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The Gospel of St. John
in Relation to the Other Three Gospels
GA 112

29 Jun 1909, Kassel

6. The Atlantean Oracles

Yesterday we drew attention to the existence of great leaders of mankind as far back as the epoch we call the Atlantean period of human evolution. We know from what was brought forth yesterday that this epoch ran its course on a continent we call the Old Atlantis, lying between Europe-Africa, and America; we also mentioned that human life at that time was very different from what it is today, particularly with regard to the nature of human consciousness. Our scrutiny disclosed the fact that the consciousness with which man is endowed today developed only gradually, and that he started from a sort of dim clairvoyance. We know further that the human physical bodies of the Atlantean period consisted of a substance far softer, more flexible, more plastic, than at present; and clairvoyant consciousness reveals the fact that at that time men were not yet able, for example, to perceive solid objects such as our eyes see today in sharp outline. The Atlantean could distinguish the objects of the outer world—the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms—but only indistinctly, blurred. Just as nowadays in a foggy autumn evening the street lights show a fringe of color, so people of that time saw objects surrounded by a colored border—an aura, as the term is. The auras were the indication of the spiritual beings belonging to the objects. At certain times in the course of the day the perception of these spiritual beings was very indistinct, but at others very clear, especially in the intermediate states between waking and sleeping.

If we wish vividly to imagine the consciousness of an ancient Atlantean, we must think of it as follows: He did not see a rose, for example, so sharply outlined as we do today. It was blurred, hazy and surrounded by colored borders. Even by day it was indistinct, but it became more so and disappeared entirely in the interval between waking and sleeping. On the other hand, however, he discerned quite clearly what we must term the rose spirit, the rose soul. And the same was true of all other objects in his environment. In the progress of evolution outer objects became ever clearer, while perception of the spiritual beings associated with them grew dimmer. But in compensation man kept developing his self consciousness: he learned to be aware of himself.

Yesterday we mentioned the period in which a distinct sense of the ego emerged, adding that the etheric body came to coincide with the physical body as the last third of the Atlantean age approached. You can imagine that previously the nature of leadership as well was quite different, for at that time there existed nothing like a mutual understanding among men resting on an appeal to reason. In those days of dim clairvoyance mutual understanding was based upon a subconscious influence passing from one to the other. Especially was there still present to a high degree something we know today only in its last misinterpreted and misunderstood survival, namely, a kind of suggestion, a subconscious reciprocal influence, invoking but little the collaboration of the other's soul. Looking back to early Atlantean times we see that a powerful effect was exercized on the other's soul the moment any image, any sensation, arose in the soul, and the will was directed upon the other. All influences were powerful, as was also the will to receive them. Only scraps of all this have survived.

Picture to yourself a man of that time passing another while executing certain gestures. If the observer were even slightly the weaker of the two he would have felt impelled to imitate and mimic all the gestures. The only surviving remnant of this sort of thing is our inclination to yawn when we see another person yawning. Formerly a far closer tie prevailed between human beings, based on the fact that they lived in an atmosphere totally different from that of today. Only during a heavy rain do we nowadays live in water-soaked air, whereas at the time of which we speak the air was constantly saturated with dense moisture; and in the early Atlantean epoch man was composed of a substance no more dense than that of certain jellyfish now living in the sea and scarcely distinguishable from the surrounding water. That was the way man was constituted at that time, and he solidified only gradually. Nevertheless we know that even then he was exposed to influences not only of the regular guiding higher spiritual beings who either dwelt on the sun or were distributed among the various planets of our solar system, but also of the Luciferic spirits that influenced his astral body; and we have learned, too, in what manner these influences took effect. But we found further that those who were to be the leaders of the Atlantean people had to combat these Luciferic influences in their own astral body. By reason of the spiritual and clairvoyant nature of their consciousness all men of that time could perceive whatever spiritual influences were exerted on them.—Nowadays one who knows nothing of spiritual science laughs when you tell him his astral body shows the effects of Luciferic spirits; but then, he does not know that the influence of these spirits is far stronger than it would be if he took note of them.

“The Devil your good-folk ne'er scent,
E'en though he have them by the collar.”

That is a very profound utterance in Goethe's Faust; and many a materialistic influence of today would not exist if people knew that we are by no means rid of all the Luciferic influences as yet.

In Atlantis the leaders and their disciples kept a careful watch for everything that excited passions, instincts, and desires, for everything emanating from that quarter which aroused in man a deeper interest in his physical-sensible surroundings than was beneficial for his progressive development in the cosmic scheme. The first duty of one who aspired to become a leader was to practice this self-knowledge, to guard carefully against anything that might arise in him through Lucifer's influence. He had to study these Luciferic spiritual beings in his own astral body most accurately, for by so doing he could keep them at a distance. This also enabled him to perceive the other divine-spiritual beings, the higher, guiding ones, and particularly those that had transferred their own sphere of action from the earth to the sun, or to other planets; and the regions beheld by men corresponded to that from which they had descended. There were human souls, for instance, that had come down from Mars; and when these, in keeping with their development, combatted the Luciferic influences in their own astral body, they attained to a higher degree of clairvoyance, to a pure and good seership, and they beheld the higher spiritual beings of the region from which they themselves had descended, from the Mars region. Souls that had come down from Saturn learned to see the Saturn beings, those from Jupiter or Venus, the Jupiter or Venus beings: each beheld his own region.

But the most advanced among men, those who had survived the moon crisis, were able gradually to prepare themselves to envision not only the spiritual beings of Mars, Jupiter, or Venus, but those of the sun itself, the exalted sun beings. Having come down from the various planets the initiates were again able to behold the spirituality of these planets. From this it is clear why in ancient Atlantis there were institutions, schools, where those who had descended, for example, from Mars were accepted, when sufficiently mature, for the purpose of studying the mysteries of Mars; and that there were other sanctuaries where those who had come from other planets could learn their mysteries. Applying the later term “oracle” to these institutions, we have in Atlantis a Mars Oracle, where the mysteries of Mars were studied, a Saturn Oracle, a Jupiter Oracle, a Venus Oracle, and so on. The highest was the Sun Oracle; and the loftiest of all the initiates was the ranking initiate of the Sun Oracle.

Because suggestion and the influences of will played so important a part, the whole method of instruction was very different. Let us try to imagine the nature of the intercourse between teacher and pupil. Assuming the presence of spiritual teachers who had achieved initiation as by an act of grace, we ask, How did the later neophytes arrive at initiation in the Atlantean age? Here we must imagine first of all the mighty impression exercized by those already initiated—through their whole conduct, their mere presence—upon those predestined to become their pupils. The very sight of an Atlantean initiate was enough to start a sympathetic vibration in the soul of the neophyte, thus disclosing his fitness for the discipleship. The influences that passed between men at that time were entirely remote from objective day-consciousness, and the type of instruction we know today was then unnecessary. All intercourse with the teacher, everything the teacher did, worked hand in hand with men's imitative faculty. A great deal passed unconsciously from teacher to pupil; hence the most important factor, for those sufficiently matured through their previous life conditions, was that in the beginning they should merely be admitted to the sanctuaries and remain in contact with their teachers. Then, by observing what the teachers did and by impressions made on their feelings and sensations, they were trained—prepared, indeed, over a very long period of time. Eventually the harmonious accord between the soul of the teacher and the soul of the pupil reached the point where everything the teacher possessed in the way of deeper spiritual secrets passed over of itself to the disciple.—Such were the conditions in those ancient times.

Now, what was the situation after the union of the etheric and physical bodies had become established? Although the two bodies had come to cover completely during the Atlantean epoch, the union was as yet not very firm, so that by an effort of will the teacher could, in a certain sense, withdraw the pupil's etheric body from the physical. It was no longer possible, even when the right moment had come, for the teacher's wisdom to pass over into the pupil as of its own accord; but the teacher could easily withdraw the pupil's etheric body and then the pupil could see whatever the teacher saw. So the slight or loose connection between the etheric and physical bodies made it possible to release the former, and the wisdom, the clairvoyant vision, of the master passed over into the disciple.

Then there occurred the great cataclysm that swept away the Atlantean Continent. Mighty elemental disturbances in air and water, terrific upheavals in the earth, gradually altered the entire face of the globe. Europe, Asia, and Africa, which had been dry land only to a very slight extent, arose out of the water, as did likewise America. Atlantis disappeared. Men migrated eastward and westward, and a great variety of settlements came into being. But after the mighty catastrophe mankind had advanced another step. Again a change had taken place in the connection between the etheric and physical bodies: in the post-Atlantean time the union of the two became much firmer. The teacher could now no longer detach the pupil's etheric body by an impulse of will and thereby transmit his power of vision as he had formerly done. Hence initiation, leading to vision of the spiritual world, had to take another form which can be described somewhat as follows:

The instruction which had been based largely upon direct psychic influence from teacher to pupil had gradually to be superseded by a form slowly approaching what we know as instruction today; and the farther the post-Atlantean age advanced, the greater grew the resemblance to our modern method of instruction. Corresponding to the Atlantean oracles, institutions were now established by the great leaders of mankind exhibiting similarities to the old Atlantean oracles: Mysteries, initiation temples, came into being in the post-Atlantean epoch; and just as formerly those fitted for it were received into the oracles, so now they were admitted to the Mysteries. There the neophytes were carefully trained by means of exacting instruction, because they could no longer be influenced as they were formerly. In all civilizations over a long period of time we find such Mysteries. Whether you seek in the culture we knew as the first post-Atlantean, which ran its course in ancient India, or in that of Zarathustra, or among the Egyptians or Chaldeans, you will invariably find neophytes being admitted to the Mysteries which were something part-way between church and school; and there they underwent a severe training calculated to promote thinking and feeling as these apply to events of the invisible, spiritual world—not merely as related to things of the sense world.

And what was taught there can now be accurately defined: to a great extent it was the same as what we have come to know today as anthroposophy. That was the subject of study in the Mysteries; and it differed only in that it was adapted to the customs of that time and was imparted according to strict rules. Today people who in a certain sense are ripe can be told of the mysteries of the higher worlds in a more or less free way and comparatively rapidly. Of old, however, the instruction was strictly regulated. In the first grade, for instance, only a certain sum of knowledge was imparted and all else kept completely secret. Not until the pupil had digested this was he apprised of anything pertaining to a higher grade. Through this sort of preparation, concepts, ideas, sensations, and feelings referring to the spiritual world were implanted in his astral body, a procedure tending at the same time to combat the influences of Lucifer; for all that is imparted in the way of spiritual-scientific concepts refers to the higher worlds, not to the world in which Lucifer aims to stimulate man's interest, not to the sense world alone.

Eventually, when the neophyte had been prepared in this way, the time approached for him to be guided to independent vision, when he himself should see in the spiritual world. This implied the ability to reflect in his etheric body everything he had accumulated in his astral body; for vision of the spiritual world is achieved only when the fruits of study stored in the astral body are experienced so intensely, through certain feelings and sensations connected with the knowledge acquired, that not only the astral body, but the denser etheric body as well, is thereby influenced. If the pupil was to rise from learning to seeing, all that had been taught him must have borne fruit.

That is why, throughout the Indian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek epochs the training period closed with the following act. First the pupil was again prepared for a long time—now not through learning, but by means of what we call meditation and other exercises designed to develop inner concentration, inner tranquility, inner equanimity. He was trained to make his astral body in every respect a citizen of the spiritual worlds; and when the right time had come the conclusion of this development consisted in his being placed in a deathlike state lasting three and a half days. While in Atlantean times the etheric and physical bodies were so loosely joined that the former could be withdrawn more easily than in later periods, it had now become necessary in the Mysteries to throw the neophyte into a deathlike sleep. While this lasted he was either placed in a coffinlike box or bound to a sort of cross—something of that sort. The initiator, known as the hierophant, possessed the power to work upon the astral, and particularly upon the etheric body—for during this procedure the etheric left the physical body. That is something different from sleep: in sleep the physical and etheric bodies remain in bed while the astral body and ego withdraw; but in this final act of initiation only the physical body remained in place. The etheric body was simply withdrawn from the greater part, at least, of the physical body—from the whole upper portion; and this left the candidate in a deathlike state. Everything that had been learned through meditation and other exercises was now impressed into the etheric body while in this condition. During these three and a half days the neophyte really moved about in the spiritual worlds wherein the higher beings dwell. Finally the hierophant called him back, meaning that he had the power to awaken him; and the candidate brought with him a knowledge of the spiritual world. Now he could see into this spiritual world and could proclaim its truths to his fellow men who were not yet ready to envision it themselves.

Thus the ancient teachers of pre-Christian time had been initiated into the profound secrets of the Mysteries. There they had been guided by the hierophant during the three-and-a-half-day period; they were living witnesses to the existence of a spiritual life and to the fact that behind the physical there is a spiritual world to which man belongs with his higher principles and into which he must find his way. But evolution proceeded. What I have just described to you as an initiation existed most intensively in the first epoch after the Atlantean catastrophe; but the union of the etheric and physical bodies grew ever firmer, hence the procedure became more and more dangerous, because man's whole consciousness accustomed itself increasingly to the physical sense world. You see, that was the import of human evolution: men were to become used to living in this physical world with all their inclinations and propensities. This learning to love the physical world was a great step forward for mankind.

In the early part of the post-Atlantean civilization there still remained a living recollection of the existence of a spiritual world. People said: We, the late descendants, can still see into the spiritual world of our ancestors.—They still retained the dim, dull, clairvoyant consciousness and they knew where lay the world which was their true home. They said, All that surrounds us in our day-consciousness is like a veil spread over truth: it hides the spiritual world from us; it is maya, illusion.—They did not accustom themselves at once to what they now could see, nor could they readily understand that it was intended that they lose their awareness of the old spiritual world. That was the characteristic feature of the first post-Atlantean civilization; hence that was the time in which men could most easily be guided to the spirit: they still felt a lively interest in the spiritual world. Naturally matters could not remain thus, because the Earth's mission consists in man's becoming fond of the forces of the earth and conquering the physical plane. Were you able to envision ancient India, you would discover the spiritual life to be on a tremendously lofty level.

A comprehension of what the original teachers revealed to mankind is possible in this day and age only after a study of spiritual science. For others, the teaching of the great holy Rishis is nonsense, foolishness, for they can make no sense out of what is told them there about the mysteries of the spiritual world. From their standpoint they are naturally quite right: everyone is always right from his own standpoint.

In ancient India spiritual vision was enormously extensive, but the use of even the simplest implements was non-existent. People provided for themselves in the most primitive ways. There was nothing like a natural science of any kind—or what is so called today—because everything that could be observed on the physical plane was looked upon as maya, the great illusion; and only by uplift to the great Sun Being or similar beings was the real, the true, to be found. But again, matters could not stop there: among the post-Atlanteans there had to be those as well with the will to conquer the kingdom of earth; and the first attempt to this end was made in the time of Zarathustra. In the transition from the old Indians to the ancient Persians we see a mighty step forwards. In Zarathustra's view the outer world ceased to be mere maya or illusion: he showed men that what surrounds them is of value, though he emphasized the presence of spirit underlying all. While the ancient Indian saw a flower as maya and sought the spirit behind it, Zarathustra said, The flower is something we must value, for it is an integral part of the universal spirit existing in all things; matter grows out of spirit.

We have already mentioned that Zarathustra drew attention to the physical sun as the field of action of spiritual beings. But initiation was difficult; and for those who wanted not merely to be told of the spiritual world by the initiates but to see for themselves into the great sun aura, more drastic measures were called for in connection with their initiation. Furthermore, all human life gradually changed; and in the next cultural epoch, the Egypto-Chaldean, the physical world was conquered to a still greater extent. Man was no longer bent upon a purely spiritual science which studies the realm that underlies the physical: he observed the course of the stars; and in their position and movement, in what is outwardly visible, he sought the language of divine-spiritual beings. In this script co-ordinating visible objects he recognized the will of the Gods. That is the way cosmic interrelationships were studied in the Egypto-Chaldean time. And in Egypt we see arising a geometry applied to external things. Such is the story of man's conquest of the outer world.

In Greece even greater progress was made in this direction. There we see come about the union of soul experiences and external matter. In a Pallas Athene or a Zeus we sense that into the material substance has streamed what first lived in a human soul. It is as though everything which man had made his very own had flowed out into the sense world. But as man became ever more powerful in the sense world and his soul grew more and more attached to it, his alienation from the spiritual world increased correspondingly in the life between death and a new birth. When the soul left an ancient Indian body and entered the spiritual world, there to pass through the requisite development before the next birth, it retained a feeling for the living spirit. Through his whole life the man of that time yearned for a spiritual environment; and all his sensations were kindled by the revelations he had heard concerning life in the spiritual world, even though he was not an initiate himself. So when he passed the portal of death the spiritual world lay open before him, as it were, in light and radiance.

But as the physical world became more and more congenial and men adapted themselves to it ever more readily, the periods between death and birth were proportionately obscured. In the Egyptian epoch this had gone so far, as can be established by clairvoyant consciousness, that in passing from the body into the spiritual world the soul was enveloped in darkness and gloom, in a sense of loneliness, of segregation from other souls; and when a soul feels loneliness and can hold no converse with other souls it experiences a frosty chill. And while the Greeks lived in an age in which, by means of such glorious external beauty, men had made the earth into something quite special, this period was darkest, gloomiest, most chilling, for the souls living between death and rebirth. A noble Greek, questioned as to his sojourn in the nether world, replied, “Better a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of shades”. That is not a legend but an utterance actually in accord with the attitude of that time.

It can therefore be said that with the advance of civilization men became more and more alienated from the spiritual world. The initiates who could see into the higher regions of the spiritual world became increasingly rare because of the growing dangers connected with the initiation procedure: it became more and more difficult to preserve life for three and a half days in a cataleptic state, with the etheric body withdrawn.

Then there intervened a regeneration of the whole life of humanity through the impulse already mentioned in the foregoing lectures, the Christ-Impulse. We have described how Christ, the exalted Sun Spirit, gradually approached the earth; we have learned how in Zarathustra's time He still had to be sought in the sun as Ahura Mazdao, and how Moses beheld Him closer by—in the burning bush and in the fire on Mount Sinai. Gradually He entered the sphere of the earth in which a great change was thereby destined to be wrought. The first concern of this Spirit was that men should come to recognize Him when He appeared on this earth.

The salient feature of all the old initiations was the necessity for withdrawing the etheric out of the physical body. Even in the postAtlantean initiations the candidate had to be reduced to a deathlike state of sleep, that is, a state in which he was devoid of physical consciousness. This implied coming under the control of another ego: it was invariably thus. The candidate's ego was wholly controlled by his initiator, his hierophant. He quitted his physical body completely: he did not dwell in it, nor did his own ego exercize any influence upon it. But the great aim of the Christ-Impulse is that man shall undergo a wholly self-contained ego development and not descend to a state of consciousness beneath that of the ego in order to attain to the higher worlds: and in order to achieve this, someone had first to offer himself in sacrifice so that the Christ Spirit itself might be received into a human body. We have already pointed out that a certain Initiate Who had prepared Himself through a great many incarnations had become able, beginning with a definite period in His life, to yield up His own ego and receive the Christ within Himself. This is indicated by the Baptism in the Jordan, as told in the Gospel of St. John.

Here we must ask, What was the real import of this Baptism? We know that John the Baptist, the Forerunner who told of the coming of Christ Jesus, carried it out among those whom he had prepared to receive the Christ in the right way. We will understand what the St. John Gospel tells us of the Baptism only if we bear in mind that John's purpose in baptizing was the true preparation for the coming of Christ. A modern baptism, which is but an imitation of the original symbol, provides no understanding of the question. It was not a mere sprinkling with water, but a complete immersion: the candidate lived under water for a certain length of time, varying according to circumstances. What this signified we shall now learn by delving into the mystery of the being of man.

Recall to mind that the human being consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego. In the waking state during the daytime these four principles are firmly knit together, but in sleep the physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, while the astral body and the ego are outside. In death, on the other hand, the physical body remains as a corpse: the etheric body withdraws, and for a short time the ego, the astral body, and the etheric body remain united. And to those of you who have heard even a few of my lectures it must be clear that in this moment a quite definite experience appears first: the deceased sees his past life spread out before him like a magnificent tableau; spatially side by side, all the situations of his life surround him. That is because one of the functions of the etheric body is that of memory bearer, and even during life nothing but the physical body prevents all this from appearing before him. After death, with the physical body laid aside, everything the man had experienced during his lifetime can enter his consciousness.

Now, I have mentioned as well that a retrospect of that sort also results from being in peril of death, or from any severe fright or shock. You know, of course, from reports that when a man is in danger of drowning or of falling from a mountain height, he experiences his whole past life as in a great tableau—provided he does not lose consciousness. Well, what a man thus experiences as the result of some danger, such as drowning, was experienced by nearly all who were baptized by John. The baptism consisted in keeping people under water until they had experienced their past life. But what they experienced in this way was, of course, experienced as a spiritual picture; and here it became apparent that in this abnormal state the spiritual experiences linked up, in a way, with the spiritual world in general, so that after being lifted out of the water again, after the baptism by John, a man knew: There is a spiritual world! In truth, what I bear within myself is something that can live without the body.—After baptism a man was convinced of the existence of a world to which he belonged in respect of his spirit.

What, then, had John the Baptist brought about by baptizing in this way? People had become more and more attached to the physical world as a means of mutual contact, and believed the physical element to be the true reality. But those who came to the Baptist experienced their own lives as spiritual: after being baptized they knew that they were something over and above what their physical body made them. Human interest had gradually developed in the direction of the physical world; but John evoked in those he baptized the awareness of the existence of a spiritual world to which their higher selves belonged. You need only clothe this utterance in other words and you have: “Transform your interest that is now directed toward the physical world.” And that is what they did—those who received the baptism in the right way. They knew, then, that spirit dwelt in them, that their ego belonged to the spiritual world.

It was in the physical body that this conviction was gained. No special procedure was involved, as formerly in the initiations: what occurred was experienced in the physical body. And in addition, the experience of the baptism, as carried out by John, acquired a special meaning as a consequence of the manner in which the whole doctrine of the time was received and merged with the soul—the doctrine established by Moses' revelation. After baptism, a man not only was aware of his oneness with the spiritual world, but he recognized the particular spiritual world which was approaching the earth. He knew that what now pervaded the earth was identical with what had revealed itself to Moses as ehjeh asher ehjeh in the burning bush and in the fire on Sinai; and he knew that the word Jahve or Jehovah, or ehjeh asher ehjeh, or I am the I AM, was the true expression of that spiritual world. So through the baptism by John men knew not only that they were one with the spiritual world, but that in this spiritual world there dwelt the I AM out of which the spirit in them was born. That was the preparation John imparted through his baptisms; that was the feeling, the sensation, he aroused in those whom he baptized. Their number, of course, was necessarily small, since few of them were ripe enough to experience all this when submerged; but some discerned the approach of the Spirit later to be called the Christ.

Try now to compare all this with what was set forth yesterday. What the ancient spiritual beings had brought about was love based on blood ties, on physical communion, whereas the aim of the Luciferic spirits was to render each individual dependent solely upon his own personality, his own individuality. Lucifer and the lofty spiritual beings had been working simultaneously. Gradually the old blood ties had loosened, as can be established even historically. Think of the conglomeration of peoples in the great Roman Empire! That was a result of the loosening of the blood ties and of the universal desire, in varying degrees, to find the center of gravity in personality. But another result was that people had lost contact with the spiritual world: they had identified themselves with the physical world and developed a love for the physical plane. As the ego-consciousness had increased through Lucifer's agency, man had proportionately coalesced with the physical world and rendered barren his life between death and a new birth.

Now, the Baptist had indeed prepared something that was of great significance for mankind: he had prepared the way for man to remain within his personality and at the same time find there, after the submersion, exactly what once he had experienced as “gods” at the time when he himself still lived in water, when the atmosphere was saturated with moisture and fog. That experience in the divine worlds was now repeated. In spite of being an ego, man, as a human being, could now be reunited with his fellows, could be led back to love, a love that was now spiritualized.

That is the mainspring of the Christ event characterized from another aspect. Christ represents the descent to our earth of the spiritual power of love, though even today its mission is only beginning to take effect. If we trace this idea by means of the John and the Luke Gospels we find spiritual love to be the very core of the Christ impulse through which the egos that had been sundered are increasingly brought together again—but now in respect of their innermost souls. From the beginning, men have been able to surmise but dimly what Christ had come to mean for the world; and today very little of it has been realized because the sundering force, the after-effect of the Luciferic powers, is still present and the Christ principle has been active only for a short time. And though nowadays people seek to co-operate in certain external activities, they have not so much as an inkling of what is meant by harmony and accord between souls where the most intimate and important matters are concerned—or at best they vaguely sense it with their thoughts, their intellect, which counts for little.

Truly, Christianity is only at the beginning of its activity: it will penetrate ever deeper into the souls of men, will increasingly ennoble their ego. This has been felt particularly strongly by people of the younger nations: they feel the need of identifying themselves with the Christ force, to steep themselves in it, if they are to get on. One of our contemporaries in eastern Europe, the executor of the great Russian philosopher Solovyev, once said: “Christianity must unite us as a nation, otherwise we shall lose our ego, and with it, all possibility of being a people.” A mighty utterance, emanating as from an intensive intellect for Christianity. But that again proves the need for Christianity to penetrate into the depths of the human soul.

Let us examine a certain very radical case. It will show us that precisely in respect of the innermost life of the soul even the most high-minded and noble men are still far from possessing what will one day lay hold on them, when Christianity shall have filled man's innermost thoughts, his innermost ideas and feelings. Think of Tolstoi and of his work during the last decades which seeks to reveal in its own way the true meaning of Christianity. A thinker of his caliber should arouse enormous respect, especially in the West where whole libraries are cluttered up with lengthy philosophical manglings of the same thing that a Tolstoi can say in great and powerful words in a book like On Life. There are pages in Tolstoi's writings in which a certain extensive understanding of theosophical truths is expounded with elemental grandeur, truths, to be sure, which a philosopher of western Europe cannot hit upon so accurately—or at best he must write volumes about them, because what they reveal is mighty. It can be said that in Tolstoi's works there is an undertone we can call the Christ impulse. Engross yourselves in his books, and you will see that what pervades him is the Christ impulse.

Now turn to Tolstoi's great contemporary, interesting if for no other reason than that from a comprehensive philosophical Weltanschauung he attained to the very gates of a life of such genuine vision as enabled him to survey an epoch in full perspective—apocalyptically, so to speak. While his visions themselves are distorted, due to an inadequate background, Solovyev nevertheless rises to clairvoyant perception of the future: he places before us a forecast of the 20th Century. And if we read his writings with sympathetic understanding we find there much that is great and high-minded, especially in connection with Christianity. Yet he speaks of Tolstoi as of an enemy of Christianity, as of the Antichrist! This goes to show that two men today can be profoundly convinced they are giving their epoch the best there is, can act out of the very depths of their souls, and yet fail to understand each other: for each of them the other is “anti”. Nowadays people do not reflect that if outer harmony, a life permeated by love, is to become a possibility, the Christ impulse must first have penetrated to the profoundest depths: love of mankind must be something very different from what it is today, even in the noblest spirits.

The impulse that was foretold and then entered the world is only at the beginning of its work, and it must be ever better understood. What is it that is lacking, particularly in our time, among all those who cry for Christianity and declare it a necessity, yet cannot bring it within reach? Anthroposophy, spiritual science, that is what they lack: the present-day way of understanding Christ. For Christ is so great that each successive epoch will have to find new means of comprehending Him. In former centuries other ways and forms were employed in the search for wisdom. Today we need anthroposophy; and what anthroposophy offers today for an understanding of Christ will hold good through long ages to come, because anthroposophy will prove to be something capable of stimulating every human capacity for knowledge. Humanity will in time grow into a comprehension of the Christ.

But even the anthroposophical conception is a transient one—we are aware of this; and the time will come when so great a subject, now framed in ephemeral terms, will call for still vaster conceptions.

Sechster Vortrag

Wir haben gestern davon gesprochen, daß die Menschheit große Führer auch schon in der Zeit hatte, die wir als die atlantische Periode der menschlichen Entwickelung bezeichnet haben. Wir wissen aus der gestrigen Betrachtung, daß diese Periode abgelaufen ist in einem Erdengebiet, das wir die alte Atlantis nennen und das gelegen war zwischen dem heutigen Europa und Afrika einerseits und Amerika andererseits. Und wir haben auch erwähnt, wie andersartig das Menschenleben damals war, besonders in bezug auf den menschlichen Bewußtseinszustand. Wir konnten aus der gestrigen Betrachtung entnehmen, daß sich das Bewußtsein, das der Mensch heute hat, erst allmählich entwickelt hat, daß der Mensch ausgegangen ist von einer Art dämmerhaften Hellsehens. Und wir wissen, daß die Menschen in der atlantischen Zeiteinen Körper hatten, der aus einer wesentlich weicheren, biegsameren, plastischeren Substanz bestand als der des heutigen Menschen. Und wir wissen ferner, wie das hellseherische Bewußtsein uns das lehrt, daß der Mensch damals noch nicht imstande war, zum Beispiel die festen Gegenstände, die heute unser Auge sieht, schon mit so scharfen Konturen wahrzunehmen. Zwar konnte der Atlantier schon die Gegenstände der äußeren Welt, das Mineralreich, Pflanzenreich und Tierreich wahrnehmen, aber undeutlich, verschwommen. So wie man heute an einem recht nebeligen Herbstabend die Lichter auf der Straße farbig umsäumt sieht, so nahm der Mensch um die Gegenstände herum etwas wie farbige Ränder wahr, «Auren», wie man sagt. Das waren die Andeutungen der geistigen Wesenheiten, die zu den Dingen gehörten. Zu gewissen Zeiten des Tageslaufes war allerdings die Wahrnehmung dieser geistigen Wesenheiten recht undeutlich, aber zu anderen Zeiten, namentlich in den Zwischenzuständen zwischen Wachen und Schlafen, war sie sehr deutlich.

Wenn wir uns das Bewußtsein eines alten Atlantiers recht lebhaft vorstellen wollen, so müssen wir uns sagen: So deutlich, mit so scharfen Konturen wie heute, hat er zum Beispiel eine Rose nicht gesehen. Das war alles verschwommen, ins Neblige verlaufend und mit farbigen Rändern umsäumt. Schon während des Tages war es undeutlich, es wurde aber noch undeutlicher und verschwand ganz in der Zwischenzeit zwischen Wachen und Schlafen. Dafür aber nahm der Mensch ganz deutlich das wahr, was wir als den Rosen-Geist, als die Rosen-Seele ansprechen müssen. Und so war es mit allen Gegenständen der Umwelt.

Die Fortentwickelung bestand darin, daß die äußeren Gegenstände immer deutlicher wurden, und immer undeutlicher die Wahrnehmungen der geistigen Wesenheiten, die zu den Dingen gehörten. Dafür aber bildete der Mensch immer mehr sein Selbstbewußtsein aus, er lernte immer mehr sich fühlen.

Wir haben gestern den Zeitpunkt bezeichnet, in welchem eine deutliche Empfindung vomlIch hervortrat. Wir haben gesagt, daß der Ätherleib in eine Deckung mit dem physischen Leib kam, als das letzte Drittel der atlantischen Zeit herannahte. Sie können sich denken, daß auch die Führerschaft vorher eine ganz andere war. Eine solche Verständigung von Mensch zu Mensch, wo man an das Urteil des anderen appelliert, gab es in den atlantischen Zeiten durchaus nicht. In diesen Zeiten des dämmerhaften Hellsehens beruhte die Verständigung darauf, daß ein unterbewußter Einfluß von Mensch zu Mensch hinüberging. Vor allem war das, was wir heute nur in den letzten, vielfach verkannten und mißverstandenen Erbstücken kennen, damals noch in hohem Grade vorhanden: Das war eine Suggestion, ein unterbewußter Einfluß von Mensch zu Mensch, der nur wenig an die Mittätigkeit der anderen Seele appellierte. Wenn wir in die alten Zeiten der Atlantis zurückschauen, so sehen wir, daß damals eine kräftige Wirkung auf die andere Seele ausgeübt wurde, sobald nur irgendein Bild, eine Empfindung in der Seele des Menschen aufstieg und er seinen Willen auf den anderen Menschen lenkte. Alle Einflüsse waren kräftig, und auch der Wille war kräftig, solchen Einfluß aufzunehmen. Davon sind heute nur noch Reste vorhanden.

Denken Sie sich, ein Mensch von damals hätte sich an dem anderen vorüberbewegt und dabei bestimmte Bewegungen ausgeführt. Der andere, der da zugeschaut hätte, der hätte nur ein wenig schwächer zu sein brauchen, dann wäre die Wirkung gewesen, daß er alle Bewegungen hätte nachmachen, nachahmen wollen. Heute ist von dem nur zurückgeblieben wie ein altes Erbstück, daß, wenn der eine gähnt, der andere, der es sieht, auch Neigung zum Gähnen bekommt. Ein viel intimeres Band von Mensch zu Mensch war vorhanden. Das beruhte darauf, daß der Mensch in einer ganz anderen Atmosphäre lebte als heute. Heute leben wir nur dann in einer von Wasser durchdrungenen Luft, wenn es stark regnet. Damals war die Luft fortwährend mit dichten Wasserdämpfen erfüllt. Und der Mensch war in der ersten atlantischen Zeit von keiner dichteren Substanz als etwa der gewisser gallertartiger Tiere, die heute im Meere leben und die kaum von dem umliegenden Wasser zu unterscheiden sind. So war der Mensch und verdichtete sich erst allmählich. Aber wir wissen schon, daß immerhin dieser Mensch Einflüssen ausgesetzt war, nicht nur von den eigentlich leitenden höheren geistigen Wesenheiten, die entweder die Sonne bewohnten oder verteilt waren auf die verschiedenen Planeten unseres Sonnensystems, sondern auch von den luziferischen Geistern, die seinen astralischen Leib beeinflußten. Und wir haben auch charakterisiert, in welcher Richtung sich diese Einflüsse geltend machten. Wir haben aber auch gesagt, daß diejenigen, welche Führer des atlantischen Volkes sein sollten, diese luziferischen Einflüsse in ihrem eigenen astralischen Leib bekämpfen mußten. Weil der Mensch dazumal überhaupt noch im Bewußtsein geistig und hellseherisch war, nahm er auch alles wahr, was in ihm lebte an geistigen Einflüssen.

Heute lacht ein Mensch, der nichts weiß von Geisteswissenschaft, wenn man ihm sagt: «In deinem astralischen Leib sitzen Wirkungen der luziferischen Geister.» Er weiß allerdings nicht, daß diese Wesenheiten einen viel stärkeren Einfluß auf ihn haben als dann, wenn er sie beachtet:

«Den Teufel spürt das Völkchen nie,
Und wenn er sie beim Kragen hätte.»

Das ist ein sehr tiefer Ausspruch im Goetheschen Faust. Und manche materialistischen Einflüsse würden heute nicht da sein, wenn die Menschen wüßten, daß die luziferischen Einflüsse noch nicht alle aus dem Menschen heraus sind.

Damals wurde bei den Führern und deren Schülern streng geachtet auf alles, was Leidenschaften, Triebe und Begierden von der Seite her erregte, die dem Menschen ein tiefergehenderes Interesse an seiner physisch-sinnlichen Umgebung beibrachte, als es für seine Fortentwickelung im Weltenall gut war. So mußte derjenige, welcher sich zum Führer entwickeln wollte, vor allen Dingen diese Selbsterkenntnis üben, scharf auf sich achtgeben, was alles von Luzifers Einfluß kommen konnte. Er mußte diese geistigen Wesenheiten des Luzifer in seinem eigenen astralischen Leibe scharf studieren. Dadurch konnte er sie sich vom Leibe halten. Dadurch sah er die anderen, die höheren, leitenden göttlichgeistigen Wesenheiten, vor allem diejenigen, die ihren eigenen Schauplatz von der Erde zur Sonne oder auf die anderen Planeten verlegt hatten. Und zwar sahen die Menschen, je nachdem sie diese oder jene Abstammung hatten, dieses oder jenes Gebiet. Es gab Menschenseelen, die, sagen wir, vom Mars heruntergekommen waren. Wenn diese sich der Entwickelung überließen, die luziferischen Einflüsse in ihrem eigenen astralischen Leibe bekämpften, dann wurden sie zu einem höheren Grade des Hellsehens, zu einem guten, reinen Hellsehen hinaufgeführt, und sie sahen die höheren geistigen Wesenheiten aus dem Reiche, aus dem sie selber heruntergestiegen waren, also die höheren geistigen Wesenheiten des Mars. Seelen, die aus dem Reiche des Saturn heruntergekommen waren, gelangten dahin, die Wesenheiten des Saturn zu sehen. Die Seelen, die von Jupiter oder Venus gekommen waren, schauten die Jupiter- oder Venuswesenheiten. Ein jeder Mensch sah sein entsprechendes Reich.

Die höchsten Wesenheiten aber unter den Menschen, diejenigen, die über die Mondenkrisis hinübergekommen waren, die konnten sich allmählich dazu vorbereiten, nicht nur die geistigen Wesen von Mars, Jupiter oder Venus zu sehen, sondern die geistigen Wesenheiten der Sonne selber, die hohen Sonnenwesen. Dadurch, daß die Wesen, welche eingeweiht wurden, von den verschiedenen Planeten heruntergestiegen waren, wurden ihnen wieder die Welten dieser Planeten in bezug auf ihre Geistigkeit sichtbar. Daher werden Sie es verstehen, daß es Institutionen oder Anstalten gab in der alten Atlantis, wo zum Beispiel die vom Mars Herstammenden aufgenommen wurden, wenn sie dazu reif waren, um die Marsgeheimnisse zu studieren. Andere Stätten gab es, wo die von der Venus Abstammenden die Geheimnisse der Venus kennenlernten. Wenn wir das mit einem späteren Wort «Orakel» nennen, dann haben wir auf der Atlantis ein Mars-Orakel, wo die Marsgeheimnisse erforscht wurden, ein Saturn-Orakel, ein Jupiter-Orakel, ein Venus-Orakel und so weiter. Das höchste war das Sonnen-Orakel. Und der Höchste der Eingeweihten war der höchste Eingeweihte des Sonnen-Orakels.

Weil der Mensch suggestiver Einwirkung unterworfen war und Willenseinflüsse ausgeübt wurden, war auch der ganze Unterricht ein anderer. Versuchen wir es, uns eine Vorstellung davon zu machen, wie sich Lehrer und Schüler unterhielten. Nehmen wir an, es waren geistige Lehrer vorhanden, denen wie durch eine Gnade die Einweihung zuteil geworden war. Wie kamen die Späteren, die Schüler, zur Einweihung in der atlantischen Zeit?

Da müssen wir uns vorstellen, daß vor allen Dingen die schon Eingeweihten durch ihr ganzes Auftreten, durch ihr einfaches Dasein einen gewaltigen Einfluß ausübten auf diejenigen, die dazu prädestiniert waren, ihre Schüler zu werden. Es konnte kein atlantischer Eingeweihter sich zeigen, ohne daß diejenigen, welche Schüler werden sollten, sogleich in sich die Saiten ihrer Seele erklingen fühlten, die ihnen die Möglichkeit zu solcher Schülerschaft gaben. Es waren dem gegenständlichen, dem Tagesbewußtsein durchaus entzogene Einflüsse, die in der damaligen Zeit von Mensch zu Mensch gingen. Und jene Art von Unterricht, wie wir sie heute kennen, war damals nicht notwendig. Der ganze Umgang mit dem Lehrer, alles, was er tat, wirkte zusammen mit dem Nachahmungsvermögen der Menschen. Vieles ging unbewußt von dem Lehrer zum Schüler hinüber. Daher war es das Wichtigste, daß diejenigen, die reif waren durch ihre vorhergehenden Lebensverhältnisse, nur zunächst hineingeführt wurden in die Orakelstätten und in der Umgebung der Lehrer lebten. Und durch das Sehen dessen, was die Lehrer taten, und durch die Einwirkung der Gefühle und Empfindungen wurden sie vorbereitet - vorbereitet allerdings in einer langen, langen Zeit. Dann kam die Zeit, in welcher ein solcher bedeutsamer Zusammenklang war zwischen der Seele des Lehrers und der Seele des Schülers, daß alles, was der Lehrer in sich hatte an höheren Geheimnissen, sich übertrug auf den Schüler. So war es in den alten Zeiten. Wie war es nun, nachdem sich das Zusammenhalten von Ätherleib und physischem Leib gebildet hatte?

Obwohl sich in der atlantischen Zeit der Ätherleib und physische Leib völlig zur Deckung gebracht hatten, war der Zusammenhalt zwischen Ätherleib und physischem Leib noch kein sehr starker, und es bedurfte nur einer Willensanstrengung von seiten des Lehrers, um wieder den Ätherleib in einer gewissen Weise herauszuholen. Es war. zwar nicht mehr möglich, wenn der richtige Zeitpunkt auch gekommen war, daß wie von selbst auf den Schüler überging, was in dem Lehrer war, aber der Lehrer konnte doch leicht den Ätherleib des Schülers herausheben, und dann konnte der Schüler dasselbe sehen, was der Lehrer sah. Es war also bei der leichten oder losen Verbindung des Ätherleibes mit dem physischen Leibe möglich, den Ätherleib des Schülers herauszuheben, und dann übertrug sich die Weisheit, die hellseherische Beobachtung des Meisters, auf den Schüler.

Nun kam die große Katastrophe, die den atlantischen Kontinent hinwegfegte. Gewaltige Vorgänge im Luft- und Wassergebiete, gewaltige Erschütterungen der Erde bewirkten, daß nach und nach das ganze Antlitz der Erde sich änderte. Europa, Asien und Afrika, die nur zum kleinsten Teil Land waren, erhoben sich aus dem Wasser, ebenso Amerika. Atlantis verschwand. Es wanderten die Menschen nach Osten und Westen hinüber, und es entstanden die mannigfaltigsten Besiedelungen.

Nach dieser gewaltigen Katastrophe aber war die Menschheit wiederum fortgeschritten. Wieder war in dem Zusammenhang zwischen Ätherleib und physischem Leib eine Änderung eingetreten. Jetzt in der nachatlantischen Zeit war ein viel festerer Zusammenhalt zwischen Ätherleib und physischem Leib im Menschen. Es war jetzt nicht mehr möglich, durch einen Willensimpuls des Meisters den Ätherleib herauszuholen und jede Beobachtung zu übertragen. Daher mußte die Initiation, die zum Hineinschauen in die geistige Welt führte, eine andere Form annehmen, eine Form, die sich etwa in der folgenden Weise schildern läßt.

An die Stelle jenes Unterrichtes, der mehr auf dem unmittelbaren seelischen Einfluß von Lehrer zu Schüler beruhte, mußte nach und nach ein solcher Unterricht treten, der sich langsam dem annäherte, was wir heute darunter verstehen. Und je weiter die nachatlantische Zeit vorwärtsschritt, desto ähnlicher wurde er dem heutigen Unterricht. Wie es in der atlantischen Zeit die Orakel gab, so wurden jetzt von den großen Führern der Menschheit Institute eingerichtet, welche die Nachklänge enthielten der alten atlantischen Orakel. Mysterien, Einweihungsstätten entstanden in der nachatlantischen Zeit. Und wie die geeigneten Menschen in den atlantischen Zeiten in die Orakel aufgenommen wurden, so wurden sie jetzt in die Mysterien hineingenommen. Da mußten die Schüler, weil eben nicht mehr so wie früher auf sie gewirkt werden konnte, sorgfältig vorbereitet werden durch einen strengen Unterricht.

Wir finden deshalb durch lange Zeiten bei allen Kulturen solche Mysterien.ObSie in die Kultur zurückgehen, die wir als die erste nachatlantische kennen, die sich im alten Indien abspielte, oder ob Sie zu der Kultur des Zarathustra gehen oder zu der der Ägypter, der Chaldäer, überall werden Sie finden, daß die Schüler hineingenommen wurden in Mysterien, die ein Mittelding waren zwischen Kirche und Schule. Und dort wurden sie zuerst streng unterrichtet, damit sie denken und fühlen lernten nicht bloß in bezug auf das, was in der Sinnenwelt war, sondern was in der unsichtbaren, in der geistigen Welt vorging.

Und das, was man lehrte, können wir heute genau bezeichnen: es ist zu einem großen Teil dasselbe, was wir heute als Anthroposophie kennenlernen. Das war der Gegenstand des Lernens in den Mysterien. Nur war es mehr angemessen den Sitten der damaligen Zeit und in strenger Weise geregelt, nicht so wie heute, wo in einer, wenigstens zum Teil, freien Art den Menschen, die in gewisser Beziehung dafür reif sind, die Geheimnisse der höheren Welten in verhältnismäßig rascher Weise mitgeteilt werden.

Damals wurde der Unterricht streng geregelt. Auf der ersten Stufe wurde zum Beispiel nur eine gewisse Summe von Erkenntnissen mitgeteilt, und alles andere verschwieg man vollständig. Erst wenn der Schüler das verarbeitet hatte, teilte man ihm mit, was einer höheren Stufe angehörte. Dadurch, daß der Schüler so vorbereitet wurde, erhielt er Begriffe, Ideen, Empfindungen und Gefühle in seinen astralischen Leib eingepflanzt, die sich auf die geistige Welt bezogen. Dadurch hatte er auch in einer gewissen Weise die Einflüsse Luzifers bekämpft. Denn alles, was mitgeteilt wird an geisteswissenschaftlichen Begriffen, bezieht sich auf die höheren Welten, nicht auf die Welt, für welche Luzifer ein Interesse bei den Menschen hervorrufen will, nicht auf die Sinnenwelt allein. Dann, nachdem der Schüler so vorbereitet worden war, kam die Zeit heran, wo er zum selbständigen Schauen geführt wurde. Er sollte selber hineinschauen in die geistige Welt. Dazu war notwendig, daß der Mensch alles das, was er in seinem astralischen Leib sich erarbeitet hatte, widerspiegeln konnte im ätherischen Leib. Denn nur dadurch gelangt der Mensch zum Schauen in die geistige Welt, daß er alles, was er in seinen astralischen Leib hineingearbeitet hat mit Lernen, durch ein gewisses Fühlen und Empfinden über das Gelernte so stark in sich erlebt, daß nicht nur sein astralischer Leib, sondern auch der dichtere ätherische Leib davon beeinflußt wird. Wenn der Schüler aufsteigen sollte vom Lernen zum Schauen, so mußte das, was man ihn gelehrt hatte, Wirkungen tragen. Deshalb schloß sich an das Lernen durch die indische, persische, ägyptische, griechische Zeit hindurch ein gewisser Schlußakt, der in folgendem bestand.

Der Schüler wurde zunächst wiederum lange vorbereitet, nicht durch Lernen, sondern durch das, was man Meditation nennt, und durch andere Übungen, innere Geschlossenheit, innere Ruhe, innere Gelassenheit zu entwickeln. Er wurde dazu vorbereitet, seinen astralischen Leib ganz und gar zu einem Bürger in den geistigen Welten zu machen. Und in dem rechten Zeitpunkt wurde er dann, als Abschluß dieser Entwickelung, dreieinhalb Tage in einen todähnlichen Zustand gebracht. Während in den atlantischen Zeiten der Ätherleib noch so lose in dem physischen Leib war, daß er auf eine leichtere Art herausgehoben werden konnte, mußte jetzt der Mensch in einen todähnlichen Schlaf gebracht werden in den Mysterien, Er wurde während dieser Zeit entweder in einen sargähnlichen Kasten gelegt oder an eine Art Kreuz angeschnürt oder dergleichen. Und derjenige, den man als den Einweiher, den Hierophanten bezeichnet, hatte die Fähigkeit, auf den astralischen Leib und namentlich auf den Ätherleib zu wirken, denn der Ätherleib ging durch diese Prozedur während dieser Zeit heraus. Das ist etwas anderes als der Schlaf. Im Schlaf bleiben im Bette der physische Leib und der Ätherleib, draußen ist der astralische Leib und das Ich. Jetzt aber, im Schlußakt der Einweihung, bleibt liegen der physische Leib, und es wird, wenigstens für den größten Teil des physischen Leibes, der Ätherleib einfach herausgehoben - nur die unteren Partien bleiben, die oberen Partien werden herausgehoben - und der Betreffende ist dann in einem todähnlichen Zustand. Alles, was früher gelernt wurde durch Meditation und andere Übungen, das wurde jetzt in diesem Zustand hineingedrückt in den Ätherleib. In diesen dreieinhalb Tagen durchwandelte der Mensch wirklich die geistigen Welten, wo die höheren Wesenheiten sind. Und nach diesen dreieinhalb Tagen rief ihn derjenige, der ihn eingeweiht hatte, wiederum zurück, das heißt, er hatte die Macht, ihn wieder erwachen zu machen. Da brachte der Betreffende mit das Wissen der geistigen Welt. Jetzt konnte er hineinschauen in diese geistige Welt, und nun konnte er werden ein Verkünder der Tatsachen der geistigen Welt für seine Mitmenschen, die noch nicht die Reife hatten, um auch hineinzuschauen.

Also die alten Lehrer in den vorchtistlichen Zeiten waren in die Tiefen der Mysteriengeheimnisse eingeweiht worden. Da waren sie in den dreieinhalb Tagen geführt worden von dem Hierophanten, und waren lebendige Zeugen dessen, daß es ein geistiges Leben gibt, und daß hinter der physischen Welt eine geistige Welt vorhanden ist, welcher der Mensch mit seinen höheren Gliedern angehört und in die er hineinwachsen soll.

Aber die Entwickelung ging weiter. Was ich Ihnen jetzt erzählt habe als eine Einweihung, das war am intensivsten noch vorhanden in der ersten Zeit nach der atlantischen Katastrophe. Immer mehr und mehr jedoch wurde das Band geschlossen zwischen Ätherleib und physischem Leib. Daher wurde diese Prozedur immer gefährlicher, denn die Menschen gewöhnten sich immer mehr und mehr an die physische Sinnenwelt mit dem ganzen Bewußtsein. Das ist ja der Sinn der Menschheitsentwickelung, daß sich die Menschen daran gewöhnten, mit all ihrer Neigung und Sympathie in dieser physischen Welt zu leben.-Es ist der große Fortschritt der Menschheit, daß die Menschen diese Liebe zur physischen Welt wirklich entwickelten.

In der ersten Zeit der nachatlantischen Kultur war noch ein lebendiges Gedächtnis davon vorhanden, daß es eine geistige Welt gibt. Die Menschen sagten sich: Wir als die Spätgeborenen können noch hineinschauen in die geistige Welt unserer Vorfahren. — Sie hatten noch ihr dumpfes, dämmerhaftes Bewußtsein. Sie wußten, wo die Wahrheit der Welt ist, wo ihre Heimat ist. Was um uns herum ist im Tagesbewußtsein, sagten sie, das ist wie ein Schleier, der sich über die Wahrheit hinüberlegt, das verdeckt uns die geistige Welt, das ist Maja oder Illusion. — Man gewöhnte sich nicht gleich an das, was man jetzt sehen konnte. Man konnte nicht leicht begreifen, daß man das Bewußtsein für die alte geistige Welt verlieren sollte. Das ist das Charakteristikum der ersten nachatlantischen Kultur. Daher war es auch am leichtesten, die Menschen in das Geistige hineinzuführen, denn sie hatten noch einen lebhaften Hang zur geistigen Welt. Natürlich konnte es nicht so bleiben, denn die Erdenmission besteht darin, daß die Menschen die Kräfte der Erde liebgewinnen und den physischen Plan erobern.

Wenn Sie in das alte Indien blicken könnten, würden Sie eine Höhe des Geisteslebens finden, die ungeheuer ist. Was die ersten alten Lehrer den Menschen verkünden konnten, dem Menschen der heutigen Zeit zum Verständnis zu bringen, ist ja nur möglich, wenn der Mensch durch ein Studium der Geisteswissenschaft hindurchgegangen ist. Für jeden anderen ist die Lehre der großen heiligen Rischis Unsinn, Narretei, denn er kann sich gar nicht denken, daß irgendein Sinn in dem ist, was man ihm da sagt über die Geheimnisse der geistigen Welt. Er hat von seinem Standpunkt aus selbstverständlich recht, denn ein jeder hat von seinem Standpunkte aus immer recht.

Die geistige Anschauung war eine ungeheure, aber die Handhabung der einfachsten Geräte war damals nicht vorhanden. In der primitivsten Weise versorgte man sich. Irgendeine Naturwissenschaft oder das, was man heute so nennt, gab es nicht. Denn in allem, was man auf dem physischen Plan schen konnte, erblickte man Maja, die große Täuschung, und allein in der Erhebung zu dem großen Sonnenwesen oder zu ähnlichen Wesenheiten fand man das Wirkliche und das Wahre. Dabei aber konnte es nicht bleiben. Die Menschen mußten nach und nach lernen, diese Erde zu lieben. Es mußte unter den nachatlantischen Menschen auch solche geben, die den Willen hatten, das irdische Reich zu erobern. Der Anfang damit wurde gemacht in der Zeit des Zarathustra. Da ist ein gewaltiger Schritt nach vorwätts, wenn wir den Übergang finden von dem alten Inder zu dem uralten Perser. Für Zarathustra war die äußere Welt nicht mehr nur Maja oder Illusion. Er zeigte den Menschen, daß das, was physisch um uns herum ist, einen Wert hat, daß aber dahinter eben das Geistige steht. Während für die Anschauung des alten Inders die Blume Maja war und er auf den Geist hinter der Blume ging, sagte Zarathustra: Das ist etwas, was man schätzen muß, denn das istein Glied im gesamten Geist des Alls. Es wächst das Materielle aus dem Geistigen heraus. — Und darauf haben wir ja schon aufmerksam gemacht, daß Zarathustra darauf hinwies, daß die physische Sonne derSchauplatz geistiger Wesenheiten ist. Aber die Einweihung war schwierig. Und für diejenigen, welche nicht nur von den Eingeweihten hören wollten, daß es eine geistige Welt gibt, die selber hineinschauen wollten in die große Sonnen-Aura, für die bedurfte es schärferer Einweihungsmaßregeln.

Das ganze Menschenleben änderte sich auch nach und nach. Und in der nächsten Zeit, der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Kultur, eroberten sich die Menschen noch mehr die physische Welt. Da ist der Mensch nicht mehr bloß auf eine rein geistige Wissenschaft aus, die das, was hinter dem Physischen liegt, erforscht. Er sieht den Lauf der Sterne an und sucht zu erkennen in den Stellungen und Bewegungen der Sterne, in dem äußerlich Sichtbaren, eine Schrift der göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten. Er erkennt den Willen der Götter in den Schriftzügen, die von Sinnesding zu Sinnesding geführt werden. So studiert er die Dinge in ihren Verhältnissen. In Ägypten sehen wir eine Geometrie erstehen, die auf die äußeren Dinge angewendet wird. So erobert sich der Mensch die äußere Welt.

Der Grieche ist dann noch mehr darin fortgeschritten. Da sehen wir, wie jene Ehe zustande kommt zwischen dem, was die Seele erlebt, und der äußeren Materie. Wenn die Pallas Athene oder der Zeus vor uns stehen, so ist da dem Stoff mitgeteilt, was zuerst in der Menschenseele gelebt hat. Da ist gleichsam aus dem Menschen heraus das, was er sich erobert hat, in die Sinnenwelt hineingeflossen.

Aber so wie der Mensch immer mächtiger und mächtiger in der Sinneswelt wurde und sie mit seiner Seele immer lieber gewann, so wurde er auch in der Zeit zwischen dem Tood und der neuen Geburt der geistigen Welt immer mehr entfremdet. Wenn die Seele aus einem alten indischen Leibe herausging und in die geistige Welt hineintrat, um da die Entwickelung durchzumachen bis zur neuen Geburt, da war das Geistige für sie noch lebendig. Denn während des ganzen Lebens sehnte sich der Mensch hinauf zu einer geistigen Welt, und alle seine Empfindungen waren befeuert von dem, was er hörte an Verkündigungen über das Leben in den geistigen Welten, wenn er auch selbst kein Eingeweihter war. Daher lag sozusagen, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes kam, die geistige Welt offen vor ihm da, - licht und hell wurde es vor ihm. Aber in dem Maße, als der Mensch Sympathie gewann für die physische Weit, als er geschickter wurde für die physische Welt, in demselben Maße verdunkelte sich für ihn die Zeitzwischen Tod und neuer Geburt. Und in der ägyptischen Zeit ist das schon so weit gediehen, daß wir mit dem hellseherischen Bewußtsein feststellen können, daß es für die Seele dunkel und düster wird, wenn sie aus dem Leibe in die geistige Welt heraustritt, daß sich die Seele einsam fühlt und wie abgeschlossen von den anderen Seelen; und wie ein frostiges Gefühl empfindet es die Seele, wenn sie sich einsam fühlt und nicht eine Verständigung mit der anderen Seele findet. Und während die Griechen in einer Zeit lebten, wo die Menschen dutch eine so herrliche äußere Schönheit in der Kultur die Erde zu etwas ganz Besonderem gemacht hatten, war es für die Seelen am finstersten, am düstersten und am frostigsten in der Zeit zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt. Und es ist keine Legende, sondern es entspricht der Wirklichkeit, daß der vornehme Grieche, wenn er gefragt wurde über den Aufenthalt in der Unterwelt, zur Antwort gab: Lieber ein Bettler sein in der Oberwelt als ein König im Reiche der Schatten!

So können wir sagen, daß die Menschen mit der zunehmenden Kultur immer mehr und mehr der geistigen Welt entfremdet wurden. Die Eingeweihten, die in die höheren Gebiete der geistigen Welt hinaufsahen, wurden immer seltener, denn die Prozedur der Einweihung wurde immer gefährlicher. Immer schwieriger wurde es, dreieinhalb Tage in einem todähnlichen Zustand zuzubringen und den Ätherleib sich trennen zu lassen, ohne daß der Tod eintrat.

Nun trat für das ganze menschliche Leben eine Erneuerung ein durch jenen Impuls, von dem wir schon in den letzten Tagen gesprochen haben: durch den Christus-Impuls. Wir haben ja schon charakterisiert, daß der Christus, der hohe Sonnengeist, sich allmählich der Erde genähert hat. Wir haben gesehen, wie er zu Zarathustras Zeiten noch in der Sonne als «Ahura Mazdao» gesucht werden mußte, und wie ihn Moses bereits im brennenden Dornbusch und im Feuer auf Sinai sehen konnte. Er trat allmählich in die Erdensphäre ein, die da anders werden sollte. Zunächst war es diesem Geist darum zu tun, daß die Menschen ihn erkennen lernten hier auf dieser Erde.

Was war denn im Grunde verbunden mit allen alten Einweihungen? Daß der Ätherleib herausgeholt werden mußte aus dem physischen Leib. Und selbst bei den nachatlantischen Einweihungen mußte der Mensch in einen todähnlichen Schlafzustand gebracht werden, das heißt, für das physische Bewußtsein bewußtlos sein. Dadurch kam der Mensch in die Herrschaft eines anderen Ich. Das war immer damit verbunden. Er war mit seinem Ich ganz und gar unter der Herrschaft dessen, der sein Initiator, sein Einweiher war. Da verließ er seinen physischen Leib ganz, er bewohnte ihn nicht und übte keinen Einfluß von seinem Ich auf seinen physischen Leib aus.

Das aber ist das große Ziel des Christus-Impulses, daß der Mensch eine Ich-Entwickelung durchmachen muß, die ganz und gar in sich selber bleibt, wo er nicht, um in die höheren Welten zu kommen, unterzutauchen braucht in einen niedrigeren Zustand, als das Ich ihn hat. Dazu war notwendig, daß zunächst Einer sich hergab zum Opfer, um den Christus-Geist selbst in einem menschlichen Leib aufzunehmen. Darauf haben wir auch schon hingedeutet, daß ein Eingeweihter, der sich durch viele, viele Inkarnationen dazu reif gemacht hatte, fähig geworden ist, von einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte seines Lebens an sein eigenes Ich aus sich heraus zu entfernen und den Christus-Geist in sich aufzunehmen. Das ist im Johannes-Evangelium angedeutet in der JohannesTaufe am Jordan. Was hatte nun diese Taufe eigentlich zu bedeuten?

Wir wissen, daß diese Taufe von dem Vorläufer, dem Vorverkündiger des Christus Jesus, von dem Täufer Johannes ausgeübt worden ist an denen, die er darauf vorbereitet hat, den Christus in der entsprechenden Weise zu empfangen. Nur wenn wir bedenken, daß Johannes deshalb taufte, um auf den Christus in der entsprechenden Weise vorzubereiten, nur dann werden wir verstehen, was über die Johannes-Taufe im Johannes-Evangelium steht. Wenn Sie sich eine heutige Taufe vorstellen, die nur eine Imitation des ursprünglichen Symbols ist, dann werden Sie nicht zu einem Verständnis kommen. So einfach, daß man den Menschen nur mit Wasser besprengte, war sie nicht, sondern sie bestand darin, daß der Betreffende vollständig untergetaucht worden ist unter das Wasser, daß er eine Zeit - lang oder kurz - unter dem Wasser gelebt hat. Was das bedeutet, wollen wir uns einmal aus dem Mysterium der menschlichen Wesenheit heraus klarmachen.

Denken Sie einmal daran zurück, daß der Mensch besteht aus physischem Leib, Ätherleib, astralischem Leib und dem Ich. Beim tagwachenden Zustand hat der Mensch diese vier Glieder fest ineinander gefügt. Im Schlafe liegen im Bett der physische Leib und der Ätherleib, und draußen ist der astralische Leib und das Ich. Im Tode ist es so, daß der physische Leib zurückbleibt als Leichnam, daß der Ätherleib heraustritt und daß dann eine kurze Zeit vereinigt sind Ich, astralischer Leib und Ätherleib. Und für die, welche auch nur einige von meinen Vorträgen gehört haben, ist es auch schon klar, daß in diesem Moment zunächst ein ganz bestimmtes Erlebnis auftritt: der Mensch hat sein vorhergehendes Leben wie ein großartiges Tableau vor sich; wie räumlich nebeneinander stehen die ganzen Lebensverhältnisse um den Menschen herum. Der Ätherleib ist nämlich auch der Träger des Gedächtnisses, und während des Lebens hindert ihn nur der physische Leib daran, daß er alles das auch vor sich hat. Nach dem Tode ist der physische Leib abgelegt; da kann alles ins Bewußtsein treten, was der Mensch in seinem letzten Leben erlebt hat. Nun habe ich auch schon erwähnt, daß eine solche Rückschau auf das Leben auch eintritt, wenn der Mensch in irgendeiner Todesgefahr ist oder sonst irgendein gewaltiger Schreck, ein Schock, auf ihn ausgeübt wird. Sie wissen es ja schon aus Erzählungen, daß der Mensch, wenn er dem Ertrinken oder einem Bergabsturz nahe ist und er das Bewußtsein nicht verliert, wie in einem großen Tableau sein ganzes bisheriges Leben erlebt. Was der Mensch so dutch eine Gefahr erlebt, wenn er zum Beispiel dem Ertrinken nahe ist, das erlebte bei der Johannes-Taufe fast ein jeder. Darin bestand die Taufe, daß der Mensch so lange im Wasser blieb, daß er sein bisheriges Leben erlebte. Aber was er so erlebte, war ja als geistiges Bild erlebt. Und da stellte sich heraus, daß in diesem abnormen Zustand dasjenige, was der Geist erlebte, sich gewissermaßen anschloß an die übrige geistige Welt; und derjenige, der wieder herausgezogen wurde nach der Johannes-Taufe, er wußte: Es gibt eine geistige Welt! In Wahrheit ist das, was ich in mir habe, etwas, was ohne den Körper bestehen kann. — Davon war der Mensch nach der Taufe überzeugt, daß es eine Welt gibt, der er angehört seinem Geiste nach. Was also hatte Johannes der Täufer durch dieses Taufen bewirkt?

Die Menschen waren dahin gelangt, immer mehr und mehr die physische Welt liebzugewinnen, immer mehr und mehr sich in der physischen Welt zusammenzufinden, immer mehr und mehr den Glauben zu haben, daß das Physische das eigentlich Wirkliche ist. Die aber, welche zu dem Täufer kamen, erlebten ihr eigenes Leben als ein geistiges. Wenn sie getauft waren, wußten sie: Ich bin noch etwas anderes, als was ich durch meinen physischen Leib bin. Der Sinn der Menschen hatte sich allmählich so herausgebildet, daß er hingelenkt wurde auf die physische Welt. Johannes hatte in seinen Täuflingen das Bewußtsein hervorgerufen: Es gibt eine geistige Welt, ich gehöre mit einem höheren Teile meiner selbst dieser geistigen Welt an. Daher brauchen Sie seine Rede bloß in andere Worte zu kleiden, und Sie haben: Ändert den Sinn, der auf die physische Welt gerichtet ist! Sie änderten den Sinn, wenn sie die Taufe wirklich richtig empfingen. Dann wußten sie: Ich habe ein Geistiges in mir; mein Ich gehört der geistigen Welt an. Der Mensch hatte diese Überzeugung gewonnen im physischen Leibe drinnen. Es war ja nicht eine besondere Prozedur eingetreten wie in der Einweihung. Er hatte das im physischen Leibe erlebt. Und durch die Art und Weise, wie die ganze Lehre, die dazumal seit der Verkündigung des Moses bestanden hatte, aufgenommen wurde und sich mit der Seele vereinigte, bekam das ganze Erlebnis der Johannes-Taufe noch einen besonderen Sinn.

Der Mensch hatte nach der Taufe nicht nur das Bewußtsein: Ich bin mit der geistigen Welt eins —- sondern er erkannte auch, welche geistige Welt heranzieht zur Erde. Ein solcher Mensch wußte: Was sich dem Moses verkündet hatte als «ehjeh asher chjeh» in dem brennenden Dornbusch und in dem Feuer auf Sinai, das durchzieht die Erde, und mit dem Worte Jahve oder Jehova, oder «ehjeh asher ehjeh » oder «Ich bin der Ich-bin » wird diese geistige Welt in der richtigen Weise ausgesprochen. — Der Mensch wußte also durch die Johannes-Taufe nicht nur, daß er Eins ist mit der geistigen Welt, sondern er wußte auch: In dieser geistigen Welt lebt das Ich-bin, aus dem ich dem Geiste nach herausgeboren bin. — So hatte der Johannes durch die Taufe seine Täuflinge vorbereitet. Dieses Gefühl, diese Empfindung hatte er in ihnen erweckt. Es konnten natürlich nur wenige sein. Die meisten waren ja unreif, beim Untertauchen das zu erleben. Aber einige erkannten, daß der Geist heranrückt, der später der Christus genannt worden ist.

Nun versuchen Sie das, was wir heute gesagt haben, mit dem Gestrigen zu vergleichen. Was die alten geistigen Wesen bewirkt hatten, war eine auf Blutsbande, auf physische Gemeinschaft begründete Liebe. Aber die luziferischen Geister haben jeden auf seine eigene Persönlichkeit, auf seine eigene Individualität stellen wollen. Luzifer und die hohen geistigen Wesen hatten zusammengewirkt. Allmählich hatten sich die alten Blutsbande gelockert. Das können Sie selbst historisch verfolgen. Schauen Sie das Völkergemisch an in dem großen Römischen Reich. Das war dadurch bewirkt worden, daß die alten Blutsbande gelockert waren und jeder mehr oder weniger auf dem festen Punkt seiner Persönlichkeit stehen wollte. Aber daher hatten sie auch den Zusammenhang mit der geistigen Welt verloren, waren zusammengewachsen mit der physischen Welt, hatten Liebe gewonnen für den physischen Plan. In dem Maße, als das Ich-Bewußtsein durch Luzifer zugenommen hatte, war der Mensch zusammengewachsen mit der physischen Welt, hatte sich verödet sein Leben zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt. Jetzt hatte schon der Täufer etwas Großes und Bedeutsames für den Menschen vorbereitet. Er hatte vorbereitet, daß der Mensch in seiner Persönlichkeit bleiben konnte, und daß er innerhalb seiner Persönlichkeit durch das Untertauchen unter das Wasser das gleiche finden konnte, was er einstmals als «Götter» erlebt hatte, damals, als er selbst noch im Wasser lebte, als Wasserdünste und Wassernebel die Atmosphäre durchdrangen. Dieses Erlebnis in den göttlichen Welten war jetzt wiederholt worden. Der Mensch war, trotzdem er ein Ich war, dazu vorbereitet worden, wieder als Mensch zum Menschen geführt zu werden, wiederum in die jetzt vergeistigte Liebe hineingeführt zu werden.

Damit haben Sie von einer anderen Seite her den Nerv des ChristusEreignisses charakterisiert. Der Christus stellt dar das Herabkommen der geistigen Liebeskraft in unsere Erde, die heute erst im Anfange ihres Wirkens steht. Wenn wir diesen Gedanken weiter verfolgen werden an der Hand des Johannes- und des Lukas-Evangeliums, dann werden wir sehen, wie gerade der Nerv des Christus-Impulses die geistige Liebe ist, wie dadurch die Iche, die getrennt worden sind, immer mehr und mehr zusammengeführt werden, aber in bezug auf das Innerste ihrer Seelen. Die Menschen haben von Anfang an nur ahnen können, was der Christus für die Welt geworden ist. Und heute ist noch wenig, wenig davon verwirklicht, denn das Sondernde, die Nachwirkung der luziferischen Gewalten, ist noch immer da, und das Christus-Prinzip hat erst kurze Zeit gewirkt. Und wenn man auch heute auf gewissen äußeren Gebieten des Lebens ein Zusammengehen sucht, für die intimsten, für die wichtigsten Dinge ahnen die Menschen noch gar nicht einmal — höchstens mit dem Gedanken, mit dem Intellekt, und das ist das wenigste —, was Harmonie und Zusammenklingen der Seelen ist. Es ist wirklich so, daß das Christentum erst im Anfange des Wirkens ist. Es wird immer weiter in die Seelen hineindringen und das Ich immer mehr und mehr veredeln. Gerade die, welche heute noch jüngere Nationen sind, merken dies. Sie merken, daß sie sich anschließen müssen an die Christus-Kraft, daß sie sich durchdringen müssen mit der Christus-Kraft, wenn sie weiter kommen wollen.

Einer unserer Zeitgenossen im Osten, der der Testamentsvollstrekker des großen russischen Philosophen Solowjow ist, hat den Ausspruch getan: «Das Christentum muß uns als Volk vereinigen; sonst verlieren wir unser Ich und damit überhaupt die Möglichkeit, ein Volk zusein!» Ein gewaltiges Wort, das wie aus einem instinktiven Interesse für das Christentum hervorgekommen ist. Aber man sieht auch daraus, wie notwendig es ist, daß das Christentum in die Tiefen der Seelen hineindringt. Versuchen Sie einmal eine Erscheinung zu prüfen, die zu den radikalsten gehört, und die uns zeigt, daß gerade für das Innerste des Seelenlebens selbst die Höchsten und Edelsten noch dem ferne stehen, was sie einmal ergreifen wird, wenn sich das Christentum hineinergossen hat in des Menschen innerste Gedanken, innerste Meinungen und Gefühle. Denken Sie an Tolstoi und an dessen Wirken in den letzten Jahrzehnten, das in seiner Art den echten Sinn des Christentums aufzudecken sucht. Ungeheuren Respekt wird man vor einem solchen Denker gerade im Westen haben müssen, wo mit langen philosophischen Zerzausereien sozusagen ganze Bibliotheken vollgeschrieben werden über dasselbe, was ein Tolstoi in einem Buche wie «Über das Leben» groß und gewaltig hinschreibt. Es gibt bei Tolstoi Seiten, wo in elementarer Weise gewisse große Erkenntnisse theosophischer Wahrheiten dargelegt sind, die allerdings der westeuropäische Philosoph nicht so treffen kann, über die er wenigstens eine große Literatur schreiben müßte, weil etwas ganz Gewaltiges damit gesagt ist. Bei Tolstoi, können wir sagen, klingt etwas durch, was man den Christus-Impuls nennen kann. Vertiefen Sie sich in seine Schriften, und Sie werden sehen, daß es der Christus-Impuls ist, der ihn erfüllt. Nehmen Sie jetzt seinen großen Zeitgenossen, der ja schon aus dem Grunde interessant ist, weil er sich aus einer umfassenden philosophischen Weltanschauung hinaufgeschwungen hat bis an die Grenzen eines solchen wahrhaft visionären Lebens, daß er eine Epoche sozusagen perspektivisch, apokalyptisch übersieht. Wenn auch gerade die Gesichte, weil der Unterbau kein richtiger ist, verzerrt werden, so erhebt sich doch Solowjow bis zu einem visionären Schauen der Zukunft. Er stellt solche Zukunftsperspektive für das zwanzigste Jahrhundert hin. Und wenn wir uns auf ihn einlassen, so finden wir Großes und Edles, namentlich in bezug auf das Christentum. Aber er spricht von Tolstoi wie von einem Feinde des Christentums, wie von dem Antichrist! So können heute zwei Menschen in ihren tiefsten Gedanken glauben, ihrer Zeit das Beste zu geben, können aus der tiefsten Tiefe ihrer Seele heraus wirken und dennoch sich ohne Verständnis gegenüberstehen, so daß der eine der «Anti» des anderen ist! Man bedenkt heute gar nicht, daß, wenn äußere Harmonie, in Liebe getauchtes Leben möglich sein soll, der Christus-Impuls bis in das Tiefste gedrungen sein muß, so daß Menschenliebe etwas ganz anderes sein muß, als es heute selbst bei den edelsten Geistern der Fall ist.

Der Impuls, der erst vorherverkündet wurde und dann eintrat in die Welt, ist erst im Anfange seines Wirkens und wird immer besser und besser verstanden werden müssen. Was fehlt denn gerade in unserer Zeit all denen, die nach dem Christentum rufen und es als eine Notwendigkeit erklären, aber es doch nicht herbeirufen können? Anthroposophie, Geisteswissenschaft fehlt ihnen — die heutige Art, den Christus zu begreifen! Denn der Christus ist so groß, daß eine jede Epoche neue Mittel wird finden müssen, um ihn zu erkennen. In früheren Jahrhunderten hat man andere Arten und Formen des Weisheitsstrebens gebraucht. Heute ist Anthroposophie notwendig. Und es wird noch für lange Zeiten gelten, was wir heute in der Anthroposophie haben, um den Christus zu verstehen. Denn Anthroposophie wird sich herausstellen als etwas, was alle menschlichen Erkenntnisfähigkeiten anregt. Der Mensch wird allmählich in das Christus-Verständnis hineinwachsen. Und auch die anthroposophische Vorstellung ist zunächst nur eine vergängliche Vorstellung. Dessen sind wir uns bewußt, und auch dessen, daß wir ein Großes, das in vergängliche Vorstellungen gefaßt ist, in noch größere Vorstellungen werden einfassen müssen.

Sixth Lecture

Yesterday we spoke about how humanity already had great leaders in the period we refer to as the Atlantean epoch of human development. We know from yesterday's discussion that this period came to an end in a region of the earth we call ancient Atlantis, which was located between what is now Europe and Africa on the one hand and America on the other. And we also mentioned how different human life was at that time, especially in terms of the state of human consciousness. We were able to gather from yesterday's discussion that the consciousness that human beings have today developed only gradually, that human beings started out from a kind of dim clairvoyance. And we know that during the Atlantean period, human beings had a body that consisted of a much softer, more flexible, more plastic substance than that of human beings today. And we also know, as clairvoyant consciousness teaches us, that human beings at that time were not yet able to perceive, for example, the solid objects that our eyes see today with such sharp contours. The Atlanteans were already able to perceive the objects of the outer world, the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, but only indistinctly, blurrily. Just as today, on a very foggy autumn evening, we see the lights on the street surrounded by colored edges, humans perceived something like colored edges around objects, “auras,” as they are called. These were the indications of the spiritual beings that belonged to the things. At certain times of the day, however, the perception of these spiritual beings was quite indistinct, but at other times, especially in the intermediate states between waking and sleeping, it was very clear.

If we want to imagine the consciousness of an ancient Atlantean quite vividly, we must say to ourselves: He did not see a rose, for example, as clearly or with such sharp contours as we do today. Everything was blurred, fading into mist and surrounded by colored edges. Even during the day it was indistinct, but it became even more indistinct and disappeared completely in the interval between waking and sleeping. On the other hand, however, human beings perceived quite clearly what we must call the rose spirit, the rose soul. And so it was with all objects in the environment.

The further development consisted in the external objects becoming clearer and clearer, and the perceptions of the spiritual beings belonging to the things becoming more and more indistinct. But in return, the human being developed more and more self-consciousness; he learned more and more to feel himself.

Yesterday we indicated the point in time when a clear sensation emerged from the I. We said that the etheric body came into alignment with the physical body as the last third of the Atlantean epoch drew to a close. You can imagine that leadership was also quite different before that. Such communication between people, where one appeals to the judgment of another, did not exist at all in the Atlantean era. In those times of dim clairvoyance, communication was based on a subconscious influence passing from one person to another. Above all, what we know today only in the last, much misunderstood and misinterpreted remnants was still very much present at that time: it was a suggestion, a subconscious influence from person to person, which appealed only slightly to the cooperation of the other soul. When we look back to the ancient times of Atlantis, we see that a powerful effect was exerted on the other soul as soon as any image or feeling arose in the soul of a person and they directed their will toward another person. All influences were powerful, and the will was also powerful in absorbing such influences. Only remnants of this remain today.

Imagine that a person from that time passed by another person and performed certain movements. The other person, who was watching, would only have needed to be a little weaker, and the effect would have been that he would have wanted to imitate all the movements. Today, all that remains of this is an old relic, whereby when one person yawns, the other who sees it also feels inclined to yawn. There used to be a much more intimate bond between people. This was based on the fact that people lived in a completely different atmosphere than they do today. Today, we only live in air saturated with water when it rains heavily. At that time, the air was constantly filled with dense water vapor. And in the first Atlantean period, human beings were made of no denser substance than certain gelatinous animals that live in the sea today and are hardly distinguishable from the water surrounding them. That is how human beings were, and they only gradually became denser. But we already know that these humans were exposed to influences, not only from the higher spiritual beings who either inhabited the sun or were distributed among the various planets of our solar system, but also from the Luciferic spirits who influenced their astral bodies. And we have also characterized the direction in which these influences made themselves felt. But we have also said that those who were to be leaders of the Atlantean people had to fight these Luciferic influences in their own astral bodies. Because human beings at that time were still spiritual and clairvoyant in their consciousness, they also perceived everything that lived in them in terms of spiritual influences.

Today, a person who knows nothing about spiritual science laughs when told, “The effects of Luciferic spirits are at work in your astral body.” He does not know, however, that these beings have a much stronger influence on him than when he pays attention to them:

“The devil is never felt by the little people,
even when he has them by the throat.”

This is a very profound statement in Goethe's Faust. And many materialistic influences would not exist today if people knew that the Luciferic influences have not yet been completely removed from human beings.

At that time, the leaders and their disciples paid strict attention to everything that aroused passions, instincts, and desires from the side that taught people a deeper interest in their physical-sensory environment than was good for their further development in the universe. Thus, anyone who wanted to develop into a leader had to practice self-knowledge above all else and pay close attention to everything that could come from Lucifer's influence. He had to study these spiritual beings of Lucifer in his own astral body. In this way, he was able to keep them away from himself. In this way, he saw the other, higher, guiding divine-spiritual beings, especially those who had moved their own sphere of activity from the Earth to the Sun or to other planets. And depending on their ancestry, human beings saw this or that realm. There were human souls who had come down from Mars, so to speak. If they surrendered themselves to development, fought against the Luciferic influences in their own astral bodies, they were led up to a higher degree of clairvoyance, to good, pure clairvoyance, and they saw the higher spiritual beings from the realm from which they themselves had descended, that is, the higher spiritual beings of Mars. Souls that had come down from the realm of Saturn were able to see the beings of Saturn. The souls that had come from Jupiter or Venus saw the beings of Jupiter or Venus. Each human being saw his or her corresponding realm.

But the highest beings among humans, those who had passed through the Moon crisis, were gradually able to prepare themselves not only to see the spiritual beings of Mars, Jupiter, or Venus, but also the spiritual beings of the Sun itself, the high Sun beings. Because the beings who were initiated had descended from the various planets, the worlds of these planets became visible to them again in terms of their spirituality. You will therefore understand that there were institutions or establishments in ancient Atlantis where, for example, those who came from Mars were taken in when they were ready to study the secrets of Mars. There were other places where those originating from Venus learned the secrets of Venus. If we call this by a later word, “oracle,” then we have in Atlantis a Mars oracle, where the secrets of Mars were explored, a Saturn oracle, a Jupiter oracle, a Venus oracle, and so on. The highest was the Sun Oracle. And the highest of the initiates was the highest initiate of the Sun Oracle.

Because humans were subject to suggestive influences and their will was being manipulated, the entire teaching method was different. Let us try to imagine how teachers and students conversed. Let us assume that there were spiritual teachers who had been granted initiation as if by a grace. How did those who came later, the students, attain initiation in the Atlantean era?

We must imagine that, above all, those who were already initiated exerted a powerful influence on those who were predestined to become their students through their entire demeanor, through their simple existence. No Atlantean initiate could show himself without those who were to become disciples immediately feeling the strings of their souls vibrate, giving them the opportunity to become disciples. These were influences that were completely removed from the objective, everyday consciousness and passed from person to person in those days. And the kind of teaching we know today was not necessary then. The whole interaction with the teacher, everything he did, worked together with people's ability to imitate. Much passed unconsciously from the teacher to the student. Therefore, it was most important that those who were mature through their previous life circumstances were only initially introduced to the oracle sites and lived in the vicinity of the teachers. And by seeing what the teachers did and through the influence of feelings and sensations, they were prepared—prepared, however, over a long, long period of time. Then came the time when there was such a significant harmony between the soul of the teacher and the soul of the student that everything the teacher had within himself in terms of higher mysteries was transferred to the student. That is how it was in ancient times. What happened after the etheric body and the physical body had formed a bond?

Although in the Atlantean era the etheric body and the physical body had become completely aligned, the cohesion between the etheric body and the physical body was not yet very strong, and it only took an effort of will on the part of the teacher to bring the etheric body out again in a certain way. It was no longer possible, even when the right moment had come, for what was in the teacher to pass over to the student as if by itself, but the teacher could easily lift out the student's etheric body, and then the student could see the same thing that the teacher saw. Thus, when the etheric body was loosely connected to the physical body, it was possible to lift out the student's etheric body, and then the wisdom, the clairvoyant observation of the master, was transferred to the student.

Then came the great catastrophe that swept away the Atlantean continent. Violent processes in the air and water, tremendous earth tremors caused the entire face of the earth to change little by little. Europe, Asia, and Africa, which were only a small part of the land, rose out of the water, as did America. Atlantis disappeared. People migrated east and west, and the most diverse settlements arose.

After this tremendous catastrophe, however, humanity progressed once again. Once more, a change had taken place in the relationship between the etheric body and the physical body. Now, in the post-Atlantean era, there was a much stronger bond between the etheric body and the physical body in human beings. It was no longer possible for the Master to extract the etheric body through an impulse of will and transmit every observation. Therefore, the initiation that led to insight into the spiritual world had to take on a different form, a form that can be described in the following way.

The teaching that was based more on the direct spiritual influence of teacher to student had to be gradually replaced by a form of teaching that slowly approached what we understand today. And the further the post-Atlantean period progressed, the more similar it became to today's teaching. Just as there were oracles in the Atlantean period, so now the great leaders of humanity established institutions that contained echoes of the ancient Atlantean oracles. Mysteries and places of initiation arose in the post-Atlantean period. And just as suitable people were admitted to the oracles in the Atlantean times, they were now admitted to the mysteries. Because it was no longer possible to influence the students in the same way as before, they had to be carefully prepared through rigorous instruction.

We therefore find such mysteries in all cultures throughout long periods of time. Whether you go back to the culture we know as the first post-Atlantean culture, which took place in ancient India, or whether you go to the culture of Zarathustra or to that of the Egyptians or the Chaldeans, everywhere you will find that the students were taken into mysteries that were a middle way between church and school. And there they were first taught strictly so that they learned to think and feel not only in relation to what was in the sensory world, but also to what was happening in the invisible, spiritual world.

And we can describe exactly what was taught: it is largely the same as what we know today as anthroposophy. That was the subject of learning in the mysteries. Only it was more appropriate to the customs of the time and strictly regulated, not as it is today, where, at least in part, the secrets of the higher worlds are communicated in a relatively quick manner to people who are ready for them in a certain way.

At that time, teaching was strictly regulated. At the first stage, for example, only a certain amount of knowledge was imparted, and everything else was kept completely secret. Only when the student had processed this was he told what belonged to a higher stage. By being prepared in this way, the student received concepts, ideas, sensations, and feelings related to the spiritual world, which were implanted in his astral body. In this way, they had also combated the influences of Lucifer to a certain extent. For everything that is communicated in spiritual scientific concepts relates to the higher worlds, not to the world in which Lucifer wants to arouse interest in human beings, not to the sensory world alone. Then, after the student had been prepared in this way, the time came when they were led to independent seeing. He was to look into the spiritual world himself. For this it was necessary that the human being could reflect everything he had worked out in his astral body in his etheric body. For it is only by experiencing everything he has worked into his astral body through learning, through a certain feeling and sensing of what he has learned, so strongly within himself that not only his astral body but also his denser etheric body is influenced by it, that the human being can see into the spiritual world. If the student was to ascend from learning to seeing, what he had been taught had to bear fruit. Therefore, throughout the Indian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek periods, learning was followed by a certain final act, which consisted of the following.

The student was first prepared for a long time, not through learning, but through what is called meditation and other exercises to develop inner unity, inner peace, and inner serenity. He was prepared to make his astral body completely a citizen of the spiritual worlds. And at the right moment, as the conclusion of this development, he was brought into a death-like state for three and a half days. Whereas in Atlantean times the etheric body was still so loosely connected to the physical body that it could be lifted out more easily, now the person had to be put into a death-like sleep in the mysteries. During this time, they were either placed in a coffin-like box or tied to a kind of cross or something similar. And the one who was called the initiator, the hierophant, had the ability to act upon the astral body and especially upon the etheric body, for the etheric body went out during this procedure. This is something different from sleep. In sleep, the physical body and the etheric body remain in bed, while the astral body and the I are outside. Now, however, in the final act of initiation, the physical body remains lying down, and the etheric body is simply lifted out, at least for the greater part of the physical body — only the lower parts remain, the upper parts are lifted out — and the person concerned is then in a death-like state. Everything that had previously been learned through meditation and other exercises was now pressed into the etheric body in this state. During these three and a half days, the person truly wandered through the spiritual worlds where the higher beings are. And after these three and a half days, the one who had initiated him called him back, that is, he had the power to awaken him again. The initiate then brought back the knowledge of the spiritual world. Now he could look into this spiritual world, and now he could become a herald of the facts of the spiritual world for his fellow human beings who were not yet mature enough to look into it themselves.

So the old teachers in pre-Christian times had been initiated into the depths of the mysteries. There they had been guided for three and a half days by the hierophant and had been living witnesses to the fact that there is a spiritual life and that behind the physical world there is a spiritual world to which man belongs with his higher members and into which he is to grow.

But development continued. What I have just told you as an initiation was still most intense in the early period after the Atlantean catastrophe. However, the bond between the etheric body and the physical body became increasingly closed. This procedure therefore became more and more dangerous, because people became more and more accustomed to the physical sensory world with their entire consciousness. That is the meaning of human development, that people became accustomed to living in this physical world with all their inclinations and sympathies. It is the great progress of humanity that people really developed this love for the physical world.

In the early days of post-Atlantean culture, there was still a living memory of the existence of a spiritual world. People said to themselves: We, as those born later, can still look into the spiritual world of our ancestors. They still had their dull, dim consciousness. They knew where the truth of the world was, where their home was. What surrounds us in our daily consciousness, they said, is like a veil covering the truth, obscuring the spiritual world from us; this is Maya or illusion. People did not immediately become accustomed to what they could now see. It was not easy to understand that they should lose their awareness of the old spiritual world. This is the characteristic feature of the first post-Atlantean culture. That is why it was easiest to lead people into the spiritual realm, because they still had a lively inclination toward the spiritual world. Of course, it could not remain that way, because the mission of the Earth is for human beings to love the forces of the Earth and conquer the physical plane.

If you could look into ancient India, you would find a tremendous height of spiritual life. What the first ancient teachers were able to proclaim to people can only be understood by people today if they have gone through a course of spiritual science. For everyone else, the teachings of the great holy Rishis are nonsense, foolishness, because they cannot conceive that there is any meaning in what they are told about the mysteries of the spiritual world. From their point of view, they are of course right, because everyone is always right from their own point of view.

The spiritual view was tremendous, but the use of even the simplest tools was not available at that time. People provided for themselves in the most primitive way. There was no natural science or what we call it today. For in everything that could be seen on the physical plane, people saw Maya, the great deception, and only in the elevation to the great sun being or to similar beings did they find the real and the true. But it could not remain that way. People had to gradually learn to love this earth. There had to be some among the post-Atlantean people who had the will to conquer the earthly realm. The beginning of this was made in the time of Zarathustra. There is a huge step forward when we find the transition from the ancient Indian to the ancient Persian. For Zarathustra, the outer world was no longer just Maya or illusion. He showed people that what is physically around us has value, but that behind it lies the spiritual. While the ancient Indian viewed the flower as Maya and sought the spirit behind the flower, Zarathustra said: This is something to be valued, for it is a link in the whole spirit of the universe. The material grows out of the spiritual. — And we have already pointed out that Zarathustra indicated that the physical sun is the theater of spiritual beings. But initiation was difficult. And for those who did not want to hear only from the initiated that there is a spiritual world, but wanted to look into the great sun aura themselves, more rigorous initiation measures were necessary.

The whole of human life also changed gradually. And in the next period, the Egyptian-Chaldean culture, people conquered the physical world even more. Man is no longer interested in a purely spiritual science that investigates what lies behind the physical. They looked at the course of the stars and sought to recognize in their positions and movements, in what was outwardly visible, a script of divine-spiritual beings. They recognized the will of the gods in the writings that were carried from one sensory object to another. In this way, they studied things in their relationships. In Egypt, we see a geometry emerging that is applied to external things. In this way, man conquers the external world.

The Greeks are even more advanced in this. We see how a marriage comes about between what the soul experiences and external matter. When Pallas Athena or Zeus stand before us, what first lived in the human soul is communicated to matter. What man has conquered has, as it were, flowed out of him into the sensory world.

But just as man became more and more powerful in the sensory world and grew to love it more and more with his soul, so he became increasingly alienated from the spiritual world in the time between death and rebirth. When the soul left an old Indian body and entered the spiritual world to undergo development until its new birth, the spiritual was still alive for it. For throughout their entire life, human beings longed for a spiritual world, and all their feelings were fired by what they heard about life in the spiritual worlds, even if they themselves were not initiated. Therefore, when they passed through the gate of death, the spiritual world lay open before them, and it became light and bright. But to the extent that human beings gained sympathy for the physical world, as they became more skilled in the physical world, to the same extent the time between death and new birth became darker for them. And in Egyptian times this had already progressed so far that we can ascertain with clairvoyant awareness that it becomes dark and gloomy for the soul when it leaves the body and enters the spiritual world, that the soul feels lonely and cut off from other souls; and the soul feels a frosty sensation when it feels lonely and cannot communicate with other souls. And while the Greeks lived in a time when human beings had made the earth something very special through the magnificent external beauty of their culture, the period between death and rebirth was the darkest, gloomiest, and frostiest time for souls. And it is not a legend, but corresponds to reality, that when the noble Greek was asked about his stay in the underworld, he replied: Better to be a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of shadows!

So we can say that with increasing culture, people became more and more alienated from the spiritual world. Those initiated into the higher realms of the spiritual world became increasingly rare, for the initiation process became ever more dangerous. It became increasingly difficult to spend three and a half days in a death-like state and allow the etheric body to separate without death occurring.

Now a renewal came into human life through the impulse we have already spoken of in recent days: through the Christ impulse. We have already characterized how Christ, the high Sun spirit, gradually approached the earth. We have seen how, in the time of Zarathustra, he still had to be sought in the sun as “Ahura Mazdao,” and how Moses was already able to see him in the burning bush and in the fire on Mount Sinai. He gradually entered the earthly sphere, which was to become different. At first, this spirit was concerned with enabling human beings to recognize him here on earth.

What was basically connected with all the ancient initiations? That the etheric body had to be taken out of the physical body. And even in the post-Atlantean initiations, the human being had to be brought into a death-like state of sleep, that is, unconscious to physical consciousness. This brought human beings under the dominion of another ego. That was always connected with it. They were completely under the dominion of the one who was their initiator, their initiator. They left their physical body completely, they did not inhabit it and did not exert any influence from their ego on their physical body.

But this is the great goal of the Christ impulse, that human beings must undergo an ego development that remains entirely within themselves, where they do not need to submerge themselves in a lower state than that of the ego in order to enter the higher worlds. For this it was necessary that one first gave himself up as a sacrifice in order to take the Christ Spirit into a human body. We have already pointed out that an initiate who had matured through many, many incarnations became capable of removing his own ego from himself at a certain point in his life and taking the Christ spirit into himself. This is indicated in the Gospel of John in the baptism of John in the Jordan. What did this baptism actually mean?

We know that this baptism was performed by the forerunner, the herald of Christ Jesus, by John the Baptist, on those whom he had prepared to receive Christ in the appropriate manner. Only when we consider that John baptized in order to prepare people for Christ in the appropriate manner will we understand what is written about John's baptism in the Gospel of John. If you imagine a baptism today that is only an imitation of the original symbol, you will not come to an understanding. It was not as simple as sprinkling water on people; rather, it consisted of the person being completely submerged under water and living under the water for a period of time, whether long or short. Let us try to understand what this means from the mystery of the human being.

Think back to the fact that the human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and the I. In the waking state, these four members are firmly joined together. When we sleep in bed, the physical body and the etheric body lie there, and outside are the astral body and the ego. At death, the physical body remains behind as a corpse, the etheric body emerges, and then the ego, the astral body, and the etheric body are united for a short time. And for those who have heard even a few of my lectures, it is already clear that at this moment a very specific experience occurs: the human being has his previous life before him like a magnificent tableau; all the circumstances of his life stand spatially side by side around him. The etheric body is also the carrier of memory, and during life only the physical body prevents it from having everything before it. After death, the physical body is discarded; then everything that the person has experienced in their last life can enter into consciousness. Now, I have already mentioned that such a review of life also occurs when a person is in mortal danger or when some other tremendous shock is experienced. You already know from stories that when a person is close to drowning or falling off a mountain and does not lose consciousness, they experience their entire life up to that point as if in a large tableau. What a person experiences in such a dangerous situation, for example when they are close to drowning, was experienced by almost everyone at the baptism of John. The baptism consisted of the person remaining in the water long enough to experience his entire life up to that point. But what he experienced was experienced as a spiritual image. And it turned out that in this abnormal state, what the spirit experienced connected, as it were, with the rest of the spiritual world; and those who were pulled out again after John's baptism knew: There is a spiritual world! In truth, what I have within me is something that can exist without the body. After baptism, people were convinced that there is a world to which they belong according to their spirit. So what did John the Baptist achieve through this baptism?

People had come to love the physical world more and more, to find themselves more and more in the physical world, to believe more and more that the physical is the only reality. But those who came to the Baptist experienced their own lives as spiritual. When they were baptized, they knew: I am something else than what I am through my physical body. The meaning of human beings had gradually developed in such a way that it was directed toward the physical world. John had awakened the consciousness in those he baptized: There is a spiritual world, and I belong to this spiritual world with a higher part of myself. Therefore, you need only put his words into different words, and you have: Change the meaning that is directed toward the physical world! They changed their meaning when they truly received baptism correctly. Then they knew: I have something spiritual within me; my I belongs to the spiritual world. Man had gained this conviction within his physical body. It was not a special procedure like the initiation. He had experienced it in his physical body. And through the way in which the entire teaching that had existed since the proclamation of Moses was received and united with the soul, the whole experience of John's baptism took on a special meaning.

After the baptism, people not only had the awareness: I am one with the spiritual world — but they also recognized which spiritual world is drawing toward the earth. Such a person knew that what had been proclaimed to Moses as “ehjeh asher chjeh” in the burning bush and in the fire on Sinai pervades the earth, and that this spiritual world is correctly expressed by the words Yahweh or Jehovah, or “ehjeh asher ehjeh” or “I am who I am.” Through John's baptism, man knew not only that he was one with the spiritual world, but he also knew that in this spiritual world lives the I Am, from whom I am born spiritually. This is how John prepared his baptizees through baptism. He awakened this feeling, this sensation in them. Of course, there could only be a few. Most were too immature to experience this when they were immersed. But some recognized that the spirit was approaching who would later be called Christ.

Now try to compare what we have said today with what happened yesterday. What the ancient spiritual beings had brought about was a love based on blood ties, on physical community. But the Luciferic spirits wanted to place everyone on their own personality, on their own individuality. Lucifer and the high spiritual beings had worked together. Gradually, the old blood ties loosened. You can trace this yourself in history. Look at the mixture of peoples in the great Roman Empire. This was brought about by the loosening of the old blood ties and by the fact that everyone wanted to stand more or less on the firm ground of their own personality. But as a result, they had also lost their connection with the spiritual world, had grown together with the physical world, and had gained love for the physical plane. To the extent that the ego-consciousness had increased through Lucifer, human beings had grown together with the physical world and had made their lives between death and new birth barren. Now the Baptist had already prepared something great and significant for human beings. He had prepared for human beings to remain in their personality and, by immersing themselves in water, to find within their personality what they had once experienced as “gods” when they themselves still lived in water, when water vapors and water mist permeated the atmosphere. This experience in the divine worlds was now being repeated. Despite being an “I,” human beings had been prepared to be led back to humanity, to be led back into the now spiritualized love.

With this, you have characterized the essence of the Christ event from another perspective. Christ represents the descent of the spiritual power of love into our earth, which is only now beginning to work. If we pursue this thought further with the help of the Gospels of John and Luke, we will see how the nerve of the Christ impulse is precisely spiritual love, how through it the I's that have been separated are brought together more and more, but in relation to the innermost part of their souls. From the beginning, human beings could only guess what Christ had become for the world. And today, very little of this has been realized, because the divisive force, the aftereffect of the Luciferic powers, is still present, and the Christ principle has only been at work for a short time. And even if people today seek unity in certain external areas of life, they do not even have a hint of what harmony and the blending of souls means for the most intimate and important things — at most they have an idea, an intellectual concept, and that is the least of it. It is really true that Christianity is only at the beginning of its work. It will continue to penetrate further and further into souls and ennoble the ego more and more. Those who are still younger nations today are particularly aware of this. They realize that they must join the Christ force, that they must permeate themselves with the Christ force if they want to progress.

One of our contemporaries in the East, who is the executor of the will of the great Russian philosopher Soloviev, has said: “Christianity must unite us as a people; otherwise we will lose our ego and with it the very possibility of being a people!” These are powerful words that seem to have come from an instinctive interest in Christianity. But it also shows how necessary it is for Christianity to penetrate into the depths of the soul. Try to examine one of the most radical phenomena, which shows us that even the highest and noblest aspects of the innermost life of the soul are still far removed from what will one day be theirs when Christianity has poured itself into the innermost thoughts, opinions, and feelings of human beings. Think of Tolstoy and his work in recent decades, which in its own way seeks to reveal the true meaning of Christianity. One must have tremendous respect for such a thinker, especially in the West, where long philosophical ramblings fill entire libraries on the same subject that Tolstoy writes about so magnificently and powerfully in a book like “On Life.” There are pages in Tolstoy where certain great insights into theosophical truths are presented in an elementary way, which the Western European philosopher cannot grasp, however, and about which he would have to write at least a large body of literature, because something very powerful is being said. In Tolstoy, we can say, something resonates that can be called the Christ impulse. Delve into his writings and you will see that it is the Christ impulse that fills him. Take now his great contemporary, who is interesting for the simple reason that he has risen from a comprehensive philosophical worldview to the limits of such a truly visionary life that he overlooks an epoch, so to speak, perspectively, apocalyptically. Even if his views are distorted because his foundation is not sound, Solovyov nevertheless rises to a visionary view of the future. He presents such a perspective for the twentieth century. And if we engage with him, we find great and noble things, especially in relation to Christianity. But he speaks of Tolstoy as an enemy of Christianity, as the Antichrist! Thus, today, two people can believe in their deepest thoughts that they are giving the best of themselves to their time, can work from the depths of their souls, and yet stand opposite each other without understanding, so that one is the “anti” of the other! People today do not realize that if outer harmony and a life steeped in love are to be possible, the Christ impulse must have penetrated to the deepest depths, so that love for humanity must be something completely different from what it is today, even among the noblest spirits.

The impulse that was first foretold and then entered the world is only at the beginning of its work and will have to be understood better and better. What is it that is lacking in our time in all those who call for Christianity and declare it a necessity, but cannot bring it about? They lack anthroposophy, spiritual science — the modern way of understanding Christ! For Christ is so great that every age must find new means to recognize him. In earlier centuries, other ways and forms of striving for wisdom were needed. Today, anthroposophy is necessary. And what we have today in anthroposophy will remain valid for a long time to come in order to understand Christ. For anthroposophy will prove to be something that stimulates all human powers of knowledge. Human beings will gradually grow into an understanding of Christ. And even the anthroposophical conception is at first only a transient conception. We are aware of this, and also that we will have to enclose something great that is contained in transient conceptions in even greater conceptions.