blieb beim alten. Das war ein charakteristischer Zug an ihm. Aber noch viel charakteristischer für den okkulten Forscher war ein anderes. Er hatte das, was man einen Klumpfuß nennt. Nun ist das Eigentümliche, daß, selbstverständlich nicht die physische Substanz, aber die Kraft, die in einer Inkarnation der Mensch in seinen Füßen trägt, die Art und Weise, wie er auftritt, wie er sich durch die Bewegung der Füße in Schuld oder in das Gute hineinstellt, sich metamorphosiert. Alles dasjenige, was mit den Füßen zusammenhängt, kann in einem nächsten Erdenleben in der Organisation des Kopfes sich ausleben, während dasjenige, was wir jetzt im Kopfe haben, gerade in der Organisation der Beine im nächsten Erdenleben sich ausleben kann. Diese Dinge metamorphosieren sich in eigentümlicher Art. Derjenige, der in diesen Dingen bewandert ist, kann in der Art und Weise, wie jemand auftritt, wie er die Zehen setzt, die Fersen setzt, sehen, wie das Denken in einer vorigen Inkarnation war. Und derjenige, der die Eigentümlichkeit der Gedanken eines Menschen verfolgt, ob einer schnell, flüchtig denkt oder gemessen, bedächtig denkt, wird oft dazu geführt, wirklich zu sehen, wie er in einer vorigen Inkarnation ging.

Ein Mensch, der flüchtig denkt, hatte in der früheren Inkarnation solch einen Gang mit schnellen kleinen Schritten, der nur so hinzappelt über den Boden. Ein Mensch, der bedächtig denkt, hatte ein festes Auftreten. Und gerade solche scheinbar untergeordnete Kleinigkeiten des Lebens führen einen tiefer hinein, wenn man die tieferen geistigen, und nicht die äußerlichen, abstrakten Zusammenhänge sucht. Und so wurde ich denn, als ich mir immer wieder und wiederum das Bild des geliebten Lehrers vor die Seele stellte, geführt zu seiner früheren Inkarnation. Und da gesellte sich zu seinem Bilde ein anderes hinzu, auch eines Menschen mit einem Klumpfuß: Lord Byrons. Jetzt standen diese beiden Menschen vor mir. Und das Karma meines Lehrers hatte mich dazu geführt, wie auch die Eigentümlichkeit, die ich Ihnen dargelegt habe, darauf zu kommen, wie im zehnten oder elften Jahrhundert diese beiden Seelen in einer früheren Inkarnation gelebt haben weit im Osten Europas, dort eines Tages unter dem Einfluß einer bedeutsamen Sage standen, einer Legende, einer Prophezeiung, jener Legende, die da sagt, das Palladium, das mit einem gewissen Zauber die römische Macht eigentlich gehalten hat, sei aus dem alten Troja herübergebracht worden nach Rom und in Rom verborgen worden. Und als der Kaiser Konstantin das Römertum verpflanzen wollte hinüber nach Konstantinopel, hat er in außerordentlichem Gepränge das Palladium von Rom hinüberbringen lassen nach Konstantinopel und es unter einer Säule verbergen lassen, unter einer Säule, die er allerdings so ausgestaltet hat, daß sein ungeheurer Riesenhochmut dadurch zum Ausdruck kam. Er hat oben eine alte Apollostatue aufstellen lassen, die er aber so umändern ließ, daß sie ihn darstellte. Er hat sich Hölzer kommen lassen von dem Kreuz, auf dem der Christus gekreuzigt worden ist, und hat eine Art von Kranz von diesen Hölzern gewoben um das Haupt der Statue. Er hat geradezu Orgien des Hochmutes dabei gefeiert!

Dann aber bildete sich die prophetische Sage, daß einmal das Palladium von Konstantinopel weiter nach dem Norden hinübergetragen werden sollte, und daß einmal in einem Slawenreiche verkörpert sein sollte die Macht, die an dem Palladium hing. Diese beiden Menschen, von denen ich sprach, sie haben diese Prophezeiung gehört, und sie haben sich das Ziel vorgesetzt, nach Konstantinopel zu wandern und das Palladium nach Rußland zu bringen. Es ist ihnen nicht gelungen. Es blieb aber der Trieb namentlich bei einem, bei Byron. Das wandelte sich um in den Impuls, einzutreten für die Freiheit Griechenlands, der dann im neunzehnten Jahrhundert Byron fast an dieselbe Stelle führte, wo er das physische Palladium in einem früheren Erdenleben gesucht hat.

Sehen Sie, es ist notwendig, daß man die Fäden findet, welche in frühere Zeiten zurückführen. So wurde ich bei einer anderen Gelegenheit geführt auf eine Persönlichkeit, die etwa im neunten Jahrhundert im Nordosten Frankreichs, des heutigen Frankreich, gelebt hat und eine Persönlichkeit war, die in der ersten Zeit ihres Lebens einen weiten Besitz an Landgütern hatte, die für die damalige Zeit eine reiche Persönlichkeit war, eine kriegerische Persönlichkeit zugleich, und im kleinen viele abenteuerliche Kriegszüge — nichts gerade Großes durchgemacht hat. Diese Persönlichkeit sammelte, als sie ein bestimmtes Lebensalter erreicht hatte, um sich Leute, welche nun einen Abenteurerzug mit ihr unternahmen, der unglücklich ausging, der eine große, eine riesige Enttäuschung für diese Persönlichkeit brachte, und ohne etwas zu erreichen, mußte diese Persönlichkeit wieder nach Hause zurückkehren. Aber wie es in damaliger Zeit in manchen Gegenden war: Während die Persönlichkeit abwesend war von Haus und Hof und Land und Leuten, hatte ein anderer sich dessen Haus und Hof und Land und Leute bemächtigt. Die Persönlichkeit fand einfach nicht mehr ihr Eigentum vor - es ist sonderbar, aber es ist geschehen und mußte in Zukunft als eine Art Helot, als Leibeigener dienen auf dem eigenen Herrenhofe. Da wurde in der Nacht gewöhnlich so manche Zusammenkunft mit benachbarten Leuten gehalten, und in einer ziemlich wüsten Weise wurden Kraftideen entwickelt, bei denen nichts weiter herauskommen konnte, als daß sie eben entwickelt wurden. Man möchte sagen, ein realdialektisches Spiel wurde mit diesen Kraftideen der Auflehnung gegen die Herren - fast wie im alten Römertum — getrieben. Diese Persönlichkeit kann einem schon interessant werden, die von Besitz und Eigentum und Befehlsgewohnheiten vertrieben wurde, die aber ungebeugt an Willen zum Aufrüttler wurde in der ganzen Gegend, namentlich gegen den, der sich des Eigentums bemächtigt hat. Und wiederum erschien im neunzehnten Jahrhundert diese Persönlichkeit und wurde innerlich, gedanklich, seelisch dasjenige, was werden konnte aus dieser früheren Inkarnation, wurde Karl Marx, der Sozialistenhäuptling. Und nun denken Sie, meine lieben Freunde, wie durchhellt die Weltgeschichte wird, wenn man sie in dieser Weise betrachten kann, wenn man tatsächlich die Seelen verfolgen kann von einer Epoche zur anderen; wie hinübergetragen wird das, was auf den Seelen liegt, von einer Epoche in die andere Epoche. Konkrete Zusammenhänge bekommt dadurch das geschichtliche Leben und Werden und Wesen der Menschheit.

Und jüngst konnte ich ja in Dornach aufmerksam machen auf einen anderen Zusammenhang, auf einen Zusammenhang, der mich veranlaßt hat, wiederholt während des Krieges, namentlich am Ende des Krieges, darauf aufmerksam zu machen, daß sich die Menschen nicht gar zu sehr blenden lassen sollen von einer gewissen Persönlichkeit der neueren Zeit. Ich habe schon in meinem Helsingforser Kurs 1913 aufmerksam gemacht auf die immerhin recht begrenzte Kapazität, um die es sich da handelt. Das alles geschah, weil mir der Zusammenhang klar war zwischen einem Nachfolger Mohammeds, Muawija, aus dem siebenten Jahrhundert, und Woodrow Wilson. Alles, was an Fatalismus dazumal lebte in dieser Persönlichkeit des Muawija, kam in diesem ja sonst ganz unerklärlichen Fatalismus, der nur ein Fatalismus des Willens sein wollte, zum Vorschein, im Fatalismus des Woodrow Wilson. Und man möchte sagen, wer suchen will nach einer Bekräftigung, nach einem Ursprung der bekannten vierzehn Punkte, der wird sie schon im Koran finden können. So sind die Zusammenhänge, meine lieben Freunde! Bei diesen Dingen darf nicht das geringste von Sympathie und Antipathie walten, bei diesen Dingen darf nichts von Kritik walten, da muß reinste Objektivität sein. Aber diese Objektivität führt eben dazu, von einem Punkte der Geschichte, wo eine Seele auftritt, zu einem anderen Punkte hinzuleiten. Und man darf schon sagen, wenn die Menschheit ein wenig hinaus sein wird über dasjenige, was heute noch aus der materialistischen Zeit da ist, dann wird man auf solche Dinge hinhören und hinschauen. Und dann wird man ganz anders sich fühlen innerhalb der modernen Zivilisation, weil man sie in ihren Zusammenhängen sehen wird; nicht nur nach solchen Dingen, die tot sind, sondern nach solchen Dingen, die lebendig sind. Darauf kommt es an. Das ganze geschichtliche Werden wird lebendig werden. Und der Mensch braucht, wenn er über den toten Punkt der Entwickelung, auf dem er jetzt steht, in seiner Zivilisation hinauskommen will, den lebendigen Geist und nicht den abstrakten, toten Geist der bloßen Ideen.

Die geschichtliche Betrachtung wird sich ja vielleicht nur sehr widerwillig dem Geistigen in der Weise nähern, wie ich es in meinem öffentlichen Vortrage vor einigen Tagen hier auseinandergesetzt habe, aber sie muß das dennoch. Denn die äußerliche geschichtliche Betrachtung, die nur auf Dokumente gehen kann, ist eigentlich voller Unverständlichkeiten. Da tritt irgend etwas auf, was man durchaus nicht einsehen kann, woher es kommt. Warum? Weil man die Ursprünge nicht kennt. Die Ursprünge sind verloren gegangen. Gerade wenn man solchen Dingen nachforscht, belebt sich im geschichtlichen Werden so manches. Aber es drückt sich damit auch so manches aus, was eben geschehen ist von Menschen, um die Geschichte in bezug auf wichtige Dinge geradezu zu etwas Unrichtigem, etwas Unwahrem zu machen.

Meine lieben Freunde, es wird Ihnen sicher paradox erscheinen, sonderbar erscheinen, wenn der Geistesforscher aus einer verhältnismäßig jungen Vergangenheit konstatieren muß, daß ein wunderbares Kunstwerk der Poesie verlorengegangen, rein verlorengegangen ist wegen der Feindschaft einer gewissen geistigen Strömung. In den ersten Jahrhunderten der christlichen Entwickelung war ein Kunstwerk in den südlicheren Gegenden der europäischen Zivilisation vorhanden, welches darstellte das innerste Wesen der fortschreitenden Zivilisation, unmittelbar nachdem das Christentum eingegriffen hat in die Entwickelung des europäischen Menschen. Dieses Kunstwerk, in seiner Art ein episches Drama, dramatisches Epos, stellte dar, wie der Mensch, nachdem das Christentum als eine junge Erscheinung gewirkt hat, nicht herankommen kann an die wirkliche, wahre Wesenheit Christi, sondern eine ganz bestimmte Mysterienvorbereitung durchzumachen hat, um an die wahre Wesenheit Christi heranzukommen.

Um das einzusehen, worum es sich handelt, muß man sich folgendes klarmachen: Der Christus hat seinen intimeren Schülern sehr klar gemacht, wie in diejenige Wesenheit, die da war der Jesus, der im Orient drüben geboren worden ist, ihn erfüllend gekommen ist im dreißigsten Jahre der Christus als ein Sonnenwesen, als ein kosmisches Wesen. Hineingeboren war der Jesus von Nazareth in eine Mondreligion; denn was war die Jahve-, die Jehovareligion? Was war Jahve selber? Wenn man aufblickte zu Jahve, blickte man hinauf zum menschlichen Ich, das unmittelbar abhängig ist von der physischen Menschengestaltung, von derjenigen Menschengestaltung, die mit uns geboren wird. Dasjenige aber, was mit uns geboren wird, was in uns geformt wird, was in uns ausgebildet wird, indem wir im mütterlichen Leibe zu einem Ich gestaltet werden, ist abhängig von den Mondenkräften. Und Jahve ist eigentlich eine Mondengottheit. Und indem aufgeschaut wurde zu Jahve, sagte man sich: Jahve ist der Führer der Mondwesenheiten, von denen da stammen die Kräfte, die den Menschen ins physische Erdendasein hereinstellen. Aber wenn nur Mondenkräfte im Menschen wirkten, würde er niemals über dasjenige, was in ihm im Leben der Erde veranlagt ist, hinauskommen können. Das kann aber der Mensch jetzt nicht; das hat er in älteren Zeiten gekonnt. Wenn wir zurückgehen in vorhistorische irdische Zeiten, da finden wir ein sehr Merkwürdiges, das den heutigen Menschen sonderbar anmutet. Da finden wir, wie Menschen - der größte Teil einer gewissen Menschenklasse - im dreißigsten Jahre des Lebens eine vollständige Verwandlung der menschlichen Seele erlebten. So sonderbar, paradox es den heutigen Menschen erscheint, es war dennoch so in einer Zeit, von der die Veden nur Nachklänge geben. Es gab damals Menschen im alten Indien: wenn ihnen ein anderer, den sie vor drei Jahren gesehen hatten, begegnete, so konnten sie unter Umständen von ihm erfahren, daß sie ihn gesehen hatten; aber sie erkannten ihn nicht. Sie hatten alles vergessen, was bis zum dreißigsten Jahre war, sie hatten alles vergessen, sogar die Identität ihrer Persönlichkeit. Und so war die Einrichtung sogar vorhanden — wir würden es heute ein Amt nennen, wir nennen ja alles Amt und Behörde -, es bestand die Einrichtung, daß eine solche Persönlichkeit zum Amt gehen und sich sagen lassen mußte, wo sie geboren war und wer sie war. Diese Persönlichkeiten, die bekamen dann in den Mysterien die Mittel, sich erst wieder zurückzuerinnern an ihr Leben bis zum dreißigsten Jahre. Sie waren diejenigen, die dann später die «Zweimal-Geborenen » genannt wurden, die ihr erstes Dasein verdankten den Mondenkräften, ihr zweites Erdendasein verdankten den Sonnenkräften.

Das, was in alten Zeiten im Laufe des Erdenlebens als eine solche Metamorphose so besonders radikal auftritt, was man das Zweimalgeboren-werden nannte, das schrieb man der Sonne zu; mit Recht, denn die Sonnenkräfte hängen mit allem zusammen, was der Mensch in Freiheit aus sich machen kann. Aber allmählich war es in der Entwickelung der Menschheit so gekommen, daß dies nicht mehr hineingehörte in die menschliche Entwickelung, daß der Mensch nicht mehr mit dem Hinaufblicken in die Weltenweiten das Bewußtsein davon in das Physische hineinnahm. Julian Apostata wollte darauf aufmerksam machen, daß es das noch gab, aber er mußte es mit dem Tode büßen. Der Christus aber wollte dadurch, daß er seinem Worte die Kraft verlieh, den Menschen dasjenige, was die Natur nicht gab, durch die Moral bringen, durch die religiös-moralische Vertiefung. Der Christus war es, der die Menschen lehrte: Wenn ihr fühlt, wie ich fühle, wenn ihr, statt nach der Sonne zu sehen, nach dem seht, was in mir erweckt ist, der noch als letzter im dreißigsten Jahre das Sonnenwort empfing, dann werdet ihr wieder den Weg zum Sonnenhaften finden. — Und die Mysterienlehrer der ersten christlichen Zeit wußten ganz genau: Es wird sich nun der Verstand entwickeln, die Intellektualität, die dem Menschen zwar die Freiheit bringt, die ihm aber das alte Hellschen nimmt, das ihn in die Geistigkeit des Kosmos führt.

Deshalb stifteten diese Weisen alter christlicher Mysterien eine Art von Lehre, die nun gegeben wurde in jenem epischen Drama, dramatischem Epos, von dem ich sprach. Da wurde dargestellt ein solcher Schüler der christlichen Mysterien, der unter dem Opfer des Intellektes, das er zu leisten hatte in einem bestimmten jugendlichen Lebensalter, in das wirkliche Christentum hineingeführt werden sollte, auf daß ihm die Anschauung gebracht würde: der Christus ist ein Sonnenwesen, das gelebt hat in dem Jesus von Nazareth von dem dreißigsten Jahre seines Lebens an. Und in ergreifender Weise war in jenem Drama dargestellt, wie ein nach dem wahren Wesen des Christentums Strebender in seinen jungen Jahren das Opfer des Intellekts bringt, das heißt, den hohen Weltenmächten das Gelöbnis leistet, nicht sich an die Intellektualität zu halten, sondern sich in das eigene Innere zu vertiefen, um das Christentum nicht nur kennen zu lernen als etwas Historisch-Traditionelles, sondern es kennen zu lernen als etwas Kosmisches, hinzuschauen auf den Christus als auf denjenigen, der die Sonnenwesenheit als Geistigkeit in sich trägt. Es war eine dramatische Szene großartiger Art, großartigen Inhaltes, die diese Umwandlung einer Menschenwesenheit darstellte unter dem Opfer des Intellekts. Und aus einem Menschen, der das Christentum bloß aufnahm nach dem Wortlaut der Evangelien - so wie es später gekommen ist - wurde einer, der da lernte hinschauen auf das Kosmische, der den lebendigen Zusammenhang des Christus mit dem Kosmos anschaute. Das Hellsichtigwerden für das Christentum als Kosmisches, das stellte für diesen seinen Helden jenes alte epische Drama dar. Die katholische Kirche hat dafür gesorgt, daß auch jede Spur von diesem Drama ausgerottet worden ist. Nichts ist zurückgeblieben, die katholische Kirche hat Macht genug dazu gehabt. Es ist ja zum Beispiel nur einem Zufall zu verdanken, daß eine Abschrift sich erhalten hat von den Werken einer Persönlichkeit am Hofe Karls des Kahlen, von der man sonst auch nichts wissen würde: von Scotus Erigena.

Wer solche Dinge sieht, der wird es auch nicht so paradox finden, wenn man genötigt ist durch die geistige Forschung, hinzuweisen auf dieses epische Drama, dramatische Epos, welches geradezu die Verwandlung eines Menschen darstellt unter dem Gelöbnis zu dem Opfer des Intellekts, wodurch ihm die Himmel eröffnet worden sind. Aber in der Tradition hat sich manches Bruchstück aus jenem alten dramatischen Epos erhalten, umgeändert vielfach, nicht mehr verstanden in den großen Zusammenhängen, vor allen Dingen nicht mehr in der alten Bildhaftigkeit verstanden; denn das, was der Inhalt dieses Kunstwerkes darstellte, ist vielfach zum Gegenstand der Malerei geworden. Auch diese Malereien sind ausgerottet worden, nur Traditionen haben sich erhalten. Und von diesen Traditionen ist noch etwas in einem Kreise getrieben worden, dem der Lehrer Dantes, Brunetto Latini, angehört hat. Dante hat von diesem Lehrer etwas, allerdings nicht mehr genau, aber etwas Traditionelles erfahren, und in Dantes « Göttlicher Komödie» lebt noch etwas fort von jenem dramatischen Epos. Aber das Werk hat so wahr einmal bestanden, wie die «Göttliche Komödie» selber besteht.

Sie sehen, die Geschichte deckt sich nicht mit der Wirklichkeit, und es wird manches heraufgeholt werden müssen durch rein geistige Forschung aus all dem, was vom Feinde ausgerottet worden ist. Denn man hat eben von einer gewissen Seite her alles Interesse daran, mit Stumpf und Stiel auszurotten dasjenige, was darauf aufmerksam macht, daß der Christus aus dem Kosmos stammt. Man hat die Geburt des Christus im dreißigsten Jahre verlegt gegen die physische Geburt hin. Das alles hätte man nicht tun können, was dann eben christliche Lehre geworden ist, wenn man nicht ausgerottet hätte jenes Drama, von dem ich heute gesprochen habe. Es wird schon die geistige Forschung einmal eine Rolle spielen müssen, wenn die Menschheit fortleben will in ihrer Zivilisation. Sie kennen schon das furchtbar Schädliche jener Erkrankungen, die so auftreten wie bei jemandem, mit dem ich recht gut bekannt war, der eine recht angesehene Stellung hatte, eines Tages sein Haus, seine Familie verließ, auf die Bahn ging, sich ein Billet nach einer entfernten Station nahm, und plötzlich alles vergessen hatte, was er in seinem bisherigen Leben erlebt hatte. Sein Intellekt war in Ordnung, aber die Erinnerung war vollständig getrübt, und als er in jener Station angekommen war, da nahm er sich ein neues Billet, durchquerte auf diese Weise Deutschland, Österreich, Ungarn, Galizien und fand sich zuletzt, als sein Gedächtnis wiedererwachte, in einem Obdachlosen-Asyl in Berlin.

Es ist wahrhaftig der Ruin des ganzen Ich, wenn man dasjenige vergißt, was man durchgemacht hat. So würde es auch den Ruin des Zivilisations-Ich bedeuten, des Ich der europäischen Menschheit, wenn sie vollständig das vergessen würde, was sie geschichtlich durchgemacht hat, was ihr ausgerottet worden ist. Geisteswissenschaft allein kann sie wieder dahin zurückbringen.

Allein selbst Menschen, die verhältnismäßig ganz wohlwollend sind, auch denen, meine lieben Freunde, kommt das, was Geisteswissenschaft zu sagen hat, heute noch ganz sonderbar vor. Man kann doch nicht ohne eine gewisse Ironie dasjenige lesen, was ein sonst so hoffnungsvoller Geist wie Maurice Maeterlinck über mich selbst als den Begründer der Anthroposophie unter dem Titel «Das große Rätsel» sagt. Maurice Maeterlinck scheint nicht leugnen zu können, daß immer in den ersten Einleitungen meiner Bücher etwas ganz Vernünftiges steht. Das fällt ihm auf. Aber dann, dann kommt er in etwas hinein, was ihn ungeheuer verwirrt, wo er nicht durch kann. Nun, man könnte ja ein Wort Lichtenbergs variieren: Wenn Bücher und ein Mensch zusammenstoßen, und es hohl klingt, muß das ja nicht gerade vom Buch abhängen. Aber es ist eben so - Maurice Maeterlinck ist gewiß eine Hochblüte unserer gegenwärtigen Kultur -, denken Sie doch, es findet sich bei ihm fast wörtlich der Satz: In den Einführungen seiner Bücher, in den ersten Kapiteln, da zeigt Steiner immer einen abwägenden, logischen, weiten Geist; dann in den weitern Kapiteln ist es, als ob er wahnsinnig würde. - Ja, nun, meine lieben Freunde, was hat denn aber das für eine Konsequenz? Das hieße ja: Erstes Kapitel: abwägender, logischer, weiter Geist. Letztes Kapitel: wahnsinnig. Nun ist das Buch fertig, nun kommt ein neues. Wiederum zuerst: abwägender, logischer, weiter Geist, zuletzt: wahnsinnig. Ich habe eine ganze Anzahl von Büchern geschrieben, so daß ich also diese Prozedur mit einer gewissen Virtuosität durchmachen würde: Erstes Kapitel: abwägender, logischer, weiter Geist; dann: verwirrt, verbohrt. Und so wird in meinen Büchern, nach Ansicht Maurice Maeterlincks, jongliert. Aber in der Art, daß man so willkürlich an die Sache herangeht, hat man es in Irrenhäusern doch noch nicht entdeckt.

Nun sehen Sie, man kommt noch in eine viel größere Verwirrung hinein, wenn man an die Bücher derjenigen Menschen herantritt, die einen für verbohrt halten. Und so kann man an der Ironie, mit welcher man manche dieser Dinge aufnehmen muß, sehen, wie schwer es den Menschen der Gegenwart noch wird, sich hineinzufinden in wirkliche Geistesforschung. Aber die muß kommen. Und damit es nicht an uns liegt, meine lieben Freunde, nicht die nötige Kraft angewendet zu haben, um herbeizuführen die geistige Vertiefung, war die Weihnachtstagung eben da, die einen Markstein enthalten soll für die Weiterentwickelung der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft in der Art, wie ich es schon auseinandergesetzt habe; die vor allen Dingen eine Epoche der anthroposophischen Bewegung einleiten soll, in der ohne Scheu von den konkreten Tatsachen des geistigen Lebens gesprochen werden soll, wie wir es heute und in den vorangehenden Vorträgen wieder getan haben. Es ist eben eine stärkere Stoßkraft nötig, als früher angewendet worden ist, wenn der Geist, dessen die Menschheit bedarf, einziehen soll.

Deshalb, meine lieben Freunde, war es mir wirklich zur tiefsten Befriedigung, daß ich in diesen elf Vorträgen, die ich öffentlich oder in mehr oder weniger engem Kreise halten durfte, hineinführen durfte ein wenig in die Tiefen des geistigen Lebens. Und aus dieser innigen Befriedigung heraus lassen Sie mich meinen herzlichsten Dank aussprechen für die warmen, innigen Worte, die Herr Professor Hauffen heute im Beginn dieser Stunde hier ausgesprochen hat. Ich danke herzlich für Ihren Empfang, danke herzlich für alles, was Ihre Seelen mir entgegengebracht haben bei dieser meiner Anwesenheit. Und Sie können überzeugt sein, daß ich die schönen Worte, die Herr Professor Hauffen gesprochen hat, in der Seele mittragen werde, daß aus ihnen quellen werden die Gedanken, die ich Ihnen immer zusenden werde und die, wenn sie ihr Ziel erreichen, unter Ihnen weilen werden, wenn Sie hier arbeiten. Wir sind ja als Anthroposophen, auch wenn wir voneinander räumlich entfernt sind, im Gemüt doch beisammen, und wir sollen ja dessen eingedenk sein und es wissen, daß wir beisammen sind. Es war mir ja viele Jahre vergönnt, hier in Prag zu sprechen aus den mannigfaltigsten Gestaltungen des geistigen Lebens heraus, und es hatte mir zur herzlichen Befriedigung gereicht. Und diesmal ganz besonders, weil ja an Ihre Herzen und Seelen Anforderungen gestellt wurden, die verhältnismäßig neu sind, weil Sie mit einer noch größeren Vorurteilslosigkeit demjenigen entgegenkommen mußten, was ich diesmal - ich möchte sagen in geistigem Auftrage - zu Ihnen zu sprechen hatte, Wenn ich sage, in geistigem Auftrage, so legen wir das Wort dahin aus, daß wir uns sagen: Im Geiste bleiben wir beieinander. Der Vorstand, der in Dornach gebildet worden ist, ist nur klein; es sind nur diejenigen Leute darin, die innig mit mir verbunden sein können, um aus dieser Initiative heraus dasjenige wirken zu können,, was gewirkt werden soll. Allein es wird dasjenige, was gewirkt werden soll, gewirkt werden, wenn alle lieben Freunde aus vollem Herzen zusammenarbeiten, vor allem im geistigen anthroposophischen Zusammendenken, Zusammenempfinden, Zusammenwollen.,

Dieses nehmen Sie nebst meinem Danke als einen herzlichen Abschiedsgruß, der aber anders sein will, nicht eine Trennung sein soll, sondern die Einleitung eines geistigen Zusammenseins. Dieses Zusarnmensein, es soll im Grunde dasjenige bleiben, was aus jedem unserer Worte hervorgeht. Alle Worte, die unter uns gesprochen werden, sollen ja dazu dienen, uns immer enger und enger zusammenzuführen. In diesem Sinne lassen Sie mich, meine lieben Freunde, bewegten Herzens Ihnen versprechen, daß ich mit Ihnen zusammen sein werde, daß meine Gedanken unter Ihnen weilen werden, daß sie suchen werden unter Ihnen eine der Stätten, in denen wirken soll in rechter Art anthroposophisches Wollen, anthroposophische Geistesströmung. Gehen wir in diesem Sinne leiblich nur auseinander, bleiben wir in diesem Sinne herzinniglich geistig zusammen! Anthroposophie als Erkenntnisgrundlage des Geistigen in Welt und Mensch und als Seelenimpuls für moralisches und religiöses Leben.

Fourth Lecture

Before I take the liberty of saying farewell to you in response to the kind words of Professor Hauffen, which were spoken on your behalf, let me first present the reflections of this evening.

It will have become clear from the preceding reflections here in the Prague Anthroposophical Society how the work of the spirit - or perhaps better said of spiritual entities - rules over the development of humanity, and how the human souls themselves, filled with spirit, carry over from epoch to epoch that which they have acquired in one epoch, though also that which they have heaped upon their souls as guilt in one epoch. But all this allows us to take a deep look into the life of the physical-soul-spiritual cosmos, and it is only by taking such a look that we understand our human nature. For without falling into any arrogance, we must admit to ourselves that we are connected to the spiritual source of the cosmos with our own human nature and that we only understand our own human nature when we spiritually penetrate the cosmos. Now, since the Christmas Conference, not only is anthroposophy to be administered within the Anthroposophical Society, but the administration itself is to be anthroposophy. And this must also be expressed in the transformation of anthroposophical work. I have therefore not shied away from moving away from the exoteric into the esoteric in these lectures, and I would like to add something to what I have said today. I would like to add something that can illustrate how the human soul is carried over from one epoch into another. What happens on the whole also happens for the individual, and if we understand the karma of personalities who are known to us all, we can also shed light on our own karma. So let us continue our consideration of karma in more concrete terms today.

In the course of these reflections I have already mentioned the name of a man who shows in a strange way how something visionary can be revealed in a will nature. I have mentioned the name of the Italian hero of freedom, Garibaldi, and have also indicated some of his characteristic traits. Everything that expresses itself in this Garibaldi is a stirring of the will. What a tremendous will it took for him, as a young man, to sail across the Adriatic on his own responsibility, often and often in a dangerous time, at the beginning of the third decade of the nineteenth century, to be captured repeatedly and always to be freed again through his strength and courage. What a tremendous development of will lies in the fact that, when he saw how initially there was no field for him in Europe, he went over to South America and there became one of the most daring people for the development of the life of freedom. I have also drawn attention to how he actually developed his own life beyond the usual earthly conditions in relation to his marriage; and when he then returned to Europe, he was the one to whom contemporary Italy owes everything.

One day I was approached with the question: “What could the karmic connections of this personality be like?” Two questions arose. For the experience of karmic connections is not something quite simple, but something complicated. I have already said that sometimes you have to start with the apparent trivialities of life in order to move from these trivialities, which are, however, vividly concrete, to that which carries the facts of one earthly life over into the facts of the other earthly life.

And so it was with Garibaldi especially the fact that he was a republican in his convictions, a republican through and through, but in Italy he realized the kingdom under Victor Emmanuel with all the strength of his will. And in fact, if one only looks at Garibaldi's external biography, one sees a fundamental contradiction between his innermost convictions and what he did. On the other hand, you can see how he felt connected to men like Mazzini and Cavour, with whom he did not agree at all, who had completely different ideas. It then strikes you how strange it is that Garibaldi, born in 1807, was actually born in the immediate vicinity of the birthplaces of these three other personalities: the later King Victor Emmanuel, Cavour, the statesman, and the philosopher Mazzini. They were born in close proximity to each other, so to speak. One is led to look for how the karma of such personalities is connected.

The other question that this leads to is this - truly a profound question! We must always draw attention to the fact that in ancient times there were initiates, initiates, owners and possessors of the world view in the broadest sense. The question may now arise: Since these sages of ancient times must also reincarnate, where are they in more recent times? And some might ask: Where are the great personalities of the old times, who worked as initiates, effective in later times? You see, they have come again, these great initiates, but you must remember, my dear friends, how man, when he appears in any age, is dependent on using the body that any age gives him. The bodies of ancient times were more docile, more plastic, more pliable for the spirit; and within earth-life one needs the body in order to really translate into earth-revelation and earth-doing that which one has taken into oneself before one has descended into earth-life. And so we must bear in mind, especially in such a question of riddles - and this is not meant to be a criticism - how the whole education of modern times has for centuries been such that the human organism becomes such that what has lived in the initiate cannot appear in our life. Much must remain entirely in the subterranean realms of existence. And that is why some initiates of old times appear as personalities who, with the concepts we have today, cannot be recognized as having once been initiates, because they have to use the body of their age.

We have just such a case before us in Garibaldi. If we go far back in European life, we find mysteries and initiates of the deepest kind in ancient Ireland. But the Irish mysteries have really survived into the Christian era. Even today, much spiritual life - not abstract, conceptual, but real - is still spiritually active in Ireland. As chaotic as outer Ireland looks today, there is much real spiritual life in Ireland; but that is only the last remnant of what was once there. In Hybernia, in Ireland, there were deeply penetrating mysteries that still had an effect on Europe in the first centuries when Christianity was adopted. And then there is an initiate who took the path from Ireland roughly to the area of present-day Alsace in the eighth to ninth centuries after the founding of Christianity. This initiate did much at that time to work for real Christianity in the midst of storms, for which Boniface actually did very little. And three disciples came to this initiate from three parts of the world, three disciples who entrusted themselves to him. These three disciples - one more, the other less - came a long way. But it was a strict rule in the Irish Mysteries that disciples who had entrusted themselves to an initiate would not be abandoned by him again in future earthly life, but that something would be accomplished by him in earthly life which would bind these disciples together with him, which would establish a bond between these disciples and him. The initiate I am referring to appeared again in the nineteenth century as Giuseppe Garibaldi, with this visionary will, which came to revelation in quite a different way in older times, could live itself out in a body of the nineteenth century, which had undergone an education quite different from that of the nineteenth century, a very slight education even. And the three others I have mentioned were the disciples who came as disciples from three different regions of the earth. But that which has worked as force from one incarnation to the next has had a deeper effect than external principles. Compared with that which chains man to man across incarnations, it is a trifle to say: I am a republican, you are a monarchist. - In these matters one must be clear about how far removed the earthly maya, the great illusion, the appearance of existence is from the spiritual reality that is spiritually impulsively active behind the appearances of existence. And so Garibaldi, for example, could not leave Victor Emmanuel, even though he was of a completely different mindset to him. Attitudes, when they relate to external things and not to people, belong to the age, not to the individuality that passes from earthly life to earthly life.

I would like to choose another example that came close to me in a strange way. I had a geometry teacher who was extremely valuable to me. Perhaps you will know from my biography that geometry is one of the things to which I owe the most inspiration in life. So this geometry teacher was particularly valuable to me. From the fact that he was an excellent constructor, it could follow that I loved him very much, because I loved constructing, and because he presented what he presented with a real independence and also with all the one-sidedness of geometric thinking. He was so one-sidedly trained in geometry that he was not a mathematician, for example, but only a geometrician. He was brilliant at it, but had no knowledge, no real knowledge of mathematics. And he lived at a time when all descriptive geometry, which was his subject, was being reorganized. He stayed with the old. That was a characteristic trait of his. But something else was even more characteristic of the occult researcher. He had what is called a club foot. Now the peculiar thing is that, not the physical substance of course, but the power that a person carries in his feet in an incarnation, the way he appears, the way he places himself in guilt or in good through the movement of his feet, metamorphoses. All that which is connected with the feet can live itself out in the organization of the head in the next earthly life, while that which we now have in the head can live itself out precisely in the organization of the legs in the next earthly life. These things metamorphose in a peculiar way. The one who is well versed in these things can see in the way someone appears, how he places his toes, how he places his heels, how the thinking was in a previous incarnation. And the one who follows the peculiarity of a person's thoughts, whether one thinks quickly, fleetingly, or in a measured, deliberate way, is often led to really see how he walked in a previous incarnation. A person who thinks quickly, fleetingly, or in a measured, deliberate way is often led to really see how he walked in a previous incarnation.

A person who thinks fleetingly had such a gait in the previous incarnation, with quick little steps, just fidgeting across the floor. A person who thinks thoughtfully had a firm demeanor. And it is precisely such seemingly subordinate little things in life that lead us deeper if we seek the deeper spiritual, rather than the external, abstract connections. And so, when I placed the image of my beloved teacher in front of my soul again and again, I was led to his earlier incarnation. And then his image was joined by another, also of a man with a clubfoot: Lord Byron. Now these two people stood before me. And the karma of my teacher had led me, as well as the peculiarity I have explained to you, to discover how in the tenth or eleventh century these two souls had lived in an earlier incarnation far to the east of Europe, and had one day come under the influence of a significant legend, a legend, a prophecy, that legend which says that the Palladium, which actually held the Roman power with a certain magic, had been brought over from ancient Troy to Rome and had been hidden in Rome. And when the Emperor Constantine wanted to transplant Romanity over to Constantinople, he had the Palladium brought over from Rome to Constantinople with extraordinary splendor and had it hidden under a column, under a column that he had designed in such a way that it expressed his enormous arrogance. He had an old statue of Apollo erected on top, but he had it altered so that it represented him. He had timbers taken from the cross on which Christ was crucified and wove a kind of wreath of these timbers around the head of the statue. He celebrated downright orgies of arrogance!

But then the prophetic legend was formed that one day the Palladium of Constantinople would be carried further north, and that one day the power that hung on the Palladium would be embodied in a Slavic empire. These two people of whom I have spoken heard this prophecy, and they set themselves the goal of traveling to Constantinople and bringing the Palladium to Russia. They did not succeed. But the impulse remained with one man in particular, Byron. This turned into the impulse to stand up for the freedom of Greece, which then led Byron in the nineteenth century to almost the same place where he had sought the physical palladium in an earlier life on earth.

You see, it is necessary to find the threads that lead back to earlier times. Thus on another occasion I was led to a personage who lived in the northeast of France, now France, in about the ninth century, a personage who in the early part of his life had extensive possessions of landed estates, who was a wealthy personage for the time, a warlike personage at the same time, and who had gone through many adventurous military campaigns - nothing exactly great. This personage, when he had reached a certain age, gathered people around him who now undertook an adventurous expedition with him, which ended unhappily, which brought a great, a huge disappointment for this personage, and without achieving anything, this personage had to return home again. But as it was at that time in some regions: while the personality was absent from house and farm and country and people, another had taken possession of his house and farm and country and people. The personage simply no longer found his property - it is strange, but it happened and in future he had to serve as a kind of helot, as a serf on his own manor. Many a meeting was usually held there at night with neighboring people, and ideas of power were developed in a rather wild way, from which nothing more could come out than that they had just been developed. One might say that a real dialectical game was played with these ideas of rebellion against the masters - almost as in ancient Roman times. This personality can become interesting to one who has been driven away from possessions and property and habits of command, but who, unbowed in will, has become an agitator in the whole region, especially against those who have seized property. And again in the nineteenth century this personality appeared and became inwardly, mentally, spiritually that which could become of this earlier incarnation, became Karl Marx, the socialist chieftain. And now think, my dear friends, how illuminated world history becomes when you can look at it in this way, when you can actually follow the souls from one epoch to another; how that which lies on the souls is carried over from one epoch to another. This gives the historical life and development and essence of humanity concrete connections.

And recently in Dornach I was able to draw attention to another connection, a connection that caused me to repeatedly draw attention during the war, especially at the end of the war, to the fact that people should not allow themselves to be too blinded by a certain personality of recent times. In my 1913 course in Helsingfors I already drew attention to the rather limited capacity involved. All this happened because I realized the connection between a successor of Mohammed, Muawija, from the seventh century, and Woodrow Wilson. All the fatalism that lived at that time in this personality of Muawija came to light in this otherwise completely inexplicable fatalism, which only wanted to be a fatalism of the will, in the fatalism of Woodrow Wilson. And one might say that anyone who wants to look for a confirmation, for an origin of the well-known fourteen points, will be able to find it in the Koran. Such are the connections, my dear friends! In these matters there must not be the slightest sympathy or antipathy, in these matters there must be no criticism, there must be the purest objectivity. But this objectivity leads from one point in history, where a soul appears, to another. And one can say that when humanity will be a little beyond what is still there today from the materialistic time, then one will listen and look at such things. And then we will feel quite differently within modern civilization, because we will see it in its context; not just for things that are dead, but for things that are alive. That is what matters. The whole of historical development will become alive. And man needs the living spirit and not the abstract, dead spirit of mere ideas if he wants to get beyond the dead point of development on which he now stands in his civilization.

Historical contemplation will perhaps only very reluctantly approach the spiritual in the way that I discussed here in my public lecture a few days ago, but it must nevertheless do so. For the external historical view, which can only look at documents, is actually full of incomprehensibilities. Something appears that one cannot understand where it comes from. Why? Because we don't know the origins. The origins have been lost. It is precisely when you investigate such things that many things come to life in historical development. But it also expresses many things that have been done by people to make history into something incorrect, something untrue in relation to important things.

My dear friends, it will certainly seem paradoxical, strange to you when the intellectual researcher has to state from a relatively recent past that a wonderful work of poetic art has been lost, purely lost because of the hostility of a certain intellectual current. In the first centuries of Christian development a work of art existed in the more southern regions of European civilization which represented the innermost essence of the advancing civilization, immediately after Christianity had intervened in the development of European man. This work of art, in its nature an epic drama, a dramatic epic, depicted how man, after Christianity has worked as a recent phenomenon, cannot come close to the real, true essence of Christ, but has to go through a very specific mystery preparation in order to come close to the true essence of Christ.

To understand what this is all about, one must realize the following: The Christ made it very clear to his more intimate disciples how, in the thirtieth year, the Christ as a solar being, as a cosmic being, came to fill the being that was Jesus, who was born in the Orient over there. Jesus of Nazareth was born into a lunar religion; for what was the religion of Yahweh, the religion of Jehovah? What was Yahweh himself? When one looked up to Yahweh, one looked up to the human ego, which is directly dependent on the physical human form, on that human form which is born with us. But that which is born with us, that which is formed in us, that which is formed in us by being shaped into an ego in the maternal body, is dependent on the powers of the moon. And Yahweh is actually a moon deity. And by looking up to Yahweh, one said to oneself: Yahweh is the leader of the lunar beings, from whom the forces originate that place the human being into physical earthly existence. But if only lunar forces were at work in man, he would never be able to get beyond that which has been predisposed in him in the life of the earth. But man cannot do that now; he was able to do that in older times. If we go back to prehistoric times on earth, we find something very strange that seems odd to people today. There we find how people - the majority of a certain class of people - experienced a complete transformation of the human soul in the thirtieth year of life. Strange and paradoxical as it may seem to people today, it was nevertheless the case at a time of which the Vedas give only echoes. There were people in ancient India at that time: if they met another whom they had seen three years ago, they could possibly learn from him that they had seen him; but they did not recognize him. They had forgotten everything up to the age of thirty, they had forgotten everything, even the identity of their personality. And so the institution even existed - we would call it an office today, we call everything office and authority - the institution existed that such a personality had to go to the office and be told where he was born and who he was. These personalities were then given the means in the Mysteries to remember their lives up to the age of thirty. They were the ones who were later called the “twice-born”, who owed their first existence to the forces of the moon and their second earthly existence to the forces of the sun.

In ancient times, the metamorphosis that occurred so radically in the course of life on earth, what was called the twice-born, was attributed to the sun, and rightly so, for the solar forces are connected with everything that man can make of himself in freedom. But gradually in the development of mankind it had come to the point that this no longer belonged to human development, that man no longer took the consciousness of it into the physical when he looked up into the realms of the world. Julian Apostata wanted to draw attention to the fact that this still existed, but he had to atone for it with death. The Christ, however, by giving his words the power, wanted to bring to men that which nature did not give, through morality, through religious-moral deepening. It was the Christ who taught people: If you feel as I feel, if, instead of looking to the sun, you look to what is awakened in me, who was the last to receive the solar word in my thirtieth year, then you will again find the way to the solar. - And the mystery teachers of the first Christian era knew very well: the mind will now develop, intellectuality, which will bring freedom to man, but which will take away from him the old clairvoyance that leads him into the spirituality of the cosmos.

Therefore these sages of ancient Christian mysteries founded a kind of teaching which was now given in that epic drama, dramatic epic, of which I spoke. There such a disciple of the Christian Mysteries was portrayed, who, at the sacrifice of intellect which he had to make at a certain youthful age, was to be led into real Christianity, so that the view might be brought to him: the Christ is a solar being who lived in Jesus of Nazareth from the thirtieth year of his life. And in that drama it was portrayed in a moving way how a person striving for the true essence of Christianity makes the sacrifice of intellect in his young years, that is, makes a vow to the high powers of the world not to adhere to intellectuality, but to delve into his own inner being in order to get to know Christianity not only as something historical and traditional, but to get to know it as something cosmic, to look towards the Christ as the one who carries the sun-being as spirituality within himself. It was a dramatic scene of a magnificent kind, of magnificent content, which portrayed this transformation of a human being at the sacrifice of the intellect. And from a man who merely accepted Christianity according to the wording of the Gospels - as it came later - became one who learned to look at the cosmic, who looked at the living connection of the Christ with the cosmos. For this hero, becoming clairvoyant for Christianity as cosmic represented that old epic drama. The Catholic Church made sure that every trace of this drama was eradicated. Nothing was left behind, the Catholic Church had enough power to do so. It is only thanks to chance, for example, that a copy has survived of the works of a personality at the court of Charles the Bald of whom nothing would otherwise be known: Scotus Erigena.

Whoever sees such things will not find it so paradoxical if one is compelled by intellectual research to point to this epic drama, dramatic epic, which virtually represents the transformation of a man under the vow to the sacrifice of the intellect, whereby the heavens have been opened to him. But in tradition many a fragment of that old dramatic epic has survived, often altered, no longer understood in the larger context, above all no longer understood in the old pictorial quality; for what the content of this work of art represented has often become the subject of painting. These paintings have also been eradicated, only traditions have survived. And some of these traditions were still practiced in a circle to which Dante's teacher, Brunetto Latini, belonged. Dante learned something from this teacher, albeit not exactly, but something traditional, and in Dante's “Divine Comedy” something of that dramatic epic still lives on. But the work once existed as truly as the “Divine Comedy” itself exists.

You see, history does not coincide with reality, and much will have to be retrieved through purely intellectual research from all that has been eradicated by the enemy. For there is a certain side that has every interest in eradicating stump by stump that which indicates that the Christ comes from the cosmos. The birth of the Christ in the thirtieth year has been shifted towards the physical birth. All this could not have been done, which then became Christian teaching, if the drama of which I have spoken today had not been eradicated. Spiritual research will have to play a role one day if humanity wants to live on in its civilization. You already know the terribly damaging nature of those illnesses that occur as in the case of someone with whom I was quite well acquainted, who had a fairly prestigious position, left his home and his family one day, went on the train, took a ticket to a distant station and suddenly forgot everything he had experienced in his previous life. His intellect was fine, but his memory was completely clouded, and when he arrived at that station, he took a new ticket, crossed Germany, Austria, Hungary, Galicia and finally, when his memory returned, found himself in a homeless shelter in Berlin.

It is truly the ruin of the whole self when one forgets what one has gone through. So it would also mean the ruin of the ego of civilization, the ego of European humanity, if it were to forget completely what it has gone through historically, what has been eradicated from it. Spiritual science alone can bring it back there again.

Even people who are relatively benevolent, even those, my dear friends, still find what spiritual science has to say quite strange today. One cannot read without a certain irony what an otherwise so hopeful spirit like Maurice Maeterlinck says about me as the founder of anthroposophy under the title “The Great Enigma”. Maurice Maeterlinck does not seem to be able to deny that there is always something quite sensible in the first introductions to my books. He notices that. But then he gets into something that confuses him immensely, something he can't get through. Well, you could vary one of Lichtenberg's words: When books and a person collide and it sounds hollow, it doesn't necessarily depend on the book. But it is just so - Maurice Maeterlinck is certainly a high flower of our contemporary culture - think of it, you will find the sentence almost literally in his work: In the introductions to his books, in the first chapters, Steiner always shows a deliberate, logical, broad mind; then in the further chapters it is as if he goes mad. - Well, my dear friends, what are the consequences of this? That would mean: First chapter: deliberative, logical, broad mind. Last chapter: insane. Now the book is finished, a new one is coming. Again, first: deliberative, logical, broad mind, last: insane. I have written quite a number of books, so I would go through this procedure with a certain virtuosity: first chapter: pondering, logical, broad mind; then: confused, stubborn. And this is how my books juggle, according to Maurice Maeterlinck. But it has not yet been discovered in asylums in such a haphazard way.

Now you see, you get into much greater confusion when you approach the books of people who think you are stubborn. And so you can see from the irony with which you have to take some of these things how difficult it still is for people of the present to find their way into real spiritual research. But it must come. And so that it is not up to us, my dear friends, not to have applied the necessary strength to bring about the spiritual deepening, the Christmas Conference was precisely there to contain a milestone for the further development of the Anthroposophical Society in the way I have already outlined; which above all should usher in an epoch of the anthroposophical movement in which the concrete facts of spiritual life should be spoken of without shyness, as we have done again today and in the previous lectures. A stronger impetus is needed than has been applied in the past if the spirit that humanity needs is to enter.

Therefore, my dear friends, it was truly a source of deepest satisfaction to me that I was able to lead you a little into the depths of spiritual life in these eleven lectures, which I was allowed to give publicly or in more or less intimate circles. And out of this deep satisfaction, let me express my heartfelt thanks for the warm, heartfelt words that Professor Hauffen spoke here today at the beginning of this hour. I thank you warmly for your welcome, thank you warmly for all that your souls have shown me in my presence here. And you can be convinced that I will carry the beautiful words that Professor Hauffen has spoken in my soul, that they will give rise to the thoughts that I will always send to you and which, when they reach their destination, will dwell among you when you work here. As anthroposophists, even if we are physically distant from each other, we are still together in spirit, and we should be mindful of this and know that we are together. For many years I have had the privilege of speaking here in Prague on the most varied aspects of intellectual life, and it has been a source of great satisfaction to me. And this time in particular, because demands were made on your hearts and souls that were relatively new, because you had to meet with even greater impartiality what I had to say to you this time - I would like to say on a spiritual commission. The Board that has been formed in Dornach is only small; there are only those people on it who can be intimately connected with me in order to be able to work out of this initiative what is to be worked. But what is to be achieved will be achieved if all dear friends work together wholeheartedly, above all in spiritual anthroposophical thinking together, feeling together, wanting together.

Take this, together with my thanks, as a heartfelt farewell greeting, which, however, is intended to be different, not a separation, but the introduction to a spiritual togetherness. This togetherness should basically remain what emerges from each of our words. All the words that are spoken among us should serve to bring us closer and closer together. In this sense, my dear friends, let me promise you with a moved heart that I will be with you, that my thoughts will dwell among you, that they will seek among you one of the places in which the anthroposophical will, the anthroposophical spiritual current, is to work in the right way. In this sense let us only part physically, in this sense let us remain heartily together spiritually! Anthroposophy as the basis of knowledge of the spiritual in the world and man and as a soul impulse for moral and religious life.