The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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