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

5 July 1909, Kassel

12. The Decline of Primeval Wisdom and its Rejuvenation through the Christ-Impulse

We have arrived at an important point in our studies—a sort of climax—hence we may expect to encounter various difficult passages in elucidating the Gospels. I may therefore be permitted at the beginning of these expositions, to preface the continuation of what was said yesterday with a short survey of the salient features thus far treated.

We know that the nature of mankind's development was essentially different in remote times from what it is today, and we know that the human being shows an increasingly different form as our retrospect reaches farther and farther back to earlier conditions. It has already been mentioned that from our own time, which we may call the Central European cultural epoch, we can look back successively to the Greco-Latin time, to the Egypto-Chaldean period, and then to the era in which the ancient Persian people was led by Zarathustra. Beyond that we arrive at the remote Indian civilization, so very different from ours; and that brings us to a period of cultural evolution that followed immediately upon a great and mighty catastrophe. This cataclysm, running its course in tempestuous events in the air and in the water element, led to the disappearance of that continent which mankind had inhabited before the Indian civilization—ancient Atlantis, situated between Europe-Africa, and America—and to the migration of its people, westward to America and on the other side to the lands of Europe, Asia, and Africa, which had gradually taken on their present configuration. This Atlantean age, especially in the early part, produced human beings who were very differently constituted in respect of their soul from present-day mankind; and what interests us primarily in human evolution is precisely what pertains to the soul, for we know that everything corporeal is a result of psychospiritual development.

What was the nature of the soul life in this ancient Atlantean age? We know that at that time human consciousness was very different from what it became later, and that in a certain respect man had an archaic clairvoyance, but that he was not yet capable of any pronounced self-consciousness, of ego-consciousness. This is achieved only by learning to distinguish oneself from outer objects, and people of that time were not quite able to do this.

Let us imagine for a moment what would happen in our time if we were unable to distinguish ourselves from our surroundings—let us consider the matter in a concise way. Nowadays we ask, Where are the confines of my being? And with a certain justification we answer, from our present-day standpoint, The confines of my human entity are where my skin divides me off from my surroundings. People imagine that they consist only of what their skin encloses, and that everything else is made up of outer objects which they perceive and from which they distinguish themselves. They believe this because they know that if some part is removed from within their skin they are no longer a complete human being, nor can be. From a certain standpoint it is quite correct to say that if you cut off a piece of a man's flesh he is no longer a whole human being.

On the other hand, we also know that we inhale air with every breath; and to the question, where is this air, the answer is, all around us—everywhere where our environment makes contact with us: that is the air we will have within us in the next moment. Now it is outside us, now in us. Cut off this air, remove it, and you can no longer exist. You are less whole than you would be if the hand within your skin were cut off. So the truth of the matter is that we are not bounded by our skin. The surrounding air is part of us, it enters and leaves us, and we have no right arbitrarily to fix the skin as our boundary.

If people would come to understand this—it would have to be arrived at theoretically, as perception provides no means of observing it—it would lead them to ponder on matters not forced upon their attention by the outer world itself. If a man were at all times able to see the air current passing into him, spreading, being transformed, and passing out again, it would never occur to him to say, This hand is more a part of me than the air I inhale. He would count the air as part of himself, and would suspect hallucinations if he fancied himself an independent being capable of existing without his environment.

No such delusion could exist for the Atlantean, for his observation clearly showed him a different state of affairs. He saw the objects in his environment not in sharp outline, but surrounded by colored auras. He did not see a plant as we see it, but more as we see the street lamps on a foggy autumn evening: everything was surrounded by a great colored aura. That was because there is spirit—spiritual beings—in and among all things of the outer world, which the dim clairvoyance still existing at that time enabled the Atlantean to perceive. As the fog fills the space between the lights, so there are spiritual beings everywhere in space. The Atlantean saw these spiritual beings just as you see the fog, hence they constituted for him a kind of vaporous aura investing all outer objects. These themselves were indistinct; but because he saw the spirit he also saw everything of a spiritual nature that streamed in and out of him. And for the same reason he saw himself as a component of his whole environment. He saw currents flowing into his body from all sides, currents you cannot see today. Air is merely the densest substance that enters us: there are far more tenuous ones. Man has lost the power of discerning spirit because he no longer has the old dim clairvoyance; but the man of Atlantis saw the spiritual currents streaming in and out, just as your finger, were it conscious, would see the blood coursing through it and would know that it must wither if it were torn off. Just as the finger would feel, if conscious, so the Atlantean felt himself to be a member of an organism. He felt the currents streaming in through his eyes and ears, and so forth; and he knew that if he were to force himself out of their reach he could not remain a human being. He felt as though poured out into the whole outer world.

The man of Atlantis saw the spiritual world, but he could not distinguish himself from it: he lacked anything like a strong ego sense—self-consciousness in its present meaning. The opportunity to develop this was provided by the fading from his view of all that had emphasized his dependence upon his environment. The cessation of that awareness enabled him to develop his self-consciousness, his egoity, and to do this was the task of post-Atlantean man. After the great Atlantean catastrophe people were organized in such a way that the spiritual world receded from their consciousness, and that they gradually learned to see the outer physical world of the senses ever more clearly and distinctly. But nothing that evolves in the world takes place all at once, but step by step; it proceeds slowly and gradually; and thus the old dim clairvoyance vanished slowly and by degrees. Even today, under given conditions, it is still found as an old heritage in certain people and in mediumistic natures. Something that had reached its climax in a certain era gradually becomes extinct. In the earliest period of postAtlantean times, ordinary people still retained a great deal of the gift of clairvoyance; and what these people saw in the spiritual world was continually supplemented, expanded, and animated by the initiates who were guided to the spiritual world by the methods described in an earlier lecture, and who thus became the messengers of what in former times had been seen to a certain extent by all men.

Better than any external historical research, legends and myths—especially those linked with the oracle sanctuaries—have preserved for us what is true of those old times. In the oracle temples specially selected people were thrown into abnormal states—a dream state, or mediumistic state, as one might say—by reducing them to a consciousness state duller and darker than the ordinary waking state. They were in a condition of diminished consciousness, where they were surrounded by outer objects which, however, they did not see. This was not clairvoyance as it had once existed, but an intermediate state, half dreamlike, half in the nature of clairvoyance. Now, if information was sought concerning certain particular circumstances in the world, or the right mode of procedure in some special matter, the oracles were consulted; for in them was to be found the dim clairvoyance as a heritage of the ancient faculty.

At the beginning of his evolution, then, man was endowed with wisdom: wisdom streamed into him. But this wisdom gradually dwindled away: and even the initiates in their abnormal states—of for they had to be led into the spiritual world by the withdrawal of however, those who were not only initiated in the old sense, but who had advanced with the times and were prophets of the future, realized that a new impulse was indispensable for humanity. An ancient heritage of wisdom had been bestowed upon mankind when it descended from divine-spiritual heights, but it became ever more obscured. In the beginning all men possessed it, then but the few who were thrown into special states of consciousness in the oracles, then only the initiates, and so forth.

The day must come—thus spoke the old initiates who knew the signs of the time—in which this ancient heritage will have dwindled to the point where it is no longer capable of leading and guiding humanity; and this would mean that man would fall a prey to uncertainty and doubt in the world. It would express itself in his willing, his acting, and his feeling. And with the gradual dwindling of wisdom men would become their own unwise leaders: their ego would wax increasingly strong, so that with the recession of wisdom every individual would seek truth in his own ego, would develop his own feelings and will—every man for himself—and men would become ever more isolated, more alienated from each other, and they would understand each other less and less. Since each wants his own thoughts—thoughts that no longer flow out of a unified wisdom—none can understand the other's thoughts; and human feelings, no longer guided by universal wisdom, must eventually come into mutual conflict, as must also human actions. All men would act, think, and feel in opposition to each other, and ultimately mankind would be split up altogether into an aggregation of quarrelling and fighting individuals.

And what was the outer, physical sign that appeared as the expression of this development? It was the transformation mankind experienced in the blood. In very ancient times, as we know, endogamy was customary: people married only within the blood-related tribe. But this custom yielded increasingly to exogamy: the blood of mutually alien tribes became mixed; and that explains the decrease, the dwindling, of the heritage deriving from a remote past.

Let us once more recall Goethe's words which we quoted yesterday:

“My father gave my build to me,
Toward life my sober bearing.
From mother comes my cheerful heart,
My joy in storytelling.”

We connected this assertion with the fact that what the etheric body comprises derives from the maternal element, as handed down from generation to generation, so that every man bears in his own etheric body the legacy of the maternal element, and in his physical body, that of the paternal element. Now, by reason of consanguinity the inheritance, perpetuating itself from etheric body to etheric body, was very potent, and from it derived the old faculty of clairvoyance. The offspring of endogamy inherited with the related blood the old capacity for wisdom in the etheric body. But as blood became more and more mixed—as a result of increasing intermarriage among tribes—the possibility of handing down the ancient wisdom diminished; for as we said yesterday, human blood gradually altered, and the mixing of different bloods obscured the ancient wisdom more and more.

In other words, the blood—bearer of inherited maternal attributes—became ever less fitted to transmit the old faculty of clairvoyance. It simply developed in such a way that people became ever less able to see into the spiritual world. Physically considered, therefore, human blood altered in a manner to render it increasingly incapable of bearing the old wisdom that once had guided man so surely, falling instead more and more into the opposite extreme, becoming the bearer of egotism—that is, of a quality that leads men, as egos, to individual isolation and mutual antagonism. And for the same reason it gradually lost its power of uniting men in love.

We are, of course, still involved in this process of deterioration taking place in the human blood because, in as far as it has its origin in an ancient epoch, it will follow its lingering course to the end of Earth evolution. Therefore an impulse was needed in humanity capable of counteracting this condition. Through consanguinity men would have been led into error and misery, as the old wise men tell us in legends and myths, Men could no longer rely on the legacies of an ancient wisdom: even the oracles, asked for information and advice, divulged only what led to savage conflicts and quarrels. The oracle had foretold, for example, that Laios and Jocasta would have a son who would kill his father and wed his mother. Nevertheless, in the face of this legacy of oracle wisdom, nothing could at that time prevent the blood from falling more and more a prey to error: Oedipus does kill his father and does wed his mother. He commits parricide and incest.

What the old sage meant was this: Once upon a time men possessed wisdom; but even had it been preserved, the development of the ego must inevitably have proceeded, and egotism would have grown so strong that blood would rage against blood. Blood is no longer fitted to lead men upwards when it is guided only by the ancient wisdom. And thus the clairvoyant initiate who gave us the original picture of the Oedipus legend wished to set up a warning for mankind, saying: That is what would happen to you if nothing came to supersede the old oracle wisdom.—And in the Judas legend there is preserved even more clearly an indication of what the old oracle wisdom would have led to. Judas' mother, too, was prophetically told that her son would kill his father and wed his mother, thereby conjuring up untold misery; and it all came to pass in spite of the foreknowledge. This means that the primeval, inherited wisdom is not capable of saving man from the abyss into which he must fall unless a new impulse reaches mankind.

If we now look more closely into the causes of all this we must ask, Why was it inevitable that the ancient wisdom should become unfitted to dominate humanity? The answer to this question can be found by examining nature carefully the origin of the old wisdom in its relation to mankind I have already indicated that in the old Atlantean age a connection existed between the physical body and the etheric body of man that differed greatly from the later relation. In regard to two of the principles of man's nature it can be said that the physical and etheric bodies are so related that they approximately coincide, especially in the region of the head; but this is only the case in our own time. Looking back to the Atlantean period we find the etheric head protruding far beyond its physical counterpart: the etheric body extended past the physical body, particularly in the head region. Now, in the Atlantean epoch human evolution proceeded in such a way that the outline of the physical and of the etheric body became more and more coincident, especially in the head: the etheric body kept withdrawing into the physical body, thereby naturally altering this member of the human being.

That, then, is the essential feature of this phase of human evolution: the etheric body of the human head withdraws more and more into the physical aspect of the head until the two come to coincide. Now, as long as the etheric body was outside the physical head it was subject to conditions quite different from the subsequent ones: it was in touch, on all sides, with currents, with other spiritual beings; and the substance of what thus streamed in and out provided the faculty of clairvoyance in Atlantean times. So the capacity for clairvoyance was due to the incomplete coincidence of the physical and etheric bodies in the head region, a condition admitting from all sides currents endowing the etheric head with clairvoyance. Then followed the time when the etheric body withdrew into the physical body. In a certain way—not completely—it tore itself away from these currents; it began to cut itself off from the currents which had provided the capacity for clairvoyantly penetrating the wisdom of the world. Conversely, when in the old initiations a man's etheric body was withdrawn, his etheric head became interpermeated once more with the surrounding currents, and clairvoyance set in again.

Now, had this contact between the etheric body and the outer world been severed at one stroke, in the middle of the Atlantean age, the old clairvoyance would have vanished far more rapidly than was actually the case. No remnants of it would have remained for the post-Atlantean time, nor would mankind of a later age have retained any recollection of it. As it occurred, however, man preserved a certain contact with the outer currents. And something else took place as well: this etheric body that had cut itself off from the currents of its environment retained, nevertheless, certain remnants of the former capacity for wisdom. Keep well in mind that at the end of the Atlantean epoch, after man had drawn his etheric body into himself, there remained in it a sort of fund, the residue of what had once come to it from without—a small saving, if I may use the term: as if a son had a father, the father is earning money, and the son draws upon him according to his needs. In the same way, man drew upon his environment for all the wisdom he needed, up to the time when his etheric body severed the connection. Keeping to our simile, let us now assume that the son loses his father, there remains for him but a certain portion of his father's money, and he earns nothing to add to it. In time he will come to the end of it and have nothing left. That is the position in which the human being found himself. He had torn himself loose from his father-wisdom, had added nothing to it through his own endeavor, and subsisted on it into the Christian era—indeed, even now he is still living on his inheritance, not on anything he has earned. He lives on his capital, so to speak. In the earliest part of post-Atlantean development a bit of the capital was still left, though without his having himself earned the wisdom: he lived on the interest, as it were, and occasionally requested an additional sum from the initiates. But ultimately the coin of ancient wisdom lost its currency; and when it was given to Oedipus it no longer had any value: this old wisdom did not save him from the most frightful transgression, nor did it save Judas.

That is what took place in the course of human evolution. How did it come about that man gradually exhausted his capital of wisdom? Because in the past he had given access to two kinds of spiritual beings: the Luciferic beings, and later, as a consequence of these, the Ahrimanic or Mephistophelean beings. These prevented him from adding, by his own labor, to the store of old wisdom, for they acted upon his being as follows: the Luciferic beings tended to corrupt his passions and feelings, while the Ahrimanic, the Mephistophelean beings were more concerned with outwardly distorting his view of the world. Had the Luciferic beings not intervened in Earth evolution, man would have developed no such interests in the physical world that drags him down beneath his true status; and if, as a result of the Luciferic influence, the Mephistophelian, the Ahrimanic, the Satanic beings had not taken a-hand, man would know, and would always have known, that underlying every object of the senses there is spirit, and he would look through the surface of the sense world upon the spirit. But Ahriman infused into human observation something like a dark smoke cloud that prevents penetration to the spiritual. Through Ahriman's agency man is enmeshed in lies, in maya, in illusion.—These are the two beings that prevent man from earning any increment to the store of ancient wisdom once bestowed upon humanity; and as a consequence, this heritage has dwindled away and gradually become wholly useless.

Nevertheless, in a certain other respect evolution held to its course. During the Atlantean time the human etheric body merged with the physical body; and it was man's misfortune, so to speak—his fate—to be forced to experience the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman in his physical body in this physical world just at a time when he was God-forsaken, as it were. The result was that the old heritage of wisdom became useless precisely by reason of the influence of the physical body, of living in the physical body. How did this happen? Formerly man did not live in the physical body: he gathered his wisdom from his father's treasury, so to speak—from the ancient fund of wisdom. His source of supplies was outside his physical body, because he himself was outside it in respect of his etheric body; and this source finally dried up. In order to augment his fund of wisdom, man would have needed a treasury in his own body. But this he did not have; and consequently, in default of an inner source of wisdom, there remained less and less of it in his etheric body every time he abandoned his physical body at death. After every death, every reincarnation, the sum of wisdom in his etheric body was less: the etheric body became ever poorer in wisdom.

But evolution advances; and just as in the Atlantean age evolution was such that the etheric body withdrew into the physical body, so future development will proceed in such a way that man will gradually emerge again from his physical body. Whereas in a former age the etheric body kept drawing into the physical—ever deeper, up to the coming of Christ—the time then arrived in which the course of evolution changed. At the moment in which Christ appeared the etheric body began to retrace its course; and already in our present time it is no longer as closely bound to the physical body as it was when Christ was present on earth. And as a result the physical body has become even denser than before. The human being, then, is moving toward a future in which his etheric body will increasingly protrude, and in time it will extend as far as it did in the Atlantean epoch.

Here we can pursue our simile a bit further. If the son, who had formerly lived on his father's fund, spends it all and earns nothing additional, his prospects will become increasingly dismal. But if this man now has a son of his own—that would be the grandson—the latter will not be in the same position as his father. The father at least inherited something and could go on spending, but there remains nothing at all for the grandson, nor does he inherit anything: for the time being he is left with nothing whatever. And in a certain way that describes the course of human evolution. When the etheric body entered the physical, bringing along a supply of divine wisdom from the treasury of the Godhead, it still provided wisdom for its physical body. But the Luciferic and Ahrimanic spirits prevented all augmentation of this wisdom in the physical body—contrived that none should be added. When now the etheric body begins to emerge again it takes nothing with it from the physical body, and the consequence is that if nothing else had intervened man would be heading for a future in which his etheric body, though belonging to him, would contain no vestige of wisdom or knowledge. And with the complete desiccation of the physical body the etheric body would be destitute as well, for nothing could be drawn from the dried-up physical body. Therefore, if the physical body is not to desiccate in that future period, the etheric body must he provided with strength, with the strength of wisdom. Before emerging from the physical body the etheric body should have been endowed with the power of wisdom. Within the physical body it must have received something it can take out with it. Then, when it emerges—provided it has acquired this wisdom—it can react on the physical body, giving it life and preventing its desiccation.

The future evolution of humanity can take one of two courses, of which one is as follows: Man develops without Christ. In this case the etheric body could bring with it nothing from the physical body, because it had received nothing from it: it emerges empty. But conversely, the etheric body cannot animate the physical body, having nothing to give: it cannot prevent the attrition, the withering, of the physical body. Man would gradually forfeit all the fruits of his physical life: they could furnish nothing out of his physical body, which he would therefore have to abandon. But the very purpose for which man descended to earth was to acquire a physical body in addition to his other principles. The germ of the physical body originated in an earlier period, but without its actual formation man would never fulfill his mission on earth. But the influences of Lucifer and Ahriman have entered the picture; and if man acquires nothing in his physical body, if his etheric body withdraws again with nothing to take with it—having even used up the old store of wisdom—then the earth's mission is doomed: the mission of the earth within the universe would fail of fulfillment. Man would carry over nothing into the future but the empty etheric skull which had been abundantly filled when he originally brought it into earth evolution.

But now let us suppose something were to occur at the right moment which would enable man, as his etheric body emerges again, to provide something for it, to animate it, to penetrate it with wisdom as of old: the etheric body would continue to emerge just the same; but now, endowed with new life, new strength, it could employ these for vitalizing the physical body. It could send power and life back into it. But the etheric body itself must first possess these: it would first have to receive this strength and life; and if it succeeds in this the fruits of man's earth life are saved. The physical body will then not simply decay, but rather, this corruptible physical body will assume the configuration of the etheric body, the incorruptible; and man's resurrection, with the harvest reaped in his physical body, is assured.

An impulse had thus to come to the earth through which the exhausted treasure of ancient wisdom might be replenished, through which the etheric body might be endowed with new life, thus enabling the physical element—otherwise destined to corruption—to put on the incorruptible and to become permeated by an etheric body capable of rendering it immortal, of rescuing it from Earth evolution. And that is what Christ brought mankind—this pervasion of the etheric body with life. The transformation of the human physical body that would otherwise be doomed to death, its preservation from corruption, its ability to wear the incorruptible—all this is connected with the Christ. Life was infused into the human etheric body by the Christ impulse—new life, after the old had been spent. And looking into the future, man must tell himself: When my etheric body will ultimately have emerged from my physical body, I should have developed in such a way that it is wholly saturated by the Christ. The Christ must live in me. In the course of my earth development I must by degrees completely permeate my etheric body with the Christ.

What I have just described to you are the deeper processes that elude outer observation. They constitute the spiritual principle underlying the physical evolution of the world.

But what outer form did all this have to take? What was it that entered the physical body through the Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings? The tendency to decay, to dissolution—in short, the tendency to die. The germ of death had entered the physical body. Had no Christ come, this death germ would have developed its full power only at the end of Earth evolution, for then the etheric body would be for all time powerless to reanimate man; and at the completion of Earth evolution, that which had come into being as human physical body would fall into decay and the earth's mission itself would end in death. Whenever we encounter death today we can discern in our present life a portent of the universal death that would occur at the end of Earth evolution. Mankind's ancient heritage dwindles but slowly and gradually, and the possibility of being born again and again, of passing from incarnation to incarnation, is due to the life fund originally given man on his way. As regards his purely external life in the successive incarnations, the possibility for life to exist would not be fully exhausted before the end of Earth evolution; but as time goes on the gradual extinction of the race would manifest itself. This would occur piece by piece, and the physical body would continually wither. Had the Christ impulse not come, man would perish member by member as Earth evolution approached its termination.—At present the Christ-Impulse is but at the beginning of its development: only by degrees will it make its way among men; and only future epochs will reveal—and continue to reveal to the very end of Earth evolution—the full significance of Christ for humanity.

But the various human activities and interests have not all been affected alike by the Christ impulse. There are today many such that have not been touched by it at all, that must await a future time. I will give you a striking example of one whole sphere of human activity which at present has not been influenced by the Christ impulse at all. Toward the end of the pre-Christian epoch—say, in the 6th or 7th Century before our era—the primeval wisdom and power were on the wane in so far as human knowledge was concerned. In connection with other phases of life that wisdom long retained a fresh, young forcefulness; but it declined most noticeably in the matter of knowledge. From the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries B. C. there remained something that may be termed the remnant of a remnant. Were you to hark back even to the Egypto-Chaldean wisdom, not to say that of ancient Persia or India, you would find this wisdom everywhere permeated by true spiritual vision, by the fruits of primeval clairvoyance; and for those endowed to a lesser degree with this faculty the reports of the clairvoyants were available. Such a thing as science other than one based on clairvoyance never existed in the Indian and Persian epochs, nor in still later times; even during the early Greek period there was no science without a basis of clairvoyant research. But then the time approached when this fading clairvoyant research was lost to human science, and for the first time we witness the rise of a human science devoid of clairvoyance—or at least, a science from which clairvoyance was gradually cast out.

Clairvoyance vanishes, as does faith in the revelations of clairvoyants; and during the 6th or 7th Century before the appearance of Christ we see established something we can call a human science, from which the fruits of spiritual research are increasingly eliminated. And this becomes ever more the case: in Parmenides and Heraclitus, in Plato and even in Aristotle—everywhere in the writings of the old naturalists and physicians—you can find ample confirmation that what is known as science was originally permeated by the results of spiritual research. But spiritual science steadily deteriorated and decreased. In connection with our psychic capacity, our feeling and willing, it still endures; but as regards our thinking it is vanishing.

Thus with respect to human thinking, to thinking in terms of science, the influence of the etheric on the physical body had already begun to wane when Christ appeared. Everything of that sort comes about gradually, step by step. Christ came and gave the impulse; but naturally not everyone accepted it at once, and particularly was it rejected in certain spheres of activity. In others it was received, but in the field of science it was positively spurned. Examine for yourselves the science that prevailed in the time of the Roman empire. Look it up in Celsus, where you can read all sorts of rubbish about Christ. This Celsus was a great scholar, but he understood nothing whatever about human thinking as affected by the Christ impulse. He reports:

“There is said to have lived at one time in Palestine a couple known as Joseph and Mary, with whom the sect of Christians originated. But what is told about them is all superstition. The truth is that the wife of this Joseph was once unfaithful to her husband with a Roman captain named Panthera; but Joseph did not know the identity of the child's father.”

That was one of the most popular accounts of the time; and if you follow our contemporary literature you will realize that certain people of the present have not advanced beyond the standard of Celsus. Certainly there are fields in which the Christ-Impulse can take root but slowly, but among those now under discussion it has to this day found no foothold at all. There is one part of man we see withering: it is in the human brain; but when it shall have been influenced by the Christ-Impulse it will revive science in a very different form. Strange as that may sound in this age of scientific fanaticism, it is nevertheless true. That part of the brain assigned to scientific thinking is moving toward a slow death. This illustrates the gradual disappearance of the ancient heritage from scientific thinking. Aristotle still possessed a relatively large store of it, but we see science gradually being drained of it; and science, by reason of the accumulation of external data, will become God-forsaken in respect of its thinking, having nothing left of the old fund. And we see further how it is possible that, no matter how powerfully we experience the Christ, we can no longer establish any contact between the Christ-Impulse and what mankind has achieved in the way of science.

We have tangible evidence of this. Suppose that a man of the 13th Century had been profoundly affected by the Christ-Impulse and had said: We have the Christ-Impulse; like a flood of mighty new revelations it streams to us from the Gospel, and we can permeate ourselves with it.—And suppose further that this man had made it his mission to create a connecting link between science and Christianity: even as early as the 13th Century he would have found nothing in the current science that could have been used for the purpose. He would have had to hark back to Aristotle. Only by collaborating with Aristotle, not with 13th-Century science, would he have been able to interpret Christianity. Science simply became increasingly incapable of making any contact with the Christ principle; hence the 13th-Century scholars had to revert to Aristotle, who still possessed something of the old legacy of wisdom and could thus provide concepts capable of correlating science and Christianity.

But as science grew richer in data and observations it became ever poorer in ideas, until finally the time came when all concepts emanating from the old wisdom disappeared from it. Even the greatest men are, of course, children of their era as far as their scientific activity is concerned. Galileo, for example, could not think from an absolute background, but only as his age thought; and his greatness consists precisely in his having established God-forsaken thinking as such—pure mechanistical thinking. An important revulsion in thought set in with Galileo: the most commonplace phenomena treated by modern physics had quite a different explanation after Galileo's day from what they had previously. Say, someone throws a stone. Today we are told that the stone retains its motion until the latter is counteracted by the influence of another force, the force of inertia. Before Galileo's time a different opinion was held: people were convinced that if the stone was to keep moving it would have to be propelled—something active must be behind it. Galileo taught people to think in an entirely new way, but in a way implying that the world is a mechanism; and the ideal striven for today is a mechanical, mechanistic explanation of the world with the complete elimination of all spirit. And the reason for this is that those portions of the human brain, of the thought apparatus, which constitute the organ of scientific thinking, are already so shrivelled as to be no longer able to infuse new life into concepts, with the result that the latter become more and more poverty-stricken.

One could easily show that science, for all the isolated facts it keeps accumulating, has not enriched the life of mankind by a single concept. Note well that observations are not concepts! Do not imagine that such things as Darwinism and the like have provided humanity with concepts. That is something that others have done—not the scientists, but men who tapped quite different sources. Goethe was such a man: he enriched man's fund of ideas from altogether different sources; and consequently the scientists consider him a dilettante.

The fact is that science has not grown richer in ideas. Far more alive, loftier, grander are those of antiquity. The Darwinian concepts are like squeezed-out lemons: Darwinism merely collected the results of observation and then linked them with poverty-stricken concepts. This trend in science points clearly to the process of gradual death. In the human brain there is a part that is withering, and this is the part that in our time functions in scientific thinking. The reason for this is that the portion of the human etheric body which should animate this shrivelling brain has as yet not grasped the Christ-Impulse. No life will flow into science until the Christ impulse enters the portion of the human brain that is intended to serve science. That is a fact based on the great cosmic laws. If science continues in this way it will become poorer and poorer in concepts, and gradually these will vanish. And increasingly numerous will be the scientists who keep lining up their data, and who will be frightened out of their wits when someone begins to think. Nowadays it is a sore trial for a professor to discover a bit of thinking in a doctor's dissertation submitted to him by some candidate.

But we now have an anthroposophy, and this anthroposophy will increasingly clarify the Christ-Impulse for mankind, thereby imbuing the etheric body with ever more life—with such a wealth of it, in fact, that the etheric body will be able to restore flexibility to that rigid portion of the brain which is responsible for the present trend of scientific thinking. That is an illustration of the manner in which the Christ-Impulse, having in time laid hold on mankind, will reanimate the dying members of the body. The future of the race would see the withering of more and more members; but the flowing in of the Christ-Impulse will increase proportionately with the dwindling of each part; and by the end of the Earth evolution all the parts that would otherwise have perished will be revivified by the Christ-Impulse, which will have saturated the whole etheric body: the human etheric body will have become one with the Christ-Impulse.

The first impetus for this gradual revitalization of mankind, for the resurrection of humanity, was given at a particular moment during a scene most beautifully described in the Gospel of St. John. Think of the Christ as coming into the world a wholly universal Being, and commencing His great work by means of an etheric body completely saturated with His spirit—for the transformation brought about in the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth enabled it to animate even the physical body. At the moment in which the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth, in Whom the Christ now dwelt, became completely a life giver for the physical body, the etheric body of Christ is seen transfigured. And the writer of the John Gospel describes this moment:

Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered.

What is said is that those who stood by heard thunder; but nowhere does it say that anyone who had not been duly prepared had heard it.

Others said, An angel spake to him.

Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.

Why? That what had taken place might be understood by all who were near. And Christ clarifies the event:

Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

In that moment Lucifer-Ahriman was cast out of the physical body of Christ. There stands the great example which in the future must be realized by all mankind: through the Christ-Impulse the obstacles placed by Lucifer-Ahriman must be cast out of the physical body; and man's earth body must be so vitalized by the Christ-Impulse that the fruits of the earth's mission may be carried over into the time that is to follow this earth epoch.

Zwölfter Vortrag

An einem wichtigen Punkt unserer Betrachtungen stehen wir nunmehr, gewissermaßen an einem Höhepunkt derselben. Daß wir dabei allerlei schwierige Partien in der Erklärung der Evangelien zu übersteigen haben, ist wohl selbstverständlich. Daher darf ich wohl heute im Beginne dieser Auseinandersetzungen, bevor wir das Gestrige weiter fortsetzen, mit wenigen kurzen Strichen einen Überblick geben über das, was gestern in bezug auf das Prinzipielle gesagt worden ist.

Wir wissen ja, daß die Menschheitsentwickelung in uralten Zeiten eine wesentlich andere Gestalt hatte als heute. Und wir wissen, daß das, was « Mensch » ist, uns immer eine andere Form zeigt, je weiter wir im Rückblick zurückkommen auf frühere Zustände. Wir haben bereits berührt, daß wir zurückgehen können aus unserer Zeit,welche wir nennen können die mitteleuropäische Kulturzeit, in die griechisch-lateinische Zeit, daß wir weiter zurückgehen können in die ägyptisch-chaldäische Zeit, dann in die Zeit, wo das urpersische Volk geführt worden ist von Zarathustra. Dann gelangen wir in jener uralten Vergangenheit zu der von der unsrigen sehr verschiedenen indischen Kultur, und damit kommen wir schon in eine Zeit der Kulturentwickelung, die auf eine große, gewaltige Katastrophe folgte. Und diese Katastrophe, die sich in stürmischen Vorgängen im Luft- und Wasserelement vollzog, hat dazu geführt, daß jenes Land, das die Menschheit vor der indischen Kultur bewohnt hatte, die alte Atlantis, die zwischen Europa, Afrika und Amerika gelegen war, verschwand, daß die Menschen nach Westen und Osten auswanderten, auf der einen Seite Amerika besiedelten und auf der anderen Seite die Länder Europas, Asiens und Afrikas, die allmählich ihre heutige Gestalt angenommen hatten. Diese atlantische Zeit hat eine Menschheit gesehen, die in bezug auf die Seele, namentlich in älteren Zeiten, ganz anders war als die heutige Menschheit. Und uns interessiert ja zunächst das Seelische in der Menschheitsentwickelung, denn wir wissen, daß alles Körperliche eine Folge der seelisch-geistigen Entwickelung ist. Wie war nun das Leben der Seele in der alten atlantischen Zeit?

Wir wissen, daß in der atlantischen Zeit der Mensch ein ganz anderes Bewußtsein hatte als später, daß der Mensch in gewisser Beziehung damals ein altes Hellsehen hatte, aber noch nicht die Fähigkeit besaß, ein deutlich ausgesprochenes Selbstbewußtsein, ein Ichbewußtsein zu haben. Denn dieses Ichbewußtsein erobert man sich nur dadurch, daß man sich von den äußeren Gegenständen unterscheiden lernt. Der Mensch konnte sich aber dazumal nicht vollständig von äußeren Gegenständen unterscheiden. Stellen wir uns einmal vor, wie die Dinge in unserer heutigen Zeit sich abspielen würden, wenn der Mensch unter den heutigen Verhältnissen sich nicht von seiner Umgebung unterscheiden könnte.

Der Mensch fragt heute - lassen wir uns das einmal in einem Überblick vor unsere Seele führen -: Wo ist die Grenze meiner Wesenheit? Und er sagt mit einem gewissen Recht von seinem heutigen Standpunkt aus: Die Grenze meiner menschlichen Wesenheit ist da, wo meine Haut mich von meiner Außenwelt abgrenzt. -— Der Mensch glaubt, daß nur das zu ihm gehöre, was innerhalb seiner Haut liegt, und daß alles andere äußere Gegenstände sind, die ihm gegenüberstehen, von denen er sich unterscheidet. Er sagt so aus dem Grunde, weil er weiß, daß er nicht mehr ein ganzer Mensch ist und sein kann, wenn man ihm ein Stück wegnimmt von dem, was innerhalb seiner Haut liegt. Daß er, wenn man ihm ein Stück Fleisch abschneidet, kein ganzer Mensch mehr ist, das ist von einem gewissen Standpunkt aus richtig gesprochen. Aber wir wissen auch, daß der Mensch mit jedem Atemzug die Luft einatmet. Und wenn wir fragen: Wo ist diese Luft? - so müssen wir sagen: Sie ist um uns herum, sie ist überall da, wo unsere Umgebung an uns angrenzt; da ist die Luft, die im nächsten Augenblick in uns sein wird. Jetzt ist sie draußen, im nächsten Augenblick ist sie in uns. — Schneiden Sie diese Luft ab, entfernen Sie diese Luft, und Sie können nicht mehr leben! Sie sind weniger ein ganzer Mensch, als wenn Ihnen eine Hand abgeschnitten wird, die innerhalb Ihrer Haut liegt!

Richtig gesprochen würde es also sein, daß wir sagen: Das ist ja gar nicht wahr, daß wir unsere Grenze da haben, wo unsere Haut aufhört! Die Luft, die uns umgrenzt, gehört dazu — das geht immerfort aus und ein, und wir dürfen gar nicht die willkürliche Grenze setzen, die in unserer Haut besteht. - Wenn sich der Mensch das klarmachen wollteer müßte es theoretisch tun, denn die Wahrnehmung liefert ihm nicht diese Beobachtung -, dann müßte er nachdenken gegenüber demjenigen, was sich ihm nicht aufdrängt durch die Außenwelt selber. In dem Augenblick, wo der Mensch jederzeit sehen würde den Luftstrom, der in ihn einfließt, wie er sich in ihm ausbreitet, in ihm sich verändert und ihn wieder verläßt, wenn ihm das in jedem Augenblick vor Augen stände, so würde es ihm gar nicht einfallen zu sagen: Diese Hand gehört zu mir mehr als der Luftstrom, der in mich hineingeht. Er würde die Luft zu sich hinzurechnen, und er würde sich als einer, der Halluzinationen hat, ansehen, wenn er sich sagen würde: Ich bin eine selbständige Wesenheit, die auch ohne die Umgebung bestehen könnte.

Der Atlantier konnte sich dieser Illusion nicht hingeben, denn seine Beobachtung zeigte ihm recht klar etwas anderes: Er sah nicht die Gegenstände seiner Umgebung in festen Konturen, sondern er sah sie umgeben von farbigen Auren. Eine solche Pflanze, wie wir sie sehen, sah er nicht, sondern ähnlich wie wir an einem nebligen Herbstabend die Laternen auf der Straße sehen, so sah er alles wie mit einer großen farbigen Aura umgeben. Das war deshalb so, weil zwischen allen Dingen, die in der Außenwelt sind, Geist ist, geistige Wesenheiten sind, die er mit seinem damaligen dumpfen Hellsehen noch wahrnehmen konnte. Wie der Nebel zwischen den Laternenlichtern ist, so sind auch überall im Raume geistige Wesenheiten. Der Atlantier sah diese geistigen Wesenheiten, wie Sie den Nebel sehen. Daher bildeten ihm die geistigen Wesenheiten etwas wie eine Nebel-Aura, die sich über die äußeren Gegenstände herüberlegte. Die äußeren Gegenstände selbst waren ihm unklar. Weil er aber den Geist sah, so sah er auch alles Geistige, das in ihn aus- und einströmte. Er sah sich dafür aber auch selber als ein Glied in seiner ganzen Umwelt. Er sah überall Strömungen in seinen Leib hineingehen, die Sie heute nicht sehen können. Die Luft ist ja das gröbste, es gehen viel feinere Strömungen in den Menschen hinein. Der Mensch hat verlernt, das Geistige zu schauen, weil er nicht mehr das alte dämmerhafte Hellsehen hat. Der Mensch in der Atlantis sah die geistigen Strömungen aus- und einziehen, wie der Finger an Ihnen, wenn er bewußt wäre, sehen würde, daß das Blut ein- und ausströmt, und daß er verdorren müßte, wenn Sie ihn abreißen. So wie sich der Finger fühlen würde, so fühlte sich der Atlantier als Glied an einem Organismus. Er fühlte: Da fließen die Strömungen ein durch meine Augen und meine Ohren und so weiter. Und wenn ich mich aus ihnen herausdränge, so kann ich kein Mensch mehr sein. — Er fühlte sich hingegossen in die ganze äußere Welt. Der Mensch sah die geistige Welt, aber er konnte sich nicht unterscheiden von ihr, er hatte nicht das starke Ichgefühl, das Selbstbewußtsein im heutigen Sinne. Das zu entwickeln, wurde ihm dadurch möglich, daß sich dasjenige zurückzog vor seiner Beobachtung, was ihm die Abhängigkeit von seiner Umwelt vor sein geistiges Auge gestellt hatte. Dadurch, daß das unsichtbar geworden war, dadurch entstand für ihn die Möglichkeit, Selbstbewußtsein, Ichheit zu entwickeln.

Diese Aufgabe: Selbstbewußtsein, Ichheit zu entwickeln, hatte der Mensch der nachatlantischen Zeit. Nach der großen atlantischen Katastrophe waren die Völker der nachatlantischen Zeit so organisiert, daß sich die geistige Welt aus ihrem Bewußtsein zurückzog, und daß sie allmählich die äußere physisch-sinnliche Welt immer klarer und immer deutlicher schauen lernten. Aber alles, was sich in der Welt entwickelt, geht nicht auf einmal vor sich, sondern nach und nach; langsam und allmählich vollzieht es sich. Und so hat sich denn auch das alte dämmerhafte Hellsehen langsam und allmählich verloren. Ja, es ist bei gewissen Menschen, die es als alte Erbschaft haben, und bei medialen Naturen unter gewissen Voraussetzungen auch heute noch vorhanden. Langsam und allmählich erstirbt das, was in einer gewissen Zeit seinen Höhepunkt erreicht hat. |

Die gewöhnlichen Menschen haben in den ältesten Zeiten der nachatlantischen Zeit noch viel, viel von der Hellsehergabe gehabt. Und was diese Menschen sahen in der geistigen Welt, das wurde immerfort ergänzt, erweitert und angefeuert durch die Eingeweihten, welche auf die Ihnen beschriebene Art durch besondere Methoden in die geistige Welt hineingeführt wurden und so zu Boten wurden dessen, was früher in einer gewissen Weise alle Menschen gesehen hatten. Die Sagen, die Mythen bewahren uns besser auf, was wahr ist für die alten Zeiten, als irgendeine äußere Geschichtsforschung - vor allen Dingen alle die Sagen und Mythen, die sich anknüpfen an die Orakelstätten. Da war es so, daß besondere Menschen in abnorme Zustände — wie man etwa sagen könnte: in Traumzustand, Medialzustand — dadurch geführt wurden, daß man sie in einen Bewußtseinszustand versetzte, der dumpfer, dunkler war als der gewöhnliche helle Tageszustand. Sie waren in einem herabgeminderten Bewußtsein, wo sie zwar innerhalb der Gegenstände der Außenwelt waren, aber diese selbst nicht sahen. Das war auch nicht der alte Hellseherzustand, sondern ein Zwischenzustand, halb traumhaft, halb hellseherischer Art. Wenn man nun etwas wissen wollte über gewisse Zusammenhänge der Welt, wie man sich in dieser oder jener Angelegenheit zu benehmen hatte, dann fragte man an bei den Orakeln, also da, wo alte dämmerhafte Hellseherzustände vorhanden waren als ein Erbgut der alten Art.

Dem Menschen ward also im Beginne seiner Entwickelung Weisheit mitgegeben. Weisheit floß in ihn ein. Aber die Weisheit versiegte allmählich. Und selbst die Eingeweihten in ihrem auch abnormen Zustand — denn sie mußten durch Herausheben des Ätherleibes hineingeführt werden in die geistige Welt -, auch sie konnten nach und nach nur mehr zu unsicheren Beobachtungen in der geistigen Welt kommen. Das aber hatte bei denen, die nicht nur im alten Sinne eingeweiht waren, sondern die mit ihrer Zeit fortschritten, die zu gleicher Zeit Propheten waren für die Zukunft, die Erkenntnis hervorgerufen, daß ein neuer Impuls in der Menschheit notwendig war. Ein altes Weisheitsgut war der Menschheit mitgegeben worden, als sie heruntergestiegen war aus göttlich-geistigen Höhen; aber immer dunkler und dunkler ist es geworden. Früher haben es alle Menschen besessen, dann nur wenige, die in den Orakeln in besondere Zustände geführt wurden, dann nur die Eingeweihten.

Es muß eine Zeit kommen - so sagten sich die Eingeweihten, welche die Zeichen der Zeit kannten -, wo dieses alte Weisheitsgut so versiegt sein wird innerhalb der Menschheit, daß diese Weisheit den Menschen nicht mehr führen und lenken kann. Dann aber würde der Mensch in der Welt in Unsicherheit fallen. Das würde sich ausdrücken in seinem Wollen, in seinem Handeln und seinem Fühlen. Und indem nach und nach die Weisheit ersterben würde, würden die Menschen unweise sich selbst führen. Ihr Ich würde immer mehr und mehr zunehmen, so daß, wenn die Weisheit sich zurückzöge, ein jeder anfinge, in seinem eigenen Ich nach der Wahrheit zu suchen, seine eigenen Gefühle zu entwickeln, seinen Willen zu entwickeln, ein jeder für sich, und die Menschen würden immer mehr und mehr gesondert, immer fremder einander, und immer weniger würden sie sich verstehen. Weil ein jeder seine eigenen Gedanken haben will, die ihm nicht zufließen von der einheitlichen Weisheit, so kann der eine nicht die Gedanken des anderen verstehen. Und weil seine Gefühle nicht geleitet werden von der einheitlichen Weisheit, so wird es dahin kommen, daß sich widerstreben die Gefühle der Menschen. Und ebenso würde es sein mit ihren Handlungen. Die Menschen würden alle gegeneinander handeln, denken und fühlen, und es würde die Menschheit zersplittert werden zuletzt in lauter gegeneinander in Streit stehende Individuen.

Und was war das äußere physische Zeichen, das uns als der Ausdruck dieser Entwickelung erschien? Das war die Veränderung, welche die Menschheit in ihrem Blute erlebte. In den ganz alten Zeiten bestand die nahe Ehe, wie wir wissen. Die Menschen heirateten nur innerhalb des blutsverwandten Stammes. Aber immer mehr und mehr trat an die Stelle der nahen Ehe die ferne Ehe. Es mischte sich fremdes Blut mit fremdem Blut, und daher kam es, daß die Erbstücke der alten Zeit immer geringer, immer weniger wurden. Erinnern wir uns noch einmal an Goethes Worte, die wir gestern ausgesprochen haben:

«Vom Vater hab’ ich die Statur,
Des Lebens ernstes Führen,
Vom Mütterchen die Frohnatur
Und Lust zu fabulieren.»

Wir haben das gestern darauf zurückgeführt, daß von dem mütterlichen Element, wie es sich vererbt von Generation zu Generation, dasjenige herrührt, was im Ätherleibe des Menschen ist, so daß jeder Mensch in seinem eigenen Ätherleibe das Erbstück des mütterlichen Elementes trägt, wie er in seinem physischen Leibe das Erbstück des väterlichen Elementes hat. Indem nun Blutsverwandtschaft da war, war die Vererbung, die sich fortsetzt von Ätherleib zu Ätherleib, eine große, und die alte Fähigkeit des Hellsehens hing an dieser Vererbung. Die Menschen, die herstammten aus den nahen Ehen, erbten mit dem Blute, mit dem verwandten Blute in ihrem Ätherleib die alte Weisheitsfähigkeit. Als nun das Blut sich immer mehr mischte, immer mehr fremde Stämme sich ineinander mischten in der fernen Ehe, da wurde auch die Möglichkeit, die alte Weisheit zu vererben, immer geringer. Denn wie wir gestern schon sagten: Das Blut der Menschen änderte sich, es wurde durch die Blutmischung so, daß die Menschen die alte Weisheit mehr und mehr verdunkelten. Mit anderen Worten: Das Blut, der Träger vererbter mütterlicher Eigenschaften, wurde immer weniger geeignet, die alte Hellsehergabe zu vererben. Das Blut entwickelte sich eben so, daß die Menschen immer unfähiger wurden, in die geistige Welt hineinzublicken. Physisch also müssen wir sagen: Das Blut der Menschen entwickelte sich in der Weise, daß es immer weniger fähig wurde, die alte, den Menschen sicher leitende Weisheit zu tragen, und immer mehr in das andere Extrem verfiel, der Träger des Egoismus zu sein, das heißt dessen, was die Menschen als Iche gegeneinander und nebeneinander stellt. Und damit wurde es auch immer weniger fähig, die Menschen in Liebe zusammenzubringen.

In diesem Prozesse der Blutsverschlechterung des Menschen sind wir natürlich noch drinnen. Denn dieser Prozeß, insofern diese Blutsverschlechterung aus alten Zeiten herrührt, geht langsam seinen Gang bis zum Ende der Erdenzeit. Daher mußte ein Impuls in die Menschheit kommen, der in der Lage war, dasjenige wieder zu verbessern, was durch das Blut schlechter geworden war. In bezug auf ihre Blutsverwandtschaft würden die Menschen in Irrtum und Elend geführt werden. Das sagen uns die alten Weisen durch ihre Sagen und Mythen. Die Menschen konnten sich nicht mehr verlassen auf das, was ihnen als Erbstück alter Weisheit überlassen worden war: Wenn du auch nach dem Orakel schickst und fragst: Was soll geschehen?—so sagt das Orakel nur solches, was dich erst recht in den wildesten Streit und Hader hineinführt. - Das Orakel hat zum Beispiel vorausgesagt, daß Laios und lokaste einen Sohn bekommen würden, welcher den Vater tötet und die Mutter heiratet. Aber dennoch, trotzdem dieses Erbstück alter Weisheit, die Orakelweisheit, vorhanden war, konnte es in dieser Zeit nicht mehr verhindert werden, daß immer mehr das Blut dem Irrtum anheimfiel: Oedipus tötet doch seinen Vater und heiratet seine Mutter, begeht Vatermord und Blutschande.

Der alte Weise wollte sagen: Weisheit hatten die Menschen einst. Aber selbst wenn sie erhalten geblieben wäre, so hätten die Menschen doch fortfahren müssen in der Entwickelung ihres Ich, und es würde sich der Egoismus so stark entwickeln, daß Blut gegen Blut wüten würde. Es ist das Blut nicht mehr geeignet, die Menschen höher hinaufzuführen, wenn nur die alte Weisheit es führt. - So wollte derjenige, der als hellseherischer Initiierter das ursprüngliche Bild der Oedipus-Sage gegeben hatte, ein warnendes Bild hinstellen vor die Menschen und sagen: So würde es mit euch einmal werden, wenn nichts anderes käme als die alte Orakelweisheit! - Und in der Judas-Sage ist uns deutlicher noch erhalten, was aus der alten Orakelweisheit geworden wäre. Auch der Mutter des Judas wurde vorhergesagt, der Sohn werde den Vater töten und die Mutter heiraten, wodurch unsägliches Elend heraufbeschworen würde. Und alles erfüllte sich doch! Das heißt, die uralte Erbweisheit ist nicht imstande, den Menschen zu bewahren vor dem, wohinein er verfallen muß, wenn nicht ein neuer Impuls an die Menschheit herankommt.

Nun fragen wir einmal nach den genaueren Gründen, warum das so gekommen ist. Fragen wir uns: Warum mußte die uralte Weisheit nach und nach untauglich werden in bezug auf die Beherrschung der Menschheit? Wir können eine Antwort auf diese Frage erhalten, wenn wir die Herkunft der uralten Weisheit im bezug auf die Menschheit näher betrachten.

Ich habe Ihnen ja schon angedeutet, daß in der alten atlantischen Zeit ein ganz anderer Zusammenhang war zwischen dem menschlichen physischen Leibe und dem menschlichen Ätherleibe als später. Von den vier Gliedern der Menschennatur gilt heute, daß der physische Leib und Ätherleib so miteinander verbunden sind, daß sie sich ungefähr decken, und besonders ist das bei dem Kopfteil des Menschen der Fall. So ist es aber nur für die heutige Zeit. Wenn wir zurückgehen in die atlantische Zeit, so haben wir da einen solchen Zusammenhang, daß der menschliche Ätherleib in bezug auf den Kopfteil überall weit hinausragte. Der Mensch hatte seinen Ätherleib, besonders in bezug auf den Kopf, in der atlantischen Zeit weit aus dem physischen Leib heraußen. Nun ist die atlantische Entwickelung eben so, daß immer mehr und mehr der Ätherleib zur Deckung kam mit dem physischen Leibe, insbesondere in bezug auf den Kopf. Immer mehr zieht der Ätherleib sich in den physischen Leib hinein und verändert natürlich auch dadurch dieses Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit. Also das ist das Wesentliche in bezug auf diese Seite der menschlichen Entwickelung, daß der Ätherteil des menschlichen Kopfes immer weiter sich hineinzieht in den physischen Teil des Kopfes und daß beide zur Deckung kommen. Nun war der Ätherleib, solange er außerhalb des physischen Kopfes war, in einer ganz anderen Lage als nachher. Es war so, daß er von allen Seiten mit Strömungen verbunden war, mit anderen geistigen Wesenheiten; und was da aus- und einströmte, das gab diesem menschlichen Ätherleib in den atlantischen Zeiten die Fähigkeit des Hellsehens. Also diese Fähigkeit des Hellsehens rührt davon her, daß der Ätherleib noch nicht ganz im physischen Leibe drinnen war in bezug auf den Kopf, und daß von allen Seiten Ströme hineingingen in den Kopf und diesem Ätherleib die Fähigkeit des Hellsehens gaben.

Nun kam die Zeit, da sich der Ätherleib hineinzog in den physischen Leib. Da riß sich der Ätherleib in einer gewissen Weise - nicht ganz — von diesen Strömungen los. Er fing also an sich abzuschneiden von den Zuflüssen, die ihm die Fähigkeit des Hellsehens gegeben hatten, um in die Weisheit der Welt hineinzuschauen. Wenn umgekehrt jemand eingeweiht wurde in den alten Zeiten und sein Ätherleib herausgehoben war, dann wurde sein Ätherkopf wiederum eingeschaltet in die umliegenden Strömungen, und dadurch wurde er wiederum hellsehend. Wäre nun mit einem Schlage das geschehen um die Mitte der atlantischen Zeit, daß der Ätherleib plötzlich ganz abgeschnitten worden wäre von der Berührung mit der Außenwelt, dann würde der Mensch viel schneller alles alte Hellsehen verloren haben. Es wären auch dann keine Reste dieses alten Hellsehens für die nachatlantische Zeit zurückgeblieben, und der Mensch wäre in die spätere Zeit gekommen ohne Erinnerung an das Hellsehen. Der Mensch ist jedoch in gewisser Beziehung noch verbunden geblieben mit den äußeren Strömungen, und es trat noch etwas anderes ein. Dieser Ätherleib des Menschen, der sich losgerissen hatte aus den Strömungen seiner Umgebung, der behielt in sich Reste der alten Weisheitsfähigkeit. Nun merken Sie wohl: Am Ende der atlantischen Zeit, nachdem der Mensch seinen Ätherleib in sich aufgenommen hatte, war in diesem Ätherleib noch ein Fonds, ein Rest dessen, was der Ätherleib draußen einmal gehabt hatte, ein «Sparpfennig », wenn ich so sagen darf. Es ist so, wie wenn ein Sohn einen Vater hat. Der Vater verdient, und der Sohn bezieht immerfort von seinem Vater dieses oder jenes, was er braucht. So bezog der Mensch Weisheit, soviel er brauchte, aus seiner Umgebung bis zum Losreißen seines Ätherleibes. Nun nehmen wir aber an, um bei unserem Vergleich zu bleiben: Der Sohn verliert den Vater, es bleibt ihm nur irgendein bestimmter Teil übrig, und der Sohn verdient nichts hinzu; dann wird er einmal damit fertig sein und nichts mehr haben. In dieser Lage war der Mensch. Er hatte sich losgerissen von seiner Vater-Weisheit, hatte nichts hinzugewirtschaftet, hatte davon gelebt bis in die christliche Zeit hinein. Ja bis in unsere Zeit hinein lebt er noch immer von dem, was er ererbt hat, nicht von dem, was er erworben hat. Er lebt sozusagen vom Kapital. In den ältesten Zeiten der nachatlantischen Entwickelung hatte der Mensch noch etwas vom Kapital, zwar ohne daß er die Weisheit selbst erarbeitet hatte; er lebte sozusagen von den Zinsen und hat sich manchmal eine Zulage geben lassen von den Eingeweihten. Aber zuletzt wurde die Münze der alten Weisheit nicht mehr gangbar. Und als man diese alte Münze dem Oedipus auszahlte, da galt sie nicht mehr. Diese alte Weisheit bewahrte ihn nicht vor dem furchtbarsten Irrtum, und sie bewahrte auch nicht den Judas davor.

So weit war es mit dem Gange der Menschheitsentwickelung gekommen. Woher kam es denn eigentlich, daß der Mensch allmählich sein Weisheitskapital aufzehrte? Es kam daher, weil er früher schon zwei Arten von geistigen Wesenheiten in sich aufgenommen hatte: zuerst die luziferischen Wesenheiten, und dann infolge der luziferischen Wesenheiten die ahrimanischen oder mephistophelischen Wesenheiten. Die hinderten ihn daran, zu der alten Weisheit etwas hinzuzuerwerben. Denn die wirkten in seiner Wesenheit in der Art: mehr die Leidenschaften verderbend, die Gefühle verderbend die luziferischen Wesenheiten äußerlich verderbend unsere Anschauung über die Welt, unsere Beobachtung die ahrimanischen, die mephistophelischen Wesenheiten. Würden nicht die luziferischen Wesenheiten in die Erdentwickelung eingegriffen haben, so würde der Mensch nicht das Interesse gewonnen haben für die physische Welt, das ihn herabzieht unter seinen Stand. Würden nicht als Folge der luziferischen Wesenheiten die mephistophelischen, die ahrimanischen oder satanischen Wesenheiten eingegriffen haben, so würde der Mensch wissen und immer gewußt haben: Hinter jedem äußeren Sinnesding ist ein Geistiges. Und er würde durchschauen durch die Oberfläche der äußeren Sinneswelt auf das Geistige. Aber Ahriman hat ihm hineingemischt in seine Anschauung etwas wie einen dunklen Rauch, und so kann der Mensch nicht durchschauen auf das Geistige. Durch Ahriman wird der Mensch in die Lüge hineinverstrickt; dadurch wird er in die Maja, in die Illusion hineinverstrickt. Diese zwei Wesensarten hindern ihn, sich etwas hinzuzuerwerben zu dem alten Weisheitsgut, das der Mensch einmal empfangen hat. Und so versiegte es und verlor nach und nach völlig seine Brauchbarkeit.

Aber in gewisser anderer Beziehung geht dann die Entwickelung doch ihren Gang weiter. Der Mensch ist in der atlantischen Zeit untergetaucht mit dem Ätherleib in den physischen Leib. Das war sozusagen sein Unglück, als er in gewisser Beziehung gottverlassen war, daß er da in dieser physischen Welt innerhalb des physischen Leibes die Einflüsse Luzifers und Ahrimans erlebte. Es war sein Verhängnis. Und die Folge davon war, daß gerade durch den Einfluß des physischen Leibes, durch das Leben im physischen Leibe das alte Weisheitsgut unbrauchbar wurde. Wie geschah das? Früher hat der Mensch nicht im physischen Leibe gelebt. Da hat er sozusagen aus der Kasse seines Vaters, der alten Weisheitsgüter heraus die Weisheit genommen, das heißt, er hatte seine Kasse außerhalb seines physischen Leibes, weil er eben mit seinem Ätherleib draußen war. Diese Kasse war allmählich versiegt. Der Mensch hätte müssen in seinem eigenen Leib eine Kasse haben, um sein Weisheitsgut zu vermehren. Die hatte er aber nicht. Und so kam es denn, weil der Mensch in seinem eigenen Leib keinen Quell hatte zur Erneuerung der Weisheit, daß jedesmal, wenn er herausstieg nach dem Tode aus seinem physischen Leib, in seinem Ätherleib weniger Weisheit drinnen war. Jedesmal nach dem Tode, nach einer jeden Verkörperung, war in seinem Ätherleib weniger Weisheit drinnen. Immer ärmer an Weisheit wurde der Ätherleib.

Aber der Gang der Entwickelung geht fort, und genau so, wie einstmals in der atlantischen Zeit der Mensch sich so entwickelt hat, daß sein Ätherleib untertauchte in seinen physischen Leib, so vollzieht sich die Entwickelung, indem wir in die Zukunft hineingehen, so, daß der Mensch allmählich wieder herausrückt aus seinem physischen Leib. Während der Ätherleib vorher hineingezogen ist und bis zum Erscheinen des Christus immer noch ein Stück weiter hineingegangen ist, kam jetzt die Zeit, wo der Gang der Entwickelung sich änderte. In dem Moment, wo der Christus erschien, da fing der Ätherleib wieder an herauszugehen, und heute ist er schon bereits weniger mit dem physischen Leibe verbunden als zur Zeit der Anwesenheit des Christus. Der physische Leib ist dadurch noch gröber geworden.

Der Mensch geht also einer Zukunft entgegen, in der immer mehr und mehr sein Ätherleib sich wieder heraushebt, und er wird allmählich wieder einmal an einem Punkte ankommen, wo wieder sein Ätherleib ganz so weit draußen ist wie in der atlantischen Zeit. Wir werden unseren Vergleich noch ein Stück weiter fortsetzen können.

Wenn der Sohn, der früher aus der Kasse seines Vaters gelebt hat, alles ausgibt und nichts hinzuerwirbt, so wird es bei ihm immer trübseliger ausschauen. Aber wenn er nun auch einen Sohn hat, so wird dieser Sohn, also der Enkel, nicht in der gleichen Lage sein wie sein Vater. Der Vater hat wenigstens etwas geerbt und konnte immerfort noch ausgeben. Der Enkel hat nun gar nichts mehr, er erbt auch nichts, er steht ohne etwas da zunächst. So war in einer gewissen Beziehung der Gang der Menschheitsentwickelung. Der Ätherleib, als er hereinkam und ‘ sich aus den Kassen der Gottheit die göttliche Weisheitssumme. mitnahm, da brachte er seinem physischen Leibe noch Weisheit mit. Aber im physischen Leibe hinderten die luziferischen und die ahrimanischen Geister, daß sich die Weisheit vermehrte, daß etwas hinzukam. Wenn jetzt der Ätherleib wieder herausrückt, dann nimmt er aus dem physischen Leibe nichts mit heraus. Und die Folge würde sein, wenn nichts anderes eingetreten wäre, daß der Mensch einer Zukunft entgegenginge, in welcher sein ätherischer Leib zwar ihm gehört, aber gar nichts von Weisheit, gar nichts von Wissen hätte. Und während der physische Leib völlig vertrocknet, würde der Ätherleib auch nichts haben, denn er kann ja von dem vertrocknenden physischen Leib nichts gewinnen. Wenn also der physische Leib nicht vertrocknen soll in jener Zukunft, dann muß dem Ätherleibe Kraft, Kraft der Weisheit gegeben werden. Es müßte dieser Ätherleib, indem er herausgeht aus dem physischen Leib, im physischen Leibe Kraft der Weisheit erhalten haben. Da drinnen müßte er etwas erhalten haben, was er mit hinausträgt. Wenn er dann draußen ist, und er hat diese Weisheit erhalten, dann wirkt er wieder zurück auf den physischen Leib und gibt ihm Leben, läßt ihn nicht vertrocknen.

Zwei Möglichkeiten liegen vor für diese Menschheitsentwickelung. Die eine Möglichkeit ist diese:

Der Mensch entwickelt sich ohne den Christus. In diesem Falle könnte der Ätherleib nichts mitbringen aus dem physischen Leib, denn er hat dort nichts erhalten, er geht leer heraus. Da aber der Ätherleib nichts hat, kann er auch nicht den physischen Leib beleben, er kann ihn nicht vor seiner Zermürbung, nicht vor seiner Vertrocknung bewahren. Der Mensch würde allmählich alle Früchte des physischen Lebens verlieren, sie würden ihm nichts aus dem physischen Leibe geben können, und er müßte den physischen Leib zurücklassen. Nun haben sich die Menschen aber gerade auf die Erde begeben, damit sie einen physischen Leib zu den früheren Anlagen dazu bekommen. Die Anlage zum physischen Leib ist früher gekommen. Aber ohne die Gestaltung des physischen Leibes würde der Mensch niemals die Erdenmission erreichen. Nun sind auf der Erde die Einflüsse von Luzifer und Ahriman gekommen. Gewinnt der Mensch nichts in seinem physischen Leibe, geht sein Ätherleib wieder heraus aus dem physischen Leibe, ohne daß er etwas Neues mitnehmen kann, daß er sogar noch dazu verbraucht hat das alte Weisheitsgut, so ist es um die Erdenmission geschehen. Dann ist die Sendung der Erde verloren für das Weltenall. Nichts bringt der Mensch in die Zukunft mit. Den leeren Ätherschädel würde er mitbringen, den er gefüllt in die Erdentwickelung hineingebracht hat!

Nehmen wir aber nun an, es geschähe etwas zur rechten Zeit, wodurch der Mensch beim Wiederhinausrücken seines Ätherleibes aus dem physischen Leib fähig würde, diesem Ätherleib etwas zu geben, ihn wieder zu beleben, ihn wieder mit Weisheit zu durchdringen. Dann würde auch gegen die Zukunft hin der Ätherleib herausgehen, aber er hätte jetzt neues Leben, neue Kraft. Die könnte er dann wieder zur Belebung des physischen Leibes verwenden. Er könnte jetzt zurücksenden in den physischen Leib hinein Kraft und Leben. Aber er müßte es selbst erst haben; er müßte selbst erst Kraft und Leben erhalten. Wenn er aber Kraft und Leben erhalten kann, dann ist des Menschen Erdenfrucht gerettet. Dann verfault der physische Leib nicht bloß, sondern der physische Leib, das Verwesliche, das nimmt an die Gestalt des Ätherleibes, des Unverweslichen! Und des Menschen Auferstehung mit den Errungenschaften im physischen Leibe ist gerettet.

Ein Impuls also mußte auf die Erde kommen, durch welchen das, was aufgebraucht war an altem Weisheitsgut, wieder erneuert wurde, wodurch dem Ätherleibe wieder neues Leben eingepflanzt wurde, so daß das sonst zum Verwesen bestimmte Physische anziehen kann das Unverwesliche und sich erfüllen kann mit einem Ätherleib, der es unverweslich macht, der es hinausrettet aus der Erdentwickelung. Dies aber, dieses Leben in den Ätherleib hinein, das hat der Christus gebracht. Es hängt also mit dem Christus zusammen, daß dasjenige, was sonst dem Tode geweiht wäre, des Menschen physischer Leib, umgewandelt werde, vor der Verwesung bewahrt werde, daß es die Fähigkeit erhält, das Unverwesliche anzuziehen. Leben gegossen hat der Christus-Impuls in des Menschen Ätherleib, neues Leben, nachdem das Leben verbraucht war! Und der Mensch, wenn er in die Zukunft hineinschaut, muß sich sagen: Wenn einst mein Ätherleib heraus sein wird aus dem physischen Leib, dann werde ich mich so entwickelt haben müssen, daß der Ätherleib ganz durchsetzt ist von dem Christus. Der Christus muß in mir leben. Ich muß nach und nach im Laufe meiner Erdenentwickelung mich ganz durchdringen in bezug auf meinen Ätherleib mit dem Christus!

Was ich Ihnen jetzt beschrieben habe, das sind die tieferen Vorgänge, die sich dem äußeren Auge entziehen. Sie sind das Geistige hinter der physischen Entwickelung der Welt. Was aber mußte die äußere Gestalt sein?

Was war es denn, was in den physischen Leib hineingetreten ist durch die luziferischen, durch die ahrimanischen Wesenheiten? Hineingekommen war in den physischen Leib die Anlage zur Verwesung, die Anlage zur Auflösung, die Anlage zum Sterben, mit anderen Worten. In den physischen Leib war der Todeskeim gekommen. Dieser Todeskeim würde erst vollständig zum Ausdruck kommen am Ende der Erdentwickelung, wenn kein Christus gekommen wäre. Denn dann würde der Ätherleib in alle Zukunft hinein unfähig sein, den Menschen wieder zu beleben. Und wenn die Erdentwickelung fertig wäre, dann würde alles, was als physischer Menschenleib entstanden ist, der Verwesung anheimfallen, und die Erdenmission selber würde dem Tode verfallen. Jederzeit ist, wenn wir heute den Tod erblicken, dieser jetzige Tod ein Wahrzeichen für das, was als der allgemeine Tod am Ende der Erdentwickelung stehen würde. Langsam und allmählich nur versiegt das, was der Menschheit einmal mitgegeben worden ist. Daß der Mensch immer wieder und wieder geboren wird, von Verkörperung zu Verkörperung gehen kann, das ist nur dadurch möglich geworden, daß dem Menschen ein Lebensfonds mitgegeben wurde. Für das rein äußere Leben in aufeinanderfolgenden Inkarnationen würde eben erst am Ende der Erdentwickelung ersterben alle Lebensmöglichkeit. Aber nach und nach würde sich schon zeigen, daß die Menschen absterben. Langsam würde sich das vollziehen von Teil zu Teil, und der physische Leib würde immer mehr vertrocknen. Wäre nicht der Christus-Impuls gekommen, so würde der Mensch gliedweise gegen das Ende der Erdentwickelung hin absterben. Nun steht der Christus-Impuls erst im Anfange seiner Entwickelung. Er wird erst nach und nach sich in die Menschheit hineinleben, und was der Christus für die Menschheit sein wird, das werden erst künftige Zeiten vollständig zeigen - bis an das Ende der Erdenentwickelung hin.

Aber nicht in gleicher Weise sind die verschiedenen menschlichen Verrichtungen und Dinge von dem Christus-Impuls ergriffen worden. Es gibt heute sehr viele Dinge, die von dem Christus-Impuls ganz und gar nicht ergriffen sind, die erst in der Zukunft werden von dem Christus-Impuls ergriffen werden müssen. Ich will Ihnen dafür ein schlagendes Beispiel anführen, wie es in unserer Zeit ein ganzes Gebiet menschlicher Tätigkeit gibt, das gegenwärtig von dem Christus-Impuls nicht ergriffen worden ist.

Als die vorchristliche Zeit zu Ende ging, etwa im siebenten, sechsten Jahrhundert der vorchristlichen Zeitrechnung, da ging in bezug auf menschliches Wissen die uralte Weisheit und die uralte Kraft zur Neige. In bezug auf andere Lebenserscheinungen hatte sie noch lange eine junge, frische Kraft, aber namentlich in bezug auf das Wissen ging sie zur Neige. Von dem achten, siebenten, sechsten Jahrhundert vor der christlichen Zeitrechnung blieb zurück etwas, was man als einen Rest wiederum des Restes bezeichnen kann. Wenn Sie noch zur ägyptisch-chaldäischen Weisheit gegangen wären oder zur urpersischen und indischen Weisheit, da würden Sie diese Weisheit überall durchdrungen gefunden haben mit wirklichen geistigen Anschauungen, mit Ergebnissen uralten Hellsehens. Diejenigen, welche nicht sehr hellseherisch waren, die hatten die Berichte der Hellseher. Wissenschaft etwa ohne Grundlage des Hellsehens gab es nicht und hat es nicht gegeben, in der indischen und persischen Zeit nicht und in den späteren Zeiten nicht. Auch in der ersten Zeit des Griechentums hat es keine Wissenschaft gegeben ohne zugrunde liegende hellseherische Forschung. Dann aber kam die Zeit heran, wo für die menschliche Wissenschaft die hellsehetische Forschung versiegte. Und nun sehen wir eine menschliche Wissenschaft zuerst auftauchen, aus der das Hellsehen heraus ist, oder wenigstens nach und nach herausgeworfen wird.

Warum verschwindet das Helisehen? Weil jetzt bereits oben anfängt der Ätherleib wieder herauszutreten. Da zeigen sich schon die ersten Vorzeichen. Das Hellsehen versiegt, der Glaube an die Mitteilungen der Hellseher versiegt, und dasjenige wird begründet in der Zeit des siebenten, sechsten Jahrhunderts vor dem Erscheinen des Christus, was man nennen kann eine menschliche Wissenschaft, aus der immer mehr und mehr die Ergebnisse der geistigen Forschung herausgetrieben werden. Und das geht immer weiter und weiter. Bei Parmenides, Heraklit, bei Plato und noch bis zu Aristoteles hin, da können Sie überall nachweisen in den Schriften der Naturforscher, bei den alten Ärzten, daß dasjenige, was man Wissenschaft nennt, ursprünglich durchdrungen war von den Ergebnissen der geistigen Forschung. Aber immer mehr und mehr versiegte die Geisteswissenschaft, immer weniger wurde sie. In bezug auf unsere Seelenfähigkeit bleibt sie noch vorhanden, in bezug auf Fühlen und Wollen bleibt sie vorhanden; in bezug auf das menschliche Denken versiegt sie nach und nach.

So hatte also in bezug auf das menschliche Denken, auf das wissenschaftliche Denken der Einfluß vom Ätherleib auf den physischen Leib schon begonnen sich zu verlieren, als der Christus erschien. Alles geschieht eben nach und nach, allmählich. Da kam der Christus und gab den Impuls. Aber natürlich nahmen nicht alle gleich den Christus-Impuls an, und namentlich für gewisse Gebiete wurde er nicht angenommen. Für verschiedene Gebiete wurde er angenommen, aber geradezu zurückgewiesen wurde er für die wissenschaftlichen Gebiete. Sehen Sie sich selbst die Wissenschaft der römischen Kaiserzeitan. Sehen Sie nach bei Celsas. Da können Sie finden allerlei Zeug, was er geschrieben hat über den Christus. Dieser Celsus, der ein sehr großer Gelehrter war, aber nichts verstand in bezug auf das menschliche Denken vom Christus-Impulse, berichtet: Da soll einmal gelebt haben in Palästina ein Ehepaar unter dem Namen Joseph und Maria, und an diese knüpft sich an die Sekte der Christen. Das aber, was darüber erzählt wird, ist alles Aberglaube. Die Wahrheit ist die, daß die Frau dieses Joseph einmal ihrem Manne untreu geworden ist mit einem römischen Hauptmanne mit Namen Panthera. Der Joseph wußte aber nicht, wer der Vater ihres Kindes war.

Das gehört zu den bekanntesten Erzählungen jener Zeit. Wer die zeitgenössische Literatur verfolgt, der wird wissen, daß gewisse Menschen der heutigen Zeit noch nicht über den Celsus hinausgekommen sind. Gewiß, es lebt sich auf manchen Gebieten nur langsam der Christus-Impuls ein, aber in bezug auf diese Gebiete, von denen wir jetzt sprechen, hat er sich bis heute noch gar nicht einleben können. Da sehen wir eines der Glieder, das verdorrt. Da sehen wir, daß im menschlichen Gehirn etwas verdorrt, während, wenn dieses Gehirn beeinflußt wird von dem Christus-Impuls, es die Wissenschaft in einer ganz anderen Gestalt wieder aufleben lassen wird. So sonderbar das klingt in unserer Zweit des wissenschaftlichen Fanatismus, so ist es doch so: der Teil des menschlichen Gehirns, der dazu berufen ist, wissenschaftlich zu denken, verfällt einem langsamen Tode. Daher sehen Sie, wie ganz langsam, stufenweise die alten Erbstücke aus dem wissenschaftlichen Denken verschwinden. Wir sehen, wie Aristoteles verhältnismäßig noch viel davon hat, wie aber nach und nach die Wissenschaft ausgepreßt wird von den alten Erbstücken, und wie die Wissenschaft durch das, was sie später bekommt an äußeren Beobachtungen, gottverlassen wird in bezug auf das Denken, wie sie nichts mehr hat von dem alten Fonds. Und wir sehen, wie es möglich ist, daß, wenn man den Christus noch so stark erlebt, man keinen Zusammenhang mehr finden kann zwischen dem Christus-Impuls und zwischen dem, was die Menschheit an Wissenschaft sich herauferobert hat. Es gibt äußere Beweise dafür.

Denken Sie, es wäre ein Mensch gewesen im dreizehnten Jahrhundert, der ganz intensiv von dem Christus-Impuls ergriffen gewesen wäre, und der gesagt hätte: Wir haben den Christus-Impuls. Wie eine Summe von gewaltigen neuen Offenbarungen fließt er uns aus dem Evangelium heraus, und wir können uns damit durchdringen! - Und nehmen wir an, dieser Mensch hätte sich die Aufgabe zugeschrieben, ein Bindeglied zu schaffen zwischen der Wissenschaft und dem Christentum: es war schon im dreizehnten Jahrhundert so, daß er dazu nichts gefunden hätte in der zeitgenössischen Wissenschaft! Er hätte zurückgreifen müssen bis zu Aristoteles. Und mit dem Aristoteles nicht mit der Wissenschaft des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts, sondern nur mit dem Aristoteles hätte er das Christentum interpretieren können. Die Wissenschaft war eben so, daß sie immer unfähiger wurde, mit dem Christus-Prinzip zusammenzukommen. Deshalb mußten die Männer des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts zurückgehen bis zu demalten Aristoteles. Der hatte noch von dem alten Erbgut der Weisheit, und er konnte die Begriffe liefern, durch die man die Wissenschaft mit dem Christentum zusammenbringen konnte. Dann wurde die Wissenschaft immer ärmer und ärmer an Begriffen, gerade indem sie immer reicher wurde an Beobachtungen. Und dann kam die Zeit, wo alle Begriffe der alten Weisheit aus der Wissenschaft schwanden.

Die größten Menschen sind ja natürlich in bezug auf ihre Wissenschaft auch Kinder ihrer Zeit. Galilei konnte doch nicht aus dem Absoluten heraus denken, er konnte nur im Sinne seiner Zeit denken. Under ist gerade dadurch groß, daß er das rein gottverlassene Denken herstellt, das rein mechanistische Denken. Ein großer Umschwung tritt gerade mit Galilei uns vor Augen. Die gewöhnlichste Erscheinung, wie sie heute in der Physik erklärt wird, wurde vor Galilei anders geschildert als nach ihm. Jemand wirft zum Beispiel einen Stein. Da sagt man heute, der Stein behält durch das Beharrungsvermögen so lange seine Bewegung bei, bis sie unter dem Einfluß einer anderen Kraft aufgehoben wird. Vor Galilei dachte man ganz anders; da war man davon überzeugt, daß, wenn der Stein weiter gehen soll, jemand den Stein fortstoßen muß. Etwas Aktives stand hinter dem fliegenden Stein. Galilei hat vollständig die Menschen umdenken gelehrt, aber so, daß sie gelernt haben, die Welt als einen Mechanismus aufzufassen. Und heute gilt es geradezu als ein Ideal, die Welt mechanisch, mechanistisch zu erklären und allen Geist herauszutreiben. Das rührt eben davon her, daß jene Partien des menschlichen Gehirnes, des Denkinstrumentes, die das Organ des wissenschaftlichen Denkens sind, heute schon so vertrocknet sind, daß sie nicht neues Leben den Begriffen zufließen lassen können, so daß diese Begriffe ärmer und ärmer werden.

Man könnte leicht nachweisen, daß die Wissenschaft, wenn sie noch so sehr Einzelheit zu Einzelheit häuft, mit keinem einzigen Begriff die Menschheit bereichert hat. Wohlgemerkt: Beobachtungen sind keine Begriffe! Sagen Sie nicht, daß solche Dinge wie Darwinismus und dergleichen die Menschheit mit Begriffen bereichert hätten. Andere haben das getan, nicht die Wissenschafter, sondern Menschen, die ganz andere Quellen hatten. Ein solcher Mensch war Goethe. Er hat die Menschheit mit Begriffen von ganz anderen Quellen her bereichert. Dafür gilt er aber bei den Wissenschaftern auch als Dilettant.

Die Dinge liegen so, daß tatsächlich die Wissenschaft nicht bereichert worden ist mit Begriffen. Begriffe finden Sie viel, viel lebensvoller, viel höher und großartiger in uralten Zeiten. Ausgepreßt wie eine Zitrone sind die Begriffe, die der Darwinismus hat. Er hat nur Beobachtungen gesammelt und sie mit den ärmer gemachten Begriffen verbunden. Diese wissenschaftliche Richtung ist etwas, was uns so recht deutlich den Vorgang zeigt des allmählichen Absterbens. Im Gehirn des Menschen ist ein Glied, das im Vertrocknen ist. Das ist das Glied, das heute in der Wissenschaft arbeitet. Und der Grund davon ist, daß der Teil des menschlichen Ätherleibes, der dieses vertrocknende Gehirn beleben sollte, heute noch nicht den Christus-Impuls erlangt hat. Bevor nicht der Christus-Impuls auch einfließt in diesen Teil des menschlichen Gehirns, welcher die Wissenschaft versorgen soll, kommt kein Leben in diese Wissenschaft. Das ist in den großen Weltgesetzen begründet. Wenn die Wissenschaft so fortmacht, wird sie immer ärmer werden an Begriffen, immer mehr werden die Begriffe aussterben. Und solche Menschen werden in der Wissenschaft immer häufiger sein, welche eine Beobachtung neben die andere stellen - und eine heillose Angst haben vor dem, der einmal anfängt zu denken. Schrecklich ist es heute für einen Professor, wenn ihm ein junger Mensch eine Doktor-Dissertation bringt, wo auch nur ein wenig Denken drinnen ist.

Aber es gibt heute schon eine Anthroposophie! Und diese Anthroposophie wird immer mehr und mehr den Christus-Impuls der Menschheit verständlich machen und dadurch dem Ätherleib immer mehr Leben zuführen. Und sie wird imstande sein, so viel Leben ihm zuzuführen, daß er auch den vertrocknenden Teil des Gehirns zum Schmelzen bringen wird, der heute unsere wissenschaftliche Denkrichtung zuwege gebracht hat. Das ist ein Beispiel dafür, wie der Christus-Impuls, indem er sich nach und nach einlebt in die Menschheit, die absterbenden Glieder wieder belebt. Gegen die Menschenzukunft hin würden immer mehr und mehr Glieder absterben. Aber gegenüber jedem absterbenden Gliede wird der Christus-Impuls in die Menschheit einfließen, und am Ende der Erdentwickelung wird es so sein, daß alle die Glieder, die sonst abgestorben wären, wieder belebt worden sind von dem ChristusImpuls, der dann den ganzen Ätherleib durchsetzt hat, mit dem der menschliche Ätherleib dann eins geworden ist. Und der erste Impuls zu dieser allmählichen Wiederbelebung der Menschheit, der erste Impuls zur Auferstehung der Menschheit ist eingetreten in einem Moment, den uns das Johannes-Evangelium wunderschön schildert.

Stellen wir uns vor, daß der Christus in die Welt getreten ist völlig universell und zuerst das Große vollbringt aus einem völlig durchchristlichten Ätherleib. Denn das ist es ja gewesen, zu dem der Christus den Ätherleib des Jesus von Nazareth gemacht hat, daß dieser Ätherleib auch den physischen Leib beleben konnte. In dem Augenblick, wo der Ätherleib des Jesus von Nazareth, in dem der Christus jetzt war, ein vollständiger Beleber geworden war des physischen Leibes, da erschien der Ätherleib des Christus verklärt! Und der Schreiber des Johannes Evangeliums schildert uns diesen Augenblick :

«Vater, verkläre deinen Namen! — Da kam eine Stimme vom Himmel: Ich habe ihn verkläret, und will ihn abermal verklären. Da sprach das Volk, das dabei stand und zuhörte: Es donnert.»

Es wird gesagt: Diejenigen, die dabei standen, hörten donnern. Aber niemals wird gesagt, daß etwa ein Mensch, der nicht dazu vorbereitet gewesen wäre, es auch gehört hätte.

«Die anderen aber sprachen: Es redete ein Engel mit ihm. Jesus antwortete und sprach: Diese Stimme ist nicht um meinetwillen geschehen, sondern um euretwillen.»

Warum? Damit rings um ihn herum verstanden werde, was geschehen ist. Und der Christus spricht über das, was geschehen ist:

«Jetzt gehet das Gericht über die Welt; nun wird der Fürst dieser Welt ausgestoßen werden.» (12, 28-31)

Luzifer-Ahriman ist in diesem Augenblicke aus dem physischen Leib des Christus ausgestoßen worden! Das große Vorbild steht da, das sich in der Zukunft in der ganzen Menschheit vollziehen muß: Ausgestoßen werden müssen durch den Christus-Impuls die Hemmnisse von LuziferAhriman aus dem physischen Leibe! Und des Menschen Erdenkörper muß so belebt werden durch den Christus-Impuls, daß die Früchte der Erdenmission mit hinübergenommen werden in jene Zeiten, welche die Erdenzeiten ablösen werden.

Twelfth Lecture

We have now reached an important point in our considerations, a high point, so to speak. It goes without saying that we will have to overcome all kinds of difficult passages in the explanation of the Gospels. Therefore, before we continue with yesterday's discussion, I would like to begin today's lecture with a brief overview of what was said yesterday regarding the fundamental principles.

We know that human development in ancient times took a very different form than it does today. And we know that the further back we look at earlier states of development, the more the nature of the human being appears to us in a different form. We have already touched upon the fact that we can go back from our time, which we can call the Middle European cultural period, to the Greek-Latin period, that we can go further back to the Egyptian-Chaldean period, then to the time when the ancient Persian people were led by Zarathustra. Then we arrive in that ancient past at the Indian culture, which was very different from ours, and with that we already enter a period of cultural development that followed a great, powerful catastrophe. And this catastrophe, which took place in stormy events in the air and water elements, led to the disappearance of the land that had been inhabited by humanity before the Indian culture, the ancient Atlantis, which was located between Europe, Africa, and America, disappeared, and that people migrated westward and eastward, settling on one side in America and on the other in the countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa, which gradually took on their present form. This Atlantean period saw a humanity that was completely different from today's humanity in terms of the soul, especially in earlier times. And we are primarily interested in the soul in human development, because we know that everything physical is a consequence of spiritual development. What was the life of the soul like in the ancient Atlantean period?

We know that in the Atlantean era, human beings had a completely different consciousness than later, that in a certain sense they had an ancient clairvoyance, but did not yet possess the ability to have a clearly articulated self-consciousness, an ego-consciousness. For this ego-consciousness can only be gained by learning to distinguish oneself from external objects. But at that time, human beings were not able to distinguish themselves completely from external objects. Let us imagine for a moment how things would be in our time today if human beings, under present conditions, were unable to distinguish themselves from their surroundings.

Human beings today ask—let us bring this before our minds in a general overview—where is the boundary of my being? And from their present standpoint, they say with a certain degree of justification: The boundary of my human being is where my skin separates me from the outside world. — Human beings believe that only what lies within their skin belongs to them, and that everything else is external objects that stand opposite them, from which they are different. He says this because he knows that he is no longer and cannot be a whole human being if a piece of what lies within his skin is taken away from him. From a certain point of view, it is correct to say that if a piece of flesh is cut off him, he is no longer a whole human being. But we also know that with every breath we take, we breathe in air. And when we ask, “Where is this air?” we must say, “It is around us, it is everywhere where our surroundings touch us; there is the air that will be inside us in the next moment.” Now it is outside, in the next moment it is inside us. Cut off this air, remove this air, and you can no longer live! You are less of a whole human being than if a hand were cut off that lies within your skin!

Strictly speaking, it would therefore be correct to say: It is not true that our boundary lies where our skin ends! The air that surrounds us belongs to us — it flows in and out constantly, and we cannot arbitrarily set the boundary that exists in our skin. If humans wanted to make this clear to themselves — which they would have to do theoretically, because perception does not provide them with this observation — then they would have to think about what is not imposed on them by the external world itself. If humans could see the air flowing into them at any moment, how it spreads within them, changes within them, and leaves them again, if this were before their eyes at every moment, it would never occur to them to say: This hand belongs to me more than the air flowing into me. He would consider the air to be part of himself, and he would regard himself as someone who has hallucinations if he were to say to himself: “I am an independent entity that could exist without my surroundings.”

The Atlantean could not indulge in this illusion, because his observation showed him quite clearly something else: he did not see the objects around him in fixed contours, but rather surrounded by colored auras. He did not see a plant as we see it, but rather, similar to how we see the streetlights on a foggy autumn evening, he saw everything as if surrounded by a large colored aura. This was because between all things in the outer world there is spirit, spiritual beings, which he could still perceive with his then dull clairvoyance. Just as there is fog between the lights of the lanterns, so there are spiritual beings everywhere in space. The Atlantean saw these spiritual beings as you see the fog. Therefore, the spiritual beings formed something like a foggy aura that lay over the external objects. The external objects themselves were unclear to him. But because he saw the spirit, he also saw everything spiritual that flowed in and out of him. He also saw himself as a link in his entire environment. He saw currents entering his body everywhere, which you cannot see today. Air is the coarsest substance; much finer currents enter the human being. Human beings have forgotten how to see the spiritual because they no longer have the old twilight clairvoyance. The people of Atlantis saw the spiritual currents flowing in and out, like your finger when you are conscious and see that blood is flowing in and out, and that it would wither if you tore it off. Just as your finger would feel, so did the Atlanteans feel as members of an organism. They felt: the currents are flowing in through my eyes and ears and so on. And if I push myself out of them, I can no longer be human. — They felt poured out into the whole outer world. People saw the spiritual world, but they could not distinguish themselves from it; they did not have the strong sense of self, the self-consciousness in today's sense. He was able to develop this because that which had made him dependent on his environment was withdrawn from his observation. Because this became invisible, he was able to develop self-consciousness, ego-consciousness.

This task—to develop self-consciousness, ego-consciousness—was the task of the human being of the post-Atlantean era. After the great Atlantean catastrophe, the peoples of the post-Atlantean era were organized in such a way that the spiritual world withdrew from their consciousness and they gradually learned to see the outer physical-sensory world more and more clearly and distinctly. But everything that develops in the world does not happen all at once, but little by little; slowly and gradually it comes about. And so the ancient, dim clairvoyance was slowly and gradually lost. Yes, it still exists today in certain people who have inherited it, and in mediumistic natures under certain conditions. Slowly and gradually, that which has reached its peak at a certain time dies out. |

In the earliest times of the post-Atlantean era, ordinary people still possessed much, much of the gift of clairvoyance. And what these people saw in the spiritual world was constantly supplemented, expanded, and encouraged by the initiates, who were led into the spiritual world in the manner described to you, through special methods, and thus became messengers of what all people had once seen in a certain way. The legends and myths preserve for us what is true about ancient times better than any external historical research — especially all the legends and myths connected with the oracle sites. It was so that special people were led into abnormal states—one might say into a dream state, a mediumistic state—by being put into a state of consciousness that was duller and darker than the ordinary bright state of daytime. They were in a reduced state of consciousness where they were within the objects of the outer world but did not see them. This was not the old clairvoyant state, but an intermediate state, half dreamlike, half clairvoyant. If one wanted to know something about certain connections in the world, how to behave in this or that matter, one asked the oracles, that is, where old, dim clairvoyant states existed as a legacy of the old way.

Thus, at the beginning of their development, human beings were given wisdom. Wisdom flowed into them. But this wisdom gradually dried up. And even the initiates, in their abnormal state — for they had to be led into the spiritual world by lifting their etheric bodies — even they were gradually able to make only uncertain observations in the spiritual world. But this had led those who were not only initiated in the old sense, but who had progressed with their time, who were at the same time prophets for the future, to the realization that a new impulse was necessary for humanity. An ancient treasure of wisdom had been given to humanity when it descended from divine-spiritual heights, but it had become darker and darker. In earlier times, all human beings possessed it, then only a few who were led into special states in the oracles, then only the initiates.

A time must come, said the initiates who knew the signs of the times, when this ancient wisdom will have dried up within humanity to such an extent that it will no longer be able to guide and direct human beings. But then people would fall into uncertainty in the world. This would be expressed in their will, their actions, and their feelings. And as wisdom gradually died out, people would lead themselves unwisely. Their ego would grow more and more, so that when wisdom withdrew, each person would begin to search for truth in their own ego, to develop their own feelings, to develop their own will, each for themselves, and people would become more and more separate, more and more alien to one another, and they would understand each other less and less. Because each person wants to have their own thoughts, which do not flow to them from the unified wisdom, one person cannot understand the thoughts of another. And because their feelings are not guided by the unified wisdom, it will come to pass that the feelings of people will conflict with one another. And it would be the same with their actions. People would all act, think, and feel against each other, and humanity would ultimately be fragmented into individuals who were at odds with each other.

And what was the outward physical sign that appeared to us as the expression of this development? It was the change that humanity experienced in its blood. In ancient times, as we know, close marriages were the norm. People married only within their blood-related tribe. But more and more, distant marriage replaced close marriage. Foreign blood mixed with foreign blood, and thus it came about that the heirlooms of ancient times became fewer and fewer. Let us recall once more Goethe's words, which we spoke yesterday:

“From my father I have inherited my stature,
the seriousness of life,
from my mother I have a cheerful disposition
and a love of storytelling.”

Yesterday we attributed this to the fact that the maternal element, as it is inherited from generation to generation, gives rise to that which is in the etheric body of the human being, so that every human being carries in his own etheric body the inheritance of the maternal element, just as he has in his physical body the inheritance of the paternal element. Now, because there was blood relationship, the inheritance that continued from etheric body to etheric body was great, and the ancient ability of clairvoyance was attached to this inheritance. People who came from close marriages inherited the ancient wisdom with the blood, with the related blood in their etheric body. As the blood became more and more mixed, as more and more foreign tribes intermarried in distant marriages, the possibility of inheriting the old wisdom also became increasingly smaller. For, as we said yesterday, the blood of human beings changed; through the mixing of blood, it became such that human beings increasingly obscured the old wisdom. In other words, the blood, the carrier of inherited maternal characteristics, became less and less suitable for passing on the old gift of clairvoyance. The blood developed in such a way that people became increasingly unable to see into the spiritual world. Physically, therefore, we must say that human blood developed in such a way that it became less and less capable of carrying the ancient wisdom that guided people safely, and increasingly fell into the other extreme of being the carrier of egoism, that is, of what people set against each other and alongside each other as “I's.” And with that, it also became less and less capable of bringing people together in love.

We are, of course, still in the midst of this process of the deterioration of human blood. For this process, insofar as this deterioration of blood originates from ancient times, is slowly running its course until the end of the Earth's time. Therefore, an impulse had to come into humanity that was capable of improving what had been made worse by the blood. In relation to their blood relationship, people would be led into error and misery. This is what the ancient sages tell us through their legends and myths. People could no longer rely on what had been left to them as a legacy of ancient wisdom: Even if you send for the oracle and ask, “What shall happen?” the oracle will only tell you what will lead you into the wildest strife and discord. For example, the oracle predicted that Laius and Jocasta would have a son who would kill his father and marry his mother. But even though this legacy of ancient wisdom, the wisdom of the oracle, was still available, it could no longer prevent blood from falling prey to error: Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother, committing patricide and incest.

The old sage wanted to say: People once had wisdom. But even if it had been preserved, people would have had to continue developing their ego, and selfishness would have developed so strongly that blood would have raged against blood. Blood is no longer suitable for leading people higher if only the old wisdom guides them. Thus, the clairvoyant initiate who had given the original picture of the Oedipus legend wanted to present a warning image to people and say: This is what will happen to you if nothing else comes but the old oracular wisdom! And in the Judas legend, we have an even clearer picture of what would have become of the old oracular wisdom. Judas' mother was also told that her son would kill his father and marry his mother, bringing unspeakable misery upon them. And everything came true! This means that ancient wisdom is not capable of protecting people from what they are bound to fall into unless a new impulse comes to humanity.

Now let us ask ourselves the more precise reasons why this has come about. Let us ask ourselves: Why did ancient wisdom gradually become unsuitable for controlling humanity? We can find an answer to this question if we take a closer look at the origins of ancient wisdom in relation to humanity.

I have already indicated to you that in the ancient Atlantean era there was a completely different relationship between the human physical body and the human etheric body than there was later. Of the four members of human nature, it is true today that the physical body and the etheric body are so connected that they roughly coincide, and this is especially the case with the head part of the human being. But this is only true for the present time. If we go back to the Atlantean era, we find a connection in which the human etheric body protruded far beyond the head. In the Atlantean era, the etheric body protruded far beyond the physical body, especially in relation to the head. Now, the Atlantic development is such that the etheric body increasingly covered the physical body, especially in relation to the head. The etheric body increasingly draws itself into the physical body and, of course, also changes this member of the human being. So that is the essential point with regard to this aspect of human development: that the etheric part of the human head draws itself further and further into the physical part of the head, and that the two come to cover each other. Now, as long as the etheric body was outside the physical head, it was in a completely different position than it was afterwards. It was connected on all sides with currents, with other spiritual beings; and what flowed in and out gave this human etheric body the ability to see clairvoyantly in the Atlantean times. So this ability to see clairvoyantly stems from the fact that the etheric body was not yet completely inside the physical body in relation to the head, and that currents flowed into the head from all sides and gave this etheric body the ability to see clairvoyantly.

Then came the time when the etheric body drew itself into the physical body. In a certain way, the etheric body tore itself away — not completely — from these streams. It began to cut itself off from the inflow that had given it the ability to see clearly, to look into the wisdom of the world. Conversely, when someone was initiated in ancient times and their etheric body was lifted out, their etheric head was reconnected to the surrounding currents, and they regained their clairvoyance. If this had happened suddenly in the middle of the Atlantean epoch, if the etheric body had been completely cut off from contact with the outer world, then human beings would have lost all their old clairvoyance much more quickly. There would then have been no remnants of this old clairvoyance left for the post-Atlantean epoch, and human beings would have entered the later epoch without any memory of clairvoyance. However, in a certain sense, human beings remained connected to the outer currents, and something else happened. This etheric body of human beings, which had torn itself away from the currents of its environment, retained within itself remnants of the old wisdom. Now you will understand: at the end of the Atlantean epoch, after human beings had taken up their etheric body, there was still a fund in this etheric body, a remnant of what the etheric body had once had outside, a “savings account,” if I may say so. It is like when a son has a father. The father earns a living, and the son continually receives from his father whatever he needs. In the same way, human beings drew wisdom from their surroundings as much as they needed until their etheric body broke away. Now let us assume, to stay with our comparison, that the son loses his father and is left with only a certain portion, and the son earns nothing more; then he will eventually use it up and have nothing left. This was the situation of man. He had broken away from his father's wisdom, had added nothing to it, and had lived on it until the Christian era. Yes, even in our time he still lives from what he has inherited, not from what he has acquired. He lives, so to speak, on capital. In the earliest times of post-Atlantean development, man still had something of capital, although he had not acquired wisdom itself; he lived, so to speak, on the interest and sometimes allowed himself to be given an allowance by the initiated. But in the end, the currency of ancient wisdom became worthless. And when this old currency was paid to Oedipus, it was no longer valid. This ancient wisdom did not protect him from the most terrible mistake, nor did it protect Judas from it.

This was how far the course of human development had come. Where did it actually come from that man gradually exhausted his capital of wisdom? It came from the fact that he had already taken in two kinds of spiritual beings within himself: first the Luciferic beings, and then, as a result of the Luciferic beings, the Ahrimanic or Mephistophelean beings. These prevented him from acquiring anything in addition to the old wisdom. For they worked in his being in the following way: the Luciferic beings corrupted the passions and the feelings, while the Ahrimanic and Mephistophelean beings corrupted our view of the world and our observation. If the Luciferic beings had not intervened in the development of the earth, human beings would not have gained an interest in the physical world, which draws them down below their level. If, as a consequence of the Luciferic beings, the Mephistophelean, Ahrimanic, or satanic beings had not intervened, human beings would know and always have known: Behind every external sensory thing there is a spiritual being. And he would see through the surface of the external sensory world to the spiritual. But Ahriman has mixed something like a dark smoke into his perception, and so human beings cannot see through to the spiritual. Through Ahriman, human beings become entangled in lies; through this they become entangled in Maya, in illusion. These two natures prevent them from acquiring anything to add to the ancient wisdom that human beings once received. And so it dried up and gradually lost all its usefulness.

But in a certain other respect, development continues to follow its course. In the Atlantean epoch, human beings submerged their etheric bodies into their physical bodies. This was, so to speak, their misfortune, for in a certain sense they were forsaken by God, and so they experienced the influences of Lucifer and Ahriman in this physical world within their physical bodies. This was their doom. And the consequence of this was that, precisely through the influence of the physical body, through life in the physical body, the old wisdom became useless. How did this happen? In the past, human beings did not live in the physical body. They took wisdom, so to speak, from their father's storehouse, from the old wisdom, that is, they had their storehouse outside their physical body because they were outside with their etheric body. This storehouse gradually dried up. Human beings should have had a storehouse in their own bodies in order to increase their wisdom. But they did not have one. And so it came about that because human beings had no source in their own bodies for renewing their wisdom, every time they left their physical bodies after death, there was less wisdom in their etheric bodies. Every time after death, after each incarnation, there was less wisdom in their etheric bodies. The etheric body became poorer and poorer in wisdom.

But the course of evolution continues, and just as in the Atlantean era, when human beings developed in such a way that their etheric body submerged into their physical body, so too, as we move into the future, evolution proceeds in such a way that human beings gradually emerge from their physical bodies. While the etheric body had previously been drawn in and continued to go further in until the appearance of Christ, the time now came when the course of development changed. At the moment when Christ appeared, the etheric body began to emerge again, and today it is already less connected with the physical body than it was at the time of Christ's presence. The physical body has thus become even coarser.

Human beings are therefore heading toward a future in which their etheric body will increasingly withdraw again, and they will gradually arrive at a point where their etheric body will once again be as far outside as it was in the Atlantean epoch. We can continue our comparison a little further.

If the son who used to live off his father's money spends everything and acquires nothing, his situation will become increasingly bleak. But if he now also has a son, this son, the grandson, will not be in the same position as his father. The father at least inherited something and could continue to spend it. The grandson now has nothing at all, he inherits nothing, he starts out with nothing. In a certain sense, this was the course of human development. When the etheric body came in and took the divine wisdom from the treasury of the Godhead, it brought wisdom with it to the physical body. But in the physical body, the Luciferic and Ahrimanic spirits prevented the wisdom from multiplying, from something being added. When the etheric body now withdraws, it takes nothing with it from the physical body. And the consequence would be, if nothing else had happened, that human beings would face a future in which their etheric bodies would belong to them, but would have nothing of wisdom, nothing of knowledge. And while the physical body completely dried up, the etheric body would also have nothing, for it can gain nothing from the drying physical body. If, therefore, the physical body is not to dry up in that future, then the etheric body must be given power, the power of wisdom. This etheric body, in leaving the physical body, must have received the power of wisdom in the physical body. It must have received something there that it carries out with it. When it is outside and has received this wisdom, it then works back on the physical body and gives it life, preventing it from drying up.

There are two possibilities for this development of humanity. One possibility is this:

Human beings develop without Christ. In this case, the etheric body could bring nothing with it from the physical body, because it has received nothing there; it leaves empty. But since the etheric body has nothing, it cannot enliven the physical body; it cannot protect it from decay, from drying up. Human beings would gradually lose all the fruits of physical life; they would be unable to give them anything from the physical body, and they would have to leave the physical body behind. However, human beings came to Earth precisely in order to obtain a physical body to complement their earlier predispositions. The predisposition for the physical body came earlier. But without the formation of the physical body, human beings would never achieve their mission on Earth. Now the influences of Lucifer and Ahriman have come to Earth. If human beings gain nothing in their physical bodies, their etheric bodies leave the physical bodies without being able to take anything new with them, having even used up their old store of wisdom, then the mission on Earth is over. Then the mission of the earth is lost for the universe. Human beings bring nothing with them into the future. They would bring with them the empty ether skull that they brought filled into the earth's evolution!

But let us now suppose that something happens at the right time whereby, when the etheric body withdraws from the physical body, the human being becomes able to give something to this etheric body, to revive it, to permeate it again with wisdom. Then the etheric body would also go out toward the future, but it would now have new life, new strength. He could then use this to revive the physical body. He could now send strength and life back into the physical body. But he would first have to have it himself; he would first have to receive strength and life himself. But if it can receive strength and life, then the fruit of man's life on earth is saved. Then the physical body does not simply decay, but the physical body, the perishable, takes on the form of the etheric body, the imperishable! And the resurrection of man with the achievements of the physical body is saved.

An impulse therefore had to come to the earth through which what had been exhausted in the old wisdom could be renewed, through which new life could be implanted in the etheric body, so that the physical, which was otherwise destined to decay, could attract the imperishable and fill itself with an etheric body that makes it imperishable, that rescues it from earthly evolution. But this, this life into the etheric body, was brought by Christ. It is therefore connected with Christ that what would otherwise be doomed to death, the physical body of the human being, is transformed, preserved from decay, and given the ability to attract the imperishable. The Christ impulse has poured life into the human etheric body, new life after the old life has been used up! And when human beings look into the future, they must say to themselves: When my etheric body is once out of my physical body, I will have had to develop in such a way that the etheric body is completely permeated by Christ. Christ must live in me. In the course of my earthly development, I must gradually permeate my etheric body with Christ!

What I have just described to you are the deeper processes that are hidden from the outer eye. They are the spiritual behind the physical development of the world. But what did the outer form have to be?

What was it that entered into the physical body through the Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings? What entered into the physical body was the predisposition to decay, the predisposition to dissolution, the predisposition to death, in other words. The germ of death had entered into the physical body. This germ of death would only have come to full expression at the end of the earth's development if Christ had not come. For then the etheric body would be incapable of reviving human beings for all eternity. And when the Earth's evolution was complete, everything that had come into being as the physical human body would fall prey to decay, and the Earth's mission itself would succumb to death. Whenever we see death today, this present death is a sign of what will be the general death at the end of the earth's development. Slowly and gradually, what was once given to humanity is drying up. The fact that human beings are born again and again, that they can pass from one embodiment to another, has only become possible because human beings were given a life fund. For the purely external life in successive incarnations, all possibility of life would die at the end of the earth's development. But little by little it would become apparent that human beings are dying. This would happen slowly, part by part, and the physical body would dry up more and more. If the Christ impulse had not come, human beings would die off limb by limb toward the end of Earth's development. Now the Christ impulse is only at the beginning of its development. It will only gradually live its way into humanity, and what Christ will be for humanity will only be fully revealed in future times—until the end of Earth's development.

But the various human activities and things have not been affected by the Christ impulse in the same way. There are many things today that have not been touched by the Christ impulse at all, which will only have to be touched by the Christ impulse in the future. I will give you a striking example of how there is a whole area of human activity in our time that has not yet been touched by the Christ impulse.

When the pre-Christian era came to an end, around the seventh or sixth century BC, ancient wisdom and ancient power were coming to an end in terms of human knowledge. In other areas of life, it still had a young, fresh power for a long time, but in terms of knowledge in particular, it was coming to an end. From the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries before the Christian era, something remained that can be described as a remnant of the remnant. If you had gone to the Egyptian-Chaldean wisdom or to the ancient Persian and Indian wisdom, you would have found this wisdom permeating everything with real spiritual insights, with the results of ancient clairvoyance. Those who were not very clairvoyant had the reports of clairvoyants. Science without the foundation of clairvoyance did not exist and has never existed, neither in Indian and Persian times nor in later times. Even in the early days of Greek civilization, there was no science without underlying clairvoyant research. But then the time came when clairvoyant research dried up for human science. And now we see human science emerging, from which clairvoyance is being removed, or at least gradually thrown out.

Why is clairvoyance disappearing? Because now the etheric body is already beginning to emerge again above. The first signs are already apparent. Clairvoyance is drying up, faith in the messages of clairvoyants is drying up, and this is rooted in the seventh and sixth centuries before the appearance of Christ, in what can be called a human science from which the results of spiritual research are increasingly being driven out. And this continues further and further. With Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, and even Aristotle, you can prove everywhere in the writings of natural scientists and ancient physicians that what we call science was originally permeated by the results of spiritual research. But spiritual science dried up more and more, becoming less and less. It still remains in relation to our soul capacity, it remains in relation to feeling and willing; but in relation to human thinking, it is gradually drying up.

Thus, in relation to human thinking, to scientific thinking, the influence of the etheric body on the physical body had already begun to wane when Christ appeared. Everything happens gradually, little by little. Then Christ came and gave the impulse. But of course not everyone accepted the Christ impulse immediately, and in certain areas in particular it was not accepted. It was accepted in various areas, but it was rejected outright in scientific circles. Look at science in the Roman Empire. Look at Celsus. There you will find all kinds of things he wrote about Christ. This Celsus, who was a very great scholar but understood nothing about human thinking from the Christ impulse, reports: There once lived in Palestine a married couple named Joseph and Mary, and to them is attached the sect of the Christians. But what is told about them is all superstition. The truth is that the wife of this Joseph was unfaithful to her husband with a Roman captain named Panthera. But Joseph did not know who the father of her child was.

This is one of the best-known stories of that time. Anyone who follows contemporary literature will know that certain people today have not yet progressed beyond Celsus. Certainly, the Christ impulse is only slowly taking root in some areas, but in the areas we are now talking about, it has not yet been able to take root at all. Here we see one of the limbs withering away. We see that something is withering away in the human brain, whereas when this brain is influenced by the Christ impulse, it will revive science in a completely different form. As strange as this may sound in our age of scientific fanaticism, it is nevertheless true: the part of the human brain that is called upon to think scientifically is slowly dying. That is why you see how slowly, step by step, the old vestiges of scientific thinking are disappearing. We see how Aristotle still has relatively much of it, but how science is gradually being squeezed out by the old heirlooms, and how science, through what it later receives in external observations, is abandoned by God in terms of thinking, how it no longer has anything of the old fund. And we see how it is possible that, even if one experiences Christ very strongly, one can no longer find any connection between the Christ impulse and what humanity has achieved in science. There is external evidence for this.

Imagine that there was a person in the thirteenth century who was deeply moved by the Christ impulse and who said: We have the Christ impulse. Like a sum of powerful new revelations, it flows out of the Gospel and we can permeate ourselves with it! And let us suppose that this person had set himself the task of creating a link between science and Christianity: even in the thirteenth century, he would have found nothing in contemporary science to help him! He would have had to go back to Aristotle. And with Aristotle, not with the science of the thirteenth century, but only with Aristotle, would he have been able to interpret Christianity. Science was such that it became increasingly incapable of coming to terms with the Christ principle. That is why the men of the thirteenth century had to go back to the old Aristotle. He still had the old heritage of wisdom, and he could provide the concepts through which science could be reconciled with Christianity. Then science became poorer and poorer in concepts, precisely as it became richer in observations. And then came the time when all the concepts of the old wisdom disappeared from science.

The greatest men are, of course, also children of their time in terms of their science. Galileo could not think outside the absolute; he could only think in terms of his time. And it is precisely this that makes him great, that he established purely godless thinking, purely mechanistic thinking. A great upheaval is taking place before our very eyes with Galileo. The most common phenomenon, as it is explained today in physics, was described differently before Galileo than after him. For example, someone throws a stone. Today we say that the stone maintains its motion through inertia until it is stopped by the influence of another force. Before Galileo, people thought quite differently; they were convinced that if the stone was to continue moving, someone had to push it. Something active was behind the flying stone. Galileo completely taught people to think differently, but in such a way that they learned to understand the world as a mechanism. And today it is considered an ideal to explain the world mechanically, mechanistically, and to drive out all spirit. This stems from the fact that those parts of the human brain, the thinking instrument, which are the organs of scientific thought, are already so dried up today that they cannot breathe new life into concepts, so that these concepts become poorer and poorer.

It would be easy to prove that science, no matter how much detail it piles up, has not enriched humanity with a single concept. Mind you, observations are not concepts! Do not say that things like Darwinism and the like have enriched humanity with concepts. Others have done that, not scientists, but people who had completely different sources. One such person was Goethe. He enriched humanity with concepts from completely different sources. For this, however, he is considered a dilettante by scientists.

The fact is that science has not been enriched with concepts. You will find concepts much, much more alive, much higher and greater in ancient times. The concepts of Darwinism have been squeezed dry like a lemon. He merely collected observations and linked them to impoverished concepts. This scientific direction is something that clearly shows us the process of gradual dying. There is a limb in the human brain that is drying up. This is the member that is at work in science today. And the reason for this is that the part of the human etheric body that should enliven this drying brain has not yet attained the Christ impulse. Until the Christ impulse also flows into this part of the human brain, which is supposed to supply science, no life will come into this science. This is based on the great laws of the world. If science continues in this way, it will become increasingly impoverished in terms of concepts, and concepts will increasingly die out. And there will be more and more people in science who simply string observations together and are terrified of anyone who starts to think. It is terrible for a professor today when a young person brings him a doctoral dissertation that contains even a little bit of thinking.

But anthroposophy already exists today! And this anthroposophy will make the Christ impulse more and more understandable to humanity and thereby bring more and more life to the etheric body. And it will be able to bring so much life to it that it will also melt the withering part of the brain that has brought about our scientific way of thinking today. This is an example of how the Christ impulse, gradually taking root in humanity, revives the dying members. More and more members would die off as humanity's future approached. But the Christ impulse will flow into humanity in relation to each dying limb, and at the end of the Earth's development, all the limbs that would otherwise have died will have been revived by the Christ impulse, which will then have permeated the entire etheric body, with which the human etheric body will then have become one. And the first impulse for this gradual revival of humanity, the first impulse for the resurrection of humanity, occurred at a moment that is beautifully described in the Gospel of John.

Let us imagine that Christ entered the world completely universal and first accomplished the great deed from a completely Christ-filled etheric body. For this is what Christ did with the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth, that this etheric body could also enliven the physical body. At the moment when the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth, in which Christ now was, had become a complete life-giver of the physical body, the etheric body of Christ appeared transfigured! And the writer of the Gospel of John describes this moment to us:

“Father, glorify your name! — Then a voice came from heaven: I have glorified him, and I will glorify him again. Then the people who stood there and heard it said, 'It is thunder.'”

It is said that those who stood there heard thunder. But it is never said that anyone who was not prepared for it would have heard it.

“But the others said, 'An angel spoke to him. Jesus answered and said, 'This voice was not for my sake, but for yours.

Why? So that those around him might understand what had happened. And Christ speaks about what has happened:

“Now is the judgment of this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out.” (12:28-31)

At this moment, Lucifer-Ahriman was cast out of the physical body of Christ! The great example stands there, which must be fulfilled in the future in the whole of humanity: the obstacles of Lucifer-Ahriman must be cast out of the physical body through the Christ impulse! And the human earth body must be enlivened by the Christ impulse in such a way that the fruits of the earth mission are carried over into those times which will follow the earth times.