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The Gospel of St. Luke
GA 114

24 September 1909, Basel

Lecture Eight

We have been trying to gain some understanding of the opening chapters of the Gospel of St. Luke. Only through knowledge of happenings in the evolution of humanity to which such lengthy study has had to be devoted is it possible to unravel what the writer of this Gospel has narrated as a kind of historical prelude to the great Christ Event. But we now know something about the Being who in the thirtieth year of his life received the Christ-principle into himself.

To understand what the writer of St. Luke's Gospel tells us about the personality and the deeds of Christ Jesus—that is, of the Individuality who worked in the world for three years as ‘Christ’ in a human body—brief reference must be made to certain aspects of the evolution of humanity of which our age has only a very inadequate idea. Men to-day are in many respects extraordinarily short-sighted, believing that the law of evolution underlying what is happening in humanity at the present time or happened during the last few centuries, has remained unchanged, and that conditions not existing nowadays could never have existed in the past. That is why it is so difficult at the present time for people to understand and freely accept narratives of a past epoch such as that during which Christ was living on the Earth.

The Gospel of St. Luke tells us of the deeds of Christ Jesus on the Earth in such a way that to get at the real meaning of his accounts a clear picture of the stage then reached in evolution is essential.

Attention must again be drawn to what has often been said in the course of our studies, namely that our ancestors—that is, our own souls in other bodies—lived in ancient Atlantis, the continent once stretching between Europe and Africa on the one side and America on the other. When the face of the globe was changed by the Atlantean Deluge, the masses of the people migrated Eastwards and Westwards, and so colonised the Earth. Then, in the post-Atlantean epoch, the various civilizations arose: the ancient Indian, ancient Persian, Egypto-Chaldean, Graeco-Latin, and our own.

It is entirely erroneous to believe that during the post-Atlantean epoch man was always constituted as he is to-day. The fact is that human nature has undergone constant and very great changes. Historical documents cover a few thousand years only and the one and only source of information about the earliest periods of civilization after the Atlantean catastrophe is the imperishable ‘Akashic Chronicle’—a record inaccessible to external research—the character of which has again been briefly indicated in the present lecture-course.

After the Atlantean catastrophe there developed, first, the ancient Indian civilization. This was an epoch when men still lived more in the etheric body, not as deeply in the physical body as was the case later on. Without having developed the Ego-consciousness of to-day, by far the greater majority of the people of ancient India were endowed with dim, shadowy clairvoyance. Their consciousness was dreamlike but they were able to gaze into the depths of existence, into the spiritual world. When studying these things it is very necessary to be aware of the facts connected with the various forms of knowledge and of cognition through the different epochs. Thus we constantly lay stress upon the view of the world held by our ancestors in ancient India and upon the fact that they were clairvoyant in a far higher degree than the men of later times. But if we are to understand the Gospel of St. Luke, attention must be paid to yet another of their characteristics.

In that early epoch, when man's etheric body still projected on all sides beyond the physical body and was less firmly knit with it than is the case to-day, the forces and qualities of the soul had considerably greater power over the physical body. The more deeply the etheric body penetrated into the physical body, the weaker it became and the less power it had over the physical body. In the ancient Atlanteans the etheric head extended very considerably beyond the physical body, but to a certain extent this was still the case in the people of ancient India too, enabling them on the one hand to have clairvoyant consciousness and on the other to wield great power over processes in the physical body.

We can, if we like, make a somewhat remote comparison between a body belonging to the ancient Indian epoch and one belonging to our own. In our time the etheric body has penetrated to the deepest possible extent into the physical body and is therefore closely bound up with it. But we are now at the very verge of the turning-point when the etheric body will emerge again, emancipate itself from the physical body and become more independent. As humanity advances towards the future this will take place to an ever-increasing extent and as a matter of fact the point of closest union has now already been passed. Comparing the body of an ancient Indian with that of a modern man, it can be said that in the Indian body the etheric body was still comparatively free and the soul was able to exert forces that worked right into the physical body. Not being so closely bound to the physical body, the etheric body could immediately take into itself the forces of the soul; this gave it greater power over the physical body, with the result that influences brought to bear upon the soul in that age also had a tremendously strong effect upon the physical body. In the ancient Indian epoch, if one man hated another and spoke words charged with hatred, such words ‘pierced’ the other, penetrated right into the physical organism. The soul still had an actual effect upon the etheric body and the etheric body in turn upon the physical body. The etheric body to-day lacks this power. In those olden times, loving words produced in the other man a sense of release, of warmth, of expansion, affecting his physical body too. Therefore much depended upon whether words were filled with love or hatred, for this had an effect upon all the bodily processes. The strength of such an effect steadily decreased in humanity the more deeply the etheric body penetrated into the physical body.

Things are different nowadays. Words spoken to-day have an effect only upon the soul and people who feel that malicious words actually make something contract within them or that loving words bring a sense of release and happiness have become extremely rare. The peculiar effects we may possibly still feel in our physical heart to-day when loving or malicious words are spoken were experienced with tremendous intensity at the beginning of post-Atlantean evolution. Quite different effects from those now possible could therefore be produced in that age when such influences were brought to bear upon the soul. Words full of the warmth of love may be spoken to-day, but when they come up against the present human organism they are constantly repelled and do not penetrate; for it does not depend only upon how words are spoken, but also, upon how they can be received.

It is therefore not possible to-day to work so directly upon the soul of a man that the effect penetrates into his physical organism. This is not immediately possible, but in a certain way it will again become so, for a future is approaching when the spiritual will reacquire its significance. We can, in fact, already indicate what this will mean in time to come. In our present evolutionary cycle we can do very little to enable whatever love, good will and wisdom may be in our soul to stream directly into the soul of another human being and there be strong enough to work right down into the physical body. Such an effect can only very gradually become possible; nevertheless this spiritual way of working is beginning again on the soil where the spiritual-scientific conception of the world takes root, for this actually strengthens the activity of the soul. Only very rarely to-day is it possible for a word to produce physical effects; but it is possible for human beings to come together in order to receive spiritual truths into their souls. These spiritual truths will gradually gain greater strength in the souls of men and therewith the power to work right into the physical organism. Thus in future time the soul-and-spirit will again acquire great power over the physical and form it into its own image.

In the days of the very ancient Indian civilization, for example, what is called ‘healing’ was a very different matter from what it came to be later on, for all the things are connected with the facts just referred to. Because by working upon the soul a tremendously strong effect could at one time be produced upon the body, it was possible so to impress the soul of another by means of a word charged with the right impulse of will that this soul transmitted the effect to the etheric body, and the latter in turn to the physical body. If there were any realization of what effect it was desirable to bring about, it was possible, in a case of illness, to produce this effect upon the soul and thereby upon the body, resulting in restoration of health. And now imagine this effect intensified to the maximum, the Indian physician controlling the influences and impressions in question, and you will realize that all healing in the ancient Indian epoch was a far more spiritual process than it can be to-day—I say expressly, than it can possibly be to-day. But the time is approaching when such ways of working will again be effective. What is brought down from spiritual heights as a world-conception, as a number of truths corresponding to the great spiritual realities of the Universe this will flow into the souls of men, and as humanity lives on into the future will itself be a source of healing, springing from the inmost being of man himself. Spiritual science is the great remedy for souls in the life awaiting them in future time. Only it must be understood that humanity has been on a descending path of evolution, that the spiritual influences have steadily lost strength, that the lowest point of the process has now been reached, and that the ascent to the level at which we once stood can only be very gradual.

As time went on, effects that were eminently possible in ancient India ceased to be so. A somewhat similar human constitution—one enabling soul to work upon soul was still in existence in Egyptian civilization. The farther back we go in that civilization-epoch, the more evidence is there that one soul was able to produce a direct effect upon another—an effect which could then pass over to the physical organism. This possibility was much rarer among the ancient Persians, for theirs was a different function; they were to give the primary impetus for penetration into the physical world. In respect of the characteristic just mentioned, Egyptian culture was related to that of ancient India much more closely than was the Persian. In ancient Persia the soul began to be enclosed within itself to an increasing extent and to have less and less power over the external organism, because it was to develop self-consciousness. Therefore with the stream of culture in which the spiritual had maintained mastery over the physical, another had to converge—one especially concerned with inner deepening and the development of self-consciousness. In Graeco-Latin culture these two streams came, in a sense, into equilibrium. In that fourth post-Atlantean culture-epoch humanity had already descended just so far into the physical world as to enable a kind of equilibrium to be established between the physical and the soul-and-spirit—in other words, the mastery of soul-and-spirit over the body was about equal in strength to that of the body over the soul. A state of equilibrium had been brought about.

Humanity must however again undergo a kind of ‘cosmic trial’ in order to be able to ascend once more to spiritual heights. Since the Graeco-Latin epoch, everything in man of a corporeal, physical nature has descended still more deeply into materiality. In the age in which we are living, the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, man has actually been driven below the line of equilibrium; to begin with it was only in his inner nature that he could rise to a more theoretical kind of consciousness of the spiritual world. He had to acquire inner strength.

Relatively speaking, then, there was a condition of equilibrium in Graeco-Latin civilization, whereas now, in our epoch, the physical has gained the mastery and dominates the soul-and-spirit which has become powerless in a certain respect and is accepted merely in theory. Man has had to be restricted through the centuries to the acquisition of inner strength—a process not revealed to the consciousness. But little by little it must be possible for a new consciousness to be developed. And when—it will not be until the sixth post-Atlantean epoch—such consciousness has acquired a certain strength through having absorbed more and more spiritual nourishment, man will no longer derive theoretical wisdom from such nourishment but living wisdom, living truth. The spiritual will then be so strong that once again it will have mastery over the physical—now from the other side.

How then can the mission of spiritual science in humanity be explained?

If in our age spiritual science becomes more and more alive in the soul, able not only to stimulate the intellect but to imbue the soul with greater and greater warmth, then the soul will become strong enough to dominate the physical. Certain transitional states are of course inevitable—states which may at first actually appear to denote deterioration or even harm. But these states are only transitional and will give way to the future condition when men will receive spiritual life into their ideas—the condition that will signify in the whole of humanity the mastery of the soul and spirit over the physical and material. Those who are interested in the truths of spiritual science to-day not merely because they stimulate the intellect, but who can be enraptured by and derive living satisfaction from these truths—such men will be the forerunners of those in whom the mastery of the soul and spirit over the physical and material has been achieved.

It has been possible in our own time to present great truths relating to happenings such as we have been studying during the last few days: the momentous fusion of the Buddha-stream with the Zarathustra-stream and all that took place in Palestine at the beginning of our era. We have been able to show how wisdom in the world's evolution created the two figures of the Nathan Jesus-child and the Solomon Jesus-child and through these stupendous happenings brought about the union of streams previously flowing in separation over the Earth.

Different views may be taken of what has been presented in these lectures. Someone may say: ‘To begin with, all this may seem fantastic to the modern mind; yet when I lay on the scales the outer effects of the happenings described, everything seems plausible; in fact the Gospels become intelligible to me only when I apply to them what has been discovered from the Akashic Chronicle.’ Another person may, for instance, be interested in what is related about the two Jesus-children, and say: ‘I can now understand a great deal that hitherto seemed inexplicable.’ Again, someone else may say: ‘When I review all these happenings and the findings of occult investigation concerning the manifestation of the Nirmanakaya of Buddha in the proclamation to the shepherds, and so on—again, when I think of the other stream and of how the Star guided the followers of Zarathustra when their Teacher appeared again on Earth—when I see there how one great stream flowed into another and how forms of spiritual life that were previously separate, united ... when I picture all this I have one outstanding impression—that everything is indescribably beautiful in the process of world-evolution!’ We ourselves can have the same impression of the grandeur and sublimity of it all, and this can kindle the fire of wonder in our souls at what has come to pass in the world.

The great truths can bestow upon us no greater boon than this. The ‘lesser’ truths will satisfy our longing for knowledge; the ‘great’ truths will warm our very souls and we shall say that there is supreme beauty in what is thus made manifest through the happenings of world-existence. If we feel this beauty and splendour, any purely theoretical understanding will be transcended.

What are the words of Christ Jesus as related in the Gospel of St. Luke?

“A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. ...” (Luke, VIII, 5–8)

This parable of the Sower given by Christ Jesus to His disciples is applicable to the anthroposophical conception of the world. The seed is the Kingdom of the Gods, the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of the Spirit. This Kingdom of the Spirit is to pour as seed into the souls of men and take effect on Earth.

There are people who have in their souls only such forces as repel the spiritual view of the world and any consciousness of the realm of the divine-spiritual Beings; such consciousness is made impossible by hindrances existing in the soul and it is repelled immediately. This applies to many people in regard to the words of Christ Jesus; it also frequently applies to what Anthroposophy has to bring into the world to-day; it is repelled; the birds devour it, preventing it from ever penetrating into the soil. Then again, the words of Christ Jesus or the words of spiritual wisdom may be spoken to a soul lacking sufficient depth. Such a soul may be able to understand that these are very plausible truths, but they do not become part of its very substance and being. It may even be capable of giving out the wisdom again, but it has not really become one with the wisdom. This is comparable to the seed that has fallen on rocky ground and cannot germinate. The third kind of seed falls among thornbushes; there it does indeed germinate, but it cannot thrive. The meaning, as Christ Jesus indicates, is that there are people whose souls are so filled with the interests and cares of day-to-day life that although they are capable of understanding the words of spiritual truth, everything else in the soul acts as a thornbush, as a continual obstruction. There are also souls to-day—and they are very numerous—who would willingly assimilate the truths of spiritual science were it not for the suppression exercised by external life. Only very few are able to allow the spiritual truths to unfold in freedom, in the manner of the fourth kind of seed. These are people who begin to experience Anthroposophy as living truth, who receive it into their souls as very life and steep their whole being in it; they are also the pioneers of the strength with which spiritual truths will work in future time. No one, however, in whom the right trust and depth of conviction are not born from his own soul can be persuaded to-day by any external means to believe in the truth and the power of spiritual wisdom.

It is no argument against the effectiveness of spiritual wisdom that in the case of many people to-day the physical organism is not influenced. On the contrary, it might be taken as proof of the soundness of spiritual wisdom that it sometimes has a negative effect upon physical bodies. Someone with poor physical health—a slum child, for instance—who is ailing as the result of having breathed nothing but city air from his earliest years, is not necessarily made healthy by bracing mountain air; it may even make him really ill. Just as this is no argument against the health-giving quality of mountain air, so too the fact that when spiritual wisdom penetrates into certain physical organisms it may temporarily upset them, is no argument against its effectiveness. For it encounters what human bodies have inherited through the course of hundreds and thousands of years, encounters elements that cannot possibly harmonize with it.

Proofs of this cannot yet be found in the outer world; we must penetrate deeply into this wisdom and become firmly convinced of its truth. However much external evidence may eventually be forthcoming, we must be able to penetrate to the inner core of the wisdom and develop conviction in our own being. We are then able to say: If here or there this anthroposophical wisdom is found to be too overwhelming, it is because of unhealthy conditions encountered in human beings themselves. Spiritual wisdom is intrinsically healthy—human beings by no means always! Quite obviously, therefore, it is not possible for all the spiritual wisdom that can become accessible to mankind as time goes on, to be revealed to-day. Care is taken that possible harm shall be avoided just as slum children are not sent into high mountain air that would be harmful for them. Hence it is only from time to time that information appropriate for average human beings can be communicated. If certain deeper truths were revealed to the fullest extent, this would be too overwhelming for men with a particular constitution, having the same effect as high mountain air upon impaired physical health. The great spiritual truths can be unveiled only very gradually, but this will be done in due course and prove to be a universal, health-bringing factor in humanity.

Men must gradually reacquire that ascendancy of the soul-and-spirit over the material which they were obliged to lose. It was being slowly lost from the time of ancient Indian culture until well into the Graeco-Latin epoch. But during the latter epoch there were always human beings in whom as a heritage from olden times the etheric body was still loosened to a certain extent and whose whole organism was amenable to psychic and spiritual influences. It was in that age, therefore, that Christ Jesus appeared. Had He come in our epoch He would not have been able to work as He did at that time or become the great Example for mankind. In our epoch He would have encountered human organisms far more deeply sunk in physical matter. He Himself would have had to descend into a physical organism in which the powerful effects produced by the soul-and-spirit upon the physical would not have been possible as they were at the time of His coming.

This applies not only to Christ Jesus but to others as well, and the evolution of humanity can be understood only in the light of what has been said. It applies, for example, to Buddha and his mission on the Earth. He was the first to proclaim and establish the great teaching of compassion and love and everything connected with that teaching as expressed in the precepts of the Eightfold Path. Do you imagine that if Buddha were to appear to-day he would be able to achieve what he achieved in India? Indeed he would not, for a physical organism in which he was able to reach that stage of development could not exist to-day. Man's physical organism has undergone continual changes in the course of the ages. Buddha was obliged to descend at exactly the point of time when it was possible for him to use an organism enabling him to accomplish the mighty deed of inaugurating the Eightfold Path. Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that all the philosophical and moral teachings since produced by humanity are no more than a feeble beginning of what was established by Buddha. However greatly people may admire different philosophies, however fervent their enthusiasm may be for Kantian thought and other such systems—everything is elementary compared with the all-embracing principles of the Eightfold Path. Humanity can only slowly reach the stage of understanding what lies behind the words of this teaching. At the right moment something of the kind is established in the world for the first time; from this point evolution advances and humanity acquires, but only after long ages, what was first exemplified in a mighty deed. Thus in his day Buddha brought to the world the teaching of love and compassion as a token for coming generations of human beings who must gradually acquire the capacity to recognize and understand from within themselves the principles of the Eightfold Path. In the sixth post-Atlantean epoch of civilization a considerable number of human beings will be capable of this. But a long path has to be trodden before men say to themselves: We can now acquire out of our own souls what Buddha established five or six centuries before our era; we have now become like Buddha in our own souls.

Step by step, humanity must climb to the summit. The first disciples are those who, in the wake of the Individuality concerned, rise to the heights of a great epoch; the capacity to understand what has been achieved then remains with them as a heritage. The rest of humanity ascends slowly and arrives at the goal very much later. But when a considerable number of human beings have reached the stage where the principles of the Eightfold Path can arise as knowledge born of their own souls, not derived from or taught to them by Buddhism—these human beings will have made great progress in another respect as well.

In the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment you can read how the development of the sixteen-petalled ‘lotus-flower’ is connected with the Eightfold Path.1See pp. 75–81 in the revised edition of 1963. Those who have insight into the evolution of humanity can recognize a sign of the extent to which humanity has succeeded in making progress—the sign being the stage of development reached by the sixteen-petalled lotus-flower, which will be one of the chief organs used by men in future time. But when this organ has been developed a certain mastery over the physical will have been established by the soul-and-spirit. Only one who sets out to-day to achieve spiritual development in the esoteric sense can say that he is beginning to make the principles of the Eightfold Path part of his very being. Others ‘study’ them. But of course that too is very useful as a stimulus.

Fundamentally speaking, therefore, it may be said that the soul-and-spirit can work effectively only in those human beings who are beginning to make the spiritual wisdom presented to them an integral part of their souls. To the extent to which the Eightfold Path becomes an actual experience in the soul, to that extent an effect will also be produced upon the physical.

Of course people who are considered very clever nowadays and who swear by materialism, may say: ‘We know someone who followed your advice and tried to develop by making spiritual wisdom come alive within him; but he died at the age of fifty, so the wisdom did little towards prolonging his life!’ This kind of sapient remark is frequently made. The only pity is that contrary instances are not also brought forward. It should be asked how long the person concerned would have lived if he had made no attempt to promote spiritual development and whether in that case he might possibly not have lived beyond the age of forty. That point would have to be decided first! But people will look only at what is actually under their noses!

The mastery wielded by the soul-and-spirit over the physical gradually fell away from humanity until well into the fourth civilization-epoch when there were still enough human beings living in whom the effect of the spiritual upon the physical could be perceived. It was then that Christ came to the Earth. Had He come later, none of the things that were then revealed could have been revealed. Such a stupendous manifestation had necessarily to appear in the world at exactly the right time.

What does the coming of Christ into the world signify?

It signifies that when a man rightly understands Christ he learns to exercise his self-consciousness to the fullest extent and his Ego eventually gains complete mastery over everything that is within him. That is what the coming of Christ signifies. The self-conscious Ego will reconquer everything that mankind has lost in the course of the ages. But just as the teaching of the Eightfold Path had to be established for the first time by Buddha, so too the supremacy of the Ego-principle over all the bodily processes had to be visibly established before the expiration of the old era. If the entry of the Christ-principle into the world had taken place in our present epoch, it would not have been possible for the mighty influences of healing to be exercised upon the environment as they were at that earlier time. Conditions were necessary when there were still in existence human beings whose etheric bodies were sufficiently detached to enable drastic effects to be wrought upon them merely by words or by touch effects of which to-day there can be only faint echoes. Men began to develop the Ego in order to be able to understand the Christ, and through this understanding to re-acquire what they had lost. Through the last surviving examples of humanity belonging to the old era, it was to be shown with what power the Ego worked upon those who were living at that time, for the Ego was present here in its fulness in one human being, in Christ Jesus, as will be the case in the rest of mankind at the end of the Earth period. The Gospel of St. Luke records this in order to show that with Christ there came into the world an Ego which penetrated the human physical, etheric and astral bodies so completely that health-bringing influences could be brought to bear upon the whole physical organism. This had to be demonstrated as a proof that when mankind in the future, after thousands of years, has acquired in full measure the power that can proceed from the Christ-Ego, it will be possible for influences such as streamed into humanity from Christ while He was on Earth, to stream from the Egos of men. This truth had to be revealed but it was only through the humanity of that time that it could have been revealed.

It has been said that there are illnesses which originate in the human astral body. The form these illnesses take is connected with the whole nature of man. If someone to-day has bad moral traits, these may, to begin with, be confined to the life of soul. Because in the modern age the soul does not dominate the body to the extent that it did at the time of Christ Jesus, not every sin will come to expression in an external illness. We are, however, approaching conditions when the etheric body will again emerge and when the greatest care will have to be taken lest the bad traits of the soul, both in a moral and intellectual respect, should manifest physically as illnesses. Many of those semi-psychic, semi-bodily diseases—the so-called ‘nervous’ diseases characteristic of our time—are evidence that this epoch is already beginning. Because in their desires and their thoughts men have absorbed the disharmonies reigning in the outer world to-day, such factors can naturally only express themselves in phenomena such as hysteria and similar disorders. But this is all connected with the particular character of the phase of spiritual development upon which we are now entering, with the loosening and emergence of etheric body.

At the time of Christ's appearance on the Earth there were many human beings in His environment in whom sins and transgressions—but especially defects of character deriving from former bad traits—were expressing themselves in disease. The sin that is actually seated in the astral body and manifests as illness, is called ‘possession’ in the Gospel of St. Luke. It is the condition that sets in when a man attracts alien spirits into his astral body and when his better qualities fail to give him mastery over his whole nature. In human beings in whom the old state of separation between the etheric and physical bodies still persisted, the effects of evil qualities and attributes expressed themselves conspicuously at that time in forms of illness manifesting as ‘possession’. The Gospel of St. Luke tells how such people were healed through the mere proximity and the words of the Individuality now in Christ Jesus and how the evil power working in them was expelled. This is a prefigurement of conditions at the end of Earth evolution, when man's good qualities will exercise a healing influence upon all his other traits.

People do not generally notice the subtler implications concealed behind many narratives in the Gospels, nor realize that reference is often being made to illnesses of a quite different character when, for example, these are described in the passage in St. Luke's Gospel telling of the healing of one sick of the palsy. (Luke V, 17–26). ‘The healing of one paralysed’ would be the correct rendering, for the Greek text here has the word ‘paralelymenos’, denoting one whose limbs are paralysed. It was still known in those times that these forms of illness are due to qualities of the etheric body. When it is said that Christ Jesus healed those who were paralysed, this shows that by the power of his Individuality, effects were produced not only in astral bodies but in etheric bodies too, so that it was possible for men with defects in the etheric body also to be healed. Precisely when Christ speaks of ‘deeper sin’—sin which reaches into the etheric body—He uses a particular expression, clearly indicating that the spiritual factor causing the illness must first be removed. He does not immediately say to the paralysed man: “Stand up and walk!” but concerns Himself with the cause that is penetrating as illness into the etheric body, and says: “Thy sins are forgiven thee!”—meaning that the sin which had eaten its way right into the etheric body must first be expelled. Ordinary biblical research does not enter into these fine distinctions; it does not perceive that what is here being shown is that this Individuality had an influence upon the secrets of the astral body and the etheric body—even upon those of the physical body.

Why in this connection do we speak of the secrets of the physical body as though they were the highest? In outer life itself the effect made by one astral body upon another is quite obvious. You can, for example, wound a man by a word charged with hatred. Something then takes place in his astral body; he hears the word and suffers pain in his astral body. That is an example of mutual action between one astral body and another. Mutual action between one etheric body and another is far more deeply hidden; this involves delicate influences which play from man to man but are never perceived to-day. The most deeply hidden of all are the influences which reach the physical body, because owing to its dense materiality it conceals the working of the spiritual most completely. In the Gospel of St. Luke, however, we are also to be shown that Christ Jesus has power over the physical body. Here we come to a passage that would be quite incomprehensible to materialistic thinkers. It is as well that these lectures are being attended only by people who have some knowledge of spiritual science, for if by chance someone were to come in from the street, what is being said to-day would seem to him pure lunacy, even if he considered the rest only half or quarter mad!

Christ Jesus shows that He is able to see into the very depths of the physical corporeality and to work into it. This is revealed by the fact that His power is also able to have a healing effect upon illnesses rooted in the physical body. But for this to be possible there must be knowledge of the mysterious effects working from the physical body of one human being upon the physical body of another. When it is a matter of working spiritually, man cannot be regarded as a being enclosed in his skin. It has often been said that our finger is wiser than we are ourselves. Our finger knows that the blood can flow through it only if the blood is circulating normally through the whole body; our finger knows that it would wither away if it were severed from the rest of the organism. So too, if he would understand the conditions relating to the physical body, man must know that in respect of his physical organism he belongs to humanity as a whole, that influences are continually passing from one human being to another, and that he can in no way separate his physical health as an individual from the health of the whole of humanity. This principle will be admitted to-day in respect of the coarser influences but not in respect of the finer, because people cannot know the facts. In the following passage from the eighth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel it is the finer, more delicate influences that are indicated.

“And it came to pass, that, when Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him: for they were all waiting for him. And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus' feet, and besought him that he would come into his house: For he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a-dying. But as he went the people thronged him. And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.“ (Luke VIII, 40–44.)

How can the twelve-year-old daughter of Jairus possibly be healed, for she is at the very point of death? This can only be understood if we know that the girl's physical illness was connected with another phenomenon in another person, and that she cannot be healed independently of that other phenomenon. When this, child, now twelve years old, was born, a certain connection existed with another personality—a connection deeply grounded in Karma. Hence we are told that a woman who had suffered from a certain illness for twelve years, passed behind Christ and touched the border of His garment. Why is this woman mentioned here? It is because she was connected karmically with Jairus' child! This twelve-year-old girl and the woman who had suffered for twelve years were deeply connected! And it is not without reason that a secret of number is indicated here: the woman with an illness suffered for twelve years approaches Jesus and is healed—and only now could He enter the house of Jairus and heal the twelve-year-old girl who was believed to be already dead.

Depths as great as these must be explored in order to understand the Karma that weaves between one human being and another! Then we can perceive the third way in which Christ worked—namely, upon the whole human organism. This must be especially borne in mind when we are considering the higher effects produced by Christ as presented in the Gospel of St. Luke.

Thus we are shown quite clearly how the Christ-Ego worked upon all the other members of man's being. That is the essential point. The writer of the Gospel of St. Luke, who gives special prominence in these parts of the Gospel to descriptions of the healings, wished to show how the healing influences proceeding from the Ego indicate the attainment of a lofty level in the evolutionary process; and he shows how Christ worked upon the astral body, the etheric body and the physical body of man. St. Luke has set before us this great Ideal of evolution: ‘Look towards your future! Your Ego, in the present stage of its development, is still weak; as yet it has little mastery. But it will gradually become master of the astral body, the etheric body and the physical body, and will transform them. Before you is set the great Ideal of Christ who reveals to mankind what this mastery can mean!’

It is upon truths such as these that the Gospels are founded—truths which could be recorded only by those who did not rely upon outer documents but upon the testimony of men who were ‘seers’ and ‘servants of the word’. Conviction of what lies behind the Gospels can be acquired only by degrees. But men will gradually grasp with such intensity and strength the nature of the truths upon which the scriptures are founded that this understanding will have an effect upon all the members of the human organism.

Achter Vortrag

Wir haben versucht, uns darüber Vorstellungen zu bilden, was eigentlich den ersten Kapiteln des Lukas-Evangeliums zugrunde liegt. Nur wenn man jene Vorgänge kennt, die sich innerhalb der Menschheitsevolution abgespielt haben und die uns so lange beschäftigen mußten, um sie eingehend zu besprechen, kann man enträtseln, was der Schreiber des Lukas-Evangeliums wie eine Art Vorgeschichte des großen Christus-Ereignisses erzählt hat. Man wird dadurch in dieLage versetzt, zu wissen, wer derjenige war, der dann im dreißigsten Jahre seines Lebens jenes Weltenprinzip aufgenommen hat, das wir ja auch charakterisiert haben: das Christus-Prinzip. Zum Verständnis dessen, was der Schreiber des Lukas-Evangeliums uns von der Persönlichkeit und der Wirksamkeit des Christus Jesus erzählt — das heißt derjenigen Individualität, die dann drei Jahre in der Welt wirkte und welche den Christus innerhalb eines Menschenleibes darstellt -, ist nun aber notwendig, daß wir mit einigen Strichen auf die Menschheitsentwickelung hinweisen und Eigenschaften dieser Menschheitsentwickelung berücksichtigen, von denen sich unsere Zeit so wenig einen Begriff machen kann. Unsere Zeit ist in vieler Beziehung außerordentlich kurzsichtig und glaubt, alles, was heute oder im Laufe von ungefähr zwei bis drei Jahrhunderten mit der Menschheit geschieht, was dieser Zeit als Gesetze der Menschheitsentwickelung zugrunde liegt, das wäre immer dagewesen, und namentlich das, was heute nicht gilt, habe immer nicht gegolten. Deshalb wird es für den heutigen Menschen so schwer, Erzählungen, die sich auf eine Vergangenheit beziehen wie diejenige, in welcher der Christus auf der Erde gelebt hat, zu begreifen und unbefangen hinzunehmen.

Die Taten des Christus auf der Erde erzählt uns der Schreiber des Lukas-Evangeliums. Er erzählt sie uns so, daß wir, wenn wir wirklich auf den Sinn seiner Darstellungen eingehen, immer mehr und mehr einen Begriff empfangen müssen von dem, was eigentlich die Menschheitsentwickelung damals war. Wir müssen schon ein wenig wieder auf das aufmerksam machen, was im Laufe unserer anthroposophischen Betrachtungen Öfter gesagt worden ist: daß unsere gegenwärtige Menschheit ihren Ausgangspunkt zunächst von der atlantischen Katastrophe genommen hat, daß unsere Vorfahren — das heißt unsere eigenen Seelen in anderen Leibern - in der alten Atlantis gelebt haben, auf jenem Kontinent, den wir zu suchen haben zwischen Europa und Afrika einerseits und Amerika andererseits. Dann kam die große atlantische Katastrophe, wodurch das Antlitz der Erde umgestaltet wurde. Die Menschenmassen sind von der Atlantis nach dem Osten und nach dem Westen gezogen und haben so die Erde besiedelt, wie wir das für die nachatlantische Zeit bezeichnet haben. Da entstanden dann in der nachatlantischen Zeit die verschiedenen Kulturen, die wir charakterisiert haben als die alte indische Kultur, als die urpersische Kultur, die ägyptisch-chaldäische Kultur, die griechisch-lateinische Kultur und jene, in der wir heute leben.

Nun macht man sich von der Menschheitsentwickelung eine ganz falsche Vorstellung, wenn man glaubt, daß der Mensch während dieses Zeitraumes der nachatlantischen Entwickelung immer so beschaffen war, wie er heute ist. Er hat sich immer wieder verändert; gewaltige Veränderungen gingen mit der Menschennatur vor sich. Die äußeren geschichtlichen Dokumente berichten ja nur von wenigen Jahrtausenden. Einzig und allein jene für die äußere Forschung unzugängliche Urkunde, die wir die Akasha-Chronik nennen und die wir auch bei diesem Zyklus ein wenig charakterisiert haben, gibt uns Aufschluß über die Entwickelung seit der atlantischen Katastrophe. - Da finden wir, daß sich nach der atlantischen Katastrophe zunächst die altindische Kultur entwickelt hat, in welcher die Menschen mehr noch in ihrem Ätherleibe lebten und noch nicht so stark in ihrem physischen Leibe, wie das später der Fall war. Der weitaus größte Teil der indischen Bevölkerung war, ohne daß er freilich das heutige Ich-Bewußtsein entwickelt hatte, hellsichtig, dumpf-dämmerhaft hellsichtig. Sein Bewußtsein war ähnlich einem Traumbewußtsein, aber dafür war es ein Bewußtsein, das noch hineinschaute in die Untergründe des Daseins, in die geistige Welt. Nun sind wir gewohnt, bei unseren Vorstellungen hervorzuheben, wie es für den heutigen Menschen notwendig ist zu wissen — weil es ihm vorwärtshelfen kann in die Zukunft hinein -, was mit der Erkenntnis und der Erkenntnisform zusammenhängt. Wir betonen immer, wie diese unsere Vorfahren im alten Indien die Welt erkannt, angeschaut haben, wie sie noch viel hellsehender waren als in späterer Zeit. Wenn wir aber das Lukas-Evangelium verstehen wollen, so müssen wir noch eine andere Eigenschaft dieser unserer Vorfahren hervorheben.

In dieser Zeit, als noch der Ätherleib viel mehr auf allen Seiten über den physischen Leib hinausragte und mit diesem noch nicht so dicht verbunden war wie das heute der Fall ist, da hatte auch noch alles, was seelische Kräfte und Eigenschaften des Menschen sind, eine größere Gewalt über den physischen Leib. Aber je mehr der Atherleib in den physischen Leib hineindrang, desto schwächer wurde er und desto weniger Macht hatte er über den physischen Leib. Bei den alten Atlantiern ragte der Kopfteil des Atherleibes noch stark über den physischen Leib hinaus. In gewissem Maße war das aber auch noch bei den alten Indern der Fall. Das gestattete ihnen, auf der einen Seite das hellsichtige Bewußtsein zu entfalten, aber andererseits auch eine große Macht zu haben über die Vorgänge im physischen Leibe.

Obwohl sie weit auseinanderliegen, können wir einen alten indischen Leib mit einem Leibe unserer Zeit vergleichen. In unserer Zeit ist der Ätherleib am tiefsten hineingestiegen in den physischen Leib, ist am meisten mit den Tatsachen des physischen Leibes verbunden. Wir sind heute hart an der Grenze, wo der Ätherleib wieder heraustritt, sich freimacht von dem physischen Leibe und mehr selbständig wird; und indem die Menschheit der Zukunft entgegeneilt, wird der Atherleib immer mehr und mehr herauskommen aus dem physischen Leibe. Heute ist die Menschheit über den tiefsten Punkt, wo die größte Gemeinschaft des Atherleibes mit dem physischen Leibe vorhanden war, schon etwas hinaus. Wenn wir einen alten indischen Leib mit einem heutigen Leib vergleichen, so können wir sagen: Beim indischen Leib ist der Atherleib noch verhältnismäßig frei, und die Seele kann Kräfte entfalten, die in den physischen Leib hineinwirken. Der Ätherleib nimmt die Kräfte der Seele auf, weil er noch nicht so an den physischen Leib gebunden ist; dafür aber beherrscht er auch mehr den physischen Leib, und die Folge davon ist, daß die Wirkungen, die in dieser Zeit auf die Seele ausgeübt werden, in ungeheurem Maße auch auf den Leib wirken. Wenn in der indischen Zeit ein Mensch, der einen anderen Menschen haßte, ein haßerfülltes Wort sprach, so stach dieses Wort den anderen - es wirkte bis in das physische Gefüge hinein. Die Seele wirkte noch auf den Ätherleib und der Atherleib auf den physischen Leib. Diese Kraft ist heute ja dem Ätherleibe genommen worden. Und wenn andererseits ein Wort der Liebe gesprochen wurde, so wirkte das erweiternd, erwärmend, aufschließend auf den anderen Menschen und auch so auf den physischen Leib. Daher war es damals sehr wichtig, ob ein liebes oder ein haßerfülltes Wort gesprochen wurde, denn das wirkte auf alle Vorgänge des Leibes. Diese Wirkung nahm in der Menschheit immer mehr und mehr ab, je mehr der Ätherleib in den physischen Leib hineinstieg. Heute ist das anders. Heute wirkt ein Wort, das wir sprechen, zunächst nur auf die Seele, und recht selten sind die Menschen geworden, welche ein haßerfülltes, ein liebloses Wort so fühlen, als ob es ihnen etwas zusammenschnürte, ein liebeerfülltes Wort dagegen so, wie wenn es sie erweiterte und beseligte. Jene eigenartigen Wirkungen, die wir heute noch in unserem physischen Herzen als die Wirkung eines liebe- oder haßerfüllten Wortes spüren können, sind von einer ungeheuren Intensität gewesen im Aufgange unserer nachatlantischen Entwickelung. Daher konnte man sozusagen mit diesen Einwirkungen auf die Seele etwas ganz anderes anfangen, als man heute damit anfangen kann. Denn heute hängt es ja nicht davon ab, wie ein Wort gesprochen wird. Es kann ein Wort mit noch so warmer Liebe gesprochen sein, wenn es aufstößt auf die heutige Menschenorganisation, so wird es stets mehr oder weniger zurückgeworfen, es dringt nicht hinein, denn das hängt nicht nur davon ab, wie es gesprochen wird, sondern auch davon, wie es aufgenommen werden kann.

Heute ist es also nicht möglich, so unmittelbar auf die Seele des Menschen zu wirken, daß das auch wirklich bis in seine ganze physische Organisation hineindringt. Nicht unmittelbar ist das möglich. In gewisser Weise wird es aber doch möglich sein, denn wir nähern uns ja jener Zukunft, in der das Geistige wiederum seine Bedeutung haben wird. Wir können auch heute schon wieder darauf hinweisen, wie das in der Zukunft sein wird. Wir können in unserem jetzigen Menschheitszyklus heute auf diesem Felde sehr wenig tun, damit das, was in unserer eigenen Seele an Liebe, an Wohlwollen, an Weisheit lebt, sich unmittelbar hinüberergießt in die andere Seele und dort diejenige Stärke gewinnt, die bis in den physischen Leib hinein wirkt. Wir müssen uns heute sagen, daß wir eine solche Wirkung nur nach und nach erzeugen können. Aber diese geistige Wirkungsweise beginnt wieder. Und sie beginnt gerade auf dem Boden, wo die geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung gepflanzt wird, denn diese Weltanschauung ist der Anfang der Verstärkung der Seelenwirkungen. Das ist heute nur in wenigen Fällen möglich, daß ein Wort physische Wirkungen erzielt. Aber es ist möglich, daß sich Menschen zusammentun, um eine Summe geistiger Wahrheiten in ihre Seelen aufzunehmen. Diese geistigen Wahrheiten werden sich nach und nach verstärken, werden in den Seelen Gewalt gewinnen und dadurch auch die Kraft, bis in die physische Organisation hinein zu wirken und diese darnach zu formen, wie sie selber sind. So wird in der Zukunft wiederum das Seelisch-Geistige eine große Gewalt gewinnen über das Physische und wird sich dieses Physische als sein Nachbild formen.

In jenen alten Zeiten der indischen Urkultur war zum Beispiel auch das, was man «heilen» nennt, etwas anderes als später, denn das hängt alles mit dem zusammen, was eben gesagt worden ist. Weil man mit dem, was auf die Seele wirkte, eine ungeheure Wirkung auf den Leib erzielen konnte, deshalb konnte man mit dem vom richtigen Willensimpuls durchströmten Wort auf die Seele des anderen Menschen so wirken, daß diese Seele wiederum die Wirkung übertrug auf den Atherleib und dieser wieder auf den physischen Leib. Hatte man eine Ahnung davon, welche Wirkung man auf die andere Seele ausüben wollte, so konnte man bei erkrankter Organisation die richtige Wirkung in der angedeuteten Weise auf die Seele ausüben und dadurch auf den physischen Leib, was dann die Gesundheit herbeiführte. Nun denken Sie sich dies im höchsten Maße gesteigert, so daß der indische Arzt vorzugsweise jene Seeleneinflüsse und -einwirkungen beherrschte, die dabei in Frage kommen, dann müssen Sie sich klar sein, daß alles Heilen in der indischen Zeit ein viel geistigerer Vorgang war, als es heute sein kann — ausdrücklich ist gesagt: als es heute sein kann. Aber wir nähern uns wieder solchen Wirkungsweisen. Was aus kosmischen, aus geistigen Höhen als eine Weltanschauung, als eine Summe von Wahrheiten heruntergeholt wird, welche dem großen geistigen Inhalte der Welt entsprechen, das wird in die Menschenseelen einfließen und das wird, indem die Menschheit der Zukunft entgegenlebt, selbst ein Gesundungsmittel sein aus dem innersten Wesen des Menschen heraus. Geisteswissenschaft ist das große Heilmittel der Seelen im Leben in die Zukunft hinein. Nur müssen wir verstehen, daß die Menschheit auf einem absteigenden Wege der Entwickelung war, daß die geistigen Wirkungen immer mehr und mehr zurückgegangen sind, daß wir im Tiefstande der Entwickelung stehen und daß wir uns nur ganz allmählich hinaufheben können zu den Höhen, auf denen wir einstmals gestanden haben.

Ganz langsam verloren sich jene Wirkungen, die im alten Indien in so eminentem Maße vorhanden waren. Noch eine ähnliche Organisation — so daß von Seele zu Seele gewirkt werden konnte - war zum Beispiel in der altägyptischen Kultur vorhanden. Je weiter wir in der ägyptischen Kultur zurückgehen, desto mehr finden wir, daß eine unmittelbare Wirkung von einer Seele auf die andere da war, die dann übergehen konnte auf die physische Organisation. Viel weniger war sie vorhanden in der alten persischen Zeit. Denn diese hatte eine andere Aufgabe; sie war dazu berufen, den ersten Anstoß zu geben zu dem Hineindringen in die physische Welt. In bezug auf diejenigen Eigenschaften, welche ich jetzt charakterisiert habe, steht das Ägyptertum dem Indertum viel näher als der persischen Kultur. Im Persertum beginnt die Seele bereits, sich sozusagen immer mehr in sich zu verschließen, immer weniger Gewalt über die äußere Organisation zu haben, weil sie das Selbstbewußtsein immer mehr und mehr in sich ausbilden sollte. Deshalb mußte mit jener Richtung, die sich die Herrschaft des Geistigen über das Physische bewahrt hatte, eine andere Kulturströmung zusammenströmen, die vorzugsweise auf die innerliche Vertiefung, auf die Erzeugung des Selbstbewußtseins angelegt war; und eine Art von Ausgleich finden diese beiden Strömungen in dem, was wir die griechisch-lateinische Kultur nennen. Das ist die vierte nachatlantische Kulturperiode. Da ist die Menschheit bereits so weit in die physische Welt herabgestiegen, daß jetzt eine Art Gleichgewicht zwischen dem Physischen und dem Seelisch-Geistigen eintritt. Das heißt, in dieser vierten Kulturperiode ist es so, daß der Geist und die Seele etwa $o viel Herrschaft über den Leib haben, als der Leib wiederum Herrschaft hat über die Seele. Eine Art Ausgleich zwischen den beiden ist eingetreten: die Menschheit ist heruntergestiegen bis zum Gleichgewichtszustand.

Nun muß aber die Menschheit erst wieder eine Art Weltenprüfung durchmachen, um wiederum in die geistigen Höhen hinaufsteigen zu können. Daher ist es gekommen, daß die Menschheit seit der griechisch-lateinischen Zeit eigentlich noch tiefer in die physische Materialität heruntergestiegen ist. Alles, was mit dem Körperlichen, mit dem Physischen zu tun hat, ist noch tiefer heruntergestiegen. Der Mensch wurde in der Zeit, in welcher wir leben, in der fünften nachatlantischen Kulturepoche, im Grunde genommen unter die Gleichgewichtslinie heruntergetrieben und konnte sich zunächst nur in seinem Innern erheben, konnte ein Bewußtsein aufnehmen von der geistigen Welt, das einen mehr theoretischen Charakter hatte. Er mußte sich innerlich stärken.

So sehen wir in der griechisch-lateinischen Kultur einen verhältnismäßigen Gleichgewichtszustand, während jetzt, in unserer Zeit, das Physische ein Übergewicht erlangt hat und das Geistig-Seelische beherrscht. Wir sehen, daß das Geistig-Seelische in gewisser Beziehung ohnmächtig geworden ist; es kann nur mehr theoretisch aufgenommen werden. Es hat sich das Innere des Menschen durch die Jahrhunderte hindurch darauf beschränken müssen, sich innerlich zu stärken in einer Kräftigung, die nicht in dem offenbaren Bewußtsein sich abspielt. Nach und nach muß es wieder stärker und kräftiger werden, damit darüber auch ein neues Bewußtsein entwickelt werden kann. Und wenn es bei einer gewissen Stärke angelangt sein wird — das wird in der sechsten nachatlantischen Kulturperiode der Fall sein -, dann wird das Geistig-Seelische dadurch, daß der Mensch immer mehr und mehr geistige Nahrung aufgenommen hat, von dieser geistigen Nahrung nicht mehr eine theoretische, sondern eine lebendige Weisheit, eine lebendige Wahrheit haben. Dann wird dieses Geistige so stark sein, daß es nun wiederum — und zwar jetzt von der anderen Seite her — die Herrschaft über den physischen Leib gewinnen wird.

Wie können wir also die Mission der Geisteswissenschaft von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus für die Menschheit eigentlich erklären? Wenn in unserer Zeit die Geisteswissenschaft immer mehr zu etwas wird, das innerlich lebendig wird in der Seele, das imstande sein wird, nicht nur den Verstand, den Intellekt der Menschen anzuregen, sondern immer mehr und mehr die Seele zu erwärmen, dann wird die Seele so stark werden, daß sie die Herrschaft über das Physische gewinnt. Dazu sind natürlich gewisse Übergänge notwendig; dazu ist mancherlei notwendig, was sich zunächst sogar wie ein Abfallen ausnimmt, wie Schäden. Aber das sind Übergangsformen, die jenem Zukunftszustande weichen werden, wo die Menschen in ihre Ideen das spirituelle Leben aufnehmen werden und wo für die gesamte Menschheit jener Zustand eintreten wird, welcher die Herrschaft des Seelisch-Geistigen über das Physisch-Materielle bedeuten wird. Und ein jeder Mensch, den heute die geisteswissenschaftlichen Weistümer nicht nur interessieren, weil sie seinen Verstand anregen, sondern der entzückt sein kann von den geisteswissenschaftlichen Wahrheiten, der seine innerliche, lebendige Befriedigung daran haben kann, der wird ein Vorläufer derjenigen Menschen sein, die wiederum die rechte Herrschaft der Seele über den Leib gewonnen haben werden.

Wir können in unserer Zeit schon die großen Wahrheiten hinstellen über solche Vorgänge, wie wir sie in den letzten Tagen haben vor unsere Seele treten lassen, jene gewaltigen Vorgänge von dem Zusammenfließen des Buddha-Elementes mit dem Zarathustra-Element, alles, was vorgegangen ist im Beginne unserer Zeitrechnung in Palästina. Wir konnten darstellen, wie die Weisheit im Fortschritte der Welt sich jene zwei Kindheitsgestalten des nathanischen und des salomonischen Jesus geschaffen hat und durch diese großen, gewaltigen Vorgänge jene Weltenströmungen hat zusammenfließen lassen, die vorher getrennt über die Erde geflossen sind.

Es kann eine doppelte Anschauung von allem geben, was wir in den letzten Tagen auf uns haben wirken lassen. Da könnte jemand sagen: Das sieht für das heutige Bewußtsein zunächst etwas phantastisch aus, aber wenn ich alles auf die Waagschale lege, was an äußeren Wirkungen da ist, so erscheint es mir sehr plausibel, und erst dann sind mir die Evangelien erklärlich, wenn ich voraussetze, was mir aus der AkashaChronik erzählt wird. Es kann sich jemand von dem, was ihm zum Beispiel über die zwei Jesusgestalten und so weiter erzählt wird, interessiert fühlen, es kann sein Interesse befriedigen. Er kann sagen: Jetzt kann ich mir vieles erklären, was ich mir vorher nicht erklären konnte. Und ein anderer wieder könnte dann sagen: Es gibt für mich jetzt noch etwas anderes. Wenn ich alle diese Vorgänge überblicke, wenn ich alles überschaue, was aus der okkulten Forschung gesagt wird über jenes wunderbare Herniederwirken des Nirmanakaya des Buddha, was zugrunde liegt jener Verkündigung der Hirten und so weiter, und wenn ich auch die andere Strömung nehme und sehe, wie der Stern die Gesinnungsgenossen des Zarathustra-leitete, als ihr Führer wieder erschien auf der Erde, wenn ich da sehe, wie Weltenströmung zu Weltenströmung fließt, wie sich vereinigt, was erst getrennt gegangen ist, wenn ich das alles auf meine Seele wirken lasse, dann habe ich vor allem einen Eindruck: den Eindruck, daß das alles unbeschreiblich schön ist im Laufe des Weltenwerdens! — Diesen Eindruck kann man auch haben, daß es herrlich, gewaltig, großartig ist. Da ist in Wahrheit etwas, an dem unsere Seele Feuer fangen, was uns erglühen lassen kann für die wirklichen Weltenvorgänge.

Und das ist das Beste, was wir aus den großen Wahrheiten gewinnen können. Die kleinen Wahrheiten werden unsere Erkenntnisbedürfnisse befriedigen, und die großen werden unsere Seele warm machen, und wir werden sagen: Was so durch die Weltenvorgänge geht, das ist zu gleicher Zeit ein ungeheuer Schönes. Wenn wir es so in seiner Schönheit, in seiner Herrlichkeit empfinden, dann fängt'es an, in uns Wurzel zu fassen, dann dringt es hinaus über das bloße theoretische Verständnis. — Wie sagt doch im Sinne des Lukas-Evangeliums der Christus Jesus?

«Der Säemann ging aus, seinen Samen zu säen. Und da er säte, fiel das eine an den Weg und ward zertreten, und die Vögel des Himmels fraßen es auf; und anderes fiel auf felsigen Boden, und wie es aufging, verdorrte es, weil es keine Feuchtigkeit hatte;

und anderes fiel mitten unter die Dornen, und die Dornen wuchsen mit heran und erstickten es;

und anderes fiel auf das gute Land und wuchs und brachte hundertfältige Frucht» (Lukas 8, 5-8).

So ist es auch mit der anthroposophischen Weltanschauung. Auf sie ist anwendbar, was der Christus Jesus seinen Schülern als Erklärung dieses Gleichnisses vom Säemann gibt. Der Same ist das Reich der Götter, das Reich der Himmel, das Reich des Geistes. Dieses Reich des Geistes soll als Same einströmen in die Menschenseelen, soll wirksam werden auf der Erde. Da sind nun solche Menschen, die in sich nur jene Seelenkräfte haben, welche die spirituelle Weltanschauung, das Reich der göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten zurückstoßen. Es wird aufgefressen von den Hindernissen in der menschlichen Seele, wird gleich, ehe es irgendwie keimen kann, zurückgestoßen. Das gilt für viele Menschen gegenüber den Worten des Christus Jesus, das gilt heute für viele gegenüber dem, was die Anthroposophie in die Welt zu bringen hat: es wird zurückgestoßen, die Vögel sozusagen fressen es auf und lassen es überhaupt nicht in einen Grund und Boden eindringen. — Dann aber kann es zwar zu einer Seele gesprochen werden - sei es das Wort des Christus Jesus, sei es das Wort der spirituellen Weisheit —, aber die Seele ist nicht tief genug. Die Seele ist gerade so weit vorbereitet, daß sie verstehen kann, daß das ganz plausible Wahrheiten sind, aber das vereinigt sich nicht mit ihrer eigenen Substanz und Wesenheit. Sie kann die Weisheit vielleicht sogar wieder von sich geben, aber sie ist nicht mit ihr eins geworden; sie gleicht dem Samenkorn, das auf den Felsen gefallen ist und nicht sprießen kann. — Und das dritte Samenkorn ist in den Dornenstrauch gefallen; da keimt es zwar, aber es kann nicht aufsprießen. Das heißt, der Christus Jesus erklärt, daß es Menschen gibt, die in ihrer Seele so erfüllt sind von den Sorgen und Interessen des gewöhnlichen Lebens, daß sie zwar imstande sind, das Wort der spirituellen Wahrheit zu verstehen, aber alles andere in der Seele wirkt so wie ein Dornenstrauch, der es immer zurückhält. Es gibt auch heute Seelen - sie sind sehr zahlreich —, die würden gerne in sich die geisteswissenschaftlichen Wahrheiten verarbeiten, wenn nicht das andere, das äußere Leben, so an sie heranträte, daß es sie immer wieder niederhielte. Und nur wenige sind imstande, die spirituellen Wahrheiten zu entfalten als etwas Freies, wie das vierte Samenkorn. Das sind die, welche beginnen, das anthroposophische Element als lebendige Wahrheit zu empfinden, die es als das Lebenselement in die Seele aufnehmen und ganz darinnen leben; das sind zugleich die, welche die Vorläufer für die Wirksamkeit der spirituellen Wahrheiten in der Zukunft sind. Niemand aber, der nicht durch seine eigene innere Seelenkraft das richtige Vertrauen, die richtige Überzeugungskraft von der Wirkungsweise dieser spirituellen Weisheit hat, kann durch irgend etwas Äußerliches heute von der Wahrheit und der Wirkungskraft der spirituellen Weisheit überzeugt werden.

Denn ist es ein Beweis gegen die Wirksamkeit der spirituellen Weisheit, wenn sie heute bei so und so vielen Menschen nicht schon physisch wirkt? Im Gegenteil, man könnte sagen, es ist ein Beweis für die Gesundheit der spirituellen Weisheit, daß sie jene mächtigen physischen Leiber, auf die sie trifft, oftmals im negativen Sinne berührt, wie zum Beispiel ein Stadtkind mit einer schwachen physischen Gesundheit, das von frühester Kindheit auf nur Stadtluft eingesogen hat und sich in einer gewissen Weise dadurch geschwächt hat, nicht gesund zu werden braucht, wenn es in die scharfe, gesunde Bergesluft hinauskommt, sondern vielleicht gerade recht krank wird. So wenig das ein Beweis ist gegen das Gesunde der Bergesluft, so wenig ist es ein Beweis gegen die Wirkungsweise der spirituellen Weistümer, wenn sie, eindringend in gewisse menschliche Organisationen, auch vorübergehend Unheil anrichten können. Denn sie dringen an das heran, was seit Jahrhunderten und Jahrtausenden in den Menschenkörpern vererbt ist; sie treffen ja nicht etwas anderes als das, was zu ihnen nicht paßt.

In der äußeren Welt können wir noch nicht in dieser Beziehung die Beweisgründe suchen; wir müssen in diese Weistümer eindringen und uns die starke Überzeugung für sie verschaffen. Wie viele Indizienbeweise auch in der Außenwelt sein können, wir müssen in das Innere einzudringen die Möglichkeit haben, müssen in uns selbst die Überzeugung ausbilden und uns sagen: Wenn diese anthroposophischen Weistümer heute da oder dort zu angreifend sind, so ist das deshalb, weil sie an ungesunde Verhältnisse der Menschen geraten sind. Deshalb ist die spirituelle Weisheit doch gesund, aber nicht immer die Menschen. Deshalb ist es auch begreiflich, daß nicht alles heute enthüllt wird, was an spiritueller Weisheit an die Menschen im Laufe der Zeit herankommen kann. Es wird schon dafür gesorgt, daß der Schaden nicht zu groß wird; man schickt nicht die Stadtkinder hinaus in für sie zehrende Bergesluft. Daher aber kann nur von Zeit zu Zeit dasjenige mitgeteilt werden, was im Durchschnitt die Menschen vertragen können. Wenn das, was zum Beispiel noch an tieferen Weistümern vorhanden ist, ganz enthüllt würde, dann würde es so sein, daß Menschen mit gewissen Organisationen darunter zusammenbrechen würden wie die physisch gestörte Gesundheit in der Bergesluft. Nach und nach nur können die großen Weistümer der Menschheit enthüllt werden; aber es wird geschehen, und es wird zu einem umfassenden Gesunden der Menschheit werden.

Das alles liegt hinter dem, was wir zusammenfassen in dem Begriffe der geisteswissenschaftlichen Bewegung. Langsam müssen sich die Menschen das wieder erobern, was sie verlieren mußten: die Herrschaft des Geistig-Seelischen über das Materielle. Langsam ist es verlorengegangen, von der Entwickelung der indischen Kultur an bis in die griechisch-lateinische Zeit hinein. Es waren in der griechisch-lateinischen Zeit immer noch Menschen da, die als Erbstück aus alten Zeiten jenes Herausgehobensein des Ätherleibes hatten, die in ihrer ganzen Organisation zugänglich waren für seelisch-geistige Wirkungen. Deshalb mußte in dieser Zeit gerade der Christus Jesus erscheinen. Wäre er in unserer Zeit erschienen, so hätte er nicht wirken können, wie er damals gewirkt hat, und nicht das große Vorbild hinstellen können wie damals. In unserer Zeit würde er auf Menschenorganisationen auftreffen, die viel tiefer hineingestiegen sind in die physische Materie. Er selber müßte heute in eine physische Organisation hineinsteigen, in der jene mächtige Wirkung vom Seelisch-Geistigen auf die physische Organisation nicht mehr möglich sein könnte wie damals.

Das gilt aber nicht nur für den Christus Jesus, das gilt auch für alle ähnlichen Erscheinungen, und wir verstehen die Menschheitsevolution nur, wenn wir sie von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus durchleuchten. Das gilt zum Beispiel auch für den Buddha und sein Auftreten auf der Erde. Wir haben gesehen, was der Buddha für eine Mission hatte. Er hat zuerst hingestellt, was man nennen kann die große Lehre von der Liebe und dem Mitleid und allem, was damit zusammenhängt und was umschrieben ist in dem achtgliedrigen Pfad. Meinen Sie, wenn der Buddha heute erscheinen würde, er würde in derselben Weise das hinstellen können? Nein. Denn heute ist eine physische Organisation nicht möglich, die den Buddha jene Entwickelung durchmachen ließe, die er zu seiner Zeit durchgemacht hat. Die physischen Organisationen ändern sich fortwährend. Es mußte genau jener Zeitpunkt eingehalten werden, damit gerade eine solche Musterorganisation hingestellt werden konnte, damit der Buddha heruntersteigen und jene menschliche Organisation benutzen konnte, um einmal die gewaltige Tat des achtgliedrigen Pfades hinzustellen, die fortwirken soll, damit die Menschen sie geistig durchdringen. Heute ist die Menschheit darauf angewiesen, nach und nach diesen achtgliedrigen Pfad geistig-seelisch sich anzueignen. Es nimmt sich sonderbar aus, ist aber doch so: Alles, was hinterher die Menschheit in allen philosophischen und moralischen Lehren geleistet hat, das ist nur ein ganz schwacher Anfang, um das zu erreichen, was der Buddha einmal hingestellt hat. Mögen die Menschen noch so sehr alle möglichen Philosophien bewundern, mögen sie schwärmen von Kantianismus und sonstigen Dingen, alles das ist nur eine Kleinigkeit, ist nur ein Elementarstes gegen die umfassenden Grundsätze des achtgliedrigen Pfades. Und nur langsam kann die Menschheit wieder aufsteigen, um zu verstehen, was hinter den Worten des achtgliedrigen Pfades liegt. Zuerst wird so etwas im richtigen Zeitpunkte in einer umfassenden Tatsache hingestellt; dann geht von da aus die Entwickelung weiter. Es nimmt die Menschheit von da den Ausgangspunkt und erlangt erst nach langer Zeit das, was zuerst als eine gewaltige Tat vorbildlich hingestellt wurde. So stand der Buddha in seiner Zeit da und brachte der Welt die Lehre von der Liebe und dem Mitleid als ein Wahrzeichen für kommende Geschlechter, die sich nach und nach die Fähigkeit erobern sollen, aus sich heraus das zu erkennen, was in dem achtgliedrigen Pfade liegt. Und in dem sechsten Kulturzeitraume wird es schon eine gute Anzahl von Menschen geben, die dazu fähig sein werden. Oh, wir haben es noch ziemlich weit bis dahin, daß die Menschen sich sagen: Was der Buddha im fünften, sechsten Jahrhundert vor unserer Zeitrechnung vorbildlich hingestellt hat, das können wir jetzt aus unserer eigenen Seele heraus gewinnen; wir sind jetzt in unserer eigenen Seele ähnlich geworden dem Buddha.

So muß die Menschheit nach und nach aufsteigen zum Gipfel. Die ersten Bekenner sind die, welche mit der betreffenden Individualität hineinragen in eine große Zeit und sich dann die Erbstücke mitbringen, um so etwas zu verstehen. Die übrige große Menschheit geht langsam hinauf und erlangt das erst viel später, was ihr als ein zu Erreichendes angegeben wird. Dann aber, wenn eine größere Anzahl von Menschen dahin gelangt sein wird, den achtgliedrigen Pfad aus ureigener Erkenntnis der Seele als ihr Eigenes zu haben - nicht als etwas, was sie aus dem Buddhismus haben, was ihnen darin vorerzählt wird -, dann werden diese selben Menschen auch schon in bezug auf etwas anderes sehr weit gekommen sein. Lesen Sie nach in der Zeitschrift «Lucifer-Gnosis» «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», wie die Entwickelung der sechzehnblättrigen Lotusblume mit dem achtgliedrigen Pfade zusammenhängt. Die Menschen werden dann dahin gelangt sein, gerade die sechzehnblättrige Lotusblume zu entwickeln durch den achtgliedrigen Pfad. Das hängt innig zusammen. Und für denjenigen, der in die Menschheitsentwickelung hineinschauen kann, gibt es ein Zeichen dafür, wie weit die Menschheit in der Entwickelung gediehen ist. Sie ist so weit gediehen, wie sie gediehen ist in der Entwickelung der sechzehnblättrigen Lotusblume, die eines der ersten Organe ist, deren sich die Menschen in der Zukunft bedienen werden. Wenn aber dieses Organ entwickelt sein wird, dann wird eine gewisse Herrschaft des Seelisch-Geistigen über das Physische eingetreten sein. Nur der, der sich heute darauf einläßt, eine geistige Entwickelung im esoterischen Sinne durchzumachen, kann davon sprechen, daß er auf dem Wege ist, sich richtig den achtgliedrigen Pfad einzuverleiben. Der andere «studiert» ihn. Das ist natürlich auch sehr nützlich; es wird eben eine Anregung sein.

So sehen wir aber auch, daß im Grunde genommen das Geistig-Seelische nur bei denjenigen Menschen wirken kann, die bereits beginnen, mit ihrer eigenen Seele ganz organisch zu verbinden, was ihnen als spirituelle Weisheit gegeben wird. In demselben Maße, wie der achtgliedrige Pfad eigenes Erlebnis der Seele wird, wirkt er auch wieder auf das Physische zurück. Jetzt freilich können die ganz gescheiten Menschen der Gegenwart, die am Materialismus hängen, kommen und sagen: Da haben wir ganz besondere Erfahrungen gemacht; da hatten wir diesen oder jenen, der angefangen hat, eine spirituelle Entwickelung zu pflegen, das heißt, in deinem Sinne die spirituellen Weisheiten in sich lebendig zu machen, er ist aber mit fünfzig Jahren gestorben; also haben sie wenig zur Verlängerung seines Lebens beigetragen. — Das ist eine recht gescheite Wahrheit, man kann sie immer wieder erleben. Es ist nur schade, daß nicht die gegenteiligen Instanzen ins Feld geführt werden, nämlich wie lange der Betreffende gelebt haben würde, wenn er keine spirituelle Entwickelung durchgemacht hätte — ob er nicht dann vielleicht nur vierzig Jahre alt geworden wäre! Diese Frage müßte man ja erst entscheiden. Man konstatiert immer nur das, was da ist, und gibt nicht acht auf das, was nicht da ist. Das ist das Wesentliche, daß man die Dinge so ansieht.

Nach und nach also ist der Menschheit die Herrschaft des GeistigSeelischen über das Physische hingeschwunden, bis in den vierten Kulturzeitraum hinein, in welchem der Christus erschien und in welchem noch genügend Menschen vorhanden waren, an denen man sehen konnte, wie das Geistige auf das Physische wirkt. Da mußte der Christus erscheinen. Wäre er später erschienen, so hätten alle die Dinge nicht gezeigt werden können, die damals gezeigt worden sind. Es mußte eine solche große Erscheinung in die Welt, aber gerade zur rechten Zeit, hineintreten.

Was bedeutet denn das Hineintreten des Christus in die Welt? Daß der Mensch, indem er den Christus richtig versteht, sich nun voll seines Selbstbewußtseins bedienen lernt, daß er sein ganzes Ich-Bewußtsein damit durchdringen lernt, daß sein Ich ganz und gar Herrschaft gewinnt über alles, was in ihm ist, das bedeutet das Hineintreten des Christus in die Welt. Dieses Ich, dieses seiner selbst bewußte Ich wird es sein, das sich wieder alles zurückerobert, was der Menschheit verlorengegangen ist durch die Zeiträume hindurch. Aber genau ebenso, wie der achtgliedrige Pfad durch den Buddha zuerst hingestellt werden mußte, so mußte zuerst einmal vor Ablauf der alten Zeiten die Herrschaft dieses Ich-Prinzips über alles, was in der Welt an Vorgängen der äußeren Leiblichkeit vorhanden sein kann, sichtbarlich hingestellt werden. In unserer Zeit würde es nicht mehr möglich sein, daß, indem das Christus-Prinzip in die Welt hereinträte, auf die Umgebung jene gewaltigen Heilwirkungen ausgehen könnten, die in der damaligen Zeit ausgegangen sind. Dazu war jene Zeit notwendig, in der es noch Menschen gab, die so weit ihre Atherleiber herausragen hatten, daß sie durch das bloße Wort, durch die bloßen Berührungen so gewaltige Wirkungen empfangen konnten, von denen heute höchstens schwache Nachklänge vorhanden sein können. Und die Menschheit fing an, das Ich zu entwickeln, damit sie zuerst den Christus verstehen kann, um, davon ausgehend, wieder zurückzugewinnen, was sie einst verloren hat. An den letzten Exemplaren der Menschheit aus der Vorzeit mußte gezeigt werden, wie das Ich, das jetzt voll in einem Menschen vorhan. den war, in dem Christus Jesus, so, wie es am Ende der Erdenzeit einst in den übrigen Menschen sein wird, auf allen Gebieten mächtig auf die Menschen der damaligen Zeit wirkte. Das stellt der Schreiber des Lukas-Evangeliums dar, um uns zu zeigen: Jetzt trägt der Christus in die Welt hinein ein Ich, das den menschlichen physischen Leib, den Atherleib und Astralleib in der Art durchdringt, daß es Wirkungen ausüben kann, welche die ganze Organisation der Leiblichkeit beeinflussen können, sie auch gesundend beeinflussen können. Hingestellt mußte diese Tatsache werden, um zu zeigen: Wenn die Menschen alles, was als Kraft von dem Christus-Ich ausgehen kann, in der Zukunft, in Jahrhunderttausenden sich angeeignet haben werden, dann werden von den Menschen-Ichen Wirkungen ausgehen können, wie sie damals von dem Christus in die Menschheit hineingestrahlt sind. Das mußte gezeigt werden auf allen Gebieten; das konnte aber nur gezeigt werden für die damalige Menschheit.

Es wurde gezeigt, daß es Krankheiten gibt, welche im astralischen Leibe des Menschen ihren Ursprung haben, Wie sie sich äußern, das hängt zusammen mit der Wesenheit des ganzen Menschen. Wenn heute der Mensch schlechte moralische Eigenschaften hat, so sind diese vielleicht nur darauf beschränkt, daß sie schlechte Eigenschaften seiner Seele sind. Weil die Seele heute nicht jene Herrschaft über den Leib hat, die sie zur Zeit des Christus Jesus hatte, so wird nicht leicht jede Sünde auch zu einer äußeren Krankheit. Nach und nach nähern wir uns schon jenem Zustande wieder, wo der Atherleib wieder herausrückt. Daher beginnt für die Menschheit eine Epoche, wo gar sehr darauf geachtet werden muß, daß die seelischen Untugenden in moralischer und intellektueller Beziehung sich nicht als Krankheiten physisch äußern. Diese Zeit fängt jetzt schon an. Und viele von jenen Krankheiten, die als halb seelische, halb körperliche Krankheiten — die nervösen Erkrankungen unserer Zeit — hingestellt werden, bezeichnen den Anfang dieser Epoche. Weil die heutigen Menschen das Unharmonische der Außenwelt in ihren Wahrnehmungen und in ihrem Denken in sich aufgenommen haben, können sich natürlich solche Dinge nur äußern in Erscheinungen wie Hysterie und ähnlichem. Das hängt aber zusammen mit der Eigenart der geistigen Entwickelung, der wir entgegengehen: dem Herauslösen des Atherleibes.

In der Zeit, als der Christus auf der Erde erschien, waren zahlreiche Menschen in seiner Umgebung, bei denen Sünde, namentlich aber Charakterversündigung von aus früherer Zeit herrührenden schlechten Eigenschaften sich in Krankheiten äußerten. Das, was im Grunde genommen im Astralleib als Versündigung liegt und als Krankheit erscheint, das wird im Lukas-Evangelium Besessenheit genannt, wo der Mensch fremde Geister in seinen Astralleib hereinzieht, wo er nicht durch seine besseren Qualitäten Herr ist über seine ganze Menschlichkeit. Bei jenen Menschen, die noch die alte Trennung des Ätherleibes vom physischen Leibe hatten, äußerte es sich in hervorragendem Maße in jenen Zeiten darin, daß schlechte Eigenschaften, schlechte Qualitäten so wirkten, wie sie uns der Schreiber des Lukas-Evangeliums als Krankheitsformen schildert, die sich als Besessenheit darstellen. - Nun zeigt uns das Lukas-Evangelium, wie solche Menschen durch die Nähe und den Zuspruch jener Individualität, die in dem Christus Jesus war, geheilt wurden, wie das, was als Böses wirkte, aus solchen Individualitäten herausgetrieben wurde. Das wird als ein Vorbild dafür hingestellt, wie die guten Eigenschaften am Ende der Erdenzeit auf alle Eigenschaften gesundend wirken werden.

Man merkt das Feinere gewöhnlich nicht, was sich hinter manchem verbirgt, so daß auch da noch die Rede ist von ganz anderen Erkrankungen, wie sie uns in dem Kapitel geschildert werden, das gewöhnlich genannt wird die «Heilung des Gichtbrüchigen» (Lukas 5, 17-26). Eigentlich sollte es heißen die «Heilung eines Gelähmten», denn im griechischen Texte steht an dieser Stelle das Wort «paralelym&nos»; das bedeutet einen, der an seinen Gliedern gelähmt ist. Von diesen Krankheitsformen wußte man in jenen Zeiten noch, daß sie von den Eigenschaften des Ätherleibes herrühren. Und indem uns geschildert wird, daß der Christus Jesus auch solche heilt, die gelähmt sind, wird uns gesagt, daß durch die Kräfte seiner Individualität nicht nur Wirkungen bis in die Astralleiber hinein erzielt werden, sondern bis in die Atherleiber, so daß auch solche Menschen, die in ihrem Atherleibe schadhaft sind, heilende Wirkungen erleben können. Gerade wo der Christus von dem spricht, was als «tiefere Sünde» bis in den Atherleib hinein seinen Sitz hat, da gebraucht er einen besonderen Ausdruck. Das weist ersichtlich darauf hin, daß das krankmachende Geistige erst weggeschafft werden muß; denn er spricht nicht gleich zu dem Gelähmten: «Stehe auf und wandle», sondern er geht auf die Ursache, die als Krankheit bis in den Ätherleib hinein wirkt, und sagt: «Deine Sünden sind dir vergeben», das heißt: was sich als Sünde in den Atherleib hineingefressen hat, das muß erst fort. Auf diese feineren Unterscheidungen geht aber die gewöhnliche Bibelforschung nicht ein, sie sieht nicht, daß hier gezeigt ist, wie diese Individualität Einfluß hatte auf die Geheimnisse des Astralleibes und auch auf die des Atherleibes. Ja, sie hatte sogar auf die Geheimnisse des physischen Leibes Einfluß.

Warum wird in diesem Zusammenhange von den Geheimnissen des physischen Leibes als sozusagen von den obersten Geheimnissen gesprochen? Sogar für das äußere Leben ist zunächst die Einwirkung von Astralleib zu Astralleib die offenbarste. Sie können einen Menschen verletzen, wenn Sie zum Beispiel ein haßerfülltes Wort sagen. Das ist ein Vorgang in seinem astralischen Leibe. Er hört das verletzende Wort, er empfindet das als Leid in seinem astralischen Leibe. Da haben Sie den Austausch zwischen Astralleib und Astralleib. Viel verborgener ist schon das, was Austausch ist zwischen Ätherleib und ÄAtherleib; dazu gehören schon feinere Wirkungen von Mensch zu Mensch, die heute gar nicht mehr beachtet werden. Aber die verborgensten sind die Wirkungen, welche auf den physischen Leib gehen, weil der physische Leib am meisten durch die dichte Materialität die Wirkungen des Geistigen verhüllt. Nun aber soll uns auch gezeigt werden, daß der Christus Jesus Herrschaft hat über den physischen Leib. Wie wird das gezeigt? Da berühren wir ein Kapitel, das den heutigen materialistisch denkenden Menschen ganz unverständlich sein würde. — Es ist gut, daß nur vorbereitete Kenner der Geisteswissenschaft bei diesem Zyklus beisammen sind; denn wer nur von der Straße hereinkäme, der würde das, was heute gesprochen wird, für ganzen Wahnsinn halten, auch wenn er das andere nur für halben oder viertel Wahnsinn hielte.

Der Christus Jesus zeigt, daß er durchschauen kann durch die physische Leiblichkeit und bis in dieselbe hineinwirken kann. Das wird dadurch gezeigt, daß er auch durch seine Kraft auf diejenigen Krankheiten heilend wirken kann, die im physischen Leibe wurzeln. Dazu muß man aber die geheimnisvollen Wirkungen kennen, die vom physischen Leibe des einen Menschen auf den physischen Leib des anderen Menschen hin wirken, wenn man im physischen Leibe die Krankheiten beheben will. Wenn man geistig wirken will, so kann man nicht den Menschen als ein in seiner Haut abgeschlossenes Wesen betrachten. Es ist hier schon oft gesagt worden, daß unser Finger gescheiter ist als wir. Unser Finger weiß, daß das Blut in ihm nur dadurch fließen kann, daß es in dem ganzen Leibe ordentlich fließt, und er weiß, daß er verdorren muß, wenn er von dem übrigen Organismus getrennt wird. So müßte der Mensch auch wissen, wenn er die Verhältnisse seines Leibes durchschauen würde, daß er seiner physischen Organisation nach zur ganzen Menschheit gehört, daß fortwährend Wirkungen von dem einen auf den anderen übergehen und daß man gar nicht seine physische Gesundheit als Einzelmensch abtrennen kann von der Gesundheit der ganzen Menschheit. In den gröberen Wirkungen werden das heute die Menschen auch zugeben, in bezug auf die feineren Wirkungen aber nicht, weil sie die Tatsachen nicht wissen können. Hier im Lukas-Evangelium wird aber auf die feineren Wirkungen hingedeutet. Lesen Sie im 8. Kapitel, wo es heißt:

«Als aber Jesus zurückkam, empfing ihn die Menge; denn alles wartete auf ihn.

Und siehe, es kam ein Mann mit Namen Jairus, der war Oberer der Synagoge, und er fiel Jesus zu Füßen und bat ihn, in sein Haus zu kommen;

denn er hatte eine einzige Tochter von ungefähr zwölf Jahren, die lag im Sterben. Als er aber hinging, drängte ihn die Menge.

Und eine Frau, die seit zwölf Jahren am Blutfluß litt und all ihr Vermögen an Ärzte gewendet hatte, und niemand vermochte sie zu heilen,

trat von hinten herzu und rührte die Quaste seines Kleides an,

und alsbald stand ihr Blutfluß stille» (Lukas 8, 40-44).

Also der Christus Jesus soll das zwölfjährige Töchterchen des Jairus heilen. Wie kann es nur geheilt werden, denn es ist nahe am Tode? Das kann man nur verstehen, wenn man weiß, wie seine physische Krankheit zusammenhängt mit einer anderen Erscheinung bei einem anderen Menschen, und daß es nicht geheilt werden kann, ohne daß man diese andere Erscheinung ins Auge faßt. Denn als das jetzt zwölfjährige Mädchen geboren wurde, da gab es eine gewisse Beziehung zu einer anderen Persönlichkeit, die tief im Karma begründet war. Deshalb wird uns jetzt erzählt, daß sich von hinten an den Christus Jesus heran ein Weib drängte, das seit zwölf Jahren an einer gewissen Krankheit litt, und den Saum seines Kleides berührte. Warum wird dieses Weib hier erwähnt? Weil sie in ihrem Karma verknüpft war mit diesem Kinde des Jairus. Dieses zwölfjährige Mädchen und die seit zwölf Jahren kranke Frau hängen zusammen, und nicht umsonst wird uns wie ein Zahlengeheimnis dies hingestellt. Da tritt diese Frau mit einer zwölf Jahre dauernden Krankheit an Jesus heran, und sie wird geheilt - und jetzt erst konnte er in das Haus des Jairus hineingehen, und nun konnte das zwölfjährige Mädchen geheilt werden, das schon für tot gehalten wurde.

So tief muß man in die Dinge hineingehen, um das Karma, das von Mensch zu Mensch geht, zu erfassen. Dann kann man sehen, wie die dritte der Wirkungsweisen des Christus Jesus — die auf den ganzen menschlichen Organismus — gezeigt wird. Insbesondere mit Rücksicht darauf muß man die höhere Wirksamkeit des Christus betrachten, wie sie uns im Lukas-Evangelium gezeigt wird.

So werden wir in anschaulicher Weise darauf hingewiesen, wie auf alle übrigen Glieder des Menschen die Ich-Wesenheit des Christus wirkte. Das ist das, worauf es ankommt. Und der Schreiber des LukasEvangeliums, der insbesondere in diesen Partien auf die Darstellung der Heilwirkungen ausgeht, wollte zeigen, wie die Heilwirkungen des Ich uns darstellen die Entfaltung des Ich auf einem hohen Gipfel der Menschheitsentwickelung, und er zeigt, wie der Christus wirken mußte auf den astralischen Leib, auf den Atherleib und auf den physischen Leib der Menschen. Lukas hat gleichsam das große Ideal der Menschheitsentwickelung hingestellt: Sehet hin auf eure Zukunft; heute ist euer Ich, wie es sich herausentwickelt hat, noch schwach, es hat noch wenig Herrschaft. Aber es wird nach und nach Herr werden über den Astralleib, über den Atherleib und über den physischen Leib und wird dieselben umgestalten. Vor euch ist das große Ideal des Christus hingestellt, der der Menschheit zeigt, wie die Herrschaft des Ich über den Astralleib, Atherleib und physischen Leib sein kann.

Das sind solche Wahrheiten, wie sie den Evangelien zugrunde liegen, und die nur diejenigen schreiben konnten, die sich nicht auf äußere Dokumente stützten, sondern auf das Zeugnis derjenigen, die «Selbstseher» und «Diener des Wortes» waren. Nach und nach wird sich die Menschheit erst eine Überzeugung von dem aneignen, was hinter den Evangelien liegt. Dann aber wird sie sich allmählich das, was den religiösen Urkunden zugrunde liegt, in solcher Intensität und Stärke zu eigen machen, daß es wirklich auf alle übrigen Glieder der menschlichen Organisation wirken kann.

Eighth Lecture

We have attempted to form an idea of what actually underlies the first chapters of the Gospel of Luke. Only if we are familiar with the events that took place within human evolution, and which we have had to discuss at such length, can we unravel what the writer of the Gospel of Luke recounts as a kind of prehistory to the great Christ event. This enables us to know who it was who, in the thirtieth year of his life, took on that world principle which we have also characterized: the Christ principle. In order to understand what the writer of the Gospel of Luke tells us about the personality and activity of Christ Jesus—that is, about the individuality that then worked in the world for three years and which represents the Christ within a human body — it is now necessary to point out in a few strokes the development of humanity and to take into account characteristics of this development of humanity of which our time has so little concept. Our time is in many respects extremely short-sighted and believes that everything that happens to humanity today or in the course of approximately two to three centuries, everything that underlies this time as laws of human development, has always been there, and that especially what does not apply today has never applied. That is why it is so difficult for people today to understand and accept without prejudice stories that refer to a past such as that in which Christ lived on earth.

The writer of the Gospel of Luke tells us about the deeds of Christ on earth. He tells us in such a way that, if we really respond to the meaning of his descriptions, we must increasingly gain an understanding of what human evolution actually was at that time. We must draw attention once again to something that has often been said in the course of our anthroposophical considerations: that our present humanity took its starting point from the Atlantean catastrophe, that our ancestors—that is, our own souls in other bodies—lived in ancient Atlantis, on that continent which we must seek between Europe and Africa on the one hand and America on the other. Then came the great Atlantean catastrophe, which transformed the face of the Earth. The masses of people migrated from Atlantis to the east and west, thus populating the earth as we have described for the post-Atlantean period. Then, in the post-Atlantean period, the various cultures arose that we have characterized as the ancient Indian culture, the ancient Persian culture, the Egyptian-Chaldean culture, the Greek-Latin culture, and the culture in which we live today.

Now, one has a completely false idea of human evolution if one believes that during this period of post-Atlantean evolution, human beings were always as they are today. He has changed again and again; tremendous changes have taken place in human nature. The external historical documents only tell us about a few millennia. Only those documents inaccessible to external research, which we call the Akashic Records and which we have also characterized a little in this cycle, give us information about the development since the Atlantean catastrophe. There we find that after the Atlantean catastrophe, the ancient Indian culture first developed, in which people lived more in their etheric bodies and not yet so strongly in their physical bodies as was later the case. The vast majority of the Indian population was clairvoyant, dimly and hazily so, without, of course, having developed the ego-consciousness of today. Their consciousness was similar to dream consciousness, but it was a consciousness that still looked into the depths of existence, into the spiritual world. Now, we are accustomed to emphasizing in our ideas how necessary it is for people today to know what is connected with knowledge and the form of knowledge, because this can help them move forward into the future. We always emphasize how our ancestors in ancient India perceived and viewed the world, how they were much more clairvoyant than in later times. But if we want to understand the Gospel of Luke, we must emphasize another characteristic of our ancestors.

At that time, when the etheric body still extended much further beyond the physical body on all sides and was not yet as closely connected to it as is the case today, everything that constitutes the soul forces and qualities of the human being also had greater power over the physical body. But the more the etheric body penetrated into the physical body, the weaker it became and the less power it had over the physical body. In the ancient Atlanteans, the head part of the etheric body still protruded strongly beyond the physical body. To a certain extent, this was also still the case with the ancient Indians. This allowed them, on the one hand, to develop clairvoyant consciousness, but on the other hand, to have great power over the processes in the physical body.

Although they are far apart, we can compare an ancient Indian body with a body of our time. In our time, the etheric body has penetrated deepest into the physical body and is most closely connected with the facts of the physical body. Today we are at the point where the etheric body is emerging again, freeing itself from the physical body and becoming more independent; and as humanity rushes toward the future, the etheric body will emerge more and more from the physical body. Today, humanity has already moved somewhat beyond the lowest point where the greatest communion between the etheric body and the physical body existed. If we compare an ancient Indian body with a present-day body, we can say that in the Indian body, the etheric body is still relatively free, and the soul can unfold forces that work into the physical body. The etheric body absorbs the forces of the soul because it is not yet so bound to the physical body; but in return it also has greater control over the physical body, with the result that the effects exerted on the soul at this time also have an enormous effect on the body. In Indian times, when a person who hated another person spoke a hateful word, that word stabbed the other person—it affected the physical structure. The soul still acted upon the etheric body, and the etheric body acted upon the physical body. Today, this power has been taken away from the etheric body. On the other hand, when a word of love was spoken, it had an expanding, warming, opening effect on the other person and thus also on the physical body. Therefore, it was very important in those days whether a loving or a hateful word was spoken, because it affected all the processes of the body. This effect diminished more and more in humanity as the etheric body entered the physical body. Today it is different. Today, a word we speak initially affects only the soul, and people have become quite rare who feel a hateful, unloving word as if it constricted them, or a loving word as if it expanded and blessed them. Those peculiar effects that we can still feel today in our physical hearts as the effect of a word filled with love or hatred were of tremendous intensity at the dawn of our post-Atlantean development. Therefore, one could, so to speak, do something completely different with these influences on the soul than one can do today. For today it does not depend on how a word is spoken. A word may be spoken with the warmest love, but if it strikes the modern human organization, it will always be rejected to a greater or lesser extent; it will not penetrate, for that depends not only on how it is spoken, but also on how it can be received.

So today it is not possible to influence the human soul so directly that it really penetrates into its entire physical organization. That is not possible directly. But in a certain sense it will be possible, because we are approaching a future in which the spiritual will once again have its significance. We can already point out today how this will be in the future. In our present human cycle, we can do very little in this field to ensure that what lives in our own souls in the form of love, goodwill, and wisdom flows directly into other souls and gains the strength there that works its way into the physical body. We must tell ourselves today that we can only bring about such an effect gradually. But this spiritual mode of action is beginning again. And it is beginning precisely on the ground where the spiritual scientific worldview is being planted, for this worldview is the beginning of the strengthening of the soul's effects. Today, it is only possible in a few cases for a word to have physical effects. But it is possible for people to come together to take a sum of spiritual truths into their souls. These spiritual truths will gradually strengthen, gain power in the souls, and thereby also the power to work into the physical organization and shape it according to their own nature. In the future, the soul-spiritual will once again gain great power over the physical, and the physical will shape itself in its image.

In those ancient times of Indian primitive culture, for example, what we call “healing” was something different than it was later, because it is all connected with what has just been said. Because what affected the soul could have an enormous effect on the body, it was possible to influence the soul of another person with words imbued with the right impulse of will, so that this soul in turn transferred the effect to the etheric body and this again to the physical body. If one had an idea of the effect one wanted to have on another soul, one could exert the right effect on the soul in the manner indicated in the case of a diseased organization, and thereby on the physical body, which then brought about health. Now imagine this intensified to the highest degree, so that the Indian physician had mastered those soul influences and effects that come into question here, then you must realize that all healing in Indian times was a much more spiritual process than it can be today — it is expressly stated: than it can be today. But we are approaching such modes of action again. What is brought down from cosmic, spiritual heights as a worldview, as a sum of truths that correspond to the great spiritual content of the world, will flow into human souls and, as humanity lives toward the future, will itself be a remedy for health from the innermost being of the human being. Spiritual science is the great remedy for souls in life as it extends into the future. We must only understand that humanity has been on a downward path of development, that spiritual influences have receded more and more, that we are at a low point in our development, and that we can only gradually raise ourselves up to the heights where we once stood.

Very slowly, those effects that were so eminent in ancient India were lost. A similar organization—such that one soul could influence another—still existed, for example, in ancient Egyptian culture. The further back we go in Egyptian culture, the more we find that there was a direct effect from one soul to another, which could then pass over into the physical organization. It was much less present in ancient Persian times. For the latter had a different task; it was called upon to give the first impetus for penetration into the physical world. In terms of the characteristics I have just described, Egyptian culture is much closer to Indian culture than to Persian culture. In Persian culture, the soul begins, so to speak, to close itself off more and more, to have less and less power over the external organization, because it is supposed to develop self-consciousness more and more within itself. Therefore, a different cultural current had to converge with the one that had preserved the dominion of the spiritual over the physical, a current that was primarily aimed at inner deepening and the development of self-consciousness; and these two currents found a kind of balance in what we call Greek-Latin culture. This is the fourth post-Atlantean cultural period. Humanity has already descended so far into the physical world that a kind of balance between the physical and the soul-spiritual is now emerging. This means that in this fourth cultural period, the spirit and the soul have about as much dominion over the body as the body has over the soul. A kind of balance has been established between the two: humanity has descended to a state of equilibrium.

Now, however, humanity must first undergo a kind of world trial in order to be able to ascend again to the spiritual heights. This is why humanity has actually descended even deeper into physical materiality since the Greek-Latin period. Everything that has to do with the physical has descended even deeper. In the time in which we live, in the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, human beings have basically been driven below the line of equilibrium and could initially only rise within themselves, could take up a consciousness of the spiritual world that was of a more theoretical nature. They had to strengthen themselves inwardly.

Thus, we see a relative state of equilibrium in Greek-Latin culture, whereas now, in our time, the physical has gained the upper hand and dominates the spiritual-soul realm. We see that the spiritual-soul realm has become powerless in a certain sense; it can only be grasped theoretically. Throughout the centuries, the inner life of human beings has had to limit itself to strengthening itself in a way that does not take place in the conscious mind. Little by little, it must become stronger and more powerful so that a new consciousness can develop above it. And when it has reached a certain strength — which will be the case in the sixth post-Atlantean cultural period — then the spiritual-soul life, through the fact that human beings have taken in more and more spiritual nourishment, will no longer have a theoretical wisdom from this spiritual nourishment, but a living wisdom, a living truth. Then this spiritual element will be so strong that it will in turn — now from the other side — gain dominion over the physical body.

How, then, can we explain the mission of spiritual science for humanity from this point of view? If, in our time, spiritual science increasingly becomes something that lives inwardly in the soul, something that is capable not only of stimulating the mind and intellect of human beings, but also of warming the soul more and more, then the soul will become so strong that it will gain dominion over the physical. Of course, certain transitions are necessary for this; many things are necessary that at first appear to be a decline, even damage. But these are transitional forms that will give way to a future state in which human beings will take up spiritual life in their ideas and in which the entire human race will enter a state that will mean the dominion of the soul-spiritual over the physical-material. And every person who is interested in spiritual science today, not only because it stimulates their intellect, but because they can be enchanted by spiritual scientific truths, who can find inner, living satisfaction in them, will be a forerunner of those people who will in turn have gained the right dominion of the soul over the body.

In our time, we can already set forth the great truths about such events as we have allowed to come before our souls in recent days, those mighty events of the merging of the Buddha element with the Zarathustra element, everything that took place at the beginning of our era in Palestine. We have been able to show how, in the progress of the world, wisdom created those two childhood figures of the Nathanic and the Solomonic Jesus, and through these great, powerful events brought together those world currents that had previously flowed separately over the earth.

There can be a twofold view of everything that has had an effect on us in recent days. Someone might say: At first glance, this seems somewhat fantastical to today's consciousness, but when I weigh up all the external effects, it seems very plausible to me, and only then can I explain the Gospels if I accept what I am told in the Akashic Records. Someone may be interested in what is told them, for example, about the two figures of Jesus and so on, and it may satisfy their interest. They may say: Now I can explain many things that I could not explain before. And another person might then say: For me, there is now something else. When I look at all these processes, when I look at everything that occult research says about the wonderful descent of the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha, which is the basis of the proclamation of the shepherds and so on, and when I also take the other current and see how the star guided the followers of Zarathustra when their leader reappeared on earth, when I see how world currents flow into world currents, how what was once separated is reunited, when I let all this sink into my soul, then I have one impression above all: the impression that all this is indescribably beautiful in the course of the world's becoming! — One can also have the impression that it is glorious, powerful, magnificent. There is truly something that sets our soul on fire, that can make us glow with enthusiasm for the real processes of the world.

And that is the best we can gain from the great truths. The small truths will satisfy our need for knowledge, and the great ones will warm our soul, and we will say: What passes through the processes of the world is at the same time something immensely beautiful. When we perceive it in its beauty, in its glory, then it begins to take root in us, then it penetrates beyond mere theoretical understanding. — How does Christ Jesus say it in the Gospel of Luke?

“The sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air ate it up; and some fell on rocky ground, and when it sprang up, it withered away because it had no moisture;

and some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it;

and some fell on good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold” (Luke 8:5-8).

So it is with the anthroposophical worldview. What Christ Jesus gave his disciples as an explanation of this parable of the sower applies to it. The seed is the kingdom of the gods, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of the spirit. This kingdom of the spirit is to flow into human souls as seed and become effective on earth. Now there are people who have within themselves only those soul forces that repel the spiritual worldview, the kingdom of divine-spiritual beings. It is devoured by the obstacles in the human soul and is rejected before it can germinate in any way. This is true for many people with regard to the words of Christ Jesus, and it is true today for many with regard to what anthroposophy has to bring into the world: it is rejected, the birds devour it, so to speak, and do not allow it to penetrate the soil. — But then it can be spoken to a soul — be it the word of Christ Jesus or the word of spiritual wisdom — but the soul is not deep enough. The soul is just prepared enough to understand that these are entirely plausible truths, but they do not unite with its own substance and essence. It may even be able to repeat the wisdom, but it has not become one with it; it is like the seed that fell on the rock and cannot sprout. — And the third seed fell among the thorns; it germinates, but it cannot sprout. That is to say, Christ Jesus explains that there are people who are so filled in their souls with the cares and interests of ordinary life that, although they are capable of understanding the word of spiritual truth, everything else in their souls acts like a thorn bush that always holds it back. There are also souls today — and they are very numerous — who would gladly assimilate spiritual scientific truths if it were not for the other, the outer life, which approaches them in such a way that it keeps them down again and again. And only a few are able to unfold the spiritual truths as something free, like the fourth seed. These are the ones who begin to feel the anthroposophical element as a living truth, who take it into their souls as a life element and live entirely within it; these are also the ones who are the forerunners of the effectiveness of spiritual truths in the future. But no one who does not have the right confidence, the right conviction of the working of this spiritual wisdom through their own inner soul power, can be convinced of the truth and power of spiritual wisdom by anything external today.

For is it proof against the effectiveness of spiritual wisdom if it does not already have a physical effect on so many people today? On the contrary, one could say that it is proof of the health of spiritual wisdom that it often affects those powerful physical bodies it encounters in a negative sense, such as a city child with weak physical health who has breathed only city air since early childhood and has in a certain way weakened himself by not becoming healthy, and who therefore does not need to become healthy when he comes out into the sharp, healthy mountain air, but perhaps becomes just as sick. Just as this is no proof against the healthiness of the mountain air, it is no proof against the effectiveness of spiritual truths when, penetrating certain human organizations, they can also cause temporary harm. For they penetrate what has been inherited in human bodies for centuries and millennia; they encounter nothing other than what does not suit them.

In the outer world, we cannot yet seek proof in this regard; we must penetrate these spiritual laws and acquire a strong conviction in them. No matter how much circumstantial evidence there may be in the outer world, we must have the opportunity to penetrate into the inner world, we must develop conviction within ourselves and say to ourselves: if these anthroposophical teachings are so offensive here and there today, it is because they have come into contact with unhealthy conditions in human beings. That is why spiritual wisdom is healthy, but human beings are not always so. That is why it is understandable that not everything that can come to people in the course of time in terms of spiritual wisdom is revealed today. Care is taken to ensure that the damage is not too great; city children are not sent out into mountain air that is exhausting for them. For this reason, however, only what people can tolerate on average can be communicated from time to time. If, for example, what still exists in deeper mysteries were to be fully revealed, people with certain organizational structures would collapse like physically impaired health in the mountain air. Only gradually can the great mysteries of humanity be revealed, but it will happen, and it will lead to a comprehensive healing of humanity.

All this lies behind what we summarize in the concept of the spiritual scientific movement. Slowly, people must regain what they had to lose: the dominion of the spiritual-soul over the material. This has been slowly lost since the development of Indian culture and into the Greek-Latin period. In the Greek-Latin period, there were still people who had inherited from ancient times the elevation of the etheric body, which made them accessible to spiritual influences in their entire organization. That is why Christ Jesus had to appear at that time. If he had appeared in our time, he would not have been able to work as he did then, nor would he have been able to set the great example as he did then. In our time, he would encounter human organizations that have delved much deeper into physical matter. He himself would have to enter a physical organization in which the powerful effect of the soul-spiritual on the physical organization would no longer be possible as it was then.

But this does not apply only to Christ Jesus; it applies to all similar phenomena, and we can only understand human evolution if we examine it from this point of view. This also applies, for example, to the Buddha and his appearance on earth. We have seen what mission the Buddha had. He first established what can be called the great teaching of love and compassion and everything connected with it, which is described in the eightfold path. Do you think that if the Buddha were to appear today, he would be able to establish this in the same way? No. For today, a physical organization is not possible that would allow the Buddha to undergo the development that he underwent in his time. Physical organizations are constantly changing. It was necessary to adhere precisely to that point in time so that such a model organization could be established, so that the Buddha could descend and use that human organization to establish the mighty deed of the eightfold path, which is to continue to have an effect so that people can penetrate it spiritually. Today, humanity is dependent on gradually acquiring this eightfold path spiritually and soulfully. It seems strange, but it is true: everything that humanity has achieved afterwards in all philosophical and moral teachings is only a very weak beginning to achieve what the Buddha once established. No matter how much people admire all kinds of philosophies, no matter how enthusiastic they are about Kantianism and other things, all of that is only a trifle, only the most elementary thing compared to the comprehensive principles of the eightfold path. And only slowly can humanity rise again to understand what lies behind the words of the eightfold path. First, something like this is presented as a comprehensive fact at the right time; then, from there, development continues. Humanity takes this as its starting point and only after a long time attains what was first presented as a tremendous deed. Thus, the Buddha stood there in his time and brought the teaching of love and compassion to the world as a sign for future generations, who will gradually gain the ability to recognize for themselves what lies in the eightfold path. And in the sixth cultural epoch there will already be a good number of people who will be capable of this. Oh, we still have a long way to go before people will say to themselves: What the Buddha exemplified in the fifth and sixth centuries before our era, we can now gain from our own souls; we have now become similar to the Buddha in our own souls.

This is how humanity must gradually ascend to the summit. The first believers are those who, with the relevant individuality, reach into a great time and then bring with them the heirlooms to understand something like this. The rest of humanity slowly ascends and only much later attains what is indicated to them as something to be achieved. But then, when a larger number of people have reached the point where they have the eightfold path as their own, out of their own soul's knowledge—not as something they have from Buddhism, something that has been told to them—then these same people will already have come very far in relation to something else. Read in the magazine “Lucifer-Gnosis” “How does one attain knowledge of the higher worlds?” to learn how the development of the sixteen-petaled lotus flower is connected with the eightfold path. People will then have reached the point where they can develop the sixteen-petaled lotus flower through the eightfold path. The two are closely connected. And for those who can look into human evolution, there is a sign of how far humanity has progressed in its development. It has progressed as far as it has in the development of the sixteen-petaled lotus flower, which is one of the first organs that humans will use in the future. But when this organ is developed, a certain dominion of the soul-spiritual over the physical will have come about. Only those who are willing today to undergo spiritual development in the esoteric sense can say that they are on the path to truly incorporating the eightfold path into their lives. The others merely “study” it. This is, of course, also very useful; it will be a stimulus.

But we also see that, basically, the spiritual-soul can only work in those people who have already begun to connect what is given to them as spiritual wisdom with their own soul in a completely organic way. To the same extent that the eightfold path becomes the soul's own experience, it also has an effect back on the physical. Now, of course, the very clever people of today, who are attached to materialism, can come and say: We have had very special experiences; we had this or that person who began to cultivate spiritual development, that is, to bring spiritual wisdom to life within themselves in your sense, but he died at the age of fifty; so they contributed little to prolonging his life. That is a very clever truth, and it can be experienced again and again. It is just a pity that the opposite instances are not brought up, namely how long the person in question would have lived if he had not undergone spiritual development — whether he might then perhaps have lived only to the age of forty! This question would first have to be decided. We always only state what is there and pay no attention to what is not there. It is essential to look at things in this way.

Gradually, therefore, the dominion of the spiritual-soul over the physical disappeared from humanity until the fourth cultural epoch, in which Christ appeared and in which there were still enough people to whom one could see how the spiritual acts upon the physical. Christ had to appear then. If he had appeared later, it would not have been possible to show all the things that were shown at that time. Such a great apparition had to enter the world, but at exactly the right time.

What does the coming of Christ into the world mean? It means that by understanding Christ correctly, human beings learn to make full use of their self-awareness, that they learn to permeate their entire ego-consciousness with it, that their ego gains complete control over everything within them. That is what the coming of Christ into the world means. This I, this self-conscious I, will be what recaptures everything that humanity has lost throughout the ages. But just as the eightfold path had to be laid down by the Buddha first, so too, before the end of the old times, the dominion of this I-principle over everything that can exist in the world in terms of external physical processes had to be made visible. In our time, it would no longer be possible for the Christ principle to enter the world and exert the powerful healing effects on the environment that it did in those days. This required a time when there were still people whose etheric bodies protruded so far that they could receive, through the mere word, through mere touch, such powerful effects that today only faint echoes of them can be found. And humanity began to develop the I so that it could first understand Christ and, starting from there, regain what it had once lost. It had to be shown in the last examples of humanity from ancient times how the I, which was now fully present in a human being, in Christ Jesus, will be in all other human beings at the end of the Earth's time, powerfully influencing the people of that time in all areas of life. This is what the writer of the Gospel of Luke presents to show us: Now Christ carries into the world an I that permeates the human physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body in such a way that it can exert influences that affect the entire organization of the physical body and can also influence it in a healing way. This fact had to be stated in order to show that when human beings have appropriated everything that can emanate as power from the Christ I in the future, in thousands of centuries, then effects will be able to emanate from the human I, just as they were radiated into humanity by Christ at that time. This had to be shown in all areas, but it could only be shown for the humanity of that time.

It was shown that there are illnesses that originate in the astral body of the human being. How they manifest themselves depends on the nature of the whole human being. If a person today has bad moral qualities, these may be limited to being bad qualities of their soul. Because the soul today does not have the same dominion over the body that it had at the time of Christ Jesus, not every sin easily becomes an external illness. Little by little, we are already approaching that state again where the etheric body is coming to the fore. Therefore, an epoch is beginning for humanity in which great care must be taken to ensure that spiritual vices in the moral and intellectual realm do not manifest themselves physically as illnesses. This time is already beginning. And many of those illnesses that are regarded as half spiritual, half physical—the nervous disorders of our time—mark the beginning of this epoch. Because people today have absorbed the disharmony of the outer world into their perceptions and thinking, such things can naturally only manifest themselves in phenomena such as hysteria and the like. But this is connected with the peculiarity of the spiritual development we are approaching: the separation of the etheric body.

At the time when Christ appeared on earth, there were numerous people in his surroundings in whom sin, and especially character sinning arising from bad qualities from earlier times, manifested itself in illness. What basically lies in the astral body as sin and appears as illness is called possession in the Gospel of Luke, where the human being draws foreign spirits into his astral body, where he is not master of his whole humanity through his better qualities. In those people who still had the old separation of the etheric body from the physical body, this manifested itself to a remarkable degree in those times in that bad characteristics, bad qualities, worked in the way described by the writer of the Gospel of Luke as forms of illness that present themselves as possession. Now the Gospel of Luke shows us how such people were healed through the closeness and encouragement of that individuality which was in Christ Jesus, how that which worked as evil was driven out of such individualities. This is presented as an example of how, at the end of the earth's time, the good qualities will have a healing effect on all qualities.

One does not usually notice the finer details that lie behind many things, so that even here there is still talk of completely different illnesses, as described in the chapter commonly referred to as the “healing of the paralytic” (Luke 5:17-26). Actually, it should be called the “healing of a paralyzed man,” because in the Greek text the word “paralelym&nos” is used here, which means someone who is paralyzed in his limbs. In those days, it was still known that these forms of illness originated from the qualities of the etheric body. And by describing to us that Christ Jesus also heals those who are paralyzed, we are told that through the powers of his individuality, effects are achieved not only in the astral bodies, but also in the etheric bodies, so that even people who are damaged in their etheric bodies can experience healing effects. Precisely when Christ speaks of what has its seat as “deeper sin” in the etheric body, he uses a special expression. This clearly indicates that the spiritual element that causes illness must first be removed; for he does not immediately say to the paralyzed man, “Get up and walk,” but goes to the cause that is working as illness into the etheric body and says, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ that is, what has eaten into the etheric body as sin must first be removed. However, ordinary Bible research does not go into these finer distinctions; it does not see that what is shown here is how this individuality had an influence on the mysteries of the astral body and also on those of the etheric body. Indeed, it even had an influence on the mysteries of the physical body.

Why are the mysteries of the physical body referred to in this context as the highest mysteries, so to speak? Even for outer life, the influence of astral body on astral body is initially the most obvious. You can hurt a person, for example, by saying a hateful word. This is a process in their astral body. They hear the hurtful word and feel it as pain in their astral body. Here you have the exchange between astral body and astral body. Much more hidden is the exchange between etheric body and etheric body; this includes finer influences from person to person, which are no longer noticed today. But the most hidden are the effects that act upon the physical body, because the physical body veils the effects of the spiritual most of all through its dense materiality. Now, however, we shall also be shown that Christ Jesus has dominion over the physical body. How is this shown? Here we touch upon a subject that would be completely incomprehensible to today's materialistic-minded people. — It is good that only prepared experts in spiritual science are present for this cycle; for anyone who just walked in off the street would consider what is being said today to be complete madness, even if they considered the rest to be only half or a quarter madness.

Christ Jesus shows that he can see through physical corporeality and work into it. This is shown by the fact that he can also heal diseases that have their roots in the physical body through his power. But in order to do this, one must know the mysterious effects that the physical body of one human being has on the physical body of another human being if one wants to cure diseases in the physical body. If one wants to work spiritually, one cannot regard human beings as beings enclosed in their skin. It has often been said here that our finger is more intelligent than we are. Our finger knows that the blood can only flow in it because it flows properly throughout the whole body, and it knows that it must wither if it is separated from the rest of the organism. So, if humans understood the conditions of their bodies, they would also know that, according to their physical organization, they belong to the whole of humanity, that effects are constantly passing from one to the other, and that one cannot separate one's physical health as an individual from the health of the whole of humanity. People today will admit this in relation to the coarser effects, but not in relation to the finer effects, because they cannot know the facts. Here in the Gospel of Luke, however, reference is made to the finer effects. Read in chapter 8, where it says:

“But when Jesus returned, the crowd received him, for they were all waiting for him.

And behold, there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue, and he fell at Jesus' feet and begged him to come to his house;

for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, who was dying. But as he went, the crowd pressed him.

And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years and had spent all her money on doctors, and no one could heal her,

came up behind him and touched the tassel of his garment,

and immediately her hemorrhage stopped” (Luke 8:40-44).

So Christ Jesus is to heal the twelve-year-old daughter of Jairus. How can she be healed, for she is close to death? This can only be understood if one knows how her physical illness is connected with another phenomenon in another human being, and that it cannot be healed without taking this other phenomenon into account. For when this twelve-year-old girl was born, there was a certain relationship to another personality that was deeply rooted in karma. That is why we are now told that a woman who had been suffering from a certain illness for twelve years pressed herself from behind to Christ Jesus and touched the hem of his garment. Why is this woman mentioned here? Because she was linked in her karma to this child of Jairus. This twelve-year-old girl and the woman who had been ill for twelve years are connected, and it is not for nothing that this is presented to us as a numerical mystery. This woman, who had been ill for twelve years, approached Jesus and was healed — and only then was he able to enter Jairus' house, and only then could the twelve-year-old girl, who had been considered dead, be healed.

One must delve deeply into these matters in order to understand the karma that passes from person to person. Then we can see how the third of the modes of action of Christ Jesus — that which acts upon the entire human organism — is revealed. It is particularly important to consider the higher effectiveness of Christ as shown to us in the Gospel of Luke.

In this way, we are clearly shown how the I-being of Christ acted upon all the other members of the human being. That is what matters. And the writer of the Gospel of Luke, who focuses particularly on the presentation of healing effects in these passages, wanted to show how the healing effects of the I represent the unfolding of the I on a high peak of human development, and he shows how Christ had to work on the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body of human beings. Luke has, as it were, set forth the great ideal of human development: Look to your future; today your ego, as it has developed, is still weak, it has little control. But little by little it will gain control over the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body, and will transform them. Before you stands the great ideal of Christ, who shows humanity how the ego can gain dominion over the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body.

These are the truths that lie at the foundation of the Gospels, and they could only have been written by those who did not rely on external documents, but on the testimony of those who were “seers” and “servants of the Word.” Little by little, humanity will first acquire a conviction of what lies behind the Gospels. But then it will gradually make its own what lies at the basis of the religious documents with such intensity and strength that it can truly affect all the other members of the human organization.