The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture Seventeen

[ 1 ] There are seven secrets of life that have never been spoken of outside of occult brotherhoods until today. Only in the present era is it possible to speak of them exoterically. They are also called the seven unspeakable or nameless secrets.

[ 2 ] Let us try to speak of the fourth secret, the [secret of birth and] death.

[ 3 ] These are the secrets:

[ 4 ] First: The secret of the abyss.

[ 5 ] Second: The secret of numbers. It can be studied in Pythagorean philosophy.

[ 6 ] Third: The secret of alchemy. This can be understood through the works of Paracelsus and Jakob Böhme.

[ 7 ] Fourth: The secret [of birth and] death.

[ 8 ] Fifth: The secret of evil, which is touched upon in the Apocalypse.

[ 9 ] Sixth: The mystery of the Word, the Logos.

[ 10 ] Seventh: The mystery of godliness; it is the most deeply hidden mystery.

[ 11 ] Let us remember that on the planet that preceded our Earth, on the old Moon, we distinguished three natural kingdoms that are completely different from the kingdoms on Earth. Our mineral kingdom did not yet exist. It was born out of the condensation, out of the crystallization, the mineral-vegetable of the Moon. Our plant world sprang from the plant-animal aspect of the moon's development. And what is now the animal world originated from what was the animal-human on the moon. We see, then, that each of these lunar kingdoms underwent a descent toward materialization on Earth. The same is true of the beings who stood above the animal-humans on the moon: the fire spirits. The people of that time breathed that fire as we breathe air today. That is why fire has remained, in a sense, the first manifestation of the gods in legends and myths. Goethe alludes to this in “Faust” when he says:

A little fire-air, which I will prepare,
Will lift us nimbly from this earth.

[ 12 ] These fire spirits of the old moon are embodied in the air within the development of the earth. They have thus also descended into a denser materiality, into the air that we currently breathe in and out. They are this air substance that lives around us and within us and envelops the earth with its atmosphere.

[ 13 ] So when these spirits descended to the air element, when the lunar realms underwent this kind of involutionary development, it was for the purpose that human beings, thanks to their activity, could rise to deification. In fact, a double movement has taken place within each of the two lunar realms: the lowest part has descended, while the part closest to us has ascended. Thus, the animal-human split into two groups, one of which, under the influence of the respiration and activity of the fire spirits transformed into air spirits, worked on the formation of its brain, while the remaining group descended into the animal kingdom. This division is reflected in the constitution of human beings themselves, whose lower part approaches the animal, while the upper part strives toward the spiritual. Depending on which of these characteristics was more or less pronounced, two different types of human beings gradually emerged: one, corresponding to their lower nature, primarily bound to the earth, the other, more highly developed, detached from the earth. The former fell back into animality. The latter were able to take in the divine spark within themselves, the consciousness of the self. Such is the relationship that actually exists between humans and animals, and in particular with apes. The physical correlate of this spiritual development was the growth and unfolding of the human brain, which became a temple in which the deity could dwell.

[ 14 ] But if only this development had taken place, something would still have been missing. There would have been minerals, plants, animals, even humans with developed brains, capable of reaching the present human form. But something would have remained at the lunar stage. On the old moon, there was neither birth nor death.

[ 15 ] Imagine the human constitution without the physical body: there would be no death, and the renewal of the being would take place in a different way than through the present birth. Parts of the astral body and the etheric body would be renewed through exchange, but the composition would remain constant. The center would remain unchanged; only the surfaces would be the site of exchange with the external environment. That is how it was on the moon: human beings merely underwent metamorphoses, neither birth nor death, but a ceaseless transformation. But at that stage, they had not yet attained self-consciousness. The gods who had formed him were around him, behind him, but not within him. They were, for their part, what the tree is to the branch or what the brain is to the hand. The hand moves, but the awareness of the movement is in the brain. Man was a branch on the divine tree, and if his development on earth had not changed this state, his brain would have been only a blossom on this divine tree, his thoughts would have been reflected in the mirror of his physiognomy, but he would have known nothing of his own thoughts. Our Earth would have been a world of beings endowed with thoughts but not with self-awareness, a world of statues animated by the gods, and in particular by Yahweh or Jehovah. What happened to change the state of affairs, and how did humans achieve independence?

[ 16 ] If there are several classes in a school, there are children who go through them all and others who do not get that far. The gods of Yahweh's retinue were ready to descend into the human brain. But other spirits, who belonged to the fire spirits on the moon, had not completed their development, and instead of entering the human brain on earth, they connected themselves with the human astral body. This astral body consists of instincts, desires, and passions. The fire spirits who had not reached their goal of development on the moon withdrew into this body. They found a dwelling place in the animal nature of man, where passions arise, and at the same time they gave these passions a higher impetus. They allowed enthusiasm to flow into the blood and the astral body. The Jehovah gods had given the pure, cold form of the idea; but through these spirits, which can be called Luciferic, human beings became capable of enthusiasm for ideas and of taking passionate sides for or against them. If the Jehovah gods modeled the human brain, the Luciferic spirits connected this brain to the physical senses through the branches of the nerves that end in the sense organs. Lucifer lives in us just as long as Jehovah.

[ 17 ] Everything that flows through the senses and gives man an objective awareness of his surroundings is due to the Luciferic spirits. If he owes his thought life to the gods, he owes it to Lucifer that he becomes aware of it. Lucifer lives in his astral body and is active in his sensory life, which is mediated by the nerves. That is why the serpent in Genesis says: Your eyes will be opened. These words can be taken literally, for in the course of time the Luciferic spirits have opened up the senses of human beings.

[ 18 ] Consciousness becomes individualized through the senses. Without reference to the sensory world, human thoughts would be nothing more than reflections of the deity, acts of faith, not of knowledge. The contradictions between faith and science arise from this dual origin of human thought. Faith turns to eternal ideas, to the primordial mothers who derive from the gods; science, the knowledge of the outer world through the senses, comes from the Luciferic spirits. Man has become what he is by combining the Luciferic principle with divine reason. This combination of two opposing principles within him gives him the potential for evil, but at the same time also the means to gain self-awareness, to examine critically, and to be free. Only a being predisposed to individualization could be helped by this opposition of elements within him. If, when he descended into matter, man had received only the form given to him by Jehovah, he would have remained impersonal.

[ 19 ] Lucifer is therefore the principle that allows man to truly become a human being independent of the gods. The Christ or Logos revealed in man is the principle that allows him to ascend to divinity again.

[ 20 ] In pre-Christian times, the Jehovah principle, which gave man his form, and the Lucifer principle, which individualized him, reigned in man. He was divided between obedience to the law and the rebellion of the individual. But the Christ principle came to establish a balance between the two by teaching that the law, which had first been given from outside, could be found within the individual himself. This is explained by Paul, who derives the Christian principle from freedom and love: the law governed the old covenant as love governs the new. — We thus find in man three principles that are inseparable and necessary for his development: Jehovah, Lucifer, Christ.

[ 21 ] But Christ Jesus is not merely an indefinite principle in the world. He is a being who appeared only once, at a specific moment in history. In human form, through his words and life, he revealed a state of perfection that all humans will attain at the end of time through their own free will. He appeared at the height of a terrible crisis, when humanity's downward trajectory was about to reach its lowest point in materialization.

[ 22 ] If the Christ principle was to be awakened in human beings, it was necessary for it to appear on earth in a human being and for the Christ to have lived.

[ 23 ] Karma and Christ are the epitome of the whole of evolution. Karma is the law of cause and effect in the spiritual world; it is the spiral of development. The Christ force intervenes in the development of this karmic line as a guiding axis. Since the arrival of Christ on earth, this force has been found at the core of every human soul.

[ 24 ] But if one sees karma as nothing more than a necessity imposed on human beings to make amends for their wrongdoing and atone for their errors through an unforgiving justice that works from one incarnation to the next, then one supports the occasional objection that the law of karma negates the redemptive role of Christ. In reality, karma is, on the one hand, the redemption of man through himself, through his own efforts, through his gradual ascent to freedom in the course of reincarnations, and, on the other hand, that which brings man closer to Christ. For the Christ force is the fundamental impulse that leads man in freedom to the transformation of the irreconcilable law, and the source of this impulse is the person and example of Christ Jesus. It is no longer necessary to see karma as a curse; rather, it should be understood as the necessary means to attain the highest freedom, life in Christ—a freedom that is not achieved by mistrusting the order of things, but by understanding it. Karma does not abolish grace or Christ; on the contrary, it finds them assigned to the whole of evolution.

[ 25 ] Another objection can be made from the point of view of Eastern wisdom. The idea of a savior who comes to the aid of human beings, it is said, suppresses the logical connections of karma and replaces the great universal law of development with the sudden intervention of miraculous grace. It is only fair that those who have committed mistakes should also bear their severity.

[ 26 ] However, this is a mistake. Karma is the law of cause and effect for the spiritual world, just as mechanics is the law of cause and effect in the material world. At every moment of life, karma represents something like a businessman's balance sheet, the exact figures of debits and credits. With every action, whether good or bad, man increases his debits or his credits. Anyone who does not want to admit an act of freedom would be like a merchant who does not want to take the risk of a new business venture and would always remain at the same level on the balance sheet.

[ 27 ] A purely logical view of karma would forbid helping a person in misfortune. But that is precisely where fatalism would prove to be wrong, and the help we give to another of our own free will opens a new chapter in their destiny. Our destinies are woven from such impulses, such acts of grace. But if we accept the idea of individual help, can we not also understand that someone who is capable of much more than we are can help not only an individual, but all people, and indeed bring a new impulse to the whole of humanity? Well, such is the deed of a God who became human, which did not happen to contradict the laws of karma, but to help fulfill them.

[ 28 ] Karma and Christ complement each other like the means of salvation and the savior. Through karma, the deed of Christ becomes a cosmic law, and through the Christ principle, the revealed Logos, karma achieves its goal, namely the liberation of souls to self-consciousness and their equality with God. The law of destiny is gradual salvation; Christ is the savior.

[ 29 ] If people would imbibe these ideas, they would feel that they belong to one another and would understand the law that prevails in the occult brotherhoods: that each one suffers and lives for the other.

[ 30 ] In the future, we will reach a point where the principle of external redemption for every human being will coincide with the activity of the Redeemer within the human being.

[ 31 ] It is not revelation, but truth that sets people free: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

[ 32 ] The path of our development leads to freedom. When human beings have awakened within themselves all that is prophetically contained in the Christ principle, they will have become free. For if necessity is the law of the material world, freedom reigns in the spiritual world. Freedom can only be conquered step by step, and it will not appear in its totality in man until the point in his development when his nature is truly spiritualized.