The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] Today we will consider the question of what contemporary human beings actually gain from spiritual science as it is understood here. We will answer this question on the basis of many things we have learned in the course of our lectures, especially those given last winter. At first glance, it might seem to people that spiritual science is a worldview like other worldviews that exist today. One might think: the riddles of existence are there; people try with the most diverse means at their disposal, through religion or science, to answer these riddles of existence, or, as one says, to satisfy their thirst for knowledge, their curiosity. One could now place this spiritual science alongside other contemporary worldviews, whether they be called materialism, monism, spiritualism, idealism, realism, and so on. One could place them alongside other contemporary worldviews as something intended to satisfy mere curiosity. But that is not the case. Rather, in what human beings acquire through this spiritual science, they have a positive, lasting asset that not only satisfies their thoughts and their need for knowledge, but is a real factor in life itself. If we want to understand this, we must take a broader view today. We must consider the course of human development from a very specific point of view. We have done this many times before. Today, however, we want to do it again from a different point of view.

[ 2 ] We have often looked back to the times that preceded the great Atlantic flood, when our ancestors, that is, our own souls, lived in the bodies of their ancestors on the ancient Atlantic continent between Europe, Africa, and America. And we have looked back to those even more ancient times, which we call the Lemurian times, when the human souls that are now incarnated were at a much lower stage of existence than today. We want to return to this period today. Let us first say this: Human beings have attained their present level of sentient life, will life, and intelligence, indeed their present form, through the cooperation in earthly existence of spiritual beings who stand higher in the universe than human beings. We have often discussed which spiritual beings are involved. We have spoken of the spirits we call the Thrones, the spirits of wisdom, spirits of movement, of form, of personality, and so on.

[ 3 ] These are the great architects and builders of existence; these are the beings who have brought our human race forward step by step to our present stage of existence. Now we must make it very clear to ourselves that other spirits and other beings have intervened besides those who are advancing human development. In a certain sense, spiritual beings who are hostile to the advancing spiritual powers have intervened. And for each of these periods, both for the Lemurian and the Atlantean epochs, as well as for our post-Atlantean time in which we live, we can indicate which spiritual beings, so to speak, brought about the hindrances, which spiritual beings were hostile to those who simply wanted to advance humanity.

[ 4 ] In the Lemurian epoch, the first one that concerns us today in our earthly existence, the Luciferic beings intervened in human development. They are in a certain hostile relationship to those forces that at that time simply wanted to advance humanity. In the Atlantean epoch, the spirits we call the spirits of Ahriman or Mephistopheles stood in opposition to the forces of progress. Ahrimanic spirits, Mephistophelean spirits, are those who, strictly speaking, were called the spirits of Satan in medieval thinking, not to be confused with Lucifer.

[ 5 ] In our age, other spiritual beings will gradually step in the way of those advancing, hindering them. We will speak about them later. We will now first ask ourselves what these Luciferic spirits actually accomplished in the ancient Lemurian age.

[ 6 ] Today we want to look at all this from a very specific point of view. Where did the Luciferic spirits actually intervene in the ancient Lemurian epoch? You will understand best what this is all about if you look back once more at how human beings developed.

[ 7 ] You know how human beings developed on ancient Saturn through the pouring out of the thrones and their own substance, and that the first foundation was laid there for the human physical body. We know that the spirits of wisdom on the sun then imprinted the etheric or life body, and that the spirits of movement on the old moon imprinted the astral body. Now it was up to the spirits of form to give humans the ego on Earth, so that by distinguishing themselves from their surroundings, they could become independent beings in a certain sense. But even if human beings had become independent beings in relation to the external world, in relation to what surrounds them on Earth, through the spirits of form, they would never have become independent beings in relation to these spirits of form themselves; they would have remained dependent on them, guided and directed by them. That this did not happen is, in a certain sense, the beneficial effect of the fact that in the Lemurian epoch the Luciferic beings opposed the spirits of form. These Luciferic beings gave human beings the right to freedom. However, in doing so they also gave human beings the possibility of evil, the possibility of falling into sensual passions and desires. What exactly did these Luciferic spirits intervene in? They intervened in what was there, namely in what was last given to human beings, in the astral body, which at that time was, in a certain sense, the innermost part of the human being. They established themselves there and took possession of it. If the Luciferic beings had not come, only the spirits of form would have taken possession of this astral body. They would have imprinted on this astral body those forces that give human beings their human form, that make them the image of the gods, the spirits of form. All this would have become part of human beings, but they would have remained dependent on these spirits of form throughout their lives, throughout all eternity.

[ 8 ] Now the Luciferic beings have, as it were, crept into the astral body, so that now two kinds of beings are at work in the astral body: those beings that drive human beings forward, and those beings that, while hindering human beings in this unrestrained forward movement, make their independence inwardly more stable. If the Luciferic beings had not come, man would have remained in a state of innocence and purity in his astral body. No passions would have arisen in him that would have made him desire what he can find on earth alone. The Luciferic beings made the passions, instincts, and desires denser and lower, so to speak. If the Luciferic beings had not come, humans would have remained as they were, constantly longing to return to their home, to the spiritual realms from which they had descended. He would not have found pleasure in what surrounds him on earth; he could not possibly have found any interest in earthly impressions. It was through the Luciferic spirits that he came to have this interest, this desire for earthly impressions. They forced him into the earthly sphere by permeating his innermost being, his astral body. How did it come about that at that time human beings did not completely fall away from the spirits of form or from the higher spiritual realms altogether? How did it come about that human beings did not completely succumb to their interests and desires in the sensory world?

[ 9 ] This came about because the spirits who advance human beings took countermeasures. They took countermeasures in such a way that they permeated the human being with something that would not otherwise be in the human being; they permeated it with illness, suffering, and pain. This became the necessary counterweight to the deeds of the Luciferic spirits.

[ 10 ] The Luciferic spirits gave human beings sensual desires; the higher beings took their countermeasures in the sense that human beings could no longer necessarily fall prey to this sensory world by placing illness and suffering in the wake of sensual desires and sensual interests, so that there is exactly as much suffering and pain in the world as there is mere interest in the physical, sensory world. Both are completely balanced, neither is more prevalent in the world: there are as many sensual desires and sensual passions as there are illness and pain. This was the mutual interaction of the Luciferic spirits and the spirits of form in the Lemurian epoch. If these Luciferic spirits had not come, human beings would not have descended into the earthly sphere so early. His passion, his desire for the sensual world, also caused him to open his eyes earlier, to be able to see the whole circle of sensual existence earlier. If things had proceeded regularly according to the advancing spirits, man would not have seen the environment until the middle of the Atlantean epoch. But they would have seen it spiritually, not as they do today; they would have seen it in such a way that it would have been the expression of spiritual beings everywhere. Because human beings were brought down prematurely into the earthly sphere, because their earthly interests and desires pushed them down, things turned out differently than they would have in the middle of the Atlantean epoch.

[ 11 ] As a result, the Ahrimanic spirits, those spirits that can also be called Mephistophelean spirits, mixed into what human beings were able to see and understand. As a result, human beings fell into error, fell into what could actually be called conscious sin. So from the middle of the Atlantean epoch onwards, the host of Ahrimanic spirits has been influencing human beings. What, then, has this host of Ahrimanic spirits seduced human beings into doing? It has seduced them into thinking that what is in their environment is material, that they cannot see through this material to the true foundations of the material, to the spiritual. If human beings could see the spiritual in every stone, in every plant, and in every animal, they would never fall into error and thus into evil. Instead, if only the advancing spirits had worked upon them, human beings would have been preserved from those illusions to which they must always fall if they rely solely on the statements of the sensory world.

[ 12 ] What, then, have those spiritual beings who want to preserve man in his progress undertaken against this seduction, against error and illusion arising from the senses? They have taken steps to ensure that human beings are now actually, and rightly so—of course this has come about slowly and gradually, but here lie the forces that have brought it about—enabled, so to speak, to gain the possibility of overcoming error, sin, and evil from within the sensory world. In other words, they have given human beings the opportunity to bear and work out their karma. So if those beings who had to make amends for the seduction of the Luciferic beings brought suffering and pain, and indeed everything connected with it, including death, into the world, then those beings who had to repair what flowed from the error about the sensory world gave human beings the opportunity to eliminate all error through their karma, to wipe out all evil that they have wrought in the world. For what would have happened if human beings had fallen prey only to evil and error? Then human beings would gradually have become, so to speak, one with error, and it would have been impossible for them to progress; for with every error, with every lie, with every illusion, we place an obstacle in the way of progress. We would always regress in our progress by as much as we throw obstacles in our way through error and sin, if we were not able to correct error and sin, that is, we could not truly achieve the goal of humanity. It would be impossible to achieve the goal of humanity if the opposing forces, the forces of karma, did not work.

[ 13 ] Consider that you commit some wrongdoing in one life. This wrongdoing that you have committed means, if it were to remain in your life, nothing less than that you have lost the step forward that you would have taken if you had not committed the wrongdoing. And with every wrongdoing, you would lose a step, and it would be ensured that enough steps would be taken backward. If there were no possibility of rising above error, human beings would ultimately sink into error. But this is how the blessing of karma comes into play. What does this blessing mean for human beings? Is karma something that human beings should fear, something that should make them shudder? No! Karma is a power for which human beings should actually be grateful to the world plans. For karma tells us: If you have committed an error, God will not allow you to mock him! What you have sown, you must also reap. This error causes you to have to correct it; then you have erased it from your karma and you can move forward again.

[ 14 ] Without karma, our progress in the human career would be impossible. Karma does us the favor of requiring us to make up for every mistake, to destroy everything we have done backwards. Thus, karma arose as a consequence of the deeds of Ahriman.

[ 15 ] And now let us go further. In our time we are approaching an age in which other beings will approach human beings, beings who will intervene more and more in human development in the future that lies before us. Just as the Luciferic spirits intervened in the Lemurian epoch and the Ahrimanic spirits in the Atlantean epoch, so too will beings gradually intervene in our epoch. Let us consider what these beings will be.

[ 16 ] The beings that interfered in the Lemurian epoch, we had to say, had settled in the astral body of the human being and pulled his interests, his instincts, and his desires down into the earthly sphere. Where exactly did these Luciferic beings settle?

[ 17 ] You can only understand this if you take as your basis the division given in my book Theosophy. There it is shown that we must first distinguish in human beings their physical body, then their etheric or life body, and their astral body, or, as I called it there, the sentient body or soul body.

[ 18 ] When we consider these three members, they are precisely the three members that were given to human beings before their earthly career. What is called the physical body was laid down on ancient Saturn, what is called the etheric body was laid down on the Sun, and what is called the soul or feeling body was laid down on the ancient Moon. Now, on Earth, the sentient soul has gradually been added, which is actually an unconscious transformation, an unconscious processing of the sentient body. Lucifer has anchored himself in the sentient soul; he has crept in there and sits inside. Furthermore, through the unconscious processing of the etheric body, the intellectual soul has arisen. More details about this are given in the treatise on “The Education of the Child.” In this second member of the human soul, the intellectual soul, that is, in the transformed part of the etheric body, Ahriman has established himself. There he is, leading human beings to false judgments about the material world, leading them to error, sin, and lies, to everything that comes from the intellectual or emotional soul. In all this, for example, in the fact that human beings give themselves over to the illusion that matter is the source of all that is right, we see the whisperings of Ahriman, of Mephistopheles. Thirdly comes the consciousness soul, which consists of an unconscious transformation of the physical body. You will remember how this transformation took place. Towards the end of the Atlantean epoch, the etheric body of the head entered completely into the physical head and gradually transformed the physical body so that it became a self-conscious entity. Human beings are still working on this unconscious transformation of the physical body, on the consciousness soul. And in the time that is now coming, those spiritual beings called the Asuras will creep into this consciousness soul and thus into what is called the human I, for the I is absorbed into the consciousness soul. The Asuras will develop evil with a much more intense power than even the satanic forces of the Atlantean era or the Luciferic spirits of the Lemurian era.

[ 19 ] They will completely strip away all the evil that the Luciferic spirits brought to humanity along with the blessing of freedom. The evil brought by the Ahrimanic spirits can be stripped away in the course of karmic law. But the evil brought by the Asuric powers cannot be atoned for in this way. If the good spirits gave humans pain and suffering, illness and death so that they could develop upward despite the possibility of evil, the good spirits gave them the possibility of karma in relation to the Ahrimanic powers in order to compensate for the error—in relation to the Asuric spirits, this will not be so easy in the course of earthly existence. For these Asuric spirits will cause that which they have seized—and this is the deepest core of the human being, the consciousness soul with the I—to unite with the sensuality of the earth. It will be torn out of the I piece by piece, and to the same extent that the Asuric spirits establish themselves in the consciousness soul, to the same extent must human beings leave behind pieces of their existence on earth. What has fallen into the hands of the Asuric powers will be irretrievably lost. Not that the whole human being needs to fall prey to them, but pieces will be cut out of the human spirit by the asuric forces. These asuric forces announce themselves in our age through the spirit that prevails and which we could call the spirit of mere life in sensuality and of forgetfulness of all real spiritual beings and spiritual worlds. One could say that today it is more theoretical that the Asuric forces seduce people. Today they often delude them into believing that their ego is a result of the mere physical world. Today they seduce him into a kind of theoretical materialism. But in the further course of events — and this is becoming increasingly apparent through the wild passions of sensuality that are descending more and more upon the earth — they will darken man's view of spiritual beings and spiritual powers. Man will know nothing and want to know nothing about a spiritual world. He will increasingly teach not only that the highest moral ideas of man are only higher forms of animal instincts; he will not only teach that human thinking is only a transformation of what animals also have; he will not only teach that man is related to animals not only in form, but that he also descends from animals in his entire being; but man will take this view seriously and live accordingly.

[ 20 ] Today, no one lives according to the principle that man is descended from animals in terms of his essence. But this worldview will inevitably come, and it will have the consequence that people with this worldview will also live like animals, sinking down into mere animal instincts and animal passions. And in many things that need not be characterized further here, things that are now manifesting themselves, especially in the big cities, as wild orgies of senseless sensuality, we already see the grotesque hellish glow of those spirits whom we call the Asuras.

[ 21 ] Let us turn our gaze back once more. We have said that it was the spirits who want to advance humanity who sent suffering and pain and also death to humanity. In the biblical record it is clearly announced: In pain you shall bring forth your children! Death has come into the world. That is what the powers opposed to the Luciferic powers imposed on humanity. Who gave humans karma, who gave humans the possibility of karma in the first place? You will only understand what is now being said if you do not adhere pedantically to earthly concepts of time. With the earthly concept of time, humans believe that what happens here or there can only have an effect in relation to what follows. In the spiritual world, however, what happens manifests itself in its effects beforehand; its effects are already present beforehand. Where does the benefit of karma come from? Where in our earthly evolution did this benefit actually arise, that karma exists? Karma comes from no other force in the entire evolution than from Christ.

[ 22 ] Even though Christ appeared later, He had always been present in the spiritual sphere of the earth. Already in the ancient Atlantean oracles, the oracle priests spoke of the spirit of the sun, of Christ. The holy Rishis in the Indian cultural period spoke of Vishva Karman; Zarathustra spoke of Ahura Mazdao in Persia. Hermes spoke of Osiris; and he spoke of that power which, through its eternity, is the balance of all nature, of that power which lives in the “Ehjeh asher ehjeh,” the forerunner of Christ, Moses. All spoke of Christ; but where was he to be found in those ancient times? Only where the spiritual eye could see, in the spiritual world. He was always to be found in the spiritual world, and he was active in the spiritual world, active from the spiritual world. He is the one who sent down to man, before he appeared on earth, the possibility of karma. Then he appeared on earth himself, and we know what he became for human beings through his appearance on earth. We have described his effects in the earthly sphere itself. We have presented the significance of the event of Golgotha. We have also described his effect on those who were not embodied in the earthly body at the time of the event of Golgotha, who were in the spiritual world at that time. We know that at the moment when the blood flowed from the wounds on Golgotha, the spirit of Christ appeared in the underworld, and we have said: Then there was an illumination, an enlightenment throughout the entire spiritual world; in short, we said that the appearance of Christ on earth is the most important event, even for the world that human beings pass through between death and rebirth.

[ 23 ] It is a thoroughly real effect that emanates from this Christ. We need only ask ourselves what would have happened to the earth if Christ had not appeared. It is precisely in the counter-image of a Christless earth that you can gauge the full significance of Christ's appearance. Let us suppose that Christ had not appeared, that the event of Golgotha had not taken place at the time when Christ appeared.

[ 24 ] Before the appearance of Christ, the souls of the most advanced human beings, who had acquired the deepest interest in earthly life, found themselves in the spiritual world in such a state that the saying of the Greek really applied to them: Better to be a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of shadows. For the souls in the spiritual world felt lonely and in a dark environment before the event of Golgotha took place. At that time, the spiritual world was not transparent in all its luminous clarity to those who entered it through the gate of death. Everyone felt alone, pushed back into themselves, as if a wall had been erected between them and everyone else. And this would have become stronger and stronger. People would have hardened in their egos, they would have been completely turned in on themselves, and no one would have found a bridge to others. People would have been reincarnated, and if egoism had already been very great before, it would have become monstrous with each new incarnation.

[ 25 ] The whole of earthly existence would have made people more and more into the most desolate egoists. There would have been no prospect of brotherhood, of inner harmony of souls, ever coming about on earth; for with each passage through the spiritual realm, stronger influences would have entered the ego. That would have happened on a Christless earth. The fact that human beings are gradually finding their way back from soul to soul, that they are gaining the possibility of pouring out the great power of brotherhood upon the whole of humanity, is due to the fact that Christ appeared, that the event of Golgotha took place. Thus, Christ appears as the power that made it possible for human beings to make use of their earthly existence in the appropriate way, that is, to shape their karma in the appropriate way. For karma must be worked out on earth. That human beings find the strength to improve their karma in the appropriate way during their earthly physical existence, that they are given the opportunity to find progressive development, is thanks to the effect of the Christ event, the presence of Christ in the earthly sphere.

[ 26 ] Thus we see how the most diverse forces and beings work together in the course of human development. If Christ had not come to earth—we can now see clearly what we could previously only hint at when we said that human beings would have sunk into error because they would have become increasingly hardened, becoming, so to speak, a sphere unto themselves, knowing nothing of other beings, completely closed in on themselves. Error and sin would have driven human beings into this state.

[ 27 ] Thus, Christ is the guide of light who leads out of error and sin; and through this, human beings are able to find the way upward. Now we ask ourselves: What did man lose by descending from the spiritual world, that he became entangled under the influence of Lucifer in desires and passions and then, through the influence of Ahriman, in error, illusion, and lies in relation to the earthly world? He lost his direct insight into the spiritual world; man lost his understanding of the spiritual world.

[ 28 ] What, then, must man regain? Man must regain his full understanding of the spiritual world. And the deed of Christ can only be grasped by man as a self-conscious being when he comes to a full understanding of the meaning of Christ. Certainly, the power of Christ is there. Man did not bring the power of Christ to earth. The power of Christ came to earth through Christ. Through Christ, the possibility of karma entered into humanity. But now man, as a self-conscious being, must recognize the nature of Christ and Christ's connection with the whole world. Only in this way can human beings truly act as an I. What does a human being do if, now that Christ has been here, they do not just allow the power of Christ to work on them unconsciously, if they do not just say, so to speak: I am already satisfied that Christ was here, he will redeem me and ensure that I progress! But when human beings say to themselves: I want to recognize what Christ is, how he descended, I want to participate in the deed of Christ through my spirit! What do human beings do thereby?

[ 29 ] Remember that through the Luciferic spirits creeping into the human astral body, man descended into the sensory world, and through this he was indeed able to fall into evil, but he also gained the possibility of self-conscious freedom. Lucifer is in the nature of man, has brought man down to earth, so to speak, entangled him in earthly existence by first leading the passions and desires that were in the astral body into the earth, so that Ahriman could then also attack in the etheric body, in the soul of the intellect. Now Christ has appeared, and with him the power that can carry human beings back up into the spiritual world. But now human beings can recognize Christ if they want to! Now human beings can gather all the wisdom they need to recognize Christ. What do they do by doing this? Something tremendous! When human beings recognize Christ, when they truly engage with the wisdom needed to understand what Christ is, then they redeem themselves and the Luciferic beings through their knowledge of Christ. If man were to say to himself: I am satisfied that Christ was there, I will let myself be redeemed unconsciously! — then man would never contribute anything to the redemption of the Luciferic beings. These Luciferic beings, who have brought freedom to man, also give him the opportunity to use this freedom in a free way in order to see through Christ. Then, purified and cleansed in the fire of Christianity, the Luciferic spirits will be transformed, and what has been sinned on earth through the Luciferic spirits will be transformed from sin into a blessing. Freedom has been won, but it will be taken into the spiritual sphere as a blessing. That man can do this, that he is able to recognize Christ, that Lucifer will rise again in a new form and unite with Christ as the Holy Spirit, Christ Himself said as a prophecy to those who were around Him when He said: You can be enlightened with the new Spirit, with the Holy Spirit! This Holy Spirit is none other than the one through whom what Christ actually did is understood. Christ did not want merely to work; he also wanted to be understood, he wanted to be comprehended. That is why it belongs to Christianity that the Spirit who inspires human beings, the Holy Spirit, is sent to human beings.

[ 30 ] In a spiritual sense, Pentecost belongs to Easter and cannot be separated from Easter. This Holy Spirit is none other than the resurrected Luciferic spirit, now risen in purer, higher glory, the spirit of independent, wise knowledge. Christ himself prophesied to human beings that this spirit would appear after him and that his work must be continued in his spirit. And what continues to work in his spirit? When it is understood, the spiritual-scientific world current continues to work in his spirit! What is the spiritual-scientific world current? It is the wisdom of the spirit, the wisdom that raises to full consciousness that which would otherwise remain unconscious in Christianity.

[ 31 ] Christ is carried forward by the torch of the resurrected Lucifer, who has now been transformed for good. He carries Christ himself. He is the bearer of light; Christ is the light. Lucifer is, as the word means, the bearer of light. But this is what the spiritual scientific movement should be, this is what is to be understood by it. And those who have understood that the progress of humanity depends on the understanding of the great event of Golgotha are those who are united as masters of wisdom and harmony of feelings in the great guiding lodge of humanity. And just as once, in a living symbol of the world, the fiery tongues descended upon the congregation, so now that which Christ himself sent as the Holy Spirit reigns as the light above the Lodge of the Twelve. The thirteenth is the leader of the Lodge of the Twelve. The Holy Spirit is the great teacher of those whom we call the masters of wisdom and harmony of feelings. They are the ones through whom his voice and his teachings flow down to humanity in this or that stream. What is gathered in the spiritual scientific movement in order to understand the world and the spirits within it flows through the Holy Spirit into the Lodge of the Twelve, and this is ultimately what will gradually bring humanity to a self-conscious, free understanding of Christ and the event of Golgotha. Thus, to pursue spiritual science is to understand that Christ sent the Spirit into the world, so that it is true Christianity to pursue spiritual science. This will become clearer and clearer to people. Then they will realize that they have something in spiritual science that is a positive asset in life. What spiritual science gives people is that they gradually become aware of Christ as the spirit that illuminates the world. As a result, people here on earth, in the physical world, will progress in moral terms, in terms of the will, and in intellectual terms. Through physical life, the world will become increasingly spiritualized. People will become better, stronger, and wiser, and they will look deeper and deeper into the deep foundations and sources of existence. They will take the fruits they have conquered here in this sensory life into the supersensible life, and they will bring them back again and again from the supersensible life in a new incarnation.

[ 32 ] In this way, the earth will become more and more the expression of its spirit, the Christ spirit. Thus, spiritual science will gradually be understood from the foundations of the world. People will understand that it is a positive, real power. Today, humanity is close to losing its spirit entirely at various points. Just recently, it was said in a public lecture how people today suffer from the fear of heredity. The fear of hereditary burdens is truly an addition of our materialistic age. But is it enough for people to give in to the illusion that they do not need to have this fear? That is by no means enough. People who do not care about the spiritual world, who do not pour into their souls what can flow from the spiritual scientific movement, are subject to what comes from the physical line of inheritance. Only by asserting themselves with what they can receive from the spiritual-scientific stream of consciousness can human beings become masters over what flows down from their hereditary line, render it insignificant, and become victorious over everything in the outer world that approaches them through hindering forces. It is not by philosophizing it away, by arguing it out, by saying that there is a spirit, that human beings gain dominion over the sensual, but by permeating themselves with this spirit, by truly taking it into themselves, by truly having the will to get to know it in all its details. Then people in the physical world will also become healthier and healthier through spiritual science. For spiritual science itself will become the remedy that makes people beautiful and healthy in the physical world.

[ 33 ] The real power of spiritual science will become even clearer to us when we take a look at what man enters when he passes through the gate of death. This is something that people today find very difficult to understand. People think: Why should I concern myself with what goes on in the spiritual world? When I die, I will go to the spiritual world anyway, and then I will see and hear what is there! You can hear this in countless variations, this convenient way of thinking: Oh, why should I bother with spiritual matters before I die? I will find out what it is when I get there; it can't change my relationship to the spiritual world whether I concern myself with it here or not! But that is not the case. People who think like this will encounter a dark and gloomy world. It will be as if they cannot distinguish much from what you find described in my book Theosophy about the spiritual worlds. For it is only because human beings here in the physical world connect their spirit and soul with the spiritual world that they are able to see, by preparing themselves for it here. The spiritual world is there; you must acquire the ability to see it here on earth, otherwise you are blind in the spiritual world. Thus, spiritual science is the power that gives you the opportunity to consciously enter the spiritual world in the first place. If Christ had not appeared in the physical world, human beings would sink into the physical world and would not be able to enter the spiritual world. But now they are lifted up by Christ into the spiritual world, where they become conscious and can see. This depends on their knowing how to connect with the one whom Christ sent, with the spirit; otherwise they remain unconscious. Man must earn his immortality, for immortality that is unconscious is not yet immortality. Meister Eckhart already said the beautiful words: What good is it for a man to be a king if he does not know that he is one? By this he meant: What use is the entire spiritual world to man if he does not know what the spiritual worlds are? You can only acquire the ability to see the spiritual world in the physical world. Those who ask, “Why did man descend into the physical world in the first place?” should take this to heart. Man descended so that he could become able to see the spiritual world here. They would remain blind to the spiritual world if they had not descended and acquired the self-conscious being with which they can return to the spiritual world, so that it now lies luminous before their soul.

[ 34 ] Thus, spiritual science is not merely a worldview, but something without which human beings cannot know anything about the immortal worlds in their immortal part. Spiritual science is a real power, something that flows into the soul as a reality. And as you sit here and engage in spiritual science, you not only learn something, but you grow into something you would not otherwise be. That is the difference between spiritual science and other worldviews. All other worldviews relate to knowledge; anthroposophy relates to the being of the human being.

[ 35 ] If one puts things together in the right way, one must say: It is precisely in this light that Christ, the spirit, and the whole of spiritual science appear in an inner, essential connection. In the face of such a connection, everything that can be said superficially today will disappear, such as that a Western direction is antagonistically interfering with an Eastern direction of occultism. There can be no question of that. There are not two occultisms; there is only one occultism. And there is no contradiction between Western and Eastern spiritual science. There is only one truth. And if we are asked: Yes, if Eastern and Western occultism are the same, why is Christ not recognized in Eastern occultism? What answer can be given to this? The answer is that it is not for us to answer. It is not our duty to give an answer, for we recognize full Eastern occultism. Ask us: Do we recognize what Eastern occultism says about Brahma, about the Buddha? Yes, we recognize it. We understand when we are told that in this or that way the Buddha ascended to his height. We do not deny a single Eastern truth. We stand firmly on the ground of recognizing all Eastern truths insofar as they are positive. But should that prevent us from also recognizing what goes beyond them? Never! We recognize what Eastern occultism says, but that does not prevent us from also recognizing what exists in Western truths.

[ 36 ] When we are told that it is a low-minded view of Orientalists to say that Buddha died from overeating pork – as the learned gentlemen claim – and we are taught that this has a deeper meaning, namely that Buddha gave too much of his esoteric wisdom to those who were initially around him, so that they initially had a kind of karma from this overload, we admit this; we say: Of course, behind this lie the deeper esoteric wisdom, which we do not yet understand. too much esoteric wisdom, so that he initially had a kind of karma from this overabundance, we admit it; we say: Of course, behind this lie the deeper esoteric wisdom that you claim to have, you Eastern esotericists. But when we are then told that no one can understand that John received the Apocalypse amid thunder and lightning on Patmos, then we say: Everyone who knows what is meant by this knows that it is true. We do not deny this; but we cannot agree with those who deny that the other is true. It does not occur to us to say anything against the statement that the astral body of Buddha has been preserved and later incorporated into Shankaracharya. But that cannot prevent us from teaching that the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth was preserved and appeared in so many images and was incorporated into various people who worked in the spirit of Christianity at that time, such as Francis of Assisi or Elizabeth of Thuringia. We do not deny a single truth of Eastern esotericism; we deny at most what it denies about Western esotericism. So when we are asked, “Why is something denied?” Why is there opposition? —it is not for us to answer. For it would be for us to answer if we had any opposition within ourselves. We have none! The duty of answering lies with the one who denies something, not with the one who admits something. That is quite self-evident. And from this starting point, in the coming weeks you will be able to let the connection between spiritual science and the event of Golgotha sink into your soul, and you will be able to lift the entire profession and mission of the spiritual scientific world movement into a higher sphere, because it is the fulfillment of that inspiration, that power which Christ called the Spirit.

[ 37 ] Thus we see how powers interact in the world, how everything that seems to oppose the progress of humanity ultimately proves to be a blessing. We also see that in the post-Christian era, from age to age, the spirit that has liberated humanity will reappear in a new form—the leading light bearer Lucifer will find his redemption. For everything in the world plan is good, and evil only exists for a certain period of time. Therefore, only those who confuse the temporal with the eternal believe in the eternity of evil; and therefore, those who do not ascend from the temporal to the eternal can never understand evil.