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The East in the Light of the West
GA 113

28 Aug 1909, Munich

6. Lucifer and Christ

We have spoken of two spiritual streams, flowing through different peoples, and passing from old Atlantis towards the East. We saw the difference in their development and how they were enabled to prepare future events; and we observed how the southern stream more particularly tended to deepen the power of penetration to the spiritual world which lies behind the soul world of man, while the other more northerly spiritual stream directed man's attention to his earthly environment in order to make him aware of the spiritual world behind the world of the senses. Mention has been made of the development in the southern stream of qualities which led to spiritual beings connected with the Luciferic principle, and of the gradual approach to earth, on the other side, of the kingly spiritual being behind the sun in order finally to incarnate in a physical body, which, through many incarnations of a certain individuality, had been so purified that the Godhead found in it not merely an image of itself, but was able actually to incarnate within it. The incarnation of the Christ, the sun spirit, in the body of Jesus of Nazareth was the great event which took place in the northern stream of peoples. Now these two streams of peoples may, be said to have moved towards each other in order to be mutually enriched, and during their progress there arose, in the first epoch after the great Atlantean catastrophe, the ancient Indian race in the south of Asia, a race in which the human soul was in a certain sense able to look out towards the external world of the senses as well as into itself to find the spirit, because it instinctively recognised the unity between the spirit in the external world and the spirit within man. Let us picture to ourselves the feelings of the ancient Indian when he looked out at the sense world, at the earth with its mountains and forests, its tapestry of plant life, its animal and human kingdoms.

Possessed in high degree of spiritual sight, this ancient Indian soul perceived, underlying everything, a spiritual world consisting of beings of etheric substance, who did not descend to the density of a physical body. In the mountains, trees and stars the soul of the ancient Indian saw not only the dense elements but also the finer, etheric nature, in the shape of the external world of the gods. It should not of course be imagined that these spirits were composed merely of ether but just as the etheric, the astral and the ‘I’ principles are within the physical body of a man, so these spirits had an etheric body for their lowest principle and their other, higher principles in higher worlds. The Indian, looking into this world, felt that he stood upon the Earth; that as man he had through long periods of time developed from the first germ of human existence on ancient Saturn down to the Earth evolution; that it was necessary for him to descend to dense physical matter in order to acquire self-consciousness within it. He said: ‘I, speaking to myself, am an Ego being; formerly I was a companion of all those spiritual beings visible around me to spiritual sight from the etheric world upwards. I have descended from these worlds to denser matter, yet in them all human perfection's are to be found, not only those now possessed by man, but those which he will have to attain through his own efforts. But there is one thing which no being who does not descend to the physical plane can attain. There are in the universe other lofty perfections as well as the recollection peculiar to human consciousness. There are other kinds of consciousness, but in order to develop that of a man on earth, it is necessary for a being to descend to this earth and for a number of incarnations to be embodied in dense matter.’ The soul of the ancient Indian further realised that whatever infinitely higher perfections than man on the Earth these spiritual beings possessed, there was one thing they had not in their world, namely, the human ego consciousness that to say ‘I’ as a man does, was not natural in those higher worlds. The Indian felt himself to originate from these realms and everything existing in the spiritual worlds to be summed up for him in his human ‘I’ consciousness. He knew that to speak of a human ego consciousness in the spiritual world had neither meaning nor content. Hence only a word which excludes this ‘I’ can be applied to everything that in a spiritual sense is spread out in the surrounding world, a word which is not in contact with the ‘I’ ... And the Indian consciousness named that which spread itself out externally, the ‘Tat,’ the ‘That’ in contradistinction to the ‘I.’ In order to express the fact that man is of the same nature and essence as the ‘That,’ the ‘Tat,’ or the ‘It’—that the ‘I’ or ego had only developed because of the descent to the Earth—the Indian said: ‘I am Tat, Thou art That.’ Thus man's relationship to the surrounding spiritual world (to this clairvoyant penetration of the ultimate nature of our world) was combined in the words: ‘It exists; but thou thyself art that.’

But the ancient Indian realised at the same time that the reality without designated as ‘Tat’ is also to be found by a man looking into his own inner being, that this reality manifests at one time from without, at another time from within. Therefore men of those ancient times knew that by sinking down into the soul they came to the same primordial spiritual reality as the external ‘Tat,’ but that the right relationship between them and what was living within them as their original ‘cause,’ so to speak, veiled by the life of the soul, was expressed by saying instead of ‘Thou art That,’ ‘I am Brahman,’ and ‘I am the All.’ And they took the two together to mean the following: ‘When I look out into the world of “Tat” I find a spiritual world, and if I dip down into my own soul life I find a spiritual world, and the two are one.’

As we have seen, in ancient India, a perception of the unity of the outer and of the inner was the typical outlook of the soul; and it is to be expected that the other extreme will consist in turning the gaze outwards, and in penetrating through the tapestry of the sense world to the spiritual world lying hidden behind it. And this is what actually happened to a different people. They saw the outer spiritual world, but could not realise immediately that it was the same as the inner spiritual world. Hence it is not surprising that religious conceptions and philosophical thoughts spring up, all fervently directed to the gods and spirits behind the sense world; that mythical and other descriptions for these divine spiritual beings behind the tapestry of the sense world were given to the people; and that in the mysteries of that age men were led into the spiritual world which is behind the sense world. Nor will it be a matter for wonder that side by side with such mysteries and such racial gods something else is to be found; that at the same time there were mysteries leading man along the path through the inner soul life to its deepest foundations. And in very fact we find a region of post Atlantean civilisation where those two kinds of mysteries existed contemporaneously—a region where on the one side the so-called Apollonian culture and mysteries were developed, and on the other the culture and mysteries of Dionysos. Such a division is to be found in ancient Greece. There we have on the one hand the path which was shown to the people as well as to the Initiates, the path leading out into the spiritual world, to what is behind the senses, to the spiritual world behind the sun. So far as the Greek knew this world, he gave it the name of the realm of the Apollonian beings. Apollo, the Sun god, was the representative of the divine spiritual beings which exist behind the tapestry of the sense world. But there was also a class of mysteries pointing the way through the soul life into its spiritual foundations, mysteries concerning which we already know that man may enter them only, after careful preparation, and after having attained a certain degree of maturity. For this reason the second kind of mysteries was more carefully guarded against immaturity than were the Apollonian. The Apollonian gods were indicated to the masses of the people, whereas the spiritual beings to be found along the path through the inner nature were reserved for those who, through spiritual, intellectual and moral training of their inner life had reached a certain state of maturity. This second kind of mystery cult was known as the Dionysian mystery and its central spiritual being was Dionysos. So it is natural that in Dionysos, this central figure of the inner circle of gods, men perceived a being standing in near and intimate relationship to the human soul; a being not unlike man, but one who did not descend so far as the physical plane; a being to be found by sinking from the physical plane into the depths of the soul life. Here we have in point of fact the deeper causes of the Apollonian and the Dionysian division in the spiritual culture of the Greeks. In more modern times a dim consciousness that something of the kind had existed in Greece made its appearance in several places. The group gathering round Richard Wagner realised the existence of something of the kind although without definite knowledge of its spiritual foundations. And Friedrich Nietzsche, a member of this group, founded his first remarkable and inspired work: ‘The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music’ on this very division of Greek spiritual life into the Apollonian and Dionysian mystery cults. These occurrences were a dim realisation of what may be known to an ever-increasing degree through spiritual meditation. In the minds of many men today there is a kind of yearning for such a deepening of the spiritual life. There is a widespread feeling that this deepening alone can give an answer to man's yearning. Thus in ancient Greece these two divine spiritual worlds are side by side. In ancient India they appeared as a unity, in a state of reciprocal permeation.

Now let us turn again to evolution. We have already seen that only the most advanced group of the northern stream of nations, namely the ancient Persian civilisation of Zoroaster, could originate the ideal of creating a body in which the spiritual being approaching humanity and the earth from outside could incarnate. And Zarathustra took upon himself the task of passing through his incarnations in such a way as to take later re-birth in a body spiritualised to such a degree that it was able to receive into itself the sublime sun-spirit in its most perfect form, in its Christ form. Zarathustra was reborn as Jesus, having made himself ripe through his various incarnations to be the vehicle of the Sun spirit for the space of three years.1Dr. Steiner has in many lectures gone more fully into the difference between the Jesus of Bethlehem and the Jesus of Nazareth, and explained to some extent the deep mystery here referred to. The translation of a small work by Dr. Arenson on this subject, and called the “History of the Child-hood of Jesus,” is strongly recommended to those interested. It is published simultaneously with this volume by the Anthroposophical Publishing Company, price 2p.

We may now ask: What is the relation of Apollo to the Christ? When a Greek uttered the name of Apollo, he referred to the spiritual realm behind the sun. But men's conception of a being or of a fact differs according to their capacities. The man who has cultivated a rich inner life within his soul is capable of seeing in a truer form things which a less developed person also sees, so when the Greek uttered the name of Apollo he was indeed referring to the being which later was revealed as the Christ, but he could only conceive of it in a kind of veiled form, as Apollo. Apollo is in a certain sense a garment of the Christ, resembling in its form the being within it. Veil after veil had to fall from that figure conceived of by the soul as Apollo before the Christ could become visible and intelligible to the intuition of men. Apollo is an intimation of the Christ, but not the Christ Himself.

Now what is the most essentially characteristic quality of the Christ so far as our cycle of evolution is concerned? To consider all those divine spiritual beings to which men of ancient times looked up to as the upper gods behind the tapestry of the sense world, as the rulers and lords of the spheres and functions of the universe, is to realise that their characteristic quality is that they do not descend so far as the physical plane; they only become visible to the consciousness of the seer, which transcends the physical plane and is able to see on the etheric plane. There Zeus, Apollo, Mars, Wotan, Odin, Thor, who are all real beings, became visible. It was characteristic of these spiritual beings not to descend so far as the physical plane, but at the most to manifest temporarily in some kind of physical embodiment, a fact which is cleverly indicated in the myths when mention is made of momentary appearances of Zeus or other gods in human or some other form, when they descended to the world of men in order to carry out some purpose. It is not permissible to speak of a permanent physical incarnation of these spiritual beings behind the sense world. We may say that Apollo is a figure incapable of descending into physical incarnation. For this descent requires a higher power than Apollo possessed, namely, the Christ power. And in the Christ all the qualities of the other beings out in the universe were united, all the qualities which are revealed to the consciousness of the seer; but above and beyond all these He possessed the ability to break through the barrier separating the world of the gods from the world of man, and was able to descend into a physical body and become man in a human physical body that had been prepared for Him upon the earth. In the divine spiritual world this ability was possessed by the Christ alone. Thus one being, and one being only of the divine spiritual world descended so far as the stage of taking up its abode in a human body in the sense world, and living as man among other men. This is the great and mighty Christ event, and this is how we have to conceive it. Whereas therefore all gods and spirits can be found only by the consciousness of the seer and beyond the physical world, the Christ is to be found within the physical world, although He is a being of the same nature and essence as the other divine spiritual beings. The other gods can only be found in the external universe: the Christ is He who was born within the human soul, Who, as it were, leaves the outer world of the gods and enters into the inner nature of man. This has been an event of great significance in the evolution of the world and humanity. Before the Christ event it—had been necessary to descend to the sub-terrestrial gods hidden behind the veil of soul experiences if an inner god was sought; the Christ is a God Who may be found without as well as within. This is the essence of what happened in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, after the Indian, the Persian and the Egyptian periods. The contemplative vision and abstract perception in ancient India of the fact that the divine spiritual world was a unity, and that Tat and Brahman, streaming to the soul from two sides, were an unity, became a living life through the Christ event. Formerly men could say that the divinity to be found on the outward path and the divinity to be found on the inward path were one. After the Christ event it was possible to say that if the soul participates in the Christ, a descent to the inner life will reveal a being which is Apollo and Dionysos united in one.

Another question arises here. We have seen that divine spiritual beings of the external world are, for man, represented by the mightiest of them, by the Christ, Who, as an outer being, at the same time becomes an inner being. But what of those other beings designated in the last lecture as ‘Luciferic?’ Knowledge gained as the result of spiritual development teaches us that it would not be correct to say that the beings under the leadership of Dionysos work themselves through into the human soul life, and that, as it were from the other side, a Dionysos—a Luciferic being—incarnated as a man. Here we arrive at something vitally and essentially connected with the evolution of humanity and of the universe. If we go back to very ancient times, we find that the soul looking outwards sees the external spiritual world, and looking inwards, sees the inner divine spiritual world; the Apollonian world objectively, and the Dionysian world subjectively, to use the Greek expressions. Later on in evolution matters change somewhat. In the most ancient times, when a vast majority of men were possessed of spiritual vision, facts were as I have just described them. Objectively the upper gods were seen; subjectively, the lower gods; and there were these two paths into the spiritual world. In later times man's capacity for spiritual vision decreased; he gradually lost his original dim clairvoyance. But let us take a period in which a few men still possessed a natural spiritual vision. We need not go so very far back, for in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch such natural sight still existed. At that time men, on penetrating through the tapestry of the sense world, saw the upper gods, and on descending into the depths of their own souls, the lower gods. Those who had passed through a certain degree of initiation felt these impressions more clearly and powerfully. I should mention of course that at all times there have existed initiates with full knowledge of the unity of these two worlds; but they are men who have reached the apex of humanity. Centuries therefore before the appearance of Christ on earth, there were men who still had the old spiritual sight, and initiates who by following one path were able to find the upper gods, or following the other were led to the lower gods. But there came an age where the region which we call the world of the lower gods gradually withdrew from human life and was difficult of attainment even for those who had passed through the early degrees of initiation; but in this period it was comparatively easy at an early stage of initiation to attain to what we call the upper gods behind the outer world of the senses. Take, for instance, an initiate of the ancient Hebrew people. Such an initiate could, even if he had not attained a very high degree of initiation, look into a region where Jehovah was not merely an idea, a concept, but an etheric reality, a being which spoke to them as a man in their spiritual consciousness.

While therefore the existence of Jehovah was proclaimed to the people, to the initiates he was a reality. On the other hand it had become more difficult for an initiate of the ancient Hebraic world to find anything by dipping down into his own soul life, and searching there for the domain of the lower gods. In that region he would have felt no solid ground, but everywhere would have encountered the thick crust of his soul life through which he could not penetrate to the lower gods. The lower gods had withdrawn into a certain unknown obscurity. This was the time of the Christ's descent to the earth, when the Luciferic spirits had to a certain extent withdrawn into the darkness. And at that time men in the outer world only knew that the mysteries existed, and that those initiated into them acquired the faculty of penetrating through the forces of the soul life into the Dionysian world. There was just a vague inkling of the deep secrets which could be investigated by man in the mysteries. But the subject was merely alluded to and very few people had a clear idea of it at the time when the Christ was expected. Their ideas of the outer gods were much more definite. There were many men who still had living experience of these gods. But the evolution of humanity progresses. And with what result? There is a history of outer humanity, and in the future there will also be a history of the mysteries. Outer humanity will transform its spiritual culture and the Christ will enter into it more and more. In the mysteries, too, the nature of the Christ being, which today is hardly appreciated at all, will come to be understood. The god who could be perceived at the time of Zarathustra when spiritual sight was directed to the sun, and who descended to the earth, will be understood with ever growing intimacy by the human soul. The god who was the ruler of the outer world will become more and more an inner god. The Christ traverses the world in such a way that from a cosmic god who descended upon earth, He becomes an inner mystical god, Whom man will gradually be able to experience in the depths of his soul life. Therefore it was, that at the time of the descent of the Christ there could be accomplished what His disciples, the Apostles, described in the words: ‘We have laid our hands in His wounds, and have heard His words on the mountain.’ The essential point is that the Christ was on earth in a physical body. At that time He could not have been experienced physically within, or understood in His Dionysian nature; He had first to be experienced as the outer, historical Christ. But the progress of man's consciousness of the Christ consists in His ever deeper descent into the soul, and it will become possible for man to live through his own soul experiences subjectively, finding the mystical Christ within his own soul, in addition to the knowledge he has of the outer Christ. It will be observed how in the so-called mysticism which arose in the early days of Christianity, through Dionysius the Areopagite, a friend and pupil of St. Paul, the Christ is first understood by external occult faculties. And all the descriptions of this first occult Christian school are of a kind that depict the Christ essentially as having those qualities which he unfolds in the external worlds, and which may be experienced by instinctive spiritual sight when it is turned outwards. Then let us proceed a few centuries further in human evolution and see what has come about; let us enquire into mediaeval mystical development, into the deep inner experiences of Meister Eckhart, of Johannes Tauler, etc., and to our more modern mystics. Here are men who look down into their own souls. Just as in ancient times men looked within themselves in order to penetrate through this inner life to Dionysos, so the more modern mystics, piercing inwards, could say like Meister Eckhart: ‘The historical Christ is in very truth a fact; His development takes place in outer history but there is a possibility of descending into one's own inward life, and of there finding the inner mystical Christ.’ Thus the human soul developed the capacity of finding the Christ not only in the outer world, but also within, of finding the mystical Christ in His Dionysian nature. First the historical Christ came into being, and then through the work of the historical Christ, influences were brought to bear on the human soul of such a nature that a mystical Christ within human evolution has become possible. Therefore we may, with regard to modern times, speak of an inner mystical experience of the Christ; but we must also understand that the Christ was a cosmic god before His descent upon earth. If, in those former times, man plunged into his inner soul life, he found not Christ, but Dionysos. Today if development has come about in the right way, we find an inner Christ Being there. The Christ, at first a divinity external to the soul, has become a divinity within the soul, who will take fuller possession of it, the more the soul experiences draw near to the Christ. Here we have an example of a transformation of principles during the development of the world. When modern men speak of the mystical Christ within the soul, they should not forget that everything in the world has developed, and that mystical consciousness has not been the same through all time, but has also evolved to its present state. When the holy Rishis of antiquity looked up into the spiritual worlds they spoke of Vishvakarman, who was the same cosmic being to whom Zoroaster referred when he spoke of Ahura Mazdao. It was the Christ Being. Today this being may also be found in the inner life as the mystical Christ. This is the result of the Christ's own deed on the earth. This is the true relation of the cosmic, astronomical Christ to the mystical Christ. The outer god has gradually become an inner god.

But since every event in the external physical world is an effect of a spiritual occurrence, this penetration of the soul by the Christ has also its effect upon the other life. This effect will manifest first of all in the mysteries, and has already partly done so since the foundation of the Western mystery schools of the Rosicrucians. When by means of the discipline of the old mystery schools a man had sunk more deeply into his soul and descended to the lower gods, he found Dionysos, which is only another name for the world of the Luciferic gods. But at the time when the Christ in His glory was approaching the earth, the Luciferic reality sank into darkness even for spiritual consciousness, if the latter had not attained the very highest stages. Only the highest initiates were still able to descend to the Luciferic gods. Other men had to be told that if they descended while yet unpurified and immature, these Luciferic beings would only appear in distorted images, as wild demons who would tempt them to all sorts of evil. This is the original of all the terrible descriptions of this subterranean realm, and of the fear of the mere name of Lucifer at a certain time. And as everything is transmitted hereditarily to men who do not progress with evolution, there are still some who have inherited the fear of the name of Lucifer. But for spiritual consciousness the Luciferic world emerges again after the Christ principle has for some time been working in the soul. As soon as the Christ has worked in the soul for a while, the soul, permeated by the Christ substance, becomes mature enough to penetrate again into the realm of the Luciferic beings. The Rosicrucian initiates were the first to be able to do this. They strove to understand and see the Christ in such a form that as the mystical Christ He permeated their souls, and lived within them, and that this Christ substance in their inner being became a bulwark of strength against all attacks. It became a new light within them, an inner, astral light. Historical experience of the Christ in His true being illuminates the soul to such an extent that men again become able to penetrate into the realm of Lucifer at first only the Rosicrucian initiates were capable of this, and they will gradually carry out into the world what they have been able to experience with regard to the Luciferic principle, and will pour out over the world that mighty spiritual union which consists in the fact that the Christ, Who has poured Himself as Substance into the human soul is understood henceforth by means of the spiritual faculties that mature in the spirit of individual men through a new influx of the Luciferic principle. Let us consider an initiate of the Rose Cross. He first prepares Himself by the continual direction of the feeling, conceptions and thoughts within his soul to the great central figure of the Christ, by allowing the mighty figure of the Christ, as depicted by the Gospel of St. John, to work upon him, and in this way he purifies and ennobles himself. For our souls change fundamentally when we gaze in reverence upon the figure depicted by the Gospel of St. John. If we receive within us what streams forth from this figure, as described by St. John, the mystical Christ comes to life within us. And if we further this process by the study of other Christian documents, the soul is gradually permeated by the spiritual substance of the Christ, is cleansed and purified and reaches higher worlds. Feelings more especially are purified in this way. We either, like Meister Eckhart and Tauler, learn to conceive of the Christ in a universal sense, or else to experience Him with the tenderness of Suso and others; we feel united with that which streamed to the earth from the wide expanse of the heavenly worlds through the Christ event. Thereby a man makes himself ready to be led as a Rosicrucian initiate consciously into those regions which in ancient times were called the Dionysian worlds and may now be called the Luciferic worlds.

What is the effect upon modern Rosicrucian initiates of this introduction into the Luciferic worlds? If their feelings glow with enthusiasm for the divine as soon as they are permeated with the Christ substance, the other faculties through which we understand the world are illuminated and strengthened by the Luciferic principle. In this way the Rosicrucian initiate ascends to the Luciferic principle. His spiritual faculties are intensified and elaborated through initiation, so that he not merely feels the Christ mystically within His soul, but can also describe Him, can speak of Him and picture Him in spiritual images or thought pictures; so the Christ is not merely dimly felt and experienced but stands before him in concrete outlines, as a figure of the outer sense world. It is possible for man to experience the Christ as soul substance when he directs his gaze to that figure of the Christ which meets him in the Gospels. But to describe and understand Him in the way that other phenomena and events in the world are understood, and thereby to gain an insight into His greatness, His significance and His causative connection with world evolution, is only possible when the Christian initiate advances to knowledge of the Luciferic realms.

Thus in Rosicrucian science it is Lucifer who gives us the faculty for describing and understanding the Christ.2It is easy to see how, conformably with the use of the ordinary word ‘Lucifer,’ ill will or ignorance may throw calumny on what has been here said; that however cannot prevent these things being stated. Anyone, who understands by Lucifer what is here meant, must necessarily have other conceptions.

What the centuries have been able to do is to propagate the Gospels; so that the Word streaming forth from them enabled hearts and souls to be warmed by their message, to be permeated by the fire and enthusiasm which flow out from them. Today we stand at a stage of human evolution when it can no longer suffice to receive the Gospels as a tradition in the old way; today men need something else. Those who decline to accept this new teaching will have to bear the Karma of opposition to the introduction of the Luciferic principle into the interpretation of the Gospels. There may be many who say: ‘We are content to accept the Gospels as simple Christians; we feel that they satisfy us; the Christ speaks through them, and He does so even when we receive them as traditionally handed down for centuries in religion.’ Although these people may imagine themselves to be good Christians, they are in reality enemies of the Christ, who on account of their personal egoism, and because they still feel themselves satisfied by what is offered in the traditional interpretation of the Gospels, would sweep away that which in future will bring Christianity into glory. Those who today believe themselves to be the best Christians are often the most effective exterminators of real Christianity. Those who today understand the development of Christianity think quite differently. They say that they do not wish to be the egoists who think that the Gospels suffice and assert that they will not have anything to do with abstractions. What spiritual science has to offer is far removed from being an abstract teaching. Real Christians today know that humanity needs something more than the Christianity of the egoists; they realise that the world can no longer be satisfied with the old Gospel tradition, and that the light from Lucifer's kingdom must be thrown upon it. They listen to the teachings proceeding from Rosicrucian schools of initiation, wherein the spiritual faculties have been intensified by the Luciferic principle, in order to penetrate more and more profoundly into the Gospels, and these initiates have found the Gospels to be of such infinite depth that it is impossible to imagine that they can ever be exhaustively dealt with. But today the time has already arrived when the Rosicrucians must let their teachings flow out into the world; they are called upon to spread abroad what they have gained from the Luciferic world in the form of intensification of spiritual forces and faculties, and to pour this into the Gospels. The spiritual science of the West consists in letting the light which streams forth and may be gained from Lucifer's kingdom be cast upon the Gospels. Spiritual science should be an instrument for the interpretation of the Gospels. So it is part of our work to bring to man the joyful message about the substance of the Christ Being, which permeates the world, and to allow the light which may be gained in Lucifer's kingdom on the path of Rosicrucian initiation to fall upon the Gospels. Thus we see that the Christ, Who formerly was a god living in the outer world, became the mystical Christ, and that by His ennoblement of the human soul, He has brought it back again to the realm called in ancient times the Dionysian world, which for awhile had to be shut off and which will be re-attained in the future by man. The interpretation of the Christ by spiritual faculties illuminated by Lucifer, is the inner and essential kernel of the spiritual stream which must flow through the western channel. And what I have said represents the mission of Rosicrucianism in the future.

What is it therefore that comes to pass in human evolution? Christ and Lucifer, the one as a cosmic god and the other as a god within the human soul, dwelt side by side in ancient times, one to be found in the upper regions and the other in the nether regions; then the evolution of the world progressed and for some time it was known that Dionysos or Lucifer, was far away from the earth; on the other hand the cosmic Christ was felt to be penetrating the earth to a greater and greater degree; Lucifer again became visible, and was once more able to be known. The paths taken by these two divine spiritual beings may be pictured more or less in the following way: they approached the earth from two different sides; Lucifer became invisible at the time when his path cut across that of the Christ—his light was overpowered by the Christ light. The Christ entered the human soul, became the planetary spirit of the earth, growing more and more to be the mystical Christ within human souls, and can be felt and realised through inner experiences. In this way the soul becomes gradually more capable of again beholding the other being, who took the reverse way, from within to without. Lucifer, from a being within man's inner nature, a purely earthly being such as he was when he was sought in the mysteries leading to the underworld, becomes a cosmic god. He will appear in ever-greater radiance in the outer world which we behold when we look through the tapestry of the sense world. Man's vision will become reversed. In the past Lucifer was seen behind the veil of the inner soul world, and the Christ, as by Zarathustra, behind the veil of the sense-world, but in the future the Christ will to an ever greater degree be realised by inner spiritual meditation and Lucifer will be found when the gaze is directed outwards into cosmic regions. Thus we have to record a complete reversal of the conditions by which man can acquire knowledge in the course of human evolution. The Christ, an erstwhile cosmic god, has become an earthly god, who is henceforth the soul of the earth; Lucifer, an erstwhile earthly god, has become a cosmic god. And when in the future, man desires again to ascend to the external spiritual world hidden behind the veil of the sense-world, and is not willing to stop short at the external and material, he must penetrate through the sense-world into the spiritual world and must allow himself to be borne to the light by the ‘Light Bringer.’ No faculties for penetration into that region can arise in man if he does not create them out of the forces flowing to him from Lucifer's kingdom. Men would be drowned in the sea of materialism, would persist in the belief that there is nothing except the outer world of matter, if they did not ascend to inspiration through the Luciferic principle. Just as the Christ principle exists to strengthen our inner being, so the Luciferic principle intensifies and develops those faculties by means of which we have to penetrate into the spiritual worlds fully and completely.

Lucifer will intensify our understanding and comprehension of the world; the Christ will strengthen us perpetually within.

Sechster Vortrag

Von zwei Geistesströmungen, getragen von verschiedenen Völkern, die sich von der alten Atlantis nach dem Osten bewegt haben, ist gestern gesprochen worden, Wie sie sich in verschiedenartiger Weise entwickelt und dadurch sich vorbereitet haben, das hervorzubringen, was dann in späteren Zeiten geschehen sollte; wie insbesondere bei dem südlichen Völkerzuge die Vertiefung stattfand nach jener geistigen Welt, die hinter der Seelenwelt des Menschen liegt; wie bei der anderen Geistesströmung der Blick hinausgerichtet wurde in die Umgebung des Menschen auf der Erde, um die hinter dem Teppich der Sinnenwelt verborgene geistige Welt zu erkennen. Es ist davon gesprochen worden, wie sich bei dem südlichen Völkerzuge gerade jene Eigenschaften ausgebildet haben, die hinaufführten zu jenen geistigen Wesenheiten, die dem luziferischen Prinzipe angehören; wie dann von der anderen Seite, man könnte sagen die königliche, regierende geistige Wesenheit, die hinter der Sonnenwelt stand, sich immer mehr und mehr der Erde näherte, um endlich in einem physischen Leibe verkörpert aufzutreten als eine Individualität, die durch Inkarnationen hindurch diesen physischen Leib so vergeistigt hatte, daß das Göttliche nicht nur darinnen ein Ebenbild hatte, sondern sich selbst darin verkörpern konnte. Das war das große Ereignis, das man nennen kann die Verkörperung des Christus, des Sonnengeistes, in dem Leibe des Jesus von Nazareth, der sich entwickelt hat in der charakterisierten nördlichen Völkerströmung. Aufmerksam ist ferner darauf gemacht worden, daß, während diese zwei Völkerströmungen sich förmlich gegeneinander bewegten, um sich dann aber gegenseitig zu befruchten, in der ersten Zeit nach der großen atlantischen Katastrophe im Süden von Asien das indische Volk erstand, welches in gewisser Weise darstellt die Menschenseele, die sowohl hinausblicken kann in die äußere sinnliche Welt, wie auch hineinschauen in sich selbst, um das Geistige zu finden, die von vornherein die Einheit empfand des Geistes draußen in der Welt und des Geistes drinnen im Menschen. Will man noch genauer charakterisieren, wie sich diese verschiedenen Anschauungen und Empfindungen zueinander verhielten, sowohl der Völker wie der Eingeweihten, so kann man das durch folgendes tun.

Man kann sich vergegenwärtigen, wie die uralt-indische Seele empfand, wenn sie hinausblickte in die Sinnenwelt der Erde, in das, was auf der Erde ist an Bergen, an Wäldern, an Pflanzenteppich, an Tier- und Menschenwelt und so weiter. Blickte da die Seele des alten Inders hinaus, sie, die in so hohem Grade noch geistig schauend war, so blickte sie durch alles das durch auf eine geistige Welt, deren Wesenheiten ihr erschienen wie Äthergestalten, die nicht bis zur Verdichtung des physischen Lebens herunterstiegen. Draußen, wo man die Berge, die Bäume, die Sterne sah, da waren nicht nur die dichten Elemente, sondern auch das feinere Ätherische, und man sah das alles gestaltet zu der äußeren Götterwelt. Man soll sich natürlich nicht vorstellen, daß diese Geister etwa nur aus Äther bestanden, sondern wie der Mensch seinen physischen Leib hat und darinnen das Ather-, das Astral- und das IchPrinzip, so hatten diese Geister nach unten nicht den physischen Leib als den dichtesten, sondern sie hatten den Ätherleib als unterstes Glied und die anderen höheren Prinzipien nach den höheren Welten hinauf. In diese Welt hinein schaute also die indische Seele. Wie empfand sie, wenn sie so hineinschaute? Wie lud sich auf die Seele ab die Grundempfindung gegenüber all dieser Welt? Diese Empfindung kann man in der folgenden Art charakterisieren. Der Inder empfand: Ich stehe hier auf der Erde; ich als Mensch habe mich entwickelt durch lange, lange Zeiträumehindurch von dem ersten menschlichen Wesenskeim des alten Saturn bis herein zur Erdenzeit. Ich mußte in die dichte physische Materie heruntersteigen, um innerhalb dieser mir das Selbstbewußtsein zu erobern. Indem ich zu mir selber spreche, spreche ich von mir als einer Ich-Wesenheit. Ich war ein Genosse all der geistigen Wesenheiten, die da um mich herum sichtbar sind für den schauenden Blick von der ätherischen Welt aufwärts. Aus denen bin ich herausgewachsen nach unten und habe mich entsprechend verdichtet. Es finden sich alle, alle Vollkommenheiten der Menschen in diesen Welten, in die ich da hineinblicke; und nicht nur die, welche die Menschen haben; es finden sich dort auch Vollkommenheiten und Eigenschaften, welche die Menschen sich erst erringen müssen. Aber eines kann keine Wesenheit sich erringen, die nicht heruntersteigt zum physischen Plan. Es gibt ja noch andere hohe Vollkommenheiten im Weltenall, als die Erinnerung gerade eines menschlichen Bewußtseins; es gibt andere Arten des Bewußtseins. Um aber jene Eigenartigkeit des Bewußtseins zu entwickeln, die der Mensch auf der Erde entwickelt, dazu muß ein Wesen auf diese Erde heruntersteigen und durch eine Anzahl von Inkarnationen in dichter Materie verkörpert werden, Mögen daher, so sagte sich das indische Bewußtsein, diese geistigen Wesenheiten, in deren Welt ich hineinschaue, unendlich höhere Vollkommenbheiten haben als die Menschen, die auf der Erde stehen: eines haben sie nicht in ihrer Welt, denn dazu war die Erdenwelt da, um es einer Wesensart, dem Menschen, zu geben; eines haben sie nicht: das menschliche Ich-Bewußtsein. So zu sich «Ich» zu sagen, wie es der Mensch tut, das ist nicht heimisch in diesen Welten, in die ich da hineinsehe. Ich bin selbst aus dieser Welt heraus; es lebt alles, was in dieser geistigen Welt da draußen lebt, auch in mir, nur summiert es sich in mir zu meinem menschlichen Ich-Bewußtsein. Daher hat es keinen Sinn, zu sagen: Da draußen in der geistigen Welt sei ein menschliches Ich-Bewußtsein. Das Wort Ich im menschlichen Sinne anzuwenden auf das, was da in diesen Welten ist, das hat keine Bedeutung, keinen Inhalt. Es kann nur ein Wort, welches ausschließt dieses Ich, angewendet werden auf all das, was sich geistig ausbreitet in der Umwelt, ein Wort, das von diesem Ich nicht berührt wird, welches man so gebraucht, daß man sagen kann: In dieser Welt ist alles, was in mir ist, aber ich darf das, was da draußen ist, nicht mit meinem Ich bezeichnen; ich muß es mit einem Wort bezeichnen, welches das Ich ausschließt.

Und das indische Bewußtsein nannte das, was da draußen sich ausbreitet, das «Tat», das «Das», im Gegensatz zum «Ich». Und um auszudrücken, daß der Mensch von derselben Wesensart ist, wie dieses «Tat», wie dieses «Jenes», wie dieses «Es» — daß er nur durch sein Heruntersteigen auf die Erde sich bis zum Ich entwickelt hat -, sprach er dieses Urteil aus: Ich bin dieses «Tat» — Du bist es [Tat twam asi]. Das da draußen, das bist du selbst. - So hat der Mensch seine Beziehung zur geistigen Umwelt, zu dieser schauenden Durchdringung unserer Welt im höchsten Sinne zusammengefaßt in die Worte: Es ist, aber das da draußen, das bist du selbst.

Aber es wußte diese alte indische Seele zu gleicher Zeit, daß dieselbe Wesenheit, die sich draußen ausbreitet, und die sie als «Tat» bezeichnete, auffindbar ist, wenn man in das eigene Innere hineinschaut, daß sie nur das eine Mal von außen, das andere Mal durch das Innere erscheint. Steige ich also in meine Seele hinunter, so finde ich dieselbe ursprungsgeistige Wesenheit, die ich draußen als «Tat» bezeichne. Dann aber stelle ich mich zu dem, was da drinnen in mir lebt als mein Urgrund, der verschleiert wird durch das physische Seelenleben, in richtige Beziehung, wenn ich das Urteil jetzt anders ausspreche, wenn ich sage statt: Das bist du selbst — Ich bin Brahman, Ich bin das All [Aham brahma asmi]. — Und die beiden Urteile: Das Es bin Ich und Ich bin das All, sagten im Grunde genommen, wenn man. sie zusammenstellte: Schaue ich hinaus in die Welt des «Tat», so finde ich eine geistige Welt; tauche ich unter in mein eigenes Seelenerlebnis, so finde ich eine geistige Welt; und die beiden sind eins. - Das war die Grundempfindung in der ersten Epoche der nachatlantischen Geisteskultur. Ganz einheitlich empfand man die beiden Geisteswelten.

Dieses ist das eine; das andere aber entwickelte sich an einem anderen Orte. Im alten Indien bildeten sich auf der einen Seite die Empfindungen von der Einheitlichkeit des Außeren und des Inneren in der Grundstimmung der Seele; und man muß vermuten, daß das andere Extrem darin bestehen wird, daß sich der Blick nach außen wendet, daß er durchblickt durch den Teppich der Sinnenwelt, hinblickt auf das, was als geistige Welt dahinter verborgen liegt. Und so ist es wirklich bei dem Menschen eines anderen Volkes. Der sieht die äußere geistige Welt; er ist aber so veranlagt, daß er nicht von vornherein feststellen kann, daß diese äußere geistige Welt dieselbe ist wie die innere. Daher wird es nicht verwunderlich sein, wenn religiöse Anschauungen, philosophische Gedanken auftauchen, welche sich inbrünstig hinaufwenden zu den Göttern und Geistern jenseits der Sinnenwelt; wenn dem Volke mythische oder andere Bezeichnungen gegeben werden für solche göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten, die da draußen sind hinter dem Teppich der Sinnenwelt; wenn dann in den entsprechenden Mysterien die Zöglinge hineingeführt werden in jene geistige Welt selbst, die hinter der Sinnenwelt ist. Und verwunderlich wird es auch nicht sein, wenn neben solchen Mysterien und solchen Volksgöttern etwas anderes noch da ist, wenn zu gleicher Zeit Mysterien da sind, welche die Menschen den Weg führen durch das innere Seelenleben, den Weg zu den Untergründen dieses inneren Seelenlebens. Und man findet in der Tat ein Kulturgebiet in der nachatlantischen Zeit, wo diese zwei Arten von Mysterien nebeneinander bestehen, wo auf der einen Seite der sogenannte apollinische Glaubenskreis und die apollinischen Mysterien und auf der anderen Seite der dionysische Glaubenskreis und die dionysischen Mysterien ausgebildet werden. Man findet diese Zweiteilung im alten Griechenland.

Da ist auf der einen Seite der Weg, der gewiesen wird, sowohl dem Volke wie den Eingeweihten, hinaus in die geistige Welt, zu dem, was hinter den Sinnen steht, zu dem, was zusammengefaßt wird zur geistigen Welt, die hinter der Sonne steht. So weit sie der Grieche erkennen kann, so weit bezeichnet er sie mit dem Namen der apollinischen Wesenheiten. Apollo, der Sonnengott, war der Repräsentant dieser göttlichgeistigen Wesenheiten, die hinter dem Teppich der Sinnenwelt stehen. Dann gab es eine Art von Mysterien, die den Weg wiesen durch das Seelenleben hindurch in die geistigen Grundtiefen dieses Seelenlebens, von denen gestern schon gesagt worden ist, daß sie der Mensch nur betreten soll bei sorgfältiger Vorbereitung und Reife. Daher war diese zweite Mysterienart mehr geschützt gegen Unreife als die apollinische. Und für die weiteren Volkskreise hatte man den apollinischen Götterkreis, während man die geistigen Wesenheiten, die auffindbar waren auf dem Wege durch das Innere, geradezu vorbehielt für diejenigen, die sich erst reif machten durch besondere intellektuelle und moralische Schulung ihres inneren Lebens. Diese zweite Art von Glaubenskreis und Mysterien faßteman zusammen unter dem Namen der dionysischen Mysterien, und die Wesenheit, die in der Mitte steht von alledem, ist Dionysos. Kein Wunder daher, daß man in Dionysos, dem in der Mitte dieses inneren Götterkreises stehenden Geiste, eine Wesenheit fand, welche der menschlichen Seele nahestand, die sozusagen etwas wie einMensch war, aber als ein Mensch empfunden wurde, der nicht heraufsteigt bis zur physischen Welt, sondern den man fand, wenn man von der physischen Welt nach abwärts stieg zu den Grundlagen des Seelenlebens. Hier hat man die eigentlichen tieferen Ursachen für die Zweiteilung des griechischen Geisteslebens in ein apollinisches und ein dionysisches. In der neueren Zeit trat an mancherlei Stellen die Ahnung davon auf, daß es so etwas in Griechenland gegeben hat. In den Kreisen um Richard Wagner ahnte man, daß es so etwas gegeben hat, wenn auch kein deutliches Bewußtsein davon da war, wo die geistigen Untergründe der Sache sind. Und Friedrich Nietzsche hat dann aus dem Kreise Wagners heraus sein erstes merkwürdiges, geniales Werk «Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik» geradezu begründet auf dieser Zweiteilung des griechischen Geisteslebens in ein apollinisches und in ein dionysisches. Das alles waren Ahnungen von dem, was immer mehr und mehr erkannt werden kann durch geistige Vertiefung. Es ist an vielen Stellen heute wie das Lechzen des modernen Geistes nach solcher Vertiefung. Man hat überall die Ahnung: diese Vertiefung wird allein die Antwort geben auf das, wonach die Menschen so sehr lechzen. So sehen wir also, wie im alten Griechenland diese zwei sozusagen göttlich-geistigen Welten nebeneinander stehen. Da traten sie also in ihrem Nebeneinander auf. Im alten Indien traten sie in ihrem Miteinander, in ihrem gegenseitigen Durchdrungensein auf.

Und nunmehr blicken wir auf die Entwickelung selber. Wir sagten schon gestern, daß nur aus dem vorgeschobensten Posten der nördlichen Völkerströmung, aus der uraltpersischen Zarathustrakultur das Ideal hervorgehen konnte, einen Leib zu schaffen, in welchem sich die Wesenheit, die sich von außen herein der Menschheit und der Erde näherte, verkörpern konnte. Und der Zarathustra sorgt selbst dafür, daß er durch Inkarnation und Inkarnation durchging, um wiedergeboren zu werden in einem Leibe, der so durchgeistigt ist, daß er später den hohen Sonnengott in der vollen Form, in der Christus-Form in sich aufnehmen konnte, Zarathustra wurde ja als Jesus von Nazareth wiedergeboren, und er machte sich durch seine verschiedenen Inkarnationen reif, durch drei Jahre der Träger des Sonnengeistes zu sein. Wie also verhält sich nun etwa Apollo zu dem Christus? Diese Frage muß Ihnen ja sozusagen auf der Seele liegen. Wenn der Grieche den Namen Apollo aussprach, so wies er allerdings hin auf das Reich des Geistigen, das hinter der Sonne steht. Aber man macht einen gewissen Unterschied in der Auffassung einer Wesenheit oder Sache, je nachdem man dazu befähigt ist. Derjenige, der sich ein reicheres Leben in der Seele anerzogen hat, der ist auch fähig, die Dinge, die der andere auch sieht, in einer wahreren Gestalt zu sehen, so daß wir zu sagen haben, daß, wenn der Grieche das Wort Apollo aussprach, er zwar hinwies auf das Wesen, das sich später als Christus offenbaren sollte, daß er aber deshalb dieses Wesen doch nur in einer Art verschleierter Gestalt als Apollo empfunden hat. Es ist wie ein Kleid des Christus, das in seinen Formen ähnlich ist dem Wesen, das darinnensteckt, wenn wir Apollo und Christus sagen. Es mußte gleichsam erst Hülle um Hülle fallen von der Gestalt, die man sich als Apollo vor die Seele stellte, um den Christus für die Menschen begreiflich und anschaulich zu machen. So ist der Apollo zwar eine Hindeutung auf den Christus, aber er ist nicht der Christus selbst.

Was ist denn nun in einer gewissen Beziehung die eigentliche grundwesentlichste Eigenschaft des Christus für unseren Entwickelungszyklus? Wenn wir uns all die göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten, die geistigen Entitäten anschauen, zu denen hinaufgeblickt haben als zu den oberen Göttern, die hinter dem Teppich der Sinnenwelt sind, die alten Menschen, die sie gesehen haben als die Herrscher und Gebieter der Weltengebiete und Weltenverrichtungen, so müssen wir von allen diesen Wesenheiten sagen: Es ist ihre Eigentümlichkeit, daß sie nicht hereindringen in Wahrheit bis zur physischen Welt; sie werden erst sichtbar dem schauenden Bewußtsein, das über die physische Welt hinausgeht, bis zum Sehen des Ätherischen. Dann wurde der Zeus, der Apollo, der Mars, alle diese Wesenheiten, die ja Wirklichkeiten sind, Wodan, Odin und Thor und so weiter sichtbar. Wir könnten aber auch sagen: Diese geistigen Wesenheiten, sie hatten nicht die Eigentümlichkeit herunterzusteigen bis zur physischen Welt, höchstens daß sie sich vorübergehend in irgendeiner physischen Verkörperung zeigten, was geistvoll in den Mythen angedeutet ist von augenblicklichen Vermenschlichungen oder sonstigen Gestalten des Zeus oder anderer, die herunterstiegen zu den Menschen, um dieses oder jenes zu verrichten. Von einer dauernden physischen Verkörperung dieser geistigen Wesenheiten, die hinter der Sinneswelt stehen, dürfen wir aber nicht sprechen. Wir können also sagen: Apollo ist eine solche Gestalt, die nicht fähig ist, bis zur physischen Verkörperung herunterzusteigen. Dazu gehört mehr Macht, als sie Apollo hatte, dazu gehörte eben die Christus-Kraft. Der Christus hatte die Eigenschaften all der anderen Wesenheiten in der Welt draußen, alle die Eigenschaften, die sichtbar waren für das schauende Bewußtsein, und er hatte dazu noch die eine, zu durchbrechen jene Grenze, welche die Götterwelt von der Menschenwelt trennt, und hereinzusteigen in einen menschlichen Leib, Mensch zu werden in einem physischen Menschenleib, der dazu auf der Erde vorbereitet worden war. Diese Gabe hatte in der göttlich-geistigen Welt nur der Christus. Damit also war eine Wesenheit, wohlgemerkt eine Wesenheit der göttlich-geistigen Welt heruntergestiegen bis dahin, wo Wohnung genommen wird in einem menschlichen Leib innerhalb der Sinneswelt, wo als Mensch gelebt wird unter anderen Menschen. Das ist das große, gewaltige Christus-Ereignis. So müssen wir es auffassen. Während also alle Götter und Geister nur für das schauende Bewußtsein gefunden werden können über der physischen Welt, wird der Christus gefunden innerhalb dieser physischen Welt, trotzdem er von gleicher Art und Wesenheit ist wie die göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten. Im Äußeren sind also nur auffindbar die anderen Götter; er ist der Eine, der zugleich im menschlichen Innern auflebt, der sozusagen die äußeren Götterwelten verläßt und einkehrt in das menschliche Innere. Damit war etwas sehr Bedeutsames geschehen in der Welt- und Menschheitsentwickelung. Hatte man einen Gott im Innern gesucht, da hatte man früher heruntersteigen müssen zu den unterirdischen Göttern, die hinter dem Schleier der Seelenerlebnisse verborgen sind; in dem Christus hat man einen solchen Gott, der im Äußeren gefunden werden kann und im Innern. Das ist das Wesentliche, was im vierten Zeitraum der nachatlantischen Zeit nach dem indischen, nach dem persischen und dem ägyptischen Zeitraum eingetreten ist. Was mehr im Abstrakten im alten Indien gedacht, geschaut worden ist, daß die göttlich-geistige Welt eine einheitliche ist, daß das «Tat» und Brahman, die von zwei Seiten der Seele ausströmen, eine Einheit sind, das wurde lebendiges Leben durch das Christus-Ereignis. Vorher konnte man sich sagen: Das Göttliche, das man auf dem Wege nach außen findet, und das Göttliche, das man auf dem Wege nach innen findet, sind eines. Jetzt konnte man sich sagen: Man steige nur herunter in das menschliche Innere. Wenn man an Christus teilhaftig ist, so findet man ein Wesen, das Apollo und Dionysos in einer Wesenheit ist.

Nun entsteht aber eine andere Frage. Wir haben gesehen, daß die geistigen Wesenheiten, die in der Außenwelt sind als göttlich-geistige, gleichsam vertreten werden für den Menschen durch die mächtigste ihrer Wesenheiten, durch den Christus, der als äußeres Wesen zugleich ein inneres Wesen wird. Wie ist es denn mit den anderen Wesenheiten, die wir gestern in einer gewissen Beziehung als luziferische Wesenheiten bezeichnet haben? Könnte man etwa auch sagen, daß die Wesenheiten, die also unter der Führung des Dionysos standen, sich ebenso in das menschliche Seelenleben hinein entwickeln, und etwa von der anderen Seite her sich irgendein Dionysos, eine luziferische Wesenheit, als Mensch verkörpert hat? Kann man dasselbe sagen? Nein, das kann man nicht sagen. Das ist eben die Erfahrung der geistigen Entwickelung, daß man von dieser Welt nicht dasselbe sagen kann. Und hier kommen wir an etwas, was ganz kernhaft und wesentlich mit aller Menschheits- und Weltenentwickelung zusammenhängt. Gingen wir in sehr, sehr alte Zeiten der Menschheits- und Weltenentwickelung zurück, dann fänden wir, daß die Seele nach außen blickt und daß sie die göttlich-geistige Welt draußen sieht; daß sie nach innen blickt und die göttlich-geistige Welt drinnen sieht; daß die Seele die apollinische Welt draußen, die dionysische Welt im eigenen Innern findet, mit griechischen Ausdrücken gesagt. Wenn man dann vorschreiter in der Menschheitsund Weltenentwickelung, dann sieht man ein anderes Resultat. Für die allerältesten Zeiten, wo der weitaus überwiegende Teil der Menschen schauend war, war die Sache so, wie ich es eben dargestellt habe. Draußen sah man die oberen, drinnen die unteren Götter; und man hatte diese zwei Wege hinein in die geistige Welt. Wenn wir spätere Zeiten in Frage ziehen, dann haben wir eine Menschheit vor uns, die in bezug auf die schauenden Fähigkeiten schwächer geworden ist. Die Menschen haben immer mehr und mehr das ursprüngliche, alte, dumpfe, dämmerhafte Schauen verloren. Aber nehmen wir eine Zeit, in welcher wenig Menschen noch ein natürliches Schauen hatten. Diese Menschen — wir brauchen da gar nicht weit zurückgehen, wir finden in der chaldäischägyptischen Welt auch solche Menschen — sahen, wenn sie durch den Teppich der Sinnenwelt durchdrangen, die oberen Götter, und wenn sie in ihr eigenes Inneres hinabstiegen, die unteren Götter. Deutlicher und gewaltiger hatten diese Eindrücke diejenigen, die in einem gewissen Grad eingeweiht waren. Zu erwähnen ist, daß es zu allen Zeiten auch solche Eingeweihte gab, welche voll die Einheit der beiden Welten erkannten. Das sind aber die Spitzen der Menschheit.

Es gab also, sagen wir Jahrhunderte vor der Erscheinung des Christus auf der Erde Menschen, die noch das alte Schauen sich bewahrt hatten, und Eingeweihte, die auf dem einen Weg gehen und die oberen Götter finden konnten, und andere, die auf dem anderen Weg gehen und so die unteren Götter finden konnten. Dann aber kam eine Zeit, in welcher die Welt, die wir die der unteren Götter nennen konnten, immer mehr. und mehr sich von dem Menschenleben zurückzog, in der sie selbst für einen im geringen Grade Eingeweihten schwer zu erreichen war - eine Zeit, in welcher aber verhältnismäßig leicht zu erreichen war bei geringem Grade von Einweihung dasjenige, was man die oberen, die hinter der äußeren Sinnenwelt liegenden Götter nennt. Nehmen Sie zum Beispiel einen in der alten jüdisch-hebräischen Welt Eingeweihten. Gerade in dieser Welt Eingeweihte, die konnten, wenn sie nicht in besonders hohem Grade eingeweiht waren, die Erfahrung machen, daß sie bei ihrem geringen Schauen hineinsahen in die Welt, in der ihnen Jahve nicht bloß ein Begriff, eine Vorstellung war, sondern eine ätherische Wirklichkeit, eine Wesenheit, die wie ein Mensch zu ihnen sprach für den schauenden Blick. Während also für das Volk Jahve eine Verkündigung war, etwas, wovon man nur sagte, daß es da ist, war er für den Eingeweihten eine Wirklichkeit. Dagegen wäre es für einen solchen in der alten hebräischen Welt Eingeweihten schwieriger geworden, dann etwas zu finden, wenn er in das eigene Seelenleben hinuntergetaucht wäre, wenn er das Gebiet der unteren Götter gesucht hätte. Da hätte er sich sagen müssen: Ja, da dringe ich nicht auf Grund; da

finde ich überall mein seelisches Leben, ich kann nicht durch die dichte Kruste meines Seelenlebens zu den unteren Göttern hindurch. So also hatten sich die unteren Götter in ein gewisses unbekanntes Dunkel zurückgezogen. Es war die Zeit des Herabkommens des Christus auf die Erde, in welcher sich die luziferischen Geister bis zu einem gewissen Grad in die Dunkelheit zurückgezogen hatten. Und in der äußeren Menschheit konnte man in diesen Zeiten nur mehr hören: Es gibt Mysterien; diejenigen, welche in die Mysterien eingeweiht werden, die erlangen die Fähigkeit, durch die Kräfte des Seelenlebens durchzudringen in die dionysische Welt hinein. - Dunkel ahnte man etwas, was in den tiefen Geheimnissen der Mysterien von den Menschen erforscht werden kann. Aber es war eben nur etwas, wovon man andeutend sprach, wovon die wenigsten in der Zeit der Erwartung des Christus eine deutliche Vorstellung hatten. Viel deutlichere Vorstellungen hatten sie von den äußeren Göttern. Es gab vieleMenschen, die noch ein lebendiges Erlebnis von diesen äußeren Göttern hatten. Nun schreitet aber die Menschheit vorwärts in der Entwickelung. Und welches ist das Ergebnis dieses Vorwärtsschreitens?

Es wird eine Geschichte geben für die äußere Menschheit, und es wird in die Zukunft hinein auch eine Geschichte geben für die Myste‘rien. Die äußere Menschheit wird ihre Geisteskultur verwandeln, immer mehr und mehr wird sich der Christus einleben in die äußere Menschheit. Aber auch in den Mysterien wird man die Natur und Wesenheit des Christus, den man heute kaum angefangen hat zu verstehen, erkennen. Der Gott also, der erblickt werden konnte zur Zarathustrazeit, wenn sich der Blick zur Sonne wendete und schauend wurde, und der herunterstieg auf die Erde, dieser Gott wird immer intimer und intimer ergriffen werden von der menschlichen Seele. Der Gott, der der Regent der äußeren Welt war, wird immer innerlicher werden. Der Christus schreitet so durch die Welt, daß er von einem kosmischen Gotte, der heruntergestiegen ist auf die Erde, ein mystischer Gott immer mehr und mehr wird, der von den Menschen in dem Inneren des Seelenlebens wird erlebt werden können. Daher konnte man zur Zeit, als Christus herunterstieg, das verwirklichen, was dann seine Jünger beschrieben, indem sie sagten: Wir haben unsere Hände in seine Wunden gelegt, haben selber sein Wort auf dem Berge gehört. - Man konnte sich auf etwas Äußeres berufen. Das war das Wesentliche, daß der Christus äußerlich da war. Man hätte ihn dazumal innerlich mystisch nicht erleben können; seine Dionysosnatur hätte man nicht erfassen können; man mußte ihn als äußerlichen historischen Christus zunächst erleben. Das aber ist der Fortschritt in dem Christus-Bewußtsein der Menschheit, daß er immer tiefer in die Seele hineinsteigt, daß die Menschen immer mehr nach innen werden sehen können, daß sie immer mehr ihre eigenen Seelenerlebnisse im Innern mystisch durchleben werden und immer mehr zu dem äußerlichen Christus den Christus in der eigenen Seele, den mystischen Christus erleben werden. Man sehe, wie in dem sogenannten Mystizismus, der auftritt in der ersten Zeit der christlichen Entwickelung durch Dionysios den Areopagiten, der ein Freund und Schüler des Paulus war, wie da der Christus zunächst durch äußere okkulte Fähigkeiten erkannt wird. Und alle Beschreibungen dieser ersten christlichen okkulten Schule sind so gehalten, daß der Christus im wesentlichen nach jenen Eigenschaften beschrieben wird, die er entfaltet in den äußeren Welten, die durch den nach außen gerichteten instinktiv schauenden Blick erfahren werden konnten. Und man steige herauf einige Jahrhunderte in der Menschheitsentwickelung und sehe, was geworden ist. Man frage bei der mittelalterlichen mystischen Entwickelung an, bei jenem tief inneren Erleben eines Meister Eckart, eines Johannes Tauler und so weiter bis herauf zu unseren neueren Mystikern-da sind Menschen, die in ihr eigenes Innere hinunterblicken. Wie man in alten Zeiten in das Innere hineinblickte, um durch dieses Innere durchzuschauen und zum Dionysos zu dringen, so dringen die Neueren hinein, können wie der Meister Eckart sagen: Zwar ist der historische Christus eine Tatsache, zwar hat er sich entwickelt in der Geschichte, aber es gibt die Möglichkeit, in das eigene Innere zu steigen und daden inneren mystischen Christus zu finden. So entwickelt sich die menschliche Seele dazu, nicht nur in der Außenwelt, sondern im Innern die dionysische Natur des Christus zu finden, den mystischen Christus. Zuerst war der historische Christus da, dann haben durch das Werk des historischen Christus sich solche Wirkungen auf die menschliche Seele herausgebildet, daß ein mystischer Christus innerhalb der Menschheit möglich geworden ist. So können wir für die neuere Zeit auch sprechen von einem innerlichen mystischen Christus-Erleben; aber man muß die Sache so fassen, daß der Christus ein kosmischer war vor seinem Eintritt in die Erde. Hat man sich damals in das innere Seelenleben versenkt, dann hat man nicht den Christus gefunden, sondern den Dionysos. Heute findet man, wenn man in der entsprechenden Weise sich entwickelt hat, eine innere Christus-Wesenheit. Der Christus ist von einer außerseelischen Göttlichkeit zu einer innerseelischen Göttlichkeit geworden, die immer mehr die Menschenseele ergreifen wird, je mehr diese mit ihren Seelenerlebnissen diesem Christus sich nähern wird.

Hier haben Sie ein Beispiel, wie ein Umschwung geschieht mit dem, was als Prinzipien durch die Welt sich entwickelt. Wenn der heutige Mensch spricht, daß es einen mystischen Christus in seinem Innern gibt, dann sollte er nicht vergessen, daß alles in der Welt sich entwickelt hat und daß das mystische Bewußtsein kein solches ist, das gleich ist in allen Zeiten, sondern daß auch das geworden ist, Wenn die alten heiligen Rishis hinaufgeschaut haben in die geistigen Welten, dann haben sie von Karman gesprochen und haben dabei dieselbe Wesenheit, wie die späteren, als kosmische im Auge gehabt, die auch Zarathustra gemeint hat, als er von Ahura Mazdao sprach. Es war die ChristusWesenheit. Heute ist sie als mystischer Christus auch im Innern zu finden. Daß er es ist, das ist die Tat des Christus selbst auf der Erde. So verhält sich der kosmische, der astronomische Christus zum mystischen Christus in Wahrheit. So also wurde der äußere Gott allmählich ein innerer.

Weil aber alles das, was in der äußeren physischen Welt geschieht, eine Wirkung ist des Geistigen, so stellt sich auch eine Wirkung dieser Verchristlichung der Seele für das andere Leben heraus. Zuerst wird sich diese Wirkung zeigen in den Mysterien und hat sich zum Teil schon gezeigt seit der Begründung der abendländischen Mysterienschulen des Rosenkreuzes. Wenn man durch die Schulung der alten Mysterien in die Seele hinein sich vertieft hatte und zu den unteren Göttern gestiegen ist, so hat man Dionysos gefunden, was nur ein anderer Name ist für die weite Welt der luziferischen Gottheiten. Aber auch das schauende Bewußtsein, wenn es nicht bis zu den höchsten Graden gestiegen ist, verschwand ins Dunkle, während der Christus in seiner Glorie der Erde sich näherte; es verschwand das luziferische Wesen. Nur den höchsten Eingeweihten war es noch möglich, hinunterzusteigen zu den luziferischen Göttern. Den anderen Menschen mußte man sagen: Wenn ihr ungereinigt und unreif hinuntersteigt, dann erscheinen euch diese luziferischen Wesenheiten nur als wildeDämonen in ihren Zerrbildern, die euch in euren verwandelten Eigenschaften zu allem Schlimmen verleiten. Daher alle die schrecklichen Beschreibungen, die von diesem unterirdischen Reiche gegeben werden, daher die Furcht schon vor dem Namen des Luzifer in einer gewissen Zeit. Und weil sich alles vererbt für die Menschen, die nicht mit der Entwickelung fortschreiten, lebt diese Furcht noch heute bei denjenigen, die diese Empfindungen ererbt haben, die Furcht vor dem Namen Luzifer. Aber die Sache ist so, daß zuerst für den schauenden Menschen wieder die luziferische Welt auftaucht, nachdem eine Zeitlang das ChristusPrinzip die Seele durchchristet hat. Hat der Christus eine Weile in der Seele gewirkt, dann wird diese Seele dadurch, daß sie von der ChristusSubstanz durchdrungen wird, durch ihre Christianisierung reif, wiederum hineinzudringen in das Reich der luziferischen Wesenheiten. Zuerst konnten das die Eingeweihten des Rosenkreuzes. Sie haben sich bemüht, den Christus in solcher Gestalt zu begreifen und zu schauen, daß er als mystischer Christus auch in ihre Seele eingedrungen ist, daß er in ihnen lebt, daß sie sozusagen stark sind durch diese Christus-Substanz in ihrem eigenen Innern, und daß Wehr und Waffe gegen alle Anfechtungen diese Christus-Substanz in ihnen ist. So wird diese ChristusSubstanz in ihnen zu einem neuen Licht, das sie jetzt innerlich durchleuchtet, zu einem innerlichen astralischen Licht. Historisches Erleben des Christus in seiner Wahrheit durchleuchtet unsere Seelenerlebnisse so, daß wir fähig werden, nunmehr wiederum hineinzudringen in das luziferische Reich. Zuerst konnten das die Eingeweihten des Rosenkreuzes, und nach und nach werden diese Eingeweihten des Rosenkreuzes heraustragen das, was sie erleben können über das luziferische Prinzip, und werden jene große geistige Ehe über die Welt ausgießen, die darin besteht, daß der Christus, der sich als Substanz hineinergossen hat in die menschliche Seele, nunmehr begriffen wird mit denjenigen geistigen Fähigkeiten, die heranreifen durch das Einströmen des luziferischen Prinzips in einer neuen Weise in den Geist der einzelnen Menschen.

Betrachten wir zunächst einen Eingeweihten des Rosenkreuzes. Ein solcher Eingeweihter, der bereitet sich zunächst dadurch vor, daß er in seiner Seele Gefühle, Empfindungen, Gedanken hinlenkt zu der großen Zentralgestalt des Christus, daß er zunächst zum Beispiel das JohannesEvangelium auf sich wirken läßt; jene monumentale, ungeheuer bedeutsame Gestalt, die uns von dem Christus im Johannes-Evangelium . geschildert wird, auf seine Seele wirken läßt und sich dadurch veredelt und läutert. Denn es wird wirklich alles anders in unserer Seele, wenn diese hinblickt mit aller Verehrung auf die Gestalt, die das JohannesEvangelium schildert. Wenn wir das in uns aufnehmen, was ausströmt von der Gestalt, die dieses Johannes-Evangelium schildert, dann wird unsere Seele durchchristet, dann lebt in uns der mystische Christus auf. Und wenn wir das durch andere Dokumente der christlichen Erziehung weiter beleben, so wird immer mehr und mehr unsere Seele durchströmt von der geistigen Substanz des Christus, läutert sich und reinigt sich in der Verchristianisierung hinauf in höhere Welten. Dadurch wird vorzugsweise unser Gemüt geläutert und gereinigt. Man lernt entweder in einer so universellen Weise empfinden den Christus, wie der Meister Eckart und Tauler es getan haben, oder man lernt ihn in einer so zarten Weise erleben wie Ssso oder andere; man fühlt sich eins mit dem, was hereingeströmt ist aus den großen Himmelswelten durch das ChristusEreignis auf unsere Erde. Dann macht man sich dadurch reif, als Eingeweihter des Rosenkreuzes schauend eingeführt zu werden in jene Welten, die in den alten Zeiten die dionysischen, die jetzt die luziferischen Welten genannt werden konnten. Was haben diese Einführungen in die luziferischen Welten für den heutigen Eingeweihten des Rosenkreuzes für eine Wirkung? Wird das Gemüt warm und von Enthusiasmus erfüllt für das Göttliche, wenn es verchristet wird, so werden auf der anderen Seite unsere anderen geistigen Fähigkeiten, durch welche wir die Welt verstehen und begreifen, erfassen und einsehen, durchleuchtet, durchströmt und durchkrafter von dem luziferischen Prinzip. So steigt der Eingeweihte des Rosenkreuzes zu dem luziferischen Prinzipe aufwärts. Indem er das tut, werden durch die Einweihung seine geistigen Fähigkeiten geschärft, ausgearbeitet, so daß er den Christus nicht nur mystisch in seiner Seele fühlen kann, sondern daß er ihn beschreiben kann, daß er erzählen kann, wie er ist, daß er ihn in Gedankenbilder, in geistige Bilder fassen kann, daß er in ihm nicht nur dunkel gefühlt und erlebt wird, sondern wie eine Gestalt der äußeren Welt, der äußeren Sinneswelt in konkreten Konturen vor ihm steht. Den Christus zu erleben als Seelensubstanz ist möglich dadurch, daß der Mensch den Blick hinlenkt auf die Christus-Gestalt, wie sie ihm aus den Evangelien entgegentritt. Den Christus beschreiben, verstehen, so wie man die anderen Erscheinungen und Erlebnisse der Welt versteht, und dadurch erst seine Größe, seine Bedeutung für die Welt, seine Ursächlichkeit für das Weltgeschehen einzusehen, ist nur möglich, wenn der christlich-mystische Eingeweihte weiter aufsteigt zur Erkenntnis der luziferischen Reiche. Luzifer gibt uns also innerhalb des Rosenkreuzes die Fähigkeit den Christus erst zu schildern, zu verstehen.1Man kann sich denken, wie böser Wille oder Unverständnis nach dem gewöhnlichen Gebrauch des Wortes Luzifer (Lichtträger) das Dargestellte verleumdet; das kann nicht abhalten von dieser Darstellung. Wer unter Luzifer versteht, was hier gemeint ist, muß anders sehen.

Was Jahrhunderte haben tun können, das war, daß sie die Evangelien fortgepflanzt haben, daß sie das Wort, das aus den Evangelien strömt, wiedergegeben haben, daß sie die Herzen sich haben erwärmen lassen an diesen Evangelien, daß sie die Seelen durchglüht haben mit Wärme und Enthusiasmus, die von den Evangelien ausströmen. Heute stehen wir vor einer Menschheitsentwickelung, der es nimmermehr genügen kann, bloß die Evangelien in der alten Weise überliefert zu erhalten; heute verlangen die Menschen etwas anderes. Diejenigen, die dieses andere nicht wollen, die werden das Karma zu tragen haben des Sichsträubens gegen die Einführung des luziferischen Prinzips in die Evangelieninterpretation. Möge es noch zahlreiche Menschen geben unter uns, die sagen: Ach was, wir wollen die Evangelien als Christen hinnehmen, wir fühlen uns befriedigt von ihnen; aus den Evangelien spricht der Christus, aus den Evangelien spricht er auch dann, wenn wir sie so überliefert erhalten, wie es durch die Jahrhunderte herauf in der traditionellen Religion geschehen ist. Solche Menschen mögen glauben, daß sie Christen sind, sie mögen in ihrer Art immer wieder und wieder wiederholen: Bleibt uns mit eurer Geistes-Erkenntnis fern, wir haben den Christus in den Evangelien, wir wollen nichts wissen von eurer Arbeit, die ihr auf die Evangelien wendet. — Mögen sie es wiederholen, diese Menschen, mögen sie wähnen, daß sie gute Christen sind; sie sind in Wahrheit Feinde des Christus, sie sind diejenigen, die aus eigenem Egoismus heraus, weil sie sich noch befriedigt erklären können durch alles das, was in der traditionellen Evangelieninterpretation geboten wird, hinwegwischen das, was das volle Christentum zur Glorie in der Zukunft erst bringen wird. Diejenigen, die heute oft glauben, die besten Christen zu sein, sind die stärksten Ausrotter des wirklichen Christentums. Diejenigen verstehen heute die Entwickelung des Christentums, welche in ganz anderer Weise denken, welche aussprechen: Wir wollen nicht Egoisten sein und wollen sagen: es genügen uns die Evangelien, wir wollen nichts wissen von eurem Abstrakten! Es ist gar kein solches Abstraktes, wie es die Geisteswissenschaft bietet.-Diejenigen sind die wahren Christen, die da wissen, daß die Menschheit heute etwas anderes braucht als das Christentum der Egoisten, die da sagen: Wir wissen, daß die Welt nicht mehr bestehen kann mit der alten Überlieferung der Evangelien, wir wissen, daß in der Welt notwendig ist, daß das Licht aus Luzifers Gebiet falle auf die Evangelien. — Diese Menschen hören die Lehren, die herausdringen aus den Einweihungsstätten des Rosenkreuzes, wo man die geistigen Fähigkeiten geschärft hat durch das luziferische Prinzip, um immer tiefer in die Evangelien hineinzudringen. Und für diese Eingeweihten hat sich herausgestellt: In der Tat, die Evangelien haben eine so unendliche Tiefe, daß man durchaus nicht glauben darf, sie ausschöpfen zu können mit diesem oder jenem. — Aber heute ist schon die Zeit gekommen, wo die Rosenkreuzer ihre Lehre hinausströmen lassen müssen in die Welt, wo die Mysterien des Rosenkreuzes berufen sind, das, was sie an Schärfung ihrer Geisteskräfte gewonnen haben aus der luziferischen Welt heraus, fallen zu lassen auf die Evangelien. Das ist abendländische Geistes-Erkenntnis, daß das Licht, welches hinausdringt, gewonnen werden kann aus Luzifers Gebiet, fallen gelassen werden kann auf die Evangelien. Geisteswissenschaft muß ein Instrument werden zur Interpretation der Evangelien; und das Große, das Gewaltige und Substantielle der Evangelien wird sichtbar werden, wenn das Licht aus Luzifers Reich auf dem Umwege, wie es gewonnen worden ist durch die Mysterien des Rosenkreuzes, auf diese Evangelien fällt. So gehört es zur geisteswissenschaftlichen Arbeit, einzuführen in die frohen Botschaften von der christlichen Wesenssubstanz, die durch die Welt geht; das Licht, das gewonnen wird aus Luzifers Gebiet auf dem Wege der Einweihung durch das Rosenkreuz, fallen zu lassen auf die Evangelien. So sehen wir, daß der Christus, der von einem Gott, der in der Außenwelt gelebt hat, zum mystischen Christus geworden ist, durch seine Veredlung der menschlichen Seele diese wieder hineingebracht hat in jenes Gebiet, das für eine Weile verschlossen bleiben mußte, das man genannt hat das dionysische in alten Zeiten, und welches wieder erobert wird in den Zeiten, denen die Menschheit in der Zukunft entgegengeht. Die Erklärung des Christus durch die an Luzifer gesteigerten und erleuchteten Geistesfähigkeiten, das ist das Innere, der Wesenskern der Geistesströmung, die im Abendlande erfließen muß. Und was ich gesagt habe, ist gegenüber der Zukunft die Sendung des Rosenkreuzes.2Man vergleiche die entsprechenden Ausführungen in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft».

Was also geschieht eigentlich in unserer Menschheitsentwickelung? Da geschah und geschieht dieses, daß Christus und Luzifer, der eine als kosmischer, der andere als innermenschlicher Gott, nebeneinander gingen in alten Zeiten, daß man den einen sozusagen in den oberen Regionen, den anderen in den unteren Regionen fand, daß dann die Welt weiterschritt und für eine Zeit ferne von der Erde den Dionysos, den Luzifer wußte; daß man dafür aber das Erlebnis hatte, daß der kosmische Christus immer mehr hineindringt in die Erde, immer mehr durchsetzt die Seele, daß jetzt aber Luzifer wiederum sichtbar, wiederum erkennbar wird. Die Wege, die diese beiden göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten gegangen, sind so: Sie nähern sich von zwei verschiedenen Seiten der Erde; der Luzifer wird unsichtbar, indem er sich mit dem Christus kreuzt; er wird gleichsam als das andere Licht überstrahlt von dem Christus-Licht. Früher fand man Christus als kosmische Wesenheit, den Luzifer als innermenschliche Wesenheit. Sie durchkreuzten ihren Weg. Der Christus zieht in die menschliche Seele ein, er wird zum planetarischen Erdengeiste, er wird immer mehr der mystische Christus in den Menschenseelen, er wird durch die inneren Erlebnisse vertieft und erkannt. Die Seele wird dadurch immer fähiger, wiederum zu schauen die andere Wesenheit, die den umgekehrten Weg gemacht hat, von dem Inneren in das Äußere hin. Der Luzifer wird aus einer innermenschlichen Wesenheit, einer rein irdischen Wesenheit, wo er gesucht worden ist in den Mysterien, die in das Unterreich führten, ein kosmischer Gott. Immer mehr wird er aufleuchten draußen in der Welt, die wir erblicken, wenn wir hindurchsehen durch den Teppich der Sinneswelt. Umgekehrt wird das Anschauen der Menschen. Hat man Luzifer gesehen hinter dem Schleier der inneren Seelenwelt, hat man den Christus gesehen, wie der Zarathustra, hinter der äußeren sinnlichen Welt, so wird man in der Zukunft den Christus immer mehr und mehr durch Versenkung und Verinnerlichung in das eigene Wesen erkennen können. Den Luzifer wird man finden, wenn man den Blick nach außen richtet in die kosmische Region.

So haben wir eine völlige Umkehr der menschlichen Erkenntnisverhältnisse im Laufe der menschlichen Entwickelung zu verzeichnen: der Christus ist geworden von einem kosmischen Gotte zu einem irdischen Gott, der die Seele der Erde ist in der Zukunft. Der Luzifer ist geworden von einem irdischen Gotte zu einem kosmischen Gott. Und will der Mensch in der Zukunft wiederum aufsteigen zu der äußeren geistigen Welt, die hinter dem Schleier der Sinneswelt verborgen ist, will er nicht bei dem stehenbleiben, was äußerlich, nur grobstofflich ist, dann muß er durch die Dinge der Sinneswelt hindurchdringen in die geistige Welt; er muß sich in das Licht tragen lassen durch den «Licht-Träger». Und keine Fähigkeiten, da einzudringen, werden dem Menschen erstehen, wenn er diese Fähigkeiten nicht schafft aus den Kräften, die uns zufließen von Luzifers Reich. Die Menschheit würde in Materialismus versinken, immerfort in dem Glauben verharren, daß alles nur äußere materielle Welt ist, wenn sie nicht aufstiege zur Inspiration durch das luziferische Prinzip. Ist das Christus-Prinzip dazu berufen, unser Inneres stärker und stärker zu machen, so ist das luziferische Prinzip dazu berufen, unsere Fähigkeiten, die eindringen sollten in die Welt in vollem Umfange, zu schärfen, auszubilden. Immer stärker und stärker für das Begreifen und Erkennen der Welt wird uns Luzifer machen, immer stärker und stärker im Innern wird uns Christus machen.

Sixth Lecture

Yesterday we spoke of two spiritual currents, carried by different peoples who moved eastward from ancient Atlantis. We spoke of how they developed in different ways and thereby prepared themselves to bring forth what was to happen in later times; how, in particular, the southern peoples deepened their knowledge of the spiritual world that lies behind the soul world of human beings; how, in the other spiritual current, the gaze was directed outwards into the surroundings of the human being on earth in order to recognize the spiritual world hidden behind the veil of the sensory world. It was spoken of how, in the southern migration, precisely those qualities developed which led up to those spiritual beings belonging to the Luciferic principle; how then, from the other side, one could say that the royal, ruling spiritual being that stood behind the solar world drew ever closer to the earth in order to finally appear embodied in a physical body as an individuality that, through incarnations, had spiritualized this physical body to such an extent that the divine not only had an image within it, but could embody itself in it. This was the great event that can be called the incarnation of Christ, the Sun Spirit, in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, who developed in the characterized northern stream of peoples. Attention has also been drawn to the fact that while these two streams of peoples were moving formally toward each other, but then began to fertilize each other, in the early period after the great Atlantean catastrophe in southern Asia, the Indian people arose, who in a certain sense represent the human soul, which can both look out into the outer sensory world and look within itself to find the spiritual, which from the outset felt the unity of the spirit outside in the world and the spirit within the human being. If we want to characterize more precisely how these different views and feelings related to each other, both among the peoples and among the initiates, we can do so as follows.

One can imagine how the ancient Indian soul felt when it looked out into the sensory world of the earth, into what is on the earth in mountains, forests, plant cover, the animal and human world, and so on. When the soul of the ancient Indian looked out, still seeing to such a high degree spiritually, it looked through all this to a spiritual world whose beings appeared to it as etheric forms that did not descend to the condensation of physical life. Outside, where one saw the mountains, the trees, the stars, there were not only the dense elements, but also the finer etheric, and one saw all this formed into the outer world of gods. Of course, one should not imagine that these spirits consisted only of ether, but just as human beings have their physical body and within it the etheric, astral, and ego principles, these spirits did not have the physical body as their densest part, but they had the etheric body as their lowest link and the other higher principles ascending toward the higher worlds. The Indian soul looked into this world. How did it feel when it looked in? How did the basic feeling toward this whole world affect the soul? This feeling can be described in the following way. The Indian felt: I stand here on Earth; I, as a human being, have developed over long, long periods of time from the first human germ of ancient Saturn to the Earth period. I had to descend into dense physical matter in order to gain self-awareness within it. When I speak to myself, I speak of myself as an I-being. I was a companion of all the spiritual beings that are visible around me when I look up from the etheric world. I grew out of them and condensed accordingly. All the perfections of human beings are found in these worlds into which I look; and not only those which human beings possess; there are also perfections and qualities which human beings must first attain. But there is one thing that no being can attain unless it descends to the physical plane. There are other high perfections in the universe than the memory of a human consciousness; there are other kinds of consciousness. But in order to develop that peculiarity of consciousness which human beings develop on earth, a being must descend to this earth and be embodied in dense matter through a number of incarnations. May therefore, said the Indian consciousness, these spiritual beings into whose world I look have infinitely higher perfections than the human beings who stand on earth: there is one thing they do not have in their world, for that was the purpose of the earthly world, to give it to a type of being, the human being; there is one thing they do not have: human ego-consciousness. To say “I” to oneself, as human beings do, is not native to these worlds into which I am looking. I myself am from this world; everything that lives in this spiritual world out there also lives in me, only it is summed up in me as my human self-consciousness. Therefore, it makes no sense to say: Out there in the spiritual world there is a human self-consciousness. To apply the word “I” in the human sense to what is in these worlds has no meaning, no content. Only a word that excludes this I can be applied to everything that spreads spiritually in the environment, a word that is not touched by this I, which is used in such a way that one can say: In this world is everything that is in me, but I must not designate what is out there with my I; I must designate it with a word that excludes the I.

And Indian consciousness called that which spreads out there “tat,” “that,” in contrast to “I.” And to express that human beings are of the same nature as this “tat,” as this “that,” as this “it” — that they have developed into the I only by descending to earth — they pronounced this judgment: I am this “Tat” — You are it [Tat twam asi]. That out there is you yourself. Thus, man summarized his relationship to the spiritual environment, to this seeing penetration of our world in the highest sense, in the words: It is, but that out there is you yourself.

But this ancient Indian soul knew at the same time that the same essence that spreads outwards and which it called “Tat” can be found by looking into one's own inner being, that it appears only once from the outside and once from within. So when I descend into my soul, I find the same original spiritual essence that I call “action” outside. But then I relate what lives inside me as my source, which is veiled by the physical life of the soul, in the right way when I express the judgment differently, when I say instead: That is you yourself — I am Brahman, I am the All [Aham brahma asmi]. — And the two judgments: That is me and I am the All, basically said, when put together: When I look out into the world of “action,” I find a spiritual world; when I dive into my own soul experience, I find a spiritual world; and the two are one. - That was the basic feeling in the first epoch of post-Atlantean spiritual culture. The two spiritual worlds were perceived as completely unified.

That is one thing; but the other developed in a different place. In ancient India, on the one hand, the feelings of the unity of the outer and the inner formed in the basic mood of the soul; and one must assume that the other extreme will consist in turning the gaze outward, seeing through the carpet of the sensory world, looking at what lies hidden behind it as the spiritual world. And this is indeed the case with people of another people. They see the outer spiritual world, but they are so constituted that they cannot determine from the outset that this outer spiritual world is the same as the inner one. It is therefore not surprising that religious views and philosophical ideas arise which fervently turn toward the gods and spirits beyond the sensory world; that the people are given mythical or other names for such divine-spiritual beings that are out there behind the veil of the sensory world; when, in the corresponding mysteries, the pupils are led into that spiritual world itself which lies behind the world of the senses. And it will not be surprising if, alongside such mysteries and such folk gods, there is something else, if at the same time there are mysteries which lead people through the inner life of the soul, the path to the foundations of this inner life of the soul. And indeed, one finds a cultural area in the post-Atlantean period where these two types of mysteries exist side by side, where on the one hand the so-called Apollonian circle of belief and the Apollonian mysteries are formed, and on the other hand the Dionysian circle of belief and the Dionysian mysteries. One finds this division in ancient Greece.

On the one hand, there is the path that is shown to both the people and the initiates, leading out into the spiritual world, to what lies behind the senses, to what is summarized as the spiritual world that lies behind the sun. As far as the Greeks can recognize it, they designate it with the name of the Apollonian beings. Apollo, the sun god, was the representative of these divine-spiritual beings who stand behind the veil of the sensory world. Then there was a kind of mystery that showed the way through the soul life into the spiritual depths of this soul life, which, as was said yesterday, man should only enter with careful preparation and maturity. Therefore, this second type of mystery was more protected against immaturity than the Apollonian one. And for the wider circles of the people, there was the Apollonian circle of gods, while the spiritual beings that could be found on the path through the inner life were reserved for those who had first matured through special intellectual and moral training of their inner life. This second type of belief system and mysteries was summarized under the name of the Dionysian mysteries, and the entity standing at the center of it all is Dionysus. No wonder, then, that in Dionysus, the spirit standing in the center of this inner circle of gods, one found a being who was close to the human soul, who was, so to speak, something like a human being, but who was perceived as a human being who did not ascend to the physical world, but who was found when one descended from the physical world to the foundations of the soul life. Here we find the actual deeper causes for the division of Greek spiritual life into Apollonian and Dionysian. In more recent times, there have been hints in various places that something like this existed in Greece. In the circles around Richard Wagner, people sensed that something like this had existed, even if there was no clear awareness of the spiritual foundations of the matter. And Friedrich Nietzsche, coming out of Wagner's circle, based his first remarkable and brilliant work, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, precisely on this division of Greek intellectual life into Apollonian and Dionysian elements. All of these were inklings of what can be recognized more and more through spiritual deepening. In many places today, it is like the modern spirit's thirst for such deepening. Everywhere there is a sense that this deepening alone will provide the answer to what people so desperately crave. So we see how in ancient Greece these two, so to speak, divine-spiritual worlds existed side by side. There they appeared side by side. In ancient India, they appeared in their coexistence, in their mutual interpenetration.

And now we look at the development itself. We said yesterday that only from the most advanced position of the northern peoples' stream, from the ancient Persian Zarathustra culture, could the ideal emerge of creating a body in which the essence approaching humanity and the earth from outside could be embodied. And Zarathustra himself ensures that he goes through incarnation after incarnation in order to be reborn in a body so spiritualized that it could later take in the high sun god in his full form, in the form of Christ. Zarathustra was reborn as Jesus of Nazareth, and through his various incarnations he matured to become the bearer of the sun spirit for three years. How, then, does Apollo relate to Christ? This question must be weighing heavily on your mind. When the Greeks pronounced the name Apollo, they were indeed referring to the spiritual realm that stands behind the sun. But we make a certain distinction in our understanding of a being or thing, depending on our capacity to do so. Those who have cultivated a richer life in their souls are also capable of seeing things that others also see in a truer form, so that we have to say that when the Greeks uttered the word Apollo, they were indeed referring to the being who was later to reveal himself as Christ, but that they perceived this being only in a kind of veiled form as Apollo. It is like a garment of Christ, which in its forms is similar to the being who is inside it, when we say Apollo and Christ. It was necessary, as it were, for layer after layer to fall away from the form that people had placed before their souls as Apollo, in order to make Christ comprehensible and visible to human beings. Thus Apollo is indeed an indication of Christ, but he is not Christ himself.

What, then, in a certain sense, is the most fundamental characteristic of Christ for our cycle of development? When we look at all the divine-spiritual beings, the spiritual entities that ancient people looked up to as the higher gods behind the veil of the sensory world, whom they saw as the rulers and masters of the regions of the world and of world activities, we must say of all these beings: It is their peculiarity that they do not penetrate in truth into the physical world; they only become visible to the seeing consciousness that goes beyond the physical world, to the seeing of the etheric. Then Zeus, Apollo, Mars, all these beings, which are indeed realities, became visible as Wodan, Odin, Thor, and so on. But we could also say: These spiritual beings did not have the peculiarity of descending to the physical world, at most they showed themselves temporarily in some physical embodiment, which is spiritually indicated in the myths by momentary humanizations or other forms of Zeus or others who descended to humans to perform this or that. However, we cannot speak of a permanent physical embodiment of these spiritual beings that stand behind the sensory world. We can therefore say that Apollo is a figure who is not capable of descending to physical embodiment. This requires more power than Apollo had; it requires the power of Christ. Christ had the qualities of all the other beings in the world outside, all the qualities that were visible to the seeing consciousness, and he also had the one quality of breaking through the boundary that separates the world of the gods from the world of humans, and entering into a human body, becoming human in a physical human body that had been prepared for this purpose on Earth. Only Christ had this gift in the divine-spiritual world. Thus, a being, mind you, a being of the divine-spiritual world, descended to the point where a dwelling place is taken up in a human body within the sensory world, where one lives as a human being among other human beings. That is the great, mighty event of Christ. That is how we must understand it. So while all gods and spirits can only be found above the physical world by the seeing consciousness, Christ is found within this physical world, even though He is of the same kind and essence as the divine-spiritual beings. Outwardly, therefore, only the other gods can be found; he is the One who at the same time lives within the human being, who, so to speak, leaves the outer worlds of the gods and enters the human being. This was a very significant event in the development of the world and of humanity. If one had sought a god within, one would previously have had to descend to the subterranean gods hidden behind the veil of soul experiences; in Christ, one has such a god who can be found both externally and internally. This is the essential thing that occurred in the fourth period of the post-Atlantean era, after the Indian, Persian, and Egyptian periods. What was thought and seen more abstractly in ancient India, that the divine-spiritual world is a unified whole, that “tat” and Brahman, which flow from two sides of the soul, are one, became living life through the Christ event. Previously, one could say: The divine that one finds on the path outward and the divine that one finds on the path inward are one. Now one could say: One need only descend into the human interior. If one participates in Christ, one finds a being that is Apollo and Dionysus in one entity.

But now another question arises. We have seen that the spiritual beings that are in the outer world as divine-spiritual beings are, as it were, represented for human beings by the most powerful of their beings, by Christ, who as an outer being becomes at the same time an inner being. What about the other beings that we yesterday described in a certain relationship as Luciferic beings? Could one also say that the beings who were under the leadership of Dionysus developed in the same way into the human soul life, and that from the other side some Dionysus, a Luciferic being, incarnated as a human being? Can we say the same thing? No, we cannot say that. It is precisely the experience of spiritual development that we cannot say the same thing about this world. And here we come to something that is very central and essential to the development of all humanity and the world. If we go back to very, very ancient times in human and world evolution, we find that the soul looks outward and sees the divine-spiritual world outside; that it looks inward and sees the divine-spiritual world within; that the soul finds the Apollonian world outside and the Dionysian world within itself, to use Greek terms. If we then go further in the development of humanity and the world, we see a different result. In the earliest times, when the vast majority of people were clairvoyant, things were as I have just described. Outside, people saw the higher gods, and inside, the lower gods; and they had these two paths into the spiritual world. When we consider later times, we find a humanity that has become weaker in terms of its seeing abilities. People have increasingly lost their original, ancient, dull, dim vision. But let us take a time when few people still had natural vision. These people — we don't need to go back very far; we find such people in the Chaldean-Egyptian world — saw the higher gods when they penetrated the veil of the sensory world, and the lower gods when they descended into their own inner being. Those who were initiated to a certain degree had these impressions more clearly and powerfully. It should be mentioned that at all times there were also such initiates who fully recognized the unity of the two worlds. But these are the pinnacles of humanity.

So, centuries before Christ appeared on Earth, there were people who still had the old way of seeing things, and initiates who could walk one path and find the higher gods, and others who could walk the other path and find the lower gods. But then a time came when the world we could call the world of the lower gods withdrew more and more from human life, and it became difficult even for those who were a little bit initiated to reach it—a time when it was relatively easy to reach for those who were a little bit initiated, but a time when it was difficult for those who were a little bit initiated to reach it. and more withdrew from human life, in which it was difficult even for a slightly initiated person to reach them — a time, however, in which it was relatively easy to reach, with a low degree of initiation, what we call the higher gods, who lie behind the outer world of the senses. Take, for example, someone who was initiated in the ancient Jewish-Hebrew world. It was precisely those who were initiated into this world who, unless they were particularly highly initiated, were able to experience that with their limited vision they were looking into a world in which Yahweh was not merely a concept, an idea, but an ethereal reality, a being who spoke to them like a human being to the seeing eye. So while Yahweh was a proclamation for the people, something that one only said was there, he was a reality for the initiated. On the other hand, it would have been more difficult for someone initiated into the ancient Hebrew world to find something when he delved into his own soul life, when he sought the realm of the lower gods. He would have had to say to himself: Yes, I cannot get to the bottom of this;

I find my soul life everywhere, I cannot penetrate the dense crust of my soul life to reach the lower gods. Thus, the lower gods had withdrawn into a certain unknown darkness. It was the time of Christ's descent to earth, when the Luciferic spirits had withdrawn into darkness to a certain extent. And in outer humanity, all that could be heard in those times was: There are mysteries; those who are initiated into the mysteries attain the ability to penetrate into the Dionysian world through the forces of the soul life. People had a vague sense of something that could be explored in the deep secrets of the mysteries. But it was only something that was hinted at, something that very few people had a clear idea of during the time of expectation of Christ. They had much clearer ideas about the outer gods. There were many people who still had a living experience of these outer gods. But now humanity is advancing in its development. And what is the result of this advancement?

There will be a history for outer humanity, and there will also be a history for the mysteries in the future. Outer humanity will transform its spiritual culture, and Christ will become more and more at home in outer humanity. But even in the mysteries, people will recognize the nature and essence of Christ, whom they have hardly begun to understand today. The God who could be seen at the time of Zarathustra, when one turned one's gaze toward the sun and became seeing, and who descended to earth, this God will be grasped more and more intimately by the human soul. The God who was the ruler of the outer world will become more and more inward. Christ is passing through the world in such a way that he is becoming more and more a mystical God who has descended to earth from a cosmic God, and who can be experienced by human beings in the inner life of the soul. That is why, at the time when Christ descended, it was possible to realize what his disciples described when they said: We have laid our hands in his wounds, we ourselves have heard his words on the mountain. One could refer to something external. The essential thing was that Christ was there externally. At that time, it was not possible to experience him mystically within oneself; it was not possible to grasp his Dionysian nature; one had to experience him first as the external, historical Christ. But this is the progress in the Christ consciousness of humanity, that it descends ever deeper into the soul, that people will be able to see more and more inwardly, that they will increasingly experience their own soul experiences mystically within themselves and will increasingly experience the external Christ as the Christ in their own souls, the mystical Christ. Consider how, in the so-called mysticism that appeared in the early days of Christian development through Dionysius the Areopagite, who was a friend and disciple of Paul, Christ was initially recognized through external occult abilities. And all descriptions of this first Christian occult school are such that Christ is essentially described according to those qualities that He unfolds in the outer worlds, which could be experienced through the outwardly directed, instinctively seeing gaze. And let us ascend a few centuries in human development and see what has become of it. Consider the medieval mystical development, the deep inner experience of a Meister Eckhart, a Johannes Tauler, and so on, up to our more recent mystics—there are people who look down into their own inner being. Just as in ancient times people looked inward in order to see through this inner being and reach Dionysus, so the newer mystics penetrate inward and can say, like Meister Eckhart: “The historical Christ is indeed a fact; he did indeed develop in history, but it is possible to descend into one's own inner being and find the inner, mystical Christ.” Thus the human soul develops to find the Dionysian nature of Christ, the mystical Christ, not only in the outer world but also within itself. First there was the historical Christ, then through the work of the historical Christ such effects on the human soul developed that a mystical Christ became possible within humanity. Thus, for the more recent times, we can also speak of an inner mystical experience of Christ; but we must understand that Christ was a cosmic being before his entry into the earth. If one immersed oneself in the inner soul life at that time, one did not find Christ, but Dionysus. Today, if one has developed in the appropriate way, one finds an inner Christ being. Christ has become transformed from an outer divinity into an inner divinity, which will increasingly take hold of the human soul the more the soul approaches this Christ through its soul experiences.

Here you have an example of how a reversal takes place with what develops through the world as principles. When people today say that there is a mystical Christ within them, they should not forget that everything in the world has developed and that mystical consciousness is not the same in all ages, but that it too has become what it is. When the ancient holy Rishis looked up into the spiritual worlds, they spoke of Karman and had in mind the same entity as the later ones, as a cosmic entity, which Zarathustra also meant when he spoke of Ahura Mazdao. It was the Christ essence. Today it can also be found within us as the mystical Christ. That it is so is the deed of Christ himself on earth. This is how the cosmic, astronomical Christ truly relates to the mystical Christ. Thus, the outer God gradually became an inner God.

But because everything that happens in the outer physical world is an effect of the spiritual, this Christianization of the soul also has an effect on the other life. This effect will first show itself in the mysteries and has already shown itself in part since the founding of the Western mystery schools of the Rosicrucians. When one had deepened into the soul through the training of the ancient mysteries and had risen to the lower gods, one found Dionysus, which is only another name for the wide world of the Luciferic deities. But even the seeing consciousness, if it had not risen to the highest degrees, disappeared into darkness as Christ approached the earth in his glory; the Luciferic being disappeared. Only the highest initiates were still able to descend to the Luciferic gods. The other people had to be told: If you descend there uncleansed and immature, these Luciferic beings will appear to you only as wild demons in their distorted images, tempting you to do all kinds of evil in their transformed characteristics. Hence all the terrible descriptions given of this underground realm, hence the fear of the name Lucifer at a certain time. And because everything is inherited by people who do not progress with evolution, this fear still lives on today in those who have inherited these feelings, the fear of the name Lucifer. But the fact is that the Luciferic world reappears to the seeing human being after the Christ principle has permeated the soul for a while. Once Christ has worked in the soul for a while, that soul, having been permeated by the Christ substance, becomes mature through its Christianization to penetrate once again into the realm of the Luciferic beings. At first, only the initiates of the Rosicrucians were able to do this. They endeavored to understand and see Christ in such a form that he also entered their souls as the mystical Christ, that he lives in them, that they are, so to speak, strong through this Christ substance within themselves, and that this Christ substance is their defense and weapon against all attacks. Thus, this Christ substance within them becomes a new light that now illuminates them inwardly, an inner astral light. The historical experience of Christ in his truth illuminates our soul experiences in such a way that we become capable of penetrating once more into the Luciferic realm. At first, the initiates of the Rosicrucians were able to do this, and little by little these initiates of the Rosicrucians will carry forth what they are able to experience about the Luciferic principle, and they will pour out upon the world that great spiritual marriage which consists in the fact that Christ, who poured Himself as substance into the human soul, is now understood with those spiritual abilities which mature through the inflow of the Luciferic principle in a new way into the spirit of each individual human being.

Let us first consider an initiate of the Rosicrucians. Such an initiate prepares himself first by directing the feelings, sensations, and thoughts of his soul toward the great central figure of Christ, by allowing, for example, the Gospel of John to work upon him; that monumental, immensely significant figure who is described to us in the Gospel of John. And when we enliven this with other documents of Christian education, our soul is increasingly permeated by the spiritual substance of Christ, purified and cleansed in the Christianization. And if we continue to enliven this through other documents of Christian education, then our soul is increasingly permeated by the spiritual substance of Christ, purified and cleansed in Christianization up into higher worlds. This purifies and cleanses our mind in particular. We either learn to feel Christ in such a universal way as Meister Eckhart and Tauler did, or we learn to experience him in such a delicate way as Ssso and others did; we feel at one with what has flowed in from the great heavenly worlds through the Christ event on our earth. Then one becomes ripe to be initiated as an initiate of the Rosicrucians into those worlds which in ancient times could be called the Dionysian worlds and which are now called the Luciferic worlds. What effect do these initiations into the Luciferic worlds have on today's Rosicrucian initiates? If the mind becomes warm and filled with enthusiasm for the divine when it is Christianized, then on the other hand our other spiritual faculties, through which we understand and comprehend the world, are illuminated, permeated, and energized by the Luciferic principle. In this way, the initiate of the Rosicrucians ascends to the Luciferic principle. In doing so, his spiritual faculties are sharpened and refined through initiation, so that he can not only feel Christ mystically in his soul, but can describe him, can tell what he is like, can grasp him in thought images, in spiritual images, so that he is not only felt and experienced in a dark way, but stands before him in concrete contours as a figure of the outer world, of the outer sensory world with concrete contours. Experiencing Christ as soul substance is possible because human beings direct their gaze to the Christ figure as he appears to them in the Gospels. To describe and understand Christ in the same way that one understands other phenomena and experiences in the world, and thereby to comprehend his greatness, his significance for the world, and his causality for world events, is only possible if the Christian mystic continues to ascend to the knowledge of the Luciferic realms. Within the Rosicrucian Order, Lucifer thus gives us the ability to first describe and understand Christ. One can imagine how evil will or misunderstanding, according to the usual use of the word Lucifer (light bearer), slanders what is presented here; but that cannot deter us from this presentation. Those who understand what is meant here by Lucifer must see things differently.

What centuries have been able to do is to propagate the Gospels, to reproduce the word that flows from the Gospels, to let their hearts be warmed by these Gospels, to fill their souls with the warmth and enthusiasm that flow from the Gospels. Today we are facing a development of humanity for which it can no longer be enough to simply preserve the Gospels in the old way; today people demand something else. Those who do not want this something else will have to bear the karma of resisting the introduction of the Luciferic principle into the interpretation of the Gospels. May there still be many people among us who say: Oh, come now, we want to accept the Gospels as Christians, we feel satisfied with them; Christ speaks from the Gospels, he speaks from the Gospels even when we receive them as they have been handed down through the centuries in the traditional religion. Such people may believe that they are Christians; they may repeat over and over again in their own way: Keep your spiritual knowledge away from us; we have Christ in the Gospels; we want nothing to do with your work on the Gospels. Let these people repeat this, let them imagine that they are good Christians; in truth, they are enemies of Christ. They are those who, out of their own egoism, because they can still declare themselves satisfied with everything that is offered in the traditional interpretation of the Gospels, brush aside what full Christianity will bring to glory in the future. Those who today often believe themselves to be the best Christians are the strongest eradicators of true Christianity. Those who understand the development of Christianity today think in a completely different way, saying: We do not want to be egoists and say: the Gospels are enough for us, we want nothing to do with your abstractions! It is not at all such an abstraction as spiritual science offers. Those are the true Christians who know that humanity today needs something other than the Christianity of the egoists who say: We know that the world can no longer exist with the old tradition of the Gospels; we know that it is necessary in the world for the light from Lucifer's realm to fall upon the Gospels. These people hear the teachings that emerge from the initiation centers of the Rosicrucians, where spiritual abilities have been sharpened through the Luciferic principle in order to penetrate ever more deeply into the Gospels. And for these initiates it has become clear: indeed, the Gospels have such infinite depth that one must not believe that they can be exhausted by this or that. But now the time has come when the Rosicrucians must let their teachings flow out into the world, when the mysteries of the Rosicrucians are called upon to drop what they have gained in sharpening their spiritual powers from the Luciferic world onto the Gospels. It is Western spiritual knowledge that the light which shines forth can be gained from Lucifer's realm and cast upon the Gospels. Spiritual science must become an instrument for interpreting the Gospels; and the greatness, power, and substance of the Gospels will become visible when the light from Lucifer's realm falls on these Gospels by way of the detour gained through the mysteries of the Rosicrucians. Thus it is part of spiritual scientific work to introduce people to the joyful messages of the Christian essence that permeates the world; to let the light that is gained from Lucifer's realm on the path of initiation through the Rosicrucians fall upon the Gospels. Thus we see that Christ, who became the mystical Christ from a God who lived in the outer world, through his ennoblement of the human soul brought it back into that realm which had to remain closed for a while, which was called the Dionysian in ancient times, and which will be reconquered in the times toward which humanity is moving in the future. The explanation of Christ through the spiritual abilities heightened and enlightened by Lucifer is the inner core of the spiritual stream that must flow in the West. And what I have said is the mission of the Rosicrucians for the future. 2Compare the corresponding explanations in my “Secret Science.”

So what is actually happening in the evolution of humanity? What happened and is happening is that Christ and Lucifer, one as the cosmic God and the other as the inner God of humanity, walked side by side in ancient times, so that one was found, so to speak, in the upper regions and the other in the lower regions; that then the world progressed and for a time, far from the earth, knew Dionysus, Lucifer; but that in return one had the experience that the cosmic Christ was penetrating more and more into the earth, permeating the soul more and more, but that now Lucifer was again becoming visible, again recognizable. The paths taken by these two divine-spiritual beings are as follows: they approach from two different sides of the earth; Lucifer becomes invisible when he crosses paths with Christ; he is, as it were, outshone by the light of Christ as the other light. In the past, Christ was found as a cosmic being and Lucifer as an inner human being. They crossed paths. Christ enters the human soul, becomes the planetary spirit of the earth, and increasingly becomes the mystical Christ in human souls, deepened and recognized through inner experiences. The soul thereby becomes increasingly able to see the other being, who has taken the opposite path, from the inner to the outer. Lucifer becomes a cosmic god out of an inner human being, a purely earthly being, where he was sought in the mysteries that led to the lower realm. He will shine more and more in the world we see when we look through the veil of the sensory world. The view of human beings is reversed. Once one has seen Lucifer behind the veil of the inner soul world, once one has seen Christ, like Zarathustra, behind the outer sensory world, one will in the future be able to recognize Christ more and more through contemplation and internalization into one's own being. One will find Lucifer when one directs one's gaze outward into the cosmic region.

Thus, we see a complete reversal of human knowledge in the course of human development: Christ has become from a cosmic God to an earthly God, who is the soul of the earth in the future. Lucifer has become from an earthly God to a cosmic God. And if human beings want to ascend again in the future to the outer spiritual world hidden behind the veil of the sensory world, if they do not want to remain with what is external and only gross material, then they must penetrate through the things of the sensory world into the spiritual world; they must allow themselves to be carried into the light by the “light bearer.” And no abilities to penetrate there will arise in man if he does not create these abilities from the forces that flow to us from Lucifer's realm. Humanity would sink into materialism, remaining forever in the belief that everything is only the outer material world, if it did not ascend to inspiration through the Luciferic principle. If the Christ principle is called upon to make our inner being stronger and stronger, then the Lucifer principle is called upon to sharpen and develop our abilities that should penetrate the world in its full extent. Lucifer will make us stronger and stronger in our understanding and recognition of the world, and Christ will make us stronger and stronger within.